Ed McBain: McBain's Ladies: The Women of the 87th Precinct

On August 19, Stephen Carella and Theodora Franklin listened to their own sentence.

“Do either of you know of any reason why you both should not be legally joined in marriage, or if there be any present who can show any just cause why these parties should not be legally joined together, let him now speak or hereafter hold his peace.”

Lieutenant Byrnes held his peace. Detective Hal Willis said nothing. The small gathering of friends and relatives watched, dewy-eyed.

The city clerk turned to Carella.

“Do you, Stephen Louis Carella, take this woman as your lawfully wedded wife to live together in the state of matrimony? Will you love, honor, and keep her as a faithful man is bound to do, in health, sickness, prosperity, and adversity, and forsaking all others keep you alone unto her as long as you both shall live?”

“Yes,” Carella said. “Yes, I will. I do. Yes.”

“Do you, Theodora Franklin, take this man as your lawfully wedded husband to live together in the state of matrimony? Will you love, honor, and cherish him as a faithful woman is bound to do, in health, sickness, prosperity, and adversity, and forsaking all others keep you alone unto him as long as you both shall live?”

Teddy nodded. There were tears in her eyes, but she could not keep the ecstatic smile off her face.

“For as you both have consented in wedlock and have acknowledged it before this company, I do by virtue of the authority vested in me by the laws of this state now pronounce you husband and wife. And may God bless your union.”

Carella look her in his arms and kissed her. The clerk smiled. Lieutenant Byrnes cleared his throat. Willis looked up at the ceiling. The clerk kissed Teddy when Carella released her. Byrnes kissed her. Willis kissed her. All the male relatives and friends came up to kiss her.

Carella smiled idiotically.

“You hurry back,” Byrnes said to him.

“Hurry back? I’m going on my honeymoon, Pete!”

“Well, hurry anyway. How are we going to run that precinct without you? You’re the only cop in the city who has the courage to buck the decisions of stubborn, opinionated Detective-Lieutenant Byrnes of the…”

“Oh, go to hell,” Carella said, smiling.

Willis shook his hand. “Good luck, Steve. She’s a wonderful gal.”

“Thank you, Hal.”

Teddy came to him. He put his arm around her.

“Well,” he said, “let’s go.”

They went out of the room together.

Byrnes stared after them wistfully.

“He’s a good cop,” he said.

“Yeah,” Willis answered.

From Cop Hater, 1956

He was bushed when he got home that night. Teddy greeted him at the door, and he kissed her in a perfunctory, most unnewlywedlike way. She looked at him curiously, led him to a drink waiting in the living room, and then, attuned to his uncommunicative mood, went out to the kitchen to finish dinner. When she served the meal, Carella remained silent.

She looked at him often, wondering if she had offended him in some way, longing to see words on his lips, words she could read and understand. And finally, she reached across the table and touched his hand, and her eyes opened wide in entreaty, brown eyes against an oval face.

“No, it’s nothing,” Carella said gently.

But still her eyes asked their questions. She cocked her head to one side, the short raven hair sharply detailed against the white wall behind her.

“This case,” he admitted.

She nodded, waiting, relieved that he was troubled with his work and not with his wife.

“Well, why the hell would anyone leave a perfect set of fingerprints on a goddamn murder weapon, and then leave the weapon where every rookie cop in the world could find it?”

Teddy shrugged sympathetically, and then nodded.

“And why try to simulate a hanging afterward? Does the killer think he’s dealing with a pack of nitwits, for Christ’s sake?” He shook his head angrily. Teddy shoved back her chair and then came around the table and plunked herself down in his lap. She took his arm and wrapped it around her waist, and then she snuggled up close to him and kissed his neck.

“Stop that,” he told her, and then — realizing she could not see his lips because her face was buried in his throat — he caught her hair and gently yanked back her head, and repeated, “Stop it. How can I think about the case with you doing that?”

Teddy gave an emphatic nod of her head, telling her husband that he had exactly understood her motivations.

“You’ll destroy me,” Carella said, smiling. “Do you think…”

Teddy kissed his mouth.

Carella moved back gently. “Do you think you’d leave a…”

She kissed him again, and this time he lingered awhile before moving away.

“… syringe with fingerprints all over it on a mmmmmmmm…”

Her face was very close to his, and he could see the brightness in her eye’s, and the fullness of her mouth when she drew back.

“Oh God, woman,” he said.

She rose and took his hand and as she was leading him from the room he turned her around and said, “The dishes. We have to…” and she tossed up her back skirts in reply, the way cancan dancers do. In the living room, she handed him a sheet of paper, neatly folded in half.

“I didn’t know you wanted to answer the mail,” Carella said. “I somehow suspected I was being seduced.”

Impatiently, Teddy gestured to the paper in his hand. Carella unfolded it. The white sheet was covered with four typewritten stanzas. The stanzas were titled “Ode for Steve.”

“For me? he asked.

Yes, she nodded.

“Is this what you do all day, instead of slaving around the house?”

She wiggled her forefinger, urging him to read the poem.

“The last stanza doesn’t rhyme,” Carella said.

Teddy pulled a mock mask of stunned disgust.

“Also, methinks I read sexual connotations into this thing,” Carella added.

Teddy waved one hand airily, shrugged innocently, and then — like a burlesque queen imitating a high-priced fashion model — walked gracefully and suggestively into the bedroom, her buttocks wiggling exaggeratedly.

Carella grinned and folded the sheet of paper. He put it into his wallet, walked to the bedroom door, and leaned against the jamb. “You know,” he said, “you don’t have to write poems.” Teddy stared at him across the length of the room. “All you have to do is ask,” he said huskily.

The only warning was the tightening of Gonzo’s eyes. Carella saw them squinch up, and he tried to move sideways, but the gun was already speaking. He did not see it buck in the boy’s fist. He felt searing pain lash at his chest, and he heard the shocking declaration of three explosions and then he was falling, and he felt very warm, and he also felt very ridiculous because his legs simply would not hold him up, how silly, how very silly, and his chest was on fire, and the sky was lilting to meet the earth, and then his face struck the ground. He did not put out his arms to stop his fall because his arms were somehow powerless. His face struck the loose stones, and his body crumpled behind it, and he shuddered and felt a warm stickiness beneath him, and only then did he try to move and then he realized he was lying in a spreading pool of his own blood. He wanted to laugh and he wanted to cry at the same time. He opened his mouth, but no sound came from it. And then the waves of blackness came at him, and he fought to keep them away, unaware that Gonzo was running off through the trees, aware only of the engulfing blackness, and suddenly sure that he was about to die.