Crime School Read online

  The detectives walked in tandem toward the spinning lights. The uniforms behind the police barricades were doing a poor job of crowd control. The street and sidewalks were clogged with civilians chomping pizza and slugging back cans of soda and beer.

  “What a party,” said Riker.

  Mallory nodded. It was a big production for a dead prostitute. The East Side lieutenant who owned this case had not provided any more details.

  They had waded ten heads into the fray before the harried policemen recognized them and formed a human plow, elbows and shoulders jamming taxpayers. The uniforms yelled, “Coming through! Make way!” One officer pulled back the yellow crime-scene tape that cordoned the sidewalk in front of a red brick apartment building. Riker moved ahead of his partner. He descended a short flight of steps to a cement enclosure below the level of the street, then disappeared through the basement door.

  Mallory waved off her entourage of cops and remained on the sidewalk. Soon enough, she would be barraged with information, some of it wrong, most of it useless. She leaned over a wrought-iron fence to look down at the sunken square of concrete. Garbage bags and cans were piled near the basement window, but the bright lightbulb over the door would not give an attacker any cover of shadows. The arch of broken glass had no burglar gate—a clear invitation to a break-in.

  In the room beyond the shattered window pane, local detectives were getting in the way of crime-scene technicians as they slogged through water in borrowed firemen’s boots. Riker, less careful about his own shoes, splashed toward the dead body on the gurney, and dozens of floating red candles swirled in his wake.

  The corpse wore a high-collared blouse with French cuffs, and her long skirt was tangled around cheap vinyl boots—strange clothing for a prostitute in the heat of August.

  Mallory recognized the chief medical examiner’s assistant. In the role of God Almighty, the young pathologist lit a cigarette despite the waving arms of an angry crime-scene technician. And now he ambled across the room to finally have a look at the body. After pressing a stethoscope to the victim’s heart for a few moments, completing the belated formality of declaring death, the doctor showed no curiosity about the short tufts of blond hair, evidence of a crude attempt at scalping. He seemed equally unconcerned about the clot of hair stuffed in the woman’s gaping mouth.

  Mallory wondered why the firemen had not removed it to attempt resuscitation; it was their nature to destroy crime-scene evidence.

  A police photographer made a rolling motion with his hand, and the pathologist obliged him by turning the corpse on its side, exposing the silver duct tape that bound the hands behind the dead woman’s back. The noose was removed for the next shot. The other end of the severed rope still dangled from a low-hanging chandelier of electric candles. The East Side lieutenant had not exaggerated. Beyond the era of lynch mobs, hanging was a rare form of murder. And Mallory knew this had not been a quick death. It would have taken a longer drop to break the woman’s neck.

  Torture?

  She turned around to face the crowd and saw a man who had once been a uniformed cop in her own precinct. Six minutes away from losing his job, he had decided to quit NYPD, and now he was a fireman. “Zappata? Who broke the window, you guys or the perp?”

  “We did.” The rookie fireman sauntered toward her. His smile was cocky, and Mallory thought she might fix that if she had time. He would not look up at her face, for this would wreck his delusion that he was the taller one. He spoke to her breasts. “I need you to do something for me.”

  Not likely, you prick.

  Aloud, she said, “Only one engine turned out?”

  “Yeah, not much of a fire. Mostly smoke.” He pointed to a young man with electric-yellow hair and a dark suit. “See that idiot dick trainee? Go tell him he doesn’t need statements from everybody on my damned truck.”

  “He’s not with me. Talk to his lieutenant.” And, of course, Lieutenant Loman would rip off the fireman’s head—less work for her. She turned back to the window on the crime scene. “So your men cut the body down?”

  “Nope, the cops did that.” Zappata was too pleased with himself. “She was stone dead when we got here. So I preserved the evidence.”

  “You mean—you left her hanging.”

  “Yeah, a little water damage, some broken glass, but the rest of the scene was cherry when the cops pulled up.”

  This was Zappata’s old fantasy, running a crime scene, as if he had the right. Mallory searched the faces of the other firemen, a skeleton crew gathered near the truck. There were no ranking officers in sight. If Zappata had not been an ex-cop, the rest of these men would never have followed his lead. An ambulance would be here instead of the meat wagon parked at the curb. And now she understood why three departments had converged on the scene at one time. “You made all the calls tonight?”

  “Yeah, I got lucky. The meat wagon and the CSU van were only a few blocks away. They showed up before the detectives.” Zappata grinned, awaiting praise for assuming powers that were not his—police powers.

  She decided to leave the fireman’s destruction to the reporters hailing him from the other side of the crime-scene tape. Cameras closed in on Zappata’s face as he strolled up to a cluster of microphones and a rapt audience of vultures from the press corps. Now he shared with them every rule and procedure he had personally violated to run the show tonight—and run it wrong.

  Mallory walked down the steps to the cement enclosure and stood before the basement window. From this better angle, she could see one end of the rope anchored to a closet doorknob. The floor beneath the chandelier was clear of any object that might have been used for a makeshift gallows.

  She could picture the killer placing a noose around the woman’s neck and pulling the other end of the rope to raise her body from the ground. The victim’s legs were not bound. She would have struggled and tried to run across the floor, then kept on running, feet pedaling the air until she died.

  The murderer was male—an easy call. This hanging had required upper-body strength. And Mallory knew there had been no passion between the victim and her killer. When a man truly loved a woman, he beat her to death with his fists or stabbed her a hundred times.

  She was looking at her partner’s back as Riker bent down to grab something from the water. When the man turned around, his hands were empty, and he was closing the button on his suit jacket. If she had not seen this, she would never have believed it. Riker was a dead-honest cop.

  What did you steal?

  And why would he risk it?

  Riker joined the others, and they moved away from the body. None of them noticed when a young man entered the basement room. Zappata’s nemesis, the rookie detective with bright yellow hair, approached the gurney and leaned over the victim. Mallory saw a wet wad of blond hair come away in his hand as he removed the packing from the corpse’s mouth.

  That chore belonged to a crime-scene technician.

  You idiot.

  What else could go wrong tonight?

  The young cop blocked Mallory’s view as he leaned over the dead white face, as though to kiss it.

  What are you doing?

  In the next moment, he was straddling the body.

  What the—

  The fool was pumping the victim’s chest, performing emergency first aid on a dead woman. Now he grinned and shouted, “She’s alive!”

  No! No! No!

  Three detectives whirled around. The horrified pathologist moved toward the gurney. Riker was quicker. Hunkering down beside the victim, he held one finger to her nostrils. “Oh shit! She’s breathing!” In a rare show of anger, Riker’s hands balled into fists, and he yelled at the younger man, “Do you know what you’ve done?” Unspoken were the words, You moron.

  Too much time had elapsed since the woman’s death. An inexperienced cop had just turned a perfectly good corpse into a useless vegetable.

  The chief medical examiner broke the silence of the hospital room with a dry prono
uncement that “human vivisection is illegal in all fifty states.” Dr. Edward Slope had the physical authority of a tall gray general. This impression persisted despite the tuxedo, a physician’s Gladstone bag and heavy sarcasm in the presence of a dying woman. The pale patient swaddled in bedsheets took no offense. The involuntary movement of her eyes was mere illusion of awareness. “I say the autopsy can wait until she’s dead.”

  “That’s just a technicality,” said Riker. “She used to be dead.” And all the detective needed was a superficial exam by this man, whose word was never questioned in court.

  “She’ll die again soon enough.” The medical examiner held up a clipboard and read the patient’s chart. “Her attending physician has a note here, ‘Do not resuscitate.’ She’s brain dead. Give her another ten hours without life support. That’ll kill her.” He turned to the bald man beside Riker. “Loman, bring the body to my dissection room in the morning. But first—check for a pulse.”

  Lieutenant Loman seemed close to death himself. A virus epidemic in the East Village precinct had short-staffed his squad, and the longer duty hours were showing in his bloodshot eyes and pasty flesh. “Not my case, Doc.” Loman clapped one hand on Sergeant Riker’s shoulder. “It’s his body now.”

  “No way!” said Mallory. And now, for Loman’s benefit, she glared at the patient, clearly estimating the value of a comatose hooker as being right up there with a dead cat.

  “It’s your case, kid.” The lieutenant’s voice was still in that cautionary zone of rumbling thunder. “A deal is a deal. Sparrow was Riker’s snitch. He wants the body.”

  Mallory gave Riker the squad’s camera, as if she might need two free hands to finish this fight. She turned to face Loman. “So a john strings up his hooker. That’s not a case for Special Crimes, and you know it.” As an afterthought, she remembered to say “Sir,” then promptly abandoned the protocol for speaking with command officers. “Palm it off on the cops in Arson.”

  “The guy’s a freaking psycho!” Lieutenant Loman moved away from the bed and advanced on Mallory, yelling, “Jesus Christ! Look at what he did to her!”

  What remained of the victim’s hair was a fright wig of wild spikes, and saliva dribbled from her lips. Adding to this portrait of dementia, her eyes rolled back and forth like shooting marbles.

  Riker drew the curtains around the bed, closeting himself with the patient and the medical examiner. “Just a quick look, okay?”

  “No,” said Dr. Slope. “Tie a note to one of her toes so I’ll know who won the body. I’m late for a dinner party.”

  Beyond the flimsy curtain, a fast, light rapping on the door escalated to two-fisted banging, then stopped abruptly. Riker could hear muffled words of argument from the guard he had posted in the hall. When the banging resumed, Mallory raised her voice to be heard above the racket. She was telling Lieutenant Loman, thanks anyway, but he could keep the dying whore. To his credit, the man never pulled rank on her when he went ballistic, shouting that he was understaffed, that his men were stacking up corpses in a heat wave while tempers were exploding and homicide rates soared.

  August was a busy season for cops and killers.

  Dr. Slope had formed a shrewd guess about the incessant banging on the door. His wry smile said, Gotcha. “The attending physician wouldn’t allow his patient to be stripped for an audience of cops. Am I right?” He stared at the camera in Riker’s hand, as if he suspected the detective of being a closet pornographer.

  “The doctor’s a kid, an intern,” said Riker. “Even if he did the exam—what good is his testimony in court?”

  The door banging was louder now, accompanied by shouts of “Let me in, you bastards!”

  Dr. Slope dropped his smile. “And that would be our earnest young doctor trying to get to his patient. Any idea how many laws you’re breaking tonight?”

  “Well, yeah—I’m a cop.”

  Riker heard the door open. Mallory was speaking to the young doctor in the hallway, saying, “This is a hospital. Keep the noise down.” The door slammed, and her bargaining with Lieutenant Loman resumed. “I’ve got my own problems with manpower,” she said. “I’d need at least three of your men to make it worth my while.”

  “You’re nuts! Nuts!” The lieutenant’s voice was cracking. If Mallory had not been Markowitz’s daughter, he would have slammed her into the wall by now.

  Behind the thin protection of the curtain, Riker lowered his voice to plead with the chief medical examiner. “Just five minutes? A fast exam, a few samples for—”

  “Not a chance.” Slope turned in the direction of the banging. “You have to let that doctor in.”

  “Why? What can he do for her now? He’ll stop the—”

  “If this woman has family, you’re leaving the city open for a lawsuit. So we’ll go by the book.”

  As Slope reached for the curtain, Mallory ripped it aside. Behind her, the door was closing on the East Side lieutenant. As a parting gift, Loman must have released his pent-up aggression on the doctor in the hall, for the banging had ceased.

  “I made Loman give us two detectives for grunt work.” Mallory turned to face Dr. Slope. “Dead or alive, we need the exam. Now.”

  The chief medical examiner was a man who gave orders, and he was not about to take this from her. All of that was in his voice when he said, “The victim will be dead by morning. This can wait.”

  Riker braced for a new round of hostilities, but Mallory surprised him. “Maybe you’re right,” she said. “A cover-up is better.” And now she had the pathologist’s complete attention.

  Dr. Slope folded his arms, saying, “What do you—”

  “A lot of mistakes were made tonight,” said Mallory. “No one called an ambulance. A rookie fireman decided the victim was dead. Maybe because she didn’t blink—who knows? He used to be a cop, so he preserved the crime scene.” She pointed to the hospital bed. “And he left that woman hanging.”

  Her foster father had been Edward Slope’s oldest friend and the founder of his weekly floating poker game. The doctor had known Mallory in her puppy days, loved her unconditionally, and knew better than to trust her. He turned to her partner for confirmation of this highly unlikely scenario.

  “It happened,” said Riker. “It’s the East Village virus. No senior men were riding on that fire truck tonight.”

  Mallory all but yawned to show how little this case mattered to her. “So Loman’s detectives go along with a call of homicide—by a fireman. And then your man, a doctor—the only one authorized to operate a damn stethoscope—he confirmed the death.”

  “If he confirmed it—”

  “I hear things,” she said. “I know all about the corpse that woke up in your morgue last month—another victim who wasn’t quite dead. Was your assistant on that case too?”

  “I’m sure this woman was dead at the time—”

  “You’ll never be sure.” She stepped back to appraise his tuxedo, then reached out to run one red fingernail down a satin lapel. “But what the hell. It’s a party night.” This was one of Mallory’s more subtle insults: The fireman, the police and Slope’s own assistant had all done their part to turn a woman’s brain into coma soup—but why should that spoil the doctor’s fun? “No great loss.” Mallory glanced back at the door, then lowered her voice to the range of conspiracy. “She’s just a whore. We’ll let the nurses wash the body and destroy the evidence. No one will ever know what happened tonight.”

  She turned her back on an outraged Edward Slope, and this was Riker’s cue to step forward and soften the damage, saying, “I need this exam. It’s gotta be now.” And last, the finishing touch, he saved the doctor’s face with a bribe. “You’ll get a police escort to the party. Traffic’s murder tonight.”

  “You’ve won my heart.” Dr. Slope set his medical bag on the bed, then turned to Mallory. “Kathy, take notes.” This was the doctor’s idea of getting even, for she always insisted on the distancing formality of her surname. He smiled, so pleased by
her irritation, as he pulled on latex gloves.

  “No makeup.” Riker leaned over the bed to take the first photograph. “Looks like Sparrow was in for the night. So the perp wasn’t some john she picked up on the street. Any sign of drugs?”

  Dr. Slope examined the woman’s eyes, then the fingernails. “Nothing obvious.” There was no bruising on her arms nor any fresh puncture wounds. He clicked on a penlight and examined the nasal passages, then pulled an empty syringe from his bag. “She’s not snorting it, but I’ll get a blood workup.”

  When the sheets had been pulled away and the hospital gown untied, an old stab wound was exposed on Sparrow’s left side. “Looks like a knife was twisted to widen the cut—sheer cruelty.” Dr. Slope was impressed. “I gather this isn’t the first time someone tried to kill her.”

  Through the camera’s viewfinder, Riker watched the other man’s gloved fingers explore the scar. “It happened a long time ago.”

  “A street fight?”

  “That’s my guess.” Riker knew Mallory could give exact details of that fight, but she was continuing the long silence of Kathy the child. “Sparrow was real good with a knife.”

  “In that case, I’d hate to see the damage to her opponent.” The pathologist looked up. “Or perhaps I did—on the autopsy table?”

  Riker merely shrugged, for he disliked the idea of lying to this man. “It wasn’t my case.” And that was the truth. He turned the camera on Sparrow’s face. Even after seeing proof of her identity, it had taken him a while to recognize those naked blue eyes undisguised by mascara and purple shadow. Two years ago, the prostitute’s hair had been bleached to straw. Tonight, what was left of it was a more natural shade of blond. And there had been other changes since he had last seen this woman.

  Awe, Sparrow, what did you do to that wonderful shnoze?

  Once, her broken nose had been a dangerous looking piece of damage in the middle of her pretty face, hanging there like a dare. Now the nose was remade, and all that remained of her character was a slightly prominent chin that stuck out to say, Oh, yeah?, the bad-attitude line of a true New Yorker.