The Man Who Cast Two Shadows by Carol O'Connell

Author:Carol O'Connell [O'Connell, Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2010-09-07T04:00:00+00:00

The Amanda Bosch file had an honored place in the top layer of the mess on Riker’s desk. He was fumbling through the contents of a lower drawer, fingers grasping what he thought were recent park-site photos. But he had gone too far in his haphazard method of filing, and now he held the snapshots he had taken at Kathy’s graduation from the police academy.

There was Helen Markowitz, smiling broadly, not realizing the cancer in her body was already planning to cut her life short in one more year. Markowitz had never really recovered from the loss. If not for Kathy, he might have followed Helen years sooner.

It had always angered Riker to think back on Helen’s death and how quietly she had gone to it, sedated, unprotesting. The hospital gurney wheels had whispered Markowitz’s wife into that sterile operating room, and only the body had come wheeling back to them. She had slipped under the surgeon’s knife and slipped away.

There should have been more noise to mark the event. In low tones, the doctor had told Markowitz and Kathy how sorry he was. Unspoken were the words The show’s over. And so Markowitz and Kathy had sat together on a cheap plastic couch in the terrible silence of that waiting room, two unimportant people in the aftermath of an event which had not been properly called to an end. It was a play which tapered off to a mumble and had no curtain to tell the audience it was time to go home.

Riker understood what Kathy had meant when she turned to him then and said, “This is a rip-off.” It was.

Now someone was standing before Riker’s desk, not wanting to interrupt a thought, only politely waiting with just the minimum of shuffling noise to announce himself.

Riker knew only one person who was that polite. It was no surprise to look up into the smiling face of Charles Butler. And this was another reminder of an old friend. Markowitz’s smile had no such loony aspect, but, as with Charles, one tended to smile back, regardless of grim thoughts and small heartaches.

“Pull up a chair, Charles. You waiting around for Mallory?”

“No. Jack Coffey invited me in for a little chat about Amanda Bosch.”

“He probably thinks Mallory’s holding out on him. She probably is. But then, to be fair, Coffey holds out on Mallory, and I hold out on both of them. We’re a very dysfunctional family, we three. You didn’t rat her out, did you?”

“Of course not.”

So Mallory was holding out.

“What can I do for you, Charles?”

“Coffey tells me it was your idea to give this case to Mallory. May I ask why?”

“Because of Amanda Bosch. When a kid dies young like that one, there ought to be some fanfare, you know? Sicking Mallory on the perp was the worst thing I could think of doing to him.”

“But it’s dangerous.”

“If she’s right about him, she only has to flush him out. If she’s wrong, she may have to shoot him.”

“You’re not worried about her?”

“No,” he lied, because he really liked Charles.

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