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  “Said when your mother died, she had you over for dinner once.”

  “No, no... not me. I mean, yeah, my mother died... left me... but no, I never had a meal at Mrs. Phillips' place. Talked with her in the park. We... she'd feed the pigeons, and I'd feed the pigeons and—”

  Turner piped in. “What'd you talk about?”

  “Weather, the Mets, stuff like that... nothing big.”

  “You know anyone that would want to hurt Mrs. Phillips, Mr. Helfer?”

  “No, no one.”

  Emmons asked him his whereabouts the night of her death.

  “I was out... to a movie... with a cousin. Spent the night.”

  She asked him where he worked.

  He hesitated. “What's where I work got to do with it?”

  “Please, Mr. Helfer,” she said, “it's just for the record.” She pointed to her notebook.

  “Oleander Pipes.”

  “Pipes?” asked Turner. “Smokin' pipes? You think maybe I could get a sample of one of them?”

  “No, it's not smoking pipes, it's industrial pipe.”

  “All right,” said Emmons. “Thanks for your time, Mr. Helfer.”

  “Yeah, thanks, Leon,” added Turner.

  Helfer closed the door quickly on them. Emmons recognized the signs of a man who had something to hide, and she continued to wonder about the odor she sniffed at the door. As they walked away from the premises, they could feel Leon's eyes on them.

  “Let's make him sweat,” said Turner.

  “You're on.”

  They stood outside for some time, staring up at the building, talking in guarded remarks, using frequent hand gestures, Emmons jotting down items in her notebook. Leon couldn't hear them.

  “Whataya call that kind of brick? Stucco?”

  “Stucco Royale, I think,” she replied. “Think that's bad; look at the weedy yard and that shack out back.”

  “What a junk pile.”

  “Breeding ground for a killer?”

  “This guy can't be the Claw. He's a wuss. I figure the Claw's got to be something more than Leon.”

  “You heard the captain and that lady FBI agent,” she challenged him.

  “What, that there's two Claws?”

  “Or that there's one guy with two heads like Ames says.”

  He nodded, considering this. “Still, Leon would be a pretty sorry catch when the TV cameras hit him, but then so was Richard Speck and Jeffrey Dahmer.”

  “Damn sure would like to get inside.”

  “No legal way. And breaking his window was dumb, Louise.”

  “We got probable cause. He refused us entrance. The broken glass was purely accidental.”

  “There's no probable cause for a warrant. No way.”

  “What if we examine him a little closer; catch him in a lie or two?”

  “Like whether he ate with the old girl or not?”

  “Let's talk to some more of his neighbors and maybe his boss at this pipe place.”

  “You're on,” agreed Turner, tossing away a butt, “only first we find some coffee and a can. I gotta go.”

  Twenty

  Unable for the time being to locate Rychman, Jessica slowed long enough to retrieve a copy of the tape made while Darius and Archer were reopening the bodies of Olin and Hamner. She located a tape player and some privacy, listening to the report for any sign of friction between the two M.E.s. To her consternation, she could make out no such difficulties whatever, and this made her doubt her own earlier misgivings about Simon Archer. A straight arrow, Rychman had called him, and suppose he was? And suppose she raised questions about him only to learn that she had sullied his reputation for nothing? Suppose her imagination had run amok? It could cause enough of a stink that her superiors in Quantico might smell it. Yeah, just what O'Rourke would like most of all to come out of her investigation of the Claw. Hadn't O'Rourke gone behind her back to put Matisak in her way?

  Her convictions regarding Archer hadn't yet solidified and she was already second-guessing herself: What would Rychman do? How would others react? Would everyone think her mad?

  She was unsure what to do with her suspicion, but she knew that she wanted to pay a great deal more attention to Archer than she had. At the moment, she assumed he was meeting with the C.R and the mayor, his interim status as manager of the coroner's office being made permanent, naming him as the new M.E. in charge. Was it a dream he would sabotage for... possibly kill for? Men killed for far, far less.

  She went searching for Alan, expecting to find a very upset man who'd no doubt respond badly to the irresponsible publication of Ovid's poem. Rychman, she learned, was in conference with Mayor Halle and C.P. Eldritch. No doubt he was being informed of Archer's new appointment and all of them were hashing out a public relations ploy to combat remarks in Drake's Times story, which alleged that the police had knowingly arrested the wrong man in the Claw case, and that he was not the author of the horrid poem. Telephones were shrilly crying out the message that the newspaper account had had a great ripple effect throughout the city, and that Jim Drake's career with the paper was solidified.

  “I'm afraid he can't be disturbed now,” Rychman's matronly secretary said to her, pursuing Jessica as she pushed by, anyway.

  The men in the room fell silent the moment she pressed through the door, except for Rychman, who told his secretary that it was all right.

  “You may as well know, Dr. Coran, that the C.P here wants someone else to head the Claw task force, that I'm being held responsible for the leaks getting out to the press, and that maybe I'm the Deep Throat here... for Christ's sake.”

  “That's crazy,” she said, going toward the mayor. “Alan's done everything in his power to contain such information leaks—everything.” She realized now that Dr. Archer wasn't in the room.

  “We've traced this thing. Ames didn't do it,” said Eldritch, his thin frame almost quaking with his anger. “His secretary was grilled for hours, and nothing there.”

  “But Lathrope's people knew,” she countered.

  “All screened and let go.”

  “The secretary . . . she made copies that day,” replied Jessica.

  “She's the most likely, but she swears otherwise,” Alan replied. “I'm not a hundred percent convinced of her innocence but—”

  “Darius was the only other person to have any knowledge of it, and he's dead,” said the mayor.

  “No,” she countered. “There was also Simon Archer.”

  They all stared at her. Rychman asked, “Archer? What could Simon possibly have to gain?”

  “You're considering him for Darius' position, aren't you?”

  “Yes, but it's not an appointment. He must go through various boards, committees, and compete with other applicants,” said the mayor. “Of course, he... he has solicited my backing and I... I gave it, of course. But why do you suspect... What possible reason would he have to... to sabotage Rychman's investigation in such a way?”

  “I'm not completely sure. Call it free association, but I believe he has some plan to... to dazzle you, sir, to ensure he gets the position as chief M.E. of the city, and the more sensationalized the case, well...”

  “That's... that is a very serious accusation, Dr. Coran. I hope you have some evidence to support it.”

  “At the moment, I have very little... only circumstantial.” She held up the tape she'd just listened to. “Proof that he knew something had been found is in here.” She then showed them the computer disk. “And in here is a computer representation of the weapon used by the Claw, a representation that I believe Dr. Archer himself could have created given the evidentiary materials in his possession, and yet he failed to do so.”

  “What the weapon looks like?” Rychman was instantly curious. “Let's see it.”

  The C.P and the mayor were equally curious. Rychman led them to a secluded room with a computer terminal, and in moments Jessica had them staring at what she believed the Claw used on his victims. Rychman was amazed,
as were the others. Before their eyes a graphic representation done in geometric red lines afforded them their first glance into the nature of the weapon, and with it the nature of the beast.

  “It looks like some kind of meat-cleaving glove,” said Halle.

  “It is that,” said Jessica.

  “Look at that,” said Eldritch. “You ever see anything like it before?”

  “Closest thing to it is a prosthetic hook,” said Rychman. “Kind you see on some longshoremen working the docks.”

  “Maybe the bastard's a sailor, then, a merchant marine.”

  “I think he's more into gardening tools,” countered Jessica. “Notice how similar the three prongs are to a hand-held garden hoe.”

  “Yeah... yeah,” agreed Alan, nodding. “You're right.”

  “You have absolutely no doubt that this is the weapon used on his victims?”

  “None whatever.”

  “How did you possibly come to—”

  “A special forensics program designed by my mentor, Dr. Holecraft, Washington's chief M.E. for over thirty years. He had for years dreamed of and worked on a program that would collect all information on the wounds inflicted, compute this to the last degree and reassemble it to mirror back the exact nature of the device used in an attack, from blunt objects to blades and even to caliber of a handgun via the bullet's entrance and exit wounds.”

  “But if you brought the program with you from Quantico, there's no reason to assume that Dr. Archer would have been proficient in its use, or had had the time—” countered Eldritch, who seemed anxious to defend Archer.

  “But he was proficient in its use, and he did have the time.” She stopped him with upraised hands.

  “You're sure of this, Dr. Coran?” asked Alan.

  “The program was sent to the NYPD M.E.'s office two months ago, and Darius didn't seem to know that it was on hand when I asked him about it. Of course, then he became excited about its use, and he asked me—since I'd had practical experience with it—to do the honors. I've been working on this image ever since. But prior to this, for whatever strange reason, the program wasn't being used.”

  “Perhaps Archer was incapable of using it.” Eldritch's hands went skyward. “I, personally, have a phobia when it comes to computers.”

  “Archer and every medical examiner in the country wants this program. It's being tested now in a number of cities. One of them, from the beginning, had to be New York.”

  “So the question arises, why wasn't it being used?”

  The mayor's question resounded about the room.

  “Are you certain of your suspicions of Archer?” Alan pointedly asked.

  “I'd stake my reputation on it.”

  “And are you equally sure that Dr. Archer dragged his feet on providing this information?”

  “I don't know that with hundred percent certainty. As I said, my... my instincts are based on circumstantial findings. But I do know that he knew something had been found in the Phillips cadaver. Dr. Darius confided in him.”

  “I see.”

  “That still doesn't prove he told the press about it,” said Eldritch.

  “No, no, it doesn't, but he's the only one you haven't talked to.”

  “But we did talk to him,” said the mayor.

  “About this very subject?”

  “He denied having known anything about it. Said he had been left out of the loop since your arrival, Doctor.”

  “Then I suggest you speak with him again.” She popped the tape into a player beside her. She had earlier cued it to the spot she wished Rychman to hear. Darius' distinctive voice was followed by Archer's, a clear exchange of the information Archer claimed now to have no knowledge of. It wasn't the worst of his lies, she guessed.

  She hazarded a tentative word. “If he'll lie about this... what else is he capable of lying about?”

  “What do you mean. Doctor?” asked Halle, dumbfounded.

  “I fear that he only forwarded selective information out to Quantico, that which would back up his theory of the crime, that the Claw is a single individual.”

  “My God,” said the mayor. “If this is true... think of it... It could ruin us all if a bastard like that Drake fellow got hold of it.”

  “Drake doesn't have to get hold of it,” said Rychman, “all he has to do is imagine it. Half what he writes is pure conjecture.”

  “And the other half?” said Eldritch. “Half-truths have been destroying us in the press—you included, Dr. Coran.”

  “I've learned it's best to ignore my critics,” she countered. She knew that Rychman was taking most of the heat that had been flamed by Drake's biting, irresponsible series. “Lathrope's secretary has ties with Drake,” Alan said. “She's just as likely a candidate as Archer, more so even.”

  “But you saw the woman, you heard her,” countered Eldritch.

  The mayor added, “I believe she was telling the truth, else she would not have told of her former involvement with the man and his phone call pleading for the very information we were grilling her about.”

  Rychman conceded that he felt Marilyn Khoen was being honest with them, and he was trained to know a liar when he spoke to one. He considered his senses more reliable than a polygraph, which Marilyn had agreed to take.

  “When I think of how I charged into Ames' place,” said Rychman, falling into a chair, “accusing everybody in sight... damn... damn...”

  “So what're we going to do?” asked Eldritch. “About Archer? How're we going to trip him up, if he is indeed behind all this?”

  “The man appears unflappable,” said the mayor.

  “I'll be working a great deal closer now,” Jessica said, “and I'll keep my eyes wide open, you can be assured of that. But we need something to shake him up. I suggest a wholesale investigation of Dr. Darius' department, from mislaid toe tags to broken beakers. I suggest a call for an exhumation of the first victim or victims. I suggest a second autopsy of some of the victims, perhaps Dr. Darius' autopsy as well. Chalk it up to a departmental investigation of what appears shoddy practices since Dr. Darius first fell ill. Give it to the papers, if you like.”

  “Not at all bad,” said Eldritch, thinking like the politician he was. “Hey, Rychman? It'd certainly take some of the heat off of our asses, move it downstage, so to speak.”

  “No, we give the papers nothing,” countered Rychman. “We investigate our own in-house, and the M.E.'s office is part of the network of government offices serving the people. We leak this to the papers and we're no better than Archer, if he's guilty. Who knows, he may have just been following orders.” This made Eldritch blanch and fidget.

  Jessica thought of her initial suspicions focusing on Darius instead of Archer, and she felt ashamed of herself but proud of Alan for standing so firm on his friend's memory.

  “Don't be a damned fool, Rychman,” said Eldritch, standing in Alan's face now. “You can't possibly think I had anything to do with some alleged wrongdoing in the M.E.'s office.”

  “Screw it, Eldritch. I'm not handling any allegation aimed at the coroner's office in the damned press. I'll do it, but I'll do it by the book, using IAD.”

  “Internal Affairs is fine,” said Mayor Halle, “and should Dr. Coran's fears be borne out, then we go to the press.” The mayor didn't appear anxious to deal with differences between Rychman and Eldritch here and now.

  Eldritch backed off and Alan struggled to hide his pleasure.

  “You will keep us posted every step of the way,” Eldritch told Rychman before barging out.

  The mayor stopped at the door, turned and looked back at Coran and Rychman. “Keep up the good work, people. Little wonder we've had difficulty catching the Claw if what you say about Archer is true. Imagine it... If he's guilty of subverting information vital to the case, he's... well, he may be an accessory to murder.”

  Twenty-One

  Sgt. Louise Emmons and her partner, Dave Turner, had continued all day long in Leon's neighborhood, asking questi
ons. More and more their questions led them back to the strange character named Helfer at the center of the block down from Mrs. Phillips. It seemed everyone thought Leon Helfer a little queer in the head, especially since his mother had died and he was on his own. They heard how he had gotten rid of all of the former tenants in the building when their leases were up, isolating himself inside. They heard about his late night drives and how he talked to himself all the time. But they heard nothing that could be in any way construed as evidence.

  Emmons, tiring of the door-to-door, went back to her idea regarding the man's boss at the pipe factory. After arranging to see him late that afternoon, she and Turner went to the factory, where Leon's immediate supervisor promptly said, “He don't work here no more.”

  “Whoa, Mr. Malthuesen. He told us he was in your employ.”

  “Was, yes, but not no more.”

  “When was he fired?”

  “We like to say let go.”

  “All right, then. When was he—”

  “Yesterday, just yesterday. Why? Is the little weasel in some kind of trouble?”

  “We're only interested in what you know about him, sir.”

  Malthuesen revealed things they had already heard about Helfer that he had changed dramatically after his mother's death, that it seemed to have had a profound effect on him. Malthuesen also explained why he had let Leon go.

  Emmons sensed intuitively that there was something the man was either lying about or omitting. She dug at him, with Turner's help, but he wouldn't come out with it all. They threatened with legal jargon, and still the man would not tell them anything else.

  When they left the plant, Emmons shared her feelings about Leon's boss with Turner, and Turner agreed that the man seemed to be sincere about his reasons for firing Leon, but that he was nervous and fidgety and closemouthed, all tell-tale signs that he was uneasy with the police.

  “But that could mean a million things unrelated to the case,” he cautioned her. “Who knows, maybe he's got outstanding tickets.”

  “Who doesn't in New York?”