Hanno's Doll

By Evelyn Piper

A larger-than-life actor is caught in a web of murderous lies in this twisting thriller by a master of “realistic domestic terror” (The New York Times).

 Hanno Dietrich awakes in a hospital bed, certain the crisis has passed. His hulking body is as weak as a beached whale, but the greatest actor of his generation feels his strength returning. So why won’t they let him leave? A man comes to see him and, rather embarrassedly, tells the star that a body has been found in his bomb shelter—a young boy with a broken neck. Dietrich chuckles, good-natured as always, and begins to tell his story.
 
The boy showed up at Dietrich’s house a few nights before, drunk and angry. He insulted the actor, disparaged his wife, and then lunged to attack him. Dietrich did what anyone else would do: He shoved the boy, who fell and broke his neck. As far as Dietrich’s concerned, it was self-defense—hardly worth discussing. But he will soon find the real story is just starting to unfold.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: MysteriousPress.com Open Road
• Release date: Feb 23, 2016
• ISBN: 9781504016186

Evelyn Piper

Merriam Modell, pen name Evelyn Piper, was born in Manhattan, New York, in 1908. She is known for writing mystery thrillers of intricate, suspenseful plotting that depict the domestic conflicts of American families. Her short stories have appeared in the The New Yorker and two of her novels, Bunny Lake Is Missing and The Nanny, were adapted into major Hollywood films.

Book preview

His watch—To Hanno, from the cast of THE QUICKER HAND—lying on the white hospital table showed him that it was morning, but outside night and day had locked horns and neither would give way. But the pneumonia had given way; this morning he was distinctly better. If they still had such old-fashioned things as crises, he had passed his crisis. He was Hanno Dietrich again instead of a great, gasping fish. No, not a fish, not cold-blooded—burning-blooded, appropriately a whale. (He looked down at the great mound of his body.) It was a whale, Leviathan he had been then, and they would not permit him to come up to the surface to breathe. Each time he surfaced, the harpoon went through his back into his lungs and down he went, pierced and gasping … aah … aah.… But this morning the waves of fever had parted, the blood-red seas had parted and the harpoon had been the pneumonia. (The agitated whitecaps only nurses’ caps?)

The nurse who came in then with a basin, sponge and towel was staring at him as if she couldn’t believe what she saw, but he was accustomed to that, after all. In the first place, he was a sight, so enormous, so much of him; in the second, a celebrity. Soon she would tell him that she had just loved him in The Quicker Hand or in Mr. Fathom and would request his autograph. (To be scribbled on the bottom of his chart, perhaps?) He said, Good morning, Miss Nurse. I am cured. She neither smiled nor nodded. "I am cured, am I not? Now she nodded. Good. Then when you make me clean and beautiful, will you call Mrs. Dietrich and tell her to hurry, hurry, hurry."

She was about to sponge him. The sponge, held in mid-air, dripped.

What is it? Is Mrs. Dietrich outside already? I thought I heard someone out there.

The nurse shook her head. Her cap tipped badly and almost capitulated to gravity. No, Mr. Dietrich.

There was a most unfan look on her American Gothic face. Puppchen? He grabbed her hand with the dripping sponge in it. Has something happened to my wife while I’ve been here?

She pulled her hand away, jerked it away, easily since he was so weak. Blubbery. Beached. It was nothing, he told himself. There was nothing. There could be nothing. This was the remaining wisp of fever which, floating across reality, changed its face. Nothing. Gar nichts. He reached up and traced her grim mouth in the air, then, with his finger, curved up the ends. (From Mr. Fathom.)

She swiveled away. Mr. Dietrich, please! My goodness!

My badness, he said, apologizing, hating the coyness of it My badness, knowing that the coyness came from the fear, despising the fear. Where was the Hanno Dietrich who had not been afraid to work against the Nazis in Wien? "My badness!"

And now he felt his face going into the Viennese-waltz, sentimental one she must have seen him do before in something, and still she didn’t react properly. What was the matter with her? With him? There were blots of color on the nurse’s unsmiling cheeks. This was not awe, this was not nursiness; there was something about him which was frightening her. "If you look at me that way … Are you sure nothing has happened to my wife?" No phone in this damned one-horse room.

She gasped. Honestly, honestly!

R-r-r-right, then. She rolled him, pulled, yanked, adjusted, and he was in a fresh bed and fresh pajamas, surely appetizing enough now so she could look at him properly. (He had assumed he knew every way he could be stared at. This was the way to stare at a wild animal, not an actor. What round eyes you have, Grandmother! The better to stare at you, my dear.) His hand went to his hair, indicating fear-perplexity. (He was the one actor in the United States who understood the value of hair as a prop. For all the others used it, they might as well have been bald. But it did not work on the nurse.) Now, Miss Nurse, will you please call my wife and say I am myself again and will she come as soon as she can and visit me with a little basket of goodies.

Still wood, wooden. Her wooden mouth dropped on its hinge.

He pointed to the photograph of Puppchen on the bed table. (He remembered insisting that they go back for it and for his Montaigne. He had made them go back for them, refusing to be put in the hospital without his picture of love and beauty, without the voice of common sense and courage.) Is it that you’ve seen my wife already? Is it that you know she is the little basket of goodies herself?

She said, I will ask.

Ask whom? Why did she have to ask? He said, Surely I am entitled to— But it was at police stations that one was entitled to a phone call. And what did police stations have to do with hospitals or nurses with policemen? She had to ask a head nurse whether she might call, she meant. Head nurse had to ask doctor could the Pneumonia with Empyema have a visitor today. Hospital protocol, that was it, hospital red tape, and the nurse was a red-tape Red Riding Hood.

Now she gathered up basin, soap, cloth, towel and soiled sheets. Now she backed out as if from a wild beast.

Was this all sick imagination? To calm himself, he looked once more at Puppchen’s photograph. He had dressed her for it, done her hair in the dragged-back and then high-braided coiffure of the van der Weyden Portrait of a Lady she so much resembled. He had tied the black velvet ribbon underneath the band, and then draped the stiff white organdy as in the portrait. And there she was, her beautiful hands folded piously, her eyes which—what?—went round the corner, which pointed up at the ends.… There she was with her downcast eyes and her mouth with the full lower lip. He blew her a kiss and picked up the old copy of Montaigne.

To calm himself, he played his version of the Bible game, thrusting one finger in between two pages, reading wherever he landed. Today it was: That No Man Should Call Himself Happy Until After His Death. He put the book down, feeling his heart beat rapidly because of the effort and because of the bad omen. That No Man Should Call Himself Happy Until He Was Dead.

Outside the window, the wind punished the whimpering trees. Outside his door, the nurse was whispering to somebody.

He said, Nonsense! He said, having all the ingredients handy, as it were, he was simply making mysteries. No, he said, "they made mysteries. In hospitals they enjoyed making mysteries. They kept your temperature from you. When you asked what medicine was for, they said, It is to make you well. These little games built up their sense of importance. He told himself that this always happened in hospitals and that it had always infuriated him. The minute you entered as a patient they took away your identity. When the Nazis put you in a concentration camp they took away your identity and made you a number deliberately, because it destroyed human dignity to become a number. He told himself that he was simply reacting violently to having his dignity deposed, to having been made a case," no longer Hanno Dietrich, only the Pneumonia with Empyema in room such and such. As completely as possible, the Pneumonia had to be returned to infancy, to lie flat, sit up, dangle his legs—dangle. He was reacting to being made to stay under whatever amount of covering they believed best, to being changed and fed what they wanted, to being made to sleep when they said to sleep. And while he had been really sick, he told himself, he had been able to tolerate it. He had been a two-hundred-and-sixty-pound infant, opening his mouth when they fed him, swallowing whatever they put into it, and the difference, the supreme difference, was that he was himself now and could not tolerate any of it.

But why wasn’t that nurse asking the head nurse? What was she doing whispering outside his door? Suddenly the hospital idea wasn’t feasible. He felt certain that there was something ominous about the whispering. It had nothing to do with permission from head nurse. It lacked the gasps, the "Really? Really? Yes, really. Really Hanno Dietrich! Yes, the great Hanno is here in the college infirmary in Bradley because he’s become kind of a pinch-hitter head of the Drama Department. Pro tem. Because Felix Steckler, who headed the Drama Department for ten years, was his friend, and when Felix died Hanno Dietrich bought Felix’s house, and he’s been here since September with his beautiful young wife helping the college out." The timbre of the whispering was wrong; his ear said so. As a director, he knew that the nurse had been out of character, unnurse, wrong. He shoved himself out of bed, shakily made his way to the door and opened it.

The nurse had been whispering to a man.

The man had nothing whatsoever to do with the hospital. A civilian, he thought, not staff.

Immediately the nurse hurried to his side, the man to his other side.

Mr. Dietrich! Mr. Dietrich! You must go back to bed, Mr. Dietrich.

The man, thirtyish, corduroy trousers, mackinaw, familiar.

M-m-m-mister Dietrich!

K-K-K-Katy, the students called him because he stuttered. The K.K.K., they called him. Komic Kampus Kop. Joel Starter. He had met him once when something had been missing from the prop room. Kop. Cop. Mr. Starter, I will go back to bed when you tell me why you are sitting outside my door. In God’s name, what has happened?

But he was much too weak to prevent them from hauling him back to bed. He kept a tight clutch on the K.K.K.’s sleeve, however, even when they had him back, gasping, the fresh pajamas soaked with perspiration. The K.K.K., seeing his determination, used his free arm to pull up the one chair the room contained. And that was long enough to wait. No. He would not permit the nurse to change his pajamas. He let out his full, fat man’s voice and blew her out of the room. Now, he said. Why are you out there like a sentinel? Why am I to be guarded, Mr. Starter?

The d-d-dean wants me to h-h-hang around, Mr. Dietrich. In c-c-case of leaks. B-bad for the college. Th-th-this is b-bad for the c-college.

What is bad? See how the K.K.K.’s mouth worked.

It’s k-k-kind of h-hard to spit out.

Spit! Spit!

W-w-we’re k-k-kind of a q-q-quiet outfit here, and t-this kind of thing … The K.K.K. saw that this was torture. M-m-m-mister Dietrich—Oh, h-h-hell! He took refuge behind official language. The body of an unidentified young man was found yesterday in y-y-your y-y-yard. In that b-b-bomb sh-shelter, I suppose you’d call it.

They had found it. It was over. Does Puppchen know about this? Does my wife know about this? The young man looked astonished because naturally she knew about it. "Oh, my God, my poor Puppchen! What she must be feeling!

You look at me, Mr. Starter. What is it? Am I supposed to say, ‘What body? What is this about a body? What bomb shelter?’ I know what body. I put that body there in that … not bomb shelter … funk hole. Felix built it for a place to hide. He shoved his feet out of bed. I must speak to my wife. The K.K.K. lifted his legs back into bed. I must tell my wife how it happened. She knows nothing about it. My God, they don’t think she knows anything about it!

N-n-n-no. P-p-please …

I must explain to her.

The K.K.K. shook his head.

You won’t let me telephone her? I may not use the phone?

The K.K.K. couldn’t stop shaking his head. Y-you got to st-st-stay in th-th-this room. L-l-look—it’s a p-p-public hall. All k-k-kinds of p-p-people … Th-th-this will be all o-over the p-p-place if you t-t-tell your w-w-wife. We’re t-trying to k-k-keep this …

You can use another private phone, yes? Then you use it. Tell her to come here at once.

Head shaking again. Sh-sh-she isn’t home. H-h-honest. Sh-she isn’t there. Out. Sh-sh-she’s out.

Out where? You didn’t ask? Who answered the telephone? The K.K.K. hadn’t asked that either. A young man’s voice? Nod. A good voice, an honest voice? The Ernest. Thank God, the Ernest was around! All right. Sit down, then, Mr. Starter. I will tell you what happened and then you can tell my wife and anyone else. Everyone else you want to tell. You will explain. Now what? he asked, because the K.K.K. was frantic with whatever he needed to say now.

M-m-m-mister Dietrich, d-d-don’t t-tell m-m-me!

What? Are you saying, ‘I must warn you that anything you say will be put down and may be used against you’?

No. C-c-come on, Mr. Dietrich! Look—nobody’s asking you a thing. I m-m-mean, I’m just h-h-here. This isn’t off-official or anything. It’s j-j-just you shouldn’t t-t-talk to anyone. I m-m-mean, talk t-t-to your lawyer.

Mr. Starter, my lawyer is Moe Herman. There’s nothing happens inside a theatre Moe doesn’t have an angle on and nothing outside a theatre he knows anything about. He made a face. The Body Beautiful, yes; this body, no. I’m going to tell you, Mr. Starter.

I th-think you sh-should th-think it over.

"I don’t need to think it over. I will tell you; then you call my house and tell my wife and Dr. Leopold. Anni, also. Dr. Leopold’s mother.

"Relax, Mr. Starter. I’m going to talk. Of course I’m going to talk. You can’t think I murdered that young man. Hanno Dietrich? An accident, Mr. Starter. It could have happened to anybody, anywhere. Of course I will talk.

I am rehearsing, then. I want to rehearse.… I am accustomed to.… Don’t you want to hear? Aren’t you curious?

The K.K.K. blushed. He was curious, all right.

"It was an unfortunate accident … a terrible accident. My God, what else? I never saw that boy before that