Death Sentences

by Otto Penzler

  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 M.E. 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. He informed me, “The watch is still running.”

  “Must be shockproof.”

  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 itself.” 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 t
hat 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!”

  Maybe. But without the one, two, three.

  I noticed that the ten-foot high bookcase was taller than it was wide, and the depth of the bookcase at the bottom was the same at the top, making it inherently unstable. Score another point against the bookcase being a murder weapon; it was, as Tripani said, an accident waiting to happen.

  I looked at the splatter pattern of the books, the way you look at blood splatter, and I noticed that most of the books were laying near the front of the desk, with only a few toward the rear, indicating to me that the shelves had held more books toward the top, adding to the instability. Mr. Parker, who seemed smart to me, was not too smart about the danger of top-heavy objects.

  I looked at the wall behind the bookcase and at the solid back of the piece to see if there were any screws or bolts that had pulled loose from the wood paneling. But there was nothing securing this massive piece of furniture to the wall – though I did see some old holes in the bookcase, indicating that previous owners had screwed this monster to something solid.

  Most accidents, I’m convinced, are God’s way of getting rid of stupid people. Or if you believe in Darwinism, you wonder why there are any stupid people left in the world. Well, I guess they can reproduce before they remove themselves from the gene pool.

  I also noticed that the oak floor had a slope to it, not uncommon in these creaky old buildings. The floor pitched a bit toward the desk and toward the edge of the loft. I’ve been in a thousand buildings like this, built in the last century, and the wooden rafters that hold up the floors are uneven, bowed, or warped, giving the floors some interesting tilts.

  But what was it that caused this stationary object to suddenly topple away from the wall? Objects at rest, and all that. Well, if not human hands, then a few other things could have done it, the most obvious being the building settling. This can happen even after a hundred years. That’s how these places collapse now and then. Also, you get some heavy truck rumbling on the street, and that can cause a vibration that would topple an unstable object. Same with construction equipment and guys working underground. Vibrations are also caused by heating and air conditioning units starting up. Even badly vented plumbing or steam pipes could cause a bang in the pipes which could possibly topple something that was on the verge of toppling. That’s exactly what happened in my old East Side tenement building to my mother’s prized Waterford crystal vase that her rich aunt gave her. Actually, I broke it. But that’s another story.

  I was about to rule this a dumbicide, but then something caught my eye. I noticed on the oak floor that there was a faint outline where the bookcase had sat for some years, caused obviously by the fact that no one had washed or waxed the floor under the bookcase since it had been there. And I also noticed that there were outlines of two small objects that had sat on the floor and protruded from the front of the bookcase. You don’t have to be a detective to determine that these two outlines were made by furniture chocks or wedges – wood or rubber – that tipped the tall, heavy piece back against the wall for safety. So, Mr. Parker was not so stupid – though I would have also shot some big bolts into the wall.

  Point was, the bookcase was probably not on the verge of toppling forward by itself if those wedges were there. And they were there. But where were they now? Not on the floor. I looked around the room, but I couldn’t find them.

  I went to the rail and saw Officer Rourke sitting behind the counter reading a borrowed book. I called down to him, “Hey, did you see any furniture wedges on the floor when you got up here?”

  “Any…? What?”

  I explained and he replied, “No. Simmons and I ran up the stairs with the clerk and we lifted the bookcase and leaned it back against the wall where you see it. I didn’t notice any furniture wedges on the floor.” He let me know, “Other than feeling for a pulse and heartbeat, we didn’t touch anything.” He added, “EMS arrived about three minutes later.”

  “Okay.” So, this has become the Case of the Missing Furniture Wedges. Let’s assume that no one who responded to the 911 call stole two furniture wedges. Let’s assume instead that the killer took them. Right. This was no accident. Otis Parker was murdered.

  I said to Rourke, “Mum’s the word on furniture wedges.”

  I turned away from the rail and stared at Otis Parker and the bookcase. Someone was in this room with him, someone he probably knew, and that person – or persons – had previously removed the two wedges from under the bookcase. Right. Two people. One to tip the heavy bookcase back a bit and the other to slide the wedges out and pocket them. Now the bookcase is unstable, and maybe made more so if someone transferred some of the books from the lower shelves to the higher ones. Maybe this was done yesterday, or a few days ago. And unfortunately for Otis Parker he hadn’t noticed this slight lean of his bookcase away from the wall or that the wedges were missing.

  So, early this morning, Otis Parker arrives and sits at his desk. Someone accompanied him, or met him here, probably by appointment. That person – or persons – goes to his bookcase to admire his leather bound collection, or maybe get a book. And while they’re at it, he, she, or they cause – in a manner not yet known – the bookcase to topple away from the wall, and the expected trajectory of the falling bookcase intersects with the seated victim. Splat! No contest.

  I looked around the room. Now that I suspected murder, everything looked different. And everything and anything could be a clue. Stuff in the waste basket, the victim’s date book, his cell phone, the contents of his pockets and the contents of his stomach, and on and on. Hundreds of things that needed to be looked at, bagged, tagged, and parceled out to the forensic labs, the evidence storage room, and so forth, while Otis Parker himself was sliced and diced by Dr. Hines. What a difference a few minutes can make.

  I surveyed the office, noting its masculine, old clubby feel. There was a large leather couch to the right of the bookcase, a few book-themed prints on the walls, and a rolling bar near the spiral staircase. I pictured Mr. Parker in here, entertaining an author, or even a lady friend, after hours.

  On the far side of the room was a long table stacked with books and I realized that all the books were the same. Beneath the table were five open boxes that had obviously held the books. I walked to the table and saw that the book title was Death Knocks Once, and the author was Jay K. Lawrence, an author whom I’d read once or twice. I also noticed a box of Sharpies on the table, and I deduced that Jay K. Lawrence was going to be here today or in the very near future to sign his new book for the store. Or, he’d already done so.

  I snapped on my latex gloves and opened one of the books, but there was no autograph on the title page. Too bad. I would have liked to buy a signed copy. But maybe Jay Lawrence would be arriving shortly, and in anticipation of this I opened to the back flap where there was a bio and photo of Jay K. Lawrence. Most male crime writers look like they used their mug shot for the book jacket, but Mr. Lawrence was a bit of a pretty boy with well-coiffed hair, maybe a touch of makeup, and a little air brushing. Jay Lawrence’s main character, I recalled, was a tough Los Angeles homicide detective named Rick Strong and I wondered where in Mr. Lawrence’s pretty head this tough guy lived.

  I read the short bio under the photo and learned that Jay Lawrence lived in L.A. There was no mention of a wife and family, so he probably lived with his mommy and ten cats, and he loved to cook.

  The next thing I had to do was call Lieutenant Ruiz. But if I did that, this place would get real crowded. I needed
to talk to Scott the clerk and to Mrs. Parker before this was announced as a homicide investigation, because when you say “homicide” the whole game changes and people get weird or they get a lawyer. So, for the record, I didn’t see anything suspicious, and this is still an accident investigation.

  I heard the door open below, and I looked down to see if it was Mrs. Parker, or maybe Jay Lawrence. But it was Officer Conner with my egg sandwich which made me just as happy. I asked Conner to leave the bag on the counter.

  My tummy was growling, but I needed to get as much done here as I could before Ruiz called me to ask what the story was. I called down to Rourke, “There may be an author coming in to sign books. Jay Lawrence. Just say there’s been an accident. I want to talk to him.”

  He nodded and I turned back to the office.

  I’m not supposed to touch or move too many things, but I did eyeball everything while my mind was in overdrive.

  There was a door to the left of the bookcase, and I opened it and walked into a small room filled with file cabinets. To the right was an open bathroom door and I stepped inside. The lights were on, and the toilet seat was down, indicating that a lady had used it last, or that Otis Parker had a bowel movement. I also noticed that the sink was wet, and there was a damp paper towel in the trash can, and that paper towel would have lots of someone’s DNA on it. It’s amazing how much evidence is left behind in a bathroom. I’d have the CSU people start here.

  I also noticed a toilet plunger standing on the floor in the corner. In the back of my mind I’d been looking for something…I didn’t know what it was, but I was sure I’d know it when I saw it. And this could be it.

  Somebody – a Greek guy – once said, “Give me a lever long enough, and a place to stand, and I can move the world.” Or a bookcase.

  Still wearing my latex gloves, I picked up the plunger, and examined the wooden handle. One side of the rounded tip was slightly discolored and there was a small dent or crease about halfway up the handle, on the opposite side of the discoloration.

  I carried the plunger into the office and stood on the left side of the bookcase. I now noticed two things – a small dimple in the wood paneling and a small crease in the back edge of the bookcase, both about chest high. These marks were barely noticeable in the hard, dark wood, but they would match perfectly with the marks on the lighter and softer wood of the plunger handle. So, it was obvious to me, as it would be obvious to the CSU team, the D.A., and hopefully a jury, that the killer, after excusing him or herself to use the bathroom, returned quietly to the office and quickly slipped the plunger handle between the bookcase and the wood paneled wall. Then that person pulled on the handle, using it as a lever to tilt the unbalanced bookcase an inch or so forward until gravity took over. For every action, said Sir Isaac Newton, there is an equal and opposite reaction.