He hadn’t struck a week early after all; when push came to shove, he just hadn’t felt like it. What was the point in moving up to murder if simultaneously he made life easier for himself? The big, muscular cop Carmine Delmonico was a hazard he knew he was capable of beating, but the victory must be worthy of Catherine dos Santos, she of the prison bars and multiple locks.
She had told him the story as they huddled together on Mark Sugarman’s couch, giggling.
“The realtor told me,” she confided, violet-blue eyes shining. “Such a joke! Simons built the apartments and reserved mine for himself. He hoarded money, you see. Can you imagine it? No one tried to rob him because no one knew he hoarded money, so when he died, the bars and bolts became his executioners. The firemen took hours to break in. And there he was, on his bed, surrounded by stacks of bank notes, swollen up-disgusting!”
“You don’t mind living with that history?” he asked, smiling.
“Heavens, no. I’m safe, that’s the main thing.”
One by one he had picked the necessary details out of her; when the party broke up he saw her to her car like the gentleman he was, lightly kissed her hand, and never bothered to see her again in case she remembered what they had talked about. Had she cried for him? Sat by her phone hoping that he’d call? If she had, a fruitless wait. In those days he had merely been making up his list, hadn’t even started raping in the clumsy, amateurish way he’d tackled Shirley Constable. Well, a man had to learn by experience, didn’t he? And the list had to be complete, so far back in the past that none of the women would remember.
When Didus ineptus parked his Chevy on Persimmon Street in its usual spot on election day, Tuesday, November 5, his mind was filled with his own brilliance. No coincidence that he had begun his career on a leap year and a presidential election year: luck favored the bold, and he’d sensed what a disastrous year 1968 would be.
He always parked there, yes; he had been doing so for long enough now for his fellow Persimmon Street parkers to recognize his car. The moment he got out, he couldn’t help but see the cops. They were everywhere: cruising in squad cars, strolling the sidewalks in pairs, holsters open, cuffs easy to get at. As he turned in the direction of Cedar Street he had a sudden impulse to abandon his foray, then grew angry at his own cowardice. Plan A was clearly impossible, but Plan B was just as good. He limped down Persimmon Street dragging his right leg, and in the instant when no cops were visible he leaped off the sidewalk into Plan B’s bushes, which flourished in fits and starts right along the back fences of the blocks facing Cedar Street. The sun was lowering, a month and more past the equinox now, and the shadows at ground level were heavy, darkly dappled.
His blood was pumping hard; the thrill of the chase had invaded him, and he knew how and where he was going better than these uniformed idiots could imagine. In a gap, he lay full length and walked it on his elbows, his combat camouflage ideal, until the next profusion of low-slung leaves permitted him to rise to a squat, peer toward Cedar Street or the back of a building. Catherine’s apartment block lay nearly 300 yards from Persimmon Street, but the worst of it was that the Hochners were beyond her, closer to Cranberry Street. His shelter was thickest where he could not use it, with Plan A discarded.
Mountain laurels grew along the back fence of Catherine’s block-good, sturdy evergreen bushes that no one tended. And there, right opposite him, was Catherine’s door at last! He put on his ski mask just in case, eased his back with its load of knapsack, and pulled the three keys from his pocket. The Hochners, he saw, had finished their iced tea and were going inside, and the cops weren’t smart enough to extend their patrolling off the street sidewalks. He would have to trust to his luck that while he ran from the bushes to the awninged back door, no one upstairs was gazing into the backyard.
The sun plunged down into the foliage of an old oak growing behind the Hochners, and with its going the light decreased; the Dodo checked using his peripheral vision, saw nothing, and ran for Catherine’s door. The keys went in and turned in the same order as hers; he felt the last lock relax and did what she did, leaned his shoulder heavily against the door and pushed it open.
AAA-OOO-GAA!
WOW-WOW-WOW-WOW-WOW!
AAA-OOO-GAA!
The world erupted into noise. Deafened, stunned, the Dodo stood for perhaps three seconds leaning against the door, then leaped for the bushes alongside the Hochners and went to earth, trembling, eyes blinded by sweat, those abominable alarms still shrieking and wailing in his ears. What was it? What hadn’t he done? The wretched woman had tricked him! He, Didus ineptus, had fallen for a trick!
Plan C. He had to get away from here before the area swarmed with cops like flies on carrion. The knapsack was shrugged off, the ski mask, the jacket and the pants. From the exterior of the knapsack he pulled a series of aluminum tubes, screwed them together, and worked to make sure that his ordinary slacks were well down over his socks, not tucked in anywhere. Then, as the noises continued, he wormed his way around the back of the Hochners, who had emerged and were standing at Catherine’s door. Like a snake he slithered across the exposed ground bordering their back deck before burying himself in their bushes again. Then, down their far boundary to Cedar Street, where he crouched and watched the cops thunder by until, in a temporary lull, he appeared on the sidewalk supported by his crutch, limping along. The next bunch of cops rounded the corner from Cranberry Street, split up to pass him on both sides, and left him to make his way to Persimmon Street and his car.
He was stopped twice, asked if he had seen anyone; he looked bewildered, said no, and was allowed on his way. The crutch was genuine, he was dressed in yellow checkered slacks and a red jacket, and he seemed a little simple. He never came under any suspicion, even from a stray squad car minutes later.
The bitch! The fucking bitch! How had she tricked him?
Carmine gazed about in amazement. No one, looking at the fortress from its outside, could ever have believed how beautiful Catherine dos Santos’s apartment was. None of the bars showed; instead, there were ceiling-to-floor falls of frail silk curtains that shaded from palest green gradually through to the dark green of a pine forest, then began to fade to pale again, all around the room, a gradual color waxing and waning. The carpet was dark green, the ceiling palest green. Chairs, tables, occasional furniture were carved mahogany upholstered in vivid peacocks.
“I rarely spend time in the living room,” said Catherine. She had shut off the alarms; no one else could. “He must have watched me enter, but of course he couldn’t see me deactivate my alarms-I press a section of the door jamb and paint it again when it wears.” She led them farther into her artificially lit retreat. “Between the bars and the four bedrooms, I was lucky to find this place. In here I paint,” she said, showing them a studio with a half finished oil of dried flowers on the easel.
“In here I sew and embroider,” showing them a second room.
Shades of Desdemona! thought Carmine, staring at a priest’s chasuble on a dummy. Is that what all spinsters do?
“And in here I illuminate manuscripts,” Catherine said. “I confess it’s my greatest pleasure. You’d be surprised, Captain, at how many institutions and people want something illuminated.”
“So you sell your work?”
“Oh, yes. It’s my hedge against an indigent old age.”
“Do you ever go to parties, Miss dos Santos?” Helen asked as they returned to the living room.
“Only Mark Sugarman’s. The last one was four months ago.”
“Did you meet anyone memorable at a Sugarman party?”
She concentrated, then nodded. “Yes, I did. A very nice man! We had a long, pleasant conversation, but he didn’t hit on me. I don’t think he gave me a last name, but his first name was Brett. I said that sounded as if he’d been named after a movie star, but he laughed and denied it. It was a family name.”
Helen stifled her sigh; there was no Brett on Sugarman’s party lists.
“Did he have an opportunity to rifle your bag?”
“Only when I went to the toilet. I wasn’t gone long.”
“Have you seen Brett since?”
“No, never. That’s not surprising, Captain. I have no need of people, either at work or at home. Everything I do is art of some kind. I like solitude, I guess.”
“Don’t you feel-well, imprisoned?” Helen asked.
Catherine dos Santos laughed, a high, clear sound of true amusement. “Good lord, no! Detective, in here I feel safe! No one can get at me. That’s always the terror of women who love living alone, that they’ll be targeted by a predator. I love my bars, which is why I went to a lot of trouble over my weak point-the door. Noise is the best deterrent-really loud, siren noises. They always deter. I installed the sirens myself, bought them in an electronics hobby store.” She smiled jubilantly. “I’m especially fond of the one that sounds like a submarine. With the Hochners for neighbors, I’m safe, believe me.”
“Oh, I believe you,” Helen said. “What I find hard to credit is that you really like your life.”
“You were at Mark’s party-how do you live?” Catherine asked.
“I have a security penthouse,” said Helen, smiling.
“Lucky you.”
“My chief criticism of you, Miss MacIntosh,” said Carmine in biting tones after they left, “is that you have no idea how the other half lives, even after some exposure. That leads you to speak before you think. The moment Miss dos Santos said she did some of her art as a hedge against an indigent old age, you should have put a censor on your tongue. Why are you so quick to inform the world that you have millions, when what you ought to remember is that extremely few people are in your boat? I haven’t heard you contemplating giving any of your millions away to those less fortunate.”
“I apologize, Captain. I knew it was the wrong thing to say the minute I said it, but I didn’t know how to get out of such an awful predicament-I apologize, Captain, I do!”
“Why are you apologizing to me, Miss MacIntosh? You only offended me at second-hand. By rights you ought to go back and apologize to Miss dos Santos. This kind of apology is rather self-serving, don’t you agree?”
“Too much time’s gone by for me to go back,” Helen said quickly. “If you like, I’ll write her a note.”
“Yes, do that,” said Carmine, still simmering.
He spoke no more until they were in his office, where Nick and Delia joined them.
“How did he manage to get away?” Helen asked, still desperate to retrieve lost ground with the Captain.
“By being prepared for all eventualities, I suspect,” said Carmine. “And helped by the Hochners, who should have stayed put and watched for him, not rushed to Catherine’s door and impeded the cops.”
“They’re famous with the uniforms,” Delia said.
“Ask Fernando Vasquez. He’s inherited Danny Marciano’s file on them. Eternal complaints, then they missed the Dodo.”
Nick pulled the knapsack that lay on Carmine’s table closer to him. “Cool,” he said. “While the back of Catherine’s apartment block seethed with cops, he hunkered down in a bush on Hochner property and changed his appearance. He left the Dodo’s gear in the bush and emerged somewhere as a different person, I’m picking wearing gaudy clothes. But what was in these, Carmine?” Nick pointed to ruches in the knapsack’s exterior.
“Struts that maybe kept the knapsack rigid?” Delia offered.
“Why?” Nick asked.
“Whatever they were, he took them out,” Carmine said slowly.
“Unless they’re an intrinsic part that hampered him?” Helen asked. “Something that stopped him hiding the thing?”
“No, the cavities are still distended by whatever was inside. Round pipes or rods…” He counted the ruched bulges. “Six. Added together, about six feet. But what would he do with something six feet long? Subtract one, and it comes down to between four and five feet, depending on the length of the components. Not all the cavities are the same length.”
A conversation with two uniforms crashed into Nick’s mind. “It’s a crutch,” he said.
The rest gaped at him.
“Ike Masotti and his partner found a crippled guy on Cedar Street hobbling toward Persimmon. Not far from Catherine’s apartment. Crutch under his arm, dragging his right foot. He was wearing pants in that Scotch check that’s almost all yellow, and a red windcheater. Ike got no joy out of him, wrote him down as mildly retarded.”
“The Dodo!” Helen cried.
“He’s good, Carmine,” Nick said. “Fooled two smart cops nearly right outside where it happened. You know Ike Masotti-not easy to fool. It was early, mind, the sirens were still yowling because Catherine wasn’t home. A little later, the cops would have been less confused.”
For answer, Carmine picked up his phone and asked Fernando Vasquez if he knew how many cops had encountered a luridly dressed cripple.
“The guy’s brilliant,” he said, hanging up.
“Slipped through our fingers,” Nick mourned.
“Yes, but Ike Masotti set eyes on his face,” Carmine said, “and while he may have attempted disguise hiding in the Hochner bushes, he didn’t have the time or the facilities to do anything dramatic. The cops who saw the cripple later might not have been so lucky, so it’s Ike’s description we go on. Who was his partner?”
“Muley Evans.”
“What’s he like?”
“Sharp. We’ll get a good drawing.”
It was long after midnight before Didus ineptus went to earth. The red windcheater had been turned inside out to display its black side, and the MacLeod tartan pants were now showing their black lining. Thank his lucky stars for the verdure of Carew! He had gone nowhere near his car, still parked on Persimmon; the walk to his own car wasn’t impossible for someone who kept in shape by walking. When he hid to reverse his clothing, he dismantled the crutch and polished every inch of it outside and in. They’d not nail him with a print inside, even if they had the wit to think of it. Then he pushed the sections deeply into a bush and walked on, a man of ordinary mentality clad in black. Who wasn’t accosted at all. The crutch and flashy clothes had been a part of Plan C, an escape which he wouldn’t use again. When pulled up by three different sets of cops-one on foot (the first) and two in squad cars-he had given a sad, braying laugh that branded him as slightly retarded and been let go without being asked for so much as his name. It was worth noting for the future that a man in black who didn’t want to be seen tended not to be seen, even if he didn’t behave furtively. Black is better, black is definitely better! For flashy apparel, be retarded.
On the border of Carew and Busquash was his rented apartment; he let himself in, still wearing surgeon’s gloves, and undressed. The stash of clothing was folded carefully and slipped through a manhole in the hall ceiling; they were too hard to get, necessitating a trip to New York City and theatrical suppliers, so while the apartment lasted, he’d hang on to them. After that he donned hiking gear and shouldered a new knapsack, filled with exactly the things a hiker would need for the Appalachian Trail.
On the border of Busquash and Millstone was his own car; he reached it without seeing a cop, got in and drove away. If a cop should stop him, he had his story straight.
But no cop did. Home at last, he realized he was ravenously hungry, took a Stouffer’s lasagna from the freezer and used the forty minutes heating time it gave him to put out his pajamas, secret the knapsack in his special place, and revel in a shower. Refreshed, clad in silk, he opened a bottle of French claret and sipped the wine with relish; no guzzling for Didus ineptus! It had been a close thing tonight. He never wanted a closer. The killer in him slavered at the thought of putting paid to Catherine dos Santos, but the survivor in him was stronger. There were other names in his book, other lives to take. The fucking bitch had tricked him, and, in tricking him, had evaded him forever. He would not be going back to vent his rage on Catherine dos Santos. Thinking that, he raised his glass.
“Here’s to the Holloman police,” he said, smiling. “May they think me a vengeful man and waste their time!”
The police artist’s drawing was interesting because no one recognized it. And that could not be.
It showed the face of a brown-skinned man in his forties, dark haired and dark eyed, with a beaky nose and a wide, thin mouth. There was a general impression of a damaged mind.
“This means he was in make-up for the attack,” Carmine said, and, to Ike Masotti, “It really looks like him?”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Captain, but it’s what my mom would call a speaking likeness,” Ike said.
“Bearing no resemblance to the guy the Hochners had noticed creeping around.”
“Yeah, but the Hochners are notorious,” Ike said. “Their guy was probably reading meters. This is definitely the guy I saw.”
“Ike, you did better than you can realize. Your drawing shows us what we’re up against. Thanks a lot.”
Ike departed, scratching his head.
“Why do you think this isn’t the Dodo-or rather, that it’s a Dodo in disguise?” Helen asked.
“Because Dr. Meyers has a general description of the charming man who had a long conversation with four of the rape victims,” Carmine said. “He had light brown hair, light brown eyes, and a fair skin. His mouth was full and his nose only slightly beaky.”
“Perhaps the man the victims saw was also in disguise,” said Delia. “He’s very clever, so he will have taken it into account that we might elicit descriptions from the Sugarman parties.”
“He must present as bulky before he enters his victim’s apartment,” Nick said. “Combat fatigues, and under them, another outfit as brightly colored as he can make it without looking any more than dressed in bad taste.”
“And under the gaudy outfit, yet another, I think,” Carmine said. “He didn’t seem to be on the street as retarded and lame for more than a few minutes, yet no one saw him enter a car and drive away. He must know the location of every tree and bush in Carew, and as soon as he saw no cops anywhere, he was back into the bushes for a quick change into something dark and inoffensive. Has a crutch been found?”
“No, despite a thorough search,” Nick said.
“Did he abandon it? Or lug it home under his clothes? It seems he lugged it home, strange as that might be. His reasoning is beyond me!” Carmine slapped a hand to his brow. “To make matters worse, Sugarman himself can’t identify any victim’s drawings. He swears that he had no gate-crashers at any party. That means-no, it can’t!”
“Means what?” Delia asked.
“That he made-up for one conversation-impossible!”
Delia squeaked. “Not really impossible, Carmine, if you think about it. Say he spots his quarry on a sofa grabbing a little rest from the bash, nips into the lav, makes himself up. If she’s still there when he pokes his head out, he’s on the sofa next to her as slick as a rat goes up a sewer pipe. If she isn’t there, he nips back into the lav and takes his make-up off. He’s full of gall-certainly he doesn’t lack it, now does he?”
“Oh, that’s too much!” Helen cried.
“No, Delia, I see where you’re going,” Carmine said. “It is possible, even if not very probable.”
“He must have an ego bigger than Tokyo,” Nick said.
“Well, we know that! How else can we fit all the pieces of this puzzle together? Parties, especially good ones, are about as easy to keep track of as the rails in a freight yard. They criss-cross perpetually. However, it does tell us one thing.”
“It does?” Nick asked.
“Yes. It says that the Dodo is fair in coloring. All his make-up has been brown, including light brown. Come on, guys! We’ve all had instruction in disguise-felons do resort to it, otherwise we wouldn’t have to sit through slides showing what blue contact lenses do to brown eyes-very little. Whereas if the eyes are light in color, it’s easy to change them with lenses of almost any color. We can say that the Dodo’s eyes are blue or grey or pale green, and his hair, at darkest, is a light brown. If he keeps a beak shape to his nose, then it’s probably straighter than that. Narrower too.” Carmine’s voice had grown excited, his hands moving expressively. “Skin has to be fair, and the bones of his face prominent. This guy’s cheeks are plump. Think of the Turks who shot Josef von Fahlendorf down in Munich-you know you’re not looking for fair gunmen. But if fair gunmen wanted to give an impression of Turks, it would be easy. Just thick, black hair and brown skin.”
“Oh, oh!” cried Helen. “The von Fahlendorfs could have been the gunmen! They were, Captain, they were!”
Carmine shot her a look of scorn. “No, they were genuine Turks. Why keep a dog and bark yourself?”
“Carmine, dear!” Delia exclaimed. “You’ve just widened the Dodo pool of suspects enormously.”
“No, diminished it. Holloman’s a place of many, many dark people-African, Mediterranean. There are far fewer fair.” He sputtered, grinned. “Hard to say that! Far-fewer-fair.”
“Where would you draw the line?” Delia asked.
“At Mason Novak, speaking of Gentleman Walkers. Don’t forget there were bunches of them at every Carew party. He’s basically red, which doesn’t exclude him. His eyes are a very light brown.”
“Or, at the other end, Kurt von Fahlendorf, though he’s been busy being kidnapped,” Helen said.
“Bill Mitski,” said Carmine. “Arnold Hedberg. Mike Donahue. Though if the Dodo is a Gentleman Walker, he’ll be easier to nail. We use the line-up. The rape survivors must have recovered enough by now to try identifying their attacker.”
“No, Carmine, you can’t do that,” Delia said quickly. “It’s too demanding for the women, who haven’t recovered enough. I’m sure that’s what Dr. Meyers will say. No, I’m right!”
“Of course she was right,” said Desdemona.
“I was hoping you’d be on my side,” he said, disgruntled.
“Not when it has to do with the effects of rape.”
“Okay, I’ll leave it.”
She leaned over to kiss the top of his head. “Thank you, dear heart.”
“How are things with you?”
“Much better. I don’t break down anymore. Julian is turning into a human being, believe it or not, and Alex is just divine. The sweetest little chap, quite different from Julian-oh, he was sweet at six months too, but looking back, I can see the germ of Julian the defense attorney. It was in the way he looked at me-measuring me up. Alex slobbers.”
“Slobbers?”
“Pools of drool.”
“I haven’t noticed,” Carmine said, surprised.
“You don’t have breasts, Daddy. Alex is far more like you than Julian is. Loves his food, does Alex.”
“That does bode well! Not a defense attorney type.”
Julian burst into the room, arms stretched out, and landed on Carmine’s lap. “Daddy, Daddy!”
“Hi, Captain. How’s the sub tonight?”
“Oh, him! I’m in the Wild West now, Daddy.”
“Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill Hickock, huh?” Carmine asked, racking his brains for Wild West heroes not famous for killing people, and very conscious of Desdemona’s presence.
“No, I’m Julian Delmonico, and I round up steers faster than anybody else on the Chisum Trail!”
Prunella flourished a large book. “It’s hard to find one that’s not full of shoot ’em up dead, but I try, Captain.” Her voice changed to command mode. “Bed time, Mister Delmonico! I am the boss of the roundup and you are a mere cowboy, so ride ’em!”
Julian’s goodnight kisses were entirely dutiful; he let out a piercing shriek. “That’s me, rounding up!”
“It’s a wild country with a wild past,” Carmine said to Desdemona when they were alone. “He’s half Calabrian, and you Brits haven’t always been peacefully inclined. You even had a civil war. I know you find the prospect of raising two sons in America appalling-is that why you’re depressed?”
Her rather plain face grew plainer, as it always did when she was unhappy; the pale blue eyes were teary. “No, I don’t think so,” she said. “I really don’t, Carmine. After all, you stand for law and order.”
He crossed to her chair and squeezed himself in it beside her, one arm around her shoulders. “Yet twice you’ve had to get yourself out of danger,” he said, throat tight. “Lovely lady, that’s a part of the law and order. We’ve been married now for nearly three years, and I can’t live without you. Every time you feel blue, remember that.”
“That’s the trouble,” she said. “I do.”
Sitting up, he turned her head so that he could see into her face. “Does that mean you’ve thought about leaving me?”
“No, of course not, silly! More that I worry about you in your job, I think. You’re right, this is a wild place. It’s-it’s gun-happy! You even had to teach me to shoot, remember?”
“That was common sense, Desdemona, nothing else. The odds are infinitesimally small, yes, but I’d rather be sure than sorry.”
“I won’t be able to deflect Julian from guns for much longer, will I?” She sounded desolate.
“Not when he plays with Ceruttis and Balduccis, I’m afraid. But you can’t forbid him to play with his peers either. That would isolate him. And you can’t tell me that British kids don’t play with toy guns. Sure they do! Violence is entrenched.”
“Yes, but how many kids find a gunman in their backyard?”
“That’s unfair. Neither American nor British kids.”
“Unless their father is an American cop.”
“Not even then. It was a simple quirk of fate.”
She got up suddenly and went into the kitchen; Carmine didn’t make the mistake of following her to pick at her cringing flesh. Sweet Jesus, don’t let a second wife desert me because of my job!
When all the election results of that very close victory were in, Richard Nixon was President and Hubert Humphrey the also-ran. “It’s Humphrey’s name,” moaned Nick, a fanatical Democrat. “Hubert! The moral of the story is not, don’t christen him that because he won’t get the Democrat nomination, it’s really because he won’t get elected when his rival’s got a name like Richard.”
“At least Connecticut voted Democrat,” said Delia.
“And all that’s in the past,” said Carmine. “More to our purpose is the fact that the Dodo investigation has foundered.”
It hadn’t seemed possible that the new slant on the Dodo’s appearance would go nowhere, but that was exactly where it went.
“We have nowhere to go and no place left to look,” he said to his assembled team on Monday, November 11. “It’s a purely local Carew affair, in that nothing has ever come to light about it outside of Carew. The Dodo, the Gentleman Walkers and the victims are all based in Carew. His last chosen date was the nation’s election day, which on the surface looks ideal, and he thought so too. His failure leaves us confounded-how is he going to adjust his timetable? His pattern to date has been at three-week intervals, but will he wait three weeks, bringing him to November 26, or go down to two weeks-November 19-or even one week-tomorrow? If it’s tomorrow, we’re shit out of luck, folks. Captain Vasquez wouldn’t be amenable to saturating Carew with cops so quickly after a Dodo failure, and I’m not sure we should ask him for that on any date, even the twenty-sixth. We can definitely assume that this guy has a list of victims that isn’t going to run out anytime soon, and, from what happened on election day, we might be excused for assuming that he has a list of plans as long as his victims. If we were going to catch him by saturating the area with cops, we would have succeeded then. His contingency plan was better than ours. He escaped. We got egg on our faces.”
“Maybe what we should be considering is his needing to blow off steam?” Nick asked.
“Yes, that’s an element,” Carmine said when no one else replied. “Not getting as far as first base with Catherine should cause a huge sense of frustration. But I think the Dodo is too cold-blooded for that kind of reaction. I read him as more likely to retreat into his shell and not try anything for months. Lull us into believing that he’s moved on to an equivalent of Carew in another state.”
“No, Carmine, he won’t do that,” Nick said.
“Why?”
“Because Carew is home. He’s been living in Carew for a long time. If she’s been in Carew for longer than a few weeks, he knows every Carew woman’s face. Not that I think any woman who hasn’t attended a Sugarman party is in danger. That’s where he picks them. But he won’t retreat into his shell-Carew is his shell. The drive is too strong for months of inertia. He’ll go for another victim, probably in three weeks-the twenty-sixth.”
“Could we set him up with a victim?” Helen asked. “I live in Carew, and I’m willing to be bait.”
“Thank you for the offer,” Carmine said, “but the Dodo works exclusively off his own list. We’ve been here before, remember?”
“How about trying to find his victims instead of him?” Delia asked. “We have to try, Carmine!”
“The pool is too big, it just is. He likes professional women who live decent but not celibate lives,” said Nick when Carmine didn’t answer. “Ethnic background, religion, physical type are all different, Delia. The pool’s too big.”
“Okay, the Dodo goes on a back burner,” Carmine said. “From what Corey says, the Black Brigade is restive, and the Taft High weapons cache is a bone of contention between him and Buzz. He says there are no weapons left at the school, Buzz thinks there might be. Emphasis: might be. Abe and his team are going on general duty. Nick and Delia, you’re going to Corey. The most important item to ferret out is the weapons cache-does it or does it not exist?”
“Corey has good connections with the Black Brigaders,” said Nick. “What makes Buzz disagree?”
“It seems to depend on whether or not there’s a splinter of the Black Brigade operating at Taft High,” Carmine said. “A sub-group could exist without the parent group’s full knowledge, given Mohammed’s secretiveness. A couple of years ago he was militant, but he’s never inclined toward violence for the sake of violence. I do know that some Black Brigaders get irritable at what they see as Mohammed’s sloth, or even timidity. When the confrontation over Wesley le Clerc never got off the ground, Mohammed kind of retreated. That’s why I’d be surprised if there isn’t a splinter group forming.”
“You think it’s at the school?” Delia asked, grimacing.
“I don’t know. Help Corey and Buzz find out.”
He was wearing his navy suit trousers; out of his cupboard came his silver-braided dress jacket. “I have to go, and I won’t be back today,” he said.
“What do you want me to do, sir?” Helen asked.
“Go back over the rape victims, right back to Shirley, see if you can find something new or any points in common we’ve overlooked.” Jacket on, he ran a finger around its high neck.“How I hate this neck! All you can do, Helen, is read. If you get bored, read one of your textbooks.” He left his office.
“He looks so splendid in his dress uniform-my heart leaps,” said Delia, sighing.
“Thanks a million!” Corey said with a snarl when Carmine walked in two days later.
“Excuse me?”
Corey waved a sheet of paper back and forth under Carmine’s nose. “This! You betrayed me. I thought you agreed to keep the Form 1313 business between ourselves?”
“Whatever gave you that idea?” Carmine asked, surprised.
“When we talked a few days ago, I thought we agreed that you’d brought up 1313 of your own volition, as a way of finding out how I felt about Morty. And I told you! He displayed no evidence of depression or suicidal tendencies, which is why I refused to submit the form. After all, it’s designed so that a man’s senior in the chain of command can’t plot against him-two signatures, two statements!”
“Until you tell me, Corey, I don’t know where you’re going.”
The paper flapped again. “I wish I could say this is a letter of commendation,” Corey said, shaking in rage, “but it’s not. It’s a written reprimand!” His voice took on the tones of Judge Thwaites passing sentence on someone he deemed contemptible. “Do not let anyone else under your command eat his gun, Lieutenant Marshall, do you hear me? This time it’s a caution, but if there is a next time, the full weight of the Law will fall upon you!” He dropped the letter. “A reprimand! Me!”
“No aspect of Morty’s death should be the object of sarcasm, especially when you choose Judge Thwaites. The enquiry wasn’t conducted under any Holloman public official, which should tell you that its findings are impartial,” Carmine said.
Corey sneered. “Oh, sure!”
“I still don’t get your drift, Corey.” Make him say it out loud, don’t let him suppress it to chew like a cow its cud.
“You and Silvestri have more pull than any other cops in the whole of Connecticut, including the Staties. You made sure I was reprimanded, you and Cousin Silvestri. All you had to do was pick up the phone. and call in a few favors.”
“Jesus, Corey, how paranoid can you get? This was an enquiry into Morty Jones’s death, not any alleged negligence on your or anyone else’s part,” Carmine said, stunned. “And you’re right about Form 1313-it would have been considered and discarded as the right of two superiors to differ. What made the panel sit up and take notice was your own conduct, Corey. You harangued them about your innocence.”
“You and Silvestri killed my chances of being exonerated,” Corey interrupted.
Carmine stared, stupefied. “Exonerated? What a word to use! No one is persecuting you, Corey, and you weren’t on trial. But you behaved as if you were, and that’s what earned you the reprimand. The panel became convinced that at least some of the smoke originated in a fire. You talked for a full half hour not about Morty Jones, but about yourself, the demands of your duties, how difficult I, and ultimately John Silvestri, made your job. Have you been listening to Maureen? Have you? I’m sure she’s an admirable wife domestically, but she knows nothing about police procedures. Whenever she sticks her oar in, you’re the one gets in trouble. And she’s been worse ever since you became a loot, Cor. Much worse! Like that crap about Abe Goldberg and my favoring him over you-I could hear Maureen saying it.”
“You can’t bring my wife into this,” Corey said aggressively. “It’s the pot calling the kettle black-rumor says your wife is a basket case. You’re passing the buck.”
“My wife is ill,” Carmine said, holding on to his temper, “nor does she try to interfere in my police business. I can’t say the same for Maureen. And if I see it, Cor, so does everyone else. Including Cousin Silvestri. Tell her to butt out.”
“She’s got my best interests at heart,” Corey said stoutly.
Oh, a lost cause! thought Carmine. “You deserved to be reprimanded,” he said. “Morty was reaching out for help, and you refused to see it. I know why. For exactly the same reason that you can’t be bothered writing a good report-there’s too much pain in the effort. No one has demoted you. The reprimand will go on your record, and that’s a shame, but it could only matter if you were moving on-”
Light dawned. Shit, Carmine, you fool! Maureen has made plans to move onward and upward, which means out of Holloman and out of the Holloman PD. Now it can’t happen. Corey has spoiled her plans. Not me. Not Silvestri. Corey. She’s known right along, but gave him the wrong advice-harangue the enquiry panel.
“If you wanted to look squeaky-clean, Corey, you should have blamed yourself a little. Tell Maureen no one’s perfect.”
Corey swallowed. “Why are you here, Carmine?”
“I’ve come to see why you’re making no use of two highly experienced and intelligent detectives in Delia Carstairs and Nick Jefferson,” Carmine said. “They’ve been with you two days, yet you haven’t even bothered to see them, let alone give them orders. What’s going on?”
“No, I haven’t seen them or used them,” Corey said, waxing indignant. “They appeared out of the blue, and I’ve had no kind of written direction from you-any kind of communication, even a phone call. According to Captain Vasquez-” he held up a fat pamphlet “-I could be sued if either of them was injured on the job. I mean, what’s the matter with this place these days?”
“I’m amazed that you read boring stuff like that,” Carmine said solemnly. “One of the penalties of a captaincy, you may tell Maureen, is an overwhelming amount of paperwork that can’t be avoided or postponed, plus a daunting number of conferences and meetings that achieve virtually nothing. And, if the captaincy is in the Holloman Police Department, it comes with a uniform coat whose collar could double for a guillotine. In the current landslide of duties that have little to do with Detectives, I overlooked the particular piece of paper that notified you about Carstairs and Jefferson, both of whom, for the purposes of shuffling paper, are men. They are now your men, Lieutenant, to do with as you please.”
“Carstairs is a woman!” Corey protested.
“Does paper have a sex? Perhaps they should be its?”
“You’re a sarcastic bastard, Carmine.”
“I am indeed. If you think that my ability to slip the dagger between your ribs is formidable, Corey, almost six years of being associated closely with me should tell you how awful it is when I twist the dagger inside the wound. And the first twist of the dagger is this: make sure your wife keeps her place.”
“Wives are off-limits for discussion, Carmine, you know that.”
“I ought to-it’s my own regulation. Sometimes, unfortunately, the rules have to be broken. You should be asking when, not why-you know the why. The when is now because this person who is vital for your well-being-your wife-has made your police business her business, and put a black mark on your career that would otherwise not have happened. Maureen’s made herself the subject of this talk, which I find extremely distasteful. I have nothing to say about her apart from her police interference, which has got to stop. Do you see that?”
“How come you never talked to Morty about his wife, then?”
“Oh, come on, Corey! Ava wasn’t my business.”
“Nor is Maureen.”
“She is, when she makes mischief within my division.”
“She doesn’t. It’s your imagination.”
“Okay, then I’ll drop the subject. You’ve been warned, and so has she.” Carmine leaned forward, looming. “If you don’t improve your attitude, Corey, there will be other reprimands. You’re going to have to learn what nearly a year of winging it hasn’t taught you-how to be a good lieutenant. You’re slipshod and careless, which you never used to be. How much of your apparent efficiency when you were on my team was due to Abe Goldberg’s covering up, I don’t know, but now you shape up, hear me? We’re looking at a green winter, and that means trouble.”
“You can’t possibly be naive enough to think there are still weapons at Taft High, Carmine. Did Genovese go over my head? If he did, I’ll crucify him!”
“No one has gone over your head, but in asking me, you’ve just revealed one of your deficiencies-you don’t trust a man the moment his opinion conflicts with yours. Differing opinions are healthy, Corey, they indicate your men can think for themselves. Trust doesn’t enter into it. Buzz Genovese is a new detective, he needs guidance, not derision. Or are you in favor of the trainee system and more Helen MacIntoshes?”
Corey looked horrified. “The old way is the best way!”
“Then don’t fuck up. Whatever you do, don’t fuck up.”
Delia was waiting outside Corey’s office door, which Carmine had closed on leaving. He stared at Delia in surprise.
“What’s up? Isn’t Corey treating you right?”
“If being ignored is incorrect, he isn’t. But is there any way Corey can do without my talents?” Delia asked.
“Give me a good enough reason, and I’ll cut you loose.”
“Helen.”
His brows furrowed, something stirred in his eyes that Delia couldn’t assess, except that Helen worried him. “Expand.”
“She’s a very good girl, but younger and more inexperienced than she’ll admit. That’s the trouble with growing up in that particular household, I imagine. Stacks of success, money, power-and ego. It hasn’t escaped me that you’ve chided her several times for arrogance and insensitivity, and I agree, she has too much of both. It’s just that-” her long, red nails fluttered like the tips of flesh-colored butterfly wings “-my thumbs are pricking, as the Bard would say. Let me stay with her, please!”
Too much money, too much beauty, too much too soon… “I see. Well, you and Desdemona have already kicked my ass over the rape victims, so who am I to ignore God-sent warnings? If you think she might inadvertently cause trouble, Delia, then by all means stay with her. If Corey gripes, refer him to me.”
The bright red mouth broke open in a beam, revealing that Delia’s teeth also wore lipstick; with a squeeze of his arm, she was gone, her clunky shoes booming up the stairwell.
She found Helen already surrounded by files, with what she privately called a “Joan of Arc” expression on her face, which lifted to see who came in, visionary, beatified.
“Oh, Delia! I thought you were going to Corey,” Helen said, Joan of Arc replaced by Snow White choking on an apple.
“The boss changed his mind,” Delia said artlessly, pulling up a chair and sitting.
“I thought he was finally trusting me!”
“He always trusts you, Helen. Try to climb out of that oversensitive skin of yours to see what I believe is called the big picture. No, let me put it another way. You interpret Captain Delmonico’s actions and orders as pertaining exclusively to you, but that’s wrong. He acts and orders to achieve maximum results from every member of his teams, highest to lowliest. Between his telling you to work the old rape victims on your own and his ordering me to join you, he must have seen that something would come up needing more than one pair of hands.”
“But what could?”
“We have to find it. Surely you know me well enough by now to understand that if the credit belongs to you, I will gladly give it to you. I’m not greedy.”
Yes, but you are, Helen. Second-string bothers you, your eyes have turned stony. Ambition! So much ambition!
Keeping her voice neutral, Delia embarked upon the story of the Ghost, who had abducted teenaged girls, tortured and raped them, then murdered them. It was a famous case which Delia went into more deeply than any of the filed reports did.
“You’re saying that lightning won’t strike in the same place twice,” Helen said at the end. “I get the message” She shrugged, smiled. “So okay, any suggestions as to where we look?”
“Yes. We’re going out. My Buick, or your Lamborghini?”
“Will it offend you if it’s my Lamborghini and I drive?”
“Lord bless you, no, child! All those horses are fun.”
“Where to?”
“Mark Sugarman’ s, with every drawing of the Dodo we have.”
He was not annoyed to see them. Just resigned. “I hope you realize that this is my ninth interview?”
“Lord bless you, no!” Helen cried, enamored of Delia’s phrase. “Actually this isn’t an interview, it’s a collaboration.”
It had been agreed in the car that she would take the lead; Helen used his big white table to spread the drawings. “The police artist did these, but he’s not a patch on you, and we need more drawings. Would you do them?”
He was in love with Leonie Coustain, but who could resist those wonderful eyes when they held pleading? Mark Sugarman swelled a little. “I’m clay in your hands,” he said, laughing. “Yes, I’ll do them.”
“Now?” she wheedled.
“Yes, now.” He walked across to shelves and supplies for a sketching block of thick, raggy paper, then filled an empty jar with pencils. “I’m ready. From here on, you have to direct me.”
Helen looked over the drawings and found one, full face, that showed a dark-haired, dark-eyed man with a beaky nose.
“This one first,” she said, disappointed when he took it to his drawing board and pinned it in the left-hand corner, then tore off a sheet of paper and fixed it to the center of the board with what looked like plasticine.
“Oh, I can’t watch unless I move one of your tables.”
“I forbid it. Sit there, at the bar. You’re as close now as I can bear. Do you want a better drawn copy?”
“No, I want you to work with the bones of this face and do as I say.”
“For you, Helen, that’s not difficult. Tell me.”
“Make the nose straight and narrower, the mouth smaller but its lips fuller, and the brows more arched,” she said. “He needs to be twenty pounds lighter, whatever that would do to his face, and his coloring should be on the fair side.”
Silence fell. The two women watched, fascinated, as the new face grew below the one in the top left-hand corner. Mark kept working, it seemed oblivious, until he sighed, stretched, and turned on his stool to face them.
“Well? Is that what you want?”
It was difficult to credit that the one drawing had its basis in the other; Mark’s version was handsomer in a Hollywood way, yet didn’t look like anyone they knew.
“Shit,” said Helen, “I was sure I’d recognize him!”
Mark had swung back toward the drawing board and was studying his work in a frowning concentration. “You know, girls, I am positive I’ve seen this guy somewhere,” he said. He continued to look for some minutes, but in the end sighed in defeat. “It beats me! I can’t place him.”
Helen seized another drawing, of a fairer but fatter man. “Do you mind doing the same thing to him?”
“Of course not. If it can help, I’ll feel that at least I did something for Leonie.”
This progressed faster, as if the pencils, all sharpened, knew their route around the blank paper more unerringly. At the end, all three gasped.
“It’s the same man!” Helen cried.
“Definitely,” said Delia.
“And I’m no farther ahead with my memory, girls. I know him, I know I know him! Where?”
“A party?” Helen suggested.
“Could be, though I can’t label him with a name, and every man at a Sugarman party is a friend, not an acquaintance.”
“The mystery man who converses in a corner with victims?”
“Is that-?” Mark shook his head. “No. It’s not unlike, but it’s not like either.”
“Okay, let’s go through the Gentleman Walkers-the handsome ones,” Helen said. “Sorry you can’t help, Delia, but if you don’t mind sitting there, I think Mark and I ought to do that.”
“I can help,” Delia said, going down on all fours to get at her huge briefcase. “I brought the relevant Gentlemen with me in photographic form.” She shook the case like a dog a hard pillow; pictures cascaded out. “It’s best if all three of us do this, because people’s ideas of beauty differ so much.”
For a moment Delia thought Helen was going to have a temper tantrum, but good sense won; she laughed. “You are so right, Delia! I’m dying to see your idea of handsome!”
A merry half hour ensued, at the end of which Mark admired Delia’s choices more than he did Helen’s; since he qualified in both women’s listings, he couldn’t be dismissed as biased.
“Your choices are all male models,” he tried to explain to an incensed Helen. “You have no place for subtleties like charm or kindness. To me, they illuminate a face to beauty, whether they’re men or women. I agree that Kurt von Fahlendorf is very handsome, but his face is Narcissus-no character.”
“How can you say that, Mark?” Helen demanded aggressively. “Delia picked him too-and you did yourself! But to say he has no character-oh, that’s ridiculous! One day he’s likely to win a Nobel Prize, yet his colleagues love him! Ordinarily they hate the prize winners. If you saw him with his sister or mother-!”
“That’s not what I mean, and I agree, he has to go down in every list of handsome men. It’s just that he’s not near the top of my list, any more than he is of Delia’s. I agree with you, Delia. Mason Novak every time, followed by Arnie Hedberg and Mike Donahue. Bill Mitski’s ahead of Kurt. I put Greg Pendleton up there as well.”
“Oh, go take a running jump!” said Helen, pouting.
“No need, Helen. None of the Gentlemen is my mystery man.”
“Shit, triple shit!” said Helen.
“Time to go, dear.” Delia turned to Mark and held out her hand, smiling. “Thank you so much for your patience, Mark. Um-may we take your drawings?”
“Oh, burn them!” Helen snarled, and swept out.
“She’s been spoiled,” said Mark, taking Delia’s briefcase and staggering. “Man, this weighs a ton! Funny,” he said as they waited for an elevator, “she got markedly nicer for a few weeks after she joined the Holloman PD. I’d begun to think that she had the makings of a wonderful woman.”
“She still does.” Delia got in, Mark following. “I put her relapse down to disappointment at not shining as brightly as the sun at the end of some time period she’d set herself. She didn’t think her junior status would last. She’s been with us for ten weeks now, which I imagine is the length of her tether.”
Mark loaded the briefcase into the Lamborghini’s trunk, and watched the car roar away.
“Poor Helen!” he said, then went back inside Talisman Towers.
Mason Novak was walking out. “Just the man I came around to see! How about lunch?”
“As head of two ‘Who Is The Handsomest?’ polls, Mason, how could a mere eleventh on the list turn you down?”
“Huh?”
“Wait while I get a jacket, and I’ll tell you over lunch. It makes a marvelous story. Where are we going?”
“Up-market, or down?”
“Sea Foam, and I’ll pick up the check,” Mark said. “When the story’s as good as mine, we don’t need eavesdroppers.”
Mason listened, entranced, then shouted with laughter. “My God! I don’t know whether to shiver with amusement or fear.”
“Neither,” said Mark loyally.
“I think a lot depends on whether Helen MacIntosh likes me, don’t you?”
“She likes you fine, but it’s Kurt she has her eye on.”
“Poor Kurt!” Mason said, real pity in his voice. “I’d hate to head any Helen MacIntosh list, from handsome to husband. Do you think Kurt fills both roles?”
“I have no idea, and you know what?”
“What?”
“I’m not going to ask.”
I hate this year! thought Carmine as he trudged up the stairs to his office. Between Fernando Vasquez, M.M., John Silvestri and my own limitations, I haven’t managed to get out into the field nearly as much as I want to. Delia and Nick can manage fine, but that’s no consolation. I keep getting flashes of insight that go nowhere, one of my lieutenants is in a state of covert rebellion, and I have a rapist-murderer uncaught after ten months. Not to mention a glass teddy bear that’s a museum piece and a bank robber cum vandal who seems to have disappeared in a puff of smoke. My wife’s moving away from me into an ideal world where she can see her sons grow up untainted by violence, I haven’t set eyes on my pre-med daughter since she started at Paracelsus, and Myron isn’t visiting.
“What have I done wrong?” he asked Patrick O’Donnell later.
The blue eyes twinkled. “Nothing, cuz, nothing! You’ve hit a patch of doldrums, is all. Until the wind fills your sails again, you just have to sit becalmed.”
“I wouldn’t mind, except that I’m missing something, Patsy. Every time I think I’ve sunk my teeth into the Dodo, a distraction intrudes-Vasquez with some new scheme, or John in need of yet another report, or, or, or!” Carmine said passionately.
“I know the feeling. Now that I’m fifty-seven, John wants to know whether I’m going for retirement at sixty or sixty-five-how the hell do I know yet? A lot depends on Ness, whether she retires at sixty. We’re the same age, our kids are grown and off our hands-work fills our lives, damn it!”
Carmine knew that his cousin’s decision rested ultimately on whether he felt the empire he had built was built on solid foundations. When he had begun as Medical Examiner, forensics were virtually non-existent; now it occupied more floor space and staff than necrology, and more of his time too. And it kept expanding as new discoveries were made. Had Patsy prepared for them sufficiently? Would sixty-five be better?
“How’s Desdemona?” Patrick asked.
“Recovering from the depression, but now she’s got a new bogey-sons and guns,” Carmine said.
“Oh, that one! Maybe you should send her to talk to Ness. Even primary school has its share of gun worries, but they have to be put into perspective. There’s a huge cultural gap too.”
“Tell me something I don’t know! But actually it’s not Desdemona worrying me as much as my detectives. When a man eats his gun, it’s the culmination of a whole slew of problems that ought never to have been allowed get that far. Or that big. Any fool can see that, yet Corey refuses to-and he’s no fool! I can’t trust him to see what’s under his nose in foot-high letters.”
Patrick opened a filing cabinet drawer and removed a full bottle. 200ml beakers made great glasses, there was a carboy of distilled water, and every laboratory had an ice machine.
“The sun’s been over the yard arm for hours, and John does not rule here. You’ve been in that uniform for days, so don’t refuse me.” He put a clinking beaker in Carmine’s hand.
“I have no intention of refusing. Cheers!”
“Cheers! The trouble with Corey, cuz, is that the canker eating at him you can’t remove-Maureen the snake, Maureen the scorpion. I hear he was reprimanded.”
“Rumor does not lie. Unfortunately Maureen was planning on a move to police captain some place other than Holloman. Well, the reprimand kills any hope of that, which is good for Corey.”
“I agree. He couldn’t thrive out of his home town. Is he cooking any more reprimands?”
“It depends whose side you want to take in his little team war. Buzz Genovese says there are still weapons at Taft High, but Corey is adamant there aren’t. I gave Corey Nick Jefferson and Delia, but he wouldn’t use them until I told him in person. He thinks I’ve planted them as spies.”
“Jesus, he’s paranoid! As if you’d ever do that. You’re quite capable of doing your own dirty work.” Patrick put his beaker down. “Corey has to go, Carmine, you realize that. He’s running a personal agenda and sees you as his enemy.”
“I know, but I haven’t worked out how to do it. Nor, more importantly has the Commissioner. We won’t lose another man by a cop suicide, but there are other ways. Corey’s not capable of looking after his men properly.”
“Have you talked to John about it?”
“Only briefly.”
“Time to sit down with John and get it all out in the open, cuz. If anyone has a solution, it will be John Silvestri.”
“I can’t be sure how he’ll react, Patsy. He might jump too brutally. He’s capable of great mercy and sympathy, but also of putting a man’s head on the chopping block.”
“When he decapitates, the circumstances are different. Corey is a seventeen-year veteran who’s spent his whole cop career in the Holloman PD. The mercy and sympathy will be there. He knows dear sweet Maureen, just like the rest of us. Nasty bitch!”
“I guess you’re right.” Carmine drained his beaker and stood. “Thanks, Patsy. I’ll lay everything out for John scrupulously.”
On his way across the building, Carmine looked at his watch. Six o’clock. Too late for Desdemona to salvage her dinner, but early enough to put parts of it in the refrigerator. He disliked destroying her work, but he had a job to do that couldn’t wait.
She behaved, as always, like the perfect policeman’s wife. “Never mind, my love,” she said over the phone, “it was only a beef roast. Prunella and I will have some tonight, and the rest can go into a shepherd’s pie tomorrow. What flavor would you like the minced beef to have? Curry? Italian? Plain old Limey? I’d top a curry or an Italian one with risotto, an English one with mashed potatoes.”
“English,” he said promptly. “How’s the kids?”
“Like runner beans-I can almost see them growing. Oh, I do hope they don’t shoot to seven feet!”
“So do I. That means custom-made beds, mattresses, sheets, blankets, watching for round shoulders and sway backs-”
“Carmine, stop! They might inherit their height from you.”
“Well, we’re not short. I’m five-eleven, my pa was six-one, and the Ceruttis are taller than the Delmonicos. Whether you like it or not, wife, our sons will play basketball.”
“Rather that than American football! Wake me up when you come to bed, please.”
And that was that. He phoned Malvolio’s and got Luigi.
“Do you ever go home, Luigi?” he asked, suddenly curious.
“Home is Malvolio’s. I live upstairs anyway.”
“Jesus! How long have I known you?”
“Um… 1950 or thereabouts, Carmine.”
“So it’s only taken me eighteen years to learn that you live upstairs. Any family?”
“Four boys, all in the armed services.”
“And the wife?”
“Took off with a sailor in 1944.”
“So you raised your boys alone.”
“The family helped.”
“I don’t even know your last name!”
“Silvestri. What can I do you for, Captain?”
“Is there someone can bring me over meat loaf and rice pudding in about an hour, Luigi?”
“Sure thing. I got some juicy shrimps, want a cocktail?”
“Why not?”
He fetched all the relevant files-and some that only he felt were relevant-and put them on his table. The only way to tackle the case of Didus ineptus was to go through it from its beginning to its present end in the peace of a deserted office. After a pensive look at the number of files and the area of his table, he went to Stella Pulaski’s office and took the two folding banquet tables stored behind her door. Once they were up, he decided he had sufficient room, and began the business of distributing the files widely separated enough to allow their contents space if they needed laying out. The last series of interviews Delia and Helen had conducted with the victims went into each victim’s pile.
Then he proceeded to break the files up: uniformed reports, detective reports, witness reports, victim reports. By the time that he was satisfied that everything was arranged according to his needs, Minnie arrived with his dinner, which went on to his formal desk together with a giant thermos of Luigi’s coffee.
He sat and ate-Luigi was right, the shrimps were juicy-until the plates were clean, then sent them back to Malvolio’s in the custody of a desk cop. Under Danny Marciano, it would have simply happened; under Fernando Vasquez, he had to fill in a form explaining why he had used a uniformed cop as a personal servant. Jesus, how he hated the bureaucratic mentality! An imp whispered that he should fill out a form explaining why he’d ordered a uniform to shine his shoes, but he pushed the little devil away; he was too busy for pranks.
Stomach full, coffee mug steaming, he started work.
Considering that the first inkling the police had of the Dodo’s existence was the rape of Maggie Drummond on Tuesday, September 24, and it was now Tuesday, November 19, Carmine realized that at no time had he been free to examine the case from its actual start on March 3 until this moment. But after tonight, that would change; he would have the Dodo at his fingertips. Even as he worked it nagged at Carmine that if the Dodo switched to two weeks, tomorrow they would have another victim, and she would be dead. Yet he couldn’t seriously think that: the Dodo might tell himself that nothing temporal ruled his forays, but three weeks did.
Shirley Constable, the first victim, on March 3, a Sunday. An embryonic Dodo, not even named because she had been so terrified that she hadn’t even remembered his notice. But in her last interview, after some weeks of treatment, she had told Liz Meyers that the man definitely wasn’t Mason Novak. The Dodo’s touch was alien. Mercedes Mendes, ten weeks later, on Monday, May 13. Even after weeks of therapy she maintained she had no boyfriend; Dr. Meyers had elicited an unknown fact about her that solved the puzzle. Mercedes was a lesbian. Leonie Coustain, raped on Tuesday, June 25, which was six weeks after Mercedes. The Dodo was growing into his final shape, gaining confidence. From then on his intervals were roughly three weeks; Esther Dubrowski on Tuesday, July 16, Marilyn Smith on Tuesday, August 6, Natalie Goldfarb on Friday, August 30, Maggie Drummond on Tuesday, September 24, Melantha Green on Tuesday, October 15, and the attempt on Catherine dos Santos on Tuesday, November 5. Why with some victims he had varied by a few days Carmine couldn’t begin to fathom. Personality traits, linked as they always were to career choices and life styles, were as varied as ethnic backgrounds, religions, family histories. Two were religiously motivated virgins, two were lesbians, the rest had fairly active sex lives without sleeping around. If they had anything in common, it was a professional career; apparently the Dodo was not drawn to women in menial jobs. All were strong personalities, if very different, and it occurred to Carmine that the Dodo harbored a degree of hatred for outgoing, independent professional women. Had he been publicly laughed at by one such? The first of his victims, for instance? The pre-rape Shirley Constable had been noted for her outspoken frankness. She had “caught” a much wanted fish, Mason Novak, who hadn’t looked at another woman since they became an item, but she was one of Carmine’s two religiously motivated virgins-a wedding ring came before sex.
Easy to see why Maggie Drummond was his last living victim; she had flipped him a more insulting bird than a dodo when she survived her rape unintimidated, despite its new horrors-his fist, the asphyxiations.
The Dodo murdered Melantha Green. She had a boyfriend steady enough to be gifted with a key to her apartment, and apparently enjoyed a safe, comfortable relationship with a fellow black in medicine. Why had the Dodo chosen her for his first killing? Her blackness? No, somehow that didn’t fit. The Dodo did nothing unreasonable according to his lights. What was unique about her?
Catherine dos Santos was not a virgin, she had admitted, though she didn’t indulge in sex regularly. Maybe she would qualify as a nun-like person, but only so far. She hadn’t put up the bars on her windows, but she had hailed them in delight when she was looking for a place to live. Why was a mystery, but Carmine felt that a part at least of her defenses-the sirens, definitely-contained an element of the practical joke. She had been dying to try her sirens out! Well, they had done their job. That she had been spared the Dodo’s attentions had to be attributed to her own ingenuity; the police had done nothing to help her, any more than had the abominable Hochners.
All of which, he decided at midnight, stretching painfully, pointed to a part of a motive for Didus ineptus: he intended to ruin the happiness and contentment of a number of professional women who irked him more than most of the breed. What Carmine couldn’t come to grips with was the exact nature of the Dodo’s sexual motives. No victim had been cut, hacked, mutilated, burned or endured the tortures usually inflicted by the multiple offender. He bruised, and with numbers seven and eight, he had used a rope, probably of human hair, to asphyxiate. If he wasn’t caught, would he progress to other forms of torture? Carmine didn’t think so.
Accepted thinking had it that rapists who murdered preyed on prostitutes because such crimes went almost unnoticed: who misses a whore? Whereas the Dodo preyed on women who were noticed. Nine women thus far, and we didn’t know about him until the seventh.
What if this kind of predator is common? Police notice boards are full of the pictures of missing young women, pretty, from good families, pursuing careers. What if a number of them can be traced to a horrifying death at the hands of a raping killer? I am looking, Carmine thought, at the tip of an iceberg.
Our Dodo knows every single one of his victims, but whatever his victims do to be entered on his list, no one save he knows. At first raping them was enough; he used them, abused them, and left them emotionally handicapped for life. Until Maggie Drummond spoke out, exposed him. My two women, Delia and Helen, brought in Dr. Liz Meyers and the rape clinic, and now he sees the damage he inflicted start to heal. But no one can heal a dead victim, so he moved up and on to murder.
Whose is the next name on his list? He’s left me no clue that I can see to identify her.
The Gentleman Walkers of Carew, he decided at one a.m., were no help to the investigation. Mark Sugarman led one group of Walkers; Mason Novak led the other group that walked on the alternate days. No name had sprung out as never walking on a Dodo night, which probably meant that the Dodo wasn’t a Walker-or that the Dodo was listed as walking, but didn’t.
There was a cross-link between the Glass Teddy Bear gift shop vandalisms and the Dodo case, in that Hank Murray, manager of the Busquash Mall, lived in Carew and, when he had the time, served as a Gentleman Walker. Then there were the Warburton twins, who also lived in Carew and seemed to lead lives of leisure. They were devious and shady, but any criminal activities in California had gone unreported, and in Connecticut they were simply dismissed as eccentrics, a type of person both prominent and tolerated in a university city like Holloman.
From there he went back to the victims and did the whole exercise again, this time using sources like Helen MacIntosh’s journals, which he found informative, perceptive and amusing. She had put them in his custody a week ago, even including the one she was entering-in about nine weeks, she had filled no fewer than seven books!
Her colored inks amused him in one respect, but in another provoked sincere admiration: she was right when she said it was a help, and certainly the purple entries were something of a revelation. Her description of the glass teddy bear, his value, and Amanda’s stubborn refusal to admit its worth were excellent; he was interested to learn that his cool, selfish, ambitious trainee had developed a fondness for Amanda that ripened into friendship; long after there was no necessity to put entries in her books about the Vandal case, a paragraph or two of purple ink would appear.
Then there was her work on the California connections of the Warburton twins, starting with Howard, their father.
“Howard Warburton was autopsied,” she wrote in black ink, “not because he had died falling down his stairs, but because the examining doctor at the scene thought his body in an impossible posture. At autopsy he was shown to have a spinal column fracture at C2-C3. There were no other injuries apart from minor bruising. The police pathologist agreed that Mr. Warburton’s head should have been closest to the bottom step, not his feet, and called the death suspicious.
“Then the twins-eight years old-admitted that they had been present when the accident happened, and had pushed and pulled at their father trying to revive him. His head had been closest to the step, but by the time they finished with him, it was farthest away. That left only one difficulty, the fact that there had been no cerebral or cardiac catastrophe to cause the fall. Then Robert said he thought his father had tripped, and Gordon, a parrot according to the San Diego police, said he saw his father trip too. After interrogating the twins intensively, the San Diego D.A. declined to pursue the matter. The year was 1945, and the cream of every crop was in the armed services. Howard Warburton hadn’t been, thanks to poor vision and flat feet. Two reasons why he might have tripped.”
In purple ink she had written: “They did it! In 1968 we’re a bit more sophisticated about the capacity of children for doing murder, but in 1945 I guess people would have died of horror at the mere thought.
“I didn’t think there was any reason why, provided I kept identities properly concealed, I shouldn’t talk to Kurt about it, and he agrees with me. I made my killer one child, in case you’re worried, Captain. I confess I only do it to get a rise out of him-he’s so cool, calm and collected. Sorry, sir.”
Smiling, Carmine put the book down. She was incorrigible! However, she had been dating Kurt exclusively for eight or nine months, and no one knew better than he that all human beings need someone to confide in. According to her lights, Kurt was ideal-unconnected to her work, prone to take her side. What more could one ask? he thought, an image of Desdemona before his eyes.
Carmine ploughed on-black pen, blue pen, red pen, green pen, and that inevitable purple pen to put a very personal, highly biased slant on everything that swam through her little part of the huge police ocean.
Sometimes there were irreverent remarks about her father-purple pen, of course! and one perceptive comment about her mad-in-an-uncertifiable-way mother, who had seen three ghosts in the Chubb House sitting room fireplace. Which wasn’t enough to make it into Helen’s report book: what was? The fact that all three stopped playing some antique game of cards, complete to wigs and buckled shoes, and stared at Angela MacIntosh in utter terror. ‘A ghost! Can you see her?’ asked one. Then all three disappeared. Written in red overwritten in purple: “Mom strikes again. No one’s safe.”
And what do I do? he asked himself at three in the morning, finished at last. What she says is so interesting, though she has no idea of it. And the spontaneity of those little stories about her parents, Kurt, and Amanda Warburton-wonderful!
Desdemona was awake, watching New York television on the little set that stood atop the bureau in their bedroom; she tended to be insomniac if he hadn’t come home by bedtime. Even knowing he was sure to be safe-if he wasn’t, they’d race to tell her-couldn’t compensate for the fear in a cold bed.
“Did you do what had to be done?” she asked, sitting up.
“Yes. I just needed to see all of it in perspective and from every viewpoint.” He threw his clothes over a chair, too tired to put them away.
“Do you know whodunit?”
“Yes, I’m fairly sure.” He crawled into bed and cuddled. “The trouble is, there’s not a shred of evidence.”
“I love your hair,” she said, running her fingers through it. “Mine’s so flimsy.”
“Wrong genes, my giant English mouse.” He kissed her neck. “I hope you’re not in too much need, love. I’m past it.”
“So am I, actually. I’m just glad you’ve seen the trees as well as the forest. Are you sure there’s no evidence?”
“Positive.”
“Will you confide your suspicions to anyone other than me?”
“Not this time. There are all kinds of complications, too many sensitive egos… ” He was mumbling a little.
“Yes, it’s not a terribly happy division at the moment, I know.” She looked brisk. “You sit on it, love, no matter who tries to probe.” A giggle. “Or with what.”
He forced his eyelids open. “I’m just glad, Desdemona, you’re not in danger from a killer.” The words came out a trifle slurred.
She grabbed his hair again, but painfully. “Carmine! Don’t you dare tempt fate! Take that back, or cross your fingers, or-or-or something!”
“I crossed my fingers,” he murmured, and was asleep.
Good, she could leave the TV on; it would take her some time to grow drowsy. Twisting, she looked down at his face in the dim, flickering light. The lines had smoothed away, he was at peace. How awful to think I have to wake him again four hours from now. He’ll be mad at me for letting him sleep an extra bit, but I don’t care. The world won’t end if he’s not sitting at his wretched kitchen table by eight o’clock, and so I’ll tell Delia. What would I do without her?