Ed McBain - Give the Boys a Great Big Hand

“No,” Carella said.

“Or the sugar?”

“No.”

They heard her rummaging in the kitchen. Carella poured coffee into the three cups. She came into the room again and put down the butter, the cream, and the sugar.

“There,” she said. “Do you take anything in yours, Detective... Carella, was it?”

“Yes, Carella. No thank you, I’ll have it black.”

“Detective Kling?”

“A little cream and one sugar, thank you.”

“Help yourself to the rolls before they get cold,” she said.

The detectives helped themselves. She sat opposite them, watching.

“Take your coffee, Mrs. Androvich,” Carella said.

“Oh, yes. Thank you.” She picked up her cup, put three spoonfuls of sugar into it, and sat stirring it idly.

“Do you think you’ll find him?” she asked.

“We hope so.”

“Do you think anything’s happened to him?”

“That’s hard to say, Mrs. Androvich.”

“He was such a big man.” She shrugged.

“Was, Mrs. Androvich?”

“Did I say ‘was’? I guess I did. I guess I think of him as gone for good.”

“Why should you think that?”

“I don’t know.”

“It sounds as if he was very much in love with you.”

“Oh yes. Yes, he was.” She paused. “Are the rolls all right?”

“Delicious,” Carella said.

“Fine,” Kling added.

“I get them delivered. I don’t go out much. I’m here most of the time. Right here in this apartment.”

“Why do you think your husband went off like that, Mrs. Androvich?”

“I don’t know.”

“You didn’t quarrel or anything that morning, did you?”

“No. No, we didn’t quarrel.”

“I don’t mean a real fight or anything,” Carella said. “Just a quarrel, you know. Anyone who’s married has a quarrel every now and then.”

“Are you married, Detective Carella?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Do you quarrel sometimes?”

“Yes.”

“Karl and I didn’t quarrel that morning,” she said flatly.

“But you did quarrel sometimes?”

“Yes. About going back to Atlanta mostly. That was all. Just about going back to Atlanta. Because I don’t like this city, you see.”

“That’s understandable,” Carella said. “Not being familiar with it, and all. Have you ever been uptown?”

“Uptown where?”

“Culver Avenue? Hall Avenue?”

“Where the big department stores are?”

“No, I was thinking of a little further uptown. Near Grover Park.”

“No. I don’t know where Grover Park is.”

“You’ve never been uptown?”

“Not that far uptown.”

“Do you have a raincoat, Mrs. Androvich?”

“A what?”

“A raincoat.”

“Yes, I do. Why?”

“What color is it, Mrs. Androvich?”

“My raincoat?”

“Yes.”

“It’s blue.” She paused. “Why?”

“Do you have a black one?”

“No. Why?”

“Do you ever wear slacks?”

“Hardly ever.”

“But sometimes you do wear slacks?”

“Only in the house sometimes. When I’m cleaning. I never wear them in the street. Where I was raised, in Atlanta, a girl wore dresses and skirts and pretty things.”

“Do you have an umbrella, Mrs. Androvich?”

“Yes, I do.”

“What color is it?”

“Red. I don’t think I understand all this, Detective Carella.”

“Mrs. Androvich, I wonder if we could see the raincoat and the umbrella.”

“What for?”

“Well, we’d like to.”

She stared at Carella and then turned her puzzled gaze on Kling. “All right,” she said at last. “Would you come into the bedroom, please?” They followed her into the other room. “I haven’t made the bed yet, you’ll have to forgive the appearance of the house.” She pulled the blanket up over the rumpled sheets as she passed the bed on the way to the closet. She threw open the closet door and said, “There’s the raincoat. And there’s the umbrella.”

The raincoat was blue. The umbrella was red.

“Thank you,” Carella said. “Do you have your meat delivered, too, Mrs. Androvich?”

“My what?”

“Meat. From the butcher.”

“Yes, I do. Detective Carella, would you mind please telling me what this is all about? All these questions, you make it sound as if—”

“Well, it’s just routine, Mrs. Andovich, that’s all. Just trying to learn a little about your husband’s habits, that’s all.”

“What’s my raincoat and my umbrella got to do with Karl’s habits?”

“Well, you know.”

“No, I don’t know.”

“Do you own a meat cleaver, Mrs. Androvich?”

She stared at Carella a long time before answering. Then she said, “What’s that got to do with Karl?”

Carella did not answer.

“Is Karl dead?” she said. “Is that it?”

He did not answer.

“Did someone use a meat cleaver on him? Is that it? Is that it?”

“We don’t know, Mrs. Androvich.”

“Do you think I did it? Is that what you’re saying?”

“We have no knowledge whatever about your husband’s whereabouts, Mrs. Androvich. Dead or alive. This is all routine.”

“Routine, huh? What happened? Did someone wearing a raincoat and carrying an umbrella hit my husband with a cleaver? Is that what happened?”

“No, Mrs. Androvich. Do you own a meat cleaver?”

“Yes, I do,” she said. “It’s in the kitchen. Would you like to see it? Maybe you can find some of Karl’s skull on it. Isn’t that what you’d like to find?”

“This is just a routine investigation, Mrs. Androvich.”

“Are all detectives as subtle as you?” she wanted to know.

“I’m sorry if I’ve upset you, Mrs. Androvich. May I see that cleaver? If it’s not too much trouble.”

“This way,” she said coldly, and she led them out of the bedroom, through the living room, and into the kitchen. The cleaver was a small one, its cutting edge dull and nicked. “That’s it,” she said.

“I’d like to take this with me, if you don’t mind,” Carella said.

“Why?”

“What kind of candy did your husband bring you on Valentine’s Day, Mrs. Androvich?”

“Nuts. Fruits. A mixed assortment.”

“From where? Who made the candy?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Was it a large box?”

“A pound.”

“But you called it a big box of candy when you first spoke of it. You said there was a big box of candy on the kitchen table when you woke up. Isn’t that what you said?”

“Yes. It was in the shape of a heart. It looked big to me.”

“But it was only a pound box of candy, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“And the dozen red roses? When did they arrive?”

“At about six A.M.”

“And you put them in a vase?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have a vase big enough to hold a dozen roses?”

“Yes, of course I do. Karl was always bringing me flowers. So I bought a vase one day.”

“Big enough to hold a dozen red roses, right?”

“Yes.”

“They were red roses, a dozen of them?”

“Yes.”

“No white ones? Just a dozen red roses?”

“Yes, yes, a dozen red roses. All red. And I put them in a vase.”

“You said two dozen, Mrs. Androvich. When you first mentioned them, you said there were two dozen.”

“What?”

“Two dozen.”

“I—”

“Were there any flowers at all, Mrs. Androvich?”

“Yes, yes. Yes, there were flowers. I must have made a mistake. It was only a dozen. Not two dozen. I must have been thinking of something else.”

“Was there candy, Mrs. Androvich?”

“Yes, of course there was candy.”