He continued on down the hall and found a young man in conversation with an elderly janitor. The pair stood in front of the room that was Riker's own destination.
"You're late. They've already started," said the old man with his cluster of keys in hand. He unlocked the door for the other visitor, not wanting to disturb a meeting in progress by using the buzzer. Riker followed the other man through the door, nodding his thanks to the janitor, as if he had also come here by invitation.
In order to find out which of the many doors led to Jo's rented rooms, he guessed that Mallory, poor kid, had probably been forced to plant illegal eavesdropping equipment in every office on this floor. He could never ask her about that, but it was a safe bet.
Upon entering the small reception area, he could hear Jo's voice behind a closed door. She was welcoming the new arrival. Instead of following the other man into the next room, Riker settled into a shabby chair with worn upholstery and pretended to read a magazine plucked from the only table. More people entered this waiting room, and now he knew that Mallory had been right about the members of this select group, for he recognized these two visitors.
The little girl tugged on her mother's hand, wanting to stop awhile by Riker's chair, saying, "I remember you."
"Mr. Rikerr The child's mother was more enthusiastic with her own greeting. Fortunately, her voice was too soft to carry above the conversation in the next room. The woman reached for his hand and pumped it up and down, grinning widely, so happy to see him. " Thank you. Thank you so much." She caressed her child's curly dark hair. "Not the same little girl you met the night – the – "
The night your husband cracked half the bones in your face? The night you killed the bastard with a kitchen knife?
The damage was still visible in the broken planes of the mother's cheek and nose. Riker remembered her injuries well. The catching detective had called him to this woman's home while the blood was still wet on her kitchen floor and droplets streamed down the walls. An assistant DA had made the call of justifiable homicide, and the confessed killer, the victim's own wife, was not charged. The crime scene had been released to the cleaners that same night, for the mother and her child were poor. They had nowhere else to go.
Riker knew that feeling.
Jo, his new trainee, had been his helper on that pro bono job. And he well remembered this little girl, the witness to an assault on her mother and the death of her father. What a difference. Once she had been a painful reminder of Kathy Mallory at the same age – same look about the eyes.
Back in the days when he was still allowed to call his partner Kathy, the former street kid had been more determined to hold on to her own emotional wounds, insisting that her history belonged to her alone, and, as a child, she had dealt with it alone – and so quietly, without tears or complaint, without recovery or repair. But this little girl before him now was making a comeback, a return to humanity. Her eyes were no longer adult and wary when she smiled for him. Jo had done a good job. What a pity that there had been no talented Dr. Apollo to heal young Kathy.
And while he was admiring this less damaged child, the mother expressed her thanks to Ned's Crime Scene Cleaners for the generosity of providing a therapy group. Mallory had uncovered the function of these rented rooms weeks ago, but Riker had only learned of it today. And now one mystery was solved: Jo's work on homicides was her introduction to the survivors, trauma victims all.
Mallory must have been so disappointed to find no money motive here, that far from working a fiddle on the side for profit, Dr. Apollo was applying her old trade free of charge. But trust a cop to come up with a sinister reason for acts of charity. The young detective had damned the doctor with the filthy crime of atonement. And now he remembered the gist of Mallory's final caustic remark: for her next act, Johanna Apollo would be Washing the feet of lepers – expiating what sin?
Mother and child disappeared into the next room, and Riker listened to the healing balm of Jo's conversation on the other side of the door. He closed his eyes to be alone with that voice that also spoke to him.
Mallory slid her lock picks into the back pocket of her jeans, then opened the door to Riker's apartment. As always, her first impulse was to open a window, but Riker might notice the missing smell of stale smoke and the sweet rot of leftover food. Other emotions were in play: revulsion, and the almost unbearable desire to create order out of this unholy mess. But intuition and distrust held sway and led her to the fireplace, and there she found the evidence against him. There were no signs of a burnt log in the grate, only the flat ashes and remnants of papers.
A few of Dr. Apollo's notes? One of these pages might have explained Riker's cryptic line about the wine.
Well, this was not the plan – not her plan. Riker was running a different game. There could be no other explanation for this travesty of ashes. It was like cheating at chess – also Riker's game, or once upon a time it was. There was no chess set in this apartment. She had looked for it on previous expeditions, recalling the set he had thrown away and wondering if he had bought a new one. Evidently he never played anymore, and Mallory sometimes wondered if she might be the cause of that.
As the foster child of Helen and Inspector Louis Markowitz, most of her baby-sitters had been cops. The Markowitzes' early experiments with civilians had all ended badly; tender old ladies and teenage girls had proven no match for a ten-year-old semireformed street thief. Out of all her cop wardens, Riker had had the most staying power. He had taught her to sit still for hours – he had taught her to play chess. The child had loved the game, but hated losing, and she had devised schemes of distraction to cheat him. One night, his hand had been faster than hers. He had captured her tiny fist, which had barely concealed a stolen chessman, the pawn that had previously blocked her hopes of bringing down Riker's queen.
"Is this fun for you, kid?" Those had been his last words to her that night. She had watched him pick up a letter opener and gouge the cheap plastic pawn with a A for Kathy. He set it on his mantelpiece, then tossed the other chessmen into the trash can along with the board and never mentioned it again – no punishment, no lecture, nothing but silence. And he never ratted her out to her foster parents. Secrets had such power.
Every night for a week, that ruined pawn on Riker's mantel was the last thing young Kathy thought about before she went to sleep. Guilt was not in her vocabulary; she was simply mystified. This puzzle followed the little girl all through the days. She bought a new chess set, actually paid for it instead of stealing one. Every day after school, she carted her chessmen and her board to Special Crimes Unit and sat for long hours in the squad's lunchroom – waiting. After three days, Riker finally came in to play.
She lost, lost every game, game after game, for a week. And then she won. And then, while Riker was still at work, she broke into his apartment and stole that defaced pawn from his mantelpiece. She had it still. It was in the back of her closet, hidden in the small box of a child's treasures: shoplifted items and baseball cards.
During her years as a cop, what sometimes passed for conscience was an echo of Riker asking, "Is this fun for you, kid?"
Yes. Yes it was. She loved to win, and she did not cheat the pieces of evidence that worked against her cases. She won because she was good – and because she was not above unlawful entry, robbing data banks and lying like crazy. But she never destroyed evidence. Mallory stared at the ashes in Riker's fireplace.
Well, the man was not in his right mind, and she blamed Dr. Apollo for this. Yes, it was the doctor's fault. Mallory fixed this thought in her mind and pushed away the idea that she was cheating the pieces to hold Riker harmless and blameless.