She walked away from him, pausing by the curtain. There was reproach in that turned back and in her voice. „You knew that old man, Charles.“
„Actually, I hadn’t seen him in a long – “
„You knew him, and you liked him.“ Mallory turned around to show him how shocked she was, though her expression was somewhat contrived. „Oliver died all alone on that platform, scared out of his mind while he was being murdered.“
Now Charles was in the odd position of being lectured on his lack of sensitivity, but – by Mallory} How to explain that unlikely event? Perhaps she did possess genuine human compassion.
No, that’s not it.
But he knew she had some agenda beyond correcting his imagined attitude problem, his lack of outraged indignation for an accidental death.
She stalked off toward the steps leading down from the stage. „Oliver was murdered. So don’t talk to me about accidents, Charles. Don’t talk to me at all.“
That sounded final – false, but final.
The lines were drawn, and she had left him standing on the other side with Nick Prado. Riker was following his partner up the center aisle, distancing himself from the enemy camp.
Only four hours had passed since they had parted company on the sidewalk outside the theater. Riker looked around the den of Mallory’s Upper West Side condo and wondered how she had pulled this off. It took most New Yorkers ten days to have a couch transported from a downtown furniture store to an uptown address. She had moved the contents of an entire room more than eighty blocks north of Charles Butler’s SoHo building.
Mallory sat at a computer keyboard, fingers flying, tapping, typing. „Was I wrong about the grate?“
„Yeah, I didn’t find any floor grates in the stiff’s apartment. But the marks on his back match up to a heat register in the theater. I found it after I pulled the crime scene tapes.“
„Heller’s team missed that?“
„They weren’t looking for it, Mallory. They didn’t undress the corpse at the crime scene. There was no – “
„Right, nothing fancy for a dead junkie. Just another damn accident.“
But the platform had been examined in great detail. Heller had come to the crime scene and personally supervised the crew. And this made Riker wonder what kind of dirt Mallory might have on the head of Forensics.
He looked down at his notes. „The heat register was in a little room backstage. That’s probably where Richard was shooting up. There’s a lock on that door.“
„A locked room wouldn’t be a problem for anybody on my short list,“ said Mallory. „Is that where Heller’s techs found the wallet?“
„Yeah, but you were right about the money – no cab fare. He must have spent his wad on the heroin.“ Riker folded his notebook back into his breast pocket.
There had been one bad moment upon walking into Mallory’s den. It went beyond deja vu. But for the view of Central Park, he might have been standing in her private office back at Charles’s place in SoHo. She had even re-created the alignment of the computer terminals at perfect right angles to the windows. The one bare wall was a moving projection of larger than life-size spectators at the Thanksgiving Day parade.
„That’s film from the six o’clock news,“ she said. „Some tourist sold his videotape to the network.“
Why couldn’t Mallory just watch the news on television like a normal person? He stood before the wall, looking up at the projected image. The camera was focused on a rocky knoll in Central Park. The outcrop loomed behind the low wall along the sidewalk. The volume was turned down, but he could still hear the broadcaster’s interview with the amateur cameraman, a sixty-year-old tourist from Rhode Island.
Eyes on the knoll, Riker waited to see what would happen next. And now there was a white puff of smoke among the shadows of trees and rocks.
A gunshot?
Yes, the broadcaster was confirming that the timing of the white smoke was in perfect sync with the sound of a gun. And now the television voice was lamenting that the network’s weapons expert, a writer of technothrillers, could not be reached for comment. The shot from the rocky knoll would kill the novelist’s carefully diagrammed trajectory. Mallory could not have fired the bullet that brought down the balloon.
„So, you’re off the hook for shooting the big puppy.“
„Not yet.“ She depressed a button on the projector’s remote control. The tape ran backward until the white puff of smoke had uncreated itself and sipped back into the shadows of rocks and trees. „They still claim there were three shots. So now I’m part of a conspiracy. I’m also a suspect in the death of Crossbow Man and Oliver Tree.“
„Well, let Slope release the autopsy findings. Why sit on it now? We already gave it away to Prado.“
Mallory reran the tape and froze the image on the wall. She was staring at the still shot of a cloud of smoke. She pointed to the rocky knoll. „Guess who that is.“
Riker walked closer to the wall. „Too grainy. I can’t make out a thing.“ He looked around the room one more time. „When did you have time to move all this stuff out of SoHo?“
„I hired a crew of art handlers. They’re very careful with sensitive equipment.“
And they probably would not recognize its illicit uses and applications. The most delicate electronic lockpicks were in the carton Riker had carried up from the trunk of her car.
He settled into a cold metal chair. „How did Charles take it when you told him you were moving all your stuff out?“
„There’s only one way to take it. The partnership is over. He’s too careless with the locks.“
Or perhaps Charles had not been careful enough in picking his friends. One of these crimes had been the deciding factor. „So you didn’t tell Charles you were leaving.“
No, of course not. She had left the poor bastard to walk innocently into an empty room and figure it out for himself. „I guess you don’t need Max Candle’s platform anymore?“
Mallory pointed to the small screen of a computer. It scrolled columns of numbers and symbols glowing white on a field of blue. „It’s all in there – the whole apparatus.“
He picked up the green velvet bag from the edge of her steel desk and slipped out the rod of dangling key plugs. „I can see why the old guys kept these things.“
„Now do you believe the keys were switched?“
„Yeah, but I still got a few problems with your theory. What about that line you handed me at the parade? ‘My perp loves spectacle.’ That’s what you said.“
„And you figured I was just spinning a story? No, I only lied to Coffey.“ It was clear that she considered that an honorable lie, only doing what was expected of her. „I know what you’re thinking. It’s a matter of style. Oliver died screaming, lots of noise and flash. But the gunshot at the parade was real straightforward, wasn’t it? Quick and to the point. The shooter only wanted to get it over with. The victim would never know what happened to him.“ Mallory turned to the image on the wall, the puff of smoke. „That’s Malakhai up there on the rocks.“ She switched it off.
„And the Central Park murder?“
„I like Nick Prado for that one. A public relations man makes spectacles for a living. But I’m keeping my options open.“ Now she revolved on her chair, turning to study his face. „Someone locked me in that platform. Do you believe me?“
Riker knew that she was really asking if he was on her side. „Yeah. If it was just the locked door or the bulb by itself – but I’m not a big believer in coincidence. I figure one of those things had to be deliberate.“
„The door was deliberate.“ She pulled a clear bag from her knapsack and tossed it on the desk. Inside were five shiny nails. „Those came from the plastic sheet over that backstage window. They didn’t fall out by themselves. He wanted to make it look accidental, like the wind blew the door shut. And the dead bulb was deliberate, too.“