Sighing, he surrendered to the challenge of the mystery, put his feet on his desk, smoked a cigar, and stared at the far wall.
Everything in his cop's instinct and experience told him it was the work of a criminal psychopath, a crazy, a nut. It was almost hopeless to try to imagine a motive. But it didn't seem to be greed; nothing had been stolen.
On impulse, he searched through the pages of an annual diary and appointment book, looking for the section that listed phases of the moon. There was no connection between the full moon and the dates of the slayings. He slammed the desk drawer in disgust.
The problem was, there was no brilliantly deductive way to approach a case in which a random killer selected victims by chance and murdered for apparently no reason. There was no handle, nowhere to start.
Because, Delaney told himself, he had nothing better to do, he wrote out dossiers of the two victims, trying to recall everything Sergeant Abner Boone had told him. Then he headed a third sheet: Perpetrator.
He pored over the known facts about the two victims, trying to find a link, a connection. He found nothing other than what he had mentioned to Boone: they were both middle-aged men, visitors to New York, staying at midtown hotels. That, he knew, meant next to nothing. But in his meticulous way, he made a careful note of it.
The sheet of paper devoted to the killer had few notations:
1. Could be male or female.
3. Clever; careful; crafty if not intelligent.
Just writing all this down gave him a certain satisfaction. It brought a solution no closer, he knew, but it was a start in bringing order and form to a chaotic enigma. It was the only way he knew to apply logic to solving a crime born of abnormal motives and an irrational mentality.
He was back in his study again, on the morning of March 21st, ruminating about the case.
He was playing with the idea that perhaps the two victims, George T. Puller and Frederick Wolheim, had, at some time in their business careers, employed the same man, and had fired this man, for whatever reasons.
Then, years later, the discharged employee, his resentment turned to homicidal fury, had sought out his two former employers and slashed them to death. A fanciful notion, the Chief acknowledged, but not impossible. In fact, not farfetched at all.
He was still considering this possibility and how it might be checked out when his phone rang. He reached for it absently.
"Edward X. Delaney here," he said.
"Chief, this is Boone," the sergeant said. "I thought you'd like to know… I did what you said: took a Crime Scene Unit man back to the room at the Hotel Pierce where Wolheim was chilled. We took measurements on that armchair where the two black nylon hairs were found."
"And?"
"Chief, it was approximate. I mean, when you sit in that chair, it has a soft seat cushion that depresses. You understand? So it was tough getting an exact measurement from the back of the head to the tailbone."
"Of course."
"Anyway," Boone went on, "we did what we could. Then there was no one in the Lab Services Unit or ME's office who could help. But one of the assistant ME's suggested we call a guy up at the American Museum of Natural History. He's an anthropologist, supposed to be a hotshot on reconstructing skeletons from bone fragments."
"Good," Delaney said, pleased with Boone's thoroughness. "What did he say?"
"I gave him the measurement and he called back within an hour. He said his estimate-and he insisted it was only a guess- was that the person who sat in that chair was about five feet five to five feet seven."
There was silence.
"Chief?" Boone said. "You still there?"
"Yes, sergeant," Delaney said slowly, "I'm still here. Five-five to five-seven? That could be a smallish man or a tallish woman."
"Right," the sergeant said. "But it's something, isn't it, Chief? I mean, it's more than we had before."
"Of course," Edward X. Delaney said, as heartily as he could. He didn't want to say how frail that clue was; the sergeant would know that. "How are you getting along with Slavin?"
"Okay," Boone said, lowering his voice. "So far. He's been making us recheck everything we did before he came aboard. I guess I can understand that; he doesn't want to be responsible for anything that happened before he took command."
"Uh-huh," Delaney said, thinking that Slavin was a fool to waste his men's time in that fashion and to imply doubt of their professional competence.
"Chief, I'd like to ask you a favor…"
"Of course. Anything."
"Could I call you about the investigation?" the sergeant asked, still speaking in a muffled voice. "Every once in a while? To keep you up on what's going on and ask your help on things?"
That would be Deputy Commissioner Ivar Thorsen's suggestion, the Chief knew. "Sergeant, why don't you call Delaney every day or so? You're friends, aren't you? Keep him up on the progress of the investigation. See if he has any ideas."
Which meant that Thorsen didn't entirely trust the expertise of Lieutenant Martin Slavin.
"Call me any time you like, sergeant," Edward X. Delaney said. "I'll be here."
"Thank you, sir," Boone said gratefully.
Delaney hung up. On the dossier headed Perpetrator, he added:
4. Approx. 5-5 to 5-7.
Then he went into the kitchen and made a sandwich of sliced kielbasa and Jewish coleslaw, on sour rye. Since it was a "wet" sandwich, he ate it standing over the sink.
There was one person Edward X. Delaney was eager to talk to-but he wasn't sure the old man was still alive. He had been Detective Sergeant Albert Braun, assigned to the office of the District Attorney of New York County. But he had retired about fifteen years ago and Delaney lost track of him.
Braun had joined the New York Police Department with a law degree at a time when the force was having trouble recruiting qualified high school graduates. During his first five years, he served as a foot patrolman and continued his education with special studies at local universities in criminal law, forensic science and, his particular interest, the psychology of criminal behavior.
During his early years in the Department, he had won the reputation of being a dependable, if unspectacular, street cop. His nickname during this period of service was "Arf," from Little Orphan Annie's dog. That hound wasn't a bulldog, but Albert Braun was-and that's how he got the canine monicker.
Delaney remembered that it was said of Braun that if he was assigned to a stakeout in front of a house, and told, "Watch for a male Caucasian, 5-11, 185 pounds, about fifty-five, grayish hair, wearing a plaid sport jacket," you could come back two years later and Arf would look up and say, "He hasn't shown up yet."
Finally, Albert Braun's background, erudition, and intelligence were recognized. He earned the gold shield of a detective, received rapid promotions, and ended up a sergeant in the Manhattan DA's office where he remained until his retirement.
Long before that, he was recognized as the Department's top expert in the history of crime. He possessed a library of more than 2,000 volumes on criminology, and his knowledge of old cases, weapons, and criminal methodology was encyclopedic.
He had been consulted many times by police departments outside New York City and even by foreign police bureaus and Interpol. In addition, he taught a popular course on investigative techniques to detectives of the NYPD and was a frequent guest lecturer at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Delaney remembered that Braun had never married, and lived somewhere in Elmhurst, in Queens. The Chief consulted his personal telephone directory, a small, battered black book that contained numbers so ancient that instead of a three-digit prefix some bore designations such as Murray Hill-3, Beekman-5, and Butterfield-8.
He found Albert Braun's number and dialed. He waited while the phone rang seven times. He was about to hang up when a woman came on the line with a breathless "Yes?"