Ed McBain: Give the Boys a Great Big Hand

“Well, thank you. Thank you.”

“I wish I had a nickel for every case you fellows made easier for us to crack,” Carella said, more fervently this time, almost carried away by himself.

“Well, gosh, thanks. What can I do for you, Carella?”

“Your report was an excellent one,” Carella said, “and very helpful, too. But there was just one thing.”

“Yes?”

“I wonder if you can tell me anything about the person who did the job.”

“Did the job?”

“Yes. Your report told us a lot about the victim, and that’s excellent... ”

“Yes?”

“Yes, and very helpful. But what about the perpetrator?”

“The perpetrator?”

“Yes, the man or woman who did the surgery.”

“Oh. Oh, yes, of course,” Blaney said. “You know, after you’ve been examining corpses for a while, you forget that someone was responsible for the corpse, do you know what I mean? It becomes... well, sort of a mathematical problem.”

“I can understand that,” Carella said. “But about the person responsible for this particular corpse, could you tell anything from the surgery?”

“Well, the hand was severed slightly above the wrist.”

“Could you tell what kind of a tool was used?”

“Either a meat cleaver or a hatchet, I would say. Or something similar.”

“Was it a clean job?”

“Fairly. Whoever did it had to hack through those bones. But there were no hesitation cuts anywhere on the hand, so the person who severed it from the body was probably determined and sure.”

“Skillful?”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, would you say the person had any knowledge of anatomy?”

“I wouldn’t think so,” Blaney answered. “The logical place for the cut would have been at the wrist itself, where the radius and ulna terminate. That certainly would have been easier than hacking through those bones. No, I would discount anyone with a real knowledge of anatomy. In fact, I can’t understand why the hand was dismembered, can you?”

“I don’t think I follow you, Blaney?”

“You’ve seen dismemberment cases before, Carella. We usually find the head, and then the trunk, and then the four extremities. But if a person is going to cut off an arm, why then cut off the hand? Do you know what I mean? It’s an added piece of work that doesn’t accomplish very much.”

“Yeah, I see,” Carella said.

“Most bodies are dismembered or mutilated because the criminal is attempting to avoid identification of the body. That’s why the fingertips of that hand were mutilated.”

“Of course.”

“And sometimes your killer will cut up the body to make disposal easier. But cutting off a hand at the wrist? How would that serve either purpose?”

“I don’t know,” Carella said. “In any case, we’re not dealing with a surgeon or a doctor here, is that right?”

“I would say not.”

“How about a butcher?”

“Maybe. The bones were severed with considerable force. That might imply a man familiar with his tools, the fingertips were neatly sliced.”

“Okay, Blaney, thanks a lot.”

“Any time,” Blaney said happily, and hung up.

Carella thought for a moment about dismembered bodies. There was suddenly a very sour taste in his mouth. He went into the Clerical Office and asked Miscolo to make a pot of coffee.

In Captain Frick’s office downstairs, a patrolman named Richard Genero was on the carpet. Frick, who was technically in command of the entire precinct — his command, actually, very rarely intruded upon the activities of the detective squad — was not a very imaginative man, nor in truth a very intelligent one. He liked being a policeman, he supposed, but he would rather have been a movie star. Movie stars got to meet glamorous women. Police captains only got to bawl out patrolmen.

“Am I to understand, Genero,” he said, “that you don’t know whether the person who left this bag on the sidewalk was a man or a woman, is that what I am made to understand, Genero?”

“Yes, sir,” Genero said.

“You can’t tell a man from a woman, Genero?”

“No, sir. I mean, yes, sir, I can sir, but it was raining.”

“So?”

“And this person’s face was covered. By an umbrella, sir.”

“Was this person wearing a dress?”

“No, sir.”

“A skirt?”

“No, sir.”

“Pants?”

“Do you mean trousers, sir?”

“Yes, of course I mean trousers!” Frick shouted.

“Well, sir, yes, sir. That is, they could have been slacks. Like women wear, sir. Or they could have been trousers. Like men wear, sir.”

“And what did you do when you saw the bag on the sidewalk?”

“I yelled after the bus, sir.”

“And then what?”

“Then I opened the bag.”

“And when you saw what was inside it?”

“I... I guess I got a little confused, sir.”

“Did you go after the bus?”

“N... n... no, sir.”

“Are you aware that there was another bus stop three blocks away?”

“No, sir.”

“There was, Genero. Are you aware that you could have hailed a passing car, and caught that bus, and boarded it, and arrested the person who left this bag on the sidewalk? Are you aware of that, Genero?”

“Yes, sir. I mean, I wasn’t aware of it at the time, sir. I am now, sir.”

“And saved us the trouble of sending this bag to the laboratory, or of having the Detective Division trot all the way out to International Airport?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Or of trying to find the other pieces of that body, of hoping we can identify the body after we have all the pieces, are you aware of all this, Genero?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then how can you be so goddamn stupid, Genero?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“We contacted the bus company,” Frick said. “The bus that passed that corner at two-thirty — was that the time, Genero?”

“Yes, sir.”

“—at two-thirty was bus number 8112. We talked to the driver. He doesn’t remember anyone in black boarding the bus at that corner, man or woman.”

“There was a person, sir. I saw him. Or her, sir.”

“No one’s doubting your word, Genero. A bus driver can’t be expected to remember everyone who gets on and off his goddamn bus. In any case, Genero, we’re right back where we started. And all because you didn’t think. Why didn’t you think, Genero?”

“I don’t know, sir. I was too shocked, I guess.”

“Boy, there are times I wish I was a movie star or something,” Frick said. “All right, get out. Look alive, Genero. Keep on your goddamn toes.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Go on, get out.”

“Yes, sir.” Genero saluted and left the captain’s office hurriedly, thanking his lucky stars that no one had discovered he’d had two glasses of wine in Max Mandel’s shop just before finding the bag. Frick sat at his desk and sighed heavily. Then he buzzed Lieutenant Byrnes upstairs and told him he could deliver the bag to the lab whenever he wanted to. Byrnes said he would send a man down for it at once.

The photograph of the bag lay on Nelson Piat’s desk.

“Yes, that’s one of our bags, all right,” he said. “Nice photograph, too. Did you take the photograph?”

“Me, personally, do you mean?” Detective Meyer Meyer asked.

“Yes.”

“No. A police photographer took it.”

“Well, it’s our bag, all right,” Piat said. He leaned back in his leather-covered swivel chair, dangerously close to the huge sheet of glass that formed one wall of his office. The office was on the fourth floor of the Administration Building at International Airport, overlooking the runway. The runway now was drenched with lashing curtains of rain that swept its slick surface. “Damn rain,” Piat said. “Bad for our operation.”