Doll Page 3

  There were three huge charts affixed to the wall behind her. Each chart was divided into two-by-two-inch squares, somewhat like a colorless checkerboard. Running down the extreme left-hand side of each chart was a column of small photographs. Running across the top of each chart was a listing for every working hour of the day. The charts were covered with plexiglass panels, and a black crayon pencil hung on a cord to the right of each one. Alongside the photographs, crayoned onto the charts in the appropriate time slots, was a record and a reminder of any model’s sittings for the week, readable at a glance. To the right of the charts, and accessible through an opening in the counter, there was a cubbyhole arrangement of mailboxes, each separate slot marked with similar small photographs.

  The wall bearing the door through which Carella and Kling had entered was covered with eight-by-ten black-and-white photos of every model the agency represented, some seventy-five in all. The photos bore no identifying names. A waist-high runner carried black crayon pencils spaced at intervals along the length of the wall. A wide white band under each photograph, plexiglass-covered, served as the writing area for telephone messages. A model entering the room could, in turn, check her eight-by-ten photo for any calls, her photo-marked mailbox for any letters, and her photo-marked slot on one of the three charts for her next assignment. Looking into the room, you somehow got the vague impression that photography played a major part in the business of this agency. You also had the disquieting feeling that you had seen all of these faces a hundred times before, staring down at you from billboards and up at you from magazine covers. Putting an identifying name under any single one of them would have been akin to labeling the Taj Mahal or the Empire State Building. The only naked wall was the one facing them as they entered, and it — like the reception-room wall — seemed to be made of solid walnut, with nary a door in sight.

  ‘I think I see a knob,’ Carella whispered, and they started across the room toward the far wall. The woman behind the counter glanced up as they passed, and then pulled the phone abruptly from her ear with a ‘Just a second, Alex,’ and said to the two detectives, ‘Yes, may I help you?’

  ‘We’re looking for Mr Cutler’s office,’ Carella said.

  ‘Yes?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, we’re detectives. We’re investigating the murder of Tinka Sachs.’

  ‘Oh. Straight ahead,’ the woman said. ‘I’m Leslie Cutler. I’ll join you as soon as I’m off the phone.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Carella said. He walked to the walnut wall, Kling following close behind him, and knocked on what he supposed was the door.

  ‘Come in,’ a man’s voice said.

  Art Cutler was a man in his forties with straight blond hair like Sunny Tufts, and with at least six feet four inches of muscle and bone that stood revealed in a dark blue suit as he rose behind his desk, smiling, and extended his hand.

  ‘Come in, gentlemen,’ he said. His voice was deep. He kept his hand extended while Carella and Kling crossed to the desk, and then he shook hands with each in turn, his grip firm and strong. ‘Sit down, won’t you?’ he said, and indicated a pair of Saarinen chairs, one at each comer of his desk. ‘You’re here about Tinka,’ he said dolefully.

  ‘Yes,’ Carella said.

  ‘Terrible thing. A maniac must have done it, don’t you think?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Carella said.

  ‘Well, it must have been, don’t you think?’ he said to Kling.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Kling said.

  ‘That’s why we’re here, Mr Cutler,’ Carella explained. To find out what we can about the girl. We’re assuming that an agent would know a great deal about the people he repre—’

  ‘Yes, that’s true,’ Cutler interrupted, ‘and especially in Tinka’s case.’

  ‘Why especially in her case?’

  ‘Well, we’d handled her career almost from the very beginning.’

  ‘How long would that be, Mr Cutler?’

  ‘Oh, at least ten years. She was only nineteen when we took her on, and she was… well, let me see, she was thirty in February, no, it’d be almost eleven years, that’s right.’

  ‘February what?’ Kling asked.

  ‘February third,’ Cutler replied. ‘She’d done a little modeling on the coast before she signed with us, but nothing very impressive. We got her into all the important magazines, Vogue. Harper’s, Mademoiselle, well, you name them. Do you know what Tinka Sachs was earning?’

  ‘No, what?’ Kling said.

  ‘Sixty dollars an hour. Multiply that by an eight- or ten-hour day, an average of six days a week, and you’ve got somewhere in the vicinity of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year.’ Cutler paused. ‘That’s a lot of money. That’s more than the president of the United States earns.’

  ‘With none of the headaches,’ Kling said.

  ‘Mr Cutler,’ Carella said, ‘when did you last see Tinka Sachs alive?’

  ‘Late Friday afternoon,’ Cutler said.

  ‘Can you give us the circumstances?’

  ‘Well, she had a sitting at five, and she stopped in around seven to pick up her mail and to see if there had been any calls. That’s all.’

  ‘Had there?’ Kling asked.

  ‘Had there what?’

  ‘Been any calls?’

  ‘I’m sure I don’t remember. The receptionist usually posts all calls shortly after they’re received. You may have seen our photo wall—’

  ‘Yes,’ Kling said.

  ‘Well, our receptionist takes care of that. If you want me to check with her, she may have a record, though I doubt it. Once a call is crayoned onto the wall—’

  ‘What about mail?’

  ‘I don’t know if she had any or… wait a minute, yes, I think she did pick some up. I remember she was leafing through some envelopes when I came out of my office to chat with her.’

  ‘What time did she leave here?’ Carella asked.

  ‘About seven-fifteen.’

  ‘For another sitting?’

  ‘No, she was heading home. She has a daughter, you know. A five-year-old.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Carella said.

  ‘Well, she was going home,’ Cutler said.

  ‘Do you know where she lives?’ Kling asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Stafford Place.’

  ‘Have you ever been there?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘How long do you suppose it would take to get from this office to her apartment?’

  ‘No more than fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Then Tinka would have been home by seven-thirty … if she went directly home.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘Did she say she was going directly home?’

  ‘Yes. No, she said she wanted to pick up some cake, and then she was going home.’

  ‘Cake?’

  ‘Yes. There’s a shop up the street that’s exceptionally good. Many of our mannequins buy cakes and pastry there.’

  ‘Did she say she was expecting someone later on in the evening?’ Kling asked.

  ‘No, she didn’t say what her plans were.’

  ‘Would your receptionist know if any of those telephone messages related to her plans for the evening?’

  ‘I don’t know, we can ask her.’

  ‘Yes, we’d like to,’ Carella said.

  ‘What were your plans for last Friday night, Mr Cutler?’ Kling asked.

  ‘My plans?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What time did you leave the office?’

  ‘Why would you possibly want to know that?’ Cutler asked.

  ‘You were the last person to see her alive,’ Kling said.

  ‘No, her murderer was the last person to see her alive,’ Cutler corrected. ‘And if I can believe what I read in the newspapers, her daughter was the next-to-last person to see her alive. So I really can’t understand how Tinka’s visit to the agency or my plans for the evening are in any way germane, or even related, to her death.’

  ‘Perhaps they’re not, Mr Cutler,’ Carella said, ‘but I’m sure you realize we’re obliged to investigate every possibility.’

  Cutler frowned, including Carella in whatever hostility he had originally reserved for Kling. He hesitated a moment and then grudgingly said, ‘My wife and I joined some friends for dinner at Les Trois Chats. ’ He paused and added caustically, ‘That’s a French restaurant.’

  ‘What time was that?’ Kling asked.

  ‘Eight o’clock.’

  ‘Where were you at nine?’

  ‘Still having dinner.’

  ‘And at nine-thirty?’

  Cutler sighed and said, ‘We didn’t leave the restaurant until a little after ten.’

  ‘And then what did you do?’

  ‘Really, is this necessary?’ Cutler said, and scowled at the detectives. Neither of them answered. He sighed again and said, ‘We walked along Hall Avenue for a while, and then my wife and I left our friends and took a cab home.’

  The door opened.

  Leslie Cutler breezed into the office, saw the expression on her husband’s face, weighed the silence that greeted her entrance, and immediately said, ‘What is it?’

  Tell them where we went when we left here Friday night,’ Cutler said. ‘The gentlemen are intent on playing cops and robbers.’

  ‘You’re joking,’ Leslie said, and realized at once that they were not. ‘We went to dinner with some friends,’ she said quickly. ‘Marge and Daniel Ronet — she’s one of our mannequins. Why?’

  ‘What time did you leave the restaurant, Mrs Cutler?’

  ‘At ten.’

  ‘Was your husband with you all that time?’

  ‘Ye
s, of course he was.’ She turned to Cutler and said, ‘Are they allowed to do this? Shouldn’t we call Eddie?’

  ‘Who’s Eddie?’ Kling said.

  ‘Our lawyer.’

  ‘You won’t need a lawyer.’

  ‘Are you a new detective?’ Cutler asked Kling suddenly.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It’s supposed to mean your interviewing technique leaves something to be desired.’

  ‘Oh? In what respect? What do you find lacking in my approach, Mr Cutler?’

  ‘Subtlety, to coin a word.’

  ‘That’s very funny,’ Kling said.

  ‘I’m glad it amuses you.’

  ‘Would it amuse you to know that the elevator operator at 791 Stafford Place gave us an excellent description of the man he took up to Tinka’s apartment on the night she was killed? And would it amuse you further to know that the description fits you to a tee? How does that hit your funny bone, Mr Cutler?’

  ‘I was nowhere near Tinka’s apartment last Friday night.’

  ‘Apparently not. I know you won’t mind our contacting the friends you had dinner with, though — just to check.’

  ‘The receptionist will give you their number,’ Cutler said coldly.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Cutler looked at his watch. ‘I have a lunch date,’ he said. ‘If you gentlemen are finished with your—’

  ‘I wanted to ask your receptionist about those telephone messages,’ Carella said. ‘And I’d also appreciate any information you can give me about Tinka’s friends and acquaintances.’

  ‘My wife will have to help you with that.’ Cutler glanced sourly at Kling and said, ‘I’m not planning to leave town. Isn’t that what you always warn a suspect not to do?’

  ‘Yes, don’t leave town,’ Kling said.

  ‘Bert,’ Carella said casually, ‘I think you’d better get back to the squad. Grossman promised to call with a lab report sometime this afternoon. One of us ought to be there to take it.’

  ‘Sure,’ Kling said. He went to the door and opened it. ‘My partner’s a little more subtle than I am,’ he said, and left.

  Carella, with his work cut out for him, gave a brief sigh, and said, ‘Could we talk to your receptionist now, Mrs Cutler?’

  Chapter 3

  When Carella left the agency at two o’clock that Monday afternoon, he was in possession of little more than he’d had when he first climbed those blue-carpeted steps. The receptionist, radiating wide-eyed helpfulness, could not remember any of the phone messages that had been left for Tinka Sachs on the day of her death. She knew they were all personal calls, and she remembered that some of them were from men, but she could not recall any of the men’s names. Neither could she remember the names of the women callers — yes, some of them were women, she said, but she didn’t know exactly how many — nor could she remember why any of the callers were trying to contact Tinka.

  Carella thanked her for her help, and then sat down with Leslie Cutler — who was still fuming over Kling’s treatment of her husband — and tried to compile a list of men Tinka knew. He drew another blank here because Leslie informed him at once that Tinka, unlike most of the agency’s mannequins (the word ‘mannequin’ was beginning to rankle a little) kept her private affairs to herself, never allowing a date to pick her up at the agency, and never discussing the men in her life, not even with any of the other mannequins (in fact, the word was beginning to rankle a lot). Carella thought at first that Leslie was suppressing information because of the jackass manner in which Kling had conducted the earlier interview. But as he questioned her more completely, he came to believe that she really knew nothing at all about Tinka’s personal matters. Even on the few occasions when she and her husband had been invited to Tinka’s home, it had been for a simple dinner for three, with no one else in attendance, and with the child Anna asleep in her own room. Comparatively charmed to pieces by Carella’s patience after Kling’s earlier display, Leslie offered him the agency flyer on Tinka, the composite that went to all photographers, advertising agency art directors, and prospective clients. He took it, thanked her, and left.

  Sitting over a cup of coffee and a hamburger now, in a luncheonette two blocks from the squadroom, Carella took the composite out of its manila envelope and remembered again the way Tinka Sachs had looked the last time he’d seen her. The composite was an eight-by-ten black-and-white presentation consisting of a larger sheet folded in half to form two pages, each printed front and back with photographs of Tinka in various poses.

  Carella studied the composite from first page to last.

  The only thing the composite told him was that Tinka posed fully clothed, modeling neither lingerie nor swimwear, a fact he considered interesting, but hardly pertinent. He put the composite into the manila envelope, finished his coffee, and went back to the squadroom.

  Kling was waiting and angry.

  ‘What was the idea, Steve?’ he asked immediately.

  ‘Here’s a composite on Tinka Sachs,’ Carella said. ‘We might as well add it to our file.’

  ‘Never mind the composite. How about answering my question?’

  ‘I’d rather not. Did Grossman call?’

  ‘Yes. The only print they’ve found in the room so far are the dead girl’s. They haven’t yet examined the knife, or her pocketbook. Don’t try to get me off this, Steve. I’m goddamn good and sore.’

  ‘Bert, I don’t want to get into an argument with you. Let’s drop it, okay?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We’re going to be working on this case together for what may turn out to be a long time. I don’t want to start by—’

  ‘Yes, that’s right, and I don’t like being ordered back to the squadroom just because someone doesn’t like my line of questioning.’

  ‘Nobody ordered you back to the squadroom.’

  ‘Steve, you outrank me, and you told me to come back, and that was ordering me back. I want to know why.’

  ‘Because you were behaving like a jerk, okay?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Then maybe you ought to step back and take an objective look at yourself.’

  ‘Damnit, it was you who said the old man’s identification seemed reliable! Okay, so we walk into that office and we’re face to face with the man who’d just been described to us! What’d you expect me to do? Serve him a cup of tea?’

  ‘No, I expected you to accuse him—’

  ‘Nobody accused him of anything!’

  ‘—of murder and take him right up here to book him,’ Carella said sarcastically. ‘That’s what I expected.’

  ‘I asked perfectly reasonable questions!’

  ‘You asked questions that were snotty and surly and hostile and amateurish. You treated him like a criminal from go, when you had no reason to. You immediately put him on the defensive instead of disarming him. If I were in his place, I’d have lied to you just out of spite. You made an enemy instead of a friend out of someone who might have been able to help us. That means if I need any further information about Tinka’s professional life, I’ll have to beg it from a man who now has good reason to hate the police.’

  ‘He fit our description! Anyone would have asked—’

  ‘Why the hell couldn’t you ask in a civil manner? And then check on those friends he said he was with, and then get tough if you had something to work with? What did you accomplish your way? Not a goddamn thing. Okay, you asked me, so I’m telling you. I had work to do up there, and I couldn’t afford to waste more time while you threw mud at the walls. That’s why I sent you back here. Okay? Good. Did you check Cutler’s alibi?’