by Jack Kilborn
She cocks her head back and snaps it against the blowtorch. The torch teeters, falls onto its side, and begins a slow, agonizing roll over to her right hand.
“Please,” Moni begs the universe. “Please.”
The torch rolls close–too close–the flame brushing Moni’s arm and the horrible heat singeing hair and burning skin.
Moni screams into her gag, jerks her elbow, tries to force the searing flame closer to the rope.
The pain blinds her, takes her to a place beyond sensation, where her only thought, her only goal, is to make it stop make it stop MAKE IT STOP!
Her arm is suddenly loose.
Moni grabs the blowtorch, ignoring the burning twine that’s still wrapped tightly around her wrist. She points the flame at her left hand, severs the rope. Then her feet.
She’s free!
No time to dress. No time to hide. Up the stairs, two at a time, ready to dive out of a window naked and screaming and–
“What the hell?”
The freak is at the top of the stairs, pulling a wicked-looking hunting knife out of a cardboard box. He notices Moni and confusion registers on his face.
It quickly morphs into rage.
Moni doesn’t hesitate, bringing the blowtorch around, swinging it like a club, connecting hard with the side of the freak’s head, and then he’s falling forward, past her, arms pinwheeling as he dives face-first into the stairs.
Moni continues to run, up into the house, looking left and right, finding the front door, reaching for the knob…
And pauses.
The freak took a hard fall, but he might still be alive.
There will be other girls. Other girls in his basement.
Girls like Charlene.
Cops don’t help whores. Cops don’t care.
But Moni does.
Next to the front door is the living room. A couch. Curtains. A throw rug.
Moni picks up the rug, wraps it around her body. Using the torch, she sets the couch ablaze, the curtains on fire, before throwing it onto the floor and running out into the street.
It’s early morning. The sidewalk is cold under her bare feet. She’s shaken, and her burned arm throbs, but she feels lighter than air.
A car stops.
A john, cruising. Rolls down the window and asks if she’s for sale.
“Not anymore,” Moni says.
She walks away, not looking back.
Another locked room mystery, this one even more complicated. What’s fun about Jack is that I can put her in different sub genres without changing her character. She can function as Sherlock Holmes, or Spenser, or Kay Scarpetta, depending on the story. This won 2nd place in the Ellery Queen Reader’s Choice Contest.
“His skull is shattered, and his spinal column looks like a Dutch pretzel.” Phil Blasky straightened from his crouch and locked eyes with me, his expression neutral. “This man has fallen from a great height.”
I glanced up from my notepad, not having written a word. “You’re positive?”
“I’ve autopsied enough jumpers in my tenure as ME to know a pancake when I see one, Jack.”
I stared at the body, arms and legs akimbo, splayed out on a living room carpet damp with bodily fluids. On impulse I looked up, focusing on a ceiling that couldn’t be any higher than eight feet.
“Maybe he jumped off the couch.” This from my partner, Detective First Class Herb Benedict. His left hand scratched his expansive stomach, his light blue shirt dotted with mustard stains. It was 11am, so how the mustard got there was anybody’s guess.
I frowned at Herb, then located a patch of dry beige carpeting and knelt next to the corpse, careful not to stain my heels or pants. The victim was named Edward Wyatt, and this was his house. He was Caucasian, 67 years old, and as dead as dead can be. The smell wasn’t too bad—this was a fresh one—but the wake would definitely be a closed casket.
“What do you make of the blood spatters, Phil?”
“Unremarkable star-configuration, arcing away from the nexus of the body in all directions. Droplets coating the walls and ceiling. Notice the double pattern—see the large spot here, next to the body? It has it’s own larger radius of spatters.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning he bounced once, when he hit the carpet. Consistent with jumpers, leaving a primary then a secondary spatter.”
Benedict cleared his throat. “You’re telling us this is authentic? That he fell five stories into a living room?”
“I’m telling you it looks that way.”
I’ve been with the Chicago Police Department for twenty years, half of those with the Violent Crimes unit, and have seen a few things. But this was flat-out weird. I almost ordered my team to do a house sweep for Rod Serling.
“Could somebody have dumped him here? After he died someplace else?”
“That seems reasonable, but I don’t notice any tissue or fluid missing. If he were scraped off the street, there would be blood left behind. If anything, there’s too much blood in this room.”
I would have asked how it was possible for him to know that, but Phil knew more about dead people than Mick Jagger knew about rock and roll.
“Also,” Phil motioned us closer, “take a look at this.”
He crouched, holding some tweezers, and used a gloved hand to gently lift the corpse’s head. After some prodding and poking, he removed a small fiber.
“Beige carpeting, deeply embedded in his flesh. The deceased has hundreds of these fibers in the skin, consistent with…”
I finished the sentence for him. “…falling from a great height.”
“However improbable it seems. It’s as if someone took off the roof, and he jumped out of a plane and landed in his living room. And don’t forget about the doors.”
I felt a headache coming on. The house had two entry points, the front door and the rear door. Each had been dead-bolted from the inside—no outside entry was possible. The locks were privacy locks, similar to the ones on hotel rooms; there were no keyholes, just a latch. The first officers on the scene had to break through a window to get in; the windows had all been locked from the inside.
“Lt. Daniels?” A uniform, name of Perez, motioned me over to a corner of the room. “There’s a note.”
I watched my step, making my way to the room-length book shelf, crammed full of several hundred paperbacks. Their spines were splashed with blood, but I could make out some authors: Carr, Chandler, Chesterton. Perez pointed to a pristine sheet of white typing paper, tacked to the shelf between Sladek and Stout. The handwriting on it was done in black marker. I snugged on a pair of latex gloves I keep in my blazer pocket, and picked up the note.
God doesn’t understand. Eternal peace I desire. The only way out is death. Answers come to those who seek. Can’t get through another day. Let me rest. Until we meet in heaven. Edward.
I pondered the message for a moment, then returned to Benedict and Blasky.
“What about a steamroller?” Herb was asking. “That would crush a body, right?”
“It wouldn’t explain the spatters. Also, unless there’s a steamroller in the closet, I don’t see how…”
I interrupted. “I’m looking around, Herb. When the techies get here, I want video of everything.”
“That a suicide note?” Herb pointed his chin at the paper I held.
“Yeah. Strange, though. Take a peek and let me know if you spot the anomaly.”
“Anomaly? You’ve been watching too many of those cop shows on TV.”
I winked at him. “I’ll let you know if I find the steamroller.”
Notebook in hand, I went to explore the house. It was a modest two bedroom split-level, in a good neighborhood on the upper north side. Nine-one-one had gotten an anonymous call from a nearby payphone, someone stating that he’d walked past the house and smelled a horrible stench. The officers who caught the call claimed to hear gunshots, and entered through a window. They discovered the body, but found no evidence of any g
un or shooter.
I checked the back door again. Still locked, the deadbolt in place. The door was old, its white paint fading, contrast to the new decorative trim around the frame.
I checked the linoleum floor and found it clean, polished, pristine.
Running my finger along the door frame, I picked up dust, dirt, and some white powder. I sniffed. Plaster. The hinges were solid, tarnished with age. The knob was heavy brass, and the deadbolt shiny steel. Both in perfect working order.
I turned the deadbolt and opened the door. It must have been warped with age, because it only opened 3/4 of the way and then rubbed against the kitchen floor. I walked outside.
The backyard consisted of a well-kept vegetable garden and twelve tall bushes that lined the perimeter fence, offering privacy from the neighbors. I examined the outside of the door and found nothing unusual. The door frame had trim that matched the interior. The porch was clean. I knelt on the welcome mat and examined the strike panel and the lock mechanisms. Both were solid, normal.
I stood, brushed some sawdust from my knee, and went back into the house.
The windows seemed normal, untampered with. There was broken glass on the floor by the window where the uniforms had entered. Other than being shattered, it also appeared normal.
The front door was unlocked; after breaching the residence through the window, the uniforms had opened the door to let the rest of the crew inside. I examined the door, and didn’t find anything unusual.
The kitchen was small, tidy. A Dell puzzle magazine rested on the table, next to the salt and pepper. Another sat by the sink. The dishwasher contained eight clean mason jars, with lids, and a turkey baster. Nothing else. No garbage in the garbage can. The refrigerator was empty except for a box of baking soda. The freezer contained three full trays of ice cubes.
I checked cabinets, found a few glasses and dishes, but no food. The drawers held silverware, some dishtowels, and a full box of Swedish Fish cherry gummy candy.
I left the kitchen for the den, sat at the late Edward Wyatt’s desk, and inched my way through it. There was a bankbook for a savings account. It held $188,679.42—up until last month when the account had been emptied out.
I kept digging and found a file full of receipts dating back ten years. Last month, the victim had apparently toured Europe, staying in London, Paris, Rome, and Berlin. Bills for fancy restaurants abounded. The most recent purchases included several hundred dollars at a local hardware store, a dinner for two at the 95th Floor that cost over six-hundred dollars, a one week stay at the Four Seasons hotel in Chicago, a digital video recorder and an expensive new stereo, and a bill for wall-to-wall carpeting; the beige shag Mr. Wyatt was currently staining had been installed last month.
I also found several grocery lists, and the handwriting seemed to match the handwriting on the suicide note.
Next to the desk, on a cabinet, sat a Chicago phonebook. It was open to BURGLAR ALARMS.
The den also had a cabinet which contained some games (Monopoly, chess, Clue, backgammon) and jigsaw puzzles, including an old Rubik’s Cube. I remember solving mine, back in the 1980s, by pulling the stickers off the sides. This one had also been solved, and the stickers appeared intact.
I left the den and found the door to the basement. It was small, unfinished. The floor was bare concrete, and a florescent lamp attached to an overhead beam provided adequate light. A utility sink sat in a corner, next to a washer and dryer. On the other side was a workbench, clean and tidy. The drawers contained the average assortment of hand tools; wrenches, hammers, screwdrivers, saws, chisels. Atop the workbench was an electric reciprocating saw that looked practically new.
A closet was tucked away in the corner. Inside I found an old volleyball net, a large roll of carpet padding, a croquet set, some scraps of decorative trim, and half a can of blue paint. Also, hanging on a makeshift rack, were three badminton rackets, an extra-large super-soaker squirt gun, and a plastic lawn chair.
After snooping until there was nothing left to snoop, I met Herb back in the living room.
“Find anything?” Herb asked.
I described through my search, ending with the Swedish Fish.
“That was the only food?” Herb asked.
“Seems to be.”
“Are we taking it as evidence?”
“I’m not sure yet. Why?”
“I love Swedish Fish.”
“If I poured chocolate syrup on the corpse, would you eat that too?”
“You found chocolate syrup?”
I switched gears. “You figure out the note?”
Herb smiled. “Yeah. Funny how the note is perfectly clean when everything around it, and behind it, is soaked in blood.”
“Find anything else?”
“I tossed the bedrooms upstairs, found some basics; clothes, shoes, linen. Bathroom contained bathroom stuff; towels, toiletries, a lot of puzzle magazines. Another bookshelf—non-fiction this time. Some prescription meds in the cabinet.” Benedict checked his pad. “Diflucan, Abarelix, Taxotere, and Docetexel.”
“Cancer drugs,” Phil Blasky said. He held Wyatt’s right arm. “That explains this plastic catheter implanted in his vein and this rash on his neck. This man has been on long term chemotherapy.”
A picture began to form in my head, but I didn’t have all the pieces yet.
“Herb, did you find any religious paraphernalia? Bibles, crucifixes, prayer books, things like that?”
“No. There were some books upstairs, but mostly philosophy and logic puzzles. In fact, there was a whole shelf dedicated to Free-Thinking.”
“As opposed to thinking that costs money?”
“That’s a term atheists use.”
Curiouser and curiouser.
“I found receipts for a new stereo and camcorder. Were they upstairs?” I asked.
“The stereo was, set-up in the bedroom next to that big bay window. I didn’t see any camcorders.”
“Let me see that note again.”
The suicide letter had been placed in a clear plastic bag. I read it twice, then had to laugh. “Quite a few religious references for a Free-Thinker.”
“If he was dying of cancer, maybe he found God.”
“Or maybe he found a way to die on his terms.”
“Meaning?”
“The terms of a man who loved mysteries, games, and puzzles. Look at the first letter of each sentence.”
Herb read silently, his lips moving. “G-E-T-A-C-L-U-E. Cute. You know, I became a cop because it required very little lateral thinking.”
“I thought it was because vendors gave you free donuts.”
“Shhh. Hold on…I’m forming a hypothesis.”
“I’ll alert the media.”
Phil Blasky snorted. “You guys have a drink minimum for this show?”
Herb ignored us. “Wyatt obviously had some help, because the note was placed on top of the blood. But was his help in the form of assisted suicide? Or murder?”
“It doesn’t matter to us—they’re treated the same way.”
“Exactly. So if this is a game for us to figure out, and the clues have been staged, will the clues lead us to what really happened, or to what Wyatt or the killer would like us to believe really happened?”
The word ‘game’ made me remember the cabinet in the den. I returned to it, finding the Parker Brothers classic board game, Clue. Inside the box, instead of cards, pieces, and a game board, was a cryptogram magazine.
“I’m going out to the car to get my deermilker cap,” Herb said.
“It’s deerstalker. While you’re out there, call the Irregulars.”
I removed the magazine and flipped through it, noting that all of the puzzles had been solved. Nothing else appeared unusual. I went through it again, slower, and noticed that page 20 had been circled.
“Herb, grab all puzzle magazines you can find. I’ll meet you back here in five.”
I did a quick search of the first floor and gathered up eight mag
azines. Each had a different page number circled. Herb waddled down the stairs a moment later.
“I’ve got twelve of them.”
“Did he circle page numbers?”
“Yeah.”
We took the magazines over to the dining room table and spread them out. Herb made a list of the page number circled in each issue.
“Let’s try chronological order,” I said. “The earliest issue is February of last year. Write down the page numbers beginning with that one.”
I watched Herb jot down 7, 19, 22, 14, 26, 13, 4, 19, 12, 16, 13, 22, 4, 7, 12, 12, 14, 6, 24, and 19.
Herb rubbed his mustache. “No number higher than twenty-six. Could be an alphabet code.” He hummed the alphabet, stopping at the seventh letter. “Number seven is G.”
“Yeah, but nineteen is S and twenty-two is V. What word starts with GSV?”
“Maybe it’s reverse chronological order. Start with the latest magazine.”
I did some quick calculating. “That would be SXF. Not too many words begin like that.”
“Are you hungry? I’m getting hungry.”
“We’ll eat after we figure this out.”
“How about reverse alphabet code? Z is one, Y is two, and so on.”
I couldn’t do that in my head, and had to write down the alphabet and match up letters to numbers. Then I began to decode.
“You nailed it, Herb. The message is T-H-E-M-A-N-W-H-O-K-N-E-W-T-O-O-M-U-C-H. The Man Who Knew Too Much.”
“That Hitchcock movie. Maybe he’s got a copy lying around.”
We searched, and didn’t find a single video or DVD. My hands were pruning in the latex gloves. I snapped the gloves off and stuffed them in my pocket. The air felt good.
“Was it based off a book?” Herb asked. “The guy’s got plenty of books.”
“Could have been. Let me ask the expert.” I pulled out my cell and called the smartest mystery expert I knew; my mother.
“Jacqueline! I’m so happy to hear from you. It’s about time I get out of bed.”
I felt a pang of alarm. “Mom, it’s almost noon. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, dear.”