‘You mean – Richard?’ Pinchman’s voice was sad. He still found it difficult to believe that Wayland, who had always been kindness itself, would have actually tried to kill him. He started to say as much, but he noticed Stryker was not just looking out of the window, now, but staring with his full attention, every line of his body taut. ‘What is it?’ the old man asked, leaning forward a little in the bed to see.
Across the courtyard, within the frame of a lighted window that shone out in the murky shadow of the storm, two people were embracing intimately. He was a little surprised that Stryker would have a streak of voyeurism in him, but . . . Stryker whirled around, startling him.
‘You said you got a blackmail note.’
‘Yes. On Monday morning. It was in my pigeonhole.’
‘What did it say?’
‘That the writer knew I’d killed Aiken – which I hadn’t – and that . . .’
‘No – what did it say, exactly?’
Pinchman thought back. ‘Something like “I saw what you . . .’
‘Yes, yes.’ Stryker crowed, glancing at the window and gesturing. ‘At first I thought it was Wayland’s way of keeping you quiet about anything you’d seen or heard, but now . . . look.’
‘At what?’
‘Them. Across from us. If you were down on the ground you couldn’t see them. If you were in the hall outside the door over there you couldn’t see them. But, over here, we can see them as clearly as if they were on a stage. What’s directly across from Adamson’s office on the fourth floor of Grantham Hall?’
Pinchman stared at him. ‘The fourth floor of the Library.’
‘Right. And if a man can send one blackmail note, he can send two,’ Stryker said, heading for the door. ‘Maybe you weren’t the only one who had a little message waiting on Monday morning.’
‘We may have an eyewitness to the whole thing,’ Stryker said, putting down the phone of the reception desk. ‘According to Campus Security his name is Sam Klusky, he’s sharp but not too bright, and always short of money before payday. Come on – I’ve got his address right here.’ He started for the lifts.
‘I thought we were waiting for the killer to come after Stark,’ Tos objected.
‘McGee can handle it. Come on.’
‘Lieutenant Stryker?’ It was a nurse at the desk, holding out the telephone. ‘For you, again. This phone is not really for . . .’
Stryker crossed and took it. ‘Thanks. Yes?’ It was Neilson. ‘Did you ask her? Did she tell you . . .’
‘I never had the chance. When I got here she was gone.’
Stryker felt something seize his throat. ‘Gone?’ he managed to say.
‘Yeah. Seems she got another call from Wayland. She went out right after that.’
TWENTY-NINE
Kate didn’t care if it was a ‘No Parking’ zone or not. She didn’t think any Meter Maids would be out in this storm at this hour, and she was damned if she was going to walk any further than she had to in this snow.
Anyway, she wouldn’t be long.
She had woken up expecting to find Stryker stretched out on the sitting-room carpet, but when she had padded out she found he’d gone, and left no sign. It was as if he’d never been there at all.
She’d had some breakfast and heard the storm warnings on the radio. By lunchtime the truth of the situation began to be quite clear – if the blizzard continued to build up, they’d be trapped by the snow for some time, even in the city. But, if she moved now, she could get down to the Department, gather up what she needed, and be back before it got really bad. And she could pick up some groceries, too.
It took her a while to dress, and she had been halfway down the back stairs when she’d heard the phone ring. Fortunately she’d managed to get back in time.
She struggled out of the car and turned her face away from the stinging snow. Staggering a little, she went across the pavement to the doors of Grantham Hall. After the howl of the storm outside, the empty halls stretching away on either side were gloomy and a little spooky. She was alone here, among the empty classrooms and the closed ranks of lockers. Behind her the wind screeched suddenly through the crack between the doors, and Kate jumped.
‘Come on, get moving, don’t be stupid, it’s still daylight,’ she told herself sternly.
She leaned against the wall of the lift as it grumbled its way upward (it had sounded like a crabby old man from the day it had been installed). Where was Richard in this storm? In a nice warm bar somewhere? She hoped so, for his sake.
When she emerged from the lift it was into a curiously silent and mantled world. All the windows of the foyer were curtained with snow which had begun to gather in folds at the bottom of each expanse of glass. Successive accumulations had slid down the warm surface and looked like velvet curtains hung upside-down.
Through the glistening web of moving snow she could see the dark bulk of the Library, closed now. The snow curtains were between, shutting her in and the wind out. The sensation was claustrophobic, and she felt very alone.
Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea after all.
As she hesitated by the lifts, Kate heard a soft noise. The sound of a stack of papers slithering to the floor, followed by a rat-like rustling. She took a step backward, kicking the aluminium waste-bin with the heel of her boot, and nearly sent it over.
The scrabbling stopped abruptly. Kate stood there, listening to someone who was listening to her. Something cold crawled up within her, stealthily touching her arms, legs, spine. She took another step backwards, towards the lift, and then another, with legs that were suddenly stiff and uncooperative. She pushed the button and the doors opened – oh, blessed doors.
She got in and pushed the button for Down, pushed all the buttons, desperately, willing the door to close. But it was so slow. So terribly slow.
And someone was coming.
The doors were moving, now, arthritically slow, closing at last. Now there was only a crack remaining as the footsteps came closer and closer. She heard the button outside being pushed, again and again. She pushed the buttons inside, again and again. Confused by conflicting instructions the door hesitated, closed, and then began to open again. Kate stared at the slowly widening gap.
Oh, traitorous doors.
Toscarelli replaced the receiver of the radio set and grabbed for the dashboard just in time to brace himself for another bone-jolting impact. ‘Jesus!’ he yelled. ‘If you’re going to play three-cushion shots with this car, maybe you’d better let me drive. At least I always remember to hit cheap stuff.’
‘The kerb is cheap,’ Stryker said, accelerating slowly but insistently into the next swerve and narrowly missing the back end of a bus that suddenly began to glide toward them like the QE2, wheels spinning. The windscreen wipers groaned under each successive load of snow as they swept laboriously across the glass, dumping their icy load and further impacting the mass that had gone before. Their sweep was getting shorter and shorter, and the gap where momentarily clear vision was possible was narrowing fast. Stryker, his glasses sliding down his nose, leaned forward and clutched the wheel with both hands, concentrating.
‘Did you hear what Neilson said?’ Tos asked.
‘I heard.’
‘You think it means anything?’
‘I don’t know. I hope not.’ He cursed under his breath, turned into yet another skid, and grazed the bumper of a car coming the other way. They both blew their horns, waved their arms, but kept on driving. It wasn’t the first dent, it wouldn’t be the last, and the traffic was too jammed up to pull over and exchange insults, anyway. In fact, the traffic was bumper to bumper and slowing down every minute.
‘Where the hell are they all going?’ Tos muttered.
‘They’re coming back – look at all the grocery bags in the back of most of them,’ Stryker said. ‘It’s not that there are s
o many – it’s just that the goddamn road is down to two ruts each way.’
The radio signalled again. The voice told them in laconic tones that the Security Guard’s phone didn’t answer. They’d been ringing repeatedly. He should have been there. But he wasn’t taking calls.
‘Maybe he’s in the john,’ Tos said, putting back the receiver.
Stryker’s hands tightened on the wheel. ‘Maybe.’
Suddenly the traffic came to a full stop, pinning them firmly between an oil truck and a delivery van. ‘Oh, God! Now what?’ he screamed, pounding on the steering wheel.
*
Kate stood in the doorway of the office, staring at the maelstrom of papers scattered from open drawers and file folders and torn notebooks. They made a treacherous carpet underfoot, slipping over the polished tiles, drifting and skittering in the wisps of wind that leaked through the badly fitted windows.
‘Did you ever see such a mess?’ tsk-tsked Arthur Fowler, beside her. ‘Is nothing sacred? Are we to be subjected to constant harassment and vandalism until this Department is totally destroyed? Can the police do nothing? Can they do anything? I’m beginning to wonder.’
‘They’re doing their best,’ Kate murmured, crossing the office to look out of the windows at the storm. She pulled the window a little more tightly shut, cutting off the draught. ‘When did you discover this?’
‘Just a few minutes ago. I came to get some work to do over the weekend. We may be closed down because of the storm and some things must be dealt with before Dan comes back. When I got out of the lift I thought I heard someone running down the hall towards the Fire Door, but when I got to the corner, there was no-one there. I saw the door of this office open, walked down and found this.’ He looked a little pale, and swallowed. ‘Thank God, it was only this. My God, I might have been killed myself!’
The realisation came suddenly, and he looked as if he were going to faint. ‘Here, you’d better sit down,’ Kate said, putting out the desk chair quickly. Fowler flopped into it, his face shiny with the cold sweat of fear. He began to shiver. ‘Do you suppose it was . . . the Monkey Killer?’
Kate stared at him. ‘The what?’
‘Haven’t you been reading the papers? They’re all full of it. Speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil. Aiken’s tongue, Dan’s ear . . .’
And my eyes, nearly, Kate thought. ‘I think Lieutenant Stryker said something about that,’ she said. ‘Jane’s theory, wasn’t it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Fowler said, fretfully. ‘Are you certain that window is closed? I’m freezing.’ He wrapped his arms around himself. ‘I think we should call that Lieutenant Stryker and tell him about this,’ he said, nodding at the ransacked office.
‘I expect you’re right,’ Kate agreed. The phone was on the end of the desk. She picked it up gingerly, and as she did so, glanced out of the window. A figure she recognised was going across the Mall, bent against the wind, head-down in the snow. But the Library was closed, no-one could get in. What was the point of . . . ?
Then she saw another figure. One she also knew. And it was following the first, which had by now reached the Library itself and was tugging at the doors.
Which opened.
And closed behind it.
A moment later, the next figure did the same.
Two people had just gone into a locked, closed Library.
She picked up the whole phone and took it to the end of the desk nearest Fowler. ‘You call him,’ she said, scribbling the number she had memorised on a scrap of paper. ‘I’ve just seen something very odd in the Library, and you’d better tell him that, too. All right?’
‘You’re going to just leave me here?’ Fowler asked, annoyed.
‘I’ll be right back. You just call Stryker, Arthur, and everything will be all right.’ Kate nodded encouragingly and went out. Fowler listened to her footsteps going down the hall, heard the doors of the lift open and close, heard the whine of the motor as it began its grudging descent.
‘Well, really,’ he huffed, glaring at the phone. ‘You’d think I was a common secretary or something.’
Stryker banged out a frustrated rhythm on the steering wheel. The snow was hissing around them, but the only motion the car made was a slight rocking in the wind, for the traffic hadn’t moved forward in the last six minutes. ‘The hell with this,’ he burst out, reaching down for his gloves and starting to pull them on. ‘The hell with it. You stick with the car, call us some help, break out of this as soon as you can. It isn’t far now.’ He opened the door and it slammed shut again almost immediately, driven back by the wind. It nearly took his foot off. ‘Jesus.’ He put his weight behind the door and forced it open again, nearly losing a hand this time as he got out into the wind and the door snapped its jaws shut once more. He gesticulated to Tos, who was yelling at him through the closed window. The wind was so strong he couldn’t hear a word, but he figured he knew the gist of it. He should button up his overcoat, or something. The snow was stinging on his face and his glasses had coated over. He took them off, jammed them into his pocket, and started toward the kerb, gingerly stepping over the icy ruts. He grabbed hold of a parked car and edged between it and the next to gain the pavement beyond. He looked back and saw Tos’s shadowy shape edging into the driver’s seat of the sedan, while talking into the radio receiver. The engines of the jammed and stationary cars sent out plumes of exhaust that rose behind them until they reached roof level, then the wind snatched at them and tore them apart.
He started to move along the pavement, head down, hands half-outstretched to warn him of obstacles. The snow was already caking his eyelashes. He’d turn into a sidestreet as soon as he could and maybe make better progress tacking diagonally rather than trying to follow the main streets. For the moment he had to lurch like some half-blind crab; painfully encountering every streetlamp and telephone pole ever put up. His ears and nose began to ache, and he wondered what the weather was like in Miami right then. His chest was aching, too, the wind going down into the Brussels lace he’d once used for breathing. He tried to move more quickly, but he lost traction and slipped. He wanted to run but all he could do was slide. He wasn’t moving much faster than the car had been, when it had moved at all, and there were still so many blocks to go.
Arthur Fowler shook his head at the telephone. ‘I want to talk to someone who is working on the University murder case, not someone in traffic control. Are they all out?’ He listened to the harassed voice on the other end of the line. ‘I appreciate that there’s a storm on, young man, and that everything is all “balled up” as you insist on telling me, but we have snowstorms every year. Surely this hasn’t come as a complete surprise to . . .’
The other voice interrupted yet again. Fowler’s face was getting red. ‘Well, then, if not Lieutenant Stryker, then Sergeant Toscarennie or whatever his name is. Toscarelli, thank you. No? There were two more, then. Good Lord, doesn’t anyone write these things down in your Department? Ah, I thought as . . . yes, I’ll wait.’ He sat gazing out at the swirling snow, tapping his fingers and humming a small, angry tune. ‘Yes, hello? Neilson, yes, and – Pinsky. That’s it. Fine. Either one will . . .’ his voice trailed off, disbelievingly. ‘Out and off-duty? Young man, is there anyone there? Well, obviously, you’re there, I know . . .’ Another interruption. ‘No, I don’t think I will leave a message, thank you. I’m certain it will take you too long to get enough alphabet blocks together to handle it. Good day.’
Fowler slammed the phone down and glared at it. Now he’d have to go all the way down to the Main Office to find the phone books. Pinsky? Pinskie? Pinski? Pensky?
Honestly, it was too much, he should never have come in.
Stryker stood in the vestibule pushing the button marked Klusky, and getting no joy. The snow caking his clothes was beginning to fall off in clumps on to the worn linoleum, and a puddle was forming around his feet. Another was fo
rming inside his shoes.
The inner door flew open and a short fat woman wearing three cardigans glared up at him, the curlers on her head practically standing on end in indignation. ‘Whatsa matter, you don’t take no for an answer? Knock it off with the bell, first the phone now the bell, my Chester’s asleep in there and it comes through the ceiling like a fire alarm, Klusky ain’t in, he went out an hour ago, because the storm was getting worse, and he said if he didn’t go then he’d never make it, they counted on him, I’ll bet they do, hah, who counts on him counts on their fingers and toes, don’t ring that bell no more or my Chester comes out here with a poker, biff, on your head, buddy.’
The door slammed and Stryker was once again alone in the tiny vestibule. He felt as if a very strong wind had just blown around him and he almost touched his head to see if his hat was still there.
It was. Klusky obviously wasn’t.
Once more into the snow, dear friends.
And the University was at least fifteen blocks away.
Edward Pinchman lay against his pillows, trying to ignore the pain. He was accustomed to ignoring pain, but from the opposite direction. His head was throbbing, but he hated to call a nurse for such a small thing. They were so very busy with everyone else. Why, somebody could be dying in another room! Or having a baby or a haemorrhage! What was a little headache, compared to that?
Since Stryker had left, borne on the wings of sudden insight, he’d been left totally alone. Not even the young policeman who used to sit by his bed was there, now.
Would Dan really overlook his deception? He found it hard to believe, and yet Stryker had been very unequivocal. Of course, if it got out, he’d have to leave, but if Dan and the police kept quiet . . . he sighed. It always depended on other people.
Monkey Puzzle Page 24
