Blood Innocents

23

For a long time after talking to Mrs. Lassiter, Reardon sat in the park thinking, his mind filled with images: weapons, distances, sounds, directions, motives, crumpled bodies. Images on top of images, thoughts consuming thoughts, until there was nothing left but a mood, an atmosphere at once indistinct and profound: sadness and resolution combined with an intense desire for release from the park, the street, the city, from the face of Karen Ortovsky, the futile bleating of the fallow deer, the whirr of the ax blade slicing through the air. He wanted to be something else besides a detective, a widower, a man.

He had expected to be pleased if Mrs. Lassiter cleared Petrakis. And there was no doubt in his mind that Mrs. Lassiter’s statement had cleared Petrakis entirely. But the cowering, weeping figure she had described as the real killer seemed to Reardon to be no less pitiable than Petrakis. Now he would have to go after Dwight Van Allen like a trained hunting dog, switching indifferently from one fox to another.

When he returned to the precinct house Reardon walked directly to Piccolini’s office. He did not have any time to waste. Petrakis’ mood seemed too unpredictable, and Reardon wanted to get him out of the Tombs as quickly as possible.

Piccolini looked up from a roast beef sandwich as Reardon entered the office. “Well, what did she say?” he asked. In one long burst Reardon told him, repeating his exchange with Mrs. Lassiter almost word for word. He described the way she looked, the way she spoke, why she had been in the park at such an unusual hour, and the sounds the walker made as it scraped across the garden pavement. With each new detail Piccolini’s mouth seemed to open wider. He pushed the sandwich to the left side of his desk and stared intently at Reardon.

Finally Reardon reached the critical element in the interrogation. “She identified Dwight Van Allen as the man with the ax,” he said.

Piccolini bolted back in his chair as if he had been slugged in the chest. “Dwight Van Allen?”

“That’s who she identified.”

Piccolini stood up. “Dwight Van Allen? Are you crazy?”

“She made a positive identification.”

The technical term “positive identification” seemed to impress Piccolini for a moment. He sat back down behind his desk and stared inconsolably at the papers which littered it. “But that’s crazy,” he said. He pounded his fist hard on the desk. “Goddamn this fucking case!”

Reardon was startled by Piccolini’s sudden use of obscenity; he usually avoided such language. Reardon had always suspected that he did so in order to prove some imagined superiority.

“Anyway,” Reardon said, “Petrakis is clear.”

“Why’s that?”

It seemed simple to Reardon. “Because the only living witness in the case identified another man, Dwight Van Allen.”

“An old woman with a crazy story about looking to be murdered in the park?” Piccolini said contemptuously. “You call that a witness?”

“She was there,” Reardon said emphatically. “The sounds that walker made fit the sounds that Noble heard around the time the deer were killed.”

“Ridiculous,” Piccolini said, “I don’t think she saw anything. I think she’s a lonely old broad with a vivid imagination. Unfortunately, Dwight Van Allen got stuck in her mind somewhere.”

“She saw him,” Reardon said. “She saw him covered with blood and carrying an ax.”

“What does the great detective, John Reardon, think was the motive for Dwight Van Allen to kill those deer?”

“I don’t know,” Reardon said, “but I’m going to find out.”

Piccolini jumped to his feet. “No!” he shouted. “The people downtown are sick and tired of you meddling with the Van Allens.”

“Dwight Van Allen is a prime suspect in this case,” Reardon said.

Piccolini strode angrily around his desk to face Reardon. “Petrakis had a motive and he was seen near the scene of the crime at approximately the time of its commission,” he said. “He had access to the murder weapon, and his fingerprints are all over it. That’s real evidence, not some idiotic hallucination by some lonely old lady who’s probably crazy as hell anyway.”

Reardon turned to leave; he had heard enough.

“That’s evidence,” Piccolini repeated. “Build a case on that. Real evidence. Physical evidence.”

Reardon stopped in the doorway, his hand on the doorknob. “Be careful, Mario,” he said.

“About what?”

“About this case. About who did it. About avoiding a frame-up.”

Piccolini’s face quickly went through phases of anger, then shock, then sadness. “Is that what you think I’m trying to do in this case, John? Do you think I’m trying to frame Petrakis?”

“Sometimes it just happens.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Piccolini said.

Reardon looked at Piccolini and saw that he really believed himself incapable of such a thing. It was as if he was a little like Benedict Arturo, unconscious of his urges and even of the acts that flowed from there. For a moment Reardon thought of going over the entire case with Piccolini, demonstrating how each of his decisions had moved the investigation toward Petrakis. But he did not. It would only be a series of futile allegations which Piccolini would deny. Piccolini would not even have to lie to deny them, at least not to himself. Reardon did not want to talk to Piccolini anymore or be in his office ever again. “I think I’m going to retire after this one, Mario,” he said.

Piccolini stared rigidly at Reardon. He would not, Reardon knew, try to dissuade him from early retirement, not after this.

Reardon had a witness, but he did not have a motive. And there was only one place where he could find one. He left the precinct house immediately and headed toward the Van Allen residence on Fifth Avenue. His old colleague, Steadman, was again on duty at the door.

“Is Wallace Van Allen here?” Reardon asked.

“No,” Steadman said. “He’s in Washington.”

“How about Dwight?”

“He’s gone to school in Massachusetts.” Steadman looked at Reardon curiously. “You look beat.”

“Is Melinda Van Allen in Massachusetts too?” Reardon asked dryly.

“No, she’s in the park. In the zoo I guess.”

“Thanks,” Reardon said. He turned to leave.

Steadman grabbed his arm. “Is she expecting you?”

Reardon pulled his arm from Steadman’s grasp. “Do you have a buzzer system in the park?” he asked irritably, and immediately felt ashamed.

“No,” Steadman said, but he smiled, almost gently, as if something told him to be kind, and Reardon felt relieved.

“Melinda’s in the zoo, you think?” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’ll see if I can find her.”

Melinda Van Allen was not hard to find. She was sitting on the same bench where Reardon had talked to her before, just beyond the cage of the fallow deer. She had drawn the collar of her coat up around her neck to protect her from the light breezes that darted through the park.

She looked up from a book as Reardon approached. “Hello,” she said brightly.

“Hello, Miss Van Allen,” Reardon said. “I’d like to talk to you if it’s okay.”

“Sure,” Melinda replied airily. “It’s John, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Detective John Reardon, New York City Police Department,” she said in a deep voice with mock seriousness.

“May I sit down?”

“The park is for the people,” Melinda said.

Sometimes, Reardon thought as he sat down, the park is for killing.

“Is this business or pleasure?” Melinda asked pleasantly. She put her book face down on the bench beside her and folded her arms in front of her, pressing her bare hands under them for warmth.

“Business,” Reardon said.

Melinda’s face darkened.

“Who lives in your apartment?” Reardon asked.

“My father, my brother and myself,” Melinda said. Then she added: “And a few servants.”

“Do all of you usually live together?”

“We have until now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Dwight’s gone off to school.”

“When did he leave?”

“Yesterday,” Melinda said. “I’ll be leaving next week myself.”

“Same school as your brother?”

“No,” Melinda said, “but nearby.”

“Are you two very close?” Reardon asked hesitantly.

“Yes. Very. We’re twins, you know.” She seemed proud of that fact.

“Yes, I know.”

Melinda smiled. “We’re duplicates, practically,” she said enthusiastically. “When we were younger and we had to sign something, you know jointly, like a wedding or Christmas card from both of us, we wouldn’t sign our names separately.”

“You wouldn’t?”

“No,” Melinda said, “we’d just sign with the number ‘two.’”

Reardon had not expected anything like this so quickly. “With a digit?” he asked.

“Sometimes,” Melinda said, “or sometimes with the number written out, sometimes in a foreign language.”

“Or a roman numeral?”

“Sure,” Melinda said. “That was Dwight’s favorite.”

Reardon peered over Melinda’s shoulder to the empty cage of the fallow deer. The long thin shadows from the bars fell slantwise across its floor. The chalk marks were beginning to fade. “When did your father give you the deer?”

“Three years ago. It was our birthday.”

“And not quite two years ago he donated them to the Children’s Zoo in your name.”

“In both our names.” Melinda looked at Reardon quizzically. “Why all these questions?”

“You and Dwight are very close, you say?” Reardon asked. He was stalling, and he knew it.

“Yes,” Melinda said, “very close.”

Reardon nodded. He was not sure what to do next. He was not sure that Melinda was prepared to go to the place he knew he had to take her.

“What is this all about?” she asked again. “Reardon, the mysterious detective.” Jokingly she deepened her voice. “Does the Shadow know?”

“Do you know who killed the fallow deer?” Reardon asked bluntly.

Melinda grimaced. “No,” she said emphatically, “I don’t.” She laughed, but she could not conceal her distress. “Do you know who killed them?” she asked tauntingly.

“We have a witness,” Reardon said quietly. “We have a woman who saw the man who killed the deer.”

“Well, who did it?” Melinda asked excitedly. “No more phony mystery. Who killed them?”

Reardon stood up. “Melinda, I want to show you something.”

“Where?”

“Here,” Reardon replied. “Here in the zoo. Just a little ways from here.”

“All right,” Melinda said. She stood up, putting her book away in her bag. “This better be worth it, though. It’s hard to get a seat at this bench sometimes. I wouldn’t give it up for just anyone, you know.” She smiled at Reardon.

“It’s just right over here,” Reardon said. He pointed to the cage of the fallow deer.

Melinda stepped back. “No,” she said. “I don’t want to go over there.”

Reardon took her arm gently. “It’s just an empty cage now,” he said. “It’s important.” He led her forward delicately. “Please.”

“I can’t,” Melinda said. She took another step back.

Reardon still held her arm. “Please,” he said emphatically, more like an order than a request.

“Oh, all right,” Melinda said. “I’m a big girl now. Right?”

“Right,” Reardon said.

Together they walked through the police barricades and into the cage of the fallow deer. The chalk outlines of the bodies had faded considerably, although they were still visible beneath patches of dried leaves and litter. A sudden gust of wind rattled the tin roof of the shed, and Reardon felt Melinda’s arm tremble.

“I want you to look at something,” he said.

Melinda’s face was tense. “What?”

Reardon walked toward the rear of the cage, picked up a piece of tin about a foot square and, holding it face down, brought it back to where Melinda stood.

“This is part of the deer shed,” he said. “I asked for it to be brought back over here from the lab this morning.”

“What lab?”

“The crime lab.”

Melinda nodded fearfully. Standing within the black bars of the cage, her arms nestling her body, protecting it from the cold, she looked like an abandoned child, and Reardon wondered whether he could ever justify what he was about to do to her.

“This piece of the shed is evidence now,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“I want to show you something, Melinda,” Reardon said tenderly. “It may not mean anything, but I think it does.” He could see that her hand was beginning to tremble. “I think you’ll know what it means,” he said. He looked at her now as if he would never see another human face, as if Melinda Van Allen were the only person left on earth, and he, Reardon, was about to disclose a terrible thing to her that would poison her life forever.

Slowly he turned the square of tin around. Scrawled clearly on the other side, in dark red, was the roman numeral “two.”

Melinda gasped.

“It’s written in the blood of one of the deer,” Reardon said.

“Oh, no,” she said.

Reardon watched her. She did not look at him. She did not move. She only continued to stare at the square of tin.

“It doesn’t really mean anything, does it?” she asked fearfully.

“Not by itself,” Reardon admitted. “But we have a witness. This witness saw a person running away from the deer cage. He was carrying an ax and he was covered with blood.”

Again Reardon paused. Melinda stared at him silently, helplessly, and Reardon knew that he did not want to go on with it. But all of this commitment to the work he had chosen so long ago seemed suddenly to focus on the fact that he had to go on with it. That it was out of his hands now. That something more important than himself or Melinda or even Petrakis was demanding that he go on.

“She identified a picture of your brother Dwight as the man she saw with the ax,” he said.

Melinda closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. She seemed to shrink into her clothes, to wither under Reardon’s gaze.

“Where was Dwight the night the fallow deer were killed?” he asked.

Instantly her eyes shot open. “He was with me!” she blurted.

“No, he wasn’t,” Reardon said sadly. He took Melinda by the arm and, still carrying the piece of the deer shed, led her to a bench outside the cage. He put the piece of tin across his lap as they sat down. “Dwight wrote this, didn’t he?” he asked.

“No,” Melinda snapped. “He was with me that night.”

“No, Melinda.”

“Yes.” She would not look at him now. She sat sullenly beside him and stared dreamily at her shoes, as if to look at him would be to admit that what he said was true.

“Until three in the morning?” he asked.

“Yes. ”

“What did you do that night?”

She did not answer.

“You spent the whole night together,” Reardon said insistently. “What did you do?”

“We went to a movie.”

“When did you go to the movie?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What time did you get back?”

Melinda shifted uncomfortably on the bench and chewed on her lower lip like a resentful child.

“What time did you get back?” Reardon asked again.

“I’m not sure about that either.”

“What movie did you see?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember what movie?”

“I can’t think.”

“Try.”

“I can’t! I told you I can’t!”

“Well, you didn’t spend the whole night in a movie,” Reardon said, “so what did you do when you got back?”

“I don’t know for sure. Maybe we played cards.”

“All night?”

“Maybe we watched television.”

“All night?”

“Maybe.” She was beginning to whimper now, and Reardon did not know what to do about that. He stared at her helplessly, his palms face up in his lap as if giving up on a riddle. He only knew that he must go on, that he must pursue her until he captured her brother.

“What card games did you play?” he asked.

She did not answer.

“So you went to a movie you can’t remember the name of, you don’t know when you went, and you don’t know when you got back to the apartment, and you don’t remember what you did when you got there. Is that what you’re telling me?”

Melinda turned her face away from him and riveted her attention on some distant object in the park.

“How about Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning?” Reardon asked, fixing his mind on the only imperative he knew: to protect Abel against the rage of Cain.

Melinda looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“The Wednesday morning after the deer were killed. Where were you between three A.M. and eight A.M. that morning?”

“Why?”

“Where were you?”

“I want to know why you’re asking.”

“There’s more involved than the deer.”

Melinda stared at him fearfully. “What do you mean?”

“Two days after the deer were killed two women were murdered in Greenwich Village. The women were killed exactly like the deer, the same number of blows. One of the women was cut to pieces. The other just had her throat cut. Your father knew both those women.”

“So what?” Melinda asked with attempted haughtiness.

“Melinda,” he pleaded, “it’s no good. The word ‘dos’ was written on the wall of one of their rooms.”

He saw her pale in horror. She stared at him, wide-eyed, as if hoping to see something in his face that would deny what he’d said.

“It was written in their blood,” he said.

Melinda lowered her head and began to cry gently.

“Dwight followed your father there. He waited until he left their apartment. Then Dwight killed two women not much older than yourself.”

“Oh, God,” Melinda whispered.

“What I have to know,” Reardon said, “is why he did that. Why he killed the deer and the women.”

Suddenly Melinda’s face hardened. “It’s his fault,” she said bitterly.

“Whose?”

“His,” she said, spitting out the word. “My father’s. You don’t know what it’s like living with him.”

“No, I don’t,” Reardon said.

Melinda stared out across the park. “He used to humiliate Dwight all the time. He used to call him stupid, say that Dwight wasn’t his real son, that there’d been a mistake in the hospital, and my father’s real son went to someone else, and he got Dwight.” She turned to Reardon. “Have you ever met him?”

“Your father?”

“No, Dwight.”

“I passed him in an elevator once.”

“You passed him in an elevator?”

“Yes.”

Melinda smiled bitterly. “What a strange job you have,” she said.

Stranger than she knew, Reardon thought, stranger than mourning and the Buddha’s solution to it, stranger than anything she would likely ever know.

“We made a party for my father the night the deer were killed,” she said. “Dwight and I. For his birthday. For his fifty-seventh birthday. But he never showed up. I don’t know how many times Dwight reminded him about the party that day. He kept reminding him all day. But he never showed up.” Her eyes narrowed hatefully. “If it had been Dwight’s birthday, he would have been there.”

“Why?” Reardon asked.

“Because my father was a kind of closet sadist when it came to Dwight.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, I don’t mean a real sadist. It wasn’t like he really beat Dwight.” She sneered. “That would never be tolerated by his circle of friends. But there was a certain way he looked sometimes, a certain look in his eye. Do you know what I mean?”

“I guess,” Reardon said. He had seen cruelty split its mask.

“And there was one place, one time when it really came out,” she said. “On Dwight’s birthday.”

“His birthday?”

“Yes. On Dwight’s birthday my father would bend him over his knee and start hitting him, you know, on his backside. Then he’d really beat him. And each time he’d hit Dwight, he’d call out a number. You know: One. Whack. Two. Whack. Three. Whack!” With each number, she struck the sheet of tin on Reardon’s lap. “Last year it went to fifteen,” she said, tears filling her eyes, her shoulders beginning to shake as she began to cry. She raised her hand and brought it down angrily on the tin. “Fourteen. Whack! Fifteen. Whack!” and her hand made the tin reverberate across the Children’s Zoo. She was crying almost hysterically now. She raised her arm high above her head and brought her hand down furiously on the sheet of tin. “And one to grow on!” she shouted, and then collapsed in convulsive weeping. “Dwight said he’d like to give it back to my father someday,” she said through her crying. “Fifty-seven. And one to grow on.”

Fifty-seven and one, thought Reardon. Dear God.

He drew Melinda under his arm. She was sobbing uncontrollably now; he could feel her body convulsing against his own, her tears falling on his hand. “All right, all right,” he said gently, knowing that it was not all right, that it never could be.