Ed McBain - Doll

‘A police matter,’ Kling said.

‘Well, the doctor’s office hours begin at ten Monday morning. If you’d care to call him then. I’m sure—’

‘What’s his home number?’ Kling asked.

‘Calling him there won’t help you. He really is away for the weekend.’

‘Do you know where?’

‘No, I’m sorry.’

‘Well, let me have his number, anyway,’ Kling said.

‘I’m not supposed to give out the doctor’s home number. I’ll try it for you, if you like. If the doctor’s there — which I know he isn’t — I’ll ask him to call you back. May I have your number, please?’

‘Yes, it’s Roxbury 2, that’s RO 2-7641.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Will you please call me in any event, to let me know if you reached him or not?’

‘Yes, sir, I will.’

‘Thank you.’

‘What did you say your name was?’

‘Kling, Detective Bert Kling.’

‘Yes, sir, thank you,’ she said, and hung up.

Kling waited by the phone.

In five minutes’ time, the woman called back. She said she had tried the doctor’s home number and — as she’d known would be the case all along — there was no answer. She gave him the doctor’s office schedule and told him he could try again on Monday, and then she hung up.

It was going to be a long weekend.

Teddy Carella sat in the living room alone for a long while after Lieutenant Byrnes left, her hands folded in her lap, staring into shadows of the room and hearing nothing but the murmur of her own thoughts.

We now know, the lieutenant had said, that the man we found in the automobile definitely wasn’t Steve. He’s a man named Ernest Messner, and there is no question about it, Teddy, so I want you to know that. But I also want you to know this doesn’t mean Steve is still alive. We just don’t know anything about that yet, although we’re working on it. The only thing it does indicate is that at least he’s not for certain dead.

The lieutenant paused. She watched his face. He looked back at her curiously, wanting to be sure she understood everything he had told her. She nodded.

I knew this yesterday, the lieutenant said, but I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t want to raise your hopes until I had checked it out thoroughly. The medical examiner’s office gave this top priority, Teddy. They still haven’t finished the autopsy on the Sachs case because, well, you know, when we thought this was Steve, well, we put a lot of pressure on them. Anyway, it isn’t. It isn’t Steve, I mean. We’ve got Paul Blaney’s word for that, and he’s an excellent man, and we’ve also got the corroboration — what? Corroboration, did you get it? the corroboration of the chief medical examiner as well. So now I’m sure, so I’m telling you. And about the other, we’re working on it, as you know, and as soon as we’ve got anything, I’ll tell you that, too. So that’s about all, Teddy. We’re doing our best.

She had thanked him and offered him coffee, which he refused politely, he was expected home, he had to run, he hoped she would forgive him. She had shown him to the door, and then walked past the playroom, where Fanny was watching television, and then past the room where the twins were sound asleep and then into the living room. She turned out the lights and went to sit near the old piano Carella had bought in a secondhand store downtown, paying sixteen dollars for it and arranging to have it delivered by a furniture man in the precinct. He had always wanted to play the piano, he told her, and was going to start lessons — you’re never too old to learn, right, sweetheart?

The lieutenant’s news soared within her, but she was fearful of it, suspicious: Was it only a temporary gift that would be taken back? Should she tell the children, and then risk another reversal and a second revelation that their father was dead? ‘What does that mean?’ April had asked. ‘Does dead mean he’s never coming back?’ And Mark had turned to his sister and angrily shouted, ‘Shut up, you stupid dope!’ and had run to his room where his mother could not see his tears.

They deserved hope.

They had the right to know there was hope.

She rose and went into the kitchen and scribbled a note on the telephone pad, and then tore off the sheet of paper and carried it out to Fanny. Fanny looked up when she approached, expecting more bad news, the lieutenant brought nothing but bad news nowadays. Teddy handed her the sheet of paper, and Fanny looked at it:

Fanny looked up quickly.

‘Thank God,’ she whispered, and rushed out of the room.

The patrolman came up to the squadroom on Monday morning, and waited outside the slatted rail divider until Meyer signaled him in. Then he opened the gate and walked over to Meyer’s desk.

‘I don’t think you know me,’ he said, ‘I’m Patrolman Angieri.’

‘I think I’ve seen you around,’ Meyer said.

‘I feel funny bringing this up because maybe you already know it. My wife said I should tell you, anyway.’

‘What is it?’

‘I’ve only been here at thus precinct for six months, this is my first precinct, I’m a rew cop.’

‘Um-huh,’ Meyer said.

‘If you already know this, juct skip it, okay? My wife says maybe you don’t know it, and maybe it’s important.’

‘Well, what is it?’ Meyer asked patiently.

‘Carella.’

‘What about Carella?’

‘Like I told you, I’m new in the precinct, and I don’t know all the detectives by name, but I recognized him later from his picture in the paper, though it was a picture from when he was a patrolman. Anyway, it was him.’

‘What do you mean? I don’t think I’m with you, Angieri.’

‘Carrying the doll,’ Angieri said.

‘I still don’t get you.’

‘I was on duty in the hall, you know? Outside the apartment. I’m talking about the Tinka Sachs murder.’

Meyer leaned forward suddenly. ‘Yeah, go ahead,’ he said.

‘Well, he come up there last Monday night, it must’ve been five-thirty, six o’clock, and he flashed the tin, and went inside the apartment. When he came out, he was in a hell of a hurry, and he was carrying a doll.’

‘Are you telling me Carella was at the Sachs apartment last Monday night?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive.’ Angieri paused. ‘You didn’t know this, huh? My wife was right.’ He paused again. ‘She’s always right.’

‘What did you say about a doll?’

‘A doll, you know? Like kids play with? Girls? A big doll. With blonde hair, you know? A doll ’

‘Carella came out of the apartment carrying a child’s doll?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Last Monday night?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Did he say anything to you?’

‘Nothing.’

‘A doll,’ Meyer said, puzzled.

It was nine a.m. when Meyer arrived at the Sachs apartment on Stafford Place. He spoke briefly to the superintendent of the building, a man named Manny Farber, and then took the elevator up to the fourth floor. There was no longer a patrolman on duty in the hallway. He went down the corridor and let himself into the apartment, using Tinka’s own key, which had been lent to the investigating precinct by the Office of the Clerk.

The apartment was still.

He could tell at once that death had been here. There are different silences in an empty apartment, and if you are a working policeman, you do not scoff at poetic fallacy. An apartment vacated for the summer has a silence unlike that one that is empty only for the day, with its occupants expected back that night. And an apartment that has known the touch of death possesses a silence unique and readily identifiable to anyone who has ever stared down at a corpse. Meyer knew the silence of death, and understood it, though he could not have told you what accounted for it. The disconnected humless electrical appliances; the unused, undripping water taps; the unringing telephone; the stopped unticking clocks; the sealed windows shutting out all street noises; these were all a part of it, but they only contributed to the whole and were not its sum and substance. The real silence was something only felt, and had nothing to do with the absence of sound. It touched something deep within him the moment he stepped through the door. It seemed to be carried on the air itself, a shuddering reminder that death had passed this way, and that some of its frightening grandeur was still locked inside these rooms. He paused with his hand on the doorknob, and then sighed and closed the door behind him and went into the apartment.