Ed McBain - Doll

The men shuffled out of the room. Kling stood uncomfortably before the lieutenant’s desk. The lieutenant sat in his swivel chair, and turned it so that he was not looking directly at Kling. Kling did not know where he was looking. His eyes seemed unfocused.

‘I guess you know that Steve Carella was a good friend of mine,’ Byrnes said.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘A good friend,’ Byrnes repeated. He paused for a moment, still looking off somewhere past Kling, his eyes unfocused, and then said, ‘Why’d you let him go out alone, Kling?’

‘I told you, sir. We had an argument.’

‘So you left here at three o’clock, when you knew goddamn well you weren’t going to be relieved until four-forty-five. Now what the hell do you call that, Kling?’

Kling did not answer.

‘I’m kicking you off this goddamn squad,’ Byrnes said. ‘I should have done it long ago. I’m asking for your transfer, now get the hell out of here.’

Kling turned and started for the door.

‘No, wait a minute,’ Byrnes said. He turned directly to Kling now, and there was a terrible look on his face, as though he wanted to cry, but the tears were being checked by intense anger.

‘I guess you know. Kling, that I don’t have the power to suspend you. I guess you know that The power rests with the commissioner and his deputies, and they’re civilians. But a man can be suspended if he’s violated the rules and regulations or if he’s committed a crime. The way I look at it, Kling, you’ve done both those things. You violated the rules and regulations by leaving this squadroom and heading home when you were supposed to be on duty, and you committed a crime by allowing Carella to go out there alone and get killed.’

‘Lieutenant, I—’

‘If I could personally take away your gun and your shield, I’d do it, Kling, believe me. Unfortunately, I can’t. But I’m going to call the Chief of Detectives the minute you leave this office. I’m going to tell him I’d like you suspended pending a complete investigation, and I’m going to ask that he recommend that to the commissioner. I’m going to get that suspension, Kling, if I have to go to the mayor for it. I’ll get departmental charges filed, and a departmental trial, and I’ll get you dismissed from the force. I’m promising you. Now get the hell out of my sight.’

Kling walked to the door silently, opened it, and stepped into the squadroom. He sat at his desk silently for several moments, staring into space. He heard the buzzer sound on Meyer’s phone, heard Meyer lifting the instrument to his ear. ‘Yeah?’ Meyer said. ‘Yeah, Pete. Right. Right. Okay, I’ll tell him.’ He heard Meyer putting the phone back onto its cradle. Meyer rose and came to his desk. ‘That was the lieutenant,’ he said. ‘He wants me to take over the Tinka Sachs case.’

The message went out on the teletype at a little before ten Thursday morning:

MISSING PERSON WANTED FOR QUESTIONING CONNECTION HOMICIDE XXX ERNEST MESSNER ALIAS CYCLOPS MESSNER XXX WHITE MALE AGE 68 XXX HEIGHT 6 FEET XXX WEIGHT 170 LBS XXX COMPLETELY BALD XXX EYES BLUE LEFT EYE MISSING AND COVERED BY PATCH XXXXX LAST SEEN VICINITY 1117 GAINESBOROUGH AVENUE RIVERHEAD MONDAY APRIL 12 TEN THIRTY PM EST XXX CONTACT MISPERBUR OR DET/2G MEYER MEYER EIGHT SEVEN SQUAD XXXXXXXXX

A copy of the teletype was pulled off the squadroom machine by Detective Meyer Meyer who wondered why it had been necessary for the detective at the Missing Persons Bureau to insert the word ‘completely’ before the word ‘bald’. Meyer, who was bald himself, suspected that the description was redundant, over-emphatic, and undoubtedly derogatory. It was his understanding that a bald person had no hair. None. Count them. None. Why, then, had the composer of this bulletin (Meyer visualized him as a bushy-headed man with thick black eyebrows, a black mustache and a full beard) insisted on inserting the word ‘completely’, if not to point a deriding finger at all hairless men everywhere? Indignantly, Meyer went to the squadroom dictionary, searched through balas, balata, Balaton, Balboa, balbriggan, and came to:

bald(bôld) adj. 1.lacking hair on some part of the scalp: a bald head or person. 2.destitute of some natural growth or covering: a bald mountain. 3.bare; plain; unadorned: a bald prose style. 4.open; undisguised: a bald lie. 5. Zool having white on the head: bald eagle.

Meyer closed the book, reluctantly admitting that whereas it was impossible to be a little pregnant, it was not equally impossible to be a little bald. The composer of the bulletin, bushy-haired bastard that he was, had been right in describing Cyclops as ‘completely bald’. If ever Meyer turned up missing one day, they would describe him in exactly the same way. In the meantime, his trip to the dictionary had not been a total loss. He would hereafter look upon himself as a person who lacked hair on his scalp, a person destitute of some natural growth, bare, plain and unadorned, open and undisguised, having white on the head. Hereafter, he would be known zoologically as The Bald Eagle — Nemesis of All Evil, Protector of the Innocent, Scourge of the Underworld!

‘Beware The Bald Eagle!’ he said aloud, and Arthur Brown looked up from his desk in puzzlement. Happily, the telephone rang at that moment. Meyer picked it up and said, ‘87th Squad.’

‘This is Sam Grossman at the lab. Who’m I talking to?’

‘You’re talking to The Bald Eagle,’ Meyer said.

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, this is The Hairy Ape.’ Grossman said. ‘What’s with you? Spring fever?’

‘Sure, it’s a beautiful day out,’ Meyer said, looking through the window at the rain.

‘Is Kling there? I’ve got something for him on this Tinka Sachs case.’

‘I’m handling that one now,’ Meyer said.

‘Oh? Okay. You feel like doing a little work, or were you planning to fly up to your aerie?’

‘Up your aerie, Mac,’ Meyer said, and burst out laughing.

‘Oh boy, I see I picked the wrong time to call,’ Grossman said. ‘Okay. Okay. When you’ve got a minute later, give me a ring, Okay? I’ll—’

‘The Bald Eagle never has a minute later,’ Meyer said. ‘What’ve you got for me?’

‘This kitchen knife. The murder weapon. According to the tag, it was found just outside her bedroom door, guy probably dropped it on his way out.’

‘Okay, what about it?’

‘Not much. Only it matches a few other knives in the girl’s kitchen, so it’s reasonable to assume it belonged to her. What I’m saying is the killer didn’t go up there with his own knife, if that’s of any use to you.’

‘He took the knife from a bunch of other knives in the kitchen, is that it?’

‘No, I don’t think so. I think the knife was in the bedroom.’

‘What would a knife be doing in the bedroom?’

‘I think the girl used it to slice some lemons.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. There was a pitcher of tea on the dresser. Two lemons, sliced in half, were floating in it. We found lemon-juice stains on the tray, as well as faint scratches left by the knife. We figure she carried the tea, the lemons, and the knife into the bedroom on that tray. Then she sliced the lemons and squeezed them into the tea.’

‘Well, that seems like guesswork to me,’ Meyer said.

‘Not at all. Paul Blaney is doing the medical examination. He says he’s found citric-acid stains on the girl’s left hand, the hand she’d have held the lemons with while slicing with the right. We’ve checked, Meyer. She was right-handed.’