The Violet Crow (3 page)

He gazed with disconcerting directness; he was right in the Chief's face. It was as if he had eavesdropped on the conversation with the Mayor. The Chief met his challenging look, but without saying anything.

“But what are you forgetting?” the psychic continued. “C'mon, Chief. You're forgetting something. Don't let me down; use your noodle. This Cromwell dame, you think she's gonna play fair with you?” Here he dropped the immigrant
shtick
and switched to a corporate persona. “You think she'll be
accountable
and take
responsibility
…?”

“But it's in print,” the chief protested. “She's on the record.”

“Print,
shmint
! A week ago. Two weeks. Who's gonna remembra? Who's gonna care? If I don't produce, you'll be the one who hired me. You'll be the one who's payin' me. You're the one who's wasting the taxpayers'
furshlugginer
money. You'll be the one who's
accountable
and
responsible
.”

“So what are we going to do?” The Chief didn't even notice that he was saying “we” rather than “you.”

“We're gonna solve da moidra.”

“But we don't have any clues. We don't even know who the victim is …”

“Of course. That's why you need me.”

The Chief looked like he needed to curl up in the fetal position and crawl back into the nearest womb.

“So we got a deal?” The Chief glared, holding out to see if the psychic would retract his offered handshake. He didn't. They shook perfunctorily. Then the psychic put his business card on the desk and turned to leave, quickly, as if he wanted to get out before the Chief could change his mind.

Chief Black picked up the card gingerly by the edges and examined it carefully. There was a crude drawing of a flashlight emitting rays of light, with the detective's name and a phone number.

“Bruno X?” The Chief read the information aloud in a voice dripping with self-pity. “That's your name, Bruno X? And no address, just a phone number?”

“That's correct,” said Bruno. “This is a dangerous business. The less people know about me, the better. I charge five hundred a day plus expenses. Call me when you're ready to get started.”

Chapter 5

For Chief Black, the empty meeting house was devoid of emotion. Plain walls. Plain benches. No pictures. No symbols. No musical instruments, fancy costumes or other religious equipment. Only emptiness—and silence.

It was different for Bruno. He was in his element. Meditation, visualization were things he understood. But there was something puzzling about the place. He'd never been inside a Quaker meeting house before. After he got used to the initial starkness, he started to tune into an undercurrent of emotion that seemed to flow in layers. It was good not to have too many external distractions. He looked about with anticipation.

“You found no clues here?” he asked the Chief.

“Just the body—nothing else came in from outside. Nothing is out of place.”

“Show me where you found her.”

The Chief paced off a certain number of rows. He pointed to a spot at the far end of the row. Bruno frowned. There was no crime scene tape to protect the spot.

“Any sign of how they got it in?”

“No. There was an hour between the time the building was unlocked for school to start and when the classes came in for the monthly meeting.”

“Pretty risky, breaking in in broad daylight,” Bruno mused out loud.

Chief Black nodded in agreement. “Except there was no sign of a break-in. No picked locks. No broken windows. No footprints in the snow, tire tracks, or anything like that.”

Bruno shuffled over to the spot where the body was found. He stood behind it, leaning forward with both hands on the back of the wooden bench.

“Everything you know about physical evidence is also true for psychic evidence. If the crime scene is disturbed I can't do my job.” Bruno sat down in the spot where the victim was found. He slumped over, attempting to imitate the girl's posture. He sat that way in silence for several minutes. “Nothing here,” he said finally, without moving or opening his eyes. “Normally there are powerful emotions associated with a violent crime. Both from the victim and the perpetrator. They leave behind residues of those emotions on things they're in contact with during the event. Just like fingerprints. Blood. Fibers. Candy wrappers. I can pick up traces of fear, pain, panic, anger, or lust. The intensity of emotion leaves psychic clues that I can retrieve …” He stood up abruptly and walked toward the Chief, “But not when the crime scene's been trampled on like this one has.”

“I never worked with a psychic before,” Chief Black stammered. “We thought we were finished here.”

Bruno patted him on the shoulder. “No way you could have known. Just explaining for future reference.” He shoved his hands deep into his jacket pockets and swiveled around to survey the room. “Boy, it's cold in here. When do you think this place was built?”

“Colonial times, I guess. Sign says the school was founded in the 1760s or something like that.”

“They sure didn't know much about heating a building in those days, did they?”

“Maybe the Quakers didn't believe in it.”

“Like it's a form of vanity to be warm? Hard to get in touch with God when you've got a frozen
tush
.” Bruno shifted to a different topic. “So, Chief, how do you think the body got here? What's your theory?”

“We don't have a very good one, I'm afraid. You'd have to suspect an inside job because there's no sign of a break-in. But none of the people with access to the building are very likely suspects. First of all, they're all Quakers. Most of the teachers are older women. Hard to imagine them breaking necks and hauling a dead body around. Master Quentin, the head of the school? He's famous for being a conscientious objector.”

“What about the maintenance guy? The older guy who let us in this morning?”

“Bennett DeKalb. He's worked at the school for I don't know how long. Ever since Master Quentin got here. Sometime back he stole the school truck. We tracked him down. He apologized. Returned the truck in good condition. The school declined to press charges. And they let him keep his job. No problems since then.”

“So he's the most likely suspect. Did you talk to him?

“Absolutely. He has an airtight alibi.”

“Really. Airtight?”

“Yeah. He plays darts at a bar over in Audubon. They were having a tournament that night, which he won by the way. At least a dozen people saw him.”

“That's some alibi. What about Quentin?”

“Like I told you. He got drafted, refused to serve so they put him in some kind of medical unit …”

“I meant today. You say he's not around …”

“Not till this afternoon.”

OK. Let's go see the girl. We can pop back in and see Quentin after lunch. Do you think the morgue'll be this cold?”

The Chief drove toward Camden, then headed north on Route 130—a dismal parade of bankrupt businesses, empty apartments, fast food, gas stations and a cemetery or two. Then he swung around into a residential neighborhood. Bruno wondered why they would put the morgue in the middle of a residential neighborhood. The Chief kept turning and Bruno grew more disoriented by the second. Finally they arrived at a housing project with a chain link fence at the end of its parking lot. Somehow the Chief found an opening and they drove up to a squat blue building that looked like a bunker. At the back was a loading dock with three bays, presumably for ambulance deliveries.

“I couldn't find my way back here in a million years,” Bruno mumbled, half-dizzy, as he hauled himself out of the cruiser.

“Just as well,” yawned the Chief. “It's not a place you want to visit, even under your own power.” The parking lot was almost empty and there weren't any medic trucks in the back. A good sign. He looked closely at Bruno. “Are you ready to meet the victim?”

Chapter 6

The body was small and delicate. She must have been about 10 years old. Dark hair. No marks, scars, tattoos. No fillings. No braces. No signs of sexual abuse.

Why would someone kill a 10-year-old girl? They must've walked up behind her, put her in some kind of headlock, and then given a single violent twist.

“The mob?” Bruno asked the Chief.

—“That's what the newspaper said, but it's not what
I
said.” Dr. Cronkite was about Bruno's height, but thicker. He had a barrel chest and muscular hands with flashy, expensive-looking rings on several fingers. His dark brown hair was close-cropped, and his eyes, also dark brown, had a world-weary quality that only partially masked a mulishly focused sensibility. “
I
did not call it a ‘gangland slaying,'” said the doctor. “I merely observed that the cause and manner of death were
painfully
obvious.” He turned to address Chief Black. “Did you know we were the violent-crime capital of the U.S., two years running? Of course you did. Everyone around here knows that …” Now he seemed to be addressing Bruno, though he wasn't actually looking at him. “But they don't think through all of the implications: Since Camden's the crime capital, that makes me the number-one medical examiner in the country.”

Bruno didn't know how to respond. Fortunately, Dr. Cronkite switched to a different topic. “Say, you look familiar. Your family from Camden?”

“My mother grew up in Parkside.”

“No kidding. Mine did too. Never mind, it's all changed now. Look at this poor kid.” He lowered his voice a notch. “
I
didn't name her Ginnie Doe. To me she was always ‘the faceless girl.' It was the
Pest
that started calling her Ginnie Doe. And they were the ones who jumped to conclusions about mob involvement. I try to stick to the facts.”

The Chief saw his opening. “I agree. The mob wouldn't do this kind of thing—to a kid. My staff says this doesn't square with mob ‘family values.' In fact, the people we talked to were pretty upset when they heard about it. They said they'd never do something like this to a child.”

“Yeah, they've sure got principles.” Dr. Cronkite was distracted by an electronic beep coming from the front room. He looked toward it anxiously, then forced his attention back to the business at hand. “I didn't think you had much wise-guy action over in Gardenfield.”

“Some of them live there, but they make it a point not to bring business home with them.”

An awkward pause ensued as Dr. Cronkite started to move away, his attention obviously fading. Then a thought struck him. “I've been meaning to talk to you, Chief.” He seemed more substantial, suddenly, as he turned to face them. “Ginnie Doe, here, is practically a cold case already. Why the sudden interest?”

Chief Black explained, “My associate, here, is a psychic. He wants to examine the girl for … evidence.”

Dr. Cronkite shrugged. “You stay in this business long enough, you see everything.” He tossed Bruno a pair of latex gloves.

Bruno put them aside. “I can't use these. I have to make direct contact.”

“It's your life,” said Cronkite. And he left the room.

Bruno turned away from Chief Black and placed his hands carefully above the dead girl's heart. He shut his eyes. He breathed deeply with palpable emotion.

“She didn't see it coming,” he announced.

“No? How do you know?” asked the Chief.

“No fear. In fact, there's not much of anything.”

“What're you telling me?” The Chief's voice was rising in frustration.

“This is unusual,” said Bruno, opening his eyes.

“No kidding,” said the Chief. “Usually when there's a dead kid, the parents are freaking out. Calling every 10 minutes. As if the next time they call maybe I'll tell them it isn't true. This time there's nobody looking for her. No missing persons reports. We don't know who she is. No one knows. No one cares.”

Bruno looked carefully at the Chief during this outburst, but didn't respond directly. “I need to take a lock of hair. Is that OK?”

“OK with me,” said the Chief, feeling deflated. “But you have to check it out with the Doc.”

The Chief led Bruno to the front office, where they found Doctor Cronkite sitting at his desk, his dark eyes fixed on the computer screen. The Chief gave Bruno a nudge to get his attention and then moved a couple steps closer to Dr. Cronkite. “Hey, Doc,” he shouted. “My friend here wants to take home a souvenir. OK with you?”

Doctor Cronkite ignored the question.

“You should see these numbers,” replied Cronkite. “St. Louis is catching up. And we can't forget about Detroit. New Orleans. D.C. Don't forget, Chief, I'm counting on your help.”

“Let's go,” the Chief said to Bruno. They returned to the lab, where they found a pair of surgical scissors on a tray of instruments. Bruno snipped a lock of hair and placed it carefully in a Ziploc bag. He lingered a few moments, studying the body until the Chief pulled him away.

Out in the parking lot, Bruno seemed to revive. “Did you get what you needed in there?” the Chief asked.

“I won't know until I examine this at home.”

“We could use a breakthrough. Soon. I mean, when's the psychic stuff going to start happening?”

“
Hoo hah
! Already you're starting to
kvetch
? You want psychic stuff, you'll get psychic stuff. I guarantee it. But maybe you should be a little bit careful what you wish for.”

Chapter 7

They were on their way back to the school when a metallic blue Volvo sedan pulled around the corner at a high rate of speed and squealed to a halt. Out popped a woman in her early 40s. She was dressed fashionably in an odd combination of battle garb and ultra-feminine frou-frou—a black tactical jacket, black stretch pants, black leather driving gloves with open knuckles, set off by an ivory-colored ruffled silk blouse. Wraparound sunglasses pushed up on her head and some sort of highly volatile lavender fragrance completed the package.