The socialite waved frantically, though the only cab, indeed, the only vehicle on the avenue, was stopped at a traffic light a block away. She glanced back at the people in front of the store, her store. They were wearing what must pass for evening clothes in that third-world country Middle America. The rubes were fixated on one window. Curiosity prevailed, and she walked toward the shabby little gathering. What was the harm? None of their social orbits could possibly intersect with hers.
The wealthy society matron looked over their shoulders and between their heads to see the lighted display. After all she had spent on haute couture, who was better qualified to critique the window-dresser’s art?
Well, this was different. And it was inevitable, she supposed. This must be the next big thing, the new wave beyond heroin chic – dead.
‘That’s no manikin,’ said the man directly in front of her.
Of course not. As any fool could see, this was a living woman playing the role of a department store dummy. It was an old idea with a new twist – literally. The model was slowly revolving at the end of a rope, allowing the public to view all sides of the blue suit and matching shoes.
‘She is rather good,’ said Mrs Harmon Heath-Ellis. ‘This one doesn’t blink.’ Well, certainly the girl must blink, but not until the rope twisted her face away from the window. The model was quite pretty in a low-rent way. Her hair had not been styled by any reputable salon. The short spikes standing out on the scalp were so passe. Longer strands of blond hair trailed from the model’s open mouth, and what sort of statement was that?
The window had been arranged with small kitchen appliances and utensils to create an interesting contrast with high fashion. Though somewhat nearsighted, the socialite recognized the designer by the cut of the light blue suit – quite respectable. Ah, but the rest – such tedious violence, no blood, no real drama.
An enormous woman in a muumuu – obviously an out-of-towner and Kmart shopper – was whimpering, saying, ‘Oh, God, she’s dead!’ A man joined in this opinion. ‘Hey, somebody call a cop!’
Mrs Harmon Heath-Ellis smiled benignly in the spirit of giving first aid to the ignorant and unwashed, the tourists. But now a man pointed to the glass, his mouth working in astonished dumbshow. The socialite stepped closer to the display window to see what she might have missed.
Her superior smile was frozen, and she was deaf to the oncoming screams of police sirens. Beneath the hanged model was a jar of dead flies encircled by flaming red candles. The woman looked up, and now she could not look away. What she had mistaken for a mole, a beauty mark, was a black fly crawling across the model’s face and moving toward one wide blue eye.
The socialite was trembling, interior screams outshouting the sirens. She jumped at the screech of brakes and spinning red lights. Police cars disgorged men in uniforms and men in suits. There was one woman among them, but this tall blonde was hardly a civil servant. She wore a linen blazer of all too marvelous cut and line, a thing to die for. And now this young paragon of fashion pulled an enormous revolver from a shoulder holster and beat on the plate glass with the butt end of the gun.
Of course, the glass was holding up well. It was made to withstand such vandalism, and Mrs Heath-Ellis was about to tell her as much, for she was privy to every detail of her favorite -
‘Hey, Mallory!’ Near the far corner of the block-long store, a policeman called out, ‘This door’s open!’
Either young Mallory did not hear this man, or she did not care, so enraged was she, quite mad actually, beating, hammering the glass, electric-green eyes full of rage. With one last mighty swing of the gun, the glass wall shattered, and the young blonde was climbing past the shards, tearing her fabulous threads to get at the twisting figure on the end of the rope.
The policewoman was slender, and yet she was able to lift the dead weight as if it were nothing. She cradled the other woman’s limp body like a babe in arms, then lifted it high until the rope slackened. She was fiercely concentrated on the model’s still white face. And every watcher knew she was willing the hanged woman to live.
There was a hinged panel at the rear of the display window, but rather than simply open this door, the entire back wall was ripped from its moorings by a large man. Oh, and that face – brutality incarnate.
‘Good job, Janos,’ said another man, a less imposing figure with a bad suit, who climbed up to the raised floor, then quickly untied the thick knot of the noose. The rope fell away, and Mallory laid her burden down. The largest policeman, the brutal one called Janos, leaned over the prone body to remove the gag of human hair. With surprising delicacy, he pinched the model’s nostrils closed and covered her mouth with his own. The young woman’s body shuddered back to life in convulsions. Her hands rolled into fists that punched the air, batting at some phantom from an interrupted nightmare, and her mouth opened wide in a shrill scream. The large policeman gently gathered her into his arms and rocked her slowly. His voice was incongruously soft as he said, ‘Hush now, Stella, it’s all over.’
The small crowd of watchers went wild, screaming, cheering, whistling. The socialite was surprised by her own helpless laughter as she was engulfed in a hug from the heavy-set woman in the muumuu. Her head fell upon this stranger’s generous breast, and she began to cry.
CHAPTER 19
Mallory looked less like a crime victim after removing the blazer torn by broken glass. The garment was neatly folded over one arm to hide her bandaged wound. And now her holstered revolver was on public display in a window on Fifth Avenue. She stood in full view of a sidewalk audience and watched the watchers. One of them picked up a small piece of glass from the litter on the pavement, and he slipped it into his pocket. Perhaps he prized this one above the other souvenir shards because of the small red stain. He was stealing a drop of her blood.
She turned to Ronald Deluthe. ‘Take another look. You’re sure he’s not out there?’
The rookie detective shook his head. ‘I don’t see him.’ She pointed to three uniformed officers standing off to one side. ‘What about them?’
This startled him. ‘You think the scarecrow is a cop?’ ‘When I say look at everyone, that means cops too.’ ‘No, he’s not there.’ And now, sensing that she had no further use for him, Deluthe climbed out of the display window, giving the forensic expert more room to work.
Heller pulled down the rope that dangled from an exposed pipe in the chopped-away ceiling. ‘Crude job for such a tidy killer.’
‘And he’s taking more chances,’ said Mallory. ‘Heller, you said this woman fought back?’
‘Better than that. Dr Slope found blood and skin under her fingernails.’
Good for you, Stella Small.
‘What about store security?’
‘They got everything,’ said Heller. ‘Cameras, alarms, even guard dogs. But none of it was working, and the animals were locked in a utility closet.’
Mallory lowered her sunglasses. ‘This store doesn’t have a nightwatchman?’
‘Yeah, they got one.’ Riker climbed up on the raised floor of the display window. ‘The watchman’s a retired cop, sixty-four years old. Maybe he slept through the whole thing.’
Mallory turned back to the crowd of ghouls on the sidewalk. ‘And maybe the old man’s dead.’
‘Well, that theory’s my personal favorite.’ Riker knelt down beside Heller. ‘His basement office was wrecked. Broken glass everywhere, and there’s blood on the floor. I didn’t see any broken skin on Stella, so it might be the watchman’s blood.’
Without a word or even a nod to Riker, Heller closed his tool kit and climbed down from the display window. For the past hour, these two men had not traded one insult, and Mallory wondered about this sudden rift in an old routine.