Hush Read online

  I looked her up and down. She was wearing a black sports catsuit, the kind that’s supposed to compress the muscles and make a person more aerodynamic. Long-distance runner, I guessed. Severe ponytail and dark eyes. There was no recognition flickering through my brain, and my face must have shown it.

  “I’m Shania Mallally, nee Parker.” She spread a hand with finely manicured nails on her chest. “We went to high school together. Swan-Langley College in Randwick.”

  I shrugged. “What’s your point?”

  The question hit Shania like a slap. She seemed to realize through the fading novelty of my appearance at her doorstep that she hadn’t even asked me or my partner why we were there. She glanced at Whitt, calculated, and decided to forge on, determined to be remembered.

  “We were in the same grade. Seventh. You were there for three months, maybe more.”

  “I grew up in foster care,” I said wearily. “I must have attended seventeen different high schools. I never made a single friend at school. Not one. So if you and I went to school together, it means you were indifferent to me or you were cruel. Which was it?”

  Shania recoiled again as though struck. Whitt put a hand on my shoulder, a warning. I didn’t react. Shania seemed to be assessing her standing in the little battle of wills we were having on her front doorstep, so before she could come to a conclusion I cut over her again.

  “Is your husband home?”

  “He’s by the pool,” she said. “I was just going for a run. What…ah. What’s this about, exactly?”

  I didn’t answer her question, and instead walked past her into the huge marble foyer. Before I could cross to the passageway leading to the back of the house she spoke again.

  “I was cruel,” she said.

  Whitt and I turned and looked at her. She was nodding, resigned. “I was cruel. We knew you were a foster kid, my friends and I. The second-hand uniform. The ratty, worn-out backpack. We’d heard whispers between some of the parents. You’d been given a place at the school as a kindness while you were fostered by a family in the area, and we were all Swan-Langley families from generations back. We picked on you relentlessly. My friends dared me to pour my chocolate milk over your head one day and I did it.”

  She looked over at Whitt again, like she was seeking an ally. He didn’t offer himself.

  “I only remembered it all a few months ago when I saw you on the news,” Shania said. “The Regan Banks case. There you were. A detective. A serial-killer hunter. I could hardly believe it. I thought you were in jail now, but I guess I was wrong.”

  “Are you going to stand there all day talking about yourself? Or can we get on with our job?” I said.

  “When I saw you on the news I felt a tremendous sense of shame, Harry,” she said, ignoring my words. “I’m sorry.”

  I turned and walked across the hall and didn’t look back.

  Chapter 30

  THERE WERE TWO small girls in the huge pool in the backyard, doggy paddling to the edge, climbing out, jumping back in. The water splashed all around the pool told me the cycle had been running for some time. Louis Mallally was sitting in a stylish wicker cabana with a little table and four chairs inside it, the unsettled water projecting moving patterns onto his white shirt. His black curls were scraped back over the top of his head and fell in small ringlets behind his ears. He hardly gave Whitt and me an upward glance. He was focused on the pale terra-cotta tiles between his shoes, a mobile phone clamped to his ear.

  “Let’s go back to them with five years, no parole,” he said. “Tell them it’s all we will accept. Let them sweat it over the weekend. They’re firing water pistols at us, Brian. Let’s not pretend they’re real guns.”

  I took a seat in the chair opposite Mallally, while Whitt leaned against the side of the cabana and folded his huge arms like a nightclub bouncer.

  Mallally didn’t get off the phone. I raised my eyebrows as he listened to the person on the other end of the line.

  “No, that doesn’t make sense,” Mallally responded. “A strategy like that has been tried and tested in the courtroom and it always fails.”

  I held up five fingers. Mallally frowned at me.

  “The meeting’s on Thursday. Susan will be there.”

  I lowered my thumb, held up four fingers. Mallally looked at my eyes.

  Three.

  Two.

  “Oh, they’re posturing. Of course they are. They don’t have the—”

  I showed Mallally my index finger.

  “Brian, will you hold on, I’ve just got to—”

  I leaned forward and took the phone from Mallally’s ear, tossed it over my shoulder into the pool. The little girls screamed with surprise or delight, I couldn’t tell.

  Mallally spread his empty hands like he had just disappeared a dove in a magic trick, his eyes wide.

  “You—You—You can’t—!” He let out a harsh breath, a well-practiced huff he’d seemingly developed to expel his frustration and simultaneously regain his composure, a sound easily mutated into a laugh or sneer. Defense lawyers are used to smothering their surprise. “That was a very important phone call.”

  “Sounded like it.” I took a pair of women’s sunglasses that was sitting on the tabletop, probably Shania’s, and slipped them on.

  “I’m going to bill you for that. For the phone and the phone call. Do you have any idea what I charge by the hour?”

  “Wouldn’t matter if it was a million dollars,” I said. “I don’t have it, and I don’t work for anyone who does, so dry your eyes, princess.”

  “I know who you are.” Mallally took in Whitt, shook a finger at me. “Harriet Blue, right? What happened? You got bail for the serial-killer murder? Now you’re looking to me for defense for the trial. Let me tell you, sister: I’m not interested. I know a dead loss when I see one. You can take your meathead bodyguard and carry on to your next personal disaster.”

  “Meathead?” Whitt asked mildly. He took a chair beside mine, perpendicular to Mallally. The lawyer shrank almost imperceptibly in his chair. “I’m not sure it’s time for name-calling quite yet, Mr. Mallally. We’re here to inquire about your relationship with this woman.”

  Whitt glanced at me, a warning, telling me to get ready. Mallally’s reaction to the photograph in Whitt’s hand was going to be very important, and it would likely be fleeting. He was a lawyer, practiced in hiding his emotions, particularly surprise or recognition. Whatever he showed, we would have to catch it before it was gone forever.

  He put the picture of Tonya Woods on the table.

  Mallally dropped his head into his hands.

  Chapter 31

  A SMALL GIRL, dripping wet, appeared at Whitt’s side. She was grinning at him, her dark hair plastered to her high forehead. For a moment it seemed I was witnessing Whitt’s tragedy come to life, the tiny child that haunted him materialized, teasing him from another realm. But she handed the wet and blank-screened phone to her father, giggled, and ran away, splashing into the pool just behind us. Cold droplets hit the back of my neck.

  “Ugh, Jesus,” Mallally sighed, rubbing his tanned cheeks. “I knew this was going to come back to bite me.”

  Mallally glanced at the kids in the pool, rubbed his palms together.

  “What has she done exactly?” he asked. “Actually, never mind. Don’t tell me. I’ll post her bail but I’m not representing her, and I don’t know anything about any criminal activities she may have engaged in.”

  Whitt and I looked at each other. I decided to bluff.

  “We understand your relationship with Tonya has been complex,” I said. “How did you meet, exactly?”

  Mallally gave a rueful laugh. “She was outside the courthouse fighting with one of her low-life friends. A dealer, by the look of him. Gold chains and big, hideous Nikes. I was leaving; I’d just finished representing a client on a fraud charge. Whatever the guy with Tonya had been involved with at the court hadn’t gone his way. He smacked her. Right there on the courthou
se steps. Even in a busy street. There must have been two dozen witnesses.”

  Mallally rubbed his face again, tired.

  “The police jumped on him. They were all standing around smoking, drinking coffee, waiting to escort people in and out of the building. Bloody idiot—I don’t know where the hell he thought he was, the dealer. It boggles the mind, what these people do. Anyway, I took Tonya away, thought I’d sit her down for a cup of tea or something, but she wanted a beer, so I took her to The Crown. I wasn’t trying to be the hero of the situation. It just happened.”

  “When was this?” I asked.

  “Eight months ago?” Mallally thought. “I didn’t, uh…I didn’t expect it to become what it became. I gave her my phone number in case she needed anything and then before I knew it we were meeting up again.”

  The little girls in the pool were calling for their daddy to watch them leap in, arms linked. He obliged, his thin lips twisted with guilt.

  “My wife can’t know about this,” he said.

  “So how long has your affair with Tonya Woods been going on?” Whitt asked.

  Mallally heaved a sigh. “Long enough for a couple of relapses on her part. She does her best to shake off her addiction but she always falls back into the fray. Her friends drag her in. And to be honest, I don’t think her father helps much.”

  “The Deputy Commissioner?” I asked.

  “He dumps the child on her all the time,” Mallally said. “Long before she’s ready to take responsibility for her. Tonya gets clean for fifteen bloody minutes and her father starts in with the overnight stays and weekends with the kid in her care. Tonya doesn’t have any experience in how to be a parent. She doesn’t know what to do with a child. The girl throws a fit and Tonya feels like a failure, heads right back down into the hole she’s just climbed out of.”

  Failure. I remembered Tox talking about the nice apartment Woods had been keeping for Tonya, the one she hadn’t lived in. How he believed it made her feel inadequate. Had Woods finally put too much pressure on his daughter to take back her child? Had the young woman snapped and run away, or worse?

  “You think Joe Woods was tired of caring for the little one?” Whitt asked.

  As if on cue, one of the small girls rushed up to her father, soaking his shirt as she leaned in.

  “Ella’s hurting me! She’s hurting me! Daddy, help!”

  Whitt and I sat and watched as Mallally dealt with the squabble between the children. When he returned his shirt was sticking to his chest with damp, black chest hairs visible through the fabric.

  “They can be quite tiring,” he said. “I didn’t know what the situation was with Tonya’s father and the baby. We didn’t talk about the Deputy Commissioner much, because it made me uncomfortable. If he were to find out we’d been seeing each other, I could have kissed my legal career goodbye.”

  I nodded.

  “In any case,” Mallally sighed. “Yes, I’d been seeing Tonya. Yes, she’s trouble, with a capital T. Whatever she’s done this time, I certainly wasn’t involved with it. I broke it off with Tonya about three weeks ago, and I would hope that as officers of the law you’ll treat our liaison with the utmost discretion. I assure you it’s not a factor in whatever’s going on here.”

  “Why did you break it off with Tonya?” I asked.

  “Are you two going to tell me what this is all about?” Mallally asked. “What’s happened to her? Where is she?”

  Whitt and I glanced at each other.

  “We don’t know,” Whitt said.

  Chapter 32

  THE THREE FLUFFY dogs had all crowded into Pops’s lap on the couch, and though his body heat was steadily rising under the blanket of fur and warm bodies, he couldn’t bring himself to move. The old man didn’t know where the dogs were going next, whether they would be adopted into loving homes where snuggles on the couch would be permitted. He figured now was the time to spoil them, so as he reached for the phone on the side table he also took three liver treats and fed one into each of the scruffy mouths that rose at the sound of his hand lifting the lid from the jar.

  It took ten minutes to get through the various checkpoints and barriers, even when he explained who he was. He was redirected four times, put on hold, barked at for calling outside the designated hours. Eventually a very uncertain voice came on the line, and he knew that he was through.

  “Hello?”

  “Dolly Quaddich?”

  “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “My name is Trevor Morris.” Pops stroked the dogs on his lap with his free hand. “I’m a friend of Harriet Blue. I’m calling to talk to you about what happened the day before yesterday.”

  “Are you a cop? Harry’s a cop,” Dolly said.

  Pops could hear shouting in the background of the call, gates slamming.

  “Well. Yes. Retired.”

  “The lawyer said not to talk to any cops, even if they’re nice to me,” Dolly said. “And you’re calling at the wrong time. We can’t take calls until after midday in ad seg. It’s the rules.”

  “Dolly.” Pops took a deep breath. “I know you’ve been asked to keep quiet about what happened, but Harry and I are going to try to help you from out here. Harry has told me she knows you’re innocent. That there’s no way you would have killed Doctor Goldman.”

  “What do you mean ‘out here’?” Dolly asked. “Is Harry out?”

  “She is, yes.”

  “No, she’s not.”

  Pops found himself pressing a fist against his forehead. “She really is, Dolly. She made a deal with a…Look, you just have to believe me. You have to believe that Harry’s out and I’m her friend and we’re trying to help you.”

  “If Harry’s out, how come she isn’t calling me?”

  “Because she’s working on another case.”

  “But you just said she…”

  Pops pulled the phone away from his ear, took another deep breath, let it out slow. One of the dogs raised its head and looked at him questioningly.

  There was clatter on the line. A buzzer, some shouting. Dolly didn’t speak for a long moment.

  “Dolly,” Pops said, a hand clasped over his eyes. “Do you think you could just tell me what happened? Harry says you must have gone to see Doctor Goldman right after she’d been there.”

  “Yeah, well, see, I didn’t think I needed to go. There was a big fight in the chow hall. I was lying under a table with my legs out, and while they were fighting someone stood on my ankle. It was just an accident. Wasn’t that bad. I thought I’d just walk it off. And then after a little while that wasn’t working so I thought I’d go see Doctor Goldman about it,” Dolly said. “I was coming up the hall just as they were taking Harry away. That’s why I figure she can’t be out because I only saw her like the day before yesterday. When did she get out?”

  “Yesterday. But try to focus on that day,” Pops said. “What happened when you went to see Doctor Goldman? Did she fix your ankle?”

  “She didn’t get time, really,” Dolly said. “She had some other girls in there from the fight. In the other room. She fixed them and sent them off. Then she came back to me. She said she thought it might be sprained. Then the alarm went off. A level-one lockdown.”

  “What did Doctor Goldman do when the alarms went off?”

  “Well, look, I didn’t see everything,” Dolly said. “I was on the floor. You’re supposed to get down during a lockdown. She made a phone call. No, wait, she got a phone call. Then she went out, locked me in the room. Came back a few minutes later bleeding everywhere.”

  “So she went out and locked the door. You just lay there the whole time.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where was she wounded?” Pops asked.

  “She was stabbed in the neck, I think. And in the chest too. She was stabbed three times. She couldn’t talk. I tried to ask her what happened but she didn’t tell me.” Dolly was almost panting, her voice rising with tension. “Man, it was bad. Bad bad bad.”

  �
�So you don’t know where she went after she got the phone call? You don’t know who she was speaking to?”

  “I told the lawyer all this stuff.”

  “Well tell me, would you?”

  “I don’t know.” Dolly seemed to try to regulate her breathing. “I can’t remember. The blood went everywhere. All over me. All over the floor. It just spread all around. Once I saw all the blood it was like my brain just blanked out.”

  Pops winced. Talk of “blanking out,” however firmly Dolly protested her innocence, would be snatched up by the prosecution in her case on what was certainly a recorded phone call. If Dolly “blanked out” and forgot details of what had happened during the ordeal, how could she trust her memory that she had not committed the murder?

  “So the alarm went off. Doctor Goldman got a phone call. She left the room, locked the door behind her, went out into the hall for a few seconds. Then she came back stabbed.”

  “That’s pretty much it.”

  “What did she say on the phone?”

  “I couldn’t really hear. The alarms…Plus it’s rude to listen in on people on the phone.”

  “So what happened next?”

  “The guards wanted to know where the knife went and I didn’t know,” Dolly said. “They stripsearched me for it.”

  “So they never found the knife?” Pops sat up on the couch.

  “Well, they were still asking me about it today. Like, an hour ago. So I guess not. It must have been a big one because there was a lot of blood. I mean a lot.”

  “Yes, you’ve said.”

  “The guards are really mad. They’re super-duper mad. Everybody is.”

  “Has anyone harmed you?” Pops asked. There was silence on the line. “Dolly, has anyone harmed you since you’ve been in ad seg?”

  There was a pause. “I better go,” Dolly said. “We’re outside call time.”

  With a click, she was gone.

  Chapter 33

  IF THERE WAS one thing in the world Tox didn’t like above all others, it was a kiss-arse. He understood the psychology behind it. It had proven an effective means of gaining power and protection from the moment the first remora fish spied the underbelly of a great white shark and thought, Hey, I have a crazy idea. But Detective Nigel Spader was that special kind of power-clinger who not only wanted to ride the big fish to paradise waters, but didn’t want anyone sharing the journey with him. Spader was a parasite, but Tox knew exchanging information in an investigation was essential, so he sat at the bar at Jangling Jack’s and tapped the counter to request a second whiskey before hitting the call button.