Ed McBain - Hail to the Chief

'What? I know, don't tell me. You've been trying to learn how to balance a knife on the tip of its blade.'

'No. It's Augusta. I'm thinking of asking her to marry me.'

'Yeah?' Carella said, surprised.

'Yeah,' Kling said, and nodded.

He was referring to Augusta Blair, a red-headed photographer's model he had met nine months ago while investigating a burglary. Carella knew better than to make some wise-ass remark when Kling was apparently so serious. The squadroom banter about the frequent calls from 'Gussie' (as Kling's colleagues called her) had achieved almost monumental proportions in the past two months, but they hardly seemed appropriate in the one-to-one intimacy of an automobile whose windows, except for the windshield, were entirely covered with rime. Carella busied himself with the heater.

'What do you think?' Kling asked.

'Well, I don't know. Do you think she'll say yes?'

'Oh, yeah, I think she'll say yes.'

'Well then, ask her.'

'Well,' Kling said, and fell silent.

They had come through the tollbooth. Behind them, Isola thrust its jagged peaks and minarets into a leaden sky. Ahead, the terrain consisted of rolling smoke-colored hills through which the road to Turman snaked its lazy way.

'The thing is,' Kling said at last, 'I'm a little scared.'

'Of what?' Carella asked.

'Of getting married. I mean, it's… well… it's a very serious commitment, you know.'

'Yes, I know,' Carella said. He could not quite understand Kling's hesitancy. If he really wanted to marry Gussie, why the doubts? And if there were doubts, then did he really want to marry her?

'What's it like?' Kling asked,

'What's what like?'

'Being married.'

'I can only tell you what it's like being married to Teddy,' Carella said.

'Yeah, what's it like?'

'It's wonderful.'

'Mmm,' Kling said. 'Because, suppose you get married and then you find out it isn't the same as when you weren't married?'

' What isn't the same?'

'Everything.'

'Like what?'

'Like, well, for example, suppose, well, that, well, the sex isn't the same?'

'Why should it be any different?'

'I don't know,' Kling said, and shrugged.

'What's the marriage certificate got to do with it?'

'I don't know,' Kling said, and shrugged again. ' Is it the same? The sex?'

'Sure,' Carella said.

'I don't mean to get personal…'

'No, no.'

'But it's the same, huh?'

'Sure, it's the same.'

'And the rest? I mean, you know, do you still have fun?'

'Fun?'

'Yeah.'

'Sure, we have fun.'

'Like before?'

'Better than before.'

'Because we have a lot of fun together,' Kling said. 'Augusta and I. A lot of fun.'

'That's good,' Carella said.

'Yes, it's very good. That two people can enjoy things together. I think that's very good, Steve, don't you?'

'Yes, I think it's very good when that happens between two people.'

'Not that we don't have fights,' Kling said.

'Well, everybody has fights. Any two people…'

'Yes, but not too many.'

'No, no.'

'And our… our personal relationship is very good. We're very good together.'

'Mmm.'

'The sex I mean,' Kling said quickly, and suddenly seemed very intent on the road ahead. 'That's very good between us.'

'Mmm, well, good. That's good.'

'Though not always. I mean, sometimes it's not as good as other times.'

'Yes, well, that's natural,' Carella said.

'But most of the time…'

'Yes, sure.'

'Most of the time, we really do enjoy it.'

'Sure,' Carella said.

'And we love each other. That's important.'

'That's the single most important thing,' Carella said.

'Yes, I think so.'

'No question.'

'It is the single most important thing,' Kling said. 'It's what makes everything else seem right. The decisions we make together, the things we do together, even the fights we have together. It's the fact that we love each other… well… that's what makes it work , you see.'

'Yes,' Carella said.

'So you think I should marry her?'

'It sounds like you're married already,' Carella said.

Kling turned abruptly from the wheel to see whether or not Carella was smiling. Carella was not. He was hunched on the seat with his feet propped up against the clattering heater, and his hands tucked under his arms, and his chin ducked into the upturned collar of his coat.

'I suppose it is sort of like being married,' Kling said, turning his attention to the road again. 'But not exactly.'

'Well, how's it any different?' Carella said.

'Well, I don't know. That's what I'm asking you.'

'Well, I don't see any difference.'

'Then why should we get married?' Kling asked.

'Jesus, Bert, I don't know,' Carella said. 'If you want to get married, get married. If you don't, then stay the way you are.'

'Why'd you get married?'

Carella thought for a long time. Then he said, 'Because I couldn't bear the thought of any other man ever touching Teddy.'

Kling nodded.

He said nothing more all the way to Turman.

The detective's name was Al Grundy. He first took them to the hospital mortuary to show them the girl's body, and then he drove them out to where the corpse had been found. The initial discovery had been made by two teen-age boys cutting through the woods on their way to school. One of them had stayed with the dead girl, nervously waiting some ten feet from where the body lay partially covered with leaves that had fallen in October and were now moldering and wet. The other had raced to the nearest pay telephone and called the police, who responded within four minutes. There were tire tracks in the wet leaves, and it was assumed that the body had been transported to this isolated glade from someplace else.

'Think it's the girl you're looking for?' Grundy asked.

He was a huge black-haired man with light-blue eyes, freckles spattered across the bridge of his nose. He could not have been older than twenty-five or -six. Standing beside him, Kling suddenly felt ancient, suddenly felt it was time he did get married, and had kids, and became a grandfather.

'Maybe,' Carella said. 'Have you got a last name for her? Was she carrying any identification?'

'Nothing but the locket on her wrist.'

'No handbag?'

'Nothing.'

'Any houses nearby?'

'Just the one over the knoll there. Doubt if anyone could've seen anything from there. Because of the way the ground slopes.'

'The road we came in on, is that the only access road?'

'Yeah. Route 14. We traced the tire tracks back to where they must've drove in,' Grundy said. 'The mud and the leaves made that easy. But there's nothing on the road itself that would indicate which direction they came from.'

'What about the kids who found her? Have you talked to them?'

'Oh, yeah. They're clean, I think. You never can tell, but these kids had two things going for them: one, they called the cops, and two, they both looked scared shitless.'

'What'd the coroner have to say about the time of death?'

'Set it at sometime between ten and twelve P.M. last night. She'd been beaten badly, bleeding welts across her back, looked like somebody whipped her before cutting her throat. No sexual assault. Vaginal vault is clean of semen.'

'Mind if we talk to the people in the house up there?'

'Be my guest,' Grundy said.

The 'people' in the house up there turned out to be only one person. His name was Rodney Sack, and he was seventy-six years old, and he appeared very frightened by the appearance of detectives in his kitchen. He was just sitting down to breakfast, and was wearing blue denim coveralls, a wool plaid sports shirt, a blue cardigan sweater threadbare at the elbows, and a hearing aid. The hearing aid did not help matters much. His obvious fear made matters even worse.