Carella tore the green wrapping from the package.
He was looking at what he expected was supposed to be a pear tree. He didn’t know if it was a real pear tree, but at any rate there were pears hanging on it. They weren’t real pears, but they were clearly pears. Little wooden pears hanging all over the tree.
There was also an envelope hanging on the tree.
The envelope was addressed to Detective Stephen Louis Carella.
He tore open the envelope.
The card inside read:
Carella searched the tree for a partridge.
A little package wrapped in red foil was hanging on the tree. Carella unwrapped the package. Something decorated with feathers was inside it. It was not a partridge, but it looked like a bird of some sort, feathers glued all over it. Chicken feathers, they looked like. But it was not a chicken either, too small for a chicken. He took a closer look.
The thing was a severed human ear.
Carella dropped it at once.
* * * *
On December 26, the second day of Christmas, two nightsticks arrived at the squadroom. They were wrapped in Christmas paper, and they were addressed to Carella.
The detectives looked at the nightsticks.
They did not appear to be new ones. Both of them were scarred and battered.
‘Still he could’ve bought them,’ Kling said.
In this city a police officer was responsible for the purchase of every piece of equipment he wore or carried, with the exception of his shield, which came free with the job—the pin used to hold the shield to the uniform cost him fifty cents. Each officer was given a yearly allowance of three hundred and seventy dollars for his uniform. He bought his own gun—usually a Colt .38 or a Smith & Wesson of the same caliber—and his own bullets—six in the gun and twelve on his belt—and his own whistle, which these days was selling for two dollars. He also bought his own shoes. A foot patrolman wore out at least two pairs of shoes a year. A two-foot-long wooden nightstick cost the police officer two dollars and fifty cents, plus another forty cents for the leather thong. His short rubber billy cost three dollars and fifty cents with—again—another forty cents for the thong. Handcuffs were currently selling for twenty-five dollars.
Most policemen bought their gear from the Police Equipment Bureau downtown near the Police Academy, but there were police supply stores all over the city. Kling himself was wearing a Detective Special he had bought in one of those stores. He’d had to identify himself when purchasing the pistol, but he’d bought uniform shirts and even handcuffs when he was a patrolman, and no one had even asked him his name. He was also wearing, at the moment, one of the ties Eileen Burke had bought him for Christmas. It was a very garish tie, but no one was looking at it. They were still looking at the nightsticks.
‘Better run them through for latents,’ Meyer said.
‘Won’t be any on them,’ Brown said.
‘I don’t get it,’ Carella said. ‘He sends us a note with two pictures of a nightstick on it, and then he sends us two nightsticks. Do you get it?’
He was addressing all of them, but only Hawes answered.
‘He’s crazy,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t have to make sense.’
‘So tomorrow we get three pairs of handcuffs, right? And the day after that...’
‘Let’s see what happens tomorrow,’ Meyer said.
* * * *
On December 27 they caught up with Arthur Drits.
Carella and Brown talked to him in the Interrogation Office.
Drits had been inside interrogation offices before. He knew that the mirror he faced was a one-way mirror, and he suspected that someone was sitting in the adjoining office, watching his every move. Actually the adjoining office was empty.
Brown laid it flat out.
‘What were you doing in Gruber’s department Store the night it was held up?’
‘This is the first I’m hearing of any holdup,’ Drits said.
‘You don’t read the papers?’ Carella said.
‘Not too often,’ Drits said.
What he read were the advertisements for children’s clothing, the ones showing little girls in short dresses.
‘You watch television?’ Brown asked.
‘I don’t have a television,’ Drits said.
‘So you don’t know Gruber’s was held up on Christmas Eve, is that right?’
‘I just heard it from you a minute ago.’
‘You know anybody named Elizabeth Turner?’
‘No.’
‘She used to work in the cashier’s office at Gruber’s.’
They had already confirmed this with the personnel manager. Elizabeth Turner had begun working there on August 8 and had left the job on October 7—seventeen days before her murder.
‘Never heard of her,’ Drits said.
‘How about Dennis Dove?’
‘Him neither.’
‘Charlie Henkins?’
Drits blinked.
‘Ring a bell?’ Brown said.
‘Yeah,’ Drits said.
‘Met him at Castleview, didn’t you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Where you were doing time for First-Degree Rape.’
‘So they said.’
‘See him again since you got out?’
‘No.’
‘How about Christmas Eve? Did you see Henkins on Christmas Eve?’
‘No.’
‘Were you in the sixth-floor men’s room at Gruber’s on Christmas Eve?’
‘Yeah?’ Drits said, looking puzzled.
‘Did you see a Santa Claus in the men’s room?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Did he look like Henkins?’
‘No, he looked like Santa Claus.’
‘That was Henkins.’
‘Coulda fooled me,’ Drits said.
‘What were you doing in the men’s room at Gruber’s?’ Brown asked.
‘Washing my face. This guy come out of the booth, the stall there, he was wearing a Santa Claus suit same as me. I nearly shit.’
‘You were wearing a Santa Claus suit, too?’ Carella said.
‘Well, sure.’
The detectives looked at each other. They thought Charlie Henkins had been lying about Drits and the Santa Claus suit, but now...
‘As part of the job?’ Brown asked.
‘Sure.’
‘The holdup called for two guys in Santa Claus suits?’
‘What?’ Drits said.
‘What the fuck were you doing in a Santa Claus suit?’ Brown asked.
‘I worked for the store,’ Drits said. ‘I was the store’s Santa Claus.’