Doll

Chapter 11

The patrolman came up to the squadroom on Monday morning, and waited outside the slatted rail divider until Meyer signaled him in. Then he opened the gate and walked over to Meyer’s desk.

‘I don’t think you know me,’ he said, ‘I’m Patrolman Angieri.’

‘I think I’ve seen you around,’ Meyer said.

‘I feel funny bringing this up because maybe you already know it. My wife said I should tell you, anyway.’

‘What is it?’

‘I’ve only been here at thus precinct for six months, this is my first precinct, I’m a rew cop.’

‘Um-huh,’ Meyer said.

‘If you already know this, juct skip it, okay? My wife says maybe you don’t know it, and maybe it’s important.’

‘Well, what is it?’ Meyer asked patiently.

‘Carella.’

‘What about Carella?’

‘Like I told you, I’m new in the precinct, and I don’t know all the detectives by name, but I recognized him later from his picture in the paper, though it was a picture from when he was a patrolman. Anyway, it was him.’

‘What do you mean? I don’t think I’m with you, Angieri.’

‘Carrying the doll,’ Angieri said.

‘I still don’t get you.’

‘I was on duty in the hall, you know? Outside the apartment. I’m talking about the Tinka Sachs murder.’

Meyer leaned forward suddenly. ‘Yeah, go ahead,’ he said.

‘Well, he come up there last Monday night, it must’ve been five-thirty, six o’clock, and he flashed the tin, and went inside the apartment. When he came out, he was in a hell of a hurry, and he was carrying a doll.’

‘Are you telling me Carella was at the Sachs apartment last Monday night?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive.’ Angieri paused. ‘You didn’t know this, huh? My wife was right.’ He paused again. ‘She’s always right.’

‘What did you say about a doll?’

‘A doll, you know? Like kids play with? Girls? A big doll. With blonde hair, you know? A doll ’

‘Carella came out of the apartment carrying a child’s doll?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Last Monday night?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Did he say anything to you?’

‘Nothing.’

‘A doll,’ Meyer said, puzzled.

It was nine a.m. when Meyer arrived at the Sachs apartment on Stafford Place. He spoke briefly to the superintendent of the building, a man named Manny Farber, and then took the elevator up to the fourth floor. There was no longer a patrolman on duty in the hallway. He went down the corridor and let himself into the apartment, using Tinka’s own key, which had been lent to the investigating precinct by the Office of the Clerk.

The apartment was still.

He could tell at once that death had been here. There are different silences in an empty apartment, and if you are a working policeman, you do not scoff at poetic fallacy. An apartment vacated for the summer has a silence unlike that one that is empty only for the day, with its occupants expected back that night. And an apartment that has known the touch of death possesses a silence unique and readily identifiable to anyone who has ever stared down at a corpse. Meyer knew the silence of death, and understood it, though he could not have told you what accounted for it. The disconnected humless electrical appliances; the unused, undripping water taps; the unringing telephone; the stopped unticking clocks; the sealed windows shutting out all street noises; these were all a part of it, but they only contributed to the whole and were not its sum and substance. The real silence was something only felt, and had nothing to do with the absence of sound. It touched something deep within him the moment he stepped through the door. It seemed to be carried on the air itself, a shuddering reminder that death had passed this way, and that some of its frightening grandeur was still locked inside these rooms. He paused with his hand on the doorknob, and then sighed and closed the door behind him and went into the apartment.

Sunlight glanced through closed windows, dust beams silently hovered on the unmoving air. He walked softly, as though reluctant to stir whatever ghostly remnants still were here. When he passed the child’s room, he looked through the open door and saw the dolls lined up in the bookcase beneath the windows, row upon row of dolls, each dressed differently, each staring back at him with unblinking glass eyes, pink cheeks glowing, mute red mouths frozen on the edge of articulation, painted lips parted over even plastic teeth, nylon hair in black, and red, and blonde, and the palest silver.

He was starting into the room when he heard a key turning in the front door.

The sound startled him. It cracked into the silent apartment like a crash of thunder. He heard the tumblers falling; the sudden click of the knob being turned. He moved into the child’s room just as the front door opened. His eyes swept the room — bookcases, bed, closet, toy chest. He could hear heavy footsteps in the corridor, approaching the room. He threw open the closet door, drew his gun. The footsteps were closer. He eased the door toward him, leaving it open just a crack. Holding his breath, he waited in the darkness.

The man who came into the room was perhaps six feet two inches tall, with massive shoulders and a narrow waist. He paused just inside the doorway, as though sensing the presence of another person, seemed almost to be sniffing the air for a telltale scent. Then, visibly shrugging away his own correct intuition, he dismissed the idea and went quickly to the bookcases. He stopped in front of them and began lifting dolls from the shelves, seemingly at random, bundling them into his arms. He gathered up seven or eight of them, rose, turned toward the door, and was on his way out when Meyer kicked open the closet door.

The man turned, startled, his eyes opening wide. Foolishly, he clung to the dolls in his arms, first looking at Meyer’s face, and then at the Colt .38 in Meyer’s hand, and then up at Meyer’s face again.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘Good question,’ Meyer said. ‘Put those dolls down, hurry up, on the bed there.’

‘What…?’

‘Do as I say, mister!’

The man walked to the bed. He wet his lips, looked at Meyer, frowned, and then dropped the dolls.

‘Get over against the wall,’ Meyer said.

‘Listen, what the hell…?’

‘Spread your legs, bend over, lean against the wall with your palms flat. Hurry up!’

‘All right, take it easy.’ The man leaned against the wall. Meyer quickly and carefully frisked him — chest, pockets, waist, the insides of his legs. Then he backed away from the man and said, ‘Turn around, keep your hands up.’

The man turned, his hands high. He wet his lips again, and again looked at the gun in Meyer’s hand.

‘What are you doing here?’ Meyer asked.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’m a police officer. Answer my—’

‘Oh. Oh, okay,’ the man said.

‘What’s okay about it?’

‘I’m Dennis Sachs.’

‘Who?’

‘Dennis—’

‘Tinka’s husband?’

‘Well, her ex-husband.’

‘Where’s your wallet?’

‘Right here in my—’

‘Don’t reach for it! Bend over against that wall again, go ahead.’

The man did as Meyer ordered. Meyer felt for the wallet and found it in his right hip pocket. He opened it to the driver’s license. The name on the license was Dennis Robert Sachs. Meyer handed it back to him.

‘All right, put your hands down. What are you doing here?’

‘My daughter wanted some of her dolls,’ Sachs said. ‘I came back to get them.’

‘How’d you get in?’

‘I have a key. I used to live here, you know.’

‘It was my understanding you and your wife were divorced.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And you still have a key?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did she know this?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘And that’s all you wanted here, huh? Just the dolls.’

‘Yes.’

‘Any doll in particular?’

‘No.’

‘Your daughter didn’t specify any particular doll?’

‘No, she simply said she’d like some of her dolls, and she asked if I’d come get them for her.’

‘How about your preference?’

‘My preference?’

‘Yes. Did you have any particular doll in mind?’

‘Me?’

That’s right, Mr Sachs. You.’

‘No. What do you mean? Are you talking about dolls?’

‘That’s right, that’s what I’m talking about.’

‘Well, what would I want with any specific doll?’

‘That’s what I’d like to know.’

‘I don’t think I understand you.’

‘Then forget it.’

Sachs frowned and glanced at the dolls on the bed. He hesitated, then shrugged and said, ‘Well, is it all right to take them?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Why not? They belong to my daughter.’

‘We want to look them over, Mr Sachs.’

‘For what?’

‘I don’t know for what. For anything.’

Sachs looked at the dolls again, and then he turned to Meyer and stared at him silently. ‘I guess you know this has been a pretty bewildering conversation,’ he said at last.

‘Yeah, well, that’s the way mysteries are,’ Meyer answered. ‘I’ve got work to do, Mr Sachs. If you have no further business here, I’d appreciate it if you left.’

Sachs nodded and said nothing. He looked at the dolls once again, and then walked out of the room, and down the corridor, and out of the apartment. Meyer waited, listening. The moment he heard the door close behind Sachs, he sprinted down the corridor, stopped just inside the door, counted swiftly to ten, and then eased the door open no more than an inch. Peering out into the hallway, he could see Sachs waiting for the elevator. He looked angry as hell. When the elevator did not arrive, he pushed at the button repeatedly and then began pacing. He glanced once at Tinka’s supposedly closed door, and then turned back to the elevator again. When it finally arrived, he said to the operator. ‘What took you so long?’ and stepped into the car.

Meyer came out of the apartment immediately, closed the door behind him, and ran for the service steps. He took the steps down at a gallop, pausing only for an instant at the fire door leading to the lobby, and then opening the door a crack. He could see the elevator operator standing near the building’s entrance, his arms folded across his chest. Meyer came out into the lobby quickly, glanced back once at the open elevator doors, and then ran past the elevator and into the street. He spotted Sachs turning the corner up the block, and broke into a run after him. He paused again before turning the comer. When he sidled around it, he saw Sachs getting into a taxi. There was no time for Meyer to go to his own parked car. He hailed another cab and said to the driver, just like a cop, ‘Follow that taxi,’ sourly reminding himself that he would have to turn in a chit for the fare, even though he knew Petty Cash would probably never reimburse him. The taxi driver turned for a quick look at Meyer, just to see who was pulling all this cloak and dagger nonsense, and then silently began following Sachs’s cab.

‘You a cop?’ he asked at last.

‘Yeah,’ Meyer said.

‘Who’s that up ahead?’

‘The Boston Strangler,’ Meyer said.

‘Yeah?’

‘Would I kid you?’

‘You going to pay for this ride, or is it like taking apples from a pushcart?’

‘I’m going to pay for it,’ Meyer said. ‘Just don’t lose him, okay?’

It was almost ten o’clock, and the streets were thronged with traffic. The lead taxi moved steadily uptown and then crosstown, with Meyer’s driver skillfully following. The city was a bedlam of noise — honking horns, grinding gears, squealing tires, shouting drivers and pedestrians. Meyer leaned forward and kept his eye on the taxi ahead, oblivious to the sound around him.

‘He’s pulling up, I think,’ the driver said.

‘Good. Stop about six car lengths behind him.’ The taxi meter read eighty-five cents. Meyer took a dollar bill from his wallet, and handed it to the driver the moment he pulled over to the curb. Sachs had already gotten out of his cab and was walking into an apartment building in the middle of the block.

‘Is this all the city tips?’ the driver asked. ‘Fifteen cents on an eighty-five-cent ride?’

‘The city, my ass,’ Meyer said, and leaped out of the cab. He ran up the street, and came into the building’s entrance alcove just as the inner glass door closed behind Sachs. Meyer swung back his left arm and swiftly ran his hand over every bell in the row on the wall. Then, while waiting for an answering buzz, he put his face close to the glass door, shaded his eyes against the reflective glare, and peered inside. Sachs was nowhere in sight; the elevators were apparently around the comer of the lobby. A half-dozen answering buzzes sounded at once, releasing the lock mechanism on the door. Meyer pushed it open, and ran into the lobby. The floor indicator over the single elevator was moving, three, four, five — and stopped. Meyer nodded and walked out to the entrance alcove again, bending to look at the bells there. There were six apartments on the fifth floor. He was studying the names under the bells when a voice behind him said, ‘I think you’re looking for Dr Jason Levi.’

Meyer looked up, startled.

The man standing behind him was Bert Kling.

Dr Jason Levi’s private office was painted an antiseptic white, and the only decoration on its walls was a large, easily readable calendar. His desk was functional and unadorned, made of grey steel, its top cluttered with medical journals and books. X-ray photographs, pharmaceutical samples, tongue depressors, prescription pads. There was a no-nonsense look about the doctor as well, the plain face topped with leonine white hair, the thick-lensed spectacles, the large cleaving nose, the thin-lipped mouth. He sat behind his desk and looked first at the detectives and then at Dennis Sachs, and waited for someone to speak.

‘We want to know what you’re doing here, Mr Sachs,’ Meyer said.

‘I’m a patient,’ Sachs said.

‘Is that true, Dr Levi?’

Levi hesitated. Then he shook his massive head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘That is not true.’

‘Shall we start again?’ Meyer asked.

‘I have nothing to say,’ Sachs answered.

‘Why’d you find it necessary to call Dr Levi from Arizona once a week?’ Kling asked.

‘Who said I did?’

‘Mr Walter Blount, manager of the Major Powell Hotel in Rainfield.’

‘He was lying.’

‘Why would he lie?’

‘I don’t know why,’ Sachs said. ‘Go ask him.’

‘No, we’ll do it the easy way,’ Kling said. ‘Dr Levi, did Mr Sachs call you from Arizona once a week?’

‘Yes,’ Levi said.

‘We seem to have a slight difference of opinion here,’ Meyer said.

‘Why’d he call you?’ Kling asked.

‘Don’t answer that. Doctor!’

‘Dennis, what are we trying to hide. She’s dead.’

‘You’re a doctor, you don’t have to tell them anything. You’re like a priest. They can’t force you to—’

‘Dennis, she is dead.’

‘Did your calls have something to do with your wife?’ Kling asked.

‘No,’ Sachs said.

‘Yes.’ Levi said.

‘Was Tinka your patient, Doctor, is that it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Dr Levi, I forbid you to tell these men anything more about—’

‘She was my patient,’ Levi said, i began treating her at the beginning of the year.’

‘In January?’

‘Yes. January fifth. More than three months ago.’

‘Doctor, I swear on my dead wife that if you go ahead with this. I’m going to ask the A.M.A. to—’

‘Nonsense!’ Levi said fiercely. ‘Your wife is dead! If we can help them find her killer—’

‘You’re not helping them with anything! All you’re doing is dragging her memory through the muck of a criminal investigation.’

‘Mr Sachs,’ Meyer said, ‘whether you know it or not, her memory is already in the muck of a criminal investigation.’

‘Why did she come to you. Doctor?’ Kling asked. ‘What was wrong with her?’

‘She said she had made a New Year’s resolution, said she had decided once and for all to seek medical assistance. It was quite pathetic, really. She was so helpless, and so beautiful, and so alone.’

‘I couldn’t stay with her any longer!’ Sachs said. ‘I’m not made of iron! I couldn’t handle it. That’s why we got the divorce. It wasn’t my fault, what happened to her.’

‘No one is blaming you for anything,’ Levi said. ‘Her illness went back a long time, long before she met you.’

‘What was this illness, Doctor?’ Meyer asked.

‘Don’t tell them!’

‘Dennis. I have to—’

‘You don’t have to! Leave it the way it is. Let her live in everyone’s memory as a beautiful exciting woman instead of—’

Dennis cut himself off.

‘Instead of what?’ Meyer asked.

The room went silent.

‘Instead of what?’ he said again.

Levi sighed and shook his head.

‘Instead of a drug addict.’