On my way over to the park Ron Gettig's face stayed in my vision. I wasn't much good at this death business. Apparently I wasn't much good at hating, either. Now that Gettig was dead, our dislike of each other seemed petty and silly. For the first time in the five or so years I'd known him, I found myself wondering about his family. All I knew was that he had a wife and daughter downstate someplace. The poor bastard.
I grew up on pop songs about lost summers and early autumns. The city park I looked at now could inspire a whole generation of songwriters-the last red-and-gold leaves tearing away from the otherwise naked trees, the river running through the park peaked with icy-looking waves, the zoo section of the park now just empty cages, the pavilions stacked high with tables and chairs. There was something lonely about all this, you could almost hear the lost laughter of lovers on the bitter wind-but, there, I was writing my own early autumn song.
The duck pond, which I'd expected to be deserted on a snow-promising day like this one, was ringed with maybe half-a-dozen people, all of them looking to be over fifty, tossing bread bits to the ducks that swam by on the other side of the fence. They fed the animals despite a large sign instructing them not to under threat of fine or even imprisonment. The people seemed as imperturbable as the ducks, which, given my mood, buoyed me for a moment. I'm always happy to see people do the right thing despite idiotic laws.
The metal feeder marked A, the one Stokes had instructed me to place the manila envelope in, was wired to the fencing surrounding the pond. It looked like a country mailbox. From inside my overcoat I took the envelope, then placed it inside.
J knew I was being watched.
I glanced around in classic paranoid style but the only people I saw were the well-bundled-up feeders standing around me. A few of them returned my glance, offering smiles and curious looks, but that wasn't what I sensed…
I spent the next few minutes looking around. Up the hills that lay westward, the river bank that lay eastward, the forest on the other side of the pond. Somewhere somebody was watching me put the envelope in.
The killer, of course.
I hadn't been able to resist temptation. After Stokes had left last night, I'd carefully opened the envelope and looked inside. All it contained was a photostat of a receipt for a safety-deposit box in the suburb of Millburn. The receipt was signed by a man named Kenneth Martin and had been issued three-and-a-half months earlier.
Stokes had been right. Whatever import the contents held for the person who'd pick them up, I had no idea what they meant or what relationship they had to Denny's murder.
All I knew for sure was that the envelope was going to make Stokes wealthy.
Quarter of a mile away, I found a stand of fir trees and pulled my car over to them. A slope of firs behind it led to the edge of the duck pond. I could stand behind the trees and watch the feeder where I'd put the envelope.
Not an easy jaunt. Several times I slid on the floor of slick fir needles. Another time I caught my overcoat in brambles and had to surgically remove myself from their thorns. But overall there was something thrilling about it, the way I'd felt as a very young boy playing cops and robbers. By now my face was frozen to the point that it was becoming numb-the air was actually starting to become invigorating. If this weren't such a serious business, it would be fun.
I reached the edge of the pond maybe five minutes later, then eased myself out from around the tree to take a look.
I had the terrible feeling that in the seven or eight minutes it had taken me to reach this point, the killer had come and gone.
I decided to wait here as long as I could stand the cold and see what happened.
I didn't have to wait long.
He appeared from behind a copse of trees to the west of the pond. Obviously, he had been watching me.
He went directly to the feeder and took out the envelope.
Then he disappeared.
Quickly.