Monkey Puzzle Page 20

  Stryker thought he could have been doing the man an injustice, but he had a sneaking suspicion that Fowler was loving all of this. ‘And what, may I ask, is all this about monkeys?’ Fowler added.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Don’t “sir” me, young man. In the papers this morning. They have nicknamed this maniac with a vendetta against my department “The Monkey Killer”. Why? Why? They are making all sorts of ridiculous statements . . . eyes, ears, tongues . . . it’s ghastly. What have monkeys to do with anything? It’s Heskell, I know it is, he’s talked to them again, about see no evil and hear no evil . . . the man’s a menace. He’ll not get tenure from me, oh, no. There are reporters everywhere – ’ He stubbed his finger angrily against the lift button and then sucked it like a child. His hair was standing up in a halo around his gleaming bald head, and his jowls were wobbling alarmingly. ‘Monkeys,’ he muttered, around his finger. ‘Monkeys!’

  ‘I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do about that,’ Stryker said, sympathetically.

  ‘Oh, yes there is. You can catch him and put an end to it, that’s what you can do. Meanwhile I shall endeavour to keep Dan’s warship afloat, you can tell him that. Tell him Arthur Fowler will do his best. I’m good at details, I’ll take care of the details. Tell him that. Tell him . . .’ Suddenly the man’s eyes were filled with tears. ‘Tell the old fool to get better. We need him.’

  The lift doors opened. Fowler got in and savagely punched the button for the ground floor. Stryker leaned forward and put his hand against the rubber stop of the lift doors, holding them open. ‘Do you know anything about a book Adamson was writing? About the Army?’

  ‘The Army?’

  ‘Well, the cavalry, then. The Fourth Cavalry, I think it was.’

  ‘No, I know nothing of it. Wayland’s the one you want, there.’

  ‘Wayland?’

  ‘If you can find the devil. I believe he was doing something about Vietnam. He was a great objector, you know. Protests and all that. Although it might have been the Civil War, come to think of it, because of Whitman. They don’t call it the cavalry any more, but they did then. I think it’s in his file. A paper or a book on Whitman – Lincoln – something along those lines. I’ll check for you, if you like.’

  ‘I’d be very grateful.’

  ‘I have so much free time, at the moment,’ Fowler grumbled, making a note. But his eyes twinkled, perhaps with the remnants of the tears he hadn’t allowed to get away. ‘As for Aiken, I can’t imagine him having anything to do with it. He hasn’t published anything for quite a while, of course. One must publish, you know, publish regularly. He’s never had a great success, but . . . the Army? I shouldn’t think so. No. Wayland’s your man, there. Ask him. And when you find him, would you remind him he has a contract with the University that requires him to actually teach in addition to everything else? He tends to forget.’

  ‘I’ll mention it.’ Stryker let go of the doors.

  They closed over Fowler’s red and resentful face, and Stryker stood there, staring at them, trying to clear his mind of all the muddle. He wished he was good at details, as Fowler claimed to be.

  He was still standing there, five minutes later, when Neilson came down the hall. ‘I think you’d better come,’ he said, urgently. ‘She’s in Pinchman’s room, and he’s starting to talk.’

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘The Trevorne girl.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus – what next?’

  Pinsky was standing outside the door to Pinchman’s room watching for them. ‘I wasn’t here . . . she went in after the nurse and began yelling at him. Nancy tried to put her out, but the old guy began to respond, so . . .’

  They went into the room. Kate, dressed rather haphazardly in the bloodstained clothing of the night before, was bending over Pinchman’s bed, calling him. The old man was still unconscious, but restless, moving around in the bed, turning his head from side to side. His face was twisted in a grimace.

  ‘Edward, you must wake up. Tell them it wasn’t Richard, tell them what really happened, about the cradle, what about the cradle – ?’

  ‘Kate!’ Stryker’s voice was a whiplash but she neither flinched nor turned, as she answered.

  ‘He knows, he must know. Liz said you’re after Richard, that you think Richard did all these things and I know he didn’t, I know he didn’t . . .’

  ‘Richard,’ Pinchman said, suddenly.

  And the room became still.

  ‘Cradle, rocking . . . endlessly rocking . . .’

  ‘What the hell?’ muttered Stryker.

  ‘Kate . . . be careful. Richard . . . dangerous . . . stay away.’

  Kate straightened up, suddenly, her face pale. She began to sway and Stryker moved forward to hold her up. Her eyes, filled with horror, were locked on Pinchman’s face, as she shook her head from side to side, denying what she was hearing. She’d wanted Edward to wake up, but not like this. She’d wanted him to clear Richard, but everything he said was making it worse.

  ‘The cradle, Richard . . . rocking . . . endlessly rocking . . . remember . . . nobody knows . . . Aiken found out . . . Oh, God! Richard! Get away! Get away!’ The last word was a shout but Pinchman’s eyes remained closed, tears flowing from beneath the papery lids. He fell back on the pillows.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s it,’ the nurse said. ‘You’ll have to stop this at once.’

  ‘But he’s about to wake up,’ Stryker protested.

  The nurse had Pinchman’s wrist. ‘No, he’s not.’

  ‘You mean – ’ Kate gasped.

  The nurse briskly replaced the twitching hand beneath the covers. ‘I mean he’s exhausted and can’t take any further strain. His heartbeat has become irregular, I’m calling the doctor, you’ll have to leave.’

  ‘She stays,’ Stryker said, indicating the policewoman who had replaced Calder on this shift.

  ‘Yes, I know. But she goes.’ The nurse pointed at Kate.

  Kate went, running blindly out into the brightly lit anonymity of the hall, past the indifferent white uniforms and open curiosity of other visitors who turned to see the girl, crying, running. Free show. Drama. The real thing. Look at that.

  Stryker found her in a corner at the end of the corridor, standing by an overflowing linen trolley. She was blotting her tears with a sheet that could have come from a typhoid victim, for all she knew. He snatched it from her and replaced it with his own clean handkerchief. ‘You could catch something, dummy,’ he said, gruffly.

  ‘He was afraid of Richard,’ she snuffled.

  ‘Was he?’

  ‘Wasn’t he?’ She blinked at him blearily. He looked ruffled and cross and hot, standing there. As if he wanted to hit someone. It occurred to her that he always looked as if he wanted to hit someone.

  ‘What was all that crap about the cradle?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘The hell you don’t.’

  ‘Oh, please . . .’

  ‘It’s part of a poem. Whitman. “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed”. Right? About Lincoln’s death. Right?’

  She nodded, miserably, into his handkerchief.

  ‘And according to Fowler, Wayland is doing his doctorate on Whitman. He teaches Modern American Poetry.’

  ‘And the Bible as Literature, and History of the English Language, and . . .’ she listed, desperately.

  ‘But Whitman is his thing, right?’

  Kate didn’t answer. She felt so tired, so confused and he was so angry.

  ‘I’m taking you home. I don’t want you involved any more in all this,’ Stryker said.

  ‘A few days ago you were begging for my help.’

  ‘Not any more. You’re out of it.’

  ‘The hell I am.’

  ‘Nice talk. Nice talk for a college professor.’

  She gave him a littl
e more ‘nice talk’, causing a nurse to turn around with a shocked expression. Even Stryker was a little taken aback. ‘You think Richard is responsible for this, don’t you?’ she concluded. ‘Well, I don’t. I know he couldn’t have hurt me. Not Richard.’

  ‘I agree. Not your devoted Richard – but somebody Richard might have become. Murder makes strangers, Kate.’

  ‘Not Richard,’ she said, stubbornly.

  ‘Your needle’s stuck.’ They glared at one another, until Stryker sighed and looked away. ‘Kate,’ he said, in a more gentle voice. ‘You nearly lost an eye last night. Maybe both, if Dr Coulter hadn’t come along.’

  ‘You’re going to start hunting him, aren’t you?’

  ‘We’ve been hunting him since Monday,’ he said, heavily. ‘Look, did it ever occur to you that he’s missing because he might be lying dead, someplace? No, I see that it didn’t. Don’t you think that’s interesting? Don’t you think it’s indicative of something that you were never worried about that possibility –but only that Richard might be a killer?’

  ‘Oh–’

  ‘Did it also ever occur to you that when we are looking for killers we’re doing it to protect potential victims?’ Stryker continued, inexorably. ‘We’re not in it for the fun of the chase, like your fictional detectives, because the chase is not much fun. All you guys back then, when you were protesting and screaming “Pigs” with your fat little heads full of fat little ideas about yourselves and nobody else – did you ever think about the people you might jostle in front of a passing bus, or the janitor with arthritis who’d have to clean up after you, or your parents who probably went without a lot of luxuries to pay for your education . . . oh, hell.’ He saw she looked stricken. ‘When I go to the scene of a crime, the first thing I see is a victim, Kate. And I get angry at the waste. Later, when and if I catch the killer, I see another kind of victim. And I get angry about that, too. Nothing is ever one thing, nothing that ever happens is just one thing happening. There’s not four dimensions, there’s a thousand – depending on which way you look, which eyes you use. When we started looking for Wayland it was as much for his own safety as anything else.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now, it’s for everyone’s safety.’

  ‘He didn’t do it.’

  ‘Kate – maybe he’s a nice guy, I don’t know. Maybe he’s a saint. Maybe he’s hurt. Maybe he’s dead. And maybe – just maybe – he’s a killer. You thought that, too, Kate. You’re thinking it now, aren’t you?’

  ‘Stop it!’ Her voice was high and thin, and she turned away from the reason in his eyes. It had been in her mind. She hated Stryker in that moment. Hated him because nothing would ever be the same, now. He’d seen the cold dark place inside her where Richard didn’t live and was not loved. A thousand images filled her mind; Richard laughing, Richard loving, Richard walking, eating, drinking, teaching, swimming, dancing –

  Richard killing?

  ‘He went to Vietnam, after all,’ she said, and it didn’t seem irrelevant. Only odd, to announce it like that. Anyway, Stryker knew it already.

  ‘Vietnam or any war doesn’t make killers, it only trains them,’ Stryker said. ‘Millions of guys went to ’Nam. It affected them, taught them, scared the piss out of them – but the decent guys came back decent guys, and that was ninety-nine per cent of them.’

  ‘Did you go?’

  ‘I didn’t have to. My war is here.’

  ‘And your enemy is Richard Wayland?’

  ‘Maybe. I won’t know that until I find him.’

  ‘Do you expect me to wish you luck?’

  ‘I don’t expect you to do anything but go home and stay there.’

  ‘Like a good little girl?’

  ‘Like a safe little girl.’

  ‘Richard won’t hurt me. I know he wouldn’t.’

  ‘Oh, Kate,’ Stryker said, softly, as she turned away. ‘Don’t you realise I’d like nothing more than to be wrong about Richard Wayland? Don’t you think I know how you’ll feel towards me if I arrest him? Can’t you imagine what might have happened if we’d met anywhere else but over a murder? It’s created a gap between us that we may never be able to cross.’

  ‘Very poetic.’ She was rigid with rage.

  He looked at her for a long time – her soft mouth set in a hard line of anger, her eyes darkened by it. ‘Damn you, Kate,’ he said. ‘You know what I’m saying is true, you know what’s been happening with us right from the beginning. Maybe from as far back as fifteen years ago, I don’t know. But I’m not going to be cute about it. Damn Adamson, damn Richard Wayland – damn all the thieves who steal what might have been. And yes, I know – I’m very poetic.’ Pinsky appeared at the far end of the corridor, and Stryker waved him over. ‘Drive Miss Trevorne home, will you? She doesn’t like it here.’

  ‘Sure.’ Pinsky beamed at Kate. ‘I hope you’re feeling better, Miss Trevorne. That was a close call you had, last night.’

  ‘I seem destined for narrow escapes,’ Kate said, and walked away without a backward glance. Pinsky raised an eyebrow at Stryker, who reached out and touched his sleeve. He waited until Kate was out of hearing, then spoke in a low, tight voice. ‘Take her home and set up a discreet surveillance. I mean discreet, too – she’s to know nothing about it.’

  ‘Okay. You afraid he’ll try to get her?’

  Stryker reached into his pocket, got out a cigar, lit it. He glared through the smoke at Kate who still had her back turned to them. ‘Afraid? Hell, no. I’m hoping he’ll try to get to her. It may be the only satisfaction I’ll get out of this goddamn case.’

  ‘You don’t mean that,’ said Pinsky.

  ‘Don’t I?’

  ‘Nope.’ Pinsky’s battered face was full of confident trust.

  ‘Am I a good cop, Pinsky? Do I do my job?’

  ‘Best I know.’ He hesitated. ‘Of course, I don’t know that many.’

  ‘You’re a great comfort,’ Stryker said.

  ‘That’s what my wife tells me,’ Pinsky nodded and started down the hall. ‘She doesn’t mean it, either.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ‘Hey, Speedy!’

  Toscarelli stood in the middle of the gym floor, turning to follow Stryker’s dogged progress around the running track overhead. ‘Are you gonna go around in circles all morning, or what?’

  ‘Why not?’ Stryker panted. ‘I’ve been going around in them all night.’ Toscarelli muttered something in an aggrieved tone. ‘What?’

  ‘I said you’re a horse’s ass. Neilson says he left you last night surrounded by the daily reports and the forensic reports and the case file and when he came in this morning there you were, still at it.’

  ‘An illusion,’ Stryker panted.

  Toscarelli kept turning as Stryker pounded on with wobbling knees, sweat streaming down his face and into the towel he had around his neck. ‘I slept on the couch in the Captain’s office.’

  Toscarelli shook his head and turned a couple of times in the opposite direction to clear his head. ‘Goddammit, will you stop? You’re making me dizzy.’

  Stryker staggered to a stop, gasping, and hung over the edge of the rails to catch his breath – or to keep from collapsing – he wasn’t sure which. ‘Any news of Wayland?’

  ‘No, nothing yet. I see his records have come through from Washington.’

  ‘Yes – did you look at them? At the Medical Officer’s report?’

  ‘Yeah. And the psychiatrist’s report. You got anyone covering the bars and clubs?’

  ‘I do now,’ Stryker said. ‘Vice is helping out.’

  ‘Do you think the girl knows?’

  Stryker wiped his face with the end of the towel. ‘I don’t know. Maybe. It would explain some things, you know, Tos. Adamson left him fifty thousand, but there was nothing about him in the diaries or anywhere.’

 
‘Nothing about the girl, either, and he left her ten.’

  ‘Maybe it’s old debts.’ He pondered this, rubbing his neck. ‘I think it’s old debts.’

  ‘Listen, the hospital called. Pinchman’s improved – he’s coherent.’

  Stryker straightened up. ‘Why the hell didn’t you say so?’

  ‘I just did.’

  Toscarelli came into the locker room as Stryker was drying off from the shower. He sat down on a bench while Stryker dressed. ‘Right,’ Stryker said, grabbing his coat and scarf. ‘Come on.’

  Toscarelli looked at him standing beside the bench as if waiting for a starting gun go off. ‘Did you eat anything this morning?’ He was obviously unprepared to rise until he had been given this piece of information.

  Stryker thought. He remembered going into the cafeteria, all right. What had happened then? ‘Cereal, something. I don’t know. Yeah, I ate. Come on.’

  They left the locker room, Toscarelli giving his usual impression of an aircraft carrier on manoeuvres, Stryker bounding impatiently ahead.

  ‘This could be it, you know – he probably can explain the whole thing,’ Stryker enthused, over his shoulder.

  ‘And he might just want to say hello,’ Tos observed majestically.

  ‘If he does say it was Wayland, we’ll have him cold. The case will be finished.’

  ‘Swell,’ Tos said, watching Stryker loping away toward the car park. He was off and running again. It was all part of Stryker’s own kind of hysteria when a case was bugging him. This was the worst it had ever been, Tos thought. Neilson had noticed it. Jesus, even Pinsky had noticed it. If Stryker wasn’t careful he’d screw himself straight into the ground and somebody would run over his head.

  ‘Hey!’ he called after Stryker. ‘You still taking those vitamins I told you about?’

  When Stryker and Toscarelli walked in, Pinchman was propped up in the bed watching the door. Aside from an occasional blurring of the bright blue eyes, he seemed alert enough after his long and nearly eternal sleep. He was a nice-looking old guy, Stryker thought, sadly. Despite all that had happened to him, one way and another. He felt sorry for what might lie ahead. They exchanged edgy greetings, then Stryker pulled up a chair and sat on it backwards, propping his arms across the back.