‘So tell me,’ said Riker, whose patience with children was endless, ‘was that when Uncle Red dyed his hair? At the restaurant? Maybe he did it in the men’s room?’
‘No, his hair was still red when we stopped at the drugstore. I fell asleep in the car. When I woke up, we were at Uncle Red’s house. It was dark outside, and his hair was brown. Then he had himself delivered to the park.’ Coco excused herself to wash hands, her euphemism for a run to the toilet.
Down the hall, the bathroom door closed. The front door opened, and Charles Butler walked into his apartment, carrying three newspapers. He entered the kitchen in time to hear Mallory say to her partner, ‘That kid was snatched.’
‘How do you figure?’ Riker laid down his fork. ‘Most perverts dye the kid’s hair. This guy dyed his own. Sounds more like Uncle Red was on the run from somebody he knew. That fits with him getting strung up in the Ramble.’
Mallory flipped a pancake onto Riker’s plate, then traded the coffeepot to Charles in exchange for the newspapers, otherwise ignoring him as she spoke to her partner. ‘Two people with red hair, that’s a problem – that’s a detail for an Amber Alert. But he couldn’t bring himself to dye Coco’s hair. I say the creep had a thing for little redheads. That’s why he took her.’ She pulled a bill from the pocket of her jeans and showed it to him. ‘This twenty says Uncle Red’s no relation to Coco.’
‘You’re on.’ Riker turned a broad smile on their host. ‘What about you?’
‘No bet. I already know the answer.’ Charles filled three cups from the percolator, which he prized above a computerized coffeemaker that Mallory had given him one Christmas. That gift had been yet another of her failed efforts to introduce this man to a new century.
Riker sipped the brew and pronounced it wonderful. He glanced at the headlines as Mallory laid the newspapers down on the table next to his plate. One by one, he summarized the front-page stories: ‘Flesh-eating rats for the Post, more rats for the Daily,’ and ‘Oh, shit!’ for the Times, which carried a picture of the second hanging tree and two uniformed officers.
‘It’s all there,’ said Mallory, ‘the bodies, the bags, ropes – everything except Coco.’ She glanced at the clock on the wall. The man in charge of CSU would be reading his own newspaper right about now, and so would their boss, Lieutenant Coffey.
Riker attacked the remainder of his pancakes, his final meal before the war over misplaced evidence. Chewing and swallowing, he continued his argument for Uncle Red as a blood relation instead of a child snatcher. ‘Dr Slope didn’t find any sign of molestation when he examined Coco.’
‘The pervert and the kid were still in the getting-to-know-you stage.’ Mallory sat down to a cup of coffee. ‘I bet Uncle Red didn’t have a clue about the Williams syndrome.’
‘But neither did Coco,’ said Charles. ‘She told me she was home-schooled by her grandmother. So the old lady – Coco says she’s a hundred and ninety-one – she evidently realized there was something odd about her granddaughter, but she didn’t have a diagnosis. I’ll tell you how I know that.’
At this point on any other day, one of the detectives would be bearing down on Charles, all but telling him at gunpoint to cut it short; but Mallory was sipping coffee, and Riker was still in the thrall of pancake rapture.
‘Coco’s never heard of the syndrome,’ said Charles. ‘If her grandmother had gotten the right diagnosis, there would’ve been special educational materials in the house. And the child would’ve noticed that. Her reading level is very advanced. She’s read Dickens. Isn’t that marvelous? And Coco tells me there were lots of pamphlets and books about rats. Her grandmother must’ve had a strong interest—’
‘Okay.’ Riker’s fork clattered to the plate. His last morsel was eaten, and now he rolled one hand to speed up the lecture. ‘Get to the part where the kid meets up with Uncle Red.’
And a childish voice said, ‘That was the day I couldn’t wake my granny.’ Coco stood in the doorway. ‘Granny was all stiff and cold.’ The little girl was wearing the button-up pants of Mrs Ortega’s youngest niece. She held them up with both hands. Buttons were a problem.
Mallory rose from the table to help her with this. ‘And then what happened?’
‘I went outside. I wasn’t supposed to, but I was scared . . . Don’t tell.’
‘You went outside to get help. That was very smart.’ How easy it was to manipulate a child starved for approval. Any praise would do. ‘And what happened then?’
‘I ran down a million stairs before I got outside. And then Uncle Red stopped in his car.’
‘Did you recognize him?’
She paused to think about this. ‘He had red hair like mine. I told him about Granny. He said she couldn’t take care of me anymore, and I was going to live with him.’
When the pants were securely buttoned, Mallory tucked in the child’s T-shirt. ‘Did he take you back to Granny’s to pack your suitcase?’
‘No, I just got into his car, and we drove and drove and drove.’
Riker, the sorry man who loved children, was slow to set down his coffee cup.
‘Tell them how you got your name,’ said Charles.
‘Uncle Red said we had to change my name. It had to be something I could remember. He asked me what I liked best in the whole world, and I said flannel pajamas and hot cocoa.’
Mallory reached out to snatch a twenty-dollar bill from Riker’s hand. ‘And what was your name before that?’
Coco pursed her lips and then ran out of the kitchen. Moments later, they heard a ragtime riff on the piano in the music room.
‘Baby Doll is what her grandmother called her,’ said Charles. ‘I’m sure she has another name, but she won’t say what it is, and I’m not about to interrogate her. So I suggest you stick with Coco. She likes that one.’
Mallory gathered up the dirty plates from the table. ‘Did you figure out when she was snatched?’
‘No more than four days ago.’ Charles nodded toward the kitchen counter and the evidence bag that Riker had left here last night. ‘That was Mrs Ortega’s best guess based on the last time the child’s clothes were clean. I believe it was early morning when Coco went outside to get help for her grandmother.’
‘Her dead grandmother,’ said Mallory. ‘Figure one day for the road trip with Uncle Red. It was dark when they got into the city. And he dyed his hair on the road. So he didn’t stalk this kid. It wasn’t a planned snatch.’
‘Crime of opportunity,’ said Riker. ‘The pervert saw her walking down the sidewalk . . . all alone.’ He pushed back from the table. ‘So . . . a day’s ride from here, Granny’s rotting away in her apartment. She hasn’t begun to stink yet, not enough for the neighbors to call the cops.’
‘And nobody knows this kid is missing,’ said Mallory. ‘That’s a bonus.’
SEVEN
On the way to the dining hall, we have to pass through the creepy gallery of alumni portraits, and the eyes of the paintings follow us. I know some of the family names on the plaques below the picture frames. They come down from the robber barons of Wall Street – honored psychos of yesteryear. One of them is Phoebe’s ancestor. He has a cruel mouth that says, ‘Come here, little boy.’
—Ernest Nadler