by Ed McBain
“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 d
oll.”
“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.