Doll, p.8
Doll, page 8
‘But you still loved her.’
‘Yes.’
‘Then why did you divorce her?’ Kling asked again, and Sachs did not answer. ‘Mr Sachs, this may be very important to us…’
‘It isn’t.’
‘Was your wife a dyke?’
‘No.’
‘Are you a homosexual?’
‘No.’
‘Mr Sachs, whatever it was, believe me, it won’t be something new to us. Believe me, Mr Sachs, and please trust me.’
‘I’m sorry. It’s none of your business. It has nothing to do with anything but Tinka and me.’
‘Okay,’ Kling said.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Think about it. I know you’re upset at the moment, but—’
‘There’s nothing to think about. There are some things I will never discuss with anyone, Mr Kling. I’m sorry, but I owe at least that much to Tinka’s memory.’
‘I understand,’ Kling said, and rose. ‘Thank you for your time. I’ll leave my card, in case you remember anything that might be helpful to us.’
‘All right,’ Sachs said.
‘When will you be going back to Arizona?’
‘I’m not sure. There’s so much to be arranged. Tinka’s lawyer advised me to stay for a while, at least to the end of the month, until the estate can be settled, and plans made for Anna… there’s so much to do.’
‘Is there an estate?’ Kling asked.
‘Yes.’
‘A sizable one?’
‘I wouldn’t imagine so.’
‘I see.’ Kling paused, seemed about to say something, and then abruptly extended his hand. ‘Thank you again, Mr Sachs,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in touch with you.’
Sachs saw him to the door. Anna, her doll in her lap, was still watching television when he went out.
At the squadroom, Kling sat down with a pencil and pad, and then made a call to the airport, requesting a list of all scheduled flights to and from Phoenix, Arizona. It took him twenty minutes to get all the information, and another ten minutes to type it up in chronological order. He pulled the single sheet from his machine and studied it:
It seemed entirely possible to him that Dennis Sachs could have taken either the twelve twenty-five flight from Phoenix late Thursday night, or any one of three flights early Friday morning, and still have been here in the city in time to arrive at Tinka’s apartment by nine or nine-thirty p.m. He could certainly have killed his wife and caught an early flight back the next morning. Or any one of four flights on Sunday, all of which — because of the time difference — would have put him back in Phoenix that same night and in Rainfield by Monday to pick up the telegram waiting there for him. It was a possibility — remote, but a possibility nonetheless. The brown hair, of course, was a problem. Cyclops had said the man’s hair was blond. But a commercial dye or bleach—
One thing at a time, Kling thought. Wearily, he pulled the telephone directory to him and began a methodical check of the two airlines flying to Phoenix. He told them he wanted to know if a man named Dennis Sachs, or any man with the initials D.S., had flown here from Phoenix last Thursday night or Friday morning, and whether or not he had made the return flight any time during the weekend. The airlines were helpful and patient. They checked their flight lists. Something we don’t ordinarily do, sir, is this a case involving a missing person? No, Kling said, this is a case involving a murder. Oh, well in that case, sir, but we don’t ordinarily do this, sir, even for the police, our flight lists you see… Yes, well I appreciate your help, Kling said.
Neither of the airlines had any record of either a Dennis Sachs or a D.S. taking a trip from or to Phoenix at any time before Monday, April 12th. American Airlines had him listed as a passenger on Flight 68, which had left Phoenix at eight-thirty a.m. Monday morning, and had arrived here at four-fifty-three p.m. that afternoon. American reported that Mr Sachs had not as yet booked return passage.
Kling thanked American and hung up. There was still the possibility that Sachs had flown here and back before Monday, using an assumed name. But there was no way of checking that — and the only man who could make any sort of a positive identification had been missing since Monday night.
The meeting took place in Lieutenant Byrnes’s office at five o’clock that afternoon. There were five detectives present in addition to Byrnes himself. Miscolo had brought in coffee for most of the men, but they sipped at it only distractedly, listening intently to Byrnes as he conducted the most unorthodox interrogation any of them had ever attended.
‘We’re here to talk about Monday afternoon,’ Byrnes said. His tone was matter-of-fact, his face expressed no emotion. ‘I have the duty chart for Monday, April twelfth, and it shows Kling, Meyer and Carella on from eight to four, with Meyer catching. The relieving team is listed as Hawes, Willis and Brown, with Brown catching. Is that the way it was?’
The men nodded.
‘What time did you get here, Cotton?’
Hawes, leaning against the lieutenant’s filing cabinet, the only one of the detectives drinking tea, looked up and said, ‘It must’ve been about five.’
‘Was Steve still here?’
‘No.’
‘What about you, Hal?’
‘I got here a little early, Pete,’ Willis said. ‘I had some calls to make.’
‘What time?’
‘Four-thirty.’
‘Was Steve still here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you talk to him?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about?’
‘He said he was going to a movie with Teddy that night.’
‘Anything else?’
‘That was about it.’
‘I talked to him, too, Pete,’ Brown said. He was the only Negro cop in the room. He was sitting in the wooden chair to the right of Byrnes’s desk, a coffee container clasped in his huge hands.
‘What’d he say to you, Art?’
‘He told me he had to make a stop on the way home.’
‘Did he say where?’
‘No.’
‘All right, now let’s get this straight. Of the relieving team, only two of you saw him, and he said nothing about where he might have been headed. Is that right?’
That’s right,’ Willis said.
‘Were you in the office when he left, Meyer?’
‘Yes. I was making out a report.’
‘Did he say anything to you?’
‘He said good night, and he made some joke about bucking for a promotion, you know, because I was hanging around after I’d been relieved.’
‘What else?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Did he say anything to you at any time during the afternoon? About where he might be going later on?’
‘Nothing.’
‘How about you, Kling?’
‘No, he didn’t say anything to me, either.’
‘Were you here when he left?’
‘No.’
‘Where were you?’
‘I was on my way home.’
‘What time did you leave?’
‘About three o’clock.’
‘Why so early?’
There was a silence in the room.
‘Why so early?’ Byrnes said again.
‘We had a fight.’
‘What about?’
‘A personal matter.’
‘The man is dead,’ Byrnes said flatly. ‘There are no personal matters any more.’
‘He sent me back to the office because he didn’t like the way I was behaving during an interview. I got sore.’ Kling paused. ‘That’s what we argued about.’
‘So you left here at three o’clock?’
‘Yes.’
‘Even though you were supposed to be working with Carella on the Tinka Sachs case, is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you know where he was going when he left here?’
‘No, sir’
‘Did he mention anything about wanting to question anyone, or about wanting to see anyone again?’
‘Only the elevator operator. He thought it would be a good idea to check him again.’
‘What for?’
‘To verify a time he’d given us.’
‘Do you think that’s where he went?’
‘I don’t know, sir.’
‘Have you talked to this elevator operator?’
‘No, sir, I can’t locate him.’
‘He’s been missing since Monday night,’ Meyer said. ‘According to Bert’s report, he was expecting a visit from a man who said he was Carella.’
‘Is that right?’ Byrnes asked.
‘Yes,’ Kling said. ‘But I don’t think it was Carella.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s all in my report, sir.’
‘You’ve read this, Meyer?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s your impression?’
‘I agree with Bert.’
Byrnes moved away from his desk. He walked to the window and stood with his hands clasped behind his back, looking at the street below. ‘He found something, that’s for sure,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘He found something or somebody, and he was killed for it.’ He turned abruptly. ‘And not a single goddamn one of you knows where he was going. Not even the man who was allegedly working this case with him.’ He walked back to his desk. ‘Kling, you stay. The rest of you can leave.’
The men shuffled out of the room. Kling stood uncomfortably before the lieutenant’s desk. The lieutenant sat in his swivel chair, and turned it so that he was not looking directly at Kling. Kling did not know where he was looking. His eyes seemed unfocused.
‘I guess you know that Steve Carella was a good friend of mine,’ Byrnes said.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘A good friend,’ Byrnes repeated. He paused for a moment, still looking off somewhere past Kling, his eyes unfocused, and then said, ‘Why’d you let him go out alone, Kling?’
‘I told you, sir. We had an argument.’
‘So you left here at three o’clock, when you knew goddamn well you weren’t going to be relieved until four-forty-five. Now what the hell do you call that, Kling?’
Kling did not answer.
‘I’m kicking you off this goddamn squad,’ Byrnes said. ‘I should have done it long ago. I’m asking for your transfer, now get the hell out of here.’
Kling turned and started for the door.
‘No, wait a minute,’ Byrnes said. He turned directly to Kling now, and there was a terrible look on his face, as though he wanted to cry, but the tears were being checked by intense anger.
‘I guess you know. Kling, that I don’t have the power to suspend you. I guess you know that The power rests with the commissioner and his deputies, and they’re civilians. But a man can be suspended if he’s violated the rules and regulations or if he’s committed a crime. The way I look at it, Kling, you’ve done both those things. You violated the rules and regulations by leaving this squadroom and heading home when you were supposed to be on duty, and you committed a crime by allowing Carella to go out there alone and get killed.’
‘Lieutenant, I—’
‘If I could personally take away your gun and your shield, I’d do it, Kling, believe me. Unfortunately, I can’t. But I’m going to call the Chief of Detectives the minute you leave this office. I’m going to tell him I’d like you suspended pending a complete investigation, and I’m going to ask that he recommend that to the commissioner. I’m going to get that suspension, Kling, if I have to go to the mayor for it. I’ll get departmental charges filed, and a departmental trial, and I’ll get you dismissed from the force. I’m promising you. Now get the hell out of my sight.’
Kling walked to the door silently, opened it, and stepped into the squadroom. He sat at his desk silently for several moments, staring into space. He heard the buzzer sound on Meyer’s phone, heard Meyer lifting the instrument to his ear. ‘Yeah?’ Meyer said. ‘Yeah, Pete. Right. Right. Okay, I’ll tell him.’ He heard Meyer putting the phone back onto its cradle. Meyer rose and came to his desk. ‘That was the lieutenant,’ he said. ‘He wants me to take over the Tinka Sachs case.’
Chapter 8
The message went out on the teletype at a little before ten Thursday morning:
MISSING PERSON WANTED FOR QUESTIONING CONNECTION HOMICIDE XXX ERNEST MESSNER ALIAS CYCLOPS MESSNER XXX WHITE MALE AGE 68 XXX HEIGHT 6 FEET XXX WEIGHT 170 LBS XXX COMPLETELY BALD XXX EYES BLUE LEFT EYE MISSING AND COVERED BY PATCH XXXXX LAST SEEN VICINITY 1117 GAINESBOROUGH AVENUE RIVERHEAD MONDAY APRIL 12 TEN THIRTY PM EST XXX CONTACT MISPERBUR OR DET/2G MEYER MEYER EIGHT SEVEN SQUAD XXXXXXXXX
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:
bald (bôld) adj. 1. lacking hair on some part of the scalp: a bald head or person. 2. destitute of some natural growth or covering: a bald mountain. 3. bare; plain; unadorned: a bald prose style. 4. open; undisguised: a bald lie. 5. Zool having white on the head: bald eagle.
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.
