But there was no pattern-at least none he could discern. Each mass killer, of tens, hundreds, reputedly thousands, was an individual and had apparently acted from unique motives. If there was any pattern it existed solely in each man: the modus operandi remained identical, the weapon the same. And in almost every case, the period between killings became progressively shorter. The killer was caught up in a crescendo: more! more! faster! faster!
One other odd fact: the mass killer was invariably male.
There were a few isolated cases of women who had killed several times; the Ohio Pig Woman was one, the Beck-Fernandez case involved another. But the few female mass murderers seemed motivated by desire for financial gain. The males were driven by wild longings, insane furies, mad passions.
The light faded; he switched on the reading lamp. Mary stopped by to say good-night, and he followed her into the hall to double-lock and chain the front door behind her. He returned to his reading, still trying to find a pattern, a repeated cause-effect, searching for the percentages.
It was almost five in the evening when the front doorbell chimed. He put aside the article he was reading-a fascinating analysis of Hitler as a criminal rather than a political leader-and went out into the hallway again. He switched on the stoop light, peered out the etched glass panel alongside the door. Christopher Langley was standing there, a neat white shopping bag in one hand. Delaney unlocked the door.
“Captain!” Langley cried anxiously. “I hope I’m not disturbing you? But I didn’t want to call, and since it was on my way home, I thought I’d take the chance and-”
“You’re not disturbing me. Come in, come in.”
“Gee, what a marvelous house!”
“Old, but comfortable.”
They went into the lighted study.
“Captain, I’ve got-”
“Wait, just a minute. Please, let me get you a drink. Anything?”
“Sherry?”
“At the moment, I’m sorry to say, no. But I have some dry vermouth. Will that do?”
“Oh, that’s jim-dandy. No ice. Just a small glass, please.” Delaney went over to his modest liquor cabinet, poured Langley a glass of vermouth, took a rye for himself. He handed Langley his wine, got him settled in the leather club chair. He retreated a few steps out of the circle of light cast by the reading lamp and stood in the gloom.
“Your health, sir.”
“And yours. And your wife’s.”
“Thank you.”
They both sipped.
“Well,” Delaney said, “how did you make out?”
“Oh, Captain, I was a fool, such a fool! I didn’t do the obvious thing, the thing I should have done in the first place.”
“I know,” Delaney smiled, thinking of Occam’s Razor again. “I’ve done that many times. What happened?”
“Well, as I told you at the hospital, I had gone through the Yellow Pages and made a list of hobby shops in the midtown area, places that might sell a rock hound’s hammer with a tapered pick. The Widow Zimmerman and I had lunch-I had stuffed sole: marvelous-and then we started walking around. We covered six different stores, and none of them carried rock hammers. Some of them didn’t even know what I was talking about. I could tell Myra was getting tired, so I put her in a cab and sent her home. She is preparing dinner for me tonight. By the by, she’s an awful cook. I thought I’d try a few more stores before calling it a day. The next one on my list was Abercrombie amp; Fitch. And of course they carried a rock hound’s hammer. It was so obvious! It’s the largest store of its kind in the city, and I should have tried them first. That’s why I say I was a fool. Anyway, here it is.”
He leaned over, pulled the tool from his white shopping bag, handed it to Captain Delaney.
The hammer was still in its vacuum-packed plastic coating, and the cardboard backing stated it was a “prospector’s ax recommended for rock collectors and archeologists.” Like the bricklayers’ hammer, it had a wood handle and steel head. One side of the head was a square hammer. The other side was a pick, about four inches long. It started out as a square, then tapered to a sharp point. The tool came complete with a leather holster, enabling it to be worn on a belt. The whole thing was about as long as a hatchet: a one-handed implement.
“Notice the taper of the pick,” Langley pointed out. “It comes to a sharp point, but still the pick itself does not curve downward. The upper surface curves, but the lower surface is almost horizontal, at right angles to the handle. And, of course, it has a wooden handle. But still, it’s closer to what we’re looking for-don’t you think?”
“No doubt about it,” Delaney said definitely. “If that pick had a downward curve, I’d say this is it. May I take off the plastic covering?”
“Of course.”
“You’re spending a lot of money.”
“Nonsense.”
Delaney stripped off the clear plastic covering and hefted the ax in his hand.
“This is almost it,” he nodded. “A tapered spike coming to a sharp point. About an inch across at the base of the pick. And with enough weight to crush a man’s skull. Easily. Maybe this really is it. I’d like to show it to the police surgeon who did the Lombard autopsy.”
“No, no,” Christopher Langley protested. “I haven't told you the whole story. That’s why I stopped by tonight. I bought this in the camping department, and I was on my way out to the elevators. I passed through a section where they sell skiing and mountain climbing gear. You know, rucksacks and crampons and pitons and things like that. And there, hanging on the wall, was something very interesting. It was an implement I’ve never seen before. It was about three feet long, a two-handed tool. I ruled it out immediately as our weapon: too cumbersome to conceal. And the handle was wood. At the butt end was a sharp steel spike, about three inches long, fitted into the handle. But it was the head that interested me. It was apparently chrome-plated steel. On one side was a kind of miniature mattock coming to a sharp cutting edge, a chisel edge. And the other side was exactly what we’re looking for! It was a spike, a pick, about four or five inches long. It started out from the head as a square, about an inch on each side. Then it was formed into a triangle with a sharp edge on top and the base an inch across. Then the whole thing tapered, and as it thinned, it curved downward. Captain, the whole pick curved downward, top and bottom! It came to a sharp point, so sharp in fact that the tip was covered with a little rubber sleeve to prevent damage when the implement wasn’t being used. I removed the rubber protector, and the underside of the tip had four little saw teeth. It’s serrated, for cutting. I finally got a clerk and asked him what this amazing tool was called. He said it’s an ice ax, I asked him what it was used for, and he-”
“What?” Delaney cried. “What did you say?”
“I asked the clerk what it was used-”
“No, no,” the Captain said impatiently. “What did the clerk say it was called?”
“It’s an ice ax.”
“Jesus Christ,” Delaney breathed. “Leon Trotsky. Mexico City. Nineteen-forty.”
“What? Captain, I don’t understand.”
“Leon Trotsky. He was a refuge from Stalin’s Russia-or perhaps he escaped or was deported; I don’t remember exactly; I’ll have to look it up. Trotsky and Lenin and Stalin were equals at one time. Then Lenin died. Then Stalin wanted to be Numero Uno. So Trotsky got out of Russia, somehow, and made his way to Mexico City. They caught up with him in nineteen-forty. At least it was said the assassin was an agent of the Russian Secret Police. I don’t recall the details. But he killed Trotsky with an ice ax.”
“Surely you don’t think there’s any connection between that and Frank Lombard’s death?”