Cat in Wolf's Clothing (9781101578889) Page 12

  Then she just broke up into laughter, saying: “Okay. I’ll come. Set me free!” Ten minutes later the three of us walked out of Retro, not exactly arm in arm, but together.

  ***

  From the first moment Judy Mizener saw the wall painting of the ancient Egyptian sun goddess, she was mesmerized. She kept walking back and forth, then approaching the wall paintings, then moving away from them.

  “I saw something like this in the museum . . . in the Egyptian Wing. Am I right?” she asked.

  “You saw an original. These are bizarre copies, done in pastel and chalk, by Jack Tyre,” I replied.

  “Who is this supposed to be?”

  “An ancient Egyptian sun goddess—Bast.”

  “How did you find them?”

  “Jack Tyre had an old lover who told me he used to come into Central Park on weekends with his Siamese cat and come to this cave. It was a long shot. I just decided to check it out because everything had come to a dead end.”

  “I thought you were no longer involved with this case.”

  “Just because you fired me from Retro doesn’t mean I should abrogate my responsibilities.”

  “How do you know it was Jack Tyre? Can you be sure?”

  “He came here. Who else could it be?”

  “Why does each figure have a different cat’s head? The rest of the goddess is uniform throughout.”

  “You tell me,” I retorted.

  She stared at the paintings, then wheeled swiftly toward me. “Are you telling me that . . . ?” She threw up her hands in disbelief. Then came back to her point. “Are you telling me what I think you are telling me?”

  “Yes,” I said emphatically, “the heads of the goddess correspond exactly to what we know of the cats of the victims. And the order is sequential. In chronological time.”

  “My God!” was all she could say, in a kind of desperate whisper. Then she carefully walked down the wall, staring at each figure in its turn. There was a clattering noise. But it was only Tony dropping the flashlight that Judy Mizener had provided us after she agreed to come with us. He apologized.

  “Then Jack Tyre knew all the victims,” Judy Mizener said. “And he drew each cat goddess after he killed each victim.”

  “Or before. Or a year after they died. I don’t think we can find that out,” I replied. “And it doesn’t prove that Jack Tyre murdered all those people with all those kinds of weapons. Besides, he seemed to be a gentle man. It is hard to believe that he could strangle anyone.” I was trying to be as analytical as possible. But I could not yet tell her what I really thought. Because that had to be explored . . . that had to be validated.

  She began to pace quickly back and forth in front of the wall—clearly agitated and clearly confused. Then she threw back her head and laughed crazily, forlornly. “What are we talking about?” she asked. “We don’t know what the hell we are looking at. It’s all still crazy. It doesn’t mean anything. Do you understand what I’m saying, Alice? It’s just a wall of strange drawings.”

  “Amen,” echoed Tony.

  “Do you know what kind of goddess Bast was?” I asked Judy Mizener.

  “You mean other than being a goddess with the head of a cat? No, I don’t know.”

  “She was a sun goddess.”

  “So what?”

  “In ancient Egypt the sun was the reigning god. And it was the sun that guaranteed eternal life.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied.

  “When an individual died in ancient Egypt, he or she expected to be resurrected in the not-too-distant future—body and soul—and that could be accomplished only by the sun god . . . or those goddesses associated with the sun.”

  “And Bast was such a goddess?”

  “Correct.”

  “Bast could help you live forever?”

  “Exactly.”

  “What are you telling me? That all this murder and paintings and nonsense like toy mice are coming out of some kind of cult of the dead?”

  “It could be. But whatever it is, your Retro won’t be any help.”

  “It sounds like you’re setting me up for something.”

  “Yes,” I said forcefully, “I am setting you up. To solve this very ugly case.”

  “And how can we do that when we can’t even know what all the pieces mean?”

  “I think we can trap the killer.”

  “If he or she is not Jack Tyre.”

  “Exactly.”

  “How, Alice?”

  “This cave is an important part of Central Park history. It was closed up in the late 1930s. Everyone thinks it has remained sealed. The only ones who knew it wasn’t were a few derelicts, Jack Tyre and his cat, and maybe his murderer. I think if the murderer knows that the cave is going to be publicly opened, he or she will get very nervous and try to erase those paintings.”

  “But the cave isn’t going to be opened.”

  “I know. But we can make believe.”

  “What’s the point of that?”

  “Then the murderer will hear a report on TV that the cave is about to be opened because there have been some dead chickens found nearby . . . some remnants of animal sacrifice, which means some kind of voodoo cult may have gotten into the cave. Because of this, the cave will be opened and then resealed.”

  “But no such thing is happening.”

  “We can fake it.”

  “How?”

  “Retro. As head of Retro you have access to all the TV reporters. They die for this kind of crime nonsense. You can call them in hush-hush and say that this voodoo cult may be implicated in several dismemberment homicides and that the Parks Department has given you permission to go ahead and open it. They report it. We wait and pick up the murderer.”

  “I can’t do something like that. What about my credibility in the future? And we don’t know if it will lure this mysterious figure out to the cave.”

  “It will. Believe me.”

  “I just can’t do that,” she replied in an anguished voice.

  “It’s our only chance, Judy. Someone is out there . . . someone very ugly.”

  “Are you really telling me that the murderer of those seventeen people is out there and is so frightened at the disclosure of these crazy goddess wall paintings that he will risk his life to erase them?”

  I didn’t answer for a while. I couldn’t tell her what I really believed because she wouldn’t understand. Even I didn’t understand it completely. Not yet.

  It was time to do what I did best—act. It was time to envelop Judy Mizener in an emotional web she could not escape.

  “Listen to me carefully, Judy. You go in, day after day, to Retro. You coordinate, you hire, you evaluate. Once in a very great while you come up with something substantial . . . and another major crime is close to being solved. But you know and I know that these toy-mouse murders are choking your computers. They’re the ugliest murders you have . . . it’s the most perplexing unsolved major crime case in the city and the newspapers don’t even know it exists. And Retro drew a total blank, didn’t it? Nothing was coughed up. Let’s face it, Judy. I was the only one who was even close. I was the one who told you there was a correlation between the missing cats. So you fired me. And lo and behold, we find all the missing cats—don’t we? On wall paintings of an Egyptian goddess. Do what I ask you. Please, Judy. I may be wrong. But there is a very good chance I am right. And if I am, you and Retro get the credit. Oh, I know you don’t need to be redeemed for firing me. But if you break the case, then Retro becomes a force—a major force. And you along with it. You’ll be able to do a lot of things you can’t do now. You’ll even be able to keep eccentric investigators on the consultant payroll. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose. And it’s really our la
st chance to help those poor dead people rest in peace.”

  It was a good delivery. It was a powerful speech. It turned her into my little sister, as if I was giving her both profound and inspirational wisdom as to herself and the world. The joke being that she had done much better vis-à-vis the real world than I could ever hope to.

  She stared at me, then at Tony, then for a long time at the wall paintings.

  “Let’s do it,” she finally said in her best fake-professional voice.

  ***

  An hour later, Tony and I sat at a deep back table in the All State Café on West Seventy-Second Street. I was very tired but I was also very hungry. Tony was drinking a brandy. I had a stein of ale.

  “They used to have a great tomato salad here,” Tony said, studying the menu. I ordered a rare burger. He ordered a chicken-salad sandwich.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing, Swede,” Tony said, a slight grin on his still-wounded face.

  “What do you think?”

  He thought for a while, twirling the bottom of his brandy glass. The restaurant was beginning to fill up.

  “I don’t think anymore, Swede. I’m back in the theater, don’t you remember? I exist now on sheer gall.”

  “What’s bothering you, Tony?”

  “You mean other than confusion and fatigue and frustration and unrequited love?”

  “We’re not really having an affair, Tony. We can’t go to bed every twelve hours.”

  “An old-fashioned retort, Swede.”

  “I’m basically an old-fashioned woman, Tony.”

  “Right. And I’m Jimi Hendrix.” He finished the brandy and ordered another one. When it came to the table, he sipped it and then said, “Tell me the truth, Swede. Do you really think someone will show up in response to the scam?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who? The murderer?”

  For some reason, at that moment I felt motherly toward Tony. I reached across the table and touched his cheek. He jumped back involuntarily, startled. Then he relaxed. “Well, Swede, an overwhelming show of affection. I’m touched.” I smiled and sipped my ale. The hamburger and the chicken salad came. I slowly poured some catsup between the bun.

  “What if I told you, Tony, that there might be no murderer?”

  The sandwich halted before he reached his mouth.

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “You mean all those people aren’t dead?”

  “Oh, they’re dead, for sure.”

  “Well, what do you mean?”

  I had said too much already. “Eat your sandwich, Tony. I have something more important to discuss with you.”

  He took a large bite of his sandwich, chewed it thoughtfully, swallowed, and then sipped his brandy.

  “I have a feeling,” he said, “that I’m about to be sent on another journey.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Can I finish my sandwich?”

  “Of course. Then you go to see Billy Shea.”

  “Who is that?”

  “The boy they first arrested for the Tyre murders. And after you talk to him, I want you to rent another car and finish the trip that was so rudely interrupted—up to that garden spot of the Adirondacks called on the map Desolate Swamp.”

  “Swede, have mercy!”

  “Oh, it won’t be so bad this time. And besides, I’m going to write out complete instructions for you. I know how it is with you theater people . . . you have so many other things on your mind.”

  Chapter 19

  It was pouring. I stood under the umbrella at the corner of Canal and Broadway. It was seven thirty in the morning, and I hadn’t the slightest idea why Judy Mizener had asked me to meet her on a street corner rather than in the Retro offices.

  She showed up fifteen minutes later, and we went to a Chinese coffee shop just off Canal that sold those delicious sticky little meat buns.

  “I did what you asked me,” she said after we had sat down and been served our breakfast. Then she added, “With modifications.”

  She looked nervous and uncomfortable.

  “What modifications?” I asked gently.

  Suddenly she seemed to lose the whole train of our conversation. She blurted out: “I haven’t been able to get over what I saw yesterday in that cave. I don’t know why. They were just chalk paintings on a wall. But I kept dreaming about the cat goddess during the night. And I can’t believe what I saw. I can’t believe that each drawing had the head of a different cat. I can’t believe they were the personification of the murdered people’s cats! Do you understand me?”

  I didn’t answer. She sounded a bit hysterical. It was best to wait. I finished the bun. She calmed down and buried her face in her hands for a moment. It was a bit early in the morning to exhibit such total despair. Poor Judy Mizener.

  “What modifications?” I repeated, trying to bring her back to the reality of our situation.

  She sat up straight, as if showing me that she was now back in control. “First of all,” she said, “the Parks Department won’t participate in any such scam . . . they want nothing to do with planting false media stories about something in one of their parks.”

  “But they won’t interfere with you planting it?”

  “Exactly. Second, I have decided to keep Retro’s name out of it completely. Third, I’m going to contact only one network, Channel Nine News.”

  She waited for me to say something. I kept quiet. What she had said made me unhappy, but there was nothing I could do about it.

  “I have an appointment with Channel Nine at eleven this morning. I just want to tell you what I’m going to say to them.”

  She sipped her coffee. The rain outside had stopped.

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  “I’m going to make it very simple. A landmark cave near the lake in Central Park is going to be opened sixty years after it was sealed shut. Why? Animal remains about the cave seem to indicate that some type of strange animal-sacrific cult has penetrated the cave and is using it for illegal purposes. It is believed that several members of the cult are recently arrived Haitians. In Haiti, many of the voodoo cults have been implicated in murder for hire and drug smuggling. And that’s all I’m going to tell them.”

  “I think that will be enough,” I replied.

  “Is it too outlandish for them to swallow?”

  “No. Why should it be?”

  “As you can see, Alice, I’m nervous. I’m taking a big chance for you.”

  “For me?”

  “Well, it’s your idea. And once in a while I get the feeling that you’re about to make a fool out of me.”

  “Do you think I was the one who made those cave paintings?”

  “Of course not. But I think you know a lot more than you’re telling me.”

  “You’re having second thoughts, aren’t you, Judy?”

  Her eyes flared at me. “I told you I’m going through with it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Okay. Let’s get down to the plan. It’ll probably be broadcast over the ten o’clock news. If our killer sees it, he will move quickly. That’s the way I see it.”

  “I agree.”

  “Of course . . . that will happen only if you are right . . . if those cave paintings are important enough so that their exposure will threaten him.”

  “Right.”

  “Now, I can’t give you any backup, Alice. Are you going to stake out the cave alone?”

  “No,” I lied, “my friend Tony will be with me.” There was no reason for me to tell her that Tony had left on a trip. She was already too uneasy.

  “Do you have a permit for a weapon?”

  “I don’t.” And then I lied again. “But Tony does. He has the pe
rmit and the weapon.”

  “Do you have a portable phone?”

  “No.”

  “Then my suggestion is that you stay well away from the cave. If you see anything suspicious, just call 911 from one of the park phones. They’re all over the Ramble.”

  The rain started again. Then there were thunderclaps. We sat together in the coffee shop, oddly silent, finishing our sweet rolls and coffee. For some reason I felt that I had known Judy Mizener for years.

  Suddenly she stretched her hand across the table. I took it and held it.

  “We both need luck,” she said gently, smiling.

  “Yes,” I agreed, “we need a great deal of luck.”

  She left first. I left fifteen minutes later.

  Chapter 20

  Bushy woke me by calmly walking over my head. I sat up quickly, in a panic, and stared at the clock. Then I sank back on the bed. It was only three o’clock in the afternoon. The newscast on TV would go on at ten in the evening. I didn’t have to go into the park until then—at the earliest.

  My fears were beginning to emerge. Would the TV plant do its job? Would he or she show up? Was the disclosure of those cave paintings really so crucial to this hidden person? Would I be safe in the park?

  I had come to one very intelligent conclusion: I would not under any circumstance try to apprehend the intruder if the intruder showed. After all, I was not physically violent. I had no weapon. And all I needed to confirm or explicate or bring the whole horrendous mess to a conclusion was a face or a name. If the intruder was not known by me, I could remember enough to produce a sketch, and Judy Mizener and the police could do the rest.

  When everything becomes precarious in my life, I start to clean the apartment. And that was what I did at four o’clock. Luckily, I despise vacuum cleaners so I spent two lovely hours pushing an absurd carpet sweeper back and forth picking up the cat hairs. As usual, it was a rather futile endeavor. The carpet sweeper picked nothing up. It merely moved the cat hairs and other debris into readily accessible piles, which I then picked up by hand. At seven in the evening I ate one hard-boiled egg, one piece of cheese, one banana, and one stale strawberry tart.