Doll

Chapter 10

The car had been found at the bottom of a steep embankment off Route 407. The road was winding and narrow, rarely used branch connecting the towns of Middlebarth and York, both of which were serviced by wider, straighter highways. 407 was an oiled road, pot-holed and frost-heaved, used almost entirely by teenagers searching for a nighttime necking spot. The shoulders were muddy and soft, except for one place where the road widened and ran into the approach to what had once been a gravel pit. It was at the bottom of this pit that the burned vehicle and its more seriously burned passenger had been discovered.

There was only one house on Route 407, five and a half miles from the gravel pit. The house was built of native stone and timber, a rustic affair with a screened back porch overlooking a lake reportedly containing bass. The house was surrounded by white birch and flowering forsythia. Two dogwoods flanked the entrance driveway, their buds ready to burst. The rain had stopped but a fine mist hung over the lake, visible from the turn in the driveway. A huge oak dripped clinging raindrops onto the ground. The countryside was still. The falling drops clattered noisily.

Detectives Hal Willis and Arthur Brown parked the car at the top of the driveway, and walked past the dripping oak to the front door of the house. The door was painted green with a huge brass doorknob centered in its lower panel and a brass knocker centered in the top panel. A locked padlock still hung in a hinge hasp and staple fastened to the door. But the hasp staple had been pried loose of the jamb, and there were deep gouges in the wood where a heavy tool had been used for the job. Willis opened the door, and they went into the house.

There was the smell of contained woodsmoke, and the stench of something else. Brown’s face contorted. Gagging, he pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and covered his nose and mouth. Willis had backed away toward the door again, turning his face to the outside air. Brown took a quick look at the large stone fireplace at the far end of the room, and then caught Willis by the elbow and led him outside.

‘Any question in your mind?’ Willis asked.

‘None,’ Brown said. ‘That’s the smell of burned flesh.’

‘We got any masks in the car?’

‘I don’t know. Let’s check the trunk.’

They walked back to the car. Willis took the keys from the ignition and leisurely unlocked the trunk. Brown began searching.

‘Everything in here but the kitchen sink,’ he said. ‘What the hell’s this thing?’

‘That’s mine,’ Willis said.

‘Well, what is it?’

‘It’s a hat, what do you think it is?’

‘It doesn’t look like any hat I’ve ever seen,’ Brown said.

‘I wore it on a plant couple of weeks ago.’

‘What were you supposed to be?’

‘A foreman.’

‘Of what?’

‘A chicken market.’

‘That’s some hat, man,’ Brown said, and chuckled.

‘That’s a good hat,’ Willis said. ‘Don’t make fun of my hat. All the ladies who came in to buy chickens said it was a darling hat.’

‘Oh, no question,’ Brown said. ‘It’s a cunning hat.’

‘Any masks in there?’

‘Here’s one. That’s all I see.’

‘The canister with it?’

‘Yeah, it’s all here.’

‘Who’s going in?’ Willis said.

‘I’ll take it,’ Brown said.

‘Sure, and then I’ll have the N.A.A.C.P. down on my head.’

‘We’ll just have to chance that,’ Brown said, returning Willis’s smile. ‘We’ll just have to chance it, Hal.’ He pulled the mask out of its carrier, found the small tin of antidim compound, scooped some onto the provided cloth, and wiped it onto the eyepieces. He seated the facepiece on his chin, moved the canister and head harness into place with an upward, backward sweep of his hands, and then smoothed the edges of the mask around his face.

‘Is it fogging?’ Willis said.

‘No, it’s okay.’

Brown closed the outlet valve with two fingers and exhaled, clearing the mask. ‘Okay,’ he said, and began walking toward the house. He was a huge man, six feet four inches tall and weighing two hundred and twenty pounds, with enormous shoulders and chest, long arms, big hands. His skin was very dark, almost black, his hair was kinky and cut close to his scalp, his nostrils were large, his lips were thick. He looked like a Negro, which is what he was, take him or leave him. He did not at all resemble the white man’s pretty concept of what a Negro should look like, the image touted in a new wave of magazine and television ads. He looked like himself. His wife Caroline liked the way he looked, and his daughter Connie liked the way he looked, and — more important — he liked the way he looked, although he didn’t look so great at the moment with a mask covering his face and hoses running to the canister resting at the back of his neck. He walked into the house and paused just inside the door. There were parallel marks on the floor, beginning at the jamb and running vertically across the room. He stooped to look at the marks more closely. They were black and evenly spaced, and he recognized them immediately as scuff marks. He rose and followed the marks to the fireplace, where they ended. He did not touch anything in or near the open mouth of the hearth; he would leave that for the lab boys. But he was convinced now that a man wearing shoes, if nothing else, had been dragged across the room from the door to the fireplace. According to what they’d learned yesterday, Ernest Messner had been incinerated in a wood-burning fire. Well, there had certainly been a wood-burning fire in this room, and the stink he and Willis had encountered when entering was sure as hell the stink of burned human flesh. And now there were heel marks leading from the door to the fireplace. Circumstantially, Brown needed nothing more.

The only question was whether the person cooked in this particular fireplace was Ernest Messner or somebody else.

He couldn’t answer that one, and anyway his eyepieces were beginning to fog. He went outside, took off the mask, and suggested to Willis that they drive into either Middlebarth or York to talk to some real estate agents about who owned the house with the smelly fireplace.

Elaine Hinds was a small, compact redhead with blue eyes and long fingernails. Her preference ran to small men, and she was charmed to distraction by Hal Willis, who was the shortest detective on the squad. She sat in a swivel chair behind her desk in the office of Hinds Real Estate in Middlebarth, and crossed her legs, and smiled, and accepted Willis’s match to her cigarette, and graciously murmured, ‘Thank you,’ and then tried to remember what question he had just asked her. She uncrossed her legs, crossed them again, and then said, ‘Yes, the house on 407.’

‘Yes, do you know who owns it?’ Willis asked. He was not unaware of the effect he seemed to be having on Miss Elaine Hinds, and he suspected he would never hear the end of it from Brown. But he was also a little puzzled. He had for many years been the victim of what he called the Mutt and Jeff phenomenon, a curious psychological and physiological reversal that made him irresistibly attractive to very big girls. He had never dated a girl who was shorter than five-nine in heels. One of his girl friends was five-eleven in her stockinged feet, and she was hopelessly in love with him. So he could not now understand why tiny little Elaine Hinds seemed so interested in a man who was only five feet eight inches tall, with the slight build of a dancer and the hands of a Black Jack dealer. He had, of course, served with the Marines and was an expert at judo, but Miss Hinds had no way of knowing that he was a giant among men, capable of breaking a man’s back by the mere flick of an eyeball — well, almost. What then had caused her immediate attraction? Being a conscientious cop, he sincerely hoped it would not impede the progress of the investigation. In the meantime, he couldn’t help noticing that she had very good legs and that she kept crossing and uncrossing them like an undecided virgin.

‘The people who own that house,’ she said, uncrossing her legs, ‘are Mr and Mrs Jerome Brandt, would you like some coffee or something? I have some going in the other room.’

‘No, thank you,’ Willis said. ‘How long have—’

‘Mr Brown?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘How long have the Brandts been living there?’

‘Well, they haven’t. Not really.’

‘I don’t think I understand,’ Willis said.

Elaine Hinds crossed her legs, and leaned close to Willis, as though about to reveal something terribly intimate. ‘They bought it to use as a summer place,’ she said. ‘Mavis County is a marvelous resort area, you know, with many lakes and streams and with the ocean not too far from any point in the county. We’re supposed to have less rainfall per annum than—’

‘When did they buy it, Miss Hinds?’

‘Last year. I expect they’ll open the house after Memorial Day, but it’s been closed all winter.’

‘Which explains the broken hasp on the front door,’ Brown said.

‘Has it been broken?’ Elaine said. ‘Oh, dear,’ and she uncrossed her legs.

‘Miss Hinds, would you say that many people in the area knew the house was empty?’

‘Yes, I’d say it was common knowledge, do you enjoy police work?’

‘Yes, I do,’ Willis said.

‘It must be terribly exciting.’

‘Sometimes the suspense is unbearable,’ Brown said.

‘I’ll just bet it is,’ Elaine said.

‘It’s my understanding,’ Willis said, glancing sharply at Brown, ‘that 407 is a pretty isolated road, and hardly ever used. Is that correct?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Elaine said. ‘Route 126 is a much better connection between Middlebarth and York, and of course the new highway runs past both towns. As a matter of fact, most people in the area avoid 407. It’s not a very good road, have you been on it?’

‘Yes. Then, actually, anyone living around here would have known the house was empty, and would also have known the road going by it wasn’t traveled too often. Would you say that?’

‘Oh, yes, Mr Willis, I definitely would say that,’ Elaine said.

Willis looked a little startled. He glanced at Brown, and then cleared his throat. ‘Miss Hinds, what sort of people are the Brandts? Do you know them?’

‘Yes, I sold the house to them. Jerry’s an executive at IBM.’

‘And his wife?’

‘Maxine’s a woman of about fifty, three or four years younger than Jerry. A lovely person.’

‘Respectable people, would you say?’

‘Oh, yes, entirely respectable,’ Elaine said. ‘My goodness, of course they are.’

‘Would you know if either of them were up here Monday night?’

‘I don’t know. I imagine they would have called if they were coming. I keep the keys to the house here in the office, you see. I have to arrange for maintenance, and it’s necessary—’

‘But they didn’t call to say they were coming up?’

‘No, they didn’t.’ Elaine paused. ‘Does this have anything to do with the auto wreck on 407?’

‘Yes, Miss Hinds, it does.’

‘Well, how could Jerry or Maxine be even remotely connected with that?’

‘You don’t think they could?’

‘Of course not. I haven’t seen them for quite some time now, but we did work closely together when I was handling the deal for them last October. Believe me, you couldn’t find a sweeter couple. That’s unusual, especially with people who have their kind of money.’

‘Are they wealthy, would you say?’

‘The house cost forty-two thousand five hundred dollars. They paid for it in cash.’

‘Who’d they buy it from?’ Willis asked.

‘Well, you probably wouldn’t know her, but I’ll bet your wife would.’

‘I’m not married,’ Willis said.

‘Oh? Aren’t you?’

‘Who’d they buy it from?’ Brown asked.

‘A fashion model named Tinka Sachs. Do you know her?’

If they had lacked, before this, proof positive that the man in the wrecked automobile was really Ernest Messner, they now possessed the single piece of information that tied together the series of happenings and eliminated the possibility of reasonable chance or coincidence:

1) Tinka Sachs had been murdered in an apartment on Stafford Place on Friday, April ninth.

2) Ernest Messner was the elevator operator on duty there the night of her murder.

3) Ernest Messner had taken a man up to her apartment and had later given a good description of him.

4) Ernest Messner had vanished on Monday night, April twelfth.

5) An incinerated body was found the next day in a wrecked auto on Route 407, the connecting road between Middlebarth and York, in Mavis County.

6) The medical examiner had stated his belief that the body in the automobile had been incinerated in a wood fire elsewhere and only later placed in the automobile.

7) There was only one house on Route 407, five and a half miles from where the wrecked auto was found in the gravel pit.

8) There had been a recent wood fire in the fireplace of that house, and the premises smelled of burned flesh. There were also heel marks on the floor, indicating that someone had been dragged to the fireplace.

9) The house had once been owned by Tinka Sachs, and was sold only last October to its new owners.

It was now reasonable to assume that Tinka’s murderer knew he had been identified, and had moved with frightening dispatch to remove the man who’d seen him. It was also reasonable to assume that Tinka’s murderer knew of the empty house in Mavis County and had transported Messner’s body there for the sole purpose of incinerating it beyond recognition, the further implication being that the murderer had known Tinka at least as far back as last October when she’d still owned the house. There were still a few unanswered questions, of course, but they were small things and nothing that would trouble any hard-working police force anywhere. The cops of the 87th wondered, for example, who had killed Tinka Sachs, and who had killed Ernest Messner, and who had taken Carella’s shield and gun from him and wrecked his auto, and whether Carella was still alive, and where?

It’s the small things in life that can get you down.

Those airline schedules kept bothering Kling.

He knew he had been taken off the case, but he could not stop thinking about those airline schedules, or the possibility that Dennis Sachs had flown from Phoenix and back sometime between Thursday night and Monday morning. From his apartment that night, he called Information and asked for the name and number of the hotel in Rainfield, Arizona. The local operator connected him with Phoenix Information, who said the only hotel listing they had in Rainfield was for the Major Powell on Main Street, was this the hotel Kling wanted? Kling said it was, and they asked if they should place the call. He knew that if he was eventually suspended, he would lose his gun, his shield and his salary until the case was decided, so he asked the operator how much the call would cost, and she said it would cost two dollars and ten cents for the first three minutes, and sixty-five cents for each additional minute. Kling told her to go ahead and place the call, station to station.

The man who answered the phone identified himself as Walter Blount, manager of the hotel.

This is Detective Bert Kling,’ Kling said. ‘We’ve had a murder here, and I’d like to ask you some questions, if I may. I’m calling long distance.

‘Go right ahead, Mr Kling,’ Blount said.

‘To begin with, do you know Dennis Sachs?’

‘Yes, I do. He’s a guest here, part of Dr Tarsmith’s expedition.’

‘Were you on duty a week ago last Thursday night, April eighth?’

‘I’m on duty all the time,’ Blount said.

‘Do you know what time Mr Sachs came in from the desert?’

‘Well, I couldn’t rightly say. They usually come in at about seven, eight o’clock, something like that.’

‘Would you say they came in at about that time on April eighth?’

‘I would say so, yes.’

‘Did you see Mr Sachs leaving the hotel at any time that night?’

‘Yes, he left, oh, ten-thirty or so, walked over to the railroad station.’

‘Was he carrying a suitcase?’

‘He was.’

‘Did he mention where he was going?’

‘The Royal Sands in Phoenix, I’d reckon. He asked us to make a reservation for him there, so I guess that’s where he was going, don’t you think?’

‘Did you make the reservation for him personally. Mr Blount?’

‘Yes, sir, I did. Single with a bath, Thursday night to Sunday morning. The rates—’

‘What time did Mr Sachs return on Monday morning?’

‘About six a.m. Had a telegram waiting for him here, his wife got killed. Well, I guess you know that, I guess that’s what this is all about. He called the airport right away, and then got back on the train for Phoenix, hardly unpacked at all.’

‘Mr Blount, Dennis Sachs told me that he spoke to his ex-wife on the telephone at least once a week. Would you know if that was true?’

‘Oh, sure, he was always calling back east.’

‘How often, would you say?’

‘At least once a week, that’s right. Even more than that, I’d say.’

‘How much more?’

‘Well… in the past two months or so, he’d call her three, maybe four times a week, something like that. He spent a hell of a lot of time making calls back east, ran up a pretty big phone bill here.’

‘Calling his wife, you mean.’

‘Well, not only her.’

‘Who else?’

‘I don’t know who the other party was.’

‘But he did make calls to other numbers here in the city?’

‘Well, one other number.’

‘Would you happen to know that number offhand, Mr Blount?’

‘No, but I’ve got a record of it on our bills. It’s not his wife’s number because I’ve got that one memorized by heart, he’s called it regular ever since he first came here a year ago. This other one is new to me.’

‘When did he start calling it?’

‘Back in February, I reckon.’

‘How often?’

‘Once a week, usually.’

‘May I have the number, please?’

‘Sure, just let me look it up for you.’

Kling waited. The line crackled. His hand on the receiver was sweating.

‘Hello?’ Blount said.

‘Hello?’

‘The number is SE — I think that stands for Sequoia — SE 3-1402.’

‘Thank you,’ Kling said.

‘Not at all,’ Blount answered.

Kling hung up, waited patiently for a moment with his hand on the receiver, lifted it again, heard the dial tone, and instantly dialed SE 3-1402. The phone rang insistently. He counted each separate ring, four, five, six, and suddenly there was an answering voice.

‘Dr Levi’s wire,’ the woman said.

‘This is Detective Kling of the 87th Squad here in the city,’ Kling said, is this an answering service?’

‘Yes, sir, it is.’

‘Whose phone did you say this was?’

‘Dr Levi’s.’

‘And the first name?’

‘Jason.’

‘Do you know where I can reach him?’

‘I’m sorry, sir, he’s away for the weekend. He won’t be back until Monday morning.’ The woman paused, is this in respect to a police matter, or are you calling for a medical appointment?’

‘A police matter,’ Kling said.

‘Well, the doctor’s office hours begin at ten Monday morning. If you’d care to call him then. I’m sure—’

‘What’s his home number?’ Kling asked.

‘Calling him there won’t help you. He really is away for the weekend.’

‘Do you know where?’

‘No, I’m sorry.’

‘Well, let me have his number, anyway,’ Kling said.

‘I’m not supposed to give out the doctor’s home number. I’ll try it for you, if you like. If the doctor’s there — which I know he isn’t — I’ll ask him to call you back. May I have your number, please?’

‘Yes, it’s Roxbury 2, that’s RO 2-7641.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Will you please call me in any event, to let me know if you reached him or not?’

‘Yes, sir, I will.’

‘Thank you.’

‘What did you say your name was?’

‘Kling, Detective Bert Kling.’

‘Yes, sir, thank you,’ she said, and hung up.

Kling waited by the phone.

In five minutes’ time, the woman called back. She said she had tried the doctor’s home number and — as she’d known would be the case all along — there was no answer. She gave him the doctor’s office schedule and told him he could try again on Monday, and then she hung up.

It was going to be a long weekend.

Teddy Carella sat in the living room alone for a long while after Lieutenant Byrnes left, her hands folded in her lap, staring into shadows of the room and hearing nothing but the murmur of her own thoughts.

We now know, the lieutenant had said, that the man we found in the automobile definitely wasn’t Steve. He’s a man named Ernest Messner, and there is no question about it, Teddy, so I want you to know that. But I also want you to know this doesn’t mean Steve is still alive. We just don’t know anything about that yet, although we’re working on it. The only thing it does indicate is that at least he’s not for certain dead.

The lieutenant paused. She watched his face. He looked back at her curiously, wanting to be sure she understood everything he had told her. She nodded.

I knew this yesterday, the lieutenant said, but I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t want to raise your hopes until I had checked it out thoroughly. The medical examiner’s office gave this top priority, Teddy. They still haven’t finished the autopsy on the Sachs case because, well, you know, when we thought this was Steve, well, we put a lot of pressure on them. Anyway, it isn’t. It isn’t Steve, I mean. We’ve got Paul Blaney’s word for that, and he’s an excellent man, and we’ve also got the corroboration — what? Corroboration, did you get it? the corroboration of the chief medical examiner as well. So now I’m sure, so I’m telling you. And about the other, we’re working on it, as you know, and as soon as we’ve got anything, I’ll tell you that, too. So that’s about all, Teddy. We’re doing our best.

She had thanked him and offered him coffee, which he refused politely, he was expected home, he had to run, he hoped she would forgive him. She had shown him to the door, and then walked past the playroom, where Fanny was watching television, and then past the room where the twins were sound asleep and then into the living room. She turned out the lights and went to sit near the old piano Carella had bought in a secondhand store downtown, paying sixteen dollars for it and arranging to have it delivered by a furniture man in the precinct. He had always wanted to play the piano, he told her, and was going to start lessons — you’re never too old to learn, right, sweetheart?

The lieutenant’s news soared within her, but she was fearful of it, suspicious: Was it only a temporary gift that would be taken back? Should she tell the children, and then risk another reversal and a second revelation that their father was dead? ‘What does that mean?’ April had asked. ‘Does dead mean he’s never coming back?’ And Mark had turned to his sister and angrily shouted, ‘Shut up, you stupid dope!’ and had run to his room where his mother could not see his tears.

They deserved hope.

They had the right to know there was hope.

She rose and went into the kitchen and scribbled a note on the telephone pad, and then tore off the sheet of paper and carried it out to Fanny. Fanny looked up when she approached, expecting more bad news, the lieutenant brought nothing but bad news nowadays. Teddy handed her the sheet of paper, and Fanny looked at it:

Fanny looked up quickly.

‘Thank God,’ she whispered, and rushed out of the room.