by Randy Alcorn
“You got it, boss.” Within ten seconds she had her hand on the arm of a uniformed officer. Smiling sweetly, she led him out the door.
“Who’s she?” Clarence asked.
“Kim Suda. Homicide detective. Been in the department five years. Chris Doyle’s her partner.”
“Strange time to drop by.”
“We detectives are strange people.”
Clarence nodded, more vigorously than necessary.
I saw Suda and Carpenter watching each other. No smiles. Two attractive females suspicious of each other? Both wanting to impress me?
Once upon a time I thought I understood women.
What an idiot.
Clarence and Carp drifted from me, walking around the room talking and picture-taking.
I munched on the Snickers bar. It had been checked for prints. No sense letting it rot in the evidence room.
“Carp’s going outside to take pictures of the neighborhood,” Abernathy announced. “Eventually we’ll want to use one or two for a feature. Will they let her back in?”
“Got your ticket stub?” I asked her.
“Thought maybe you’d stamp my hand.”
“Once we start doing general admissions we’ll have to do that. Tell Guerino and Dorsey I said they should let you back in. Let me know if they give you problems.”
She smiled again. I’m not used to all these smiles at murder scenes. I looked at her, heart aflutter. She’d had me at double cheese.
I walked over to the far end of the couch, against the wall. I noticed crumbs on the ground. Big crumbs.
“What’s this?” I asked the criminalist.
“Figured you’d want to see it as is before we vacuumed.”
“What do you make of it?”
“Crumbs,” he said.
“What kind?”
“Graham cracker?”
I looked closely. Someone had sat on the couch eating.
On my hands and knees, I looked over every inch of the coffee table. It was clean except for two identical circular stains two feet apart. They looked recent, slight moisture still evident. I took close-up photos of both stains, jotting down which picture corresponded to which stain. Then I took a wide-angle of the coffee table in relation to the couch, noting the location of the crumbs.
“You can bag the crumbs,” I told the tech. “Need them all?”
“Nope. Maybe a third.”
I reached down and picked up three big crumbs. I went to my briefcase and took out a water bottle to get the taste of Snickers off my palate. I put the yellow-brownish crumbs in my mouth.
“Not graham cracker,” I said. “Granola bar. The crunchy type, not chewy. With a nut component. Maybe almond. Or hazelnut.”
“They could use your mouth in the crime lab.”
I went to the kitchen sink and found what I was looking for: two glasses, one with a residue of white wine.
“Test this,” I said to the criminalist. “Fingerprints and DNA.”
I searched for a wine bottle. Nothing in the fridge, garbage, or on the counter.
“I want to know what kind of wine.”
Two empty bottles of Budweiser sat on the counter to the left of the sink. “At least he drank a good beer,” I said.
“Bag them?”
“Why not?”
Ten minutes later I was back on the floor, hunting more crumbs (being a specialist in food particles), when I noticed something by the corner of the right front leg of the couch, six inches from the north wall. It was blue and black. I scooted over, stared at it in disbelief, then picked it up.
“What are you doing?” Kim Suda’s voice sounded accusing, but her voice usually does.
I snapped my neck around. “Nothing.” I heard the nerves in my voice. Had she seen what I picked up? I hid it in my hand and stood.
“What are you doing, Suda? It’s my crime scene.”
“You sound like you did it.”
“If I’d done it, it would’ve been between nine and five.”
“What’s in your hand?”
“Nothing. What’s in your brain?”
“Find something?” the tech asked.
“Nada,” I said, putting my hand in my coat pocket while my body ran interference. “Just a shadow. Bathroom done?”
“Good to go. Nothing big. Hair samples with his brush. Follicles, presumably his. I left the toothbrushes for you to see. Two of them. We’ll take them for saliva.”
I walked to the bathroom. One Sonicare electric toothbrush, plugged into the charger. The other was a Colgate, old and frayed. Clarence joined me.
“Excuse me,” I said to Clarence. “I have some business.”
I locked the bathroom door. I heard my heart pound as I took out the piece of paper. I stared at it. It was a gum wrapper.
Black Jack.
I left the bathroom, preoccupied with my discovery, but determined to finish my job undistracted and figure out the gum wrapper later.
I examined the professor’s closet, filled with shirts, Dockers, sport coats and ties, and a dozen pairs of shoes. Men shouldn’t have that many shoes. On the left side of the closet was a red plastic storage box turned catawampus and with a crack in it, like something heavy had been on it. Everything else was neat and tidy, remarkably unlike my closet.
I checked the spare bedroom, mainly used for storage. Nothing stood out. But I took pictures anyway in hopes that eventually the house would yield its secrets to me. Clarence and Carpenter periodically crowded me, nearly stepping on my heels. I was winsomely gracious, especially to the double cheese pizza girl.
When I returned to the living room, the professor was still dead.
I began to systematically examine the photographs on the wall. Vacations in Hawaii and Mexico and the Caribbean, judging by the locals. In one he was speaking behind the lectern in an academic environment. In several he was wearing robes and regalia.
“The peacock displays his feathers,” I said. “Graduation?”
Clarence nodded and pointed. “That one’s a formal lectureship.”
I looked at a couple of hanging frames that displayed academic degrees. Doctorate from Princeton.
I was about to examine the photos on the mantel when Dr. Hatch spoke.
“Interesting,” he said, staring again at the computer screen. It reminded me I’d been distracted from the desk twenty minutes ago when Suda appeared. I hadn’t made my way back.
“Mouse is on the left side,” Clarence said. “He was lefthanded?”
Hatch was leaning over the desk, staring at the screen, his hand to the left of the monitor, inches from the mouse.
“Don’t touch it,” I said.
“Relax,” the criminalist chimed in from the dining room table. “It was wiped clean.”
“Then somebody used it.”
“Besides the professor?” Clarence asked. “How do you know?”
“Do you wipe prints off your mouse?”
I picked up the reading glasses sitting on the desk and read aloud the words on the screen. “I, Dr. William Palatine, do not deserve to live. I’ve crossed boundaries and forfeited my life. I admit my arrogance. I deserve judgement. I should be cast into a deep sea with a millstone around my neck.”
“A suicide note?” Clarence asked.
“Ever hear a suicide note that sounds like that? What’s the millstone mean?”
Everybody looked at each other and shrugged.
“It’s from the Bible,” Clarence said. “Millstones were large rocks used to grind grain. They might weigh a couple hundred pounds. Jesus said if anyone hurt one of His children, he’d be better off cast into the sea with a millstone around his neck.”
“The professor probably didn’t type it, but if he did, it’s a forced confession,” Manny said. “I say the guy threatened to kill him if he didn’t type it. Or the killer typed it himself. Either way, the words are the killer’s.”
“What’s your next move,” Clarence whispered, “now that you ate th
e victim’s candy bar?”
“That won’t show up in an article, will it?”
“Depends on whether you start keeping your word.”
“Excuse me while I play solitaire. Okay if I handle the cards?” I asked the criminalist.
“Carefully. Gloves can smudge prints.”
I picked up the ace of spades by the edges.
There were seven columns of cards. A deck was facedown, and next to it, faceup, was a small stack. Knowing I had a dozen photos, I took the ace of spades and played it. I started flipping up every third card carefully, by the edges.
“You’re finishing a dead man’s game of solitaire?” Clarence asked.
“Not only was the ace up, he had two good plays after that. Game definitely wasn’t over. Like I said, he was interrupted.”
Hatch cleared his throat.
“Time of death?” I asked.
“That’s going to be tough,” Hatch said. “May depend on what was injected and how it would likely affect rigor mortis.”
“Your best guess?”
“Ten thirty to midnight.”
I wanted a smaller window than ninety minutes. Hopefully someone heard the shots. I pressed the phone’s message button. “No messages.”
“It’s digital, so it has a magnetized erase,” Manny said. “No recovery.”
I pressed Play Greeting.
A tenor voice spoke, as if from another world: “This is Dr. William Palatine. Nietzsche said, ‘All things are subject to interpretation; whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.’ Leave a message.”
After a moment of silence and profound meditation, Manny mumbled, “What a jerk.”
“He was a philosophy professor,” I said. “Apparently he wanted everyone to know it.”
“A student might be impressed,” Suda said. “Anybody else would be annoyed.”
“An answering machine greeting is self-expression,” I said. “Like bumper stickers. They say something about the man.”
“Right,” Manny said. “They say he’s an arrogant son of a—”
I held up my hand. “With the press here, we might want to guard our observations about the deceased.”
“Let’s find out who the professor called last.”
“The philosophy hotline?” Manny said. Manny’s not an Ivy Leaguer.
I pressed redial and waited. A voice started speaking. The words were clear enough but the voice sounded like someone gargling gravel.
“After the tone, leave your name, number, and the location of the money. I’ll get back to you as soon as it’s safe for you to come out of hiding.”
I stared at the phone. Then at the redial button.
“Voice mail? Answering machine?” Manny asked.
I nodded.
“And?”
I disconnected, then pressed redial, hoping I’d heard wrong. I listened again, then hung up.
“What was the message?” Clarence asked. “Whose number is it?”
“It’s … mine.”
5
“Scotland Yard feels lonely without me, and it causes an unhealthy excitement among the criminal classes.”
SHERLOCK HOLMES, THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LADY FRANCES CARFAX
“YOU DIDN’T DIAL your number by habit?” Manny asked.
“I couldn’t have.”
“Why not?”
“For one thing, it’s not my habit. I never call myself. If I want to talk to myself, I just start talking. I’m always right there. Besides, I’d know I wasn’t home.”
“You sure you pressed redial?”
“Positive.”
“But … you didn’t know the professor, right?” Clarence asked.
“No.”
“Never met him?” Suda asked.
“Not exactly. I sat in the back, visiting one of his classes years ago.”
“Why?” Manny asked.
“I don’t remember.”
“Why would you be his last call?” Clarence asked.
I was on the wrong side of the questions. It didn’t feel good.
“Maybe it was about a murder,” Suda said. “Like thinking he was going to be the victim?”
“He’d just call the police. Not me.”
“Unless he had a personal reason,” Abernathy said.
“Like what?”
“Did the professor leave you a message?” Suda asked.
“Not sure if I checked my messages last night.”
The truth was, I didn’t even remember coming home last night. I’d been at Rosie O’Grady’s, but after that … it was like a dream of a dream.
“So,” Clarence said, “retrieve your messages and find out.”
“I will when I get home.”
“You don’t know how to retrieve your messages remotely?” Clarence asked.
“Just call your number, put in your code, and listen to your messages,” Manny said. His tone suggested I had the IQ of a split-leaf philodendron.
“I don’t know any code.”
Manny phoned my number and pressed buttons. “Usually a preset code.” He disconnected and tried three combinations. “Nothin’,” he said, looking disgusted.
“Anyone I want to hear from calls me on my cell.” No one seemed to buy it.
“Take over,” I told Manny. “Make sure the place is sealed. Goin’ home to check messages.”
“I’ll follow you,” Clarence said.
“No.”
“It’s part of the investigation.”
“Manny needs you here.” I didn’t look up, but I felt their glares hitting me from both sides.
“Go through the professor’s speed dial options,” I told Manny. “Contact those he called most. See what they know.”
“I’ll get phone company records,” Manny said. As I left the room he called, “And read the stupid manual about retrieving messages.”
Clarence and I walked out the door right into the hands of the media standing in front of the crowd of neighbors.
“Clarence? What’re you doing here?” one reporter said. “This is my assignment.”
“Guess nobody told night beat I’d be handling the case,” Clarence said. “Sorry. It’s a couple of features a week. Guess you still need to report the news.”
“Why were you inside? They never let us inside.”
I started my car. The whiny reporter stood right there, a foot from the car, even though he could see I couldn’t back up. Occasionally journalists block your car like they’re that protester in Tiananmen Square who stopped the tanks. I edged the car, just touching him. He backed off a few inches until I bumped him again. Then I popped the car in neutral and gunned it, motor screaming. He jumped to the side, falling into bushes.
That dude in Tiananmen Square never flinched.
I unlocked the front door. Mulch was all over me. When he saw Clarence, his lip twitched.
“Big guy’s with me,” I reassured him.
Clarence put out his hand. Mulch sniffed it, licked it, then started investigating his pant leg and constructing a mental image of Clarence’s dog.
“Okay, Mulch, we’re here to check messages. Looks like we’ve got two.” I punched the button.
“11:17 p.m. Ollie, it’s Brandon Phillips. Saw you forty minutes ago, pulling out of Rosie O’Grady’s. You were headed west, away from home. You looked kind of … well, your driving was a little … anyway, thought I should check up on you. Hoped you’d turned around and made it home by now. Later.”
“Who’s Brandon Phillips?” Clarence asked.
“One of the homicide detectives.”
“Who’s Rosie?”
“Let’s hear the other message.”
This time I played my voice first. It sounded like the guy in an old Western who’d had been cut down after the lynching started and was hoarse the rest of his life. I’ve never smoked, but when restaurants had smoking sections, on hearing my voice they took me straight there. My voice didn’t get this way because
a thug smashed my Adam’s apple with a crowbar (though that did happen once). It’s been this way since the summer between sixth and seventh grade. Some guys wake up with a golden bass voice; I woke up with a cement truck in my throat.
After my voice, we waited for the professor’s. “11:37 p.m.” Five seconds of nothing. No sound, except faint breathing, as if waiting for me to pick up. I played it again, turning out the lights to focus on the sound. Yeah. Breathing.
“You weren’t home at 11:37?”
“Maybe not. Or I’d gone to bed. Or I was home but didn’t check messages.”
“That’s pretty vague.”
“You accusing me of something?”
“Why would I accuse you?” Clarence asked. “Just wondering why you don’t remember. You answered the phone when the lieutenant called about the murder, right?”
I held up my cell. “Everything comes through this. Unless they can’t get me; then they call the home number.”
“Apparently the professor didn’t have your cell number.”
“I’d like to know how he had my home number. It’s unlisted.”
“What do we do now?”
“You do whatever reporters do,” I said. “I’m going to sit down, have coffee, and Mulch and I are going to think this through.”
“You want to cancel lunch with Jake?”
“We have to eat anyway. And it’s Jake’s turn to buy. Lunch isn’t for six hours. I’m not canceling yet.”
Clarence took off, eager to start writing, even though I warned him he couldn’t say much.
Manny would make sure the crime scene was preserved. Before returning, I wanted to look over my notes. With sugarless gum in his drawer, the professor didn’t strike me as a Black Jack kind of guy. His toothy grin in the photos on the mantel and the walls suggested he got his teeth polished. People who speak in public for a living don’t film up their teeth with Black Jack. We Black Jack chewers are an elite group, and if we took a vote, based on his teeth, we’d kick the professor off Black Jack Island. I bump into a Black Jack chewer once in a blue moon. There’s instant camaraderie, partly because it defies all reason, like being a Raiders fan.
So what was a Black Jack wrapper doing at the professor’s? And why couldn’t I remember coming home? And what was with Wally’s Donuts?