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All your women, Scudder. Jesus, a madman wanted to take from me women I didnt have. I had barely known Connie Cooperman and hadnt thought of her in years. And who were his other targets? Elaine, who played a shopworn Lady of Shalott to my corroded Lancelot. Anita, my wife years and years ago, and Jan, my girlfriend months and months ago. And Toni Cleary, whod had the bad judgment to go out for a hamburger with me.
He must have followed us that night. Could he have trailed us all the way out to Richmond Hill? It seemed impossible. Maybe hed just been in the neighborhood, lurking, and he picked us up on our way to Armstrongs, or walking toward her place.
I kept walking around, trying to sort it out.
I packed it in, finally, went back to my hotel room and hung my wet clothes up to dry. It had turned cold out there and I had paid as little heed to that as to the rain, and I was chilled to the bone. I stood under a hot shower and then crawled into bed.
Lying there, I had a thought, or skirted close to the edge of one. He was out there, menacing all of these women who used to be mine, and here I was, running around like a juggler trying to keep all the balls in the air. Trying to save them, trying to protect them, Elaine and Anita and Jan, and in the process trying to hold on to them. Trying, in a sense, to confirm their status as what he labeled them- my women, mine.
Trying in the process to deny the truth, to turn a blind eye on reality. To overlook the bitter fact that these women were not mine, and probably never had been mine. That I didnt have anybody, and likely never would.
That I was all alone.
In daylight you could see the bloodstains, although you would have had to be looking for them to know what they were. I went over there with Joe Durkin, and the doorman pointed out Tonis landing site. It was on the side street, perhaps twenty yards west of the buildings entrance.
The doorman was an Hispanic kid, his shoulders too narrow for the jacket of his uniform, his mustache sparse and tentative. Hed had Sunday off but I showed him the sketch of Motley anyway. He looked at it and shook his head.
Durkin got a passkey and we went upstairs and let ourselves into her apartment. No one had troubled to close the window and it had rained in some the previous day. I leaned out over the sill and tried to see the spot where she came down. I couldnt see anything, and a rush of vertigo made me pull my head in and straighten up.
Durkin went over to the bed. It was made, and some clothing was folded neatly at its foot. A navy skirt, an off-white blouse, a dark gray cable-knit cardigan. A pair of lacy white panties. A bra, also white, with large cups.
He picked up the bra, examined it, put it back.
"Big girl," he said, and glanced my way to check my reaction. I dont suppose I showed much. He lit a cigarette, shook out the match, and looked around for an ashtray. There werent any. He blew on the match to make sure it was cool and set it down carefully on the edge of the night table.
"Your guy said he killed her," he said. "That right?"
"Thats what he told Elaine. "
"Elaines the witness against him? Thats twelve years back when all this shit started?"
"Thats right. "
"You dont think hes like some of these Arab terrorists, do you? Plane comes down, theyre on the phone claiming credit for it. "
"I dont think so. "
He drew on his cigarette and blew out smoke. "No, I guess not," he said. "Well, it could have been murder. I dont see how you can rule it out. Somebody goes out a high window, how are you going to say whose idea it was?" He walked over to the door. "She had this locked, had the deadbolt on. Whats that prove either way? Doesnt make a locked-room case out of it. You can engage the deadbolt from inside by turning this thing here, or you can do it when you leave by locking it with the key. He puts her out the window, he picks up a key, he locks up after himself on his way out. Proves nothing. "
"No. "
"Of course theres no note. I never like a suicide without a note. There ought to be a law. "
"What would you have for a penalty?"
"Youve gotta come back and live. " He looked around reflexively for an ashtray, then flicked ashes on the parquet floor. "Used to be a crime to attempt suicide, though I never heard of anyone prosecuted for it. Idiot statute. Makes it a crime to attempt something thats not a crime if you succeed at it. Heres one for you, the kind of dimwit question turns up on the sergeants exam. Say she falls out the window and hits the Fitzroy kid. He dies but he breaks her fall and she lives. Whats she guilty of?"
"I dont know. "
"I suppose its either criminally negligent homicide or manslaughter two. And theres been incidents like that. Not from twenty-odd stories up, but when someone jumps from say four stories up. You never get a prosecution, though. "
"No. "
"Unsound mindd be a pretty good defense, I would think. What Ill do, Ill call and get a lab crew in here. Be a gift from God to find some of his prints on the window frame, wouldnt it now?"
"Or anywhere in the apartment. "
"Anywhere," he agreed. "But I dont think well get lucky that way, do you?"
"No. "
"Be sweet if we did. Couple of uniforms from our house were first on the scene, so if theres a case its our case, and Id fucking love to hang it on your guys neck. But everything says this is a guy who doesnt leave prints. He called her twice, right? First time he whispered. "
"Thats right. "
"And thats what you got on tape, an unidentified male whispering and saying he sent flowers. And a vague threat, says its not her turn yet but doesnt say her turn for what. Try making a case out of that. "
He looked for someplace to get rid of his cigarette. His eyes went to the floor, then to the open window. He went instead to the kitchen sink and held the cigarette under the tap, then dropped the butt in the trash.
He said, "Then when he does threaten her and talks in a normal voice its after he tells her to turn off the machine, and of course she does what he says and turns it off. So we got her word he threatened her, and her word that he confessed to killing Cleary and Fitzroy. And even thats thin, because he didnt say exactly what he did or mention anybody by name. "
"Right. "
"So unless weve got some physical evidence, I dont see that weve got a thing. Ill copy that sketch and well try it on the doorman, the guy who was on that morning, and the rest of the crew, too, just in case somebody spotted him lurking around the premises the past few days. I wouldnt expect much, though. And placing him in the area, or even in the building, is a long way from convicting him of her murder. First youve got to establish that theres been a murder, and I dont know how you can do that. "
"What about the medical evidence?"
"What about it?"
"What was the cause of death?"
He looked at me.
"Wasnt there an autopsy?"
"Its required. You know that. But you also know what they look like after they fall that far. You want medical evidence? Cleary fell headfirst, and her head collided with Fitzroys head. Dont even think about the odds of that, but it happened. You know what both their heads look like? Long as the ME doesnt find a bullet in her, hes going to put down that she died from injuries sustained in the fall. Youre thinking he may have killed her first. "
"It seems likely. "
"Yeah, but go prove it. Its just as likely he knocked her out and tossed her out unconscious. What are you going to find, marks on her throat? Evidence of a blow to the head?"
"How about semen? He left some in the woman in Ohio. "
"Yeah, and they couldnt even say whose it was. Ill tell you something, Matt, if they find semen in Cleary it could even be Fitzroys, the way the two of them shared their last moments and all. And say its Motleys, what does that prove? Its not against the law to go to bed with a woman. Its not even against the law to fuck her in the ass. " He reached for another cigarette, changed his mind. "Ill tell you," he said, "were not gonna get this guy for Cleary. Not withou
t very strong fingerprint evidence, and probably not even with that. Placing him on the scene, even in the room with her, doesnt make it a murder or him a murderer. "
"What does?" He looked at me. "Just what do we have to do, wait for a corpse with his signature on it?"
"Hell fuck up, Matt. "
"Maybe," I said. "I dont know that I can wait. "
Durkin was good. He might not believe the case had a chance of amounting to anything but he went through the motions all the same, and without wasting time. He got some lab techs over there right away, and that afternoon he called me with a report.
The bad news was that they hadnt turned up a single print of Motleys anywhere in the Cleary apartment. The good news, if you wanted to call it that, was the lack of prints at strategic spots on the frame and sill of the window she went out of, which tended to indicate that someone had either taken care not to leave prints or had wiped them away after the body cleared the window. You couldnt call it evidence, people dont leave a print every time they touch a surface, but it helped confirm for us something we already knew. That Toni Cleary hadnt killed herself. That she had help.
All I could think of to do was what Id already been doing. Talking to people. Knocking on doors. Showing his sketch around, and passing out copies of it, along with cards from my diminishing supply.
That made me think of Jim Faber, whod printed them as a gift to me. Call your sponsor- thats what you heard all the time in meetings. Dont drink, go to meetings, read the Big Book, call your sponsor. I wasnt drinking and Id been going to meetings. I couldnt think what the Big Book might have to say about playing hide-and-seek with a vengeful psychopath, nor did I figure Jim was an authority on the subject. I called him anyway.
"Maybe theres nothing you can do," he said.
"Thats a helpful thought. "
"I dont know if its helpful or not. Its probably not very encouraging. "
"Not very, no. "
"But maybe it is. Maybe its just a way of acknowledging that youre already taking all the appropriate actions. Finding a man who doesnt want to be found in a city the size of New York must be like finding the proverbial needle in the equally proverbial haystack. "
"Something like that. "
"Of course, if you could involve the police-"
"Ive been trying. Theres a limit to what they can do at this stage. "
"So it sounds as though youre doing everything you can, and beating yourself up because you cant do more. And worrying because the whole things out of your control. "
"Well, it is. "
"Of course it is. We cant control how things turn out. You know that. All we can do is take the action and turn over the results. "
"Just take your best shot and walk away from it. "
"Thats right. "
I thought about it. "If my best shots not good enough, other people get it in the neck. "
"I get it. You cant let go of the controls because the stakes are too high. "
"Well-"
"You remember the Third Step?" I did, of course, but he felt compelled to quote it anyway. " Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him. You can turn over the small stuff, but when its nitty-gritty time you have to take control of it yourself. "
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