Doll

Chapter 14

The doll measured thirty inches from the top of her blonde head to the bottoms of her black patent-leather shoes. She wore white bobby sox, a ruffled white voile dress with a white nylon underslip, a black velveteen bodice, and a ruffled lace bib and collar. What appeared at first to be a simulated gold brooch was centered just below the collar.

The doll’s trade name was Chatterbox.

There were two D-size flashlight batteries and one 9-volt transistor battery in a recess in the doll’s plastic belly. The recess was covered with a flesh-colored plastic top that was kept in place by a simple plastic twist-lock. Immediately above the battery box there was a flesh-colored, open plastic grid that concealed the miniature electronic device in the doll’s chest. It was this device after which the doll had been named by its creators. The device was a tiny recorder.

The brooch below the doll’s collar was a knob that activated the recording mechanism. To record, a child simply turned the decorative knob counterclockwise, waited for a single beep signal, and began talking until the beep sounded again, at which time the knob had to be turned once more to its center position. In order to play back what had just been recorded, the child had only to turn the knob clockwise. The recorded message would continue to play back over and over again until the knob was once more returned to the center position.

When the detectives turned the brooch-knob clockwise, they heard three recorded voices. One of them belonged to Anna Sachs. It was clear and distinct because the doll had been in Anna’s lap when she’d recorded her message on the night of her mother’s murder. The message was one of reassurance. She kept saying over and over again to the doll lying across her lap, ‘Don’t be frightened, Chatterbox, please don’t be frightened. It’s nothing, Chatterbox, don’t be frightened,’ over and over again.

The second voice was less distinct because it had been recorded through the thin wall separating the child’s bedroom from her mother’s. Subsequent tests by the police laboratory showed the recording mechanism to be extremely sensitive for a device of its size, capable of picking up shouted words at a distance of twenty-five feet. Even so, the second voice would not have been picked up at all had Anna not been sitting very close to the thin dividing wall. And, of course, especially toward the end, the words next door had been screamed.

From beep to beep, the recording lasted only a minute and a half. Throughout the length of the recording, Anna talked reassuringly to her doll. ‘Don’t be frightened, Chatterbox, please don’t be frightened. It’s nothing, Chatterbox, don’t be frightened.’ Behind the child’s voice, a running counterpoint of horror, was the voice of Tinka Sachs, her mother. Her words were almost inaudible at first. They presented only a vague murmur of faraway terror, the sound of someone repeatedly moaning, the pitiable rise and fall of a voice imploring — but all without words because the sound had been muffled by the wall between the rooms. And then, as Tinka became more and more desperate, as her killer followed her unmercifully around the room with a knife blade, her voice became louder, the words became more distinct. ‘Don’t! Please don’t!’ always behind the child’s soothing voice in the foreground, ‘Don’t be frightened, Chatterbox, please don’t be frightened,’ and her mother shrieking, ‘Don’t! Please don’t! Please,’ the voices intermingling, ‘I’m bleeding, please, it’s nothing, Chatterbox, don’t be frightened, Fritz, stop, please, Fritz, stop, stop, oh please, it’s nothing. Chatterbox, don’t be frightened.’

The third voice sounded like a man’s. It was nothing more than a rumble on the recording. Only once did a word come through clearly, and that was the word ‘Slut!’ interspersed between the child’s reassurances to her doll, and Tinka’s weakening cries for mercy.

In the end, Tinka shouted the man’s name once again, ‘Fritz!’ and then her voice seemed to fade. The next word she uttered could have been a muted ‘please’, but it was indistinct and drowned out by Anna’s ‘Don’t cry, Chatterbox, try not to cry.’

The detectives listened to the doll in silence, and then watched while the ambulance attendants carried Carella out on one stretcher and the still-breathing Schmidt out on another.

‘The girl’s dead,’ the medical examiner said.

‘I know,’ Meyer answered.

‘Who shot her?’ one of the Homicide cops asked.

‘I did,’ Kling answered.

‘I’ll need the circumstances.’

‘Stay with him,’ Meyer said to Kling. ‘I’ll get to the hospital. Maybe that son of a bitch wants to make a statement before he dies.’

Fritz Schmidt never got to sign his dictated confession because he died seven minutes after the police stenographer began typing it.

The lieutenant stood by while the two Homicide cops questioned Kling. They had advised him not to make a statement before Byrnes arrived, and now that he was here they went about their routine task with dispatch. Kling could not seem to stop crying. The two Homicide cops were plainly embarrassed as they questioned him, a grown man, a cop no less, crying that way. Byrnes watched Kling’s face, and said nothing.

The two Homicide cops were called Carpenter and Calhoun. They looked very much alike. Byrnes had never met any Homicide cops who did not look exactly alike. He supposed it was a trademark of their unique specialty. Watching them, he found it difficult to remember who was Carpenter and who was Calhoun. Even their voices sounded alike.

‘Let’s start with your name, rank, and shield number,’ Carpenter said.

‘Bertram Kling, detective/third, 74579.’

‘Squad?’ Calhoun said.

‘The Eight-Seven.’ He was still sobbing. The tears rolled down his face endlessly.

‘Technically, you just committed a homicide, Kling.’

‘It’s excusable homicide.’ Calhoun said.

‘Justifiable,’ Carpenter corrected.

‘Excusable,’ Calhoun repeated. ‘Penal Law 1054.’

‘Wrong,’ Carpenter said. ‘Justifiable, P.L. 1055. Homicide is justifiable when committed by a public officer in arresting a person who has committed a felony and is fleeing from justice, Justifiable.’

‘Was the broad committing a felony?’ Calhoun asked.

‘Yes,’ Kling said. He nodded. He tried to wipe the tears from his eyes. ‘Yes. Yes, she was.’ The tears would not stop.

‘Explain it.’

‘She was… she was ready to shoot Carella. She was trying to kill him.’

‘Did you fire a warning shot?’

‘No. Her back was turned to me and she was… she was leveling the gun at Carella, so I fired the minute I came into the room. I caught her between the shoulders, I think. With my first shot.’

‘Then what?’

Kling wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. ‘Then she… she started to fire again, and I kicked out at her hand, and the slug went wild. When she… when she got ready to fire the third time, I… I…’

‘You killed her,’ Carpenter said flatly.

‘Justifiable,’ Calhoun said.

‘Absolutely,’ Carpenter agreed.

‘I said so all along,’ Calhoun said.

‘She’d already committed a felony by abducting a police officer, what the hell. And then she fired two shots at him. If that ain’t a felony, I’ll eat all the law books in this crumby state.’

‘You got nothing to worry about.’

‘Except the Grand Jury. This has to go to the Grand Jury, Kling, same as if you were an ordinary citizen.’

‘You still got nothing to worry about,’ Calhoun said.

‘She was going to kill him,’ Kling said blankly. His tears suddenly stopped. He stared at the two Homicide cops as though seeing them for the first time. ‘Not again,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t let it happen again.’

Neither Carpenter nor Calhoun knew what the hell Kling was talking about. Byrnes knew, but he didn’t particularly feel like explaining. He simply went to Kling and said, ‘Forget those department charges I mentioned. Go home and get some rest.’

The two Homicide cops didn’t know what the hell Byrnes was talking about, either. They looked at each other, shrugged, and chalked it all up to the eccentricities of the 87th.

‘Well,’ Carpenter said. ‘I guess that’s that.’

‘I guess that’s that,’ Calhoun said. Then, because Kling seemed to have finally gotten control of himself, he ventured a small joke. ‘Stay out of jail, huh?’ he said.

Neither Byrnes nor Kling even smiled.

Calhoun and Carpenter cleared their throats and walked out without saying good night.

She sat in the darkness of the hospital room and watched her sedated husband, waiting for him to open his eyes, barely able to believe that he was alive, praying now that he would be well again soon.

The doctors had promised to begin treatment at once. They had explained to her that it was difficult to fix the length of time necessary for anyone to become an addict, primarily because heroin procured illegally varied in its degree of adulteration. But Carella had told them he’d received his first injection sometime late Friday night, which meant he had been on the drug for slightly more than three days. In their opinion, a person psychologically prepared for addiction could undoubtedly become a habitual user in that short a time, if he was using pure heroin of normal strength. But they were working on the assumption that Carella had never used drugs before and had been injected only with narcotics acquired illegally and therefore greatly adulterated. If this was the case, anywhere between two and three weeks would have been necessary to transform him into a confirmed addict. At any rate, they would begin withdrawal (if so strong a word was applicable at all) immediately, and they had no doubt that the cure (and again they apologized for using so strong a word) would be permanent. They had explained that there was none of the addict’s usual psychological dependence evident in Carella’s case, and then had gone on at great length about personality disturbances, and tolerance levels, and physical dependence — and then one of the doctors suddenly and quietly asked whether or not Carella had ever expressed a prior interest in experimenting with drugs.

Teddy had emphatically shaken her head.

Well, fine then, they said. We’re sure everything will work out fine. We’re confident of that, Mrs Carella. As for his nose, we’ll have to make a more thorough examination in the morning. We don’t know when he sustained the injury, you see, or whether or not the broken bones have already knitted. In any case, we should be able to reset it, though it may involve an operation. Please be assured we’ll do everything in our power. Would you like to see him now?

She sat in the darkness.

When at last he opened his eyes, he seemed surprised to see her. He smiled and then said, ‘Teddy.’

She returned the smile. She touched his face tentatively.

‘Teddy,’ he said again, and then — because the room was dark and because she would not see his mouth too clearly — he said something which she was sure she misunderstood.

‘That’s your name,’ he said. ‘I didn’t forget.’