The detective knew he was facing his ultimate challenge, the very reason that had led him to become a cop and felt deep in his bones that it was his destiny had led him to this night.
He was ready.
The crowd in front of the Plaza Hotel was so thick that for a moment, Cody lost sight of his quarry on Central Park South.
And Charley lost the scent in the onslaught of horse manure from the lined-up tourist carriages.
But it wasn’t long before Charley got them back on track, picking up the man’s scent again on the north side of CPS. Cody had to race to keep up with the big shepherd, who was leading him to the entrance to the Park that Hamilton had chosen.?
The moment they entered the Park, he heard the call.
“Oo-oo-whoee,” the owl cried twice.
It will rain. Soon.
Cody could smell rain in the air. He glanced at the sky. Storm clouds were indeed gathering.
They were now walking alongside the Pond, the dilapidated fence around it marred by jagged gaps because the city couldn’t afford to keep it in repair. At its northwest branch, they lost sight of Hamilton again.
As Charley sniffed back and forth at the fence, bewildered, Cody squatted down to figure out how Hamilton had disappeared before their eyes.
If you are not sure which trail to take, think about who you are. Think of it as a crossroads with four directions. Maybe a creature will talk to you.
High in the air above him, the peregrine falcon issued a screech, and Cody looked up and listened, seeming to understand. “Listen with your eyes,” he repeated Old Man’s words from his boyhood-the words that had led to his career as the most successful detective in New York.
“Thank you, brother falcon,” he said.
Then he felt Charley pulling at the leash, wanting to go through the gap in the fence.
The falcon shrieked again, and Charley pulled all the harder.
The creatures talk to each other, Cody remembered, his eyes continuing to scan every inch of the terrain.
Then he saw them.
They were tucked beneath a low-lying bush: Hamilton’s highly-polished black shoes. The writer had crossed the wire fence, left his shoes where they would stay dry, then continued to skirt the circumference in his stocking feet.
Cody knelt to study the footprints in the nearly-dried mud. He brushed the leaves away from the faint tracks.
His pulse quickened as he spotted the miniscule green fiber left behind in one of the prints.
Hamilton wasn’t in stocking feet; he was wearing surgical booties stolen from the Bellevue supply closet where Kate and Rizzo found the body of Dr. Song Wiley.
Now Charley was on the hunt in earnest, heading north to the end of the Pond.
Suddenly the wolves howling from the zoo added eeriness to the dark night that was filled with the shadows of Halloween revelers haunting the Park in all directions. They are telling us we’re on the right track, Cody thought.
Cody’s eyes picked up Hamilton’s faint footprints as they turned into a narrow path into the heavy brush.
Charley was barking, and nothing Cody could do would stop him until he was satisfied Cody got his message.
Another set of footsteps, these significantly shorter and smaller, mixed with Hamilton’s. Cody’s hunch was right. Victoria had arrived in the Park to join her lover. Tonight would be two for the price of one.
Somehow Cody could interpret Charley’s excited low growl to mean that his sensitive nose had picked up this second scent before. It would have to be the same scent he’d followed to La Venezia’s parking lot on the morning after Uncle Tony’s murder.
Charley stopped barking and looked at Cody to follow.
Cody’s eyes listened to the footsteps.
The larger ones were slightly fresher than the smaller. The woman’s prints were firmly set, and dryer; whereas minute water bubbles were still seeping into the man’s.
The two people whose trail he and Charley were following were not walking together.
Ward Lee Hamilton was tailing Victoria Mansfield, the larger prints trailing behind the smaller.
Judging from the prints, about eighty feet behind. Stalking her!
There was no longer a single doubt in Cody’s mind that Androg had been the two of them, working together.
And that now their deadly game had turned into a final stalking contest in Central Park!
The detective well knew the TAZ procedures. After all, he had written them.
He knew he should call for backup.
He pulled his cell phone from his jacket pocket.
And turned it off.
Because the warrior also recognized that this was personal.
The murders had been orchestrated specifically to test him.?
As they moved from the bushy terrain into a tiny clearing Charley’s barking reached a new peak of intensity.
From the east and uptown, the wolves howled in response.
Cody studied the ground until he saw what they were telling him.
The tracks were diverging. Ward was no longer following Victoria. His moved off to the right as hers continued to the left.
What did that tell him?
He stood still for a moment, breathing in the sensations of the night-the distant cacophony of traffic, the slight rustle of leaves, the earthy smell of foliage greeting ozone-allowing his instincts to sharpen.
He made his decision.
He followed the woman’s tracks, careful to keep eyes in back of his head as he moved forward. If he was flanking his lover, Cody would encounter them both at the ambush.
Or be lured into a pincer trap.
A surprise is not a surprise if you know about it in advance.
Cody thought of signaling Larry Simon for backup, but, once again, left his phone in his pocket.
He would finish this alone.
For this game of stalking was meant to involve him as well as them.
If he was right about Androg’s m.o., Number One was Raymond Handley, not Melinda Cramer; she was nothing more than practice. Androg’s numbering system was meant to be sequential, an Unholy Week of Death. Number Two was Uncle Tony, Number Three Steamroller Jackson, Number Four Song Wiley, and Numbers Five, Six, and Seven? Well, Cody himself would probably count for one of them in Androg’s demented calculus that, like it or not, Androg had involved him in.
The next victim could be Cody, or one of them. He reached inside his pocket and ran his finger along the edge of his knife. It was razor sharp. A dull knife’s about as a good as a broken leg.
Sometimes the hunter is better served by waiting than by chasing.
But who was the hunter here?
Was Hamilton waiting, waiting for his prey, expecting him-or his lover-to follow. Expecting them to walk into his trap?
The tracks had been almost too clear, too easy.
Maybe he was the cheese in the trap, and Hamilton was circling behind him-stalking into the mouth of death?
Both bent on making Cody Number Five.
He was confusing himself, forced himself to stop thinking. To see, hear, smell, taste, touch-nothing else.
Victoria’s tracks led to an opening burrowed beneath an arcing tupelo about ten yards away.
He waited. Listened. Reached his hand out to touch the oak’s dry bark which was thirstily enjoying the winter rain.
Patience is the virtue of the hunter.
He waited while above him storm clouds continued to gather. Though it must be near dawn by now, it was getting even darker.
A massive jagged flash of lightning was followed by a loud crack of thunder so close it startled even the flapless Cody. He was sure it must have hit a tree nearby.
But he kept his focus on the hole. Perhaps the rabbit had left her house? Perhaps he was wasting his time. But his instincts told him the rabbit was waiting patiently for the fox. If he waited, he would catch them both.
Then he heard a sound.
The rabbit peered over the edge of the hole. Victoria looked around, stuck her head up a little farther. He could see her now clearly above the hole.