Blood Innocents Part 25

"Yesterday," Melinda said. "I'll be leaving next week myself."

"Same school as your brother?"

"No," Melinda said, "but nearby."

"Are you two very close?" Reardon asked hesitantly.

"Yes. Very. We're twins, you know." She seemed proud of that fact.

"Yes, I know."

Melinda smiled. "We're duplicates, practically," she said enthusiastically. "When we were younger and we had to sign something, you know jointly, like a wedding or Christmas card from both of us, we wouldn't sign our names separately."

"You wouldn't?"

"No," Melinda said, "we'd just sign with the number *two.'"

Reardon had not expected anything like this so quickly. "With a digit?" he asked.

"Sometimes," Melinda said, "or sometimes with the number written out, sometimes in a foreign language."

"Or a roman numeral?"

"Sure," Melinda said. "That was Dwight's favorite."

Reardon peered over Melinda's shoulder to the empty cage of the fallow deer. The long thin shadows from the bars fell slantwise across its floor. The chalk marks were beginning to fade. "When did your father give you the deer?"

"Three years ago. It was our birthday."

"And not quite two years ago he donated them to the Children's Zoo in your name."

"In both our names." Melinda looked at Reardon quizzically. "Why all these questions?"

"You and Dwight are very close, you say?" Reardon asked. He was stalling, and he knew it.

"Yes," Melinda said, "very close."

Reardon nodded. He was not sure what to do next. He was not sure that Melinda was prepared to go to the place he knew he had to take her.

"What is this all about?" she asked again. "Reardon, the mysterious detective." Jokingly she deepened her voice. "Does the Shadow know?"

"Do you know who killed the fallow deer?" Reardon asked bluntly.

Melinda grimaced. "No," she said emphatically, "I don't." She laughed, but she could not conceal her distress. "Do you know who killed them?" she asked tauntingly.

"We have a witness," Reardon said quietly. "We have a woman who saw the man who killed the deer."

"Well, who did it?" Melinda asked excitedly. "No more phony mystery. Who killed them?"

Reardon stood up. "Melinda, I want to show you something."

"Where?"

"Here," Reardon replied. "Here in the zoo. Just a little ways from here."

"All right," Melinda said. She stood up, putting her book away in her bag. "This better be worth it, though. It's hard to get a seat at this bench sometimes. I wouldn't give it up for just anyone, you know." She smiled at Reardon.

"It's just right over here," Reardon said. He pointed to the cage of the fallow deer.

Melinda stepped back. "No," she said. "I don't want to go over there."

Reardon took her arm gently. "It's just an empty cage now," he said. "It's important." He led her forward delicately. "Please."

"I can't," Melinda said. She took another step back.

Reardon still held her arm. "Please," he said emphatically, more like an order than a request.

"Oh, all right," Melinda said. "I'm a big girl now. Right?"

"Right," Reardon said.

Together they walked through the police barricades and into the cage of the fallow deer. The chalk outlines of the bodies had faded considerably, although they were still visible beneath patches of dried leaves and litter. A sudden gust of wind rattled the tin roof of the shed, and Reardon felt Melinda's arm tremble.

"I want you to look at something," he said.

Melinda's face was tense. "What?"

Reardon walked toward the rear of the cage, picked up a piece of tin about a foot square and, holding it face down, brought it back to where Melinda stood.

"This is part of the deer shed," he said. "I asked for it to be brought back over here from the lab this morning."

"What lab?"

"The crime lab."

Melinda nodded fearfully. Standing within the black bars of the cage, her arms nestling her body, protecting it from the cold, she looked like an abandoned child, and Reardon wondered whether he could ever justify what he was about to do to her.

"This piece of the shed is evidence now," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"I want to show you something, Melinda," Reardon said tenderly. "It may not mean anything, but I think it does." He could see that her hand was beginning to tremble. "I think you'll know what it means," he said. He looked at her now as if he would never see another human face, as if Melinda Van Allen were the only person left on earth, and he, Reardon, was about to disclose a terrible thing to her that would poison her life forever.

Slowly he turned the square of tin around. Scrawled clearly on the other side, in dark red, was the roman numeral "two."

Melinda gasped.

"It's written in the blood of one of the deer," Reardon said.

"Oh, no," she said.

Reardon watched her. She did not look at him. She did not move. She only continued to stare at the square of tin.

"It doesn't really mean anything, does it?" she asked fearfully.

"Not by itself," Reardon admitted. "But we have a witness. This witness saw a person running away from the deer cage. He was carrying an ax and he was covered with blood."

Again Reardon paused. Melinda stared at him silently, helplessly, and Reardon knew that he did not want to go on with it. But all of this commitment to the work he had chosen so long ago seemed suddenly to focus on the fact that he had to go on with it. That it was out of his hands now. That something more important than himself or Melinda or even Petrakis was demanding that he go on.

"She identified a picture of your brother Dwight as the man she saw with the ax," he said.

Melinda closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. She seemed to shrink into her clothes, to wither under Reardon's gaze.

"Where was Dwight the night the fallow deer were killed?" he asked.

Instantly her eyes shot open. "He was with me!" she blurted.

"No, he wasn't," Reardon said sadly. He took Melinda by the arm and, still carrying the piece of the deer shed, led her to a bench outside the cage. He put the piece of tin across his lap as they sat down. "Dwight wrote this, didn't he?" he asked.

"No," Melinda snapped. "He was with me that night."

"No, Melinda."

"Yes." She would not look at him now. She sat sullenly beside him and stared dreamily at her shoes, as if to look at him would be to admit that what he said was true.

"Until three in the morning?" he asked.

"Yes. "

"What did you do that night?"

She did not answer.

"You spent the whole night together," Reardon said insistently. "What did you do?"

"We went to a movie."

"When did you go to the movie?"

"I'm not sure."

"What time did you get back?"

Melinda shifted uncomfortably on the bench and chewed on her lower lip like a resentful child.

"What time did you get back?" Reardon asked again.

"I'm not sure about that either."

"What movie did you see?"

"I don't remember."

"You don't remember what movie?"

"I can't think."

"Try."

"I can't! I told you I can't!"

"Well, you didn't spend the whole night in a movie," Reardon said, "so what did you do when you got back?"

"I don't know for sure. Maybe we played cards."

"All night?"

"Maybe we watched television."

"All night?"

"Maybe." She was beginning to whimper now, and Reardon did not know what to do about that. He stared at her helplessly, his palms face up in his lap as if giving up on a riddle. He only knew that he must go on, that he must pursue her until he captured her brother.

"What card games did you play?" he asked.

She did not answer.

"So you went to a movie you can't remember the name of, you don't know when you went, and you don't know when you got back to the apartment, and you don't remember what you did when you got there. Is that what you're telling me?"

Melinda turned her face away from him and riveted her attention on some distant object in the park.

"How about Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning?" Reardon asked, fixing his mind on the only imperative he knew: to protect Abel against the rage of Cain.

Melinda looked at him. "What do you mean?"

"The Wednesday morning after the deer were killed. Where were you between three A.M. and eight A.M. that morning?"

"Why?"

"Where were you?"

"I want to know why you're asking."

"There's more involved than the deer."

Melinda stared at him fearfully. "What do you mean?"

"Two days after the deer were killed two women were murdered in Greenwich Village. The women were killed exactly like the deer, the same number of blows. One of the women was cut to pieces. The other just had her throat cut. Your father knew both those women."