The book case
( John Corey - 6 )
Nelson Demille
Nelson DeMille
The book case
Otis Parker was dead. Killed by a falling bookcase whose shelves were crammed with very heavy reading. Total weight about a thousand pounds, which flattened Mr. Parker’s slight, 160-pound body. A tragic accident. Or so it seemed.
To back up a bit, I’m Detective John Corey, working out of the First Precinct Detective Squad, which is located-if you ever need me-on Ericsson Place in Lower Manhattan, New York City.
It was a cold, blustery March morning, a Tuesday, and I was sitting in a coffee shop on Hudson Street, a few blocks from my precinct, trying to translate ham and eggs over easy into Spanish for my English-challenged waiter. “ Huevos flippo. Hambo and blanco toasto. Okay?”
My cell phone rang at 8:34, and it was my boss, Lieutenant Ed Ruiz, who said, “I notice you’re not at your desk.”
“Are you sure?”
“Where are you?”
I told him and he said, “Good. You’re up. We have a body at the Dead End Bookstore on North Moore. Discovered by a clerk reporting for work.”
I knew the bookstore, which specialized in crime and mystery novels, and I’d actually been a customer a few times. I love murder mysteries. I can always guess the killer-without peeking at the end. Well…hardly ever. My job should be so easy.
Ruiz continued, “The deceased is the store owner, a Mr. Otis Parker.”
“Oh…hey, I know him. Met him a few times.”
“Yeah? How?”
“I bought a book.”
“Really? Why?”
I ignored that and inquired, “Robbery?”
“No. Who robs a bookstore? You rob places that have money or goods you can sell.”
“Right. So? What?”
“Well,” replied Lieutenant Ruiz, “it looks like a ground ball,” cop talk for something easy. He explained about the falling bookcase, then added, “Appears to be an accident, but the responding officer, Rourke, says it might need another look before they clean up the mess.”
“Okay. Hey, how do you say fried egg on a roll to go in Spanish?”
“You say hasta la vista and get over to the bookstore.”
“Right.” I hung up and went out into the cold March morning. Lower Manhattan at this hour is jammed with people and vehicles, everyone on their way to work, and all thrilled to be doing that. Me too.
It was quicker to walk than to get my squad car at the precinct, so I began the four-block trek up Hudson, bucking into a strong north wind that roared down the avenue. A flasher on the corner opened his trench coat and got lifted into a holding pattern over the Western Union building. Just kidding.
I turned onto North Moore, a quiet cobblestoned street that runs west toward the river. Up ahead on the right I saw two RMPs and a bus, which if you read NYPD detective novels you’ll know is two radio cars and an ambulance. One car would be the sector car that responded and the other the patrol sergeant’s car.
As I approached the Dead End Bookstore I saw there was no crime scene tape, and the police activity hadn’t drawn much attention on the street; it hardly ever does in New York unless it’s something interesting or culturally significant like a mob hit. Even then, it’s not worth more than a minute of your time. Also, this was not a lively street-mostly older apartment and loft buildings with lots of vacancy signs. Mr. Otis Parker had located his bookstore badly, but named it well.
I clipped my shield on my trench coat and approached a cop whose name tag said Conner. I asked him, “Is the ME here?”
“Yeah. Dr. Hines. I think he’s waiting for you.”
Hines was an okay guy. Looked like an undertaker and didn’t try to play detective. I glanced at my cell phone clock. It was now 8:51 a.m. On the off chance that this was something more than an unfortunate example of Newton’s law of gravity, I’d need to fill out a DD-5 and begin a homicide file. Otherwise I was just stopping by.
I looked at the front of the bookstore, which took up the whole ground floor of an old five-story brick building, sandwiched between two equally old buildings. The glass door had a CLOSED sign hanging on it, along with a notice of store hours-open every day except Sundays, nine a.m. to six p.m. Basically banking hours that ensured the minimum number of customers. There were two display windows, one on each side of the door, and in the windows were…well, books. What this street really needed was a bar.
Anyway, in the left window were mostly classic crime novels-Chandler, Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie, Conan Doyle, and so forth. The window on the right featured contemporary bestselling authors like Brad Meltzer, James Patterson, David Baldacci, Nelson DeMille, and others who make more money writing about what I do than I make doing what I do.
I asked Officer Conner, “Who’s the boss?”
He replied, “Sergeant Tripani.” He added, “I’m his driver.”
You want to get the lay of the land before you burst on the scene, so I also asked, “Who else is in there?”
He replied, “The two paramedics, and the responding officers, Rourke and Simmons, and an employee named Scott who discovered the body when he came to work.”
“And Otis Parker,” I reminded him.
“Yeah. He’s still there.”
“Did you see the body?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you think?”
Officer Conner replied, “My boss thinks it’s an accident.”
“And you think?”
“Whatever he thinks.”
“Right.” I advised him, “If anyone comes by and identifies themselves as a customer or a friend, show them in.”
“Will do.”
I entered the bookstore, which looked like it did the last time I was here-no customers, no staff, cobwebs on the cash register, and unfortunately no coffee bar. Lots of books.
The store had a two-story-high ceiling, and there was a wrought-iron spiral staircase toward the rear that led up to an open loft area where I could see Sergeant Tripani, whom I knew, standing near the railing. He saw me and said, “Up here.”
I walked to the staircase, which had a sign saying PRIVATE, and began the corkscrew climb. On the way, I tried to recall the two or three times I’d interacted with Mr. Otis Parker here in his store. He was a bearded guy in his early sixties, but could have looked younger if he’d bought a bottle of Grecian Formula. He dressed well, and I remember thinking-the way cops do-that he must have had another source of income. Maybe this store was a front for something. Or maybe I read too many crime novels.
I also recalled that Mr. Parker was a bit churlish-though I’d heard him once talking enthusiastically to a customer about collector’s editions, which he sold in the back of the store. I’d sized him up as a man who liked his books more than he liked the people who bought them. In short, a typical bookstore owner.
I reached the top of the stairs and stepped up into the open loft, which was a large, wood-paneled office. In the office were Officer Rourke, the two paramedics, Dr. Hines-wearing the same black suit he’d worn for twenty years-and Sergeant Tripani, who greeted me, “Good morning, Detective.”
“Good morning, Sergeant.”
There’s always a pecking order, and Sergeant Tripani, the patrol supervisor, was the head pecker until Detective Corey from the squad showed up. Of course Mr. Parker’s death was not a suspected homicide-at least not by Sergeant Tripani-but here I was to check it out, and Sergeant Tripani was happy to turn it over to me. In fact, he said, “It’s all yours, John.”
“Ruiz just asked me to stop by.” I pointed out, “I still have my coat on.”
He didn’t reply.
I snagged a pair of latex gloves from a paramedic,
and then I surveyed the scene of the crime or the accident: It was a nice office, and there was an Oriental rug on the floor, strewn with lots of leather-bound books around a big mahogany writing desk. The legs of the desk had collapsed under the weight of the falling bookcase behind it, as had the legs and arms of the desk chair and side chair. The tipsy bookcase in question had been uprighted and leaned back against the wall, revealing Mr. Otis Parker, whose sprawled, splayed, and flattened body lay half on the collapsed desk and half on the floor. The desk items-telephone, Rolodex, pencil holder, and so forth-had miraculously remained on the desk as had the blotter, which was soaking up some fresh blood on and around the deceased’s head and face. Fortunately Mr. Parker’s brains had remained where they belonged. I don’t like to see brains.
Also on the desk was a framed black-and-white photo. The glass was cracked, but I could see a dark-haired woman, maybe in her late thirties. If this was his wife, it would be an old photo. But if it wasn’t old, then Mr. Parker had a young wife. Or maybe it was his daughter. In any case, the lady was not bad looking.
Otis Parker, I noted, was wearing good shoes and good slacks and a nice white shirt. His snappy sports jacket hung on a coat tree nearby. I couldn’t tell if he was wearing a tie because he was facedown. So obviously he’d been sitting at his desk when the bookcase behind him had somehow tipped away from the wall and silently fallen on him, his desk, and his chair. He may have seen or felt a few books landing around him, but basically he never knew what hit him. Indeed, it looked like an accident. Except, why did a thousand-pound bookcase fall forward? Well, shit happens. Ironic, too, that Otis Parker was killed by the books he loved. Okay, the bookcase killed him. But that’s not what the New York Post would say. They’d say, “Killed by the books he loved.”
I greeted Officer Rourke and inquired as to the whereabouts of his partner, Simmons.
Rourke replied, “He’s in the stockroom downstairs with Scott Bixby, the clerk who found the body.” He added, “Bixby is writing a statement.”
“Good.” Everyone seemed to be accounted for, so I greeted Dr. Hines and we shook hands. I asked him, “Do you think he’s dead?”
Dr. Hines replied to my silly question. “The responding officers”-he motioned to Officer Rourke-“pulled the bookcase off the victim with the assistance of the clerk, and they found no signs of life at that time.” He further briefed me, “The EMTs”-he indicated the two paramedics-“arrived three minutes later and also found no signs of life.” He informed me, “I have pronounced him dead.”
“Assuming Mr. Parker did not object, that makes it official.”
Dr. Hines doesn’t appreciate the dark humor that is a necessary part of tragic situations, and he made a dismissive sound.
I asked him, “Cause of death?”
“I don’t know.” He elaborated, “Crushed.”
“Instantaneous?”
“Probably. No sign of struggle.” He speculated, “A bigger man might have survived the impact.”
I looked at Otis Parker and nodded. If he’d eaten right and lifted weights…
Dr. Hines continued, “I suspect his neck or vertebrae were broken, or he died of a massive cranial trauma. Or maybe cardiac trauma.” He added, “I’ll do the autopsy this afternoon and let you know.”
“Okay.” When someone dies alone, with no witnesses, even if it’s an obvious accident, the taxpayers pay for an autopsy. Why? Because the ME has to list a cause of death before he signs the certificate, and “crushed” is not a medical term. Also, you do the autopsy because things are not always what they seem to be. That’s why I’m here.
I asked him, “Time of death?”
“Recent.”
I glanced back at the body and said, “His watch stopped at seven thirty-two. That’s your time of death.”
He looked surprised, then walked to the body and peered at the watch on Mr. Parker’s wrist.
Dr. Hines looked at his own watch and announced, “I have another call.” He said to me, “If you discover anything that doesn’t look like an accident, let me know before I begin the autopsy.”
“I always do, Doc.” I added, “Hold off on the meat wagon until you hear from me.”
“I always do, Detective.” He added, “But let’s not take too long. I want the body in the cooler.”
“Right.” The drill is this: The ambulance can’t take a dead body away, so we needed the morgue van, affectionately known as the meat wagon. But if I, Detective John Corey, suspected foul play, then we actually needed the Crime Scene Unit, who would take charge of the stiff and the premises.
But maybe we didn’t need the CSU people at all. I needed to make a determination here, and I needed to do it in a relatively short amount of time. I mean, if you cry wolf and there is no wolf, you look like an idiot. Or worse, you look like a guy who has no regard for the budget. But if you say “accident,” and it turns out later that it was something else, then you got some explaining to do. I could hear Ruiz now. “Do you know what the word detective means? It means detecting things, Detective.” And so on.
Dr. Hines had left during my mental exercises, and so had the two paramedics. Remaining now in the loft office with me was Sergeant Tripani and the responding officer, Rourke. And Mr. Parker, who, if he could talk might say, “How the hell do I know what happened? I’m just sitting here minding my own business and the next thing I know I’m pressed meat.”
I already knew what Sergeant Tripani thought, but in case he’d changed his mind, I asked him, “What do you think, Lou?”
He shrugged, looked at the body, and said, “I think it is what it looks like.” He explained more fully, “An accident waiting to happen.”
I nodded, but it wasn’t a real positive nod. I looked at the bookcase that had been leaned at a steep angle against the paneled wall to ensure that it didn’t repeat its strange forward motion away from the wall. “Objects in motion,” I said, quoting Sir Isaac Newton, “tend to stay in motion. Objects at rest tend to stay at rest.”
Sergeant Tripani had no comment on that and asked me, “Do you need me here while you’re deciding what this is?”
“No. But I need to speak to Officers Rourke and Simmons and the clerk who found the body.”
“Okay.”
I asked him, “Do we know next of kin? Any notifications made?”
He replied, “Wife. The clerk called her after he found the body and after he called us. He left a message on her cell phone and home phone saying there’s been an accident. Then when Rourke and Simmons arrived, Rourke did the same thing, and he asked Mrs. Parker to call his cell and/or to come immediately to the store.”
“Where does she live?”
“The clerk said East Twenty-Third.”
I asked, “Did you send a car around to her home?”
“We did. No reply to the buzzer and no doorman.”
“Does she have a place of business?”
“She works at home, according to the clerk.”
“Doing what?”
“I didn’t ask.”
I wondered why Mrs. Parker had not answered her home phone or even her cell phone and why she hadn’t returned those obviously urgent calls or answered her door. Sleeping? Long shower? Doesn’t pick up her messages? I’m not married, though I do date, and my experience with ladies and phone messages is mixed. I will say no more on that subject.
Sergeant Tripani started toward the spiral staircase, then turned and said to me, “If you find anything that doesn’t look like an accident-”
“Then you buy me breakfast.”
“You’re on.”
“Can your driver get me a ham and egg on a roll?”
“Sure. You want a Lipitor with that?”
“Coffee, black. Get a receipt.”
Lou Tripani made his way down the spiral staircase, and I asked Officer Rourke, “What do you think?”
He replied, “With all due respect for other opinions, I’m just not buying that this bookcase tipped over by i
tself.” He added, “Or that it tipped over at the exact time when this guy was at his desk-when the store was empty with no witnesses to see it and no one around who could’ve helped him.”
I informed him, “Shit happens.” I did concede, “Could be more than bad luck.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you interview the clerk?”
“Sure.” He informed me, “He seemed not quite right.”
“Meaning?”
“Something off there. Like he seemed more nervous than shocked.”
I don’t like to be prejudiced before I do an interview, but the clerk’s reaction, close to the time he discovered the body, was important and interesting. By now Scott had calmed down and I might see another emotion. I said to Rourke, “Stick around. Put the OPEN sign on the door, and if by some miracle there’s a customer, let them in and give me a holler.”
“Right.”
“And if and when Mrs. Parker shows up, let me handle the notification.”
He nodded.
“And let me know when my breakfast arrives.”
Officer Rourke went down the staircase. Not every uniformed cop wants to be a detective, but most of them have good instincts and experience, and a lot of cases have been solved or advanced because of the cop who first came on the scene. Rourke seemed smart, and he had a suspicious nature. I wouldn’t want to be Mrs. Rourke.
I looked at the bookcase again. It looked like an antique, like most of the expensive junk in this office. It was one of those…let’s say, ponderous Victorian pieces that decorators hate but men like.
I looked back at the deceased and mentally pictured the bookcase falling on top of him while he worked at his desk. The force of the object would be increased by its falling speed, like that apple that hit Sir Isaac on the head. But if this was murder, it was a risky way to do it. I mean, there was no guarantee that the bookcase would kill him. Score one against homicide.
But if it was murder, how was it done? It would take two people-or maybe one strong guy-to topple this bookcase. And obviously it would be someone he knew who was in his office at this hour. And the person or persons would say to him, “You just sit there, Otis, while we stand behind you and admire your books.” Then, “Okay, one, two, three-timber!”
The book case jc-6 Page 1