The Edge of Dreams(16)

“You stay put right here. I’ll have a man stationed to keep an eye on you, and you are supposed to be resting and recuperating anyway. The murderer won’t know where you are now.”

“I still can’t believe this, Daniel. If someone wanted to kill me, he could have hidden in the bushes when I was up in Westchester County and shot or stabbed me when I went out for a walk. He could have strangled me in the apartment when you were out.”

“True,” Daniel nodded. “And I may just be clutching at straws, Molly. There may have been someone else on that train—someone who took that very train to work every day—whom he wanted to dispose of. It’s just that I’ve been a policeman long enough that I don’t like coincidences. And this was a pretty big coincidence.”

“If it is someone with a grudge against you—why try to kill me and not you?”

“Maybe he wants to punish me. And what could be worse punishment than killing my wife and son?”

I was finding this conversation more and more disturbing, but I tried to sound detached and professional as I continued, “And the other people he has killed so far? Is it possible they have any connection to you? Have their murders been to punish you?”

He shook his head. “No connection to me at all. No connection to each other, as far as we can tell. At least none of the family members whom we have questioned has ever heard of the other victims.”

“Maybe you should give me the details,” I said. “If I’m to lie here and recuperate, I’ll have time to ponder. Perhaps I’d come up with some kind of connection you’d overlooked.”

“Oh, no, Molly,” he began. “You know how I feel about involving you in my cases.”

“You’re not involving me. You’re just adding the perspective of a woman—a woman detective, and though I say so myself, a darned good one.”

He looked at me long and hard. “Very well,” he said. “You should rest tonight, but I’ll come and see you tomorrow and have one of the clerks write out a list of the various murders for you. That way you can take notes.”

“Speaking of notes,” I said. “What do you know about the notes that he sent? Any telltale features?”

“None at all. They were typewritten by an ordinary Remington typewriter on the sort of onionskin paper you’d find in any office.”

“No damaged keys on the typewriting machine?”

“Nothing unusual.”

“Have your men asked who might have purchased a typewriting machine recently? I shouldn’t imagine too many people buy such things.”

“It’s fairly easy to get your hands on a typewriter these days,” Daniel said. “Our murderer could work in an office or bank.”

“How about fingerprints on the paper?”

“None. Which is interesting in itself, isn’t it? He’s meticulous. Not making any errors. Of course there were several on the envelopes, but one would expect that—sorters at the post officer, delivery men, even the constable manning the front desk.”

“So they were mailed? Not hand-delivered?”

“Only today’s was hand-delivered.”

“And nobody remembers what the person who delivered it looked like?”

“It was a small boy. That’s all they could tell me. One of the street urchins given a coin to run an errand. He handed it to a woman coming into police headquarters to make a complaint and ran off. She couldn’t remember what he looked like. We’ve little chance of finding the right one again.”

“So your man was close by—close enough to engage the services of a street urchin.”

Daniel sighed. “Who knows? He may have been following my every move.”

“Then he may know you are here right now.”

“Hardly likely. I took a cab from City Hall. We went at a hell of a lick too, and I could swear there was no one following us.”

“So what about the postmark on the letters? Were they all mailed from the same place?”

“The first few were mailed from Grand Central Terminal,” he said. “There is a mail drop in the main station area. As you can imagine thousands of people pass it all the time. But we set a man to keep watch there day and night and the next note was posted at the main post office.”

“He’s one step ahead of you all the time,” I said.

“It certainly seems that way.”

“When did these notes start coming, Daniel?”

“The first one came in May, right after you’d sailed for Europe. Right before the first murder.”

“And what did it say?”

“It said ‘When I was alive I was unjustly accused of a crime I didn’t commit. Now I am dead I can exact retribution with impunity.’”