would not tell them anything else.
When they left the plant, Emmons shared her feelings about Leon's boss with Turner, and Turner agreed that the man seemed to be sincere about his reasons for firing Leon, but that he was nervous and fidgety and closemouthed, all tell-tale signs that he was uneasy with the police.
“ But that could mean a million things unrelated to the case,” he cautioned her. “Who knows, maybe he's got outstanding tickets.”
“ Who doesn't in New York?”
“ Or that he's had a brush with the law in the past himself. Doesn't necessarily mean what he's hiding is relevant to our case, Louise.”
She scratched behind her ear and said, “Maybe.”
“ It's almost quitting time and I'm hungry,” said Turner.
“ You're always hungry, but you're going to have to postpone eating, pal.”
“ Whataya mean?”
“ Leon lied to us. That's a little more heavy-duty than denying us entry to his place.”
“ Probably not enough for a judge to issue a search warrant, and if I go down there now, I won't see my kids tonight.”
“ You bailing out on me? Hell, Turner, this creep could be the Claw. I'm dropping you off at the courthouse and I want you to get us some paper on this.”
“ That could take hours. Why don't we do it tomorrow?”
“ Because if he is the Claw, we've scared hell out of him and he could run, if he hasn't already.”
As they drove for the courthouse, he asked, “What're you going to be doing while I'm busting my chops with some judge?”
“ I'm going to get back to his place, keep him under surveillance. You'll have to get another car and join me.”
“ Whoa, I don't like the sound of that,” he argued. “You're not going anywhere near that creep without me.”
“ For Christ's sake, Turner, I'm just going to keep an eye on him. I won't go inside until you get back with the paper, got it?”
“ We can't add on another false arrest. We do and it's our butts, Louise. You know that, don't you?”
“ I got a feeling about this guy.”
“ Like your feeling about Conrad Shaw? Look, maybe we'd better not communicate this to the other task force guys just yet, you know?”
They were both smarting about the Conrad Shaw arrest, which had looked so good but had been so wrong. They had been working Shaw for two months. It seemed unlikely that they might have simply stumbled onto the real Claw so easily. It felt like winning the lottery on a found ticket.
“ Agreed,” Emmons said. “Let's first see what a search uncovers.”
“ Be careful out there,” Turner cautioned.
“ Don't worry,” she said. “I was born careful.”
Once again, it was growing late and still no further word from the Claw. Inside his apartment building, Leon was panic-stricken. The cops were on his doorstep, for God's sake, and where was the Claw? Had the Claw abandoned him? He had killed old Mrs. Phillips, he'd said, because she was a useless person, just taking up space on the planet, without value to anyone or anything beyond the pigeons she fed in the park. Decrepit, her body riddled with pain and injury and disease, the Claw said that he had done the old woman a service, ending her suffering. But now Leon wondered if the Claw hadn't had a more deceptive purpose in mind for Mrs. Phillips all along, an ulterior motive for killing someone so close to Leon.
It led the police into his neighborhood, up to his front step, to point a finger at him.
Had the Claw turned against him?
He had long feared it, yet he had thought that when it came, it would come in a murderous rage with the Claw skewering him as it had all the victims before now. He had not expected this kind of chicanery and deceit and yet it couldn't have been any other way.
He had lied to the police. They need only run a few checks, ask about him where he used to work. Then they would be back.
He realized as if coming from out of a deep cave and into the light that all around him was the smell of death and the evidence to convict him. It had been the Claw's plan all along… not to destroy others, but to destroy Leon “Ovid” Helfer.
And the plan had begun when Ovid telephoned the radio talk show; the plan had been solidified when he wrote his poem. Finally the Claw's plan for Ovid and Leon was acted on after Leon had planted his poem inside that corpse. The Claw knew. He knew, and his anger could not be quenched until Ovid and Leon were destroyed.
For a time, Leon had begun to believe that the Claw was one with him; that by virtue of what they shared, the flesh and the sins of their victims, they were in some cosmic way united, that in fact the Claw was Ovid and Ovid was Leon and, by extension, Leon was the Claw. But no more. He knew he could not knowingly destroy himself this way, that it was out of the question, that the Claw was a second person, a second entity, and not a second personality somehow projected by Leon's brain like some goddamned unholy hologram he interacted with.
He must do something about the evidence, the jars filled with human organs in formaldehyde which lined his kitchen cabinets. He must transport everything to someplace where it could never be traced back to him. He must air out the place, remove all signs of Ovid and the Claw. He must think clearly and not overlook a single item that might be a clue to his part in the mutilation and cannibalism of those women. And he must begin now.
He shook with the fear now pervading his mind. The Claw wanted him to be caught, wanted to see him suffer for the deaths of all those women, be shot down by police like a sniveling dog. Having digested so many sins of the victims, Leon would go to Hell, where the Claw could control him further. Was that it? Was that what this was all about?
Leon thought of how the monster had come to him in his lowest moment of weakness, when he was most vulnerable, at the side of his mother's coffin; how it had materialized out of nowhere to make promises to him, to befriend and console him. There had been no one else.
But it had all been a lie… a lie leading to this… And the reason was simple. The Claw was no angel; the Claw was an agent of Satan that'd been lurking about the funeral parlor for years, no doubt, just waiting for someone like him-the perfect victim-to come along*
And now this devil had led him to his own end.
“ I won't let him get away with it! No!” shouted Leon, rushing to the kitchen, tearing open cabinets, locating every horrible, disgusting object that he and the Claw had ever collected. In the basement, he searched for and found several crates and boxes, and in a black corner of the room he thought he saw the specter of the Claw staring at him.
Snatching on the light, he saw that it was just an old coat-rack that'd been here for years, and yet, moments before, he would have sworn it was the Claw come for him.
Shaken, he dragged the crates upstairs, where, in the brightly lit kitchen, he began to pack them with the awful remains, each jar sloshing with his excited hands. There weren't enough crates. He'd have to return to the basement for a box. He did so cautiously, this time taking a flash with him and turning on the light before he dared look again at the coat rack. It was still a coat rack.
He snatched up the sturdiest-looking box, flicking away at a cockroach that scurried along its flap. He then returned quickly to the work remaining in the kitchen.
Finally it was all packed, and he stood wondering how he could get each crate and box outside without drawing attention to himself. Then he flushed red with heat, wondering if the cops were having the place watched. If he stepped outside with a single crate, they'd snatch him up, the evidence on his person. All they'd have to say is that he was acting in a suspicious manner.
He went from window to window, his paranoia rising. Every car on the street looked like an unmarked squad car or surveillance vehicle. He had to calm himself, maybe wait until nightfall. But by nightfall, they could be back with a search warrant. He must dispose of the bloody evidence and he hadn't the time or stomach to ingest it all at once.
He had been such a fool…
