Blood Innocents (21 page)

Cardan was thunderstruck. His eyes widened in frenzied disbelief. “What!”

“You have a right to remain silent,” Reardon began.

“You can't do that,” Cardan exclaimed, his whole body trembling.

“Who are your clients?”

“No! I can't tell you that!”

“You have a right to an attorney,” Reardon began again, his voice growing louder.

Cardan's eyes filled with tears. “That will ruin me,” he pleaded. “For God's sake, I'm an attorney.”

“Who are your clients?” Reardon asked again.

“Please! Please!” Cardan sputtered.

Reardon stopped. “Who are your clients?” he asked menacingly.

Breathlessly Cardan replied, “No more than ten or twelve people, that's all.”

“I want them all,” Reardon said.

Cardan frantically pulled a notebook from his coat pocket and began scribbling down the names. When he had finished he tore out the page and handed it to Reardon. “Here,” he said.

Reardon grabbed the paper from his hand and looked at it. “This had better be all of them.”

“It is,” Cardan assured him, unnecessarily straightening his tie.

“If I find out that you left anybody off this list, I'll break your ass,” Reardon said. “I'll hang you out to dry, do you understand what I'm telling you?”

“No one is left off,” Cardan said. “You have my word.”

“You may be hearing from me again,” Reardon said, “after each of these people has been contacted.”

“Wait!” Cardan exclaimed. “You can't contact them!”

Reardon began to walk away.

Cardan grabbed Reardon's arm and forcefully pulled him around. “You have to keep this in confidence. You said this would be in confidence!”

Reardon grabbed Cardan by his collar and pulled his face close to his own. “Sue me!” he said angrily, and threw Cardan backward with such force that the man stumbled to the ground.

As Reardon walked back across the Sheep Meadow he looked at the list Phillip Cardan had given him. One name gaped before him like a bloody mouth: Wallace Van Allen.

“Wallace Van Allen? Are you crazy?” Mathesson said in a voice so loud that several people in the precinct house turned toward him.

Reardon waited for the people in the precinct house to return their attention to whatever they had been doing before Mathesson's outburst. Then he handed Mathesson the list Cardan had given him.

Mathesson took the list and stared at it expressionlessly for a moment. He seemed to be studying it. Finally he looked up from the paper and glanced quickly left and right to make sure that he and Reardon could not be overheard.

“So what?” he said. “There are nine or ten other names on this list.”

“But it's a connection,” Reardon said.

“Bullshit,” Mathesson said. “It's just a coincidence. Nothing else. But we've got a solid case against that little Petrakis creep.”

“What about the women?”

Mathesson laughed. “So Wallace Van Allen gets his jollies by watching a couple of broads eat each other out. So what? There're so many guys like that, they'd have to hold their convention in Yankee Stadium.” He looked at the list in Reardon's hand. “Those fucking names don't mean a goddamn thing.”

“Are you telling me you don't believe the women and the deer were killed by the same man?”

Mathesson shrugged. “How the hell do I know?”

Reardon could not believe what he was hearing. “What about the blows and the numbers, that roman numeral two and the other one, dos?”

Mathesson dismissed the connection. “Go ask a gypsy fortune teller,” he said.

“They were killed by the same man,” Reardon said decisively.

“Maybe,” Mathesson said.

“How did Petrakis get in the apartment of those two women?” Reardon asked. “What would they have to do with a guy like him?”

“You're wearing me out, John,” Mathesson said. “What exactly are you trying to say?”

“Until now there were two connections between the deer killings and the murders,” Reardon said. “The number of blows in each case, and the dos and roman numeral two thing. Now there's a third connection, and that's Wallace Van Allen.”

“You're going after Van Allen, aren't you?” Mathesson said.

“I'm following leads.”

“You're creating leads.”

Reardon took the list from Mathesson's hand. Mathesson stared at the list sadly, as if it were a document of sadness, a death certificate for a brilliant career. “It's being noticed by more people than me,” he said.

“What is?”

“The way you're going after Van Allen.” Mathesson stared bluntly at Reardon as if defying him to deny it.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“What did you say to Van Allen when you talked to him that time in his penthouse?”

“I asked some questions.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Just questions,” Reardon said. “Mostly he did the talking.”

“Well, I don't know what you said but you got him real edgy.”

“What do you mean?”

“That's why Piccolini figured he had the authority to knock you off this case without getting reprimanded from downtown. Because Van Allen had already complained about you in a way.”

“What way?”

“Well, he asked the people downtown if you were having him followed.”

“If I was having him followed?” Reardon asked incredulously.

“That's right. Right after you talked to him. That night after you talked to him.”

Reardon thought for a moment. “I talked to him on Tuesday afternoon,” he said.

“That's right,” Mathesson said, “and he called up on Wednesday morning and asked if you were having him tailed like a common crook. He said he was sure somebody'd been following him on Tuesday night.”

Tuesday night, Reardon thought. “Wasn't that the night the women in the Village were murdered?”

“That's right,” Mathesson said. “That's a good way to identify it.”

So Wallace Van Allen thought he was being followed, Reardon thought. Why?

He decided to question Lee's and Karen's neighbor, Mrs. Malloy, again. He found her at her apartment amid the same tangle of Ziegfeld memorabilia. He suspected she had lived amidst it most of her life, the only legacy of her dead mother.

Her eyes brightened when she saw him at the door. “Detective Reardon,” she said. “I didn't expect to see you again. Come in.”

She opened the door widely. “Have a seat. Can I offer you a toddy?”

“No, thanks,” Reardon said. He removed a pile of old movie magazines and sat down in a chair opposite Mrs. Malloy. “I just have a few questions for you,” he said.

“Shoot.”

Reardon took his notebook out of his pocket and reviewed it for a moment. “You said that you saw Miss Ortovsky and Miss McDonald about three A.M., is that right?”

“Yes,” she said. “Sure you wouldn't like something? Anything? Coffee?”

“No, thank you. I just have a few things to straighten out. Probably doesn't mean anything. Just for my own curiosity, you might say.”

“Well, all right,” Mrs. Malloy said. “Suit yourself.”

“When you saw the three people going up to the women's apartment that night,” Reardon said, “did you see anybody following them?”

Mrs. Malloy thought a moment. “Well, I don't think so,” she said finally.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Yes, I'm sure.”

“You said you left your apartment not long after they all went upstairs. On your way out of the building, did you see anyone who looked like he might be following them, or coming up to their apartment?”

Mrs. Malloy thought for a moment. “Well, at about eleven o'clock I heard someone knock at their door. There was a knock, some voices, then one of the women spoke to the man for a while, then the man went inside the apartment.”

“Do you know when he left?” Reardon asked.

“Not exactly,” Mrs. Malloy said, “but he couldn't have stayed for too long.”

“Why not?”

“Because it wasn't but just a few minutes after he went in that them girls was at each other again.”

Reardon nodded.

“He must have left before that,” Mrs. Malloy said.

Reardon nodded and continued writing in his notebook.

Mrs. Malloy laughed. “Them two was moaning and groaning and screeching the bed springs to beat the band,” she said.

What Reardon wanted to know was who was watching them.

22

Reardon had hardly sat down at his desk when Piccolini burst out of his office.

“There's another witness,” Piccolini said. He stood directly in front of Reardon's desk, the noise and movement of the precinct house circling him like a whirlwind.

Reardon looked up. “Who?”

“Some old lady,” Piccolini said. “She telephoned and the canvass went over to her home to ask some questions.”

It was clear to Reardon that Piccolini was excited by the prospect of an eyewitness. Piccolini was really losing his reason over this case, Reardon thought. Anyone could say they were a witness to anything, but were they? And if so, what had they seen? And how well had they seen it? Nobody really had a witness until they had sufficient answers to those questions. He wondered why Piccolini had forgotten that. “What did she see?” he asked.

“She saw the man who killed the fallow deer.”

“She's sure?”

“Yes,” Piccolini said, smiling broadly.

“Did she describe him?” Reardon asked.

“I didn't go into that, but if it's Petrakis she saw, then that's it. No more nonsense. That's a conviction. Anyway, get over there.” He handed Reardon a piece of paper on which he had written the name and address of the witness:

Mrs. Eleanor Lassiter
203 East 69th Street

“Take a picture of Petrakis with you. She may be able to make a tentative identification from the photo.”

“All right,” Reardon said. He rose and began to put on his overcoat.

Piccolini rubbed his hands together eagerly. “The folks downtown are going to be real happy about this.”

“Did you tell Van Allen yet?”

“Not yet,” Piccolini replied. “Why?”

“Hold off a while.”

Piccolini smiled, “Okay, I'll do that.”

“Good,” Reardon said.

“Just don't forget to take a picture of Petrakis. And call me the second she makes the identification. I want to know right away.”

Reardon was getting a little weary of being instructed like a rookie. “All right,” he said.

“This will tie it up,” Piccolini said jubilantly. “I can just feel it. We got this case in the bag.”

As he turned to walk back to his office Piccolini slapped Reardon affectionately on the back, as if they were old buddies again, fellow travelers on Saint Crispin's day: We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.

Reardon took a picture of Andros Petrakis and slipped it in one of his coat pockets. He suspected that Piccolini was right, that within the next few minutes Petrakis would either be convicted or cleared. Before now he had hoped for another witness as the only means of exonerating Petrakis. But now he had his doubts: the witness might identify Petrakis.

He stopped at a sidewalk newsstand to get a paper and was surprised to find that the
Daily News
was still carrying the killing of the fallow deer as its lead story. He turned to page two and was confronted once again with the faces of the three Van Allens and Andros Petrakis. He folded the paper back and read the story as he walked. There was nothing new. The killing was reiterated in one column. In another the activities of the Van Allen family in New York were traced through the previous fifty years. Another story related how the killing of the fallow deer had been held back by the press until a “suspect” was apprehended. Reardon tucked the newspaper under his arm. By this time tomorrow, he thought, he would be reading the story of the woman who saw the fallow deer slaughtered.

The closer he came to Mrs. Lassiter's address, the slower he walked. He did not want to interview her, and he knew it. If she identified Petrakis, then Reardon knew he had discredited himself, that he had trusted a feeling and the feeling had betrayed him. More importantly, it would mean that Petrakis had no hope of clearing himself, and even now Reardon could not believe that that insensible shadow of a man could possibly have roused himself to the brutal frenzy which the killing of the fallow deer required.

But if she could not identify Petrakis it would only mean that the case must be continued, and it had already exhausted Reardon like a fever. He knew that he had burned himself out on this case, lost the spirit of pursuit, the perverse energy of the chase itself. He had never had enough of that hunting instinct. But now even that animal vitality — the glint in the eye of the bird of prey — had fled him. He had no more questions left for Cain.

203 East 69th Street was a brownstone. It was clear to Reardon immediately that whoever the witness was she was a person of considerable means. It did not surprise him that a servant greeted him at the door.

“May I help you?” the woman asked. She was a small black woman dressed in a nurse's white uniform. She had a slight Jamaican accent.

“I'm Detective John Reardon, New York City Police Department.” Reardon displayed his gold shield.

“I believe Mrs. Lassiter is expecting you. Won't you come in?” The woman opened the door and stepped back to let Reardon enter. “Would you mind waiting a moment?” she asked, and disappeared through a hallway adorned on both sides with paintings.

Looking around him Reardon realized that he had never seen a home so beautiful. Even the Van Allen penthouse lacked this subdued elegance. It was stately, even reverent. Everything — every book, piece of furniture and glass inlay — looked as though it had been carefully wrought by hands trained in a more patient age.