‘No accounting for her taste in reading,’ said Charles. He was still turning the pages of the last western. ‘Even at the age of ten, she would’ve been brighter than most adults.’
Only the bookseller could have revealed the little girl’s obsession with westerns. Riker would never have believed that John Warwick, paranoia incarnate, would open up to a stranger. But how had Charles sussed out Kathy’s childhood relationship to Sparrow?
‘The paper seems to be holding up well.’ Charles fanned the pages of the book, testing his handiwork. ‘Have you made a decision yet? Do you plan to give this to Mallory? Or will you destroy it?’
The detective settled into a chair beside the bed. His smile was one of resignation, and he was only half joking when he said, ‘You’re a dangerous man, Charles.’
‘Oh, I already burned my copies. Don’t let that worry you. They went into the fireplace last night. I suppose Louis did something similar while Kathy was still very young. He wouldn’t want evidence to tie his child to a little thief who loved westerns. I gather her early days were more – more colorful than I thought. So Louis destroyed all her books? All but the last one?’
Riker only nodded. The less said, the less this man would have to work with. ‘I can’t tell you any more about the westerns.’
‘Especially the last one,’ said Charles. ‘Yes, I imagine you’re giving me deniability of a crime. Something like that?’
Riker took a moment to digest these words. Was there anyone left who did not know that he had robbed a crime scene? That was the problem with spontaneous criminal acts, no planning, no time to cover tracks. And here he was still holding stolen goods. Any half-bright petty thief would have made a better job of it.
‘I guess I’ll never know what she saw in them.’ Charles looked down at the cover illustration of Sheriff Peety on a rearing stallion, two six-guns blazing fire, and the ricochet of sunlight from a golden badge. ‘Do you think she believed in heroes?’
Riker shrugged. Lou Markowitz had once held the darker idea that Kathy had identified with all the cattle rustlers and the stagecoach robbers.
A nurse entered the room to bathe the patient, and the two men took their leave. As they strolled down the corridor, Charles told the story of The Cabin at the Edge of the World, a book that Riker had never read. As they neared the parking lot, the Wichita Kid had been bitten by a mad wolf frothing at the mouth a century before the rabies vaccine was invented. When they reached the other end of the Brooklyn Bridge, the outlaw lay unconscious in a burning cabin surrounded by a mob of angry farmers with torches and pitchforks. A preacher was denouncing a witch, an old woman also trapped in the fire, and blaming her for the drought that was killing the crops.
‘No, don’t tell me,’ said Riker. ‘This con man, the preacher, he actually brings on the rain. That puts out the cabin fire and ends the drought. So now the farmers are real happy, and they decide not to kill the old lady. And then the preacher does another miracle and cures Wichita’s rabies.’
‘Not even close,’ said Charles. ‘When the next book opens, the Wichita Kid is still surrounded by flames. There’s no way out.’
Riker knew a better escape yarn, a true one, but there was no one he could share it with now that Sparrow was dying. He had missed her company over these past two years, and now he was grieving for her, though she was not altogether gone.
The Mercedes was approaching the Brooklyn Bridge when Charles asked, ‘How did Louis trace Kathy to Warwick’s Used Books?’
Riker stared out the window ay the water. Shoot me – shoot me now. ‘We just got lucky one night.’
He had a demoralizing old memory of running out of breath as he watched the child’s shoes skimming along the sidewalk, outdistancing him with no effort at all. She had laughed as she dusted off Lou Markowitz, a man with fifty pounds of excess weight. Poor Lou had been wheezing when he caught up to Riker, who was hugging a lamppost, convinced that his heart had stopped.
‘Then we spotted the kid in Warwick’s window.’ He recalled the baby thief leaning one small hand on a bookshelf as she nonchalantly perused her westerns. Though she had just run two cops into the ground – nearly killed them – only Kathy’s eyes seemed weary, just like any other child at the end of a busy day.
‘So we go inside the store, and Lou tells the owner no more customers for a while. Then we go to collect the kid, but she’s gone, and the back room was locked up from the inside. It drove us nuts. You’ve seen that place. There was no way she could’ve made it out the door without being seen.’ Then they had noticed the fear in the bookseller’s eyes. Lou had gathered his hound-dog jowls into a dazzling smile to win over the merchant with personal charm – or so he had believed at the time.
The mystery of Kathy’s escape had not been solved that night or the next. ‘Lou spent a week of off-duty hours staking out the store and reading all of Kathy’s westerns.’ He had also developed a rapport with the fragile bookseller. ‘Finally, Warwick tells him how Kathy got away that night. For maybe three seconds, our backs were turned from the rear wall while we talked to the owner. That’s when she climbed up the bookshelves – quick as a monkey, quiet as smoke – all the way to the top, where there was just enough room to squeeze between the shelf and the ceiling.’
‘Then the bookseller must have watched her do it.’
‘Yeah, and he never gave her up, even though just the sight of a cop scared the shit out of him. The whole time Lou was talking to this frightened little man, Kathy was up there listening to him, laughing at him.’ The detective shrugged. ‘So we were outmatched by a ten-year-old girl. Not our best night.’
That was when Lou Markowitz had begun to realize who and what he was dealing with – no ordinary child, but a full-blown person. And he had amended the resume of a street thief to include the grand title of Escape Artist. Kathy had earned Lou’s respect. She had also cut out his heart, but that was another night, and the child had almost won that time, almost destroyed the man.
Though it would have been some comfort to him, Riker could never share the story of Kathy’s best escape act. And now his mind reached back across the bridge, across the water to the sleeper in her coma dreams to tell her that she was not dying alone. Sparrow, the secrets are poisoning me.
Mallory watched Charles’s Mercedes drive off as her partner slid into the front seat of her tan sedan.
‘It’s that one.’ She nodded toward the building directly across the street. Natalie Homer’s sister lived in an area of Brooklyn prized for views of Prospect Park. Apparently Susan Qualen was doing well in the world. ‘It’s better if we catch her outside.’ Then the cop hater would have no door to slam in their faces. ‘The neighbors say she runs in the park – same time every day.’
‘Must be a health fanatic’ Riker wiped the sweat from his brow. ‘She’s gonna kill herself in this heat.’
The front door opened and a trim woman in shorts and a T-shirt appeared at the top of a short flight of stairs. Natalie’s sister was tall and blond with a familial face. Before the woman could descend to the sidewalk, the two detectives were out of the car and moving toward her, each holding up a leather folder with identification and a gold shield.
‘Miss Qualen? I’m Detective Mallory, and this is – ’
The woman’s face turned angry and hard. ‘Go away!’
Riker stood at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Ma’am? We’d rather do this at your convenience, but you – ’
‘I read about your last hanging in the papers,’ said Susan Qualen. ‘You bastards couldn’t cover up that one. Not so easy this time, was it?’