Ed McBain - Long Time No See

“87th Squad, Carella.”

“This is Colonel Anderson, Fort Mercer Hospital.”

“Yes, sir,” Carella said.

“A Sergeant Hollister in Records called to say you were interested in a patient I treated several years back.”

“Yes, sir, a man named James Harris.”

“Hollister said he’d been murdered, is that true?”

“Yes, it is.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Anderson said. “What is it you want to know, Mr. Carella?”

“This will sound ridiculous.”

“Try me.”

“I was talking to his mother this morning, and she told me he was having nightmares.”

“Yes?”

“I’d like to talk to anyone who might know something about them.”

“The nightmares?”

“Yes, the nature of the nightmares.”

“I’m a plastic surgeon, I didn’t have anything to do with his mental rehabilitation. He’d been through three other hospitals before he reached us, you understand. Our goal was to prepare him for civilian life after the terrible trauma he’d suffered. The wound was a particularly vicious one, requiring a great deal of reconstructive surgery. But it was the psychiatric team who worked toward adjusting him realistically to his new situation. They’re the ones who’d know about any nightmares.”

“Who headed up the team, can you tell me that?” “That would have been Colonel Konigsberg.”

“I wonder if I could speak to him.”

“He’s no longer here. He was transferred to Walter Reed in Washington, you might try him there. That would be Colonel Paul — well, wait a minute, he was a colonel when he left here, he might well be a brigadier general by now.”

“Colonel Anderson, where would the psychiatric records be? Would they still be there at Fort Mercer?”

“I would imagine so, yes.”

“If I drove up there this afternoon, could I have a look at them?”

“That could be arranged.”

Carella looked up at the wall clock. “Would two o’clock be all right?”

“Yes, fine. I’ll leave word at the gate to pass you through. Could I have your full name, please?”

“Detective Stephen Carella. That’s C-a-r-e-l-l-a. And it’s Stephen with a p-h.”

“The General Hospital is to the right of the red-brick administration building. When you come through the main gate, keep to your right and park in the oval marked for visitors. There’s a receptionist just inside the entrance doors, she’ll tell you how to find me. My office is on the second floor.”

“I’ll be there at two,” Carella said.

“Yes, fine,” Anderson said. “I’ll see you then.”

Carella hung up, looked at the clock again, and then checked the duty chart on the wall. Today was supposed to be Meyer’s day off; he called him at home anyway. Sarah Meyer answered the phone, recognized his voice, and said, “Oh, no.”

“Is he in the middle of something?”

“We’re going to a wedding.”

“What time?”

“No trick questions, Steve,” Sarah said. “I’ll put him on.”

Carella waited. When Meyer came on the line, he said at once, “No way.”

“I‘m driving up to Fort Mercer,” Carella said.

“Where’s Fort Mercer?”

“Up near Castleview.”

“Have a nice drive.”

“Who’s getting married?”

“Irwin the Vermin.”

“Your nephew?”

“My nephew. Only he grew up to be a mensch, can you imagine? Steve, I can’t go with you, I’m sorry. I still have to pick up my tuxedo.”

“Will you have time to make just one stop?”

Meyer sighed.

“Meyer?”

“Yeah, yeah. Where do you want me to go?”

“Sam Grossman told me there was soil under Jimmy Harris’ fingernails. Check out the apartment, will you? Maybe he buried whatever the killer was looking for.”

“Where do you bury something in an apartment?”

“Did you notice any window boxes?”

“I wasn’t looking for any.”

“Well, check out the sills, and if there aren’t any boxes, you might go down to the back yard, see if anything’s been buried recently.”

“That’s a nice job for a person on a Saturday when he has to get dressed for a wedding?”

“What time is the wedding?”

“Three o’clock.”

“That gives you almost four hours.”

“To go digging up a back yard and get my tuxedo, and shower and shave, and drive the whole family to Adams Boulevard. Why are you going to Fort Mercer?”

“Jimmy Harris was having nightmares.”

“So am I,” Meyer said, and hung up. Carella smiled and put the receiver back on its cradle.

The phone rang again almost at once. It was the I.S. calling back to say that Charles C. Clarke had no criminal record.

The apartment was heavy with the stillness of death.

Someone had swept up the garbage that was strewn over the kitchen floor, but the rest of the place was still a shambles. Meyer wondered who would eventually clean it up. The chalked outline of Isabel’s body marked the place near the refrigerator where she’d lain crookedly in death. Sooner or later someone would wash the kitchen floor, wash away the chalked outline and the bloodstains on the linoleum. Sooner or later someone else would rent the apartment. One day the new tenant would casually mention that a murder had taken place in this kitchen. Found the woman right here near the refrigerator, her throat was slit. No kidding? his visitor would say, and then they would go on to discuss the latest baseball standings.

For now, Isabel Harris was vaguely defined by her chalked outline on the floor and the dried blood on the linoleum. And in the other rooms, her torn furniture and scattered clothing. He had read someplace that blind people put clothing of different colors in different drawers, so that they would not inadvertently wear a green tie with a purple shirt, or a red blouse with an orange skirt. They identified clothing, too, by different stitches sewed into hems or shirttails, their fingers becoming eyes, touch becoming sight. He could not imagine being blind. He thought he would kill himself if suddenly he lost his eyesight.

Above the kitchen sink, there was a small window covered with frost; the apartment was cold, the super had undoubtedly turned off all the radiators the moment the police were gone — waste not, want not, and no sense making the farshtinkener Arabs richer than they already were. With the heel of his gloved hand Meyer rubbed at the frost, clearing a rough circle through which he saw first the brick wall of the building opposite and then the outside window sill.

There was a flower box on the sill.

The dried and withered stalks of last summer’s blooms lay like casualties across the frozen soil in the box. Meyer tried the window; more often than not, they were painted shut in city apartments. It opened easily. He took the box in off the sill, put it on the counter top, and closed the window again. From the tangle of forks, knives and spoons on the kitchen floor, he picked up a tablespoon and began digging at the soil in the box. The crusted upper layer resisted his initial thrusts, and then suddenly gave way to softer earth. Someone had been digging here recently; the soil was loose, the spoon moved it without effort. He took off his gloves and shoved his hands deep into the soil. Nothing. He looked around for something he could dump the soil onto or into, opened the door to the cabinet under the sink and found a nest of brown paper bags. Tearing one of these open, he spread it on the counter top and began spooning earth onto it.

In a little while the window box was empty.

There had been nothing in it but soil.

Meyer shoveled a spoonful of that soil into an evidence envelope for transmission to Grossman at the lab. Then he left the apartment and went down to the back yard.