Deception

by Randy Alcorn

  “The glass didn’t fall inside.” I shone my flashlight on the carpet to make sure I wasn’t contaminating evidence.

  “So?”

  “So it has to be outside.” I stepped forward carefully and looked out the window, following the beam.

  “There.” I pointed outside to broken glass on the ground.

  “This wasn’t an attempted break-in. It was an attempted break-out.”

  “Who?”

  “Palatine? Hard to imagine the killer breaking the window from the inside. Why risk waking the neighbors?”

  “Why wouldn’t he unlock the window and pull it up? There’s room to crawl out. Not for you or me, but he’s not that big.”

  “Maybe he was running and panicked, threw himself at the window. If so, fibers from his clothes may show up on the glass.” I knelt down. “There’s a shoe impression here in the carpet. And a slight mud residue. And there’s a little glass too. I see five shards. Sometimes there’s a bounce-back when glass bends out and comes back before breaking.

  I went to the closet and took out a right dress shoe, then brought it over and put it by the mark. I looked inside. “Professor wore a size 8. This print is about size 10. It’s pointed toward the window. Why would a killer look out a broken window visible from the front of the house? It’s like he stood right here, peering into the darkness.”

  I stepped back and took a couple dozen pictures with my Olympus Stylus 500. First of the shoe impression, then the rest of the room.

  “Why so many pictures?” Clarence asked.

  “No downside. It has a one-gig memory card, so I can take over five hundred high-resolution photos. These are the only shots we’ll get of an undisturbed crime scene.”

  I pulled a yellow pad from my trench coat and started sketching the room, the window, everything.

  “Pictures aren’t enough?”

  “I make my own record. Photographs are no substitute for what you see in real time. Plus it impresses the scene on your memory. Later, when you view the pictures, they stimulate a three-dimensional image in your mind. If I don’t sketch, it’s not as clear.”

  I walked back into the living room, confirming that CSI would record the shoe print and collect the shards on the bedroom carpet. They assured me they would. I leaned over the body and manipulated the ankles. Pressed on the stomach. Tried to turn the head. Locked. Stomach was tying up, but extremities moved well.

  “Medical examiner’s going to say time of death was four hours ago.”

  “Oh, is he now?” a new voice asked. I turned to see the number two pencil in a suit, carrying his man-purse.

  “Carlton Hatch—the Johnny-on-the-spot medical examiner. Two cases in a row!”

  “Interesting,” he said, nodding at the body.

  I said to Clarence, “Dr. Hatch will be your only competition for best dressed at a murder scene.”

  I’ve never met a criminalist, medical examiner, or coroner like the ones on TV, who appear to have given up careers in modeling to pursue a love of dead bodies. Most of the real ones look like Hatch but dress like street people.

  “Interesting,” Hatch said. “I’m sure you noticed the skin. Something’s in the bloodstream.”

  “Poison?”

  Clarence’s phone rang. He stepped away.

  “We may have a couple different causes of death to choose from,” Hatch said. “What’s primary and what’s secondary? The rope has nothing to do with it.” He carefully pulled back the unbuttoned shirt and pointed to Palatine’s shoulder. “Needle marks.”

  “Drugs?”

  “Insulin, probably. He’s diabetic according to his chain.”

  I reached for the silver metallic tag and fingered it in my gloved hand. Framed by red medical symbols, including snakes, it said, “Medical Warning: Insulin Dependent Diabetic.”

  “Interesting,” Hatch said. “No needle marks in his stomach.”

  I went to the refrigerator and poked around, finding an insulin bottle next to the orange juice.

  “Clarence, you’re diabetic, aren’t you?”

  He nodded as he shut his phone.

  “Wear one of these medical IDs?”

  “For the first year. Now it’s sitting in a drawer.”

  “The professor was diabetic. Dr. Hatch thinks he injected something. Or somebody did. Maybe a poison. Help me lift him.”

  Clarence looked like he was ready to put in for a new assignment. We lifted the right side, Hatch supervising and warning caution. Nothing underneath. We lifted the left and found a needle underneath. I picked it up.

  “Like your insulin syringes?” I asked Clarence.

  “No. It looks like the older style I used ten or fifteen years ago.”

  Hatch studied it. “The residue’s blue, while insulin is either clear or milky. It’s 100 ccs.”

  Clarence reached in his coat pocket and pulled out a little black packet. He unzipped it and produced a small white plastic syringe with an orange cap.

  “That’s 50 ccs,” Hatch said, like a mechanic looking at a spark plug.

  I resumed sketching the floor plan, drawing in body location, furniture, telephone, computer. I took out a measuring tape and stretched it from body to walls, three directions.

  I heard commotion at the front door. Clarence’s cell phone rang again.

  “Carp’s at the front door,” he said. “They won’t let her in.”

  “They won’t let a newspaper photographer into a crime scene? What’s wrong with those cops?”

  I walked to the front door. Lynn Carpenter stood there, camera in hand, Tribune ID hanging from her neck, like it said FBI or CTU or something. Guerino’s arm stretched out in front of her.

  “Can you believe this?” Dorsey asked.

  “A newspaper photographer!” Guerino said.

  “I hate to be the one to say it, boys. Let her in.”

  “A reporter and a photographer inside a crime scene?”

  “Next year they’ll be selling Cracker Jacks and letting in the general public,” I said. “Ten dollars a head. Box seats for forty bucks. Touch the corpse for a hundred. Then they’ll be auctioning crime scene memorabilia on eBay.”

  “This is wrong,” Guerino moaned.

  “Tell me about it.” I handed gloves and foot covers to Carp. “Keep ’em on.”

  “Nice to see you too, Detective,” she said.

  I felt slightly bad considering she’d been a big help on Clarence’s sister’s case ten years ago.

  “I’m Ollie, your tour guide.”

  I extended my hand, glove touching glove. Her face melted into a smile. I can be a real charmer with the ladies. Carp had changed since I’d last seen her. She’d been a quiet tomboy; now she was warmer and more feminine. Age had softened her. I liked it.

  With most of the team staring at her, I cleared my throat and said, “I got an e-mail from Chief Lennox.” I looked at Clarence. “It even had an attachment. The deal is that the Oregon Tribune—our beloved newspaper, so cherished by this police department—can take pictures of this crime scene. They can’t print any photo without department clearance. Can’t divulge sensitive information. They won’t jeopardize our investigation. Anyway, that’s what they tell me. If they get in your way, respectfully Taser them or beat them senseless with a nightstick.”

  There were a number of chuckles, including Carp’s. None from Abernathy.

  Carp’s camera started flashing. Clarence was looking over my shoulder like a three-hundred-pound gargoyle. I walked to the professor’s desk, turning my best side to the camera.

  “Walk me through procedure,” Clarence said.

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “I’ve written Ollie’s Rules of Investigation. I’ll give you a copy. Ninety-two of them. The first ten are never touch anything. Number 11 is protect the scene. Number 12 is write everything down. Number 13 is don’t trust what anybody else writes down. Number 14 is don’t trust anyone who says they didn’t touch anything, especially if they keep insisting on it.”
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  “What were you doing with the measuring tape?”

  “Triangulating body location. An inch here and there can make all the difference.”

  I went to the front door and asked Dorsey, “Witnesses?”

  “Nobody. The people we’ve talked to came when they saw the patrol cars or got a wake-up call from the media. Some are from those apartments.”

  He pointed at a two-story building the next street over, where most of the blinds were closed. I saw one television on, and in the next apartment, barely visible, someone with elbows pointed outward, which made me think they might be holding binoculars.

  “Nobody we’ve talked with on this street saw anything—except somebody noticed two vagrants who often wander over here from their settlement three streets down.”

  “Who made the 911 call?”

  He shrugged. “Want me to check?”

  “Manny’ll handle it. Talk to the rubbernecks?” I pointed to the dozen people on the other side of a police tape, including three kids who should’ve been in bed.

  “We’ve focused on protecting the scene.”

  “Good choice.” I turned back to Clarence. “Once I finish here, we’ll canvass for witnesses, take written statements.”

  “These guys collecting stuff in the bags—are they called CSIs? Or criminologists?”

  “Criminologists aren’t evidence collectors, they’re experts in why criminals commit crimes. What you know as CSIs are what we call criminalists. They’re crime scene techs, evidence collectors. They make sketches, usually a detailed drawing later. They’re more artistic than detectives.”

  He peered at my sketch on the yellow pad. “I hope so. Keisha drew better than that in first grade. Where do they take the bags?”

  “Evidence locker. They maintain a chain of custody. If we have a particular lab request, we ask. Otherwise, they check for fingerprints, DNA traces, et cetera. Then they search for a match.” I looked up at him. “Can I do my job now?”

  “Part of your job is helping me do mine.”

  “Yeah. The attachment.”

  Carlton Hatch loudly pronounced death. Everybody else stifled their smirks.

  “What’s the medical examiner’s role?” Clarence asked.

  “He’s the ranking official at the crime scene, even over the lead detective. Which is why I don’t like him showing up early. Generally, they estimate cause of death and time of death, then go over the results of the autopsy. Then revise as needed. They usually show up on the scene later. Not Carlton Hatch.”

  “Chandler!”

  Manny Domast exploded into the room. There are advantages to having a thirty-six-year-old partner who’s a former gangbanger. He’s street savvy, shrewd, bold. A pit bull.

  He’s also sixty-grit sandpaper.

  “What took you so long?” I asked.

  “We weren’t the up team, man. What happened?”

  “Not sure. Maybe a sick detective or two deaths in one night? Somehow we got bumped up to the top.”

  “That’s crazy, man. Maria’s pulling a shift at the hospital. I had to get the kids dressed and into the car. Who wants to take three kids under five in the middle of the night?”

  “Detective Domast,” said James Earl Jones, or someone borrowing his voice. “It’s been a long time.”

  Manny twirled to look straight into the knot in Clarence Abernathy’s tie.

  “It’s just gettin’ worse,” Manny said.

  “You read your e-mail, right?” I asked. “And the attachment?”

  “Where’d you find him this time of night?” Manny said. “Jazzy’s Barbecue?”

  “We’ve been investigating,” Clarence said, “while you were fighting chickens behind Taco Bell.”

  “Whoa, hold it,” I said. “Look, you guys don’t like each other, and I don’t like either of you. But we’ve got a job to do. Manny, meet Lynn Carpenter, Tribune photographer.”

  Carp extended her hand. Manny didn’t.

  “Photographer?”

  “I thought the same. Before I realized how the public good would be served with crime scene photos.”

  “But that’ll compromise—”

  “Supposedly that’s not going to happen.”

  “It’s all in the attachment,” Clarence said. Not sweetly.

  I asked a criminalist, “Those chairs clean? The table?” I looked at Clarence and Manny. “Sit down, both of you.”

  Neither budged.

  “Sit!”

  Clarence sat. Manny pulled up a chair on the opposite side.

  “Let’s get you up to speed, Manny.” We did.

  Manny and Clarence and I once drove to a baseball game in Seattle, with Obadiah, Clarence’s dad, the best man I’ve ever known. Obadiah’s presence had made them civil. It was a long time ago. Obadiah Abernathy’s magic was gone.

  Manny gave Clarence one last hundred-yard stare, from two feet away, then went to the bedroom to examine the broken window.

  “Manny’s got an attitude,” I said to Carp. “In time, he grows on you.” Like mildew.

  I stood beside the professor’s desk looking at two piles of papers, one with a red C on the top, the other unmarked.

  “Philosophy 102,” I read. “Ethics.”

  “May I touch them?” Clarence asked.

  “As long as your gloves are on. Careful.”

  Clarence shuffled through them. “Mostly Cs and Bs. A few Ds. Not a single A. Either he’s a tough grader or he was in a bad mood.”

  “Or his students are dunderheads,” Carp said.

  Dunderheads? I liked it. She was winning me over.

  “Interesting,” Dr. Hatch said, pointing at the computer monitor.

  “One thing at a time.” I flipped through the stacks. “Fifteen graded. Five to go.”

  Next to the papers were seven piles of playing cards, faceup, with other cards staggered below them.

  “Solitaire?” Abernathy asked.

  “I’ve seen murders over poker, never solitaire. But it gives us the victim’s frame of mind, doesn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’d stopped grading papers. If he was playing solitaire, he was bored, wanting to kill time.”

  “Or taking a break from the papers,” Manny said, reappearing. “Rewarding himself.”

  “Or he might have been distracted from his work,” I said. “Knew something was looming. Nervous. Expecting someone? Check out the last card facing up, by the main deck. What do you see, Abernathy?”

  “The ace of spades.”

  “Anything strike you as strange?”

  “No.”

  “It hasn’t been played.”

  “So?”

  “Look, he’s got two aces played above, diamonds and clubs, with a two and a three on it. With this kind of solitaire, when you flip an ace you play it then build on it. It’s a no-brainer. You don’t leave it sitting there like that. You make your play. Unless you’re interrupted.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “He stopped midstream. When someone came to the door, if that’s what happened, he was playing solitaire, not grading papers.”

  I noticed a criminalist poised over the professor’s body, shining a flashlight.

  “What you seeing?” I asked.

  “A strand of hair,” he said. “Not the professor’s.”

  “Perfect,” I said. “Bag it.”

  “Mind if I move that lamp?” Carp asked.

  “Don’t touch anything,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

  “About three inches back from the screen,” Carp said.

  “Hey, I’m here to serve you Trib folks. Can I order you a pizza?”

  “Double pepperoni, double cheese,” Carp said, smiling.

  I froze. “Who told you that?”

  “Told me what?”

  “My favorite pizza. Double pepperoni, double cheese.”

  “That’s my favorite pizza,” Carp said. “Always has been.”

  It was one of those magical mo
ments. If it had been a movie, the music would have changed. Lynn Carpenter was speaking my love language.

  “I’ll search the desk,” I said, eyeing Carp. “Manny, you want to grill the rubbernecks?”

  “Nobody’s done that?” He was out the door, pulling out pad and pen, a warrior looking for a war.

  In the professor’s oak desk, I discovered paper clips, rubber bands, a roll of peppermint BreathSavers, an unopened Snickers bar, reading glasses, three blue and four black Pilot G2 gel pens, three phone numbers without names, a Matt Hasselbeck rookie card, and a Shaun Alexander MVP card. Plus a nearly empty 8.45-ounce bottle of Pelikan fountain pen ink, royal blue.

  I showed the ink bottle to Clarence.

  “They still make fountain pens?” he asked.

  “I just realized,” Carp said, pointing to a corkboard covered with pictures, including a newspaper clipping. “I know this man. I took that picture. He was receiving the Rotary Club community service award.” She scanned the article. “For his ‘investment in the lives of young people.’ It goes to one college professor each year.”

  “When was it taken?” I asked.

  “June, I think.” She stepped closer. “Yeah. The June 13 edition. So I took it June 12.”

  “What was he like?”

  “Seemed a bit … taken with himself.”

  “Yeah,” I said, stepping in close beside her to view the picture. “Some men can be real jerks. Not every man’s humble and sensitive like me.”

  She nodded knowingly.

  “What’ve you found, Chandler?” Another familiar voice. I turned.

  “Sudd? What are you doing here?”

  Kim Suda’s one of our two female homicide detectives. She’s all female and all detective, petite but powerful, with a fifth degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. She was wearing a stylish maroon coat.

  “I live six blocks from here. I couldn’t sleep, so I took a drive. Heard about it on the monitor and figured I’d check it out.”

  “You don’t get enough murders?”

  “Professional hazard. Architects look at buildings; I check out murders. You’ve never dropped by someone else’s crime scene?” Truth was, I had. Three times.

  “It’s getting to be a rock concert in here,” I said. “Make yourself useful … get that patrol out; then tell me if you see something helpful.”