Ed McBain - Like Love

Somehow, the men on the squad almost wished they’d never received Anderson’s damn report.

* * * *

There is something about big women that is always a little frightening: a reversal of roles, a destruction of stereotype. Women are supposed to be delicate and fragile; everybody knows that. They’re supposed to be soft and cuddly and a little helpless and dependent. They’re supposed to seek comfort and solace in the arms of strong, clear-eyed resolute men.

The two men who rang the doorbell of Mary Tomlinson’s house on Sands Spit were strong, clear-eyed, and resolute.

Steve Carella was six feet tall with wide shoulders, narrow hips, thick wrists and big hands. He did not present a picture of overwhelming massiveness because his power was deceptively concealed in the body of a natural athlete, a man who moved easily and loosely, in total control of a fine-honed muscularity. His eyes were brown with a peculiar downward slant, combining with his high cheekbones to give his face a curiously Oriental look. He was not a frightening man, but when you opened the door to find him on your front step, you knew for certain he wasn’t there to sell insurance.

Cotton Hawes weighed a hundred and ninety pounds. He was six feet two inches tall, and his big-boned body was padded with obvious muscle. His eyes were an electric blue, and he had a straight unbroken nose, and a good mouth with a wide lower lip. He carried a white streak in the hair over his left temple, where he had once been stabbed while investigating a burglary. He did not look like the sort of man anyone would want to challenge-even to a game of checkers.

Both men were big, both men were strong. And besides, they were each carrying loaded guns on their hips. But when Mary Tomlinson opened the door of the development house, they both felt slightly inadequate and seemed to shrink visibly on the doorstep.

Mrs. Tomlinson had flaming red hair and flashing green eyes. The eyes and the hair alone would have been enough to present her as a woman of force, but they were accompanied by height and girth, and a granite-like, no-nonsense face. She stood at least five feet nine inches tall inside her doorway, a woman with a large bosom and thick arms, her legs and feet planted firmly to the floor, like a wrestler waiting for a charge. She wore a flowered Hawaiian muumuu, and she was barefoot, and she looked at the detectives with suspicion as they faced her inadequately and timorously showed their shields.

“Come in,” she said. “I was wondering when you’d get to me.”

She did not deliver the cliché with any sense of unoriginality. She seemed not to know that “I was wondering when you’d get to me” had been spoken by countless fictitious heavies long before she was born, and would probably continue to be spoken so long as heavies existed. Instead, she delivered the line as if she were chairman of the board of General Motors who; having called a meeting, was irritated when some of her executives arrived a little late. She had been expecting the police to get to her, and her only question now was what the hell had taken them so long.

She stamped flatfooted into the house, leaving the door for Hawes to close behind him. The house was a typical Sands Spit development dwelling, a small entrance hall, a kitchen on the left, a living room on the right, and three bedrooms and a bath running along the rear. Mrs. Tomlinson had furnished the place with the taste of a miniaturist. The furniture was small, the pictures on the walls were small, the lamps were small, everything seemed to have been designed for a tiny woman.

“Sit down,” she said, and Hawes and Carella found seats in the living room, two small caned chairs in which they were instantly uncomfortable. Mrs. Tomlinson spread her ample buttocks onto the tiny couch opposite them. She sat like a man, her legs widespread, the folds of the muumuu dropping between her knees, her big-toed feet again planted firmly on the floor. She looked at her visitors unsmiling, waiting. Carella cleared his throat.

“We’d like to ask you a few questions, Mrs. Tomlinson,” he said.

“I assume that’s why you’re here,” she answered.

“Yes,” Carella said. “To begin with…”

“To begin with,” Mrs. Tomlinson cut in, “I’m in the middle of preparations for my daughter’s funeral, so I hope you’ll make this short and sweet. Somebody’s got to take care of the damn thing.”

“You’re handling all arrangements, are you?” Hawes asked.

“Who’s going to handle it?” she said, her lip curling. “That idiot she lived with?”

“Your son-in-law, you mean?”

“My sow-in-law,” she repeated, and she managed to give the words an inflection that immediately presented Michael Thayer as a fumbling creature incapable of coping with anything more difficult than tying his own shoelaces. “Some son-in-law. The poet. Roses are red, violets are blue, let it be said, happy birthday to you. My sow-in-law.” She shook her massive head.

“I gather you don’t like him very much,” Carella said.

“The feelings are mutual. Haven’t you talked to him?”

“Yes, we’ve talked to him.”

“Then you know.” She paused. “Or do you? If Michael said anything kind about me, he was lying.”

“He said you don’t get along, Mrs. Tomlinson.”

“That’s the understatement of the year. We hate each other’s guts. The bully.”

“Bully?” Hawes said. He looked at Mrs. Tomlinson in astonishment because the word seemed thoroughly inappropriate coming from her lips.

“Always shoving his weight around. I hate men who take advantage of us.”

“Take advantage?” Hawes repeated, the astonishment still on his face.

“Yes. Women are to be treated with respect,” she said, “and cared for gently. And with tenderness.” She shook her head. “He doesn’t know. He’s a bully.” She paused, and then reflectively added, “Women are delicate.”

Hawes and Carella looked at her silently for several moments.

“He… uh… he bullied your daughter, Mrs. Tomlinson?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Bossing her. He’s a boss. I hate men who are bosses.” She looked at Hawes. “Are you married?”

“No, ma’am.”

She turned instantly to Carella “Are you?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Are you a boss?”

“I… I don’t think so.”

“Good You seem like a nice boy.” She paused. “Not Michael. Always bossing. Did you pay the electric bill? Did you do the marketing? Did you do this and that? It’s no wonder.”

Again, the room was silent.

“It’s no wonder what ?” Carella asked.

“It’s no wonder Margaret was going to leave him.”

“Margaret?”

“My daughter.”

“Oh. Oh, yes,” Carella said. “You call her Margaret, do you?”

“That’s the name she was born with.”

“Yes, but most people called her Irene, isn’t that true?”

“Margaret was the name we gave her, and Margaret was what we called her. Why? What’s the matter with that name?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Carella said hastily. “It’s a very nice name.”

“If it’s good enough for the princess of England, it’s good enough for anybody,” Mrs. Tomlinson said.

“Certainly,” Carella said.

“Certainly,” Mrs. Tomlinson agreed, and she nodded her head vigorously.

“She was going to leave him?” Hawes asked.

“Yes.”

“You mean divorce him?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“She told me. How do you think I know?

Mothers and daughters shouldn’t keep secrets from each other I told Margaret anything she wanted to know, and she did the same with me.”

“When did she plan on leaving him, Mrs. Tomlinson?”