„Nick,“ was all St. John had to say. He was the voice of censure here, and the other man reluctantly retired to one side of the stage.
Mallory followed Prado across the boards. She was not done with him vet. „In 1942, you had a nice little business going. I saw some of your handiwork on Louisa’s passport.“ She turned back to St. John and Futura. „All of you had something to lose if she was captured by the Germans. Their prisoners always talked, didn’t they?“
„Vichy French were just as vicious,“ said Prado. „And what would the Germans want with Louisa? She was a schoolgirl when she came to Pans.“
Mallory turned back to him and shook her head, to tell this man she had caught him in a lie. „You knew Louisa wasn’t just another refugee. When Malakhai brought her to Paris, he cut off her hair and dressed her as a boy.
Then he hid her in the one place no one would think to look for her – nder a spotlight on a stage surrounded by German soldiers. Even if he ever told you she was an escaped prisoner, you knew she was wanted. You all knew.“
She focused her attention on Futura, the one most likely to fold, drunk or sober „Malakhai shot his wife with a crossbow. But he’s not the one who killed her. The murder went down after he ran out of the theater.“
Futura turned to Nick Prado, perhaps believing that he spoke in a whisper. „Malakhai broke the – “
Prado put one arm around the man, stared into his drunken face and willed him to be silent.
St John refilled their glasses. „Less talking, more drinking, Franny.“ He turned to Mallory. „So this is an official police interrogation?“
„Not at all.“ she said. „More like I’m doing you a favor. One of you murdered Louisa.“ Mallory was staring at Futura, pleased to see him spill his wine this time. She leaned close to his ear. „Better I get you before Malakhai does. You know what he did in the war. All his kills were ripped to pieces.“
Prado was not smiling anymore as he replenished Futura’s lost wine. „We all agreed to keep quiet about Louisa – for Malakhai’s sake. It’s old business, Mallory. Let it go.“
„Oliver’s death was pretty damn recent.“
„But what has that got to do with Louisa?“ Prado seemed genuinely annoyed.
„Oliver helped Max Candle and Malakhai work on the platform, but he didn’t see the rest of you between 1942 and the day he died in Central Park.“ She turned from face to face, watching for the giveaway look to tell her she might be wrong about this, that they might have lied in their police statements. „So fifty years go by. And then he comes up with this cryptic invitation. One of you thought he was going to talk about Louisa’s death. A murder charge never goes away. But it gets really scary if you know her husband’s war record. Who would want Malakhai for an enemy?“ Who besides herself?
Futura put his hand to his mouth, a signal of impending vomit. Nick Prado nodded and led the man down the steps toward the lobby, saying, „I guess the party’s over, Franny.“
St. John followed after them. When the lobby door had closed behind the trio, Mallory drew the curtain aside to expose the replica of Max Candle’s platform. This time she checked the crossbow magazines for arrows before she climbed the thirteen steps to the top.
She spent a few quiet minutes on her hands and knees, making measurements and inspecting the floor levers. Their positions were an exact match to Max Candle’s original platform. The only difference was in the hinges of the trapdoors. These were better, sturdier. There was no wide crack in the floorboards where the hinges joined with the stage.
When she was done with the exterior, she touched the pressure latch on the wall near the center panel, and the door swung open. She stared at the dim interior. In her younger days, she would never have entered this room, for there was only one exit, and Kathy the street-smart child had always avoided every enclosure with the makings of a trap. Even now, she was not comfortable with the idea of going inside.
What made her look back she could not say. Emile St. John had made no noise stealing up behind her. He was holding out her pocket watch – again.
„Sorry, force of habit.“ He returned it to her, then walked back through the opening in the curtain, heading for the makeshift table. He picked up the full wineglass she had left on the mirror. „There’s something we should discuss. Perhaps over a drink.“
Mallory accepted the plastic goblet from his outstretched hand. „You want me to stop scaring Franny Futura.“
„Well, that would be nice.“ He smiled as he poured more wine for himself. „Franny was always a timid soul. But I’m sure you guessed that within a minute of meeting him.“
She nodded. „So how did he wind up in the Resistance? It doesn’t square with – “
„Molotov cocktails and tommy guns?“ He laughed as if this were a great joke. „In Paris, Franny’s day job was clerking in the post office. Never tossed a bomb in his life, never held a gun. His Resistance work was intercepting denouncement letters. Do you – “
„Letters from snitches.“ Personally, she was in favor of snitches. The police department could not run without them.
„Yes, it was a nasty wartime habit, people turning on one another.“ He walked back behind the curtain and sat down on the bottom step of the platform. „But the real offenses were rarely mentioned. Is your neighbor’s dog peeing on your azaleas? Is the postman diddling your wife? Well then, denounce him as a subversive. Do it in a secret letter. No need to sign your name.“
St. John leaned one arm on the step behind him and regarded her glass with suspicion.
Because she was not drinking with him?
She tipped back the wineglass – a sip to keep him talking.
„It still goes on,“ he said. „Reporters and their secret sources – cockroaches who won’t come out in the light. We haven’t learned a damn thing from the war.“
When he paused, she took another sip. Riker had always maintained that he did not trust anyone who refused to lift a glass with him. She had never gone drinking with Riker, and that might explain a lot.
„Franny saved a lot of lives with his interceptions,“ said St. John. „But he existed in a permanent state of fear – waiting for the knock on the door, the arrest in the middle of the night. Do you have any idea what monstrous things were done to people like him? A bullet in the head would’ve been a kindness. And here you are, Mallory, young and strong, carrying a gun and knocking on Franny’s door.“
She considered this new role he had cast her in – the monster. „Can I ask you something – cop to cop?“
He only smiled at this. Perhaps Malakhai had told him about dropping that bit of information into the dinner conversation.
She sat down beside him on the step. „You quit magic in the fifties. So I have to wonder about your assets, large assets. You didn’t amass that capital on the salary of an Interpol bureau chief.“
That got no rise out of him either. And that was odd. The long tour of duty with Interpol was not information from Malakhai, but gleaned from her computer connection at the foreign bureau. Had St. John been expecting this? Yes, that was in his smile, which said, At last.
So her Internet pen pal in Europe had ratted her out.
That weasel, that miserable little -
„You’re right.“ St. John sipped his wine, savoring it, taking his own time. „My stage career was a short one compared to all the years at Interpol. But I did inherit sizeable investments from my family. I wasn’t in the black market, if that’s what you – “
„Let’s back up. In 1942, you were a rookie policeman in Paris. I know Louisa’s death certificate was faked. You were on the crime scene the night she died. What did – “