Ed McBain - Doll

Kling said he would go downtown for the warrant.

Go ahead then, the landlady told him.

It took an hour to get downtown, twenty minutes to obtain the warrant, and another hour to get back to Riverhead again. His skeleton key would not open Cyclops’ door, so he kicked it in.

The apartment was empty.

Dennis Sachs seemed to be about forty years old. He was tall and deeply tanned, with massive shoulders and an athlete’s easy stance. He opened the door of his room at the Hotel Capistan, and said, ‘Detective Kling? Come in, won’t you?’

‘Thank you,’ Kling said. He studied Sachs’s face. The eyes were blue, with deep ridges radiating from the edges, starkly white against the bronzed skin. He had a large nose, an almost feminine mouth, a cleft chin. He needed a shave. His hair was brown.

The little girl, Anna, was sitting on a couch at the far end of the large living room. She had a doll across her lap, and she was watching television when Kling came in. She glanced up at him briefly, and then turned her attention back to the screen. A give-away program was in progress, the m.c. unveiling a huge motor launch to the delighted shrieks of the studio audience. The couch was upholstered in a lush green fabric against which the child’s blonde hair shone lustrously. The place was oppressively over-furnished, undoubtedly part of a suite, with two doors leading from the living room to the adjoining bedrooms. A small cooking alcove was tucked discreetly into a comer near the entrance door, a screen drawn across it. The dominant colors of the suite were pale yellows and deep greens, the mgs were thick, the furniture was exquisitely carved. Kling suddenly wondered how much all this was costing Sachs per day, and then tried to remember where he’d picked up the notion that archaeologists were poverty-stricken.

‘Sit down,’ Sachs said. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

‘I’m on duty,’ Kling said.

‘Oh, sorry. Something soft then? A Coke? Seven-Up? I think we’ve got some in the refrigerator.’

‘Thank you, no.’ Kling said.

The men sat. From his wing chair, Kling could see through the large windows and out over the park to where the skyscrapers lined the city. The sky behind the buildings was a vibrant blue. Sachs sat facing him, limned with the light flowing through the windows.

‘The people at the Children’s Shelter told me you got to the city late Monday, Mr Sachs. May I ask where in Arizona you were?’

‘Well, part of the time I was in the desert, and the rest of the time I was staying in a little town called Rainfield, have you ever heard of it?’

‘No.’

‘Yes. Well, I’m not surprised,’ Sachs said. ‘It’s on the edge of the desert. Just a single hotel, a depot, a general store, and that’s it.’

‘What were you doing in the desert?’

‘We’re on a dig, I thought you knew that. I’m part of an archaeological team headed by Dr Oliver Tarsmith. We’re trying to trace the route of the Hohokam in Arizona.’

The Hohokam?’

‘Yes, that’s a Pima Indian word meaning “those who have vanished.” The Hohokam were a tribe once living in Arizona, haven’t you ever heard of them?’

‘No, I’m afraid I haven’t.’

‘Yes, well. In any case, they seem to have had their origins in Old Mexico. In fact, archaeologists like myself have found copper bells and other objects that definitely link the Hohokam to the Old Mexican civilization. And, of course, we’ve excavated ball courts — an especially large one at Snaketown — that are definitely Mexican or Mayan in origin. At one site, we found a rubber ball buried in a jar, and it’s our belief that it must have been traded through tribes all the way from southern Mexico. That’s where the wild rubber grows, you know.’

‘No, I didn’t know that.’

‘Yes, well. The point is that we archaeologists don’t know what route the Hohokam traveled from Mexico to Arizona and then to Snaketown. Dr Tarsmith’s theory is that their point of entry was the desert just outside Rainfield. We are now excavating for archaeological evidence to support this theory.’

‘I see. That sounds like interesting work.’

Sachs shrugged.

‘Isn’t it?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘You don’t sound very enthusiastic.’

‘Well, we haven’t had too much luck so far. We’ve been out there for close to a year, and we’ve uncovered only the flimsiest sort of evidence, and… well, frankly, it’s getting a bit tedious. We spend four days a week out on the desert, you see, and then come back into Rainfield late Thursday night. There’s nothing much in Rainfield, and the nearest big town is a hundred miles from there. It can get pretty monotonous.’

‘Why only four days in the desert?’

‘Instead of five, do you mean? We usually spend Fridays making out our reports. There’s a lot of paperwork involved, and it’s easier to do at the hotel.’

‘When did you learn of your wife’s death, Mr Sachs?’

‘Monday morning.’

‘You had not been informed up to that time?’

‘Well, as it turned out, a telegram was waiting for me in Rainfield. I guess it was delivered to the hotel on Saturday, but I wasn’t there to take it.’

‘Where were you?’

‘In Phoenix.’

‘What were you doing there?’

‘Drinking, seeing some shows. You can get very sick of Rainfield, you know.’

‘Did anyone go with you?’

‘No.’

‘How did you get to Phoenix?’

‘By train.’

‘Where did you stay in Phoenix?’

‘At the Royal Sands.’

‘From when to when?’

‘Well, I left Rainfield late Thursday night. I asked Oliver — Dr Tarsmith — if he thought he’d need me on Friday, and he said he wouldn’t. I guess he realized I was stretched a little thin. He’s a very perceptive man that way.’

‘I see. In effect, then, he gave you Friday off.’

‘That’s right.’

‘No reports to write?’

‘I took those with me to Phoenix. It’s only a matter of organizing one’s notes, typing them up, and so on.’

‘Did you manage to get them done in Phoenix?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Now, Let me understand this, Mr Sachs…’

‘Yes?’

‘You left Rainfield sometime late Thursday night…’

‘Yes, I caught the last train out.’

‘What time did you arrive in Phoenix?’

‘Sometime after midnight. I had called ahead to the Sands for a reservation.’

‘I see. When did you leave Phoenix?’

‘Mr Kling,’ Sachs said suddenly, ‘are you just making small talk, or is there some reason for your wanting to know all this?’

‘I was simply curious, Mr Sachs. I know Homicide had sent a wire off to you, and I was wondering why you didn’t receive it until Monday morning.’

‘Oh. Well, I just explained that. I didn’t get back to Rainfield until then.’

‘You left Phoenix Monday morning?’

‘Yes. I caught a train at about six a.m. I didn’t want to miss the jeep.’ Sachs paused. ‘The expedition’s jeep. We usually head out to the desert pretty early, to get some heavy work in before the sun gets too hot.’

‘I see. But when you got back to the hotel, you found the telegram.’

‘That’s right.’

‘What did you do then?’

‘I immediately called the airport in Phoenix to find out what flights I could get back here.’

‘And what did they tell you?’

‘There was a TWA flight leaving at eight in the morning, which would get here at four-twenty in the afternoon — there’s a two-hour time difference, you know.’

‘Yes, I know that. Is that the flight you took?’

‘No, I didn’t. It was close to six-thirty when I called the airport. I might have been able to make it to Phoenix in time, but it would have been a very tight squeeze, and I’d have had to borrow a car. The trains out of Rainfield aren’t that frequent, you see.’