Hail to the Chief

by Ed McBain

  'This girl Midge,' Carella said, introducing the second chorus of the same opera, and suddenly the woman in the kitchen said, 'Eleanor?'

  'Yes, Grandma?'

  'Come make me some tea, Eleanor.'

  'Yes, Grandma,' she said, and rose swiftly and left the room.

  Carella looked at Kling and sighed. Kling shook his head wearily because he knew exactly what Carella was thinking. They'd been that close, and now maybe they would lose her.

  The girl was in the kitchen for perhaps five minutes. When she came back, she sat again in the easy chair, folded her hands in her lap, and said, 'Well, I'm sorry I can't help you, but I don't know where Big is, and I don't know anybody named Midge.' She was back to the litany, repeating whatever Randy had told her on the telephone.

  'Ever been to Turman?' Kling asked. They weren't about to let her slip away. If they were forced to, they would baldly state that her boy friend had been caught with Midge in flagrante delicto, in the middle of Turman's Main Street, during the height of last night's rush hour.

  'Turman?'

  'Turman, Turman,' Carella said, his tone sharper, 'right across the Hamilton Bridge. Now don't tell us you don't know where Turman is.'

  Ellie shrank back from the harshness of his voice. 'Yes, I know where Turman is.'

  'Have you ever been there?'

  'I… don't remember.'

  That meant she'd been there. The rest would all be downhill. But instead of relaxing, their manner got tougher, their voices more demanding, their very postures more rigid and unrelenting.

  'You'd better remember,' Kling said.

  'And fast,' Carella said.

  'If I can't remember, I can't remember,' Ellie said. Her blue eyes were beginning to swim with tears.

  'Have you ever been to Turman, yes or no?' Carella snapped.

  'Yes, all right, yes. I think I was there. But only once.'

  'When?'

  'I don't remember.'

  'Now you listen to me, Ellie,' Carella said, and pointed his finger at her. 'You're going to find yourself in a whole lot of trouble if you don't start telling us the truth.'

  'We're wasting time,' Kling said in apparent disgust. 'Let's take her to the station house.'

  'No, wait a minute, what for?' Ellie said. Her tear-filled eyes were wide with panic now.

  'When did you go to Turman?'

  'Just before Christmas.'

  'Where?'

  'I don't re—'

  'Where, damn it!' Carella shouted.

  'It's a big town. I don't remember.'

  'It's a small town, and you do remember!'

  'What's the matter, Eleanor?' the woman in the kitchen asked.

  'Where?' Carella said again.

  'Is something wrong, Eleanor?' the woman asked. 'What's that shouting?'

  Kling rose abruptly from the sofa. 'Your grandmother's going to have to post bail for you,' he lied. 'Come on, get your coat.'

  'No, wait, I…'

  'Yes?' Carella said.

  'What have I done?' Ellie asked plaintively. I mean, what is it I've done?'

  'You're withholding evidence,' Kling said. 'Let's go.' He reached for the handcuffs on his belt. That's what did it. He would remember always that reaching for the handcuffs was what caused the girl to crack. He would remember the trick, and use it again and again in the future.

  'All right, I went to a house there,' Ellie said softly, and lowered her head, and stared at her feet.

  'What house?' Carella said quickly.

  'Big's aunt has a house in Turman.'

  'Where? What street?'

  'I don't know.'

  'Damn it…' Kling started.

  'I really don't know, I swear to God! It's a yellow house with, white shutters, and there's a fig tree in the front yard. It was covered with tarpaper when we were there in December. I don't know the street. I was only there that once. I swear to God, I don't know the street!'

  'What's his aunt's name?"

  'Martha Walsh.'

  'Where does she live?'

  'Around the corner. On Phillips Avenue.'

  'Thank you,' Carella said.

  'Eleanor?' the woman in the kitchen asked. 'Are you all right?'

  'I'm all right,' Ellie said without conviction.

  Detective Meyer Meyer was having his problems with public relations.

  Montgomery Pierce-Hoyt was on the telephone again, and he wanted to know whether or not the lieutenant had given Meyer permission to discuss the relationship of television to acts of violence.

  'Yes, he's given me permission,' Meyer said. 'Provided it's clearly understood that whatever I say is only my own personal opinion, and isn't in any way presented as the official view of the department.'

  'Oh, yes, certainly,' Pierce-Hoyt said. 'When can I come up there?'

  'I was just leaving the office,' Meyer said.

  'When will you be back?'

  'I have a speaking engagement, and then I'm going straight home.'

  'A speaking engagement?' Pierce-Hoyt asked. 'What kind of speaking engagement?'

  'I'm talking at a women's college.'

  'What about?'

  'Rape. How to prevent it.'

  'That sounds intriguing,' Pierce-Hoyt said.

  'Yes, it's very intriguing,' Meyer said dryly.

  'Mind if I come along?'

  'I'm leaving right this minute.'

  'I'll meet you there. I'd like to hear your talk. Might provide some interesting sidelights for the piece. Which college is it?'

  'Amberson.'

  'What time are you speaking?'

  'Three o'clock,' Meyer said, and couldn't resist adding, 'if I can get off the phone.'

  'I'll be there. How will I know you?'

  'I'll be the only one standing on the platform behind a lectern and talking about rape.'

  'See you,' Pierce-Hoyt said cheerfully, and hung up.

  Meyer did not like Pierce-Hoyt. He had not even met him, and already he didn't like him. He also didn't like having to go all the way downtown and crosstown on a Saturday to give a talk on rape-prevention to a crowd of young girls who were probably living in dormitories with men students from nearby colleges and screwing their brains out. When his daughter Susie got old enough, he would say No. No, you may not take a boy as a college roommate. No, you may not bring a boy home to this house and sleep in the same bedroom with him. Yes, I am an old-fashioned man, that's right. If this were Poland, where my grandfather came from, and if we went to the village rabbi and asked, 'Rov, is it fitting that my only daughter should sleep with a person before she's married?' the rabbi would shake his head and stroke his beard, and answer, 'Nowhere is it written that such an act should be condoned.' The answer is No, Susie. No, no, no.

  He went to the coat rack, and was putting on his coat when the telephone rang. Cotton Hawes and Hal Willis were supposed to be working the shift with him, but he hadn't seen hide nor hair of either of them since lunchtime. Muttering, he picked up the receiver.

  '87th Squad, Detective Meyer,' he said.

  'Meyer, this is Grundy here in Turman. Is Carella around?'

  'Grundy?' Meyer said. 'Who's Grundy?'

  'Detective Grundy, Turman Police.'

  'Hello, Grundy, how are you?'

  'Fine. Is Carella there?'

  'Not at the moment. Anything I can do for you?'

  'Yeah. Tell him we located the truck. Green sixty-four Chevy, bearing an Isola plate, 74J-8309, registered to one Randall M. Nesbitt, address 1104 Dooley in Riverhead. Back of the truck scrubbed clean, not a stain of any kind on it. We're checking the steering wheel, gearshift, everything else inside and out for latents, but our guess is we won't find a thing.'

  'Where'd you…?'

  'I was coming to that,' Grundy said. 'There's a pond about six miles from where we found the girl's body. Truck was half submerged there. Guess they thought it was deeper than it actually is.'

  'What time…?'

  'Found it a little after noon. Mail
man driving by spotted the back of it sticking out of the water.'

  'Anything else?'

  'That's it. Will you tell Carella?'

  'Sure thing.'

  'If he's got any questions, I'll be here till about six tonight.'

  'I'll leave the message.'

  'Thanks,' Grundy said, and hung up.

  Meyer wrote out the note for Carella, glanced at the wall clock, and wondered if the lieutenant had chosen him for this lecture only because he was bald, and therefore presumably looked fatherly, and therefore capable of inspiring confidence in clean-scrubbed college girls. Meyer did not think he looked fatherly. Meyer thought he looked quite handsome and dashing - which he would have to be if he was to get to Amberson by three o'clock.

  He was buttoning his coat and going through the gate in the railing, when he heard Kling and Carella coming up the iron-runged steps to the second floor. They came into the corridor just as he reached the stairway. 'Call from Turman,' he said. They found the truck. Note's on your desk.' Racing down the steps, he shouted over his shoulder, 'I'll be going home straight from the college. See you Monday.'

  'What college?' Carella shouted after him. 'What are you talking about?'

  But Meyer was gone.

  Carella read the note on his desk, and called Grundy back at once. It was now almost two-thirty, and there wasn't a moment to lose. A state trooper answered the telephone, and then switched Carella over to Grundy's office.

  'Yeah?' Grundy said.

  'I got your message. We've been doing some work on this end, talking to the suspect's girl friend, and later his aunt. We've got a house we want you to check out.'

  'Here in Turman?'

  'Right. Here's the address, have you got a pencil?'

  'Shoot,' Grundy said.

  '304 West Scovil Lane. Ring a bell?'

  'I know the area. Whose house is it?'

  'Belongs to the suspect's aunt, woman named Martha Walsh. She told us she keeps it closed during the winter, but the suspect has a key.'

  'You still haven't told me his name,' Grundy said.

  'Big Anthony Sutherland.'

  'That would be "Pig," huh? And the second kid?'

  'No help.'

  'I'm on my way,' Grundy said.

  While Meyer Meyer told an assorted collection of not-so-virginal college girls that a rapist was a seriously disturbed individual who was incapable of enjoying a normal sex relationship with a woman, Detective Al Grundy drove along tree-shaded Scovil Lane, and located a yellow house with white shutters bearing the number 304 on the mailbox outside. And while Meyer told his audience that a rapist expects his victim to be terrified, and that this terror-reaction adds to his own excitement, Grundy went up the front walk past the tarpaper-covered fig tree, and knocked on the front door and got no answer, and forced the lock.

  'Now some of you may feel that rape is not such a terrible thing. It is penetration by force, true, it is a violation of your body, true - but if you submit to this violation, perhaps you will not be hurt. Perhaps. But remember that part of the psychological interplay that makes rape appealing and exciting to this man is the very taking-by-force aspect of what he's doing. And where there is force involved, there is the attendant danger of being severely beaten or even killed.'

  There was a sleeping bag on the floor of the living room, and bedclothes on the living-room couch. An empty pizza carton and two empty cans of beer were on the floor. An ashtray brimming with butts rested on the end table alongside the couch. Grundy sniffed the butts on the off chance they might be marijuana roaches. They were not. He went into the kitchen.

  'I don't want you to become neurotic about rape, I don't want you to start screaming if a panhandler taps you on the shoulder. He may only want a quarter for a drink, and you'll start screaming, and he'll try to shut you up, and the next thing you know he's broken your neck. That's as bad as being assaulted by a real rapist. I do want to frighten you a bit, however, and the first thing I want to frighten you about is hitchhiking. If you'd like to get raped, the best way to accomplish your goal is to go outside and start hitchhiking. I can't guarantee that if you hitch a ride tonight, you'll positively be raped. But I can guarantee that if you hitch from the same spot at the same time each night, someone will try to rape you. It might take a week, it might take longer. But someone will try. And it will have nothing whatever to do with how you look. You can be standing on that corner wearing a potato sack, with your hair in curlers, and a fever sore on your lip, and that won't discourage the rapist. He is a sick man; you are presumably a healthy individual. Don't, for God's sake, foolishly place yourself in hazardous or vulnerable situations.'

  There were two six-packs of beer in the refrigerator, a carton of milk, some cold cuts, and a package of sliced bread with half the loaf gone. Used paper plates were on the kitchen table, and the trash can was full of empty cans - baked beans, soup, vegetables, hash. Cups, silverware, soup plates, and knives were piled in the sink, unwashed. Grundy went into the bedroom.

  'Like in the song from The Fantasticks, there are many different kinds of rape. If you're out on a date with a man you know, and you're necking in his automobile, and he decides to take you by force, against your wishes, that's rape - even if you've known him since he was six years old. In a situation like that, I would advise that you stop necking for a moment, stick your finger down your throat, and vomit into his lap. The more serious rape, if rapes can be classified as to seriousness, is the one that can lead to bodily injury or death. A man jumps out at you, he threatens you at knife point. Don't begin telling him what a disgusting animal he is, don't start cutting him down to size, because he may decide to cut you down to size - literally. He is emotionally unstable, he does not need his ego further bruised. I've known victims who have talked themselves out of being raped by treating their attacker with human kindness, understanding, sympathy, and humility. This doesn't always work, but it may at least buy you some time until either help comes or you can effect an escape. One girl bought time by telling the rapist she knew he'd been following her, and thought she was the luckiest girl alive, because here she was just a plain, dumpy little thing, and he was such a big handsome man. She put her arms around his neck and got very affectionate - something totally unexpected by the rapist -and he lost his erection and was momentarily incapable of performing. By the time he got back to the business at hand, which was taking this girl by force, don't forget that, some people wandered up the street, and the girl was saved from attack.

  'But let's suppose a man begins hitting you the moment he drags you into the bushes. Your natural reaction, even if you plan not to resist, even if you plan to go limp - which may cause the same thing to happen to him - is to turn your head away from the blows, or bring up your hands to protect your face, or in some way involuntarily show resistance or fear, which will only provoke him more. Let's say nothing you've said or done has worked, you are on the ground, he is still striking you, he is going to rape you. The question now is whether you want to be raped, and maybe killed, or whether you want to hurt this man. Only you can decide that. If you choose not to be a victim, I can tell you how to hurt him, and how to get away from him.'

  The bedclothes were rumpled, the sheets were stained with blood. A leather-thonged cat-o'-nine-tails was on the floor near the footboard. The window was wide open. Grundy went to the window and looked out. The ground was some four feet below the sill. He carefully tented his handkerchief over the leather-wrapped handle of the whip, and then tagged it for identification and subsequent transmittal to the police lab in nearby Allenby. A girl's handbag was resting on the seat of a straight-backed chair near the bed. Grundy opened the bag.

  'Remember that the unexpected is the best approach. You are flat on your back, and this man is about to rape you. Instead of trying to twist away, instead of trying to shove him off you, begin to fondle him. That's right. Fondle the man. Fondle his genitals. And then drop your hand to his testicles and squeeze. Squeeze as hard as you can.
You are going to hurt this man, but you are also going to end the rape that very minute. You may wonder whether he will be able to chase you afterwards, perhaps hit you harder than he did before, perhaps even kill you. I can guarantee that you can run clear to California and back, and that man will still be lying on the ground incapable of movement. This is one way of stopping a rape, if you do not choose to become a victim. There is another way, and I suspect your reaction to it will be "I'd rather get raped." That, of course, is up to you. I can only offer you options.'

  The girl's handbag contained three lipsticks, a package of Kleenex, two sticks of chewing gum, four subway tokens, three dollar bills, forty cents in change, and a card showing that she was a member of the Student Organization of Whitman High School in Riverhead. The name on the card identified her as Margaret McNally. There was nothing in the house or on the grounds outside that in any way identified the two boys who presumably had killed her.

  'Again, do the unexpected,' Meyer said. 'Put your hands gently on the rapist's face, palms against his temples, cradle his face, murmur words of endearment, allow him to think you're going along with his plans. Your thumbs will be close to his eyes. If you have in yourself the courage to push your thumbs into a hard-boiled egg, then you can also push them into this man's eyes. You will put out his eyes, you will blind him. But you will not be raped. There is never a moment, during a rape in progress, I can guarantee this, when you will not have the opportunity to fondle the man's genitals or to put your hands on his face. These are his vulnerable areas, and if you behave unexpectedly and do not seem to be preparing an attack, he will not suspect what is coming until it is too late. Squeezing his testicles will incapacitate him, but may not permanently injure him. Putting out his eyes is a drastic measure, and you may feel with some justification that doing this is worse than what the rapist is trying to do to you - that the means of preventing the rape are worse than the crime itself. The choice is yours.'