And then there was the incongruity of a bloody axe.
Mallory pulled open the flaps of another carton. Inside was a jumble of papers in all shapes and sizes. Charles recognized the scrawled lines of Markowitz’s handwriting on napkins, matchbook covers and envelopes. Mallory brushed these papers aside to reveal an old photograph. Wordlessly, she handed it to him. He recognized his own likeness first, all six feet, four inches of himself towering above the surrounding crowd of people. And then his eyes settled on the image of a dear friend, the late Louis Markowitz. It was a younger version of the man, perhaps by ten or twelve years. Louis’s hair was only beginning to gray in this photograph. The excess of forty pounds was there, and carried with the same elan, but the lines of his face were not yet so deep.
“That was taken at Aubry Gilette’s funeral,” said Mallory.
Charles looked down at the photograph with wonder. If he had only been standing one place to the right, he might have had the pleasure of Louis Markowitz’s company years earlier, and his own life might have been that much richer for it. He missed Louis sorely; he missed him every day.
And what effect had Louis’s death had on his only child? Well, no outward effect at all. He often wondered if, in the secret life of Kathleen Mallory, she didn’t spend part of her time in grief. He would never know. She was an intensely private person. There were questions one could never ask her, such as, Does it hurt you still?
Riker entered the room, juggling three coffee cups and the morning paper. He placed one cup in Charles’s free hand, and leaning down, he gave one to Mallory. Riker drank deeply, rushing caffeine into his veins until his eyes were all the way open.
“I don’t think you’re gonna find a money motive in this one, kid.” Riker hunkered down beside her. “That must put a real crimp in your day.”
“It could be revenge,” said Mallory. “I like that one, too.”
Riker held up the newspaper, folded back to the page Charles had been reading. “You wanna see your reviews?”
The headline at the top of the column read: NYPD HUNTS ART TERRORIST. In the subheading it said: Connection to Oren Watt?
Riker was grinning. “I think they’ve really captured your style, kid. Listen to this. ‘Detective Sergeant Kathleen Mallory would have walked over the body of the Times reporter had he not scrambled to get out of her way.’ ”
“And it’s a good picture, too,” said Charles, bending down to admire her portrait over Riker’s shoulder. “It’s worthy of a frame. But what did you do to the reporter?”
“I never touched that bastard.”
“She told him to get the hell out of her way or she’d shoot him.” Riker handed the paper to Mallory. “You’re damn lucky he had a sense of humor. We don’t want any more bad press on this case.” As Mallory held the paper, Riker tapped the caption under her photograph. “ ‘The photogenic green-eyed blond detective.’ I like that line.”
“On the next page,” said Charles, “there’s an interview with the FBI spokesman. The reporter was questioning him on the terrorist aspect of the murder- something to do with a critic’s column on art terrorism. The FBI man says they’re looking into it.”
“Oh, terrific.” Riker slugged back the last of his coffee. “Damn that jerk Andrew Bliss. Now we got feds in the house. Commissioner Beale’s gonna have an aneurysm. A damn swarm of feds with psychiatric Ouija boards.”
Mallory said nothing. In her own critique, she dumped the newspaper into a wastebasket. She pulled four plastic bags from the carton and read the labels. “What about all this hair and fiber evidence? Was all of this accounted for? I can’t find the forensic reports.”
“Never developed it,” said Riker. “The gallery was a public space with heavy traffic. All of it was collected and tagged, but most of it wasn’t, worth the tests.”
“That doesn’t sound like Markowitz. He was a detail freak.”
“After Oren Watt confessed to the murder, we couldn’t justify the budget for any more lab work. Blakely did everything but handcuff Markowitz. The chief just wanted the case wrapped and forgotten.”
Oren Watt? Charles stood over Mallory’s desk and looked down at the labels of other evidence bags. Each one bore Oren Watt’s name. “Why are you going back into this old murder? They have the man who did it. They caught him twelve years ago.”
“No they didn’t.” Mallory turned back to the carton and pulled out a paper bag. It came apart as she handled it, and a shred of stained clothing fell to the floor. “They caught a man to do the time for the murders. That’s not quite the same thing. Watt didn’t do it.”
Riker lowered his head only a little and turned his face toward the window. Charles recognized the subtle meaning of this simple gesture. Apparently, Riker did not share her theory.
“What about these tracks?” She held up a bundle of photographs. The first image was a pattern of red footprints on a hardwood floor. “Men’s shoes, women’s shoes.” She shuffled the photographs like a deck of cards. “There aren’t any notes on half of these prints.” By her tone of voice, she seemed to hold Riker responsible for this oversight.
“Damn waste of time,” said Riker. “Someone called an anonymous tip to the press that night. The news crews beat a patrol car to the scene by five minutes. They contaminated the evidence before the uniforms showed up. We corralled some of the reporters to print their shoes for elimination, but we didn’t get all of them.”
He took the photographs from her hand, riffled through them, pulled one out and turned it over to display a label. “This one has notes. It’s tagged for Oren Watt. That’s one set of footprints we had an easy match for. And his shoes were still bloody when his psychiatrist surrendered him to the police.”
Charles had the sense that Riker was playing a game of push and shove with Mallory. She chose to let him play alone. Her voice was casual, and her face turned down to the contents of the carton. “Any idea who tipped off the newspapers?”
“Probably Oren Watt,” said Riker, draining his coffee cup. “Watt wouldn’t be the first psychopath with a craving for publicity.”
“Oren Watt didn’t do it.” There was a definite edge to her voice this time.
“Both things could be true,” Charles suggested in the gentle manner of a peacemaker. “Watt could have made that call whether he did the murders or not.”
Mallory nodded, seeming to like that idea. Riker would not look at her. He moved away to stand by the door and stare into his empty cup.
Charles stepped between them. “What can I do to help?”
“You’re taking me to the ball tomorrow night,” said Mallory.
“You can’t mean the Manhattan Charities Ball. Is that tomorrow?”
“Yes, Charles.” She stood up and walked to her desk.
“But no one actually goes to the ball.”
“You buy the tickets every year.” She opened the desk’s center drawer and pulled out the printed invitations and receipts. Mallory held them up to him, as though she had just caught him in a lie.
She must have retrieved the invitations from the waste-basket in the reception room where he filed them every year. She could only have found the receipts in his private files. One day they really must sit down and discuss what his privacy meant to him, as opposed to what little it meant to her.
For the moment, he only shrugged. “Well, of course I buy the tickets. It’s a charity event. My mother was a friend of Mrs. Quinn’s. We’ve always bought the tickets, but no one actually goes to the ball.”