The 1st Deadly Sin (51 page)

“I remember that case,” Delaney nodded.

“Have they caught him yet?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Well, anyway, Captain, in the investigation, according to newspaper reports, it was discovered this pillar of the community was living in a much larger house than he could afford; it was heavily mortgaged and he was deeply in debt: insurance, cars, clothes, furniture, his children’s education—all the social pressures to consider. A sociological motivation here, obviously, but as I told you, mass killers do not fit into neat classifications. What of the man’s personality, background, childhood, his crimes considered as a part of the nation’s or the world’s social history? Charles Manson, for instance. What I am trying to prove to you is that despite these three quite loose classifications, each case of mass murder is specific and different from the others. Men who kill children and the man who killed all those nurses in Chicago and Panzram all seem to have had a similar childhood: physical abuse and body contact at an early age. Sexual pleasure at an infantile level. And yet, of the three I just mentioned, one kills children, one kills young women, and one kills young boys—or buggers them. So where is the pattern? Well, there is a superficial one perhaps. Most mass murders tend to be quiet, conservative, neat. They attract no attention until their rampage. Often they wear the same suit or the same cut and color suit for days on end.” Delaney had been taking notes furiously in his pocket notebook. Now he looked up, eyes gleaming.

“That’s interesting, doctor. But Manson wasn’t like that.”

“Exactly!” Morgenthau cried triumphantly. “That’s just what I’ve been telling you: in this field it is dangerous to generalize. Here is something else interesting…Wertham says mass murderers are not passionless; they only appear to be so. But—and this is what is significant—he says that when their orgy of killing is finished, they once again become apparently passionless and are able to describe their most blood-curdling acts in chilling detail, without regret and without remorse. You know, Captain, my field has its own jargon, just as yours does. And the—the—what do you call it?—the lingo changes frequently, just like slang. Five or ten years ago we spoke of ‘CPFs.’ These were ‘Constitutional Psychopathic Inferiors.’ Apparently normal, functioning effectively in society, the CPI’s feel no guilt, apparently are born without conscience, have no remorse, and cannot understand what the fuss is all about when the law objects to them holding a child’s hand over a gas flame, throwing a puppy out of a ten-story window, or giving apples studded with razor blades and broken glass to a Halloween trick-or-treat visitor. Most mass murders are CPI’s, I would guess. Was that lecture of any help to you, Captain?”

“A very great help,” Delaney said gravely. “You’ve made a number of things clear. But doctor…well, the fault is mine, I suppose, in asking you about ‘motives.’ You spoke mostly about causes. But what about
motives?
I mean, how does the killer justify to himself what he has done or is doing?”

Dr. Morgenthau stared at him a moment, then laughed shortly. His exhilaration was wearing off, his body seemed to be shrinking as he slumped down into his swivel chair. “Now I know why they call you ‘Iron Balls,’” he said. “Oh yes, I know your nickname. During our first—ah—cooperation—I believe it was that Chelsea rapist-—I made certain inquiries about you. You interested me.”

“Did I?”

“You still do. The nickname is a good one for you, Captain.”

“Is it?”

“Oh yes. You are surprisingly intelligent and perceptive for a man in your position. You are remarkably well-read, and you ask the right questions. But do you know what you are, Captain Edward X. Delaney? I mean beneath the intelligence, perception, patience, understanding. Do you know what you are, really?”

“What am I?”

“You are a cop.”

“Yes,” Delaney agreed readily. “That’s what I am all right: a cop.” The doctor was drifting away from him; he better finish it up fast.

“Iron balls,” Dr. Morgenthau muttered. “Iron soul.”

“Yes,” Delaney nodded. “Let’s get back to this problem of motives. How does the killer justify to himself what he is doing?”

“Highly irrational,” Morgenthau said in a slurred voice.

“Highly. Most fascinating. They all have elaborate rationalizations. It allows them to do what they do. It absolves them. It makes no sense to so-called ‘normal’ men, but it relieves the killer of guilt. What they are doing is
necessary
.”

“Such as?”

“What? Well, now we are getting into metaphysics, are we not? Have some ideas. Do a monograph some day. Captain, will you excuse…”

He started to lift himself from his chair, but Delaney held out an arm, the palm of his hand turned downward.

“Just a few more minutes,” he said firmly, “and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

Morgenthau fell back into his chair, looked at the Captain with dull, weary eyes.

“‘Iron Balls,”’ he said. “The mass killer seeks to impose order on chaos. Not the kind of order you and I want and welcome, but
his
kind of order. World in a ferment. He organizes it. He can’t cope. He wants the security of prison. That dear, familiar prison. ‘Catch me before I kill again.’ You understand? He wants the institution. And if not that, order in the universe. Humanity is disorderly. Unpredictable. So he must work for order. Even if he must kill to attain it. Then he will find peace, because in an ordered world there will be no responsibility.”

Delaney wasn’t making notes now, but leaning forward listening intently. Dr. Morgenthau looked at him and suddenly yawned, a wide, jaw-cracking yawn. Delaney, unable to help himself, yawned in return.

“Or,” Dr. Morgenthau went on, and yawned again (and Delaney yawned in reply), “we have the graffiti artist. Pico 137. Marv 145. Slinky 179. Goddamn it, world, I exist. I am Pico, Marv, Slinky. I have made my mark. You are required to acknowledge my existence. You mother-fuckers,
I am!
So he kills fifteen people or assassinates a President so the world says, ‘Yes, Pico, Marv, Slinky, you do exist!’”

Delaney wondered if the man would last. Puffed lids were coming down over dulled eyes, the flesh was slack, swollen fingers plucked at folds of loose skin under the chin. Even the voice had lost its timbre and resolve.

“Or,” Morgenthau droned, “or…”

Eyes rolled up into his skull until all Delaney could see were clotted whites. But suddenly, pulling himself partly upright, the doctor shook his head wildly, side to side, tiny drops of spittle splattering the glass top of his desk.

“Or alienation,” he said thickly. “You cannot relate. Worse. You cannot feel. You want to come close. You want to understand. Truly you do. Come close. To another human being and through him to all humanity and the secret of existence. Captain? Iron Balls? You want to enter into life. Because emotion, feeling, love, ecstasy—all that has been denied you.

I said metaphysical. But. That’s what you seek. And you cannot find, except by killing. To find your way. And now, Captain Iron Balls, I must…”

“I’m going,” Delaney said hastily, rising to his feet. “Thank you very much, doctor. You’ve been a big help.”

“Have I?” Morgenthau said vaguely. He staggered upward, made it on the second try, headed toward his inner office.

Delaney paused with his hand on the knob of the reception room door. Then he turned.

“Doctor,” he said sharply.

Morgenthau turned slowly, staggered, looked at him through unseeing eyes.

“Who?” he asked.

“Captain Delaney. One more thing…This killer we’ve been discussing has snuffed three men. No women or children. He kills with an ice ax, with a pointed pick. A phallus. I know I’m talking like an amateur now. But could he be a homosexual? Latent maybe? Fighting it. Is it possible?”

Morgenthau stared at him, and before Delaney’s eyes he melted farther into his oversize clothes, his face decayed and fell, the light vanished from his eyes.

“Possible?” he whispered. “Anything is possible.”

2

D
ELANEY WATCHED,
with anger and dismay, as Operation Lombard fell apart. It had been a viable concept—a temporary horizontal organization cutting across precinct lines and the chain of command—and under Chief Pauley, with his talent for organization and administrative genius, it had had a good chance of succeeding. But Pauley had been fired, and under the direction of Deputy Commissioner Broughton, Operation Lombard was foundering.

It was not for lack of energy: Broughton had plenty of that—too much. But he simply didn’t have the experience to oversee a manhunt of this size and complexity. And he didn’t know the men working for him. He sent weapons specialists halfway across the country to interrogate a recaptured escapee from a mental institution, and he used interrogation experts to check birth and marriage records in musty libraries. He dispatched four men in a car with screaming siren to question a suspect, where one man on foot would have obtained better results. And his paper work was atrocious; from reading the Operation Lombard reports, Delaney could tell it was getting out of hand; Broughton was detailing men to tasks that had been checked out weeks ago by Chief Pauley; reports were in the file, if Broughton knew where to look.

It was Thomas Handry, now calling Delaney at least twice a week, who described another of Broughton’s failures: his ineptitude at handling the news media. Broughton made the fatal error of continually promising more than he could deliver, and newsmen became disillusioned with his “An arrest is expected momentarily” or “I’ll have a
very
important announcement tomorrow” or “We have a suspect in custody who looks very hot.” According to Handry, few reporters now bothered to attend Broughton’s daily news briefings; he had earned the sobriquet of “Deputy Commissioner Bullshit.”

Medical Examiner Sanford Ferguson also called. He wanted to tell Delaney that the Olfactory Analysis Indicator report on tissue taken from Bernard Gilbert’s wound had been inconclusive. There could have been trace elements of a light machine oil; it could also have been half a dozen similar substances. Ferguson was trying again with scrapings from the fatal wound of Detective Roger Kope.

“Did you tell Broughton anything about this?”

“That son of a bitch? Don’t be silly. He’s caused us more trouble—I can’t begin to tell you. It’s not the work we mind, it’s the bastard’s
manner
.”

Then Ferguson detailed some Departmental gossip:

Broughton was in real trouble. Demands from wealthy east side residents of the 251st Precinct for a quick solution to the three street murders were growing. A citizens’ group had been formed. The Mayor was leaning on the Commissioner, and there were even rumors of the Governor appointing a board of inquiry. The murder of Frank Lombard was bad enough—he had wielded a lot of political clout—but the killing of a police officer had intensified editorial demands for a more productive investigation. Broughton, said Ferguson, had a lighted dynamite stick up his ass.

“It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy,” he added cheerfully.

Delaney wasted no time savoring the comeuppance of Deputy Commissioner Broughton. Nor did he dwell too long on his own personal guilt in the death of Detective third grade Roger Kope. He had done all he could to alert Broughton to the weapon used and the method of attack. And besides, if the truth be known, he blamed Kope; no officer on decoy should have allowed himself to be taken that way. Kope knew what he was up against and what the stakes were. You could feel horror and sympathy for a man shot down from ambush. But Kope had failed—and paid for it.

Delaney had enough on his plate without guilt feelings about Detective Kope. His amateurs needed constant mothering: telephone calls, personal visits and steady, low-key assurance that what they were doing was of value. So when Christopher Langley called to invite him to dinner with the Widow Zimmerman, and to discuss Langley’s progress and future activities later, Delaney accepted promptly. He knew Langley’s business could be decided in that phone conversation, but he also knew his physical presence was important to Langley, and he gave up the time gladly.

The dinner, thankfully, was prepared by the dapper little gourmet and served in his apartment, although the Widow Zimmerman had provided an incredibly renitent cheese cake. Delaney brought two bottles of wine, white and red, and they drank them both with Langley’s
poulet en cocotte du midi
, since he assured them the business of red for meat and white for fish was pure poppycock.

After the meal, the Widow Zimmerman cleaned up, moving about Christopher Langley’s apartment as if she was already mistress—as indeed she probably was, Delaney decided, having intercepted their affectionate glances, sly touchings, and sudden giggles at comments the humor of which he could not detect.

Langley and Delaney sat at the cleared table, sipped brandy, and the ex-curator brought out his lists, records, and notes, all beautifully neat, written out in a scholar’s fine hand.

“Now then,” he said, handing a paper over to Delaney, “here is a list of all stores and shops in the New York area selling the ice ax. Some call it ‘ice ax’ and some call it ‘ice hammer.’ I don’t think that’s important, do you?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Of the five, the three I had checked in red itemize their sales checks, so that the purchase of an ice ax would be on record. Of these three, one does no mail order business and hence has no mailing list. The other two do have mailing lists and send out catalogues.”

“Good,” Delaney nodded. “I’ll try to get copies of the mailing lists and their sales checks.”

“I should warn you,” Langley said, “not all these stores carry the same ax I found at Outside Life. The axes are similar in design, but they are not identical. I found one from Austria, one from Switzerland, and one made in America. The other two were identical to the Outside Life ax made in West Germany. I’ve marked all this on the list.”

“Fine. Thank you. Well…where do we go from here?”

“I think,” Christopher Langley said thoughtfully, “I should first concentrate on the West German ax, the one Outside Life sells. They’re by far the largest outlet for mountaineering equipment in this area—and the least expensive, incidentally. I’ll try to identify the manufacturer, the importer, and all retail outlets in this country that handle that particular ax. How does that sound?”