THE SHAKESPEARE MURDERS

by Marshall Huffman

  He viciously slashed the sword through the air.

  “Sorry. I’m sorry. Please. What do you want? Please, just tell me what you want. I just want to live.”

  “Ah, there’s the rub. That’s the second thing. You want to live. What is so special about life on this forsaken planet? What is so important about living? Life is as tedious as a twice told tale vexing the ear of a drowsy man. Love? Love is fleeting.”

  “I have a family and boys to raise,” she said, tears streaking down her face.

  She was shivering from the cold and from fear.

  “Tis fools such as you that make the world full of ill-favored children. Death has such an alluring appeal. It is the great unknown. We know what life is like, but death. Ah, that is the ultimate unknown,” he said and placed a plastic bag over her head.

  She struggled, in a futile attempt to suck in air. The bag filled her nose and mouth as she pulled deeper to try to get the last molecules of air into her lungs. Slowly her eyes rolled back and her head fell to the side.

  He removed the bag after a few more seconds and felt for a pulse. She was still alive. Good. Very good. He wasn’t ready for her to die just yet. That would be all too easy. Maybe after the fourth or fifth time he would finally kill her but he wanted to make sure she really understood the concept of death and what it meant to be totally devoid of hope.

  He could enjoy the moment longer if his head just didn’t hurt so badly. He held his head in his hands, trying to squeeze it hard so the pain would stop but it wouldn’t. He could hear the roar of his father’s voice echoing in his head.

  Boy, get in here. I told you to clean up this kitchen. Damn you. You are so worthless. He could feel the sting of his father’s hand as it whipped across his face. The taste of blood filled his mouth. His ear burned and his head slammed into the wall. He felt his leg buckle as his dad lashed out with his foot catching him just behind the knees. He fell to the floor but before he could curl up, the toe of his father’s heavy boot caught him in the stomach forcing the breath out of him. Everything started to get blurry. His father’s face suddenly appeared close to his. His putrid breath, rank with alcohol was just inches away.

  Boy, when I tell you to do something you had better do it. You understand me? Do you boy?

  Yes pa. I’m sorry pa.

  Sorry? You stupid piece of crap. You don’t know what sorry is. I’m going to show you sorry.

  The last thing he remembered was his father reaching out and grabbing his finger and forcing it back until it made a sickening snapping sound. Thankfully, there was nothing but darkness after that.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Hey Bartoni, Sergeant Winters.”

  “Hey Sergeant. What’s up?”

  “Patrolman Dennison and Webber called in from Wilson Creek. They found a woman sitting in the middle of a field, tied to a chair with a plastic bag over her head. Looks like she has been there at least overnight. They secured the area and called CSI and the ME. I thought you might want to know. Sounds like it may be related to the other case you’re working on.

  “God I hope not.”

  “Maybe not but I thought I would give you a heads up.”

  “Thanks Sarge, I appreciate it.”

  As soon as I got off the phone I went and told the captain about the phone call. He was no more amused than I was.

  “Go check it out,” were his parting words.

  No kidding. What the heck else would I do?

  When I came down stairs, the desk sergeant had the directions written out for me. One thing you could always count on was Sergeant Winters. If every station had someone like him looking after the officers the police would be a heck of a lot better organized. He was on top of everything.

  “You’re going to need your gloves,” he said as I started for the door.

  “Got em” I replied, patting my pocket.

  “Good thing, it’s real bad out there.”

  He was right. I couldn’t believe how much the weather had changed in the past two hours. The snow was falling so hard it was almost impossible to see to the end of the block.

  “Nice,” Dan said, “I suppose I have to drive again.”

  “You betcha’,” I replied.

  There were hardly any cars on the street and the few that were there seemed to be going everyplace but where they wanted to go.

  One lady went by wide eyed, turning her wheel wildly first one direction and then the other as the car slid on down the street bouncing off the curb.

  We decided to take one of the department’s SUVs instead of my Healy. Besides, getting Dan in it in this weather would be a real fight. I doubted any of the cruisers would get around any better than my Austin Healey. Since I had put new tires on it, it did pretty well as long as the snow didn’t get too deep. I love my car.

  We bumped and slid along in the ruts for almost an hour before we came to the Wilson Creek turnoff. We could see a group of cars all bunched together and since I didn’t see any hills I assumed it wasn’t parents taking the kids to sled. We stopped behind the Medical Examiner’s van and stepped out into almost knee deep snow. It was amazing how hard it was snowing. We trudged to the group of huddled men and women.

  “Damn it, Bartoni. We’re freezing our asses off out here waiting for you,” the ME grumbled.

  “Nice weather, huh?” I said, smiling.

  “Don’t be a wiseass. No one is in the mood for it.”

  “But you said you liked this white stuff the last time we were freezing our asses off.

  “Give it a rest. Be obnoxious some other time,” he said.

  “So, who called this meeting?” I asked.

  “I found the body if that’s what you mean?” officer Dennison said, his mouth covered by his jacket which he had pulled up over his face and ears. Dennison was a veteran and knew how to take proper care of a crime scene.

  “Tell me about it.”

  “It had just started to snow and we were checking out the area when I happened to look over and noticed something that didn’t look right. Tommy stopped and I got out and walked a ways out here and realized it was someone sitting in a chair. I could see that it was a woman. It looked like she had a bag or something over her face. I figured she was dead because she didn’t look like she was breathing. I had Tommy call it in. We put up a perimeter but no one has even come this way until CSI and the ME finally made it out. The snow started really coming down and covered everything pretty quickly.”

  “Any tracks before it started snowing?” I asked.

  “Nothing I could see. Nothing obvious. I watched when it first started snowing to see if anything would show up but I didn’t see a thing,” Dennison replied.

  “Alright. Good job. You did good,” I said and patted him on the shoulder, “You guys can take off now and turn in your reports,” I told him.

  “Can’t say I’m all broken up about that,” he said starting off toward the cruiser with Tommy following behind.

  “We have everything we need as well,” Terry Lincoln, head of CSI team said as the two patrolmen started toward their car.

  “What’s the verdict from your perspective?” I asked Terry.

  “Asphyxiation. A plastic bag was placed over her head while she was tied to the chair. The rope is your basic polypeptide biopolymer. My guess is that it will turn out to be BASF homopolymer nylon 6.”

  “Okay, that means what?”

  “You can get it almost at any hardware store.”

  “Find any note?” I asked.

  “Note?”

  “Yeah. You know, words on a piece of paper. Kind of thing you used to pass in class. Like the last one we found or have you forgotten about the last body we found.”

  “I know what a note is Bartoni. I didn’t find any note.”

  “Good. Send me a copy of the report and the pictures,” I said as he turned to leave.

  “Oh gee, I would have never have thought of that,” he grumbled, stomping off through the deep snow.


  “Can we get this over with?” the ME said coming up beside me.

  “You bet. The good news is they found no note so it appears to not be connected to our John Doe.”

  “Maybe you lucked out this time. Let’s take a look,” he said, heading for the lady in the chair.

  He removed the bag from her face and opened her mouth and poked around inside. To my dismay he found a note stuck in her mouth. I was seriously hoping he would find nothing but teeth and a tongue inside. Sorenson removed it and put it in an evidence bag and sealed it. He opened her eye lids and you could see veins that had burst from trying to pull in the last remnant of oxygen. Petechial hemorrhages were apparent even to me.

  “She was choked pretty hard. You can see the manual strangulation marks on her neck,” Sorenson said.

  “What do you think?” I asked after about ten minutes of exploration of the frozen corpse.

  “I think I’m freezing my ass off out in the middle of a field and I’m not about to find out another thing until I get her back to the lab and have a chance to thaw her out and get this snow off her.”

  He was as frustrated as Dan and I were. He was used to having at least some answers almost immediately but the weather was making it impossible. As soon as he would get one area uncovered the snow would cover it right back up.

  “Look, I’ll get a couple of the others and have them help load her in the van and you can take her away. We can’t do crap out here anyway. No use letting this get to you,” I said,

  “It’s not getting to me,” he snapped, which meant it was.

  “Right,” I said and went and got three other cops.

  It took us about thirty minutes to haul the poor woman the thirty yards through the knee high deep snow to the van and get her secured in the back. Even then it wasn’t exactly a piece of cake. The van was stuck and we had to push it back and forth until the doctor finally got enough momentum to get it going. We didn’t wait to see if the others got going or not. Dan and I hopped in the SUV and got the heck out of there.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Captain McGregor was waiting for me when I came in.

  “So?”

  “Not the same MO but unfortunately there was a note.”

  “Great. I don’t mean great like great. I mean great like maybe we don’t have a serial killer running around.”

  “You scare me sometimes. It was the same guy captain. The MO changed but the note is the real key,” I said, heading to my desk.

  There was a on my desk from Mr. Charmin in New York. He was the man who had arranged the tradeshow where the late

  Mr. Farley was last known to be. I called him back.

  “Mr. Charmin? Detective Bartoni. I understand you booked The Stage, Theatrical, and Artisan Paraphernalia tradeshow last week.”

  “Yes. That was one of many we book. Actually, we had six shows going on that weekend in six different cities. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m calling about one of your vendors. Mr. Melvin Farley. I understand he was at that particular show.”

  “Mr. Farley? Oh yes. Yes indeed. Mr. Farley is one of the best vendors we have. He is an attraction on his own. We love to have him as an exhibitor and often feature him in our brochures. He has quite a reputation for having the very best show and stage props. His costumes are considered some of the most elegant. His work can be seen on stages all over the country,” Charmin said excitedly.

  “You know him that well?”

  “When you have someone as popular as Mr. Farley at your venue, you make it your business to know him. We make sure he gets a prime location and has no hassles with the local unions during setup and breakdown. They can be very tiresome at times.”

  “I see. And what was Mr. Farley like at the show? Did anything or anyone seem to be bothering him?”

  “I don’t understand. I didn’t actually see him. I’m in New York. I’m seldom at one of the shows. Like I said, we had six going on that weekend alone. I have met the man a few times but not that weekend.”

  “Did anyone from your organization see him?’

  “That would be Ralph McGuire. He covers Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Michigan. He would have been at the Indiana show at least two of the days,” he said.

  “How do I find Mr. McGuire?’

  “Did something happen to Mr. Farley?”

  “He won’t be in anymore shows I’m afraid,” I said.

  “Oh dear. Oh dear. I should send Mrs. Farley flowers. Is he dead?”

  “Very.”

  “Oh my God! What will happen to his business?”

  “Mr. Charmin, I really need that number.”

  “Oh yes. Sorry.”

  I jotted down the number and hung up before he could start asking more questions about what would happen to all the great stuff Mr. Farley left behind.

  * * *

  Indianapolis had pretty much come to a standstill. The airport had closed and so had most of the Interstate highways leading into and around the city. So far we had close to ten inches of snow and it was still coming down. On top of that the winds were picking up and with nothing but flat land that meant drifts were piling up.

  It meant long hours for everyone no matter what your rank. We were all pressed into overtime and helping to get the stupid out of trouble. This was the second time in the last few weeks. What was going on with this weather? What happened to Global Warming? Hello Al, you sure you got this right?

  It is unbelievable how many idiots think they can somehow make it when no one else can. A constant barrage of calls about cars stuck and wrecks came in all night long. I can understand if someone has an emergency but one schmuck wanted to go get a six pack and ended up ramming into the front of the liquor store. It was closed because of the weather. What a moron.

  About two o’clock in the morning everything started to finally calm down and the phones were less insistent. I curled up on the captain’s old beat up couch and pulled my jacket over me. It felt like I had only been asleep for five minutes when I felt someone shake my leg. I grudgingly opened my eyes.

  “You’d better have a good reason or I’m going to shoot ya,” I growled, sitting up and rubbing my eyes.

  “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger,” Dan said, “The ME is on the phone. Said he thought you might still be here. Wanted to talk to you.”

  “For goodness sakes, can’t that old fart wait until tomorrow,” I said, slipping on my shoes and stomping to the phone.

  “What the hell do you want?”

  “Good morning sunshine,” he said in a cheery voice.

  He knew how much I hated mornings and this was his payback.

  “Don’t make me come over there and commit a felony you old geezer,” I replied.

  “Are you sitting down?”

  “I was lying down until you called. Just tell me what the heck is so important. Why aren’t you at home in bed?”

  “Can’t get home. Might as well work. Anyway Ms. Personality, I have a bit of news. Our lady of the chair. I finally got the note so I could read it.”

  “Oh, I can tell it’s not going to be good news.”

  “It is not indeed. We have a sick one my friend. Looks like the ball is back in your court.”

  I stood there letting all of this sink in. What in the world was this all about? What triggered this all of a sudden? Hell, for that matter what made people even think this stuff up? Was the world so sick today that this was the only way to get thrills? It didn’t make a lick of sense to me.

  “Tell me what it said.”

  “Here it is; O Lord, methought what pain it was to drown! What dreadful noise of water in mine ears! What sights of ugly death within mine eyes!” he read.

  “That’s from Shakespeare?”

  “Took me a while to find that one, but yeah it’s from Richard III.

  “Who the heck is this guy?” I said.

  “Richard the Third?”

  “You dork.”

  “Maybe the Bard came back to life,”
Sorenson suggested.

  “Maybe I should come over there and stuff you in one of those coolers,” I shot back.

  “I quiver with fear,” he said.

  “Okay Scar. I’ll let the captain know what it says when he gets back. I don’t know where he is right now. Send me the report as soon as you can. Anything else I should know?”

  “Oh yes. He repeated the asphyxiation process several times. She would almost die, he would revive her and then do it again. He likes watching them die.”

  “That’s just great. Anyway, thanks for the update doc,” I said and hung up.

  Not a crime of passion. Just a sick bastard who enjoys hurting people. Wonderful.

  * * *

  The restaurant just around the corner from the station was packed. Even with every seat taken it was unusually quiet. Everyone was just too tired to shoot the bull. It was amazing that the staff made it in at all. How restaurant people make it to work under the worst conditions never ceases to amaze me. They are an underappreciated hardy lot. I was sitting with the captain and Dan waiting for our food.

  “I hate to bring this up before we eat but Jane Doe’s note has been deciphered.”

  McGregor stopped drinking his water and almost dropped his glass.

  “This is a bad joke, right? It really is the same guy?”

  “I’m too tired to joke boss,” I said.

  “Crap, crap, crap. I really don’t need this right now,” he replied.

  “None of us do,” I answered.

  “I thought you said the MO was different.”

  “Seems that doc was able to somehow get the quote from it,” I told him.

  “I almost wish he hadn’t,” Dan said.

  “Tell me about it,” I replied.

  “Some more of that Shakespeare crap?” the captain asked.

  “Afraid so.”

  “What did it say?”

  I handed over the text that Sorenson had emailed over.

  “What the hell? What’s he trying to say? He is going to drown someone? Maybe the jackass ought to take a look outside. Pretty damn cold out there. Don’t think he is going to be dumping any bodies anytime soon,” the captain said, tossing the note on the table like it was laden with some kind of killer bacteria.