Doll

Chapter 8

The message went out on the teletype at a little before ten Thursday morning:

A copy of the teletype was pulled off the squadroom machine by Detective Meyer Meyer who wondered why it had been necessary for the detective at the Missing Persons Bureau to insert the word ‘completely’ before the word ‘bald’. Meyer, who was bald himself, suspected that the description was redundant, over-emphatic, and undoubtedly derogatory. It was his understanding that a bald person had no hair. None. Count them. None. Why, then, had the composer of this bulletin (Meyer visualized him as a bushy-headed man with thick black eyebrows, a black mustache and a full beard) insisted on inserting the word ‘completely’, if not to point a deriding finger at all hairless men everywhere? Indignantly, Meyer went to the squadroom dictionary, searched through balas, balata, Balaton, Balboa, balbriggan, and came to:

Meyer closed the book, reluctantly admitting that whereas it was impossible to be a little pregnant, it was not equally impossible to be a little bald. The composer of the bulletin, bushy-haired bastard that he was, had been right in describing Cyclops as ‘completely bald’. If ever Meyer turned up missing one day, they would describe him in exactly the same way. In the meantime, his trip to the dictionary had not been a total loss. He would hereafter look upon himself as a person who lacked hair on his scalp, a person destitute of some natural growth, bare, plain and unadorned, open and undisguised, having white on the head. Hereafter, he would be known zoologically as The Bald Eagle — Nemesis of All Evil, Protector of the Innocent, Scourge of the Underworld!

‘Beware The Bald Eagle!’ he said aloud, and Arthur Brown looked up from his desk in puzzlement. Happily, the telephone rang at that moment. Meyer picked it up and said, ‘87th Squad.’

‘This is Sam Grossman at the lab. Who’m I talking to?’

‘You’re talking to The Bald Eagle,’ Meyer said.

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, this is The Hairy Ape.’ Grossman said. ‘What’s with you? Spring fever?’

‘Sure, it’s a beautiful day out,’ Meyer said, looking through the window at the rain.

‘Is Kling there? I’ve got something for him on this Tinka Sachs case.’

‘I’m handling that one now,’ Meyer said.

‘Oh? Okay. You feel like doing a little work, or were you planning to fly up to your aerie?’

‘Up your aerie, Mac,’ Meyer said, and burst out laughing.

‘Oh boy, I see I picked the wrong time to call,’ Grossman said. ‘Okay. Okay. When you’ve got a minute later, give me a ring, Okay? I’ll—’

‘The Bald Eagle never has a minute later,’ Meyer said. ‘What’ve you got for me?’

‘This kitchen knife. The murder weapon. According to the tag, it was found just outside her bedroom door, guy probably dropped it on his way out.’

‘Okay, what about it?’

‘Not much. Only it matches a few other knives in the girl’s kitchen, so it’s reasonable to assume it belonged to her. What I’m saying is the killer didn’t go up there with his own knife, if that’s of any use to you.’

‘He took the knife from a bunch of other knives in the kitchen, is that it?’

‘No, I don’t think so. I think the knife was in the bedroom.’

‘What would a knife be doing in the bedroom?’

‘I think the girl used it to slice some lemons.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. There was a pitcher of tea on the dresser. Two lemons, sliced in half, were floating in it. We found lemon-juice stains on the tray, as well as faint scratches left by the knife. We figure she carried the tea, the lemons, and the knife into the bedroom on that tray. Then she sliced the lemons and squeezed them into the tea.’

‘Well, that seems like guesswork to me,’ Meyer said.

‘Not at all. Paul Blaney is doing the medical examination. He says he’s found citric-acid stains on the girl’s left hand, the hand she’d have held the lemons with while slicing with the right. We’ve checked, Meyer. She was right-handed.’

‘Okay, so she was drinking tea before she got killed,’ Meyer said.

‘That’s right. The glass was on the night table near her bed, covered with her prints.’

‘Whose prints were covering the knife?’

‘Nobody’s,’ Grossman said. ‘Or I should say everybody’s. A whole mess of them, all smeared.’

‘What about her pocketbook? Kling’s report said—’

‘Same thing, not a good print on it anywhere. There was no money in it, you know. My guess is that the person who killed her also robbed her.’

‘Mmm, yeah,’ Meyer said. ‘Is that all?’

‘That’s all. Disappointing, huh?’

‘I hoped you might come up with something more.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Sure.’

Grossman was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘Meyer?’

‘Yeah?’

‘You think Carella’s death is linked to this one?’

‘I don’t know,’ Meyer said.

‘I liked that fellow,’ Grossman said, and hung up.

Harvey Sadler was Tinka Sachs’s lawyer and the senior partner in the firm of Sadler, McIntyre and Brooks, with offices uptown on Fisher Street. Meyer arrived there at ten minutes to noon, and discovered that Sadler was just about to leave for the Y.M.C.A. Meyer told him he was there to find out whether or not Tinka Sachs had left a will, and Sadler said she had indeed. In fact, they could talk about it on the way to the Y, if Meyer wanted to join him. Meyer said he wanted to, and the two men went downstairs to catch a cab.

Sadler was forty-five years old, with a powerful build and craggy features. He told Meyer he had played offensive back for Dartmouth in 1940, just before he was drafted into the army. He kept in shape nowadays, he said, by playing handball at the Y two afternoons a week, Mondays and Thursdays. At least, he tried to keep in shape. Even handball twice a week could not completely compensate for the fact that he sat behind a desk eight hours a day.

Meyer immediately suspected a deliberate barb. He had become oversensitive about his weight several weeks back when he discovered what his fourteen-year-old son Alan meant by the nickname ‘Old Crisco’. A bit of off-duty detective work uncovered the information that ‘Old Crisco’ was merely high school jargon for ‘Old Fat-in-the-Can’, a disrespectful term of affection if ever he’d heard one. He would have clobbered the boy, naturally, just to show who was boss, had not his wife Sarah agreed with the little vontz. You are getting fat, she told Meyer; you should begin exercising at the police gym. Meyer, whose boyhood had consisted of a series of taunts and jibes from Gentiles in his neighborhood, never expected to be put down by vipers in his own bosom. He looked narrowly at Sadler now, a soldier in the enemy camp, and suddenly wondered if he was becoming a paranoid Jew. Worse yet, an obese paranoid Jew.

His reservations about Sadler and also about himself vanished the moment they entered the locker room of the Y.M.C.A., which smelled exactly like the locker room of the Y.M.H.A. Convinced that nothing in the world could eliminate suspicion and prejudice as effectively as the aroma of a men’s locker room, swept by a joyous wave of camaraderie, Meyer leaned against the lockers while Sadler changed into his handball shorts, and listened to the details of Tinka’s will.

‘She leaves everything to her ex-husband,’ Sadler said. ‘That’s the way she wanted it.’

‘Nothing to her daughter?’

‘Only if Dennis predeceased Tinka. In that case, a trust was set up for the child.’

‘Did Dennis know this?’ Meyer asked.

‘I have no idea.’

‘Was a copy of the will sent to him?’

‘Not by me.’

‘How many copies did you send Tinka?’

‘Two. The original was kept in our office safe.’

‘Did she request two copies?’

‘No. But it’s our general policy to send two copies of any will to the testator. Most people like to keep one at home for easy reference, and the other in a safe deposit box. At least, that’s been our experience.’

‘We went over Tinka’s apartment pretty thoroughly, Mr Sadler. We didn’t find a copy of any will.’

‘Then perhaps she did send one to her ex-husband. That wouldn’t have been at all unusual.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, they’re on very good terms, you know. And. after all, he is the only real beneficiary. I imagine Tinka would have wanted him to know.’

‘Mmm,’ Meyer said. ‘How large an estate is it?’

‘Well, there’s the painting.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The Chagall.’

‘I still don’t understand.’

‘The Chagall painting. Tinka bought it many years ago, when she first began earning top money as a model. I suppose it’s worth somewhere around fifty thousand dollars today.’

‘That’s a sizable amount.’

‘Yes,’ Sadler said. He was in his shorts now, and he was putting on his black gloves and exhibiting signs of wanting to get out on the court. Meyer ignored the signs.

‘What about the rest of the estate?’ he asked.

‘That’s it,’ Sadler said.

‘That’s what?’

‘The Chagall painting is the estate, or at least the substance of it. The rest consists of household furnishings, some pieces of jewelry, clothing, personal effects — none of them worth very much.’

‘Let me get this straight, Mr Sadler. It’s my understanding that Tinka Sachs was earning somewhere in the vicinity of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. Are you telling me that all she owned of value at her death was a Chagall painting valued at fifty thousand dollars?’

‘That’s right.’

‘How do you explain that?’

‘I don’t know. I wasn’t Tinka’s financial advisor. I was only her lawyer.’

‘As her lawyer, did you ask her to define her estate when she asked you to draw this will?’

‘I did.’

‘How did she define it?’

‘Essentially as I did a moment ago.’

‘When was this, Mr Sadler?’

‘The will is dated March twenty-fourth.’

‘March twenty-fourth? You mean just last month?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Was there any specific reason for her wanting a will drawn at that time?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘I mean, was she worried about her health or anything?’

‘She seemed in good health.’

‘Did she seem frightened about anything? Did she seem to possess a foreknowledge of what was going to happen?’

‘No, she did not. She seemed very tense, but not frightened.’

‘Why was she tense?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did you ask her about it?’

‘No, I did not. She came to me to have a will drawn. I drew it.’

‘Had you ever done any legal work for her prior to the will?’

‘Yes. Tinka once owned a house in Mavis County. I handled the papers when she sold it.’

‘When was that?’

‘Last October.’

‘How much did she get for the sale of the house?’

‘Forty-two thousand, five hundred dollars.’

‘Was there an existing mortgage?’

‘Yes. Fifteen thousand dollars went to pay it off. The remainder went to Tinka.’

Twenty…’ Meyer hesitated, calculating. Twenty-seven thousand, five hundred dollars went to Tinka, is that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘In cash?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where is it, Mr Sadler?’

‘I asked her that when we were preparing the will. I was concerned about estate taxes, you know, and about who would inherit the money she had realized on the sale of the house. But she told me she had used it for personal needs.’

‘She had spent it?’

‘Yes.’ Sadler paused. ‘Mr Meyer, I only play here two afternoons a week, and I’m very jealous of my time. I was hoping…’

‘I won’t be much longer, please bear with me. I’m only trying to find out what Tinka did with all this money that came her way. According to you, she didn’t have a penny of it when she died.’

‘I’m only reporting what she told me. I listed her assets as she defined them for me.’

‘Could I see a copy of the will, Mr Sadler?’

‘Certainly. But it’s in my safe at the office, and I won’t be going back there today. If you’d like to come by in the morning…’

‘I’d hoped to get a look at it before—’

‘I assure you that I’ve faithfully reported everything in the will. As I told you, I was only her lawyer, not her financial adviser.’

‘Did she have a financial adviser?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Mr Sadler, did you handle Tinka’s divorce for her?’

‘No. I began representing her only last year, when she sold the house. I didn’t know her before then, and I don’t know who handled the divorce.’

‘One last question,’ Meyer said. ‘Is anyone else mentioned as a beneficiary in Tinka’s will, other than Dennis or Anna Sachs?’

‘They are the only beneficiaries.’ Sadler said. ‘And Anna only if her father predeceased Tinka.’

‘Thank you,’ Meyer said.

Back at the squadroom, Meyer checked over the typewritten list of all the personal belongings found in Tinka’s apartment. There was no listing for either a will or a bankbook, but someone from Homicide had noted that a key to a safety deposit box had been found among the items on Tinka’s workdesk. Meyer called Homicide to ask about the key, and they told him it had been turned over to the Office of the Clerk, and he could pick it up there if he was interested and if he was willing to sign a receipt for it. Meyer was indeed interested, so he went all the way downtown to the Office of the Clerk, where he searched through Tinka’s effects, finding a tiny red snap-envelope with the safety deposit box key in it. The name of the bank was printed on the face of the miniature envelope. Meyer signed out the key and then — since he was in the vicinity of the various court buildings, anyway — obtained a court order authorizing him to open the safety deposit box. In the company of a court official, he went uptown again by subway and then ran through a pouring rain, courtesy of the vernal equinox, to the First Northern National Bank on the comer of Phillips and Third, a few blocks from where Tinka had lived.

A bank clerk removed the metal box from a tier of similar boxes, asked Meyer if he wished to examine the contents in private, and then led him and the court official to a small room containing a desk, a chair, and a chained ballpoint pen. Meyer opened the box.

There were two documents in the box. The first was a letter from an art dealer, giving appraisal of the Chagall painting. The letter stated simply that the painting had been examined, that it was undoubtedly a genuine Chagall, and that it could be sold at current market prices for anywhere between forty-five and fifty thousand dollars.

The second document was Tinka’s will. It was stapled inside lawyer’s blueback, the firm name Sadler, McIntyre and Brooks printed on the bottom of the binder, together with the address, 80 Fisher Street. Typewritten and centered on the page was the legend last will and testament OF tinka sachs. Meyer opened the will and began reading:

The rest of the will was boilerplate. Meyer scanned it quickly, and then turned to the last page where Tinka had signed her name below the words ‘IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I sign, seal, publish and declare this as my Last Will and Testament’ and where, below that, Harvey Sadler, William McIntyre and Nelson Brooks had signed as attesting witnesses. The will was dated March twenty-fourth.

The only thing Sadler had forgotten to mention — or perhaps Meyer hadn’t asked him about it — was that Art Cutler had been named trustee in the event of Dennis Sachs’s death.

Meyer wondered if it meant anything.

And then he calculated how much money Tinka had earned in eleven years at a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, and wondered again why her only possession of any real value was the Chagall painting she had drenched with blood on the night of her death.

Something stank.