He walked down the stairs to the street, and as he neared the entrance of the building he glanced at the nameplates on the mailboxes. One of them brought the colored glass into rigid focus in his mind. It was printed neatly in black type: “Institute for Chinese Studies – Gustave Lamprey, Director.”
And it was that chance connection – the vague familiarity of the deep red color of glass, and the sudden memory from twenty years before of the minor arrest of a man with an odd name and an obsession with things Chinese – that had led Reardon to a chain of evidence and an airtight case that had made him famous among his peers.
A one-in-a-million chance, Reardon thought again. He did not believe that any sudden revelations would come forth to solve the case of the fallow deer. It was, he knew, the more mundane details that broke a case, or incriminating evidence left at the scene, or obvious motive, or, better yet, eyewitnesses. In the deer case there was none of these. There was only the crime itself, its brutal details, and a floating cryptogram of numbers: fifty-seven, one, two.
14
When he arrived at the precinct house on Monday morning Reardon was informed that the weapon thought to have been used in the killing of the fallow deer had been discovered. It was Piccolini who told him, a delighted smile decorating his face. Even his office seemed to have taken on an airiness Reardon had never noticed.
“Who found it?” Reardon asked.
“Trash detail.”
“Where’d they find it?”
“In a sewer under Fifth Avenue.”
“Fifth Avenue?” Reardon was surprised. “I expected the killer to head out through the park, not on to Fifth Avenue.”
“Yeah,” Piccolini said, “me too. But maybe we’re dealing with a guy who’s not too sophisticated. A nut.” Piccolini smiled. “I think we’ve got him. If he was crazy enough to run up on Fifth Avenue, then he’s crazy enough to have left his fingerprints. The lab’s checking for ’em now.”
“What was the weapon?” Reardon asked.
“A double-edged ax. But there’s more than that. It was a Parks Department ax. Had ‘Property of New York City’ written on it!”
Petrakis, Reardon thought. “I’m going to put out an all-points bulletin on Andros Petrakis,” he said.
“He shouldn’t be hard to find,” Piccolini said. “A person at loose ends like that, crazy and all, he’ll leave a trail a blind man could follow. We’ll have him in custody by the end of the week.”
“Unless the ax points to someone else.”
“Not likely. He hated Van Allen and so he took a Parks Department ax and killed those deer to get even.” Piccolini smiled. “He should have known that nobody gets even with a guy like Wallace Van Allen. Nobody. No way.”
“Have the Van Allens been told about the ax?” Reardon asked.
“For sure. They get a daily report on the case.”
“Well, hold back a few details for Christ’s sake,” Reardon said irritably. “I mean, this is a criminal investigation. You need to hold back some details.”
Piccolini looked up. “Look, I know what I’m doing in this case. And we’re going to break this case. And it’s going to stick. Personally, I think we’ve got our man, and that’s all there is to it. This thing will be wrapped up by the end of the week.”
“What about the women?” Reardon asked.
Piccolini looked at Reardon quizzically. “What women?”
“The women in the Village.”
“Oh,” Piccolini said, “those women. Well, I don’t know. Probably no connection there.”
“I think there is,” Reardon said, convincing himself of it.
Piccolini looked at Reardon scornfully. “You know, you’re really somethin’, John. At first you didn’t think there was a connection. No reason, you just didn’t think so. Now you think there is. Do you have a reason?”
“Only what you know.”
“Only the same number of wounds on the bodies of the deer and the women, right?”
“That’s right,” Reardon admitted. “And the numbers.”
“Forget about the numbers. That doesn’t mean anything. And you know as well as I do that pathologists have a hard time determining exactly how many wounds are deliberately inflicted on a victim. They come up with a guess, really. And by coincidence they came up with the same guesses for the deer and the women in the Village. To tell you the truth, I don’t think it means a thing. So drop the connection between the cases.”
Reardon glared at Piccolini.
“I mean it,” Piccolini said. “Drop it! You just keep yourself busy finding that little Greek guy. It’s ridiculous that he hasn’t been located yet. Ridiculous! And I want him! Fast!”
Reardon turned to leave.
“And, John,” Piccolini said, “maybe you didn’t take a long enough vacation.”
“I’ll tell you when I need a vacation,” Reardon snapped.
“Think about it,” Piccolini said, “think about it real good. My reading of the situation downtown tells me that they’re not too happy with the way you’re handling this case.”
“Then let them tell me,” Reardon said.
“Just think about it,” Piccolini said, “think about it real good.”
Reardon did not know why he thought there was a connection between the killing of the fallow deer and the murders of Karen Ortovsky and Lee McDonald. Piccolini had been right when he pointed out the inexactitude of the pathologist’s report. There was also a problem in determining how many wounds were direct thrusts on the part of the assailant and how many were defensive wounds caused by the victim’s attempts to protect herself from the attacker.
Reardon decided to check out the most obvious connection first; later that afternoon he called the Department of Buildings and confirmed that the building in which the two women had lived, like Petrakis’ building, was owned by Wallace Van Allen.
“Do you think that makes a connection?” Reardon asked Mathesson. They were at Reardon’s desk, Mathesson leaning against it, a cup of coffee in his hand.
“Not an important one,” Mathesson said. “Wallace Van Allen owns half the city. It could be a coincidence, but maybe not. Maybe Petrakis didn’t get enough revenge by killing the deer. Maybe he went after human victims. But I get the feeling you’re not going after Petrakis.”
“What do you mean?” Reardon asked.
Mathesson looked as if he did not want to answer. He took a quick sip from the coffee cup. “I get the feeling that you’re after somebody else,” he said. “Some other killer. Maybe Wallace Van Allen himself.”
“I would never do that,” Reardon said.
“Well, don’t you think Petrakis did it, killed those deer?”
“He may have. But he may have killed Karen Ortovsky and Lee McDonald too.”
“Why?”
“For the same reason you said. Maybe he’s completely crazy. Maybe he intends to kill someone in every building Van Allen owns.”
“You don’t think he’s crazy enough to believe he can bring down Van Allen’s empire by scaring everybody who lives in one of his buildings, do you?”
“If he’s insane, he could believe anything,” Reardon said.
“Van Allen would hire an army before he’d let that happen.”
“Of course he would,” Reardon said, “and any sane person would know that. But what if this Petrakis is insane? Couldn’t he have an idea like that? And do we have to wait till somebody else gets chopped up in one of Van Allen’s buildings to do something about it?”
Mathesson laughed and draped his arm affectionately around Reardon’s shoulders. “I don’t know, John,” he said. “I don’t know about you and your theories.”
For a long time Reardon sat at his desk going over the investigation to see if Mathesson could be right, if he really had been aiming the investigation away from Petrakis. It was true that, having met him, he did not like Wallace Van Allen very much. But Van Allen’s condescension toward him was not noticeably different from that which he had experienced from others like Van Allen in the past. Perhaps he did have an added measure of hostility toward Van Allen because the man had been able to pull him off homicide and put him on the deer case. Still, he did not believe he was “after” Van Allen. In thirty years on the force he had never been “after” anyone.