The Judas Child by Carol O'Connell Page A

have stood five feet ten on his tallest day, but the permanent slouch had made him inches shorter in middle age. Small in the bones and introspective in demeanor, he seemed better suited to academic work.
    Yet when Costello addressed his troops en masse, his voice took on a workingman’s character, a rough and colorful vocabulary so at odds with his physique and the bow tie. In more personal conferences, rumor had it, he could cut off a larger man’s balls in ten words or less.
    Rouge wondered if this came naturally, or was it art?
    Captain Costello slapped a newspaper down on the secretary’s desk with the crack of a rifle shot. Marge jumped, Rouge didn’t; he was staring down at a five-year-old photograph of himself in the baseball uniform of the Yankees rookie league. The headline said, “Local Hero.” A companion photograph showed him carrying Sadie Green’s bicycle.
    Now Costello held up the arrest report with Phil Chapel’s signature at the bottom. “Why didn’t you make out this report, Kendall?” The captain’s words were vaguely threatening.
    “It was Phil Chapel’s arrest. I just carried the bike for him.”
    Costello shook his head. “Miss Fowler set the reporters straight on who did what and why.” The threatening tone was not vague anymore. “I really hate this, Kendall. From now on, you report directly to me, and you report every damn thing you do. You can start with an accurate arrest report. Then I wanna talk to you.”
    When the door to the private office had slammed shut, Marge put one hand on Rouge’s shoulder. “It’s not as bad as you think.” She opened her appointment calendar. “See this? I got you down for an applicant interview. That’s what he wants to see you about. It’s a transfer to the State Police and a promotion.” Now she waved his mouth shut. “It doesn’t matter if you never filed the application. It wouldn’t be on his desk unless he asked for it. So you’re going to be a baby BCI investigator. Okay?”
    She handed him a sheaf of papers. “That’s your report. I got all the facts from Miss Fowler’s interview. Just sign it and wait ten minutes before you hand it in. If you don’t pretend you typed it yourself, you’ll jerk him out of shape again.”
    “Thanks, Marge.”
    “Anything else I can do for you?”
    “I need to find a woman.”
    “I’m not easy, Rouge. I have to be seduced. I want flowers.”
    “She’s tall, brunette—”
    “I can do brunette. But I look better as a blonde.”
    “The trooper at the desk said she was in here yesterday, but he didn’t get her name on the logbook. She’s got a scar on the right cheek. It runs down to her mouth. Looks like she’s always smiling on one side.”
    “I’ve seen her.” Marge shook her head in mock wonder. “God, did she turn heads in this place. I don’t know what got the most attention, the face or that skirt. It’s slit up to—”
    “Where can I find her?”
    “You’ll see her tomorrow at the briefing.” Marge looked down at her appointment calendar. “She’s giving a lecture to the task force at ten o’clock. But you should think this through, Rouge. In my experience, nice girls wear panty hose.”
     
    “So what do you think of our Ali now?” The prisoner addressed the shadow lying underneath his bed. He found great peace in merely sitting on the floor, leaning back against the cool wall and staring into that patch of darkness.
    It was insane to regard a shadow as a sentient being. Or perhaps the young were onto something when they suspected their own beds of harboring entities; the children all knew they were not alone in the dark. And now Paul Marie knew it, too.
    The shadow understood things about children, and little girls in particular. The thing under the bed had absorbed all the guilt of the prisoners in neighboring cells as well as their extensive knowledge. It was always awake to their confessions, so the priest might sleep through the long nights of whispered