"About this guy Daniels?"

"I don"t know for sure," Reardon said quietly, "but I want to talk to him."

Mathesson grinned. "You"d better take a dozen or so lawyers with you before you try that."

Reardon did not smile. "Maybe so."

"I"ll go talk to Langhof"s partner," Mathesson said. "Maybe he noticed something."

"Okay," Reardon said. "Have him go through the whole thing, just like Langhof."

"Right."

After Mathesson had gone, Reardon sat down at his desk and looked at the map again, running his fingers back and forth over the inch of s.p.a.ce that divided the stairs at Fifth Avenue from the cages of the fallow deer. He remembered Langhof"s description of Daniels as the two patrolmen had approached him, the way he had leaned casually at the top of the stairs, the way he seemed to regard the police as little more than a brief, irritating intrusion. He wondered how much money it took to buy confidence like that.

Reardon planned to spend the rest of the afternoon interviewing two of the three members of the night crew a.s.signed to the Children"s Zoo. The third regular member, Andros Petrakis, had been working only irregularly of late, since the illness of his wife often made it necessary for him to remain at home. On the Sunday afternoon prior to the killing Petrakis" daughter had informed the Parks Department that her father would not be coming to work his shift but that he hoped to be back at work within a few days. Consequently, only two people had been scheduled to work in the Children"s Zoo the morning the fallow deer were killed.

Reardon"s first interview was with Gilbert n.o.ble, who had spoken to the patrolmen called to the scene. He was a large black man who had worked for the Parks Department for twelve years. Reardon"s preliminary investigation had established that n.o.ble had no criminal record and that he had never been treated for emotional problems of any kind. He had been hospitalized once for an injury sustained while at work as an employee of the Parks Department, but the department had paid all of n.o.ble"s hospital expenses, as well as his salary during hospitalization. There was no reason to suspect that he held any animosity toward the Parks Department.

"You were working in the zoo the night the fallow deer were killed, is that right, Mr. n.o.ble?" Reardon began.

n.o.ble sat opposite Reardon, his eyes darting from one corner of the room to another. He was nervous, but that was common. In itself, it meant nothing. "That"s right," he said.

"Were you in the zoo at around three-thirty on Monday morning?" Reardon tried to make his voice as casual as he could.

"Yeah," n.o.ble said. "Yeah, I was there. I was in the zoo. I got to work a little before midnight."

"Where were you in the zoo at about that time?"

"I was cleaning the elephant cages."

Reardon jotted n.o.ble"s answer down in his notebook. "Where are they located?" he asked in the same casual tone with which he might have asked directions from a stranger on the street.

"They"re at the far end of the zoo, behind a big building. The elephants stay in that building at night."

"How long would you say you were working in the elephant cages?"

"Maybe a half hour or so. Maybe a little more."

"From when to when?"

"From about three to three-thirty."

"Did you see anybody in the zoo during that time?"

"No, I didn"t see anybody. I didn"t see nothing while I was in them elephant cages or on the way to them either. I would have remembered seeing anybody in the zoo around then. Ain"t n.o.body in the zoo that time of night."

"Did you hear anything while you worked at the elephant cages?" Reardon asked.

"No."

"Anything at all?"

"No." n.o.ble paused, gazed toward the ceiling. "Well a"

"Anything at all," Reardon said, "no matter how insignificant it might seem to you."

"Well, you know," n.o.ble said slowly, "I think I did hear something while I was working with them elephants. I"d say it was about a let me see, well, about three o"clock or a little after. Had to be before three-thirty, though."

"What was it you heard?"

"Well, just a kind of scuffing sound, like something being pushed or dragged on the ground, on the pavement, maybe." n.o.ble thought for a moment. "I mean, really there was kind of two different sounds."

"Two sounds?"

"Yeah. One was like a like metal being pushed or dragged along the sidewalk. But the other sound was kind of m.u.f.fled, you know?"

"Did you hear them at the same time?"

"Yeah, right at the same time. Right together."

"So whatever was being dragged or pushed was partly covered and partly not covered."

"That might be right," n.o.ble said. "I don"t know if it means anything or not."

Reardon smiled. "Maybe not," he said, "but we like to know all the details. Do you know where the sound came from?"

"I don"t know for sure," n.o.ble said. "It was just on the other side of the elephant house, that"s all. But I could hear it pretty good. It"s real quiet in the zoo at that time of the morning and the sounds only lasted a few minutes. I didn"t pay much attention. But it wasn"t like a continuous sound. You"d hear it, then it would stop."

"There was a pause in between the sounds?"

"Yeah," n.o.ble said, "like a pause. First you"d hear it, then it would stop, then you"d hear it again."

"How long did this sound last? How long did you hear it?"

"Just a little while."

"It pa.s.sed then?"

"Yeah."

Reardon nodded and jotted in his notebook. "Did you hear anything else while you were there?"

"No, I don"t think so."

"When did you find the fallow deer?"

"About three-thirty. I went to see if Bryant was around. I figured since Petrakis was out again * I mean since he wasn"t going to come to work * well, maybe Bryant would help me do the deer cage."

"Clean it?"

"Yeah, clean it."

"Was Bryant around?"

"I didn"t see him."

"Where was he?"

n.o.ble shrugged. "I don"t know. Probably working somewhere else around."

"So you went to clean the deer cage yourself?"

"Yeah."

"And you found them?"

n.o.ble grimaced. "It was terrible," he said. "They was beat up awful bad. Just awful. Blood everywhere. I never seen nothing like it."

"Yes," Reardon said. "What did you do when you found them like that?"

"I called the police."

"Immediately?"

"Yeah. I run right to the little workroom in the main building and called the cops. I was real scared myself, you know? I mean, I figured that a guy that would do that to them deer might hang around and do it to a person just as easy, you know? So I just wanted the cops to get on over there in a hurry."

"Did you see anyone at all in the zoo between, say, midnight and three in the morning?"

"Sure," n.o.ble said, "there was a couple making out on the bench across from the bird house till about two-thirty."

"Did you see them leave?"

"Yeah. They went up the stairs to Fifth Avenue."

"What did they look like?"

"They looked like Puerto Ricans to me," n.o.ble said with a little grin.

"Anything unusual about them?"

"No. Nothing that I can remember. Just a couple making out."

"Anybody else?"

"An old man. I remember thinking that that was odd. You know, old people don"t usually come out that time of night."

"When was he there?"

"Same time as those Puerto Ricans. He came by just before they left."

"Did he stop?"

"No, he just kept walking right through the zoo and up to Fifth Avenue. He was walking kind of fast. I guess he was a little afraid of being out that time of night."

"Did anything strike you as unusual about him?" Reardon asked.

"No. And those were the only people I saw."

"And you"re sure that all of them had left the zoo by two-thirty?"

"Yeah, as far as I know, they was all gone. I didn"t see n.o.body except Bryant after that."

The interrogation lasted for another hour. Reardon went over each detail again. He went over the sounds n.o.ble had heard. He asked him to describe the couple. He took him back through his statements about the old man he claimed to have seen and asked him if he knew whether or not either the couple or the old man had gone into any of the buildings on Fifth Avenue. n.o.ble said that they had simply disappeared up the stairs and he had not seen them again. Had he seen any of them before in the zoo? No. Had he noticed anyone spending a lot of time at or near the cage of the fallow deer? No. Reardon asked him what he knew about his fellow workers. Harry Bryant, n.o.ble said, was a "funny guy" who constantly made jokes about the animals, particularly when they were in the process of copulation. Did Bryant show any resentment toward his work? No. Toward the animals? No. Did he ever drink on duty? No. Andros Petrakis was "a nervous type" who did not say much. But as far as n.o.ble knew, Petrakis liked his work, enjoyed the animals as much as could be expected and bore no grudges related to the zoo.

After n.o.ble left, Reardon reviewed the notes he had taken during the questioning. The interrogation of Gilbert n.o.ble had established at least one possibility. If the scuffing sounds that n.o.ble heard were not made by the killer but by someone else, then it was possible that the unknown person might have seen the killing. But what could have made the sounds n.o.ble described? Reardon thought they could have been made by a man with a limp dragging one foot behind him after each step. But there were two sounds, one metallic and harsh and the other m.u.f.fled, and they had occurred simultaneously. In that case, Reardon thought, n.o.ble may have actually heard the killer dragging two weapons behind him as he walked, one of them wrapped in something, the other uncovered. But the sounds n.o.ble described were not continuous, like objects being dragged. Instead, they were interrupted by pauses.

Reardon went into Piccolini"s office and told him what n.o.ble had described. Piccolini leaned back in his chair and chewed a cigar. Anything less than an arrest seemed uninteresting to him.

"So what do you make of it?" he asked after Reardon had finished.

"I really don"t know," Reardon said.

Piccolini crushed the stub of his cigar into the ashtray on his desk. "Mr. Van Allen has asked to speak with the head of the investigation. He wants a firsthand report. I made an appointment for you to see him at three-thirty this afternoon."

"Schedule him for tomorrow morning," Reardon said. "I"m seeing Bryant this afternoon."

"No," Piccolini said. "Schedule Bryant for tomorrow morning."

"Look, Mario, if n.o.ble heard something it"s just possible that Bryant saw something."

"It can wait."

"You"ve been a detective a long time," Reardon said. "You know better than that."

Piccolini opened a desk drawer, pulled out some papers and threw them on his desk. He started shuffling through them. "Bryant will have to wait," he said.

Reardon shrugged. "All right. When is Van Allen coming over?"

"He"s not coming over here. You"re going over there."

"Where?"

"His place on Fifth Avenue. Right across from the zoo." Piccolini took a small piece of paper and started to write down Van Allen"s address.

"I know where it is," Reardon said brusquely, and turned to leave the office. For the first time in all the years he"d worked for Piccolini, he did not close the door behind him.