The baby was stretched out on the long white table when I went down to see Doc Edwards. A sheet covered the corpse, and Doc was busy typing up a report. I looked over his shoulder:
Doc Edwards looked up from the typewriter.
‘Not nice, Dave.’
‘No, not nice at all.’ I saw that he was ready to type in the Result of chemical analysis space. ‘Anything else on her?
‘Not much. Dried tears on her face. Urine on her abdomen, buttocks, and genitals. Traces of Desitin and petroleum jelly there, too. That’s about it.’
‘Time of death?’
‘I’d put it at about three a.m. last night.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘You want a guess?’
‘Sure.’
‘Somebody doesn’t like his sleep to be disturbed by a crying kid. That’s my guess.’
‘Nobody likes his sleep disturbed,’ I said. ‘What’s the Desitin and petroleum jelly for? That normal?’
‘Yeah, sure. Lots of mothers use it. Mostly for minor irritations. Urine burn, diaper rash, that sort of thing.’
‘I see.’
‘This shouldn’t be too tough, Dave. You know who the kid is yet?’
‘We’re working on that now.’
‘Well, good luck.’
‘Thanks.’
I turned to go, and Doc Edwards began pecking at the typewriter again, completing the autopsy report on a dead girl.
There was good news waiting for me back at the office. Pat rushed over with a smile on his face and a thick sheet of paper in his hands.
‘Here’s the ticket,’ he said.
I took the paper and looked at it. It was the photostat of a birth certificate.
‘Here’s how they got it,’ Pat said, handing me another stat. I looked at it quickly. It was obviously the reverse side of the birth certificate.
There were several more good reasons why a birth certificate should be kept in the sugar bowl, and then below that:
‘Alice Dreiser,’ I said.
‘That’s the mother. Prints and. all. I’ve already sent a copy down to Cappy to check against the ones they lifted from the pew.’
‘Fine. Pick one of the boys from the list the Skipper gave us, Pat. Tell him to get whatever he can on Alice Dreiser and her husband. They have to be sailors or relations to get admitted to a naval hospital, don’t they?’
‘Yeah. You’ve got to prove dependency.’
‘Fine. Get the guy’s last address, and we’ll try to run down the woman, or him, or both. Get whoever you pick to call right away, will you?’
‘Right. Why pick anyone? I’ll make the call myself.’
‘No, I want you to check the phone book for any Alice Dreisers. In the meantime, I’ll be looking over the baby’s garments.’
‘You’ll be down at the lab?’
‘Yeah. Phone me, Pat.’
‘Right.’
Caputo had the garments separated and tagged when I got there.
‘You’re not going to get much out of these,’ he told me.
‘No luck, huh?’
He held out the pink blanket. ‘Black River Mills. A big trade name. You can probably buy it in any retail shop in the city.’ He picked up the small pink sweater with the pearl buttons. ‘Toddlers, Inc., ditto. The socks have no markings at all. The undershirt came from Gilman’s here in the city. It’s the largest department store in the world, so you can imagine how many of these they sell every day. The cotton pyjamas were bought there, too.’
‘No shoes?’
‘No shoes.’
‘What about the diaper?’
‘What about it? It’s a plain diaper. No label. You got any kids, Dave?’
‘One.’
‘You ever see a diaper with a label?’
‘I don’t recall.’
‘If you did, it wasn’t in it long. Diapers take a hell of a beating.’
‘Maybe this one came from a diaper service.’
‘Maybe. You can check that.’
‘Safety pins?’
‘Two. No identifying marks, Look like five-and-dime stuff.’
‘Any prints?’
‘Yeah. There are smudged prints on the pins, but there’s a good partial thumbprint on one of the pajama snaps.’
‘Whose?’
‘It matches the right thumbprint on the stat you sent down. Mrs. Dreiser’s.’
‘Uh-huh. Did you check her prints against the ones from the pew?’
‘Nothing, Dave. None of her, anyway.’
‘Okay, Cappy. Thanks a lot.’
Cappy shrugged. ‘I get paid,’ he said. He grinned and waved as I walked out and headed upstairs again. I met Pat in the hallway, coming down to the lab after me.
‘What’s up?’ I asked.
‘I called the Naval Hospital. They gave me the last address they had for the guy. His name is Carl Dreiser, lived at 831 East 217th Street, Bronx, when the baby was born.’
‘How come?’
‘He was a yeoman, working downtown on Church Street. Lived with his wife uptown, got an allotment. You know the story.’
‘Yeah. So?’
‘I sent Artie to check at that address. He should be calling in soon now.’
‘What about the sailor?’
‘I called the Church Street office, spoke to the commanding officer, Captain’ — he consulted a slip of paper — ‘Captain Thibot. This Dreiser was working there back in November. He got orders in January, reported aboard the U.S.S. Hanfield, DD 981, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on January fifth of this year.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘That’s the problem, Dave.’
‘What kind of problem?’
‘The Hanfield was sunk off Pyongyang in March.’
‘Oh.’
‘Dreiser is listed as missing in action.’
I didn’t say anything. I nodded, and waited.
‘A telegram was sent to Mrs. Dreiser at the Bronx address. The Navy says the telegram was delivered and signed for by Alice Dreiser.’
‘Let’s wait for Artie to call in,’ I said.
We ordered more coffee and waited. Pat had checked the phone book, and there’d been no listing for either Carl or Alice Dreiser. He’d had a list typed of every Dreiser in the city, and it ran longer than my arm.
‘Why didn’t you ask the Navy what his parents’ names are?’ I said.
‘I did. Both parents arc dead.’
‘Who does he list as next of kin?’
‘His wife. Alice Dreiser.’
‘Great.’
In a half hour, Artie called in. There was no Alice Dreiser living at the Bronx address. The landlady said she’d lived there until April and had left without giving a forwarding address. Yes, she’d had a baby daughter. I told Artie to keep the place staked out, and then buzzed George Tabin and told him to check the Post Office Department for any forwarding address.
When he buzzed back in twenty minutes, he said, ‘Nothing, Dave. Nothing at all.’
We split the available force of men, and I managed to wangle four more men from the lieutenant. Half of us began checking on the Dreisers listed in the phone directory, and the rest of us began checking the diaper services.
The first diaper place I called on had a manager who needed only a beard to look like Santa Claus. He greeted me affably and offered all his assistance. Unfortunately, they’d never had a customer named Alice Dreiser.
At my fourth stop, I got what looked like a lead.
I spoke directly to the vice-president, and he listened intently.
‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘perhaps.’ He was a big man, with a wide waist, a gold watch chain spraddling it. He leaned over and pushed down on his intercom buzzer.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Bring in a list of our customers. Starting with November of 1952.’