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upset. Evans had been with him at Police Headquarters. She glanced at her
watch: seven a.m.
An early hour for Doctor Evans. She stepped on the accelerator, racing across
Seventy-ninth Street in the snow, heading for the point of
rendezvous, Central Park West and Seventy-second.
The streets were empty as she maneuvered the car around the corner
at
Seventy-ninth and CPW. She was now in the 20th Precinct. Ahead she
could see the flashing lights, the dismal little crowd of emergency vehicles
that always marked a crime scene. She pulled up behind a parked radio car.
I m Neff, she said to the lieutenant on the scene.
We got a funny one, he intoned. Anticrime boys found this bench
covered with frozen blood about an hour ago. We took it to pathology
and sure enough it s human.
O-negative, to be exact. But we got no corpse, nothin .
How do you know it was a murder?
There s evidence enough. First off, too much blood, whoever lost it had to
die. Second, we can see where the body was pulled across the wall. Her eyes
went to the indentations in the snow that lay along the wall. More
snow had fallen since the murder, but not enough to completely
obliterate the signs. By the way, Detective Neff, if I may be so
blunt, why are you here?
Well, I m on special assignment with my partner, Detective Wilson.
We re investigating a certain M.O. When the M. E. finds a case that seems to
fit he gives us a call.
You take your orders from the M. E.?
We were instructed by the Commissioner. She hadn t wanted to pull rank, but
she sensed that he was needling her. He smiled a little sheepishly
and strolled away.
Lieutenant, Neff called, is this blood all you have? No body, no clothing,
nothing?
Hold on, Becky, a voice said behind her. It was Evans, followed closely by
Wilson.
The two men came up and the three of them huddled together under the curious
eyes of the men of the 20th and Central Park precincts. There s more,
Evans said, there s some hair.
He s examined some hairs that were stuck in the blood.
Right. This is my interpreter, Detective Wilson. I found hairs
That match the hairs found at the DiFalco scene.
Evans frowned. Come on, Wilson, lay off. The hairs match the ones we ve
found at every scene.
They re pretty voracious if they only left blood, Becky said.
They didn t. Don t you see what happened? They hid the remains. They ve
learned that we re on their tail and they re trying to slow us down. They re
very bright.
That s for certain, Wilson said. Becky noticed how haggard he looked, his
face waxen, his jaw unshaven. Had he slept at all? It didn t look like it. He
cleared his throat. Are they searching for the corpse? he asked the
Lieutenant, who was standing nearby.
Yeah. There s some sign of something being dragged, but the snow covered most
of the evidence up. We re just not sure what happened.
Becky motioned to Wilson and Evans. They followed her into her car. It s
warmer here, she said, and the Loo won t overhear us.
Evans was the first to speak. Obviously they were hiding behind
the wall when somebody sat on the bench. Judging from the blood it happened
five or six hours ago.
They must have jumped over the wall, killed fast and dragged the corpse away.
Not in one piece, Wilson said. There d be more marks. I think they tore it
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up and carried it.
Jesus. But what about the clothes?
That s what we ought to be able to find. The bones, too, for that matter,
there aren t too many places they could have hidden them.
How about the pond?
You mean because it s frozen over? I doubt if they d think of busting the ice
in the pond, that s too smart.
We need to find clothes, some kind of identification.
Yeah. Where the hell to look, though? This friggin snow&
I have the hairs. I don t need anything more to convince me. They came here
last night and they killed this person. I m certain of that. It was them.
Their hairs are unique, as unique as a fingerprint.
So they kill a lot. That s to be expected for a carnivorous animal.
Becky corrected her partner. Carnivorous humanoid.
Wilson laughed. From what I ve seen they could hardly be described as
humanoid.
And what have you seen?
Them.
Becky and the M. E. stared at him. You ve seen them? Evans finally managed
to ask.
That s right. Last night.
What the hell are you saying? Becky asked.
I saw six of them outside of your apartment last night. I was hunting them,
trying to get Ferguson his specimen. He sighed. They re fast, though. I
missed em by a mile.
Lucky I m still alive.
Becky was stunned. She looked at her partner s tired face, at his watery,
aging eyes.
He had been out there guarding her! The crazy, sweet old romantic jerk. At
this moment she felt like she was seeing a hidden, secret Wilson, seeing him
for the very first time. She could have kissed him.
Chapter 7
Chapter 7
Chapter 7
Chapter 7
^
Carl Ferguson was horrified and excited at the same time by what he was
reading. He seemed to drift away, to a quiet and safe place. But he came
back. Around him the prosaic realities of the Main Reading Room of the
New York Public Library reasserted themselves. Across from him a painfully
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