Free The Chalk Girl by Carol O'Connell Page B

stopped at the drugstore. I fell asleep in the car. When I woke up, we were at Uncle Red’s house. It was dark outside, and his hair was brown. Then he had himself delivered to the park.’ Coco excused herself to wash hands, her euphemism for a run to the toilet.
    Down the hall, the bathroom door closed. The front door opened, and Charles Butler walked into his apartment, carryingthree newspapers. He entered the kitchen in time to hear Mallory say to her partner, ‘That kid was snatched.’
    ‘How do you figure?’ Riker laid down his fork. ‘Most perverts dye the
kid’s
hair. This guy dyed his own. Sounds more like Uncle Red was on the run from somebody he knew. That fits with him getting strung up in the Ramble.’
    Mallory flipped a pancake onto Riker’s plate, then traded the coffeepot to Charles in exchange for the newspapers, otherwise ignoring him as she spoke to her partner. ‘Two people with red hair, that’s a problem – that’s a detail for an Amber Alert. But he couldn’t bring himself to dye Coco’s hair. I say the creep had a thing for little redheads.
That’s
why he took her.’ She pulled a bill from the pocket of her jeans and showed it to him. ‘This twenty says Uncle Red’s no relation to Coco.’
    ‘You’re on.’ Riker turned a broad smile on their host. ‘What about you?’
    ‘No bet. I already know the answer.’ Charles filled three cups from the percolator, which he prized above a computerized coffeemaker that Mallory had given him one Christmas. That gift had been yet another of her failed efforts to introduce this man to a new century.
    Riker sipped the brew and pronounced it wonderful. He glanced at the headlines as Mallory laid the newspapers down on the table next to his plate. One by one, he summarized the front-page stories: ‘Flesh-eating rats for the
Post
, more rats for the
Daily
,’ and ‘Oh, shit!’ for the
Times
, which carried a picture of the second hanging tree and two uniformed officers.
    ‘It’s all there,’ said Mallory, ‘the bodies, the bags, ropes – everything except Coco.’ She glanced at the clock on the wall. The man in charge of CSU would be reading his own newspaper right about now, and so would their boss, Lieutenant Coffey.
    Riker attacked the remainder of his pancakes, his final mealbefore the war over
misplaced
evidence. Chewing and swallowing, he continued his argument for Uncle Red as a blood relation instead of a child snatcher. ‘Dr Slope didn’t find any sign of molestation when he examined Coco.’
    ‘The pervert and the kid were still in the getting-to-know-you stage.’ Mallory sat down to a cup of coffee. ‘I bet Uncle Red didn’t have a clue about the Williams syndrome.’
    ‘But neither did Coco,’ said Charles. ‘She told me she was home-schooled by her grandmother. So the old lady – Coco says she’s a hundred and ninety-one – she evidently realized there was something odd about her granddaughter, but she didn’t have a diagnosis. I’ll tell you how I know that.’
    At this point on any other day, one of the detectives would be bearing down on Charles, all but telling him at gunpoint to cut it short; but Mallory was sipping coffee, and Riker was still in the thrall of pancake rapture.
    ‘Coco’s never heard of the syndrome,’ said Charles. ‘If her grandmother had gotten the right diagnosis, there would’ve been special educational materials in the house. And the child would’ve noticed that. Her reading level is very advanced. She’s read Dickens. Isn’t that marvelous? And Coco tells me there were lots of pamphlets and books about rats. Her grandmother must’ve had a strong interest—’
    ‘Okay.’ Riker’s fork clattered to the plate. His last morsel was eaten, and now he rolled one hand to speed up the lecture. ‘Get to the part where the kid meets up with Uncle Red.’
    And a childish voice said, ‘That was the day I couldn’t wake my granny.’ Coco stood in the doorway. ‘Granny was all