Chapter 13

KEY IN HAND, CHARLES STOOD IN THE OPEN DOORWAY to the reception area. For the third time in as many days, he was startled to see his new tenant, the former hermit. Or, rather, he saw Riker's back as the man walked down the hall toward the rear offices of Butler and Company – while Mallory, another unexpected sight at this early morning hour, was making a hasty retreat, heading toward the front door with uncommon speed and ignoring the fact that Charles was barring her way.

"Just a moment," he said, calling her attention to himself, the immovable object in her path, and it annoyed her that he would not step aside. Oh, how unfortunate. "I gather that Riker hasn't seen your recent additions to the wall."

"No," she said, still advancing on him.

Ah well, that would explain so much: her agitation, her strong desire to get the hell out of here. She never lost momentum, fully expecting him to get out of her way before they collided, but he had seen her do this trick too many times, and he stood his ground. Now he was looking down at her upturned face, such a lovely face, but definitely not a happy one.

"So Riker surprised you," he said. "You know he's going to have some questions about what you've done."

Mallory took the long way round him. Closing the door behind her, she said, "You can fill in for me."

Right.

Resigning himself to damage control, Charles walked down the hallway and paused by the open door to his business partner's private office. Riker was scanning the half of the cork wall that was all Mallory's work, a neat square composed of photographs all perfectly aligned and alternating with sheets of text. The overall effect was somewhat like a chessboard. Among the upper rows were candid shots of jurors who were still alive when captured by their photographers. Pinned alongside them were e-mails and letters from Ian Zachary's fans. In the lower region were pictures with the same faces, eyes closed this time, and the predominant color of their photographs was blood red. These were the postmortem portraits of people lying on morgue dissection tables. Previously, the only corpse pictured on the wall had been the murdered FBI agent, Timothy Kidd, Riker's own contribution from the suitcase of Dr. Apollo.

'"Morning," said Charles, trying to put a good face on what was already shaping up to be a bad day. He noted the man's paleness and ill-concealed anger. Well, this was no improvement in Riker's condition. Mallory's game plan had a nasty glitch.

"Where did she get all the photographs?"

"Most of them came from Ian Zachary's computer," said Charles. "Mallory hijacked it. Apparently, Zachary's fans are not above stealing things like morgue records to make him happy. And, of course, to win prizes."

The detective concentrated on the last row. Here were all the portraits of a surviving juror, Dr. Johanna Apollo. She was the only one on the wall to be represented from every angle. In the final shot, her deformed body was in clear focus, but the head was slightly blurred, turning in the direction of the camera click.

"The fans didn't send Zachary these pictures of Jo," said Riker. "Mallory took them."

"How did you know?"

"Years and years of looking at surveillance shots. Mallory's the worst photographer on the force."

"Ah, the center fixation. Yes, lots of wasted space around the subject's face. Not a very good sense of composition, is it?" Charles turned his eyes to the upper gallery of fan photographs representing nine other jurors, every one deceased. "To be fair, I think all of these pictures are equally bad."

"Yeah, but Mallory's shots are always perfectly bad." Riker tore a picture off the wall, and its pushpins went flying. "If I drew a gun sight on this, Jo's head would be in line with a bullet."

The metaphor was not lost on Charles. Riker was obviously questioning Mallory's intentions toward this woman. And now, in a face-off, the detective elicited a confession of sorts. It was all there, played out across Charles Butler's face in the red flush and the sorry eyes that would not meet Riker's own.

After ripping all of Dr. Apollo's photographs from the wall, the angry man slammed the door on his way out.

Chief Medical Examiner Edward Slope was seated behind his office desk, catching up on paperwork before cracking open the first corpse of the day. Without his uniform of bloodstained surgical garb, he might be taken for a graying general. His face was dignified, his expression set in stone, and his posture was perfect, even when he believed that he was not being observed. The pathologist looked up from his paperwork and almost betrayed a look of pleasant surprise.

Before Riker had gotten two feet in the door, he was subjected to yet another impromptu examination. Checking the mended bullet holes?

Dr. Slope's quick appraisal also took in the bomber jacket, flannel shirt and jeans. In lieu of hello, he said, "You look like hell, and I don't mean the wardrobe. I'm guessing that you're losing sleep while working undercover as a lumberjack." Slope had always fancied that he possessed a sense of humor. "And now you need a consultation, right?"

Apparently no one had told this man about the forced separation from NYPD, and Riker planned to take advantage of that. "It's definitely not a social call, Doc." He tossed a slew of photographs on the desk blotter. 'What can you tell me about this woman?"

The medical examiner hardly glanced at the pictures of Johanna Apollo. "Since she's not dead yet, not one of my customers, I'm guessing you want me to tell you what's wrong with her. Got an X ray or a medical history in your pocket? No, I didn't think so. Well then, I'll tell you the same thing I told Mallory – just before I sent her packing. I can't do a diagnosis without the proper – "

"Mallory showed you these pictures?"

"Yes, two months ago, maybe three. At least she came in with a working theory. Based on her research, she decided the woman had Scheuermann's kyphosis. Wanted me to confirm it. Mallory seems very well versed on the subject of hunchbacks. Perhaps you two should talk more often, maybe compare notes. You're still partners, aren't you?"

Riker slumped down in a padded armchair in front of the desk. He was feeling all the aches of a night spent sleeping on the floor of Jo's hotel room, what little sleep he had managed, but anger was slowly dissipating exhaustion. Mallory had lied to him again. What a surprise. Her investigation of Jo was apparently not a recent thing, but dated back to the first encounter during a visit to Ned's Crime Scene Cleaners. He added this to the list of Mallory's deceptions, then turned his tired face to Dr. Slope. "I need information on this woman, anything you can – "

"She has a severe spinal deformity – that's all I can tell you with just a damn photograph."

"Not good enough, Doc. I once heard you do a twenty-minute spiel on the history of a corpse with no ID. That time, all you had to work with was a damn tattoo."

"And a corpse on the dissection table."

Riker gathered up his photographs, preparing to leave. "Well, thanks for all your help." As he rose from the chair, he thought better of taking the pictures with him and dropped them on the desk. "Keep 'em – a few souvenirs. If she shows up on your dissection table in the next few days, I want you to remember this conversation."

"Hold it." The doctor picked up one of the photographs and studied it with more care. "I don't believe I've seen this one. It shows a bit more of the pathology."

Riker sat down again.

"Mallory was probably right," said Slope. "Scheuermann's kyphosis is the most likely cause. The range, in layman's terms, is round back to hunchback. Hers is an extreme deformity. So I'm guessing there were other factors, maybe a childhood onset of osteoporosis or scoliosis." He pointed to the duffel bag that Jo carried in the photograph. "Do you know if this is a heavy load she's carrying?"