‘And now you can forget the scar,’ she said to him, ordered him. ‘We’re clear on that?’
Oh, yes, the threat was very clear. Mallory crossed the room with long strides. She could not leave him fast enough. Charles wished she had slammed the door on her way out; that would have told him that she was merely angry, that he had simply annoyed her. But that was not the case; he had damaged her somehow. There would be no more mention of Sparrow’s scar, not ever, for he sensed that it was also Mallory’s scar. However, the photograph was locked in his memory. He could not let go of it, and now it began to grow, attracting other bits of paper, a fifteen-year-old receipt from Warwick’s Used Books, an inscription to a child on the title page of a western. When had Mallory witnessed that piece of violence?
If one truly wanted to maim a human being for life, it was best to start when the victim was very young – ten years old?
Now that the field was clear of explosives, Riker was strolling back to him, folding a cell phone and saying, ‘Okay, Charles, you got your wish. I gave Duck Boy a real job. He’s taking the old man on a field trip – an interview with the cop who found Natalie Homer’s body. Are you happy now?’ Hardly.
At the top of the page, Ronald Deluthe had identified the interview subject as the first police officer to enter Natalie Homer’s crime scene. During a testy silence, he wrote down a careful description of Alan Parris’s apartment, noting worn upholstery, cracked plaster and all the dust and grime of a man who had hit bottom before the age of forty-two.
Parris’s personnel file had listed only the dry statistics of a short career with NYPD, but the garbage pail overflowing with beer cans indicated a serious drinking problem. The sink in the galley kitchen was piled high with dirty dishes and one cracked teacup with a delicate design, perhaps something the man’s ex-wife had left behind when the marriage ended twenty years ago – only a few months before Natalie Homer’s death.
Alan Parris’s T-shirt was stained; his boxer shorts were torn; and dirty toenails showed through the holes in his black socks. The man was so underwhelmed by the interview style of Lars Geldorf that he appeared to be nodding off.
No, Alan Parris was drunk.
‘You’re lying!' Geldorf paced the floor and raised his voice to rouse the man from lethargy. ‘I know one of you bastards leaked the details. It was you or your partner. Now give it up!’ The old man leaned down, bringing his face within inches of Parris’s. ‘Don’t piss me off, son. You won’t like me when I get mad.’
All the incredulity that Parris could muster was a small puff of air escaping from pursed lips, a lame guffaw. He kept his silence, showing remarkable patience with the retired detective and his ludicrous threats.
Lars Geldorf s promised anger was unleashed, and Deluthe took faithful shorthand, recording every obscenity. The old man finally succeeded in triggering Parris’s temper. And now the four-letter words were flying both ways as Deluthe’s pencil sped across the page of his notebook, not resting until Geldorf stomped out of the apartment.
This was Deluthe’s cue to pull out his list of prepared questions. The script Geldorf had outlined for him was reminiscent of days in uniform and visits to elementary schools in the role of Officer Friendly. ‘Just a few more questions, sir.’ He gave Parris a lame smile, and the man rolled his eyes just as the schoolchildren had done. Another tough audience.
Screw Geldorf.
Deluthe dropped his smile, then folded the paper and slipped it back into his pocket. ‘What about neighbors? Do you remember anyone in the hall near the crime scene? Maybe there was a – ’
‘It was a long time ago, kid.’ Parris leaned down and moved a newspaper to one side, exposing a beer can crushed and discarded after some previous binge. He upended it over his open mouth to catch the last drops of flat warm liquid.
Though the ex-cop showed no sign of anxiety, soon he would be eager to get to a liquor store and replenish his supply of booze.
‘Take your time,’ said Deluthe. ‘I’ve got all damn day for this.’ Now he had the man’s attention. ‘I saw the photographs of the crime scene. If it was me, I couldn’t have forgotten anything about that night.’
‘You got that right, kid. But I never talked about the murder. The leak didn’t come from me.’ Parris stared at the front door left ajar, then raised his voice, correctly sensing that Geldorf hovered on the other side. ‘And you can tell that old bastard – it wasn’t me he posted outside in the hall. It was my partner] Maybe somebody got by him.’ His voice dropped to a mumble. ‘But I couldn’t say for sure. Harvey never talked about that night, either – not even with me. We worked together for years, and we never talked about it.’
‘If your partner was posted at the door, then you were inside the apartment the whole time.’
‘No – only a few seconds. I’m the one who found the body. God, the smell. It was enough to knock a man down. When I went home that night, it was still in my clothes, my hair. I can smell it now. I can still feel the cockroaches crawling up my legs. And the flies – a million of ‘em. Jesus’
‘So you closed the door and waited for the detectives and Crime Scene Unit?’
‘Naw. The way that woman was hanging, I couldn’t see the tape on her wrists. Me and Harvey figured it for a suicide. Like I said, I was only in there a few seconds. Suicides don’t rate a visit from CSU. The dispatcher only sent detectives.’
Deluthe flipped back to notes of yesterday. ‘Wasn’t there someone else on that scene?’
‘The photographer? Yeah, he came with the dicks – just a kid. Younger than me, and I was only twenty-two. He got sick and dropped his camera – broke the damn thing. So I borrowed another one from a neighbor. Then the dicks sent me out to buy more film. I think I made two runs to the store that night.’
‘Did your partner mention any civilians around the crime scene while you were gone? Harvey – ’ Deluthe checked his notes, as if his own lieutenant’s name might be easy to forget. On Riker’s orders, no one would be apprised of the case connection to a command officer. He put his finger to a blank page. ‘Loman, right? Harvey Loman? Was he outside the door the whole time?’
‘Yeah. Well, no. When I got back from the store, he was down the hall settling a beef with some old lady.’ Parris paused for a moment, then covered his eyes with one hand. ‘Awe, what the hell.’
Deluthe’s pencil hovered over his notebook. ‘What?’
‘There were two kids right outside the door – real young, a boy and a girl. Harvey – he never saw them. Well, the door was open ‘cause of the smell, and those kids got an eyeful before I chased them away. That always bothered me. Probably gave them nightmares. I felt bad about it, sure, but I had no – ’
‘So your partner lost control of the crime scene. He screwed up. And you didn’t want him to get in trouble, right?’
Parris’s head lolled on his chest, as if he could no longer support the weight. ‘Geldorf, bad as he is now – he was worse in those days. He would’ve nailed Harvey’s hide to the wall for letting those kids get past him. That old prick still thinks he’s God. I hate detectives. No offense, kid.’
‘Did the kids see the hair in the victim’s mouth?’
‘Yeah, they saw everything. The body hadn’t been cut down yet. The dicks were still shooting pictures.’
Neither of them had heard the door open, but now Lars Geldorf was standing on the threshold. The old man was smiling, and Deluthe could guess why. The retired detective was relieved that another cop had lost control of the crime-scene details. And now no one could ever say that this major screwup was his fault.