As conscientious as he was, he didn’t even attempt to analyze the body fluids and organs for any traces of nonvolatile poisons. He already had his cause of death-acute carbon monoxide poisoning-and the isolation, recovery and identification of another, and unknown, poison in the bodies would have been a vast undertaking. Given even a small quantity of any particular drug, given even the tiniest clue to its existence in a corpse, Anderson, who was a competent toxicologist, would have consulted his texts and then chosen the best method of isolating that drug. But drugs, unfortunately, are not catalogued according to their properties. This means that if there is an unknown drug in a corpse, and if the toxicologist has no clue supplied either by the circumstances of the death or by a previous autopsy report, he must run every test he can think of in a catch-as-catch-can game of trying to isolate something toxic. The non-volatile organic poisons ranged from glucosides like oleander and scilla and digitalis, to essentials oils like nutmeg and cedar and rue, to aliphatic hypnotics like barbiturates and hydantoins, to organic purgatives like oleum ricini and cascara sagrada, and then into the alkaloids like opium and morphine and atropine… there were plenty, and Anderson was familiar with all of them, but he had not been asked to run such exhaustive tests, and saw no necessity for doing so. He had been asked to find out three things, and he already had the answers to the first two. He began work on the third immediately.
He couldn’t understand why the cops of the 87th wanted to know whether or not the victims had been making love before they died. He rather suspected the squad contained a horny bastard somewhere in its ranks, a latent necrophiliac. In any case, they wanted the information, and it was not too difficult to provide it. The situation might have been different if the bodies had reached him later than they did. Sperm, like alcohol, simply isn’t present after twenty-four hours have expired. He didn’t expect to find any moving cells in Irene Thayer’s vaginal tract because he knew this was impossible so many hours after her death. But he could hopefully find immobile spermatozoa even now. He took a wet smear, studied the specimen under a high-power microscope, and found no traces of spermatozoa. Not content to leave it at that (there were too many conditions which could explain the absence of spermatozoa in the vagina even following intercourse) he turned to the body of Tommy Barlow, irrigated the urethral canal with a saline solution, aspirated the fluid back into a syringe, and then studied it under his microscope for traces of sperm. There were none.
Satisfied with his findings, he concluded his report and asked that it be typed up for transmission to the 87th.
The report was couched in medical language, and it explained exactly why Anderson was answering his questions as he answered them, exactly what evidence he had found to back up his opinions. The men of the 87th waded through the language and decided that what it all meant was:
1. Gaspipe.
2. Sober.
3. Unlaid.
The report made them wonder where all that booze had gone, if neither of the victims had drunk it. The report also made them wonder why Tommy and Irene had taken off their clothes, if not euphemistically to “be together” for the last time. It had been a reasonable assumption, up to then, that the pair had made love, then dressed themselves partially, and then turned on the gas. If they had not made love, why had they undressed?
Somehow, the men on the squad almost wished they’d never received Anderson’s damn report.
* * * *
5
There is something about big women that is always a little frightening: a reversal of roles, a destruction of stereotype. Women are supposed to be delicate and fragile; everybody knows that. They’re supposed to be soft and cuddly and a little helpless and dependent. They’re supposed to seek comfort and solace in the arms of strong, clear-eyed resolute men.
The two men who rang the doorbell of Mary Tomlinson’s house on Sands Spit were strong, clear-eyed, and resolute.
Steve Carella was six feet tall with wide shoulders, narrow hips, thick wrists and big hands. He did not present a picture of overwhelming massiveness because his power was deceptively concealed in the body of a natural athlete, a man who moved easily and loosely, in total control of a fine-honed muscularity. His eyes were brown with a peculiar downward slant, combining with his high cheekbones to give his face a curiously Oriental look. He was not a frightening man, but when you opened the door to find him on your front step, you knew for certain he wasn’t there to sell insurance.
Cotton Hawes weighed a hundred and ninety pounds. He was six feet two inches tall, and his big-boned body was padded with obvious muscle. His eyes were an electric blue, and he had a straight unbroken nose, and a good mouth with a wide lower lip. He carried a white streak in the hair over his left temple, where he had once been stabbed while investigating a burglary. He did not look like the sort of man anyone would want to challenge-even to a game of checkers.
Both men were big, both men were strong. And besides, they were each carrying loaded guns on their hips. But when Mary Tomlinson opened the door of the development house, they both felt slightly inadequate and seemed to shrink visibly on the doorstep.
Mrs. Tomlinson had flaming red hair and flashing green eyes. The eyes and the hair alone would have been enough to present her as a woman of force, but they were accompanied by height and girth, and a granite-like, no-nonsense face. She stood at least five feet nine inches tall inside her doorway, a woman with a large bosom and thick arms, her legs and feet planted firmly to the floor, like a wrestler waiting for a charge. She wore a flowered Hawaiian muumuu, and she was barefoot, and she looked at the detectives with suspicion as they faced her inadequately and timorously showed their shields.
“Come in,” she said. “I was wondering when you’d get to me.”
She did not deliver the cliché with any sense of unoriginality. She seemed not to know that “I was wondering when you’d get to me” had been spoken by countless fictitious heavies long before she was born, and would probably continue to be spoken so long as heavies existed. Instead, she delivered the line as if she were chairman of the board of General Motors who; having called a meeting, was irritated when some of her executives arrived a little late. She had been expecting the police to get to her, and her only question now was what the hell had taken them so long.
She stamped flatfooted into the house, leaving the door for Hawes to close behind him. The house was a typical Sands Spit development dwelling, a small entrance hall, a kitchen on the left, a living room on the right, and three bedrooms and a bath running along the rear. Mrs. Tomlinson had furnished the place with the taste of a miniaturist. The furniture was small, the pictures on the walls were small, the lamps were small, everything seemed to have been designed for a tiny woman.
“Sit down,” she said, and Hawes and Carella found seats in the living room, two small caned chairs in which they were instantly uncomfortable. Mrs. Tomlinson spread her ample buttocks onto the tiny couch opposite them. She sat like a man, her legs widespread, the folds of the muumuu dropping between her knees, her big-toed feet again planted firmly on the floor. She looked at her visitors unsmiling, waiting. Carella cleared his throat.