Ed McBain - Doll

‘Is it fogging?’ Willis said.

‘No, it’s okay.’

Brown closed the outlet valve with two fingers and exhaled, clearing the mask. ‘Okay,’ he said, and began walking toward the house. He was a huge man, six feet four inches tall and weighing two hundred and twenty pounds, with enormous shoulders and chest, long arms, big hands. His skin was very dark, almost black, his hair was kinky and cut close to his scalp, his nostrils were large, his lips were thick. He looked like a Negro, which is what he was, take him or leave him. He did not at all resemble the white man’s pretty concept of what a Negro should look like, the image touted in a new wave of magazine and television ads. He looked like himself. His wife Caroline liked the way he looked, and his daughter Connie liked the way he looked, and — more important — he liked the way he looked, although he didn’t look so great at the moment with a mask covering his face and hoses running to the canister resting at the back of his neck. He walked into the house and paused just inside the door. There were parallel marks on the floor, beginning at the jamb and running vertically across the room. He stooped to look at the marks more closely. They were black and evenly spaced, and he recognized them immediately as scuff marks. He rose and followed the marks to the fireplace, where they ended. He did not touch anything in or near the open mouth of the hearth; he would leave that for the lab boys. But he was convinced now that a man wearing shoes, if nothing else, had been dragged across the room from the door to the fireplace. According to what they’d learned yesterday, Ernest Messner had been incinerated in a wood-burning fire. Well, there had certainly been a wood-burning fire in this room, and the stink he and Willis had encountered when entering was sure as hell the stink of burned human flesh. And now there were heel marks leading from the door to the fireplace. Circumstantially, Brown needed nothing more.

The only question was whether the person cooked in this particular fireplace was Ernest Messner or somebody else.

He couldn’t answer that one, and anyway his eyepieces were beginning to fog. He went outside, took off the mask, and suggested to Willis that they drive into either Middlebarth or York to talk to some real estate agents about who owned the house with the smelly fireplace.

Elaine Hinds was a small, compact redhead with blue eyes and long fingernails. Her preference ran to small men, and she was charmed to distraction by Hal Willis, who was the shortest detective on the squad. She sat in a swivel chair behind her desk in the office of Hinds Real Estate in Middlebarth, and crossed her legs, and smiled, and accepted Willis’s match to her cigarette, and graciously murmured, ‘Thank you,’ and then tried to remember what question he had just asked her. She uncrossed her legs, crossed them again, and then said, ‘Yes, the house on 407.’

‘Yes, do you know who owns it?’ Willis asked. He was not unaware of the effect he seemed to be having on Miss Elaine Hinds, and he suspected he would never hear the end of it from Brown. But he was also a little puzzled. He had for many years been the victim of what he called the Mutt and Jeff phenomenon, a curious psychological and physiological reversal that made him irresistibly attractive to very big girls. He had never dated a girl who was shorter than five-nine in heels. One of his girl friends was five-eleven in her stockinged feet, and she was hopelessly in love with him. So he could not now understand why tiny little Elaine Hinds seemed so interested in a man who was only five feet eight inches tall, with the slight build of a dancer and the hands of a Black Jack dealer. He had, of course, served with the Marines and was an expert at judo, but Miss Hinds had no way of knowing that he was a giant among men, capable of breaking a man’s back by the mere flick of an eyeball — well, almost. What then had caused her immediate attraction? Being a conscientious cop, he sincerely hoped it would not impede the progress of the investigation. In the meantime, he couldn’t help noticing that she had very good legs and that she kept crossing and uncrossing them like an undecided virgin.

‘The people who own that house,’ she said, uncrossing her legs, ‘are Mr and Mrs Jerome Brandt, would you like some coffee or something? I have some going in the other room.’

‘No, thank you,’ Willis said. ‘How long have—’

‘Mr Brown?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘How long have the Brandts been living there?’

‘Well, they haven’t. Not really.’

‘I don’t think I understand,’ Willis said.

Elaine Hinds crossed her legs, and leaned close to Willis, as though about to reveal something terribly intimate. ‘They bought it to use as a summer place,’ she said. ‘Mavis County is a marvelous resort area, you know, with many lakes and streams and with the ocean not too far from any point in the county. We’re supposed to have less rainfall per annum than—’

‘When did they buy it, Miss Hinds?’

‘Last year. I expect they’ll open the house after Memorial Day, but it’s been closed all winter.’

‘Which explains the broken hasp on the front door,’ Brown said.

‘Has it been broken?’ Elaine said. ‘Oh, dear,’ and she uncrossed her legs.

‘Miss Hinds, would you say that many people in the area knew the house was empty?’

‘Yes, I’d say it was common knowledge, do you enjoy police work?’

‘Yes, I do,’ Willis said.

‘It must be terribly exciting.’

‘Sometimes the suspense is unbearable,’ Brown said.

‘I’ll just bet it is,’ Elaine said.

‘It’s my understanding,’ Willis said, glancing sharply at Brown, ‘that 407 is a pretty isolated road, and hardly ever used. Is that correct?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Elaine said. ‘Route 126 is a much better connection between Middlebarth and York, and of course the new highway runs past both towns. As a matter of fact, most people in the area avoid 407. It’s not a very good road, have you been on it?’

‘Yes. Then, actually, anyone living around here would have known the house was empty, and would also have known the road going by it wasn’t traveled too often. Would you say that?’

‘Oh, yes, Mr Willis, I definitely would say that,’ Elaine said.

Willis looked a little startled. He glanced at Brown, and then cleared his throat. ‘Miss Hinds, what sort of people are the Brandts? Do you know them?’

‘Yes, I sold the house to them. Jerry’s an executive at IBM.’

‘And his wife?’

‘Maxine’s a woman of about fifty, three or four years younger than Jerry. A lovely person.’

‘Respectable people, would you say?’

‘Oh, yes, entirely respectable,’ Elaine said. ‘My goodness, of course they are.’

‘Would you know if either of them were up here Monday night?’

‘I don’t know. I imagine they would have called if they were coming. I keep the keys to the house here in the office, you see. I have to arrange for maintenance, and it’s necessary—’

‘But they didn’t call to say they were coming up?’

‘No, they didn’t.’ Elaine paused. ‘Does this have anything to do with the auto wreck on 407?’

‘Yes, Miss Hinds, it does.’

‘Well, how could Jerry or Maxine be even remotely connected with that?’

‘You don’t think they could?’

‘Of course not. I haven’t seen them for quite some time now, but we did work closely together when I was handling the deal for them last October. Believe me, you couldn’t find a sweeter couple. That’s unusual, especially with people who have their kind of money.’

‘Are they wealthy, would you say?’