Give the Boys a Great Big Hand

6

Margaret Androvich was a nineteen-year-old blonde who, in the hands of our more skillful novelists, would have been described as willowy. That is to say, she was skinny. The diminutive “Meg” did not exactly apply to her because she was five feet seven and a half inches tall with all the cuddly softness of a steel cable. In the current fashion of naming particularly svelte women with particularly ugly names, “Maggie” would have been more appropriate than the “Meg” that Karl Androvich wore tattooed in a heart on his left arm. But Meg she was, all five feet seven and a half inches of her, and she greeted the detectives at the door with calm and assurance, ushered them into her living room, and asked them to sit.

They sat.

She was indeed skinny with that angular sort of femininity that is usually attributed to fashion models. She was not, at the moment, attired for the pages of Vogue Magazine. She was wearing a faded pink quilted robe and furry pink slippers, which somehow seemed out of place on a girl so tall. Her face was as angular as her body, with high cheekbones and a mouth that looked pouting even without the benefit of lipstick. Her eyes were blue and large, dominating the narrow face. She spoke with a mild, barely discernible Southern accent. She carried about her the air of a person who knows she is about to be struck in the face with a closed fist but who bears the eventuality with calm expectation.

“Is this about Karl?” she asked gently.

“Yes, Mrs. Androvich,” Carella answered.

“Have you heard anything? Is he all right?”

“No, nothing definite,” Carella said.

“But something?”

“No, no. We just wanted to find out a little more about him, that’s all.”

“I see.” She nodded vaguely. “Then you haven’t heard anything about him.”

“No, not really.”

“I see.” Again she nodded.

“Can you tell us what happened on the morning he left here?”

“Yes,” she said. “He just left, that was all. There was nothing different between this time and all the other times he left to catch his ship. It was just the same. Only this time he didn’t catch the ship.” She shrugged. “And I haven’t heard from him since.” She shrugged again. “It’s been almost a month now.”

“How long have you been married, Mrs. Androvich?”

“To Karl? Six months.”

“Had you been married before? I mean, is Karl your second husband?”

“No. He’s my first husband. Only husband I ever had.”

“Where did you meet him, Mrs. Androvich?”

“Atlanta.”

“Six months ago?”

“Seven months ago, really.”

“And you got married?”

“Yes.”

“And you came to this city?”

“Yes.”

“Where is your husband from originally?”

“Here. This city.” She paused. “Do you like it here?”

“The city, do you mean?”

“Yes. Do you like it?”

“Well, I was born and raised here,” Carella said. “Yes, I guess I like it.”

“I don’t,” Meg said flatly.

“Well, that’s what makes horse races, Mrs. Androvich,” Carella said, and he tried a smile and then pulled it back quickly when he saw her face.

“Yes, that’s what makes horse races, all right,” she said. “I tried to tell Karl that I didn’t like it here, that I wanted to go back to Atlanta. But he was born and raised here, too.” She shrugged. “I guess it’s different if you know the place. And with him gone so often, I’m alone a lot, and the streets confuse me. I mean, Atlanta isn’t exactly a onehorse town, but it’s small compared to here. I can never figure out how to get any place here. I’m always getting lost. I wander three blocks from the apartment, and I get lost. Would you like some coffee?”

“Well... ”

“Have some coffee,” Meg said. “You’re not going to rush right off, are you? You all are the first two people I’ve had here in a long time.”

“I think we can stay for some coffee,” Carella said.

“It won’t take but a minute. Would you excuse me, please?”

She went into the kitchen. Kling rose from where he was sitting and walked to the television set. A framed photograph of a man rested atop the receiver. He was studying the photo when Meg came back into the room.

“That’s Karl,” she said. “That’s a nice picture. That’s the one I sent to the Missing Persons Bureau.” She paused. “They asked me for a picture, you know.” She paused again. “Coffee won’t take but a minute. I’m warming some rolls, too. You men must be half-froze, wandering about in that cold rain.”

“That’s very nice of you, Mrs. Androvich.”

She smiled fleetingly. “Working man needs sustenance,” she said, and the smile vanished.

“Mrs. Androvich, about that morning he left—”

“Yes. It was Valentine’s Day.” She paused. “There was a big box of candy on the kitchen table when I woke up. And flowers came later. While we were having breakfast.”

“From Karl?”

“Yes. Yes, from Karl.”

“While you were having breakfast?”

“Yes.”

“But... didn’t he leave the house at six-thirty?”

“Yes.”

“And flowers arrived before he left?”

“Yes.”

“That’s pretty early, isn’t it?”

“I guess he made some sort of arrangement with the florist,” Meg said. “To have them delivered so early.” She paused. “They were roses. Two dozen red roses.”

“I see,” Carella said.

“Anything out of the ordinary happen during breakfast?” Kling asked.

“No. No, he was in a very cheerful frame of mind.”

“But he wasn’t always in a cheerful frame of mind, is that also right? You told someone earlier that he was very hot-tempered.”

“Yes. I told that to Detective Fredericks. At the Missing Persons Bureau. Do you know him?”

“No, not personally.”

“He’s a very nice man.”

“And you told Detective Fredericks that your husband stammers, is that right? And he has a slight tic in the right eye, is that correct?”

“The left eye.”

“Yes, the left eye.”

“That’s correct.”

“Is he a nervous person, would you say?”

“He’s pretty tense, yes.”

“Was he tense on that morning?”

“The morning he left, do you mean?”

“Yes. Was he tense or nervous then?”

“No. He was very calm.”

“I see. And what did you do with the flowers when they arrived?”

“The flowers? I put them in a vase.”

“On the table?”

“Yes.”

“The breakfast table?”

“Yes.”

“They were there while you ate breakfast?”

“Yes.”

“Did he eat a good meal?”

“Yes.”

“His appetite was all right?”

“It was fine. He was very hungry.”

“And nothing seemed unusual or strange?”

“No.” She turned her head toward the kitchen. “I think the coffee’s perking,” she said. “Will you excuse me, please?”

She went out of the room. Kling and Carella sat staring at each other. Outside, the rain slithered down the windowpane.

She came back into the living room carrying a tray with a coffeepot, three cups and saucers, and a dish of hot rolls. She put these down, studied the tray, and then said, “Butter. I forgot butter.” In the doorway to the kitchen, she paused and said, “Would you all like some jam or something?”

“No, this is fine, thanks,” Carella said.

“Would you pour?” she said, and she went out for the butter. From the kitchen, she called, “Did I bring out the cream?”

“No,” Carella said.

“Or the sugar?”

“No.”

They heard her rummaging in the kitchen. Carella poured coffee into the three cups. She came into the room again and put down the butter, the cream, and the sugar.

“There,” she said. “Do you take anything in yours, Detective... Carella, was it?”

“Yes, Carella. No thank you, I’ll have it black.”

“Detective Kling?”

“A little cream and one sugar, thank you.”

“Help yourself to the rolls before they get cold,” she said.

The detectives helped themselves. She sat opposite them, watching.

“Take your coffee, Mrs. Androvich,” Carella said.

“Oh, yes. Thank you.” She picked up her cup, put three spoonfuls of sugar into it, and sat stirring it idly.

“Do you think you’ll find him?” she asked.

“We hope so.”

“Do you think anything’s happened to him?”

“That’s hard to say, Mrs. Androvich.”

“He was such a big man.” She shrugged.

“Was, Mrs. Androvich?”

“Did I say ‘was’? I guess I did. I guess I think of him as gone for good.”

“Why should you think that?”

“I don’t know.”

“It sounds as if he was very much in love with you.”

“Oh yes. Yes, he was.” She paused. “Are the rolls all right?”

“Delicious,” Carella said.

“Fine,” Kling added.

“I get them delivered. I don’t go out much. I’m here most of the time. Right here in this apartment.”

“Why do you think your husband went off like that, Mrs. Androvich?”

“I don’t know.”

“You didn’t quarrel or anything that morning, did you?”

“No. No, we didn’t quarrel.”

“I don’t mean a real fight or anything,” Carella said. “Just a quarrel, you know. Anyone who’s married has a quarrel every now and then.”

“Are you married, Detective Carella?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Do you quarrel sometimes?”

“Yes.”

“Karl and I didn’t quarrel that morning,” she said flatly.

“But you did quarrel sometimes?”

“Yes. About going back to Atlanta mostly. That was all. Just about going back to Atlanta. Because I don’t like this city, you see.”

“That’s understandable,” Carella said. “Not being familiar with it, and all. Have you ever been uptown?”

“Uptown where?”

“Culver Avenue? Hall Avenue?”

“Where the big department stores are?”

“No, I was thinking of a little further uptown. Near Grover Park.”

“No. I don’t know where Grover Park is.”

“You’ve never been uptown?”

“Not that far uptown.”

“Do you have a raincoat, Mrs. Androvich?”

“A what?”

“A raincoat.”

“Yes, I do. Why?”

“What color is it, Mrs. Androvich?”

“My raincoat?”

“Yes.”

“It’s blue.” She paused. “Why?”

“Do you have a black one?”

“No. Why?”

“Do you ever wear slacks?”

“Hardly ever.”

“But sometimes you do wear slacks?”

“Only in the house sometimes. When I’m cleaning. I never wear them in the street. Where I was raised, in Atlanta, a girl wore dresses and skirts and pretty things.”

“Do you have an umbrella, Mrs. Androvich?”

“Yes, I do.”

“What color is it?”

“Red. I don’t think I understand all this, Detective Carella.”

“Mrs. Androvich, I wonder if we could see the raincoat and the umbrella.”

“What for?”

“Well, we’d like to.”

She stared at Carella and then turned her puzzled gaze on Kling. “All right,” she said at last. “Would you come into the bedroom, please?” They followed her into the other room. “I haven’t made the bed yet, you’ll have to forgive the appearance of the house.” She pulled the blanket up over the rumpled sheets as she passed the bed on the way to the closet. She threw open the closet door and said, “There’s the raincoat. And there’s the umbrella.”

The raincoat was blue. The umbrella was red.

“Thank you,” Carella said. “Do you have your meat delivered, too, Mrs. Androvich?”

“My what?”

“Meat. From the butcher.”

“Yes, I do. Detective Carella, would you mind please telling me what this is all about? All these questions, you make it sound as if—”

“Well, it’s just routine, Mrs. Andovich, that’s all. Just trying to learn a little about your husband’s habits, that’s all.”

“What’s my raincoat and my umbrella got to do with Karl’s habits?”

“Well, you know.”

“No, I don’t know.”

“Do you own a meat cleaver, Mrs. Androvich?”

She stared at Carella a long time before answering. Then she said, “What’s that got to do with Karl?”

Carella did not answer.

“Is Karl dead?” she said. “Is that it?”

He did not answer.

“Did someone use a meat cleaver on him? Is that it? Is that it?”

“We don’t know, Mrs. Androvich.”

“Do you think I did it? Is that what you’re saying?”

“We have no knowledge whatever about your husband’s whereabouts, Mrs. Androvich. Dead or alive. This is all routine.”

“Routine, huh? What happened? Did someone wearing a raincoat and carrying an umbrella hit my husband with a cleaver? Is that what happened?”

“No, Mrs. Androvich. Do you own a meat cleaver?”

“Yes, I do,” she said. “It’s in the kitchen. Would you like to see it? Maybe you can find some of Karl’s skull on it. Isn’t that what you’d like to find?”

“This is just a routine investigation, Mrs. Androvich.”

“Are all detectives as subtle as you?” she wanted to know.

“I’m sorry if I’ve upset you, Mrs. Androvich. May I see that cleaver? If it’s not too much trouble.”

“This way,” she said coldly, and she led them out of the bedroom, through the living room, and into the kitchen. The cleaver was a small one, its cutting edge dull and nicked. “That’s it,” she said.

“I’d like to take this with me, if you don’t mind,” Carella said.

“Why?”

“What kind of candy did your husband bring you on Valentine’s Day, Mrs. Androvich?”

“Nuts. Fruits. A mixed assortment.”

“From where? Who made the candy?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Was it a large box?”

“A pound.”

“But you called it a big box of candy when you first spoke of it. You said there was a big box of candy on the kitchen table when you woke up. Isn’t that what you said?”

“Yes. It was in the shape of a heart. It looked big to me.”

“But it was only a pound box of candy, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“And the dozen red roses? When did they arrive?”

“At about six A.M.”

“And you put them in a vase?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have a vase big enough to hold a dozen roses?”

“Yes, of course I do. Karl was always bringing me flowers. So I bought a vase one day.”

“Big enough to hold a dozen red roses, right?”

“Yes.”

“They were red roses, a dozen of them?”

“Yes.”

“No white ones? Just a dozen red roses?”

“Yes, yes, a dozen red roses. All red. And I put them in a vase.”

“You said two dozen, Mrs. Androvich. When you first mentioned them, you said there were two dozen.”

“What?”

“Two dozen.”

“I—”

“Were there any flowers at all, Mrs. Androvich?”

“Yes, yes. Yes, there were flowers. I must have made a mistake. It was only a dozen. Not two dozen. I must have been thinking of something else.”

“Was there candy, Mrs. Androvich?”

“Yes, of course there was candy.”

“Yes, and you didn’t quarrel at the breakfast table. Why didn’t you report his absence until the next day?”

“Because I thought—”

“Had he ever wandered off before?”

“No, he—”

“Then this was rather unusual for him, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then why didn’t you report it immediately?”

“I thought he’d come back.”

“Or did you think he had reason for staying away?”

“What reason?”

“You tell me, Mrs. Androvich.”

The room went silent.

“There was no reason,” she said at last. “My husband loved me. There was a box of candy on the table in the morning. A heart. The florist delivered a dozen red roses at six o’clock. Karl kissed me goodbye and left. And I haven’t seen him since.”

“Give Mrs. Androvich a receipt for this meat cleaver, Bert,” Carella said. “Thank you very much for the coffee and rolls. And for your time. You were very kind.”

As they went out, she said, “He is dead, isn’t he?”

Claire Townsend was easily as tall as Meg Androvich, but the similarity between the two girls ended there. Meg was skinny — or, if you prefer, willowy; Claire was richly endowed with flesh that padded the big bones of her body. Meg, in the fashion-model tradition, was flat-chested. Claire was not one of those overextended cow-like creatures, but she was rightfully proud of a bosom capable of filling a man’s hand. Meg was a blue-eyed blonde. Claire’s eyes were brown and her hair was as black as sin. Meg, in short, gave the impression of someone living in the pallor of a hospital sickroom; Claire looked like a girl who would be at home on a sun-washed haystack.

There was one other difference.

Bert Kling was madly in love with Claire.

She kissed him the moment he entered the apartment. She was wearing black slacks and a wide, white, smock-like blouse that ended just below her waist.

“What kept you?” she said.

“Florists,” he answered.

“You bought me flowers?”

“No. A lady we talked to said her husband bought her a dozen red roses. We checked about ten florists in the immediate and surrounding neighborhoods. Result? No red roses on Valentine’s Day. Not to Mrs. Karl Androvich, anyway.”

“So?”

“So Steve Carella is uncanny. Can I take off my shoes?”

“Go ahead. I bought two steaks. Do you feel like steaks?”

“Later.”

“How is Carella uncanny?”

“Well, he lit into this skinny, pathetic dame as if he were going to rip all the flesh from her bones. When we got outside, I told him I thought he was a little rough with her. I mean, I’ve seen him operate before, and he usually wears kid gloves with the ladies. So with this one, he used a sledgehammer, and I wondered why. And I told him I disapproved.”

“So what did he say?”

“He said he knew she was lying from the minute she opened her mouth, and he began wondering why.”

“How did he know?”

“He just knew. That’s what was so uncanny about it. We checked all those damn florists, and nobody made a delivery at six in the morning, and none of them were even open before nine.”

“The husband could have ordered the flowers anywhere in the city, Bert.”

“Sure, but that’s pretty unlikely, isn’t it? He’s not a guy who works in an office some place. He’s a seaman, and when he’s not at sea, he’s home. So the logical place to order flowers would be a neighborhood florist.”

“So?”

“So nothing. I’m tired. Steve sent a meat cleaver to the lab.” He paused. “She didn’t look like the kind of a dame who’d use a meat cleaver on a man. Come here.”

She went to him, climbing into his lap. He kissed her and said, “I’ve got the whole weekend. Steve’s giving me his Sunday.”

“Oh? Yes?”

“You feel funny,” he said.

“Funny? How?”

“I don’t know. Softer.”

“I’m not wearing a bra.”

“How come?”

“I wanted to feel free. Keep your hands off me!” she said suddenly, and she leaped out of his lap.

“Now you are the kind of a dame who would use a meat cleaver on a man,” Kling said, appraising her from the chair in which he sat.

“Am I?” she answered coolly. “When do you want to eat?”

“Later.”

“Where are we going tonight?” Claire asked.

“No place.”

“Oh?”

“I don’t have to be back at the squad until Monday morning,” Kling said.

“Oh, is that right?”

“Yes, and what I planned was—”

“Yes?”

“I thought we could get into bed right now and stay in bed all weekend. Until Monday morning. How does that sound to you?”

“It sounds pretty strenuous.”

“Yes, it does. But I vote for it.”

“I’ll have to think about it. I had my heart set on a movie.”

“We can always see a movie,” Kling said.

“Anyway, I’m hungry right now,” Claire said, studying him narrowly. “I’m going to make the steaks.”

“I’d rather go to bed.”

“Bert,” she said, “man does not live by bed alone.”

Kling rose suddenly. They stood at opposite ends of the room, studying each other. “What did you plan on doing tonight?” he asked.

“Eating steaks,” she said.

“And what else?”

“A movie.”

“And tomorrow?”

Claire shrugged.

“Come here,” he said.

“Come get me,” she answered.

He went across the room to her. She tilted her head to his and then crossed her arms tightly over her breasts.

“All weekend,” he said.

“You’re a braggart,” she whispered.

“You’re a doll.”

“Am I?”

“You’re a lovely doll.”

“You going to kiss me?”

“Maybe.”

They stood not two inches from each other, not touching, staring at each other, savoring this moment, allowing desire to leap between them in a mounting wave.

He put his hands on her waist, but he did not kiss her.

Slowly, she uncrossed her arms.

“You really have no bra on?” he asked.

“Big weekend lover,” she murmured. “Can’t even find out for himself whether or not I have a—”

His hands slid under the smock and he pulled Claire to him.

The next time anyone would see Bert Kling would be on Monday morning.

It would still be raining.

Sam Grossman studied the airlines bag for a long time, and then took off his eyeglasses. Grossman was a police lieutenant, a laboratory technician, and the man in charge of the police lab downtown on High Street. In his years of service with the lab, he had seen bodies or portions of bodies in trunks, valises, duffel bags, shopping bags, boxes, and even wrapped in old newspapers. He had never come across one in an airline’s overnight bag, but he experienced no sensation of surprise or shock. The inside of the bag was covered with dried blood, but he did not reel back at the sight of it. He knew there was work to be done, and he set about doing it. He was somewhat like a New England farmer discovering that one of his fields would make an excellent pasture if only it were cleared of rocks and stumps. The only way to clear the field was to clear it.

He had already examined the severed hand, and reached the conclusion that it was impossible to get any fingerprint impressions from the badly mutilated fingertips. He had then taken a sampling of blood from the hand for an isoreaction test, and concluded that the blood was in the “O” group.

Now he examined the bag for latent fingerprints, and found none. He had not, in all truth, expected to find any. The person who’d mutilated that hand was a person who was very conscious of fingerprints, a person who would have shown the same caution in handling the bag.

He checked the bag next for microscopic traces of hair or fibers or dust which might give some clue to either the killer’s or the victim’s identity, occupation, or hobby. He found nothing of value on the outside surface of the bag.

He slit the bag open with a scalpel and studied its inner surface and bottom with a magnifying glass. In one corner of the bag he found what appeared to be remnants of orange chalk dust. He collected several grains for a specimen, put them aside, and then studied the blood stains on the bottom of the bag.

The average layman might have considered Grossman’s examination absurd. He was, after all, examining a stain that had obviously been left in the bag by the severed hand. What in the hell was he trying to ascertain? That the hand had been in the bag? Everyone knew that already.

But Grossman was simply trying to determine whether or not the stain on the bottom of the bag was actually human blood; and if not blood, then what? There was the possibility, too, that an apparent bloodstain could have mingled with, or covered, another stain on the bag. And so Grossman really wasn’t wasting his time. He was simply doing a thorough job.

The stain was a dark reddish brown in color and, because of the nonabsorbent surface of the bag’s bottom, it was somewhat cracked and chipped, resembling a dried mud flat. Grossman gingerly cut out a portion of the stain, and cut this into two smaller portions that he labeled Stain One and Stain Two, for want of a more imaginative nomenclature. He dropped his two specimens into a 0.9 percent solution of physiologic salt, and then placed them on separate slides. The slides had to stand in a covered dish for several hours, so he left them and began performing his microscopic and spectroscopic tests on the orange chalk he had found in a corner of the bag. When he returned to the slides later that day, he covered one of them with a coverslip and studied it under a high-power microscope. What he saw was a number of non-nucleated discs, and he knew instantly that the suspect blood was mammalian in origin.

He then took the second slide and poured Wright’s Stain onto the unfixed smear, letting it stand for one minute while he timed the operation. Drop by drop, he added distilled water to the slide, waiting for a metallic scum to form on its surface. When the scum had formed, he again consulted his watch, waiting three minutes before he washed and dried the slide.

Using a micrometer eyepiece, he then measured the various cells on the slide. The human red blood corpuscle is about 1/3200 of an inch in diameter. The cell diameter will vary in other animals of the mammalian group, the erythrocyte of the dog — at 1/3500 of an inch — being closest to the human’s.

The specimen Grossman examined under his microscope measured 1/3200 of an inch in diameter.

But where measurement dealt with error in thousandths of an inch, Grossman did not want to take any chances. And so he followed the usual laboratory procedure of using a precipitin reaction after either a chemical, microscopic, or spectroscopic test. The precipitin reaction would determine with certainty whether or not the stain was indeed human blood.

The precipitin reaction is a simple one. If you take a rabbit, and if you inject into this rabbit’s blood a specimen of whole human blood or human blood serum, something is going to happen. The something that will happen is this: an antibody called a “precipitin” will develop in the rabbit’s own serum. This will then react with the proteins of the injected serum. If the reaction is a positive one, the proteins can then be identified as having come from a human being.

The specific reaction to Grossman’s stain was positive.

The blood was human.

When he performed his isoreaction test, he learned that it was in the “O” blood group, and he therefore made the logical assumption that the stain on the bottom of the bag had been left by blood dripping from the severed hand and by nothing else.

As for the bits of orange chalk dust, they turned out to be something quite other than chalk. The particles were identified as a woman’s cosmetic, further identified through a chemical breakdown and a comparison with the cards in the files as a preparation called Skinglow.

Skinglow was a liquid powder base designed to retain face powder in a clinging veil, further designed to add a slight pink glow to very fair skin under makeup.

It was hardly likely that a man would have used it.

And yet the hand in the bag had definitely belonged to a man.

Grossman sighed and passed the information on to the boys of the 87th.