‘And then Helen evaluated her religious education. One day we took her with us to meet with Father Barry at the parish in the neighborhood. It was that time of year when we joined together to feed and clothe the poor. When Kathy saw the crucifix above the altar, she automatically made the sign of the cross. Helen took this as an omen, and she gave the Christians equal time in Kathy’s spiritual guidance. So someone had taught the child to make the sign of the cross.

‘From only this, I may deduce that someone spent an enormous amount of time with her. She was not unwanted or ignored, not considered a burden to her mother, but the focus of attention. And that person enabled Kathy to love Helen at first sight. I like to believe she must have been rather like Helen Markowitz, this special someone. Can you see this woman abusing her child? Or allowing anyone else to do it? I can not. This woman I know nothing about, I remember her in my prayers.’

‘May I take that to mean you think the woman is dead?’

‘What else could separate such a woman from her child?’

‘I’m going to bring down the judge.’

She thought that might make his little eyes spin around.

Mallory stared at the ME investigator across the same table in the same coffee house where she had first hooked him. She had left him just enough time to let his own imagination do all the work for her, and then she had reeled him back in. That was the old man’s style, and it had worked well.

Tkank you, Markowitz.

‘Heller lives for his work, and there’s none better. If he knew you were walking evidence out of the crime scenes, he’d hunt you down and put a bullet in you. So you walk the evidence. You give it to a cop, and you’re one person removed from the crime of blackmail.’

‘You’ve got nothin’ solid, Mallory. If you did – ‘

‘I’ve got reports on three suicides with no notes left behind. That’s what tipped me. You were the ME investigator on all three scenes. Who did the notes implicate? What embarrassing details were in them? Suicides just love to unload before they cross over. I imagine you’ve carted out other souvenirs, maybe a few photographs of married men? Love letters? What else? In the case of the judge’s mother, you obstructed a homicide investigation. You kept quiet about evidence of murder. Palanski showed up because you called him in. You had to. No way you could hand him the old lady’s body. So now I’ve got the two of you in the same room of a dirty operation. But this time you covered up a murder.’

‘No, it was battery maybe, but not homicide. And the battery wasn’t all that recent. She had a split lip, but it had healed some. Maybe it was a day old. And there was a bruise on the side of her face, but it was at least two days old, and that didn’t kill her either. Her own doctor was there. You can ask him. She did die of natural causes.’

‘But the marks would’ve been embarrassing to the judge, right? So Palanski shows up, and he takes over and works the judge. Am I right?’

The ME investigator would not meet her eyes. She looked down to the paper napkin in his hands. He was shredding it to moist confetti. He opened his mouth to speak, but she dared not give him time to say he wanted a lawyer. She slammed her open hand down on the table, and his mouth closed as he jumped in his chair, nerves shot to hell.

‘Your biggest problem is that your partner is stupid. He buys stock, bearer bonds, and the idiot thinks nobody can trace them because the deals are cash. Every cash transaction is logged just like the credit transactions. All his financial activity is on computer. Did you know that Palanski’s been cheating you on the cuts?’ No, she could see he hadn’t known.

‘The way you handled your cut of the payoffs was only a little brighter.’ She thumbed through the sheaf of papers on the table till she found the one she wanted. She set this in front of him. ‘This is a record of all the cash deposits you made into your mother’s bank account. But you have power of attorney on that account, so you’re tied up by computer transactions too. Your mother’s entire legal income is Social Security, and yet she has this fantastic bank account. Still, Internal Affairs would never have tipped to that. Oh, but that fool Palanski.’

‘You won’t get anything on him without me testifying on the payoff.’

‘I won’t hurt you. A deal is a deal. I’m going to let you rat on yourself and Palanski. You know the drill. The first one to turn state’s evidence gets immunity.’

Nose was paroled from the bathroom for the evening. He purred around Mallory’s legs as she put the bullets into the speedloader for her revolver.

She faced the foyer mirror and thought of visual cues. She looked down at the cat and closed her long and narrow eyes to suspicious slits. Nose began to dance. The cue for the dancing, what was it? A muffled noise called her eyes up to the ceiling. The sounds upstairs were unmistakable. Plush carpet and thick insulation could not block out the scream. Now furniture was being turned over. Feet pounded into the front room above her head. She followed the sounds, eyes to the ceiling. She stopped by the phone in the living room.

She tapped keys on the building computer and scrolled through the list of tenants until she had Betty Hyde’s number. More furniture was moving. A dial tone. Another scream.

‘Hyde residence,’ said a foreign voice. ‘Put Hyde on the phone. Tell her it’s Mallory and it’s urgent.’

Telephone pressed between shoulder and ear, she opened the closet door and pulled out the heavy sheepskin jacket to hide the bulge of the gun. The jacket was bulky enough to interfere with action, but she was not ready to show her hand or her gun in public, for this was the visual cue to call the lawyer. She was slipping into the sleeves of the coat when Betty Hyde came to the phone. ‘Mallory, darling, I thought you’d never call.’

‘Meet me at Judge Heart’s apartment. I’ll be there before you. Stay back, all right? Stay the hell out of my way.’

She took the stairs three at a time. She noted the three locks as she neared the door. Most people only used one lock until they were in for the night. It was early yet. The main lock was the flimsiest. But the thick door was too formidable to break down. She banged on the door with her fist and pressed the buzzer. ‘Open up!’ Now there was dead silence within. And maybe a dead woman?

She banged on the door again. ‘Open up or I’ll call the police!’ Magic words for the man in the public eye.

She heard heavy footsteps on the tiles of the foyer beyond the door, and then the sound of the lock being undone, the latch chain being slipped into its notch. The door opened a crack, and she was looking into the cold eyes of Judge Heart just above the length of gold chain which bound the door to its frame.

She smiled politely, stepped back and kicked the door at the center, breaking the latch chain and knocking the man off balance. She pushed past him and entered the apartment.

Pansy Heart was in the corner of the front room, trying desperately to crawl into the pattern of the rug and disappear. Her nose was bleeding, her lip was split and the side of her face was already beginning to swell.

Behind her, the judge was screaming, ‘You have no right!’

Mallory turned on him. ‘I’m taking her out of here. Don’t give me any trouble.’

His face had gone to purple rage as he advanced on her. With a quick, sure kick, she put her foot into his groin and watched his skin drain of color as his eyes bulged out with surprise and pain. He slipped down to one knee. Pansy Heart was crying softly. Mallory pulled the woman up and walked her toward the door, one arm supporting the smaller woman about the tiny waist.

Betty Hyde stood in the doorway. Her eyes were fixed on Pansy Heart’s ruined face, and her mouth was suppressing a smile.