Blood Innocents

21

Standing in the middle of the Sheep Meadow, a white handkerchief dangling from his right hand, Reardon felt like a perfect ass. Surreptitious meetings in crowded locations were common enough, but the handkerchief gave the entire plan a character of silly melodrama. He wondered if this was the way it would all end for him, standing in some crowded public place, dangling a bandanna from his hand, waiting for a voice to materialize… and then, the flash of a gun, a shot, buckling knees and blackness.

A voice came from behind him. “Detective Reardon?”

Reardon turned to face a tall, heavy-set man dressed in a three-piece blue suit. He had a thin black mustache and tiny, reptilian eyes that made the elegantly tailored suit look like a costume.

Reardon nodded. “That’s me.”

“My name is Phillip Cardan.”

“I wasn’t expecting anyone else,” Reardon said dryly.

Cardan thrust out his hand. “Thank you for coming,” he said, as if he was welcoming Reardon to an art exhibition at some fashionable gallery.

Reardon did not take his hand.

For a moment Cardan stood with his hand outstretched and motionless like a department store manikin. Then he slowly withdrew it, placing it deep in his overcoat pocket. “Would you like to take a stroll?” he asked.

“I didn’t come all the way out here for a stroll.”

Cardan looked as though he had been physically assaulted. “Oh,” he stammered. “I’m sorry.”

“What’s on your mind?” Reardon asked at once.

Cardan glanced nervously around the Sheep Meadow. “Let’s walk and I’ll tell you.”

Reardon did not feel like arguing the point. Together they started walking slowly toward the west side of the park. A small wind crackled through the leafless trees on either side of the meadow. Reardon buried his hands in his overcoat pockets.

“Okay,” he said, “what do you have to tell me?”

“Like you said,” Cardan said, “Miss McDonald was indiscreet. She was supposed to be absolutely discreet. We had an agreement. She was to memorize everything. She was not to have anything in her apartment that could possibly connect her to me or to any of my associates.”

“Like an address book?” offered Reardon.

“That’s right,” Cardan replied.

“I see,” Reardon said, knowing he was getting close to something, suspecting that it was important, perhaps more important than he could have guessed.

Cardan offered Reardon a strained smile. “Before I go on,” he said, “may I ask you a question?”

Reardon nodded.

“How did you come to associate me with Miss McDonald?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Reardon said crisply.

“I understand,” Cardan said quickly, as if wishing he had not bothered to ask in the first place.

“Why did you want to know?” Reardon asked.

Cardan shrugged off the question. “It seemed odd, that’s all.”

Reardon did not believe that was all. “Why odd?” he asked. “You did have a relationship with Miss McDonald, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Cardan said. He looked up from the ground, nervously cast his eyes over the line of trees at the far side of the park, then let them fall directly on Reardon. “She was very unhappy with her life.”

“I know that,” Reardon barked belligerently, purposely pushing Cardan further.

Cardan flinched at Reardon’s manner. “Can this be considered a voluntary statement, even if you already know everything I tell you?”

“If you’re completely frank,” Reardon said.

Cardan shook his head worriedly. “I don’t know where to begin,” he said. “I just want it all to be in confidence, that’s all.”

Reardon nodded. “We’ll see.”

Cardan stopped and looked helplessly at the ground. When he looked up again his face was flushed.

Reardon stared bloodlessly into Cardan’s face and said nothing.

“You see,” Cardan said, “Lee didn’t like it in New York. She wanted desperately to get out of the States. To go to Europe. She and her roommate were planning on moving to France, I think. Anyway she needed money. And she couldn’t get it. She couldn’t save any money on her salary. So she came to me. She thought I might know of some way that she could get some extra money, savings, you know, for the move to Europe. So I helped her.” He paused. “I need to be protected.”

“From what?” Reardon asked.

“From being dragged into this case. Quite frankly, I didn’t come forward before because I dreaded such a possibility. My reputation could be endangered if that connection were made public.”

“Keep talking,” Reardon said without emphasis.

“You see,” Cardan said slowly, lowering his voice, “I did know the young women in question.” He paused. “Rather well, actually.” He looked at Reardon but said nothing.

“How well?” Reardon asked.

“You might say that I employed them from time to time.”

“Employed them how?”

“That is the delicate point. You see, some friends of mine and I have a circle, you might say.”

“What kind of circle?”

“An entertainment circle.”

“You want to explain that?” Reardon asked coldly.

“It’s not material.”

Reardon stopped walking. “I’ll decide what’s material. You just answer the questions. You’re the one who called me out here to the goddamn Sheep Meadow, remember?”

Cardan looked shaken, as if he was being shot at by a high-caliber pistol at point-blank range. “Sorry,” he said meekly. “Of course I did. But I had hoped that all the details might not be necessary.”

“This is a murder investigation,” Reardon said bluntly. “That means that every detail is material.”

Beads of sweat began to form on Cardan’s upper lip, just above the little mustache. His hands fidgeted in his coat pockets. “Well,” he said, “what I want to prove to you is simply that I could not have murdered those two women. My name could come up in the investigation and I simply need someone in the Department, the Police Department, to be aware of the fact that I could not possibly have been involved.”

“In what way did you employ Karen Ortovsky and Lee McDonald?” Reardon asked.

“In an unusual capacity.”

“How?”

“Are you aware that Miss Ortovsky and Miss McDonald were lesbians?”

“Yes,” Reardon said. He did not see how that mattered one way or the other.

“They also had another trait,” Cardan said, “which turned out to be a profitable one for them.”

“What?”

“Exhibitionism.”

Reardon nodded.

“Some people are exhibitionists and some people are voyeurs,” Cardan said.

“What’s the point?” Reardon asked. He could guess that it was going to get pretty squalid now, and he wanted to get through it as quickly as possible. Such testimony always made him feel as if he was leaning over window sills into darkened bedrooms.

“Well,” Cardan said, “some people in this city like to enjoy the… well, you might call them… you might call them performances. They enjoy seeing various sexual acts performed in front of them.” Cardan smiled what Reardon took to be an ugly, leering smile.

“What does that have to do with murder?” Reardon asked.

“I don’t believe it has anything whatsoever to do with murder.”

“Did Karen Ortovsky and Lee McDonald give sexual performances?”

“Yes. They were not prostitutes, you must understand. They performed only with each other.”

“For money?”

Cardan smiled. “For a great deal of money.”

Reardon said nothing, letting his silence draw Cardan on.

“The point is,” Cardan continued hesitantly, “I sometimes acted as their agent.”

“For whom?”

“For certain people who desired their services.”

From the way he talked, Reardon thought, you might have taken Cardan for a jewelry clerk at Tiffany’s. “Wealthy people?” Reardon asked.

“Very wealthy people,” Cardan replied. “Not the usual porno crowd.”

Reardon did not understand the distinction. “Go on,” he said.

“Simply this,” Cardan said. “It will not be hard for the police assigned to the case to associate me with Miss Ortovsky and Miss McDonald. I knew them very well. I know a lot of people very well. But I could not have had anything to do with their murder. I was very saddened by it, as a matter of fact. But I was in California when it happened.”

“Who did you arrange these performances for?”

“That’s confidential.”

“This is a murder case,” Reardon said. “Nothing is confidential.”

“I can assure you personally that none of my clients could possibly have had anything to do with the murders.”

“You arranged for Karen Ortovsky and Lee McDonald to perform sexually for money, is that right?”

“I have already said that,” Cardan said.

“You’re under arrest.”

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.