‘Who’s your friend?’
‘The cat’s name is Nose. He lives here.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ He bent down to pet the cat. It shied around to the other side of Mallory’s legs. ‘So, what else have you got?’
‘This isn’t the crime scene,’ she said, pushing the cat off with one leg and uncharacteristic restraint. ‘The original crime scene is in the park. The perp lives in that neighborhood. Not likely he’d drag a dead body home to dump it. That’s where she had a meeting with him,’
‘A meeting? You got that off the computer?’
‘No. It rained that morning, and there’s no umbrella in this apartment. She had something on him, so she met him in the park and threatened him.’
‘How do you figure that?’
‘She was a freelance researcher and fact-checker. It fits. So she threatened him, and he killed her. He panicked and ran. Later, he came back, dragged her deeper into the woods and worked her hands over with a rock to get rid of the prints. That bought him the time to come down here that night and clean up the evidence of a relationship with the victim. He lives at the Coventry Arms. I’m betting he’s married, and he’s over six-one. So what have you got?’
Riker smiled and slowly folded his notebook into his coat pocket. ‘The kid’s story checks out.’ He followed her into the bedroom. The floor was littered with rolling sheets of paper which were still pouring out the mouth of the machine on the shelf below the computer. She scanned the sheets until she found the one she wanted and ripped it free of the rolling paper.
He read the list of names.
‘First he deleted this client file. Then the jerk only took that one client address out of the card file. Bosch did occasional work for a gossip columnist, Betty Hyde. They also had a social relationship.’
‘So you figure Hyde is tied to it?’
‘No. Hyde hasn’t used Bosch’s service in two months.’
‘Maybe Amanda was in the neighborhood picking up more work from Hyde.’
‘No. Look at this.’ She ripped another sheet free of the roll. ‘This is her production schedule. There’s nothing on her calendar for Hyde’s projects. There’s even a note saying Hyde is out of the country. I checked it out with the paper and the airline. She’s due back in the country this afternoon.
‘Look at the billings on these accounts. Bosch logged in all her time – she never worked weekends. And she never made pick-ups. For the past two months, all her work was messengered in and out of this apartment.’
‘But the perp lives in the same building as Hyde?’
‘The fool only took one card away. Yeah. He lives in that building. He didn’t want the police coming back to that address asking questions. It’s like he left me a map.’
‘When Coffey hears this, he’s gonna scream like a woman in childbirth. It’s a little out of your neighborhood, kid, but you know the kind of people who live in that building.’
‘Helen grew up in a building on that block. Her sister Alice still lives there.’
‘It’s good you got those kind of connections, kid. You’re gonna need ’em if you step on any toes in the Coventry Arms. I didn’t know Helen came from money.‘
‘Helen’s people were well off, but not wealthy. It’s an odd mix in that neighborhood. You can have a woman on Social Security living in the same rent-control building with a society matron.’
‘How’s your Aunt Alice’s building situated? You think she might give us some space for surveillance?’
‘I don’t think so. I only met her once, and she didn’t like me.’
‘How could she not like you? What’s not to like?’
She was closed to him now, lost in the scrolling action of the computer which continued to spit paper.
‘So how come you never got along with Helen’s folks? I know they didn’t like Markowitz, but you?’
‘Aunt Alice just took a sudden dislike to me when I was a kid. She hasn’t spoken to me since.’
What had Mallory done to Aunt Alice?
Riker’s notebook lay open in his hand as he looked around the doctor’s private office. The room was thick with the scent and the green of living plants, some with delicate blooms. The doctor was also on the delicate side, and Riker pegged him for a gentle soul who trapped houseflies and released them out of doors. He felt sorry for the poor little bastard in the white coat, who was explaining to Mallory that he could not violate Amanda Bosch’s privacy, be she living or dead. The doctor would not tell her if Amanda did or did not have any sexually transmitted diseases. There was a principle of confidentiality here which he could never violate.
Mallory was tensing, and Riker guessed the doctor could not read the warning signs. This poor man’s career of sensitivity to women and their gynecological problems had not prepared him for this.
She was rising to a stand.
Too late, Doc.
Mallory slammed the autopsy photograph down on the blotter in front of the man, startling him. She leaned across his desk and pressed him deep into the cushions of his chair without laying a hand on him.
Not raising her voice, but ticking off the syllables in the even meters of a live time bomb, Mallory said, ‘Look at what that bastard did to her.’
These were not the pretty photographs the uniforms had shown to the doormen, the shots with the head wound and the damage of insects. This was the autopsy aftermath, the hardcore obscenity of a woman hollowed out like a bloody canoe.
Mallory never mentioned that a pathologist had done this. She let the good doctor run the course of his imagination which was draining his face of blood, bringing him to his feet and leading him to the door of the washroom.
Mallory settled down in her chair to wait out the noises of a man retching, splattering his lunch over water and porcelain. Her arms crossed and her mouth slanted down on one side to say she had expected more fortitude from a medical man.
When the doctor returned to his desk, he sat down slowly in the manner of one who had just aged thirty years and had suddenly become careful of his brittle bones. His soft white hands grasped one another for comfort.
He was Mallory’s creature now.
‘Did you know the father of the baby?’
‘No. She wouldn’t talk about him. I had the idea he was probably a married man.’
‘I want to know if any sexually transmitted disease could have been a motive. I don’t have all damn day to wait on lab results from the ME.’
‘No, nothing like that. I tested her for everything at her request. No disease of any kind. The pregnancy was compromising her health, but that was due to a physical defect of the uterus.’
‘Is that why she had the abortion? It was therapeutic?’
‘I have no idea why she aborted the baby. She wanted that child more than anything in the world. She had enormous difficulty conceiving because of the physical abnormalities. It was a chance in a million, her pregnancy.’
‘You did the abortion?’
‘No, it was done in a city hospital. She went into the emergency room complaining of bleeding and cramps. I got there as fast as I could. It wasn’t a hospital where I had privileges. And before they would even let me see her, it was over. It was done by a bad doctor with a cut-rate education. She was butchered.’
The doctor’s eyes slid over to the photograph on his desk as though he had second thoughts on the definition of butchery.
‘After the abortion, there was no possibility of another pregnancy. No amount of corrective surgery could have repaired the damage done to her.’
‘When was the abortion done?’
‘It was one week ago today. She cancelled two appointments with me, and I never saw her again. I called and left messages. She never called back.’
‘So she miscarried? Is that how it started?’
‘No. There was no miscarriage.’
‘You think she tried to abort herself?’