Part 7 (1/2)
”Sit down,” Reardon said.
Bryant sat down, and for a moment Reardon wondered if the chair would support him.
”Want some coffee?” Reardon asked.
”Nope.”
Reardon took a drink from his cup and examined Bryant's face. He had light brown hair, balding at the top. His eyes were blue and very watery, giving him the appearance of being continually on the verge of tears. He had a small mouth with a thin lower lip and almost no upper lip at all. And there was something beneath the face which Reardon could not touch upon exactly * a kind of boiling honesty in large matters, coupled with heedless deviousness in small ones.
”I understand that you were on duty the morning the fallow deer were killed?” Reardon began.
”That's right.” Bryant took a bent cigarette from his s.h.i.+rt pocket and lit it. ”I was there.” He threw his head back and blew a smoke ring.
Sometimes, Reardon knew, an unnatural nonchalance while being interrogated was as d.a.m.ning as a fingerprint. But he did not think this was the case with Bryant. Rather, he suspected that Bryant was utterly innocent, knew it, and felt confident in that knowledge.
”The deer were killed at approximately three-thirty A.M.,” Reardon said. ”Were you anywhere near the deer cage at around that time?”
Bryant looked at Reardon and smiled. ”Can you keep a secret?”
”What do you mean?”
”I mean if I tell the Police Department something, do they have to blab to the Parks Department?”
”Depends on whether or not what you tell me is relevant to the case.”
”Well, suppose a guy was guilty of goofing off, and that's all?”
”In that case, I would say that it has no relevance.”
”What does that mean?”
”It means we can keep a secret.”
”Well, in that case,” Bryant said with a wink, ”I was goofing off.”
”That's okay,” Reardon said. ”Like I said, that has nothing to do with the case.”
”I'm not the only slacker, you know. h.e.l.l, I bet you soak a little extra time out of the lunch hour, right?”
”Maybe.” Reardon s.h.i.+fted in his chair, impatient with Bryant's cheekiness. ”While you were in the park did you see anything unusual?”
”Nope.”
”Do you know of anyone who might have a grudge against the Parks Department?”
Bryant laughed. ”Everybody who ever worked for that bunch of two-bit a.s.sholes has a grudge.”
”Do you know of anybody who might take it out on the fallow deer?”
”h.e.l.l, no!” Bryant exclaimed. ”And if I'd seen that son of a b.i.t.c.h, seen him hurting those deer, I'd have broken his G.o.dd.a.m.n neck! He'd of looked like those deer before I got through with him!”
”n.o.ble talked about hearing something while he was working in the elephant cages,” Reardon said. ”A sound. Two sounds, really. A kind of harsh, grating sound and a kind of m.u.f.fled one. n.o.ble said it sounded like something being dragged.”
Bryant took a handkerchief from his back pocket and swabbed his brow. ”n.o.ble says he heard something like that?”
”Yes. Around three or three-thirty, something like that.”
”Oh, h.e.l.l,” Bryant said, ”that explains why I didn't hear it. Like I said, I was goofing off.”
”You were not in the zoo around that time?”
”No, I was in a coffee shop.”
”Where?”
”On Second Avenue, over from the park. All-night place there. But, you know, you might ask Andros. He was on his way to the zoo around that time.”
”Who was?”
”Andros,” Bryant said. ”You know, Petrakis.”
”The other workman?”
”Yeah.”
”I thought he was out sick.”
”Well, he was in a way,” Bryant said. ”He called in sick on Sunday afternoon, I understand. But I saw him walking by the coffee shop at about three A.M. Maybe a little before.” Bryant stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray. ”Anyway, I called him in. He came in for just a minute, wouldn't sit down. He's been real upset lately on account of his wife's been sick and he's been thrown out of his apartment.”
”He was evicted?”
”Yeah, him and his whole G.o.dd.a.m.n family. I guess he couldn't pay the rent because of the medical bills.”
”So the landlord evicted him?”
”That's right,” Bryant said. ”Wouldn't you if you was his landlord?”
Reardon avoided asking himself that question. ”But he came to work that night?”
”Yeah. He said he'd been busy with his kids, you know. The wife's been sick and so he had to do all the work in the house.”
”And you say he was upset?”
”Yeah,” Bryant said, ”upset and mad as h.e.l.l.”
”Who was he mad at?”
”The landlord, who else?”