Blood Innocents Part 15

"Around three in the morning. Something like that. Maybe a little later. Maybe a little earlier."

"Go on," Reardon said.

"I was standing under the Delacorte animal clock. You know, the one where the animal figures turn around when the clock chimes? You go under it to get to the Children's Zoo."

Reardon nodded.

"Well, I was standing in that little brick portal, and I saw a man pa.s.s me. He was wearing a Parks Department uniform. It was green. It said *Parks Department' on the sleeve."

Reardon thought of Gilbert n.o.ble. "Was the man you saw black or white?"

"He was white."

Reardon thought of Harry Bryant. "How big was he, the man in the uniform?"

"Average, I suppose. I'm almost six feet, and he was a lot shorter than me."

"Did you get a close look at this man?"

"Not at that point," Daniels said. "But later I got a good look."

"You saw him again?"

"Yes."

"How did you happen to see him again?"

"Well, he had only pa.s.sed me a little while before when I started walking into the park in the same direction."

"Careful here," Mr. Tower whispered to Daniels.

"Yes, watch yourself," Mr. Arington said.

Daniels understood. "I mean, I was just strolling around. I wasn't looking for anything in particular. Like a connection, I mean. I wasn't looking for anything, any person." Daniels' fingers began to fidget nervously with the b.u.t.tons of his s.h.i.+rt.

Reardon nodded. "I'm just interested in what you saw."

"I mean, the cops say I was going to meet a connection," blurted Daniels agitatedly. "For the cocaine they say I had."

"Just go ahead with the story," Mr. Tower said exasperatedly.

"As far as I'm concerned," Reardon said, "you were just taking a stroll in the park."

"Yeah, right," Daniels said. "A stroll. I strolled up the cement walk that leads from the animal clock to the Children's Zoo. That's where I saw the man again. I had a good look at him too. He looked strange. Kind of groggy. He looked so strange that I got a little scared, to tell you the truth. He looked like he was about ready to freak out. He was just leaning there against the deer cage, holding the ax."

"How did you know it was the deer cage?"

"Because I could see one of the deer peeking out of that tin house where they stay. Then this deer walked out toward the bars right up to the guy, poking its nose against his side, there where he was leaning."

"What happened then?"

"I just kept looking. Then he turned around and looked at me. But he didn't seem to see me. He was in a fog or something. Wacked out."

"Then what?" Reardon asked.

"He took a few steps away from the cage and just seemed to stand there, like he was in another world. Then he took a few more steps. That's when I got scared. Really scared. I started to walk away. Pretty fast too. I was afraid he was coming after me."

"Was he?"

"I thought so. So as I was walking, I looked back over my shoulder."

"And he wasn't following you?" Reardon asked.

"No. He had turned around again. He was walking away from me."

"Where was he walking to?"

Daniels smiled. "He was walking back toward the deer cage. He had taken the ax off his shoulder and was dragging it behind him, you know, like a kid would pull a wagon."

Reardon opened the top drawer of his desk and pulled out photographs of Gilbert n.o.ble, Harry Bryant and Andros Petrakis. He laid the photos face up on the table and pushed them across the desk to Daniels. "Have you ever seen any of these men before?" he asked.

Daniels' face paled. "G.o.d, it scares me just looking at him," he muttered.

"Which one?"

He pointed to the photograph of Andros Petrakis, then stared up at Reardon. He grinned. "Bingo," he said.

16.

So Harry Bryant had told the truth, Reardon thought, after Daniels and his attorneys had left the precinct house. Petrakis had come to work the night the fallow deer were killed. And Daniels had seen him there, slumped against the deer cage, a peculiar expression on his face, the ax nestled menacingly in his hands.

But Reardon was still no closer to Petrakis than the photograph he had already placed back in the top drawer of his desk. Petrakis and his whole family had vanished, leaving Reardon with nothing more than two conflicting images of the man. The one drawn by Mathesson was easier to understand. Mathesson had portrayed an enraged man, capable of sudden explosions of strength and violence, animated solely by an overwhelming hatred of Wallace Van Allen, who had come to symbolize for Petrakis the utter devastation of his life.

And so Andros Petrakis had killed. He had come at three in the morning from the deathbed of his wife to the Children's Zoo, where he began that process of revenge which, he believed, would result in the destruction of Wallace Van Allen. He had butchered a fallow deer with fifty-seven blows of an ax and killed the other with a single thrust. But that was only the beginning. He had then acquainted himself with Wallace Van Allen's holdings in New York. He had picked out an apartment house which belonged to Van Allen, waited patiently in the early hours of the morning, somehow managed to get into the apartment of Lee McDonald and Karen Ortovsky, and had then butchered them in exactly the same manner as the fallow deer.

Daniels had painted a different portrait, but Reardon could not get the lines and colors straight. The Petrakis that Daniels had seen leaning silently against the deer cage seemed a different sort of man from the one of Mathesson's narration. He had been leaning, simply leaning, on the cage with the ax nestled in his hands. That was what Reardon could not get out of his mind. That Petrakis had not been striding about menacingly tapping the ax blade against the bars but had been leaning like a tired workman against a wall, staring out into the dark air. And when one of the deer hesitantly moved toward the bars Petrakis had not jerked back but had continued to lean silently in the darkness while the fallow deer gently sniffed his trousers.

Reardon had seen murderous revenge. It did not lean silently in the early morning hours.

Who was Andros Petrakis, anyway? Reardon wondered.

Reardon had expected a long manhunt for Andros Petrakis, and so when he saw him for the first time only a few hours after Daniels and his lawyers had left the station house, he could not believe it. He looked up from his notes to rest his eyes and saw a small man in a green Parks Department uniform standing in front of the desk sergeant. Even in the distance there seemed to be something insubstantial about Petrakis. He stood before the large desk, staring up at Smith, waiting for some direction. Flooded by the light that flowed through the tall gla.s.s inlays of the precinct house doors, he looked more like an apparition than a man. The soiled uniform seemed to fall around him as if it were draped over a skeleton rather than a full-fleshed body. His arms hung loosely and motionlessly at his sides like those of a marionette.

Reardon waited, staring, unable to move. He saw Smith point in his direction and watched as Petrakis walked toward him.

Petrakis stopped directly in front of Reardon's desk and pointed to himself. "Petrakis," he said almost inaudibly.

Reardon stood up. "You are Andros Petrakis?"

"Andros Petrakis," the man repeated.

Reardon stared at him. He was about five-eight or nine but looked much smaller. He had a slight paunch, but even this characteristic only served to miniaturize him. The tiny, childlike face of Karen Ortovsky flashed through Reardon's mind. He blinked his eyes and tried to regain his concentration.

"Please sit down," Reardon said.

Nervously, Petrakis took a seat directly in front of Reardon's desk. He was very dark, with black curly hair and a thin mustache. A thick pungent odor surrounded him.

"Would you like a cup of coffee?"

"No," Petrakis said faintly. He seemed frail, lost, irredeemably abused.

"I understand that you recently lost your wife," Reardon said. "I'm sorry."

Petrakis nodded.

"My own wife died only a few weeks ago," Reardon added.

Petrakis said nothing, but his face took on a softness that Reardon translated as an expression of understanding.

"We have been trying to find you," Reardon began.

Petrakis stared at Reardon without expression.

"Did you know that?" Reardon asked. "Did you know that the police wanted to talk to you?"

"I call Mr. Cohen. Try to get back work. He tell me come here."

"When did you talk to him?"

"Today. Just now."

"Do you know why we want to talk to you?"

Petrakis shrugged his shoulders.

"The deer," Reardon said. He looked for some response in Petrakis' face. He had seen people break down at the first mention of a crime which they alone knew they had committed. But Petrakis' face registered nothing.

"Have you spoken to anyone in the Parks Department besides Mr. Cohen?"

"No."

Reardon felt stymied. He had never seen a man so drained of concern or curiosity.

"Have you been to the park since early Sunday morning?" Reardon asked. He wanted to rivet Petrakis' attention on the fact that the police knew he had gone to the park that morning. Perhaps that would break him.

"No," Petrakis said.

"Are you sure?"

"Sure."

Reardon glanced down at his notes. He felt like a talk-show host without a guest. Petrakis sat directly in front of him, but no one really seemed to be there at all. Somehow he had to get at Petrakis, draw him out. He decided to be more direct.

"How long have you worked with the Parks Department?" he asked.

"Two years," Petrakis replied.

Dos, thought Reardon, and the roman numeral two. "You don't speak Spanish by any chance, do you, Mr. Petrakis?"

"Greek," Petrakis said.

Reardon looked down at his paper again. "Yes, I thought so. And you work with Gilbert n.o.ble and Harry Bryant, is that right?"

Petrakis nodded.

The only part of Petrakis' body that had moved since the interrogation had begun, thought Reardon, was his head. "Let's get back to the deer." Reardon looked at Petrakis intently. There was no response. "Did you have much to do with the fallow deer? Did you tend to their cage?"

"Sometimes," Petrakis said, and for a moment he closed his eyes wearily, his head swaying very slightly forward and backward. But the face betrayed nothing, and Reardon was beginning to believe there was nothing for it to betray. "Sometimes you cleaned the cage and sometimes Bryant cleaned it and sometimes n.o.ble cleaned it?" Petrakis made no response. Reardon decided to work on the details of what he already knew about Petrakis' home. Finally draw him out.

"On Monday, about three A.M., you met Harry Bryant in a coffee shop on Second Avenue, is that right?"

"Right," Petrakis replied.

"What did you talk about?"

"I move to a new place that Thursday."

"You moved from 109 East 90th Street?"

"Yes."

Reardon looked down at his notes. "What is your new address?"

"103 East 101st Street. My wife sister apartment. We move in with her. I have no money."

"You were evicted from your previous apartment?" Petrakis nodded.

"And who is the landlord of the building you had to leave?" Reardon asked, staring down at his notes as if it were just one more routine question.

"Robles," Petrakis said.

"He's your landlord?"