“Cops aren’t supposed to feel those things,” he said grimly. “Not if it interferes with doing your job.”
“I think I need a brandy,” she said.
After the brandy, and after they had cleaned up the kitchen, they both went into the study. Monica sat behind the desk. The lefthand stack of drawers was hers, where she kept her stationery, correspondence, notepaper, appointment books, etc. She began to write letters to the children: Eddie, Jr., Liza, Mary, and Sylvia.
When she was finished, Delaney would append short notes in his hand. Usually things like: “Hope you are well. Weather here cold but clear. How is it there?” The children called these notes “Father’s weather reports.” It was a family joke.
While Monica wrote out her long, discursive letters at the desk, Edward X. Delaney sat opposite her in the old club chair. He slowly sipped another brandy and read, for the third time, the last lecture of Albert Braun, Det. Sgt., NYPD, Ret.
What Braun had to say about motives came as no surprise. During thirty years in the Department, most of them as a detective, Delaney had worked cases in which all those motives were involved, singly or coexistent.
The problem, he decided, was one that Braun had recognized when he had made a brief reference to labels satisfying the criminologist or psychologist, but being of little value to the investigating detective.
An analogy might be made to a man confronting a wild beast in the woods. An animal that threatens him with bared fangs and raised claws.
In his laboratory, the biologist, the scientist, would be interested only in classifying the beast: family, genus, species. Its external appearance, bone structure, internal organs. Feeding and mating habits. From what previous animal forms it had evolved.
To the man in the forest, menaced, all this would be extraneous if not meaningless. All he knew was the fear, the danger, the threat.
The homicide detective was the man in the woods. The criminologist, psychologist, or sociologist was the man in the laboratory. The lab man was interested in causes. The man in the arena was interested in events.
That was one point Delaney found not sufficiently emphasized in Braun’s lecture. The other disappointment was lack of any speculation on why women were conspicuously missing from the rolls of multiple killers.
Braun had made a passing reference to Martha Beck and other females who had killed many from greed. But a deep analysis of why random murderers were invariably male was missing. And since Braun’s lecture had been delivered, the additional cases of the Yorkshire Ripper and the Chicago homosexual butcher had claimed headlines. Both murderers were men.
Delaney let the pages of the lecture fall into his lap. He took off his reading glasses, massaged the bridge of his nose. He rubbed his eyes wearily.
“Another brandy?” he asked his wife.
She shook her head, without looking up. He regarded her intently. In the soft light of the desk lamp, she seemed tender and womanly. Her smooth skin glowed. The light burnished her hair; there was a radiance, almost a halo.
She wrote busily, tongue poking out one cheek. She smiled as she wrote; something humorous had occurred to her, or perhaps she was just thinking of the children. She seemed to Edward X. Delaney, at that moment, to be a perfect portrait of the female presence as he conceived it.
“Monica,” he said.
She looked up inquiringly.
“May I ask you a question about that child abuse symposium? I won’t if it bothers you.”
“No,” she said, “I’m all right now. What do you want to know?”
“Did they give you any statistics, national statistics, on the incidence of child abuse cases and whether they’ve been increasing or decreasing?”
“They had all the numbers,” she said, nodding. “It’s been increasing in the last ten years, but the speaker said that’s probably because more doctors and hospitals are becoming aware of the problem and are reporting cases to the authorities. Before, they took the parents’ word that the child had been injured in an accident.”
“That’s probably true,” he agreed. “Did they have any statistics that analyzed the abusers by sex? Did more men than women abuse children, or was it the other way around?”
She thought a moment.
“I don’t recall any statistics about that,” she said. “There were a lot of cases where both parents were involved. Even when only one of them was the, uh, active aggressor, the other usually condoned it or just kept silent.”
“Uh-huh,” he said. “But when just one parent or relative was the aggressor, would it more likely be a man or a woman?”
She looked at him, trying to puzzle out what he was getting at.
“Edward, I told you, there were no statistics on that.”
“But if you had to guess, what would you guess?”
She was troubled.
“Probably women,” she admitted finally. Then she added hastily, “But only because women have more pressures and more frustrations. I mean, they’re locked up all day with a bunch of squalling kids, a house to clean, meals to prepare. While the husband has escaped all that in his office or factory. Or maybe he’s just sitting in the neighborhood tavern, swilling beer.”
“Sure,” Delaney said. “But it’s your guess that at least half of all child abusers are women—and possibly a larger proportion than half?”
She stared at him, suddenly wary.
“Why are you asking these questions?” she demanded.
“Just curious,” he said.
On the morning of March 24th, Delaney walked out to buy his copy of The New York Times and pick up some fresh croissants at a French bakery on Second Avenue. By the time he got back, Monica had the kitchen table set with glasses of chilled grapefruit juice, a jar of honey, a big pot of black coffee.
They made their breakfasts, settled back. He gave her the Business Day section, began leafing through the Metropolitan Report.
“Damn it,” she said.
He looked up. “What’s wrong?”
“Bonds are down again. Maybe we should do a swap.”
“What’s a swap?”
“The paper-value of our tax-exempts are down. We sell them and take the capital tax loss. We put the money back into tax-exempts with higher yields. We can write the loss off against gains in our equities. If we do it right, our annual income from the new tax-exempts should be about equal to what we’re getting now. Maybe even more.”
He was bewildered. “Whatever you say,” he told her. “Oh God, look at this …”
He showed her the article headlined: KILLER SOUGHT IN TWO HOMICIDES.
“That’s Abner’s case,” he said. “The hotel killings. The newspapers will be all over it now. The hysteria begins.”
“It had to happen sooner or later,” she said. “Didn’t it? It was only a question of time.”
“I suppose,” he said.
But when he took the newspaper and a second cup of coffee into the study, the first thing he did was look up the phone number of Thomas Handry in his private telephone directory. Handry was a reporter who had provided valuable assistance to Delaney during Operation Lombard.
The phone was picked up after the first ring. The voice was terse, harried …
“Handry.”
“Edward X. Delaney here.”
A pause, then: “Chief! How the hell are you?”
“Very well, thank you. And you?”
They chatted a few minutes, then Delaney asked:
“Still writing poetry?”
“My God,” the reporter said, “you never forget a thing, do you?”
“Nothing important.”
“No, I’ve given up on the poetry. I was lousy and I knew it. Now I want to be a foreign correspondent. Who knows, next week I may want to be a fireman or a cop or an astronaut.”
Delaney laughed. “I don’t think so.”
“Chief, it’s nice talking to you after all these years, but I’ve got the strangest feeling that you didn’t call just
to say hello. You want something?”
“Yes,” Delaney said. “There was an article on page three of the Metropolitan Report this morning. About two hotel murders.”
“And?”
“No byline. I just wondered who wrote it.”
“Uh-huh. In this case three guys provided information for the story, including me. Three bylines would have been too much of a good thing for a short piece like that. So they just left it off. That’s all you wanted to know?”
“Not exactly.”
“I didn’t think so. What else?”
“Who made the connection? Between the two killings? They were a month apart, and there are four or five homicides every day in New York.”
“Chief, you’re not the only detective. Give us credit for a little intelligence. We studied the crimes and noted the similarities in the MOs.”
“Bullshit,” Delaney said. “You got a tip.”
Handry laughed. “Remember,” he said, “you told me, I didn’t tell you.”
“Phone or mail?” Delaney asked.
“Hey, wait a minute,” the reporter said. “This is more than idle curiosity. What’s your interest in this?”
Delaney hesitated. Then: “A friend of mine is on the case. He needs all the help he can get.”
“So why isn’t he calling?”
“Fuck it,” Delaney said angrily. “If you won’t—”
“Hey, hold it,” Handry said. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t. But what do I get out of it?”
“An inside track,” Delaney said, “that you didn’t have before. It may be something and it may add up to zilch.”
Silence a moment.
“All right,” the reporter said, “I’ll gamble. Harvey Gardner took the call. About a week ago. We’ve been checking it out ever since.”
“Did you talk to Gardner about it?”
“Of course. The call came in about five-thirty in the evening. Very short. The caller wouldn’t give any name or address.”
“Man or woman?”
“Hard to tell. Gardner said it sounded like someone trying to disguise their voice, speaking in a low growl.”
“So it could be a man or a woman?”
“Could be. Another thing … Gardner says the caller said, “The same person did both of them.’ Not, ‘It’s the same killer’ or ‘The same guy did both of them,’ but “The same person did both of them.’ What do you think?”
“I think maybe you wouldn’t make a bad cop after all. Thanks, Handry.”
“I expect a little quid pro quo on this, Chief.”
“You’ll get it,” Delaney promised. “Oh, one more thing …”
“There had to be,” Handry said, sighing.
“I may need some research done. I’ll pay, of course. Do you know a good researcher?”
“Sure,” Thomas Handry said. “Me.”
“You? Nah. This is dull, statistical stuff.”
“I’ll bet,” the reporter said. “Listen, I’ve got the best sources in the world right here. Just give me a chance. You won’t have to pay.”
“I’ll think about it,” Delaney said. “Nice talking to you.”
“Keep in touch,” Handry said.
The Chief hung up and sat a moment, staring at the phone. “The same person did both of them.” The reporter was right; there was a false note there in the use of the word “person.”
It would have to be the killer who called in the tip, or a close confederate of the killer. It seemed odd that either would say, “The same person …” That was a prissy way of putting it. Why didn’t they say “guy” or “man” or “killer”?
He sighed, wondering why he had called Handry, why he was becoming so involved in this thing. He was a private citizen now; it wasn’t his responsibility. Still …
There were a lot of motives involved, he decided. He wanted to help Abner Boone. His retirement was increasingly boring; he needed a little excitement in his life. There was the challenge of a killer on the loose. And even a private citizen owed an obligation to society, and especially to his community.
There was one other factor, Delaney acknowledged. He was getting long in the tooth. Why deny it? When he died, thirty years of professional experience would die with him. Albert Braun would leave his books and lectures to instruct detectives in the future. Edward X. Delaney would leave nothing.
So it seemed logical and sensible to put that experience to good use while he was still around. A sort of legacy while he was alive. A living will.
Detective Sergeant Abner Boone called on the morning of March 26th. He asked if he could stop by for a few moments, and Delaney said sure, come ahead; Monica was at a feminist meeting where she was serving as chairperson for a general discussion of government-financed day-care centers.
The two men had talked almost every day on the phone. Boone had nothing new to report on the killer who was now being called the “Hotel Ripper” in newspapers and on TV.
Boone did say that Lieutenant Martin Slavin was convinced that the murderer was not a prostitute, since nothing had been stolen. Most of the efforts of the cops under his command were directed to rousting homosexuals, the S&M joints in the Village, and known transvestites.
“Well,” Delaney said, sighing, “he’s going by the percentages. I can’t fault him for that. Almost every random killer of strangers has been male.”
“Sure,” Boone said, “I know that. But now the Mayor’s office has the gays yelling, plus the hotel associations, plus the tourist people. It’s heating up.”
But when Sergeant Abner Boone appeared on the morning of March 26th, he was the one who was heated up.
“Look at this,” he said, furiously, scaling a flyer onto Delaney’s desk. “Slavin insisted on sending one of these to the head of security in every midtown hotel.”
Delaney donned his glasses, read the notice slowly. Then he looked up at Boone.
“The stupid son of a bitch,” he said softly.
“Right!” the sergeant said, stalking back and forth. “I pleaded with him. Leave out that business about the black nylon wig, I said. There’s no way, no way, we’ll be able to keep that out of the papers if every hotel in midtown Manhattan knows about it. So it gets in the papers, and the killer changes his wig—am I right? Blond or red or whatever. Meanwhile, all our guys are looking for someone in a black wig. It just makes me sick!”
“Take it easy, sergeant,” Delaney said. “The damage has been done; nothing you can do about it. Did you make your objections to Slavin in the presence of witnesses?”
“I sure did,” Boone said wrathfully. “I made certain of that.”
“Good,” Delaney said. “Then it’s his ass, not yours. Getting many false confessions?”
“Plenty,” the sergeant said. “Every whacko in the city. Another reason I wanted to keep that black nylon wig a secret. It made it easy to knock down the fake confessions. Now we’ve got nothing up our sleeve. What an asshole thing for Slavin to do!”
“Forget it,” Delaney advised. “Let him hang himself. You’re clean.”
“I guess so,” Boone said, sighing. “I don’t know what to tell our decoys now. Look for anyone in any color wig, five-five to five-seven. That’s not much to go on.”
“No,” Delaney said, “it’s not.”
“We checked out that suggestion you gave me. You know—both victims employing the same disgruntled guy and firing him. We’re still working on it, but it doesn’t look good.”
“It’s got to be done,” Delaney said stubbornly.
“Sure. I know. And I appreciate the lead. We’re grabbing at anything. Anything. Also, I remembered what you said about the time between killings becoming shorter and shorter. So I—”
“Usually,” Delaney reminded him. “I said usually.”
“Right. Well, it was about a month between the Puller and Wolheim murders. If there’s a third, God forbid, I figure that going by what you say—what you suggest, it may be around April third. That would be three
weeks after the Wolheim kill. So I’m alerting everyone for that week.”
“Won’t do any harm,” Edward X. Delaney said.
“If there is another one,” Boone said, “I’ll give you a call. You promised to come over—remember?”
“I remember.”
But April 3rd came and went, with no report of another hotel homicide. Delaney was troubled. Not because events had proved him wrong; that had happened before. But he was nagged that this case wasn’t following any known pattern. There was no handle on it. It was totally different.
But wasn’t that exactly what Albert Braun had said in his last lecture? “Cases of mass homicide are too uncommon to reveal a sure pattern. Each massacre different, each slaughter unique.”
Early on the morning of April 10th, about 7:30, Delaney was awake but still abed, loath to crawl out of his warm cocoon of blankets. The phone shrilled. Monica awoke, turned suddenly in bed to stare at him.
“Edward X. Delaney here,” he said.
“Chief, it’s Boone. There’s been another. Hotel Coolidge. Can you come over?”
“Yes,” Delaney said.
He got out of bed, began to strip off his pajamas.
“Who was that?” Monica asked.
“Boone. There’s been another one.”
“Oh God,” she said.
Delaney came off the elevator on the 14th floor and looked to the left. Nothing. He looked to the right. A uniformed black cop was planted in the middle of the corridor. He was swinging a nightstick from its leather thong. Beyond him, far down the long hallway, Abner Boone and a few other men were clustered about a doorway.
“I’d like to see Sergeant Boone,” Delaney told the cop. “He’s expecting me.”
“Yeah?” the officer said, giving Delaney the once-over. He turned and yelled down the corridor, “Hey, sarge!” When Boone turned to look, the cop hooked a thumb at Delaney. The sergeant nodded and made a beckoning motion. The cop moved aside. “Be my guest,” he said.
Delaney looked at him. The man had a modified Afro, a neat black mustache. His uniform fit like it had been custom-made by an Italian tailor.
“Do you know Jason T. Jason?” he asked.
“Jason Two?” the officer said, with a splay of white teeth. “Sure, I know that big mother. He a friend of yours?”
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