David Alexander - Masters of Noir - Volume 4

Ferguson had drifted off again. Finally, he said, “The face.”

“Yes, sir,” said Romano eagerly. “The face you saw last night. The face at the window. Can you describe the face, Mr. Ferguson?”

Ferguson’s voice was husky. “It — it was the Face of Evil,” he said.

Romano sighed heavily and seated himself on the edge of a straight chair beside the bed.

“It was an evil face,” he prompted. “Can you tell me a little more, Mr. Ferguson? Was it a young face or an old one? Was it broad or thin? Were there any scars or other distinguishing marks, perhaps?”

Ferguson said, “You cannot describe the Face of Evil in such terms.”

Romano wiped the sweat beads from his face with the edge of his hand. Why were hospitals always such stuffy places? Sick people should have fresh air.

“Please try to help me, Mr. Ferguson,” he pleaded patiently. “We’ll have to have a little more than that to go on.”

“What did you say your name was?” Ferguson asked.

“Romano. Lieutenant Romano. I’m a detective assigned to investigate the murder of your wife.”

“Are you a religious man, Lieutenant?” Ferguson asked.

Romano winced. His wife Rosa and Father Riordan were always needling him about missing Mass. A cop’s hours were so unpredictable. A cop got so damned tired.

“I believe in God, Mr. Ferguson,” he said. “I’m a member of the church.”

“All religious men have looked upon the face of God,” Ferguson declared, his voice suddenly clear, animation coming into his dead-white face. “But how can you describe the face of God? You cannot describe the face of God as old or young or broad or thin or scarred or smooth.”

The effort seemed to have exhausted the man on the bed. He fell back on the pillow, breathing heavily. Romano waited. Finally he said, “It was a human face you saw last night, Mr. Ferguson. You said you saw it staring at you through the window. It was the face of the man who murdered your wife.”

Ferguson seemed exasperated at the detective’s obtuseness. “Who can say if the Face of Evil is a human face?” he asked. “I mean no blasphemy, but it is like the face of God, because it is so many things. It is the face of a wanton woman who waits in shadows. It is the face of a soldier who is killing his enemy. It is the face of a maniac who runs amok with a flaming torch. It is the broad, red face of a lecherous sot who mouths obscenities. And it is the pinched, white face of a narcotics addict. Does that answer you? The Face of Evil is all these things.”

Romano said, “Then it wasn’t the face of a person you saw last night. It wasn’t a real face, after all.”

Ferguson lurched upright in the bed. His voice rose to shrill hysteria and Romano glanced apprehensively toward the closed door. “Of course it was real! It was a murderer’s face. It was the face of the man who killed my wife!”

Romano sighed. He decided to try another tack. The doctor or the nurse would be in any second to tell him that his time was up.

“About the window, Mr. Ferguson,” he said, consulting scribbled notes. “Your apartment is on the first floor. There is a bedroom window that opens on the little garden. It is quite probable the murderer entered and left through the window. It was not locked. But you told us you stood in the bedroom doorway and saw the face in the window directly opposite you. You were mistaken there, weren’t you, Mr. Ferguson? There is no window directly opposite the doorway. The window is some fourteen feet to the right of the door. You would have to walk into the room, past your wife’s body, and turn to the right to see the window. You were a little confused on this point. Under the circumstances, that is understandable.”

“No! No!” Ferguson exclaimed. “I came home from the church. I was feeling ill. I have been having these little spells. It is my heart, they say. I sank down into a chair, exhausted. I tried to call my wife. I wanted the medicine in the bathroom cabinet. She did not answer. I must have dozed off, lost consciousness. When I came to, I called my wife again. She did not answer. I opened my bedroom door. Her body was there at my feet, with the knife beside it. I looked up and there was a window directly above my wife’s body, directly opposite the door, and the naked Face of Evil was staring at me through the window.”

Romano said, “I see.” The door was opening quietly. The nurse had come to summon him. He said, “Thank you, Mr. Ferguson. I hope I haven’t tired you. We’ll talk again when you are feeling better.”

Romano nodded politely to the nurse and left the room. He had learned never to hope too much when a break was in the making. Now he was not too disappointed. He had to work on the theory that Ferguson had actually seen a face, because that was the only possible lead to the madman who had butchered five women. When Ferguson’s mind cleared he might be able to describe the face in recognizable terms. He might be able to go over the mug shots of the hundreds of psychopaths in the I. D. room and pick out one and say, “That is the face.” Romano had to hold to that. The Butcher had killed five times in seven months. He would kill again if they failed to find him.

Romano returned to Manhattan West, the old precinct house on the edge of Hell’s Kitchen that was the clearing house for all the crimes of violence committed west of Fifth Avenue. He mounted a flight of worn stairs and entered the cubbyhole that served him as an office. A green-shaded bulb burned above the desk night and day, for no light came through the small window on an air-shaft. A large, young detective named Grierson, Romano’s assistant, lay sleeping on the cracked leather couch. Grierson was a detective first-grade, which meant he drew lieutenant’s pay, even though he did not have the permanent rank on the Department rolls. And he’s only been a cop for seven years, Romano thought. Grierson was the new type of cop. He had been graduated from City College and on his nights off he studied law at N. Y. U. Romano sank down in the creaking swivel chair and sighed heavily. He reached down and loosened the laces of his shoes. As he had expected, his nervous stomach was acting up. He took a small bottle of soda tablets from a drawer, shook out two. He poured water from a thermos jug on the desk and swallowed the tablets.

Grierson awakened and sat up on the couch, smoothing down his black hair with a big hand. He hadn’t been to bed either, since The Butcher’s latest kill had broken. Grierson yawned and said, “How is it?”

“My feet hurt,” Romano answered.

Grierson said, “Did Ferguson come to? Did he identify The Butcher?”

Romano covered his mouth with his hand and belched. He said, “Ferguson came to. I talked to him a few minutes. He says he saw a face that wasn’t human staring at him through a window that isn’t there.”

“One of those,” said Grierson.

“We’ve got to believe it,” Romano replied. He was trying to convince himself, not Grierson. “We’ve got to believe he saw The Butcher’s face. Later on he may remember and tell us something we can work on. He’s got a heart condition. He had a slight stroke when he got home last night, the medics say. When he came out of it and saw the body, his mind was fogged. He thinks the window was directly opposite the door. It isn’t. But he could have stepped around the body, turned right and seen the face there in the only window. We’ve got to keep on thinking he did.”

“The lab finished with the knife,” said Grierson. “It adds up to nothing. The fingerprints were only smudges.”

Romano nodded glumly. “Like usual,” he said. “I’ve been on the force since you were playing hopscotch. In all that time I’ve seen just one murder solved by fingerprints. The murderer was considerate. He left his prints in a pot of jeweler’s wax.”