Eighty Million Eyes

3

The man assigned to investigate the somewhat odd incident in Miles Vollner's office was Detective Bert Kling. Early Thursday morning, while Carella and Meyer were still asleep, Kling took the subway down to the precinct, stopped at the squadroom to see if there were any messages for him on the bulletin board, and then bused over to Shepherd Street. Vollner's office was on the tenth floor. The lettering on the frosted-glass door disclosed that the name of the firm was VOLLNER AUDIO-VISUAL COMPONENTS, unimaginative but certainly explicit. Kling opened the door and stepped into the reception room. The girl behind the reception desk was a small brunette, her hair cut in bangs across her forehead. She looked up as Kling walked in, smiled, and said, “Yes, sir, may I help you?”

“I’m from the police,” Kling said. “I understand there was some trouble here yesterday.”

“Oh, yes,” the girl said, “there certainly was!”

“Is Mr. Vollner in yet?”

“No, he isn’t,” the girl said. “Was he expecting you?”

“Well, not exactly. The desk sergeant—”

“Oh, he doesn’t usually come in until about ten o’clock,” the girl said. “It's not even nine-thirty yet.”

“I see,” Kling said. “Well, I have some other stops to make, so maybe I can catch him later on in the—”

“Cindy's here, though,” the girl said.

“Cindy?”

“Yes. She's the one he came to see.”

“What do you mean?”

“The one he said he came to see, anyway.”

“The assailant, do you mean?”

“Yes. He said he was a friend of Cindy's.”

“Oh. Well, look, do you think I could talk to her? Until Mr. Vollner gets here?”

“Sure, I don’t see why not,” the girl said, and pressed a button in the base of her phone. Into the receiver, she said, “Cindy, there's a detective here to talk about yesterday. Can you see him? Okay, sure.” She replaced the receiver. “In a few minutes, Mr.…” She let the sentence hang.

“Kling.”

“Mr. Kling. She's got someone in the office with her.” The girl paused. “She interviews applicants for jobs out at the plant, you see.”

“Oh. Is she in charge of hiring?”

“No, our personnel director does all the hiring.”

“Then why does she interview—”

“Cindy is assistant to the company psychologist.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, she interviews all the applicants, you know, and later our psychologist tests them. To see if they’d be happy working out at the plant. I mean, they have to put together these tiny little transistor things, you know, there's a lot of pressure doing work like that.”

“I’ll bet there is,” Kling said.

“Sure, there is. So they come here, and first she talks to them for a few minutes, to try to find out what their background is, you know, and then if they pass the first interview, our psychologist gives them a battery of psychological tests later on. Cindy's work is very important. She majored in psychology at college, you know. Our personnel director won’t even consider a man if Cindy and our psychologist say he's not suited for the work.”

“Sort of like picking a submarine crew,” Kling said.

“What? Oh, yes, I guess it is,” the girl said, and smiled. She turned as a man came down the corridor. He seemed pleased and even inspired by his first interview with the company's assistant psychologist. He smiled at the receptionist, and then he smiled at Kling and went to the entrance door, and then turned and smiled at them both again, and went out.

“I think she's free now,” the receptionist said. “Just let me check.” She lifted the phone again, pressed the button, and waited. “Cindy, is it all right to send him in now? Okay.” She replaced the receiver. “Go right in,” she said. “It's number fourteen, the fifth door on the left.”

“Thank you,” Kling said.

“Not at all,” the girl answered.

He nodded and walked past her desk and into the corridor. The doors on the left-hand side started with the number eight and then progressed arithmetically down the corridor. The number thirteen was missing from the row. In its place, and immediately following twelve, was fourteen. Kling wondered if the company's assistant psychologist was superstitious, and then knocked on the door.

“Come in,” a girl's voice said.

He opened the door.

The girl was standing near the window, her back to him. One hand held a telephone receiver to her ear, the blonde hair pushed away from it. She was wearing a dark skirt and a white blouse. The jacket that matched the skirt was draped over the back of her chair. She was very tall, and she had a good figure and a good voice. “No, John,” she said, “I didn’t think a Rorschach was indicated. Well, if you say so. I’ll call you back later, I’ve got someone with me. Right. G’bye.” She turned to put the phone back onto its cradle, and then looked up at Kling.

They recognized each other immediately.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Cindy said.

“So you’re Cindy,” Kling said. “Cynthia Forrest. I’ll be damned.”

“Why’d they send you? Aren’t there any other cops in that precinct of yours?”

“I’m the boss's son. I told you that a long time ago.”

“You told me a lot of things a long time ago. Now go tell your captain I’d prefer talking to another—”

“My lieutenant.”

“Whatever he is. I mean, really, Mr. Kling, I think there's such a thing as adding insult to injury. The way you treated me when my father was killed—”

“I think there was a great deal of misunderstanding all around at that time, Miss Forrest.”

“Yes, and mostly on your part.”

“We were under pressure. There was a sniper loose in the city—”

“Mr. Kling, most people are under pressure most of the time. It was my understanding that policemen are civil servants, and that—”

“We are, that's true.”

“Yes, well, you were anything but civil. I have a long memory, Mr. Kling.”

“So do I. Your father's name was Anthony Forrest, he was the first victim in those sniper killings. Your mother—”

“Look, Mr. Kling—”

“Your mother's name is Clarice, and you’ve got—”

“Clara.”

“Clara, right, and you’ve got a younger brother named John.”

“Jeff.”

“Jeff, right. You were majoring in education at the time of the shootings—”

“I switched to psychology in my junior year.”

“Downtown at Ramsey University. You were nineteen years old—”

“Almost twenty.”

“—and that was close to three years ago, which makes you twenty-two.”

“I’ll be twenty-two next month.”

“I see you graduated.”

“Yes, I have,” Cindy said curtly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Kling—”

“I’ve been assigned to investigate this complaint, Miss Forrest. Something of this nature is relatively small potatoes in our fair city, so I can positively guarantee the lieutenant won’t put another man on it simply because you don’t happen to like my face.”

“Among other things.”

“Yes, well, that's too bad. Would you like to tell me what happened here yesterday?”

“I would like to tell you nothing.”

“Don’t you want us to find the man who came up here?”

“I do.”

“Then—”

“Mr. Kling, let me put this as flatly as I can. I don’t like you. I didn’t like you the last time I saw you, and I still don’t like you. I’m afraid I’m just one of those people who never change their minds.”

“Bad failing for a psychologist.”

“I’m not a psychologist yet I’m going for my master's at night.”

“The girl outside told me you’re assistant to the company—”

“Yes, I am. But I haven’t yet taken my boards.”

“Are you allowed to practice?”

“According to the law in this state—I thought you just might be familiar with it, Mr. Kling—no one can be licensed to—”

“No, I’m not.”

“Obviously. No one can be licensed to practice psychology until he has a master's degree and a PhD, and has passed the state boards. I’m not practicing. All I do is conduct interviews and sometimes administer tests.”

“Well, I’m relieved to hear that,” Kling said.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Kling said, and shrugged.

“Look, Mr. Kling, if you stay here a minute longer, we’re going to pick up right where we left off. And as I recall it, the last time I saw you, I told you to drop dead.”

“That's right.”

“So why don’t you?”

“Can’t,” Kling said. “This is my case.” He smiled pleasantly, sat in the chair beside her desk, made himself comfortable, and very sweetly said, “Do you want to tell me what happened here yesterday, Miss Forrest?”

When Carella got to the squadroom at 10:30 that morning, Meyer was already there, and a note on his desk told him that a man named Charles Mercer at the police laboratory had called at 7:45 A.M.

“Did you call him back?” Carella asked.

“I just got in a minute ago.”

“Let's hope he came up with something,” Carella said, and dialed the lab. He asked for Charles Mercer and was told that Mercer had worked the graveyard shift and had gone home at 8:00.

“Who's this?” Carella asked.

“Danny Di Tore.”

“Would you know anything about the tests Mercer ran for us? On some gelatin capsules?”

“Yeah, sure,” Di Tore said. “Just a minute. That was some job you gave Charlie, you know?”

“What’d he find out?”

“Well, to begin with, he had to use a lot of different capsules. They come in different thicknesses, you know. Like all the manufacturers don’t make them the same.”

“Pick up the extension, will you, Meyer?” Carella said, and then into the phone, “Go ahead, Di Tore.”

“And also, there’re a lot of things that can affect the dissolving speed. Like if a man just ate, his stomach is full and the capsule won’t dissolve as fast. If the stomach's empty, you get a speedier dissolving rate.”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

“It's even possible for one of these capsules to pass right through the system without dissolving at all. That happens with older people sometimes.”

“But Mercer ran the tests,” Carella said.

“Yeah, sure. He mixed a batch of five-percent-solution hydrochloric acid, with a little pepsin. To simulate the gastric juices, you know? He poured that into a lot of separate containers and then dropped the capsules in.”

“What’d he come up with?”

“Well, let me tell you what he did. He used different brands, you see, and also different sizes. They come in different sizes, you know, the higher the number, the smaller the size. Like a four is smaller than a three, don’t ask me.”

“And what’d he find out?”

“They dissolve at different rates of speed, ten minutes, four minutes, eight minutes, twelve minutes. The highest was fifteen minutes, the lowest three minutes. That's a lot of help, huh?”

“Well, it's not exactly what I—”

“But most of them took an average of about six minutes to dissolve. That gives you something to fool around with.”

“Six minutes, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Thanks a lot, Di Tore. And thank Mercer, will you?”

“Don’t mention it. It kept him awake.”

Carella replaced the phone on its cradle and turned to Meyer.

“So what do you think?”

“What am I, a straight man? What else can I think? Whether Gifford drank it, or swallowed it, it had to be just before he went on.”

“Had to be. The poison works within minutes, and the capsule takes approximately six minutes to dissolve. He was on for seven.”

“Seven minutes and seventeen seconds,” Meyer corrected.

“You think he took it knowingly?”

“Suicide?”

“Could be.”

“In front of forty million people?”

“Why not? There's nothing an actor likes better than a spectacular exit.”

“Well, maybe,” Meyer said, but he didn’t sound convinced.

“We’d better find out who was with him just before he went on.”

“That should be very simple,” Meyer said. “Only two hundred twelve people were there last night.”

“Let's call your Mr. Krantz. Maybe he’ll be able to help us.”

Carella dialed Krantz's office and asked to talk to him. The switchboard connected him with a receptionist, who in turn connected him with Krantz's secretary, who told him that Krantz was out, would he care to leave a message? Carella asked her to wait a moment, and then covered the mouthpiece.

“Are we going out to see Gifford's wife?” he asked Meyer.

“I think we’d better,” Meyer said.

“Please tell Mr. Krantz that he can reach me at Mr. Gifford's home, will you?” Carella said, and then he thanked her and hung up.

Larksview was perhaps a half hour outside the city, an exclusive suburb that miraculously managed to provide its homeowners with something more than the conventional sixty-by-a-hundred plots. In a time of encroaching land development, it was pleasant and reassuring to enter a community of wide rolling lawns, of majestic houses set far back from quiet winding roads. Detective Meyer Meyer had made the trip to Larksview the night before, when he felt it necessary to explain to Melanie Gifford why the police wanted to do an autopsy, even though her permission was not needed. But now, patiently and uncomplainingly, he made the drive again, seeing the community in daylight for the first time, somehow soothed by its well-ordered, gentle terrain. Carella had been speculating wildly from the moment they left the city, but he was silent now as they pulled up in front of a pair of stone pillars set on either side of a white gravel driveway. A half-dozen men with cameras and another half-dozen with pads and pencils were shouting at the two Larksview patrolmen who stood blocking the drive. Meyer rolled down the window on his side of the car and shouted, “Break it up there! We want to get through.”

One of the patrolmen moved away from the knot of newspapermen and walked over to the car. “Who are you, Mac?” he said to Meyer, and Meyer showed him his shield.

“87th Precinct, huh?” the patrolman said. “You handling this case?”

“That's right,” Meyer said.

“Then why don’t you send some of your own boys out on this driveway detail?”

“What's the matter?” Carella said, leaning over. “Can’t you handle a couple of reporters?”

“A couple? You shoulda seen this ten minutes ago. The crowd's beginning to thin out a little now.”

“Can we get through?” Meyer asked.

“Yeah, sure, go ahead. Just run right over them. We’ll sweep up later.”

Meyer honked the horn, and then stepped on the gas pedal. The newspapermen pulled aside hastily, cursing at the sedan as its tires crunched over the gravel.

“Nice fellas,” Meyer said. “You’d think they’d leave the poor woman alone.”

“The way we’re doing, huh?” Carella said.

“This is different.”

The house was a huge Georgian Colonial, with white clapboard siding and pale-green shutters. Either side of the door was heavily planted with big old shrubs that stretched beyond the boundaries of the house to form a screen of privacy for the back acres. The gravel driveway swung past the front door and then turned upon itself to head for the road again, detouring into a small parking area to the left of the house before completing its full cycle. Meyer drove the car into the parking space, pulled up the emergency brake, and got out. Carella came around from the other side of the car, and together they walked over the noisy gravel to the front door. A shining brass bell pull was set in the jamb. Carella took the knob and yanked it. The detectives waited. Carella pulled the knob again. Again, they waited.

“The Giffords have help, don’t they?” Carella said, puzzled.

“If you were making half a million dollars a year, wouldn’t you have help?”

“I don’t know,” Carella said. “You’re making fifty-five hundred a year, and Sarah doesn’t have help.”

“We don’t want to seem ostentatious,” Meyer said. “If we hired a housekeeper, the commissioner might begin asking me about all that graft I’ve been taking.”

“You too, huh?”

“Sure. Cleared a cool hundred thousand in slot machines alone last year.”

“My game's white slavery,” Carella said. “I figure to make—”

The door opened.

The woman who stood there was small and Irish and frightened. She peered out into the sunshine and then said, in a very small voice, with a faint brogue, “Yes, what is it, please?”

“Police department,” Carella said. “We’d like to talk to Mrs. Gifford.”

“Oh.” The woman looked more distressed than ever. “Oh, yes,” she said. “Yes, come in. She's out back with the dogs. I’ll see if I can find her. Police, did you say?”

“That's right, ma’am,” Carella said. “If she's out back, couldn’t we just go around and look for her?”

“Oh,” the woman said. “I don’t know.”

“You are the housekeeper?”

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“Well, may we walk around back?”

“All right, but—”

“Do the dogs bite?” Meyer asked cautiously.

“No, they’re very gentle. Besides, Mrs. Gifford is with them.”

“Thank you,” Carella said. They turned away from the door and began walking on the flagstone path leading to the rear of the house. A woman appeared almost the moment they turned the corner of the building. She was coming out of a small copse of birch trees set at the far end of the lawn, a tall blonde woman wearing a tweed skirt, loafers, and a blue cardigan sweater, looking down at the ground as two golden retrievers ran ahead of her. The dogs saw the detectives almost immediately and began barking. The woman raised her head and her eyes curiously, and then hesitated a moment, her stride breaking.

“That's Melanie Gifford,” Meyer whispered.

The dogs were bounding across the lawn in enormous leaps. Meyer watched their approach uneasily. Carella, who was a city boy himself, and unused to seeing jungle beasts racing across open stretches of ground, was certain they would leap at his jugular. He was, in fact, almost tempted to draw his pistol when the dogs stopped some three feet away and began barking in furious unison.

“Shhh!” Meyer said, and he stamped his foot on the ground. The dogs, to Carella's immense surprise, turned tail and ran yelping back to their mistress, who walked directly toward the detectives now, her head high, her manner openly demanding.

“Yes?” she said. “What is it?”

“Mrs. Gifford?” Carella asked.

“Yes?” The voice was imperious. Now that she was closer, Carella studied her face. The features were delicately formed, the eyes gray and penetrating, the brows slightly arched, the mouth full. She wore no lipstick. Grief seemed to lurk in the corners of those eyes, and on that mouth; grief sat uninvited and omnipresent on her face, robbing it of beauty. “Yes?” she said again, impatiently.

“We’re detectives, Mrs. Gifford,” Meyer said. “I was here last night. Don’t you remember?”

She studied him for several seconds, as if in disbelief. The goldens were still barking, courageous now that they were behind her skirts. “Yes, of course,” she said at last, and then added, “Hush, boys,” to the dogs, who immediately fell silent.

“We’d like to ask you some questions, Mrs. Gifford,” Carella said. “I know this is a trying time for you, but—”

“That's quite all right,” she answered. “Would you like to go inside?”

“Wherever you say.”

“If you don’t mind, may we stay out here? The house…I can’t seem to…it's open out here, and fresh. After what happened…”

Carella, watching her, had the sudden notion she was acting. A slight frown creased his forehead. But immediately, she said, “That sounds terribly phony and dramatic, doesn’t it? I’m sorry. You must forgive me.”

“We understand, Mrs. Gifford.”

“Do you really?” she asked. A faint sad smile touched her unpainted mouth. “Shall we sit on the terrace? It won’t be too cool, will it?

“The terrace will be fine,” Carella said.

They walked across the lawn to where a wide flagstone terrace adjoined the rear doors of the house, open to the woods alive with autumn color. There were white wrought-iron chairs and a glass-topped table on the terrace. Melanie pulled a low white stool from beneath the table and sat. The detectives pulled up chairs opposite her, sitting higher than Melanie, looking down at her. She turned her face up pathetically, and again Carella had the feeling that this, too, was carefully staged, that she had deliberately placed herself in a lower chair so that she would appear small and defenseless. On impulse, he said, “Are you an actress, Mrs. Gifford?”

Melanie looked surprised. The gray eyes opened wide for a moment, and then she smiled the same wan smile and said, “I used to be. Before Stan and I were married.”

“How long ago where you married, Mrs. Gifford?”

“Six years.”

“Do you have any children?”

“No.”

Carella nodded. “Mrs. Gifford,” he said, “we’re primarily interested in learning about your husband's behavior in the past few weeks. Did he seem despondent, or overworked, or troubled by anything?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Was he the type of man who confided things to you?”

“Yes, we were very close.”

“And he never mentioned anything that was troubling him?”

“No. He seemed very pleased with the way things were going.”

“What things, Mrs. Gifford?”

“The show, the new stature he’d achieved in television. He’d been a night-club comic before the show went on the air, you know.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Yes. Stan started in vaudeville many years ago, and then drifted into night-club work. He was working in Vegas, as a matter of fact, when they approached him to do the television show.”

“And it's been on the air how many years now?”

“Three years.”

“How old was your husband, Mrs. Gifford?”

“Forty-eight.”

“And how old are you?”

“Thirty-seven.”

“Was this your first marriage?”

“Yes.”

“Your husband's?”

“Yes.”

“I see. Would you say you were happily married, Mrs. Gifford?”

“Yes. Extremely happy.”

“Mrs. Gifford,” Carella said flatly, “do you think your husband committed suicide?”

Without hesitation, Melanie said, “No.”

“You know he was poisoned, of course?”

“Yes.”

“If you don’t think he killed himself, you must think—”

“I think he was murdered. Yes.”

“Who do you think murdered him, Mrs. Gifford?”

“I think—”

“Excuse me, ma’am,” the voice said from the opened French doors leading to the terrace. Melanie turned. Her housekeeper stood there apologetically. “It's Dr. Nelson, ma’am.”

“On the telephone?” Melanie said, rising.

“No ma’am. He's here.”

“Oh.” Melanie frowned. “Well, ask him to join us, won’t you?” She sat immediately. “Again,” she said.

“What?”

“He was here last night. Came over directly from the show. He's terribly worried about my health. He gave me a sedative and then called twice this morning.” She folded her arms across her knees, a slender graceful woman who somehow made the motion seem awkward. Carella watched her in silence for several moments. The terrace was still. On the lawn, one of the golden retrievers began barking at a laggard autumn bird.

“You were about to say, Mrs. Gifford?”

Melanie looked up. Her thoughts seemed to be elsewhere.

“We were discussing your husband's alleged murder.”

“Yes. I was about to say I think Carl Nelson killed him.”