Ed McBain - Doll

‘I won’t be much longer, please bear with me. I’m only trying to find out what Tinka did with all this money that came her way. According to you, she didn’t have a penny of it when she died.’

‘I’m only reporting what she told me. I listed her assets as she defined them for me.’

‘Could I see a copy of the will, Mr Sadler?’

‘Certainly. But it’s in my safe at the office, and I won’t be going back there today. If you’d like to come by in the morning…’

‘I’d hoped to get a look at it before—’

‘I assure you that I’ve faithfully reported everything in the will. As I told you, I was only her lawyer, not her financial adviser.’

‘Did she have a financial adviser?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Mr Sadler, did you handle Tinka’s divorce for her?’

‘No. I began representing her only last year, when she sold the house. I didn’t know her before then, and I don’t know who handled the divorce.’

‘One last question,’ Meyer said. ‘Is anyone else mentioned as a beneficiary in Tinka’s will, other than Dennis or Anna Sachs?’

‘They are the only beneficiaries.’ Sadler said. ‘And Anna only if her father predeceased Tinka.’

‘Thank you,’ Meyer said.

Back at the squadroom, Meyer checked over the typewritten list of all the personal belongings found in Tinka’s apartment. There was no listing for either a will or a bankbook, but someone from Homicide had noted that a key to a safety deposit box had been found among the items on Tinka’s workdesk. Meyer called Homicide to ask about the key, and they told him it had been turned over to the Office of the Clerk, and he could pick it up there if he was interested and if he was willing to sign a receipt for it. Meyer was indeed interested, so he went all the way downtown to the Office of the Clerk, where he searched through Tinka’s effects, finding a tiny red snap-envelope with the safety deposit box key in it. The name of the bank was printed on the face of the miniature envelope. Meyer signed out the key and then — since he was in the vicinity of the various court buildings, anyway — obtained a court order authorizing him to open the safety deposit box. In the company of a court official, he went uptown again by subway and then ran through a pouring rain, courtesy of the vernal equinox, to the First Northern National Bank on the comer of Phillips and Third, a few blocks from where Tinka had lived.

A bank clerk removed the metal box from a tier of similar boxes, asked Meyer if he wished to examine the contents in private, and then led him and the court official to a small room containing a desk, a chair, and a chained ballpoint pen. Meyer opened the box.

There were two documents in the box. The first was a letter from an art dealer, giving appraisal of the Chagall painting. The letter stated simply that the painting had been examined, that it was undoubtedly a genuine Chagall, and that it could be sold at current market prices for anywhere between forty-five and fifty thousand dollars.

The second document was Tinka’s will. It was stapled inside lawyer’s blueback, the firm name Sadler, McIntyre and Brooks printed on the bottom of the binder, together with the address, 80 Fisher Street. Typewritten and centered on the page was the legend last will and testament OF tinka sachs. Meyer opened the will and began reading:

I, Tinka Sachs, a resident of this city, county, and state, hereby revoke all wills and codicils by me at any time heretofore made and do hereby make, publish and declare this as and for my Last Will and Testament.

FIRST: I give, devise and bequeath to my former husband, DENNIS R. SACHS, if he shall survive me, and, if he shall not survive me, to my trustee, hereinafter named, all of my property and all of my household and personal effects including without limitation, clothing, furniture and furnishings, books, jewelry, art objects, and paintings.

SECOND: If my former husband Dennis shall not survive me, I give, devise and bequeath my said estate to my Trustee hereinafter named, IN TRUST NEVERTHELESS, for the following uses and purposes:

(1) My Trustee shall hold, invest and reinvest the principal of said trust, and shall collect the income therefrom until my daughter, ANNA SACHS, shall attain the age of twenty-one (21) years, or sooner die.

(2) My Trustee shall, from time to time: distribute to my daughter ANNA before she has attained the age of twenty-one (21) so much of the net income (and the net income of any year not so distributed shall be accumulated and shall, after the end of such year, be deemed principal for purposes of this trust) and so much of the principal of this trust as my Trustee may in his sole and unreviewable discretion determine for any purposes deemed advisable or convenient by said Trustee, provided, however, that no principal or income in excess of an aggregate amount of Five Thousand Dollars ($5,000) in any one year be used for the support of the child unless the death of the child’s father, DENNIS R. SACHS, shall have left her financially unable to support herself. The decision of my Trustee with respect to the dates of distribution and the sums to be distributed shall be final.

(3) If my daughter, ANNA shall die before attaining the age of twenty-one (21) years, my Trustee shall pay over the then principal of the trust fund and any accumulated income to the issue of my daughter, ANNA, then living, in equal shares, and if there be no such issue then to those persons who would inherit from me had I died intestate immediately after the death of ANNA.

THIRD: I nominate, constitute and appoint my former husband, DENNIS R. SACHS, Executor of this my Last Will and Testament. If my said former husband shall predecease me or shall fail to qualify or cease to act as Executor, then I appoint my agent and friend, ARTHUR G. CUTLER, in his place as successor or substitute executor and, if my former husband shall predecease me, as TRUSTEES of the trust created hereby. If my said friend and agent shall fail to qualify or cease to act as Executor or Trustee, then I appoint his wife, LESLIE CUTLER, in his place as successor or substitute executor and/or trustee, as the case may be. Unless otherwise provided by law, no bond or other security shall be required to permit any Executor or Trustee to qualify or act in any jurisdiction.

The rest of the will was boilerplate. Meyer scanned it quickly, and then turned to the last page where Tinka had signed her name below the words ‘IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I sign, seal, publish and declare this as my Last Will and Testament’ and where, below that, Harvey Sadler, William McIntyre and Nelson Brooks had signed as attesting witnesses. The will was dated March twenty-fourth.

The only thing Sadler had forgotten to mention — or perhaps Meyer hadn’t asked him about it — was that Art Cutler had been named trustee in the event of Dennis Sachs’s death.

Meyer wondered if it meant anything.

And then he calculated how much money Tinka had earned in eleven years at a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, and wondered again why her only possession of any real value was the Chagall painting she had drenched with blood on the night of her death.

Something stank.

He had checked and rechecked his own findings against the laboratory’s reports on the burned wreckage, and at first only one thing seemed clear to Paul Blaney. Wherever Steve Carella had been burned to death, it had not been inside that automobile. The condition of the corpse was unspeakably horrible; it made Blaney queasy just to look at it. In his years as medical examiner, Blaney had worked on cases of thermic trauma ranging from the simplest burns to cases of serious and fatal exposure to flame, light, and electric energy — but these were the worst fourth-degree bums he had ever seen. The body had undoubtedly been cooked for hours: The face was unrecognizable, all of the features gone, the skin black and tight, the single remaining cornea opaque, the teeth undoubtedly loosened and then lost in the fire; the skin on the torso was brittle and split; the hair had been burned away, the flesh completely gone in many places, showing dark red-brown skeletal muscles and charred brittle bones. Blaney’s internal examination revealed pale, cooked involuntary muscles, dull and shrunken viscera. Had the body been reduced to its present condition inside that car, the fire would have had to rage for hours. The lab’s report indicated that the automobile, ignited by an explosion of gasoline, had burned with extreme intensity, but only briefly. It was Blaney’s contention that the body had been burned elsewhere, and then put into the automobile to simulate death there by explosion and subsequent fire.