The February Doll Murders

by Michael Avallone

  I told him all about Kyle Crosby, Lola Langdon, and the R.C.A. Building. He listened with his thick nose wrinkling and his large hands buried in his tweed overcoat. I couldn’t exactly blame him. My story was a little silly.

  We’d been through too many messy cases for him to bother editorializing on my life. Nor did he waste any sympathy on my just missing another appointment with six pallbearers. When I finished my story, he took his hands out of his pockets and poked one of his enormous thumbs at me.

  “So. Old Army buddy from way back when walks in on you, arranges a meeting, acts peculiar, and winds up murdered by person unknown. Mystery woman with him disappears.”

  “Lola ran?”

  “All the way.” His smile was sour. “Ducked out on the two cops who were busy keeping you from bleeding to death before the ambulance arrived. Any ideas?”

  “Yeah. I’m going right out and put my order in for a bulletproof vest.”

  He knew it was my way of fighting the pain in my side, so he let that pass. “You said he mentioned a dollar bill of some kind.”

  “Short snorter,” I said. “You take a bill, usually foreign money, and have people autograph it. Makes an interesting keepsake and souvenir. Some guys collect a whole bunch of bills and paste them together with Scotch tape until they run as long as six feet. But you can fold them all up into one compact square the size of the top bill. You know, like a travel folder.”

  “And you used American money?”

  I shrugged. “We were in Le Havre. The troop clerk came around asking us to turn in all our dough for francs. I hung onto my last Yankee dollar and had the guys in the squad autograph it. Seemed like a great idea at the time. But I never went past my one-dollar bill. It was a busy war.”

  “This Kyle Crosby was one of the squad?”

  “Yeah. Machine gunner. Rode the turret of the M-8. We spent the whole war separated by a thirty-seven millimeter, a fifty-and a thirty-caliber machine gun.”

  “Give me that again,” Monks rumbled. “Slower this time.”

  I closed my eyes and concentrated. It helped counteract the throb in my side and the dulling effect of all the stuff they’d shot into me.

  “M-8,” I recited. “An all-metal vehicle, weighing eight tons, six-wheeled, turreted, armor-plated. The integral part of a mobile reconnaissance team which consists of the aforesaid M-8, a machine-gun jeep, and a mortar jeep. The turret of the M-8 is mounted with a thirty-seven millimeter anti-tank weapon, which in turn is coaxially aligned with a thirty-caliber Browning machine gun. On the ring scarf of the turret is a fifty-caliber air-cooled machine gun. Bing was my gunner, and a damn good one.”

  “Bing?”

  “That’s what we called Kyle Crosby. Bing. A troop joke. You would have laughed yourself silly if you ever heard him sing “White Christmas” —”

  “Ed,” he said wearily. “You’re going to talk yourself into a coma. Now, take it easy —”

  That was all I heard for a while. His voice went away in a dark swirl of purplish haze.

  Later, I don’t know how much later, I opened my eyes. I felt brand-new and painless.

  “Ed.”

  Monks was staring down at me. His chocolate-brown eyes almost looked sorry for me.

  “Yes, Captain Michael.”

  “I’ve looked through your wallet and personal effects. I can’t find the bill.”

  “What bill?” For a second I really didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “The short snorter,” he reminded me patiently. “The one you had all the men in your squad sign.”

  “Oh,” I said. “That. It’s in my wallet. Folded in half. In one of the plastic windows. Right under the photostat of my discharge.”

  “No,” he said. “It isn’t. I’ve looked. You sure you had it?”

  I was sure. You carry a thing for more than two decades, and it survives all the new wallets you own. It gets more dog-eared and yellow with time, but you make sure you transplant it carefully each time you ready an old billfold for the garbage can. I tried to think. Yes, I’d had the bill five months ago when Melissa Mercer had bought me a royal maroon leather beauty for my trip to Hollywood. That was the last time I’d really seen it.

  “If it’s not there,” I sighed, “then he’s got it.”

  “Who’s got it?”

  “The guy who got Kyle Crosby.”

  Monks nodded. “Or this Lola?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know anything anymore.”

  There was a nothing silence in which Monks looked at his thumbs and I studied the wallpaper. The hospital room was right out of TV serials about doctors, nurses, and sutures. Same white linen, small nightstand, no pictures on the walls, antiseptic and dull. You expected Raymond Massey to walk in any second to take your temperature and give you a lecture on violence as a way of life.

  Monks got to his feet, which is always his way of saying good-bye and cutting an interview short.

  “Where have they got Bing?” I asked for no good reason.

  Monks frowned. “Police morgue, naturally, until there are takers. We’ve sent tracers to Wisconsin, notified Missing Persons. He had a family, you said. Somebody’s bound to get in touch.”

  “Will you keep me posted? I’d like to see his wife.”

  “Sure thing. They tell me you’ll be out of here next Wednesday the latest. Take it easy, Ed. Rest up. If you remember something you haven’t told me, give me a buzz.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “And Ed —” He had paused at the white door.

  “Forget something, Mike?”

  He laughed his short, humorless laugh. “Light candles, donate to charity, or send for more horseshoes. Somebody up there likes you.” He eyed the white ceiling, waved, and closed the door.

  Somebody hadn’t liked Kyle Crosby.

  I tried to think. I reached back into my mind and turned on the memory projector. A large screen showed me the dollar bill, bigger than Cinerama, greener than the countryside. I could see the ten names. Some were written hastily, some were scrawled with great care. George Washington and his oval frame were surrounded with John Hancocks. Each guy in the squad had made his x in his own stylized, uniquely personal way. I screwed my eyes shut and concentrated, trying to remember the bill as it actually was.

  As it had been the last time I had consciously studied it and been nostalgic about the bad old days of World War II.

  Ten names.

  Ten G.I. Joes.

  Ten strangers — now.

  Where were the Joes of yesteryear?

  Walter B. Skiviat, Richard Satterlee, Ralph Warner, Edgar Stroud, Gary G. Gable, Rodell Farley, Owen Tompkins, James Donnell, and Kyle Crosby. My name was on the bill, too. Right over Washington’s bald crown — Ed Noon.

  Wars end, and the strangers you’ve lived with for three years of your lifetime pack up and go their own ways. Back to Delaware, back to New Jersey, back to Nebraska, and you never see them again. The war is the only thing you ever really had in common. So two decades later, how do you remember them?

  I tried.

  Corporal Skiviat, Walter B. Wiry, intense, Polish. A sweetheart of a man and great in a pinch.

  Technician Fifth Grade Richard Satterlee. Fat, neuter, and quiet. Did his job, which was radio, never complained, and said little.

  Ralph Warner. Youngest kid on the squad. Blond hair, wild-eyed, and eager to please. Never climbed above private first class because his brains never matched his ambition.

  Edgar Stroud. Drove the armored car like Stirling Moss, was almost illiterate, smoked a foul pipe eternally, but was the rock of ages in combat.

  Gary G. Gable. A gangling, cruel Kansan with eyes on the stripes of the man above him. A good soldier but a lousy human being. Beat an S.S. man half to death just to show off his muscles. A “little corporal.”

  Rodell Farley. T-5, and misplaced gentleman. Too good for the Army and hating his association with clods. A head full of sophistication; plays, books, music
. The squad guardhouse lawyer.

  Owen Tompkins. Sleepy-eyed Southern boy, paradoxically Latin looking, who neither toiled nor spun, but sat out the war not caring whether he lived or died a Pfc.

  James Donnell. Private Jimmy. I couldn’t remember much about him except that he had reminded me of James Stewart and always grinned shyly when I complimented him on his skill with motors and weapons.

  Kyle Crosby. Last but not least. The hero of the squad and our only genuine casualty, not counting the time when Gable and Farley collected some shrapnel from a hand grenade they were horsing around with in Marburg.

  Now Kyle was dead. And the rest of them —

  The bill bugged me. I tried to recall Kyle’s exact words on that windy R.C.A Building rooftop. “… you remember in the ETO when we turned in all our American money … that bill is mighty important … somebody is ….”

  Then the shots thundered again, and my side began to throb like a banjo.

  I must have fallen asleep thinking about the bill, the cold roof of the R.C.A. Building, Kyle Crosby’s new face, and Lola Langdon’s purple babushka. Sloppy trenchcoat and purple — It had been purple, hadn’t it? I couldn’t remember now.

  But I could remember Mr. X who had blasted death from out of the night.

  The hospital room was a box of absorbent cotton closing in on me.

  They gave me my walking papers on Wednesday. I had another visit from Mike Monks before I left.

  “Something’s screwy, Ed.”

  “Why?”

  He coughed. “This Crosby is supposed to have a family, right? Wife, three kids, that farm. Well, nobody’s come to claim him. Wisconsin has no record on him. You know what that means.”

  I shuddered. “Potter’s field.”

  “Right. I’m sorry, Ed. But my hands are tied. And why did he lie to you of all people after going to the trouble of looking you up?”

  It was too confusing to swallow on short notice. All I could think of was Kyle Crosby, who gave half his face to his country, getting buried like a stranger.

  “Call the V.A., Mike. War heroes have a right to be buried in Arlington Cemetery.” The Veterans’ Administration to the rescue.

  He brightened. “Good thinking. They owe him that much.”

  “You’re sure nobody’s called back? No chance of official wires getting crossed somewhere?”

  “Ed,” he said kindly, “with I.B.M., teletype, and computers, how could it go wrong? No, I’m sorry to say, nobody is claiming Crosby.”

  “The V.A. will think of something.”

  He grunted. “Okay. It’s a promise. You think of anything since we talked last?”

  “Yeah. Why should ten names on a dollar bill mean life and death? Why should Bing come back after all these years to ask me about it?”

  Monks laughed harshly. “When you can answer that one, let me in on it. How you feeling?”

  “I’ll live.”

  I did.

  As I was winding up my arm sling prior to being signed out, Melissa Mercer came in breathlessly. Monks had gone back to headquarters. Melissa out of breath is something to see, a sight for eyes both sore and well. She’s a lovely Negro girl with a cameo face and a slender yet warmly rounded body.

  “Fine thing!” she said. “My boss nearly gets killed, and they hang up the No Visitors sign. Except for policemen, of course.”

  “Hi, Mel. Miss me?”

  “You know I did. I can’t run the Noon Investigations Agency without you.”

  I laughed, feeling a stitch in my side. “How’s business? We get evicted yet?”

  She shook her head. “No, but — crazy things have been going on. You know anybody in the toy manufacturing line?”

  That threw me. “What makes you ask that?”

  “I don’t know, but let me see —” She looked soberly at her right hand, on which three fingers were extended. “The last three mornings a package has come by messenger boy. From Fast Service, Incorporated. Each time a long cardboard box. With a doll in it.”

  “Toy doll?”

  “Toy doll. Doll. D-o-l-l. A different kind of doll all three times.”

  I chuckled. “Probably some gag. Any name on the gift card?”

  “What gift card?” she scoffed. “There never is anything. Just the box with a doll in it.”

  “Forget it. Probably some advertising stunt.”

  We got out of the hospital after the necessary paper work involved in discharging a patient. Melissa helped me to the cabstand. We had to wait a few seconds before a yellow job rolled up and the driver pulled his flag down. We climbed in, and Melissa gave the tired cabby the office address.

  Melissa looked at me. “May I ask a silly question?”

  “You can ask me anything.”

  “How does it feel to be shot?”

  “It hurts. But I know what you mean — Well, there was a line Robert Young, the actor, used once. Northwest Passage with Spencer Tracy. That line really covers it.”

  “The movie buff rides again. Well, what was it?”

  “It’s a lot like having hot soup spilled all over you. The line went something like that.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  I changed the subject. “Dolls, huh? Must be a gag. Somebody probably heard I was in sick bay and sent them as a get-well message.”

  “Maybe,” Melissa murmured. “But if that’s the case, why send them to the office?”

  She had me there, and I was too worn to think like a detective. Any real questions could be answered by Fast Service, Incorporated.

  “What kind of dolls are they?”

  Melissa’s dark face lit up with a smile. “You being a bachelor and not a TV fan, I figured you wouldn’t know. But they are three of the most popular dolls in the country with the small fry. Bet they’re in ten million homes at least.”

  “So tell me.”

  “Ever hear of ‘Chatty Cathy,’ ‘Tiny Tears,’ and ‘Poor Pitiful Pearl’?”

  “You’re kidding. Poor pitiful who?”

  She laughed. “I thought as much. Greek to you. Well, let this be the February you escaped from death and learned about dolls.”

  She said a mouthful.

  Only neither of us knew exactly how much of a mouthful.

  As it turned out, dolls and death in February were as closely related as ham and eggs, coffee and cake, tea and crumpets, and Liz Taylor and men.

  3

  Nice Dolly, Eat Up All the Spinach

  The three dolls were propped in sitting positions on Melissa’s desk. I scaled my hat onto a chair and went over to look at them. Three round rubber meaningless faces stared up at me like so many babies.

  “Like old times,” I said.

  Melissa was hanging up my coat. “What do you mean, Ed?”

  “It was before your time. Back in fifty-seven. A very rich lady named Evelyn Hart had a wacky scheme, tied in with a Calypso campaign, to sell a new doll. But that’s ancient history, and the lady is still getting her mail in Joliet or some place like that. No, it couldn’t be her.” I brushed aside memories of the walking nightmare, Count Calypso and his voodoo troublemakers, forgot about old flame Peg Temple, and studied Chatty Cathy, Tiny Tears, and Poor Pitiful Pearl. I’d had enough thinking about the good old days.

  “Let me guess.” I made low comedy out of it for Melissa’s benefit. One of the dolls was freckled-faced with Saran hair, dressed in a red velveteen bodice and a lacy overskirt. A pull ring on a cord was fastened to the back of the doll. You tugged the ring, and as it snapped back a spool of wire somewhere in the doll’s body played the recorded voice of a child. “This one is obviously Chatty Cathy. And that has to be Tiny Tears, judging by that puckered expression.” I indicated the cuddly pink-faced one curled up with a plastic milk bottle. The last one was no contest. A mop-haired, untidy, babushka-topped, homely doll that must have been Raggedy Ann’s next of kin. “And that, of course, must be Poor Pitiful Pearl.”

  Melissa laughed. “You are a detective. Right all
three times.”

  I pulled Chatty Cathy’s ring. It was weird. A human voice echoed eerily in the office. “Where are we going?”

  “To hell if we don’t pray,” I said with a sigh. I tugged the ring a few more times and got “Nice baby,” “Cookie all gone,” and a bubbling laugh that was heartwarming. I eyed Melissa. “Which one came today?”

  “Pearl.”

  “They come the same time every day?”

  “Yup. Ten o’clock on the nose.”

  I shrugged. “How many kinds of dolls are there, expert?”

  Melissa winced. “You figuring on opening a toy store, Ed?”

  “Maybe. It is a pattern. One every day for three days. So there must be more coming.”

  “Ouch. We’ll have to get a bigger office then. Dolls are big business. Must be hundreds of models. There’s the Barby doll, Tammy, Thumbelina, Kissy Doll, Harriet, Ken, Raggedy Ann, Raggedy Andy, Teeny Tiny Tears, Chatty Baby, and Huckleberry Hound and all those cartoon characters like Popeye and Donald Duck and —”

  “Time. How about getting Fast Service on the phone? I want to talk to them pronto.”

  In the inner office, which was mine, I didn’t think of another thing until Melissa buzzed me on the intercom. Morning sunlight was giving the desk a paint job, underscoring the signs of wear and tear, as I spoke to the man from Fast Service, Incorporated. Kyle Crosby was forgotten for a while.

  “Sorry, Mr. Noon.” He sounded sorry. “Can’t tell you much more than this. We get a call from somebody named Glass to pick up a parcel at Number Five Terrace Gardens. Our messenger makes the pickup at the desk in the lobby. We have checks from this Mr. Glass, and that’s it. Mr. Amos Glass. Why do you ask? Don’t you know him?”

  “Oh, that Glass,” I lied. “Thank you. Now I understand.”

  I hung up and called Information, getting the listing of Five Terrace Gardens. Memory served me a picture of a fancy hotel in midtown Manhattan. The operator got it for me in five seconds flat.

  “Mr. Glass, please,” I told the polite voice at the Terrace Gardens switchboard.

  “Five-oh-nine. Thank you.” There was a click, a short wait, and then an old man’s voice, sounding as if he was relaxed in a rocking chair, said: “Yesssss?”