Death Sentences

by Otto Penzler

  I returned Part B of the murder weapon to the bathroom.

  Now I knew two things: Otis Parker was murdered, and I also knew how he was murdered.

  The only thing left to discover was who murdered him. And why. If you get the why, you usually get the who. As I’ve discovered in this business, when motive and opportunity coalesce, you get a crime. And when the crime is made to look like an accident, you look for someone close to the victim.

  I needed a lot more time in this office, but the office wasn’t going anywhere and someone close to the victim – Scott the clerk – was cooling his heels in the stockroom and he needed to be interviewed.

  I removed my gloves and went down the stairs. I asked Rourke, “Where’s the stockroom?”

  He indicated a closed door in the rear of the long bookstore. My ham and egg on a roll was calling my name, but it’s not professional to interview a witness with your mouth full, so I just grabbed the coffee and went through the door into the stockroom.

  It was a fluorescent-lit space lined with metal shelving that held hundreds of books. The deep shelves looked stable enough, but after seeing what happened to poor Mr. Parker, the place made me nervous.

  There was a long table in the center of the room, also stacked with books and paperwork, and at the table sat a uniformed officer – Simmons – and a young gent who must be Scott. I thought I may have seen him once or twice in the store.

  There was a metal security door that lead out to the back, and I opened the door and looked out into a paved yard surrounded by a brick wall about ten feet high. There were no gates leading to the adjoining backyards, but the walls could be scaled if you had something to stand on – or if you had a cop hot on your tail. Been there, done that – on both sides of the law. There was also a fire escape leading up to the top floor.

  I closed the door and turned to Scott. I identified myself, pointing to my shield – the way the lady cop did in Fargo. Funny scene.

  Officer Simmons, who’d been babysitting the witness as per procedure, asked, “Do you need me?”

  “No. But stick around.”

  He nodded, got up and left.

  I smiled at Scott who did not return my smile. He still looked nervous and unhappy, maybe concerned about his future at the Dead End Bookstore.

  My coffee was tepid, but I spotted a microwave sitting on a small table wedged between two bookcases, and I put my paper cup in the microwave. Twenty seconds? Maybe thirty.

  There was a bulletin board above the table with a work schedule, and I saw that Scott was scheduled to come in at 8:30 A.M. today, and someone named Jennifer had a few afternoon hours scheduled this week. Not much of a staff, which meant not many people to interview. There was also a post-it note saying, “J. Lawrence – 10 A.M. Tuesday.” Today.

  I retrieved my coffee from the microwave and sat across from Scott. He was a soft-looking guy in his mid-twenties, short black hair, black T-shirt and pants, and a diamond stud in his left earlobe which I think means he’s a Republican. Maybe I got that wrong. Anyway, I did remember him now – more for his almost surly attitude than his helpfulness.

  I flipped through the dozen or so pages of Scott’s handwritten statement and saw he hadn’t yet finished with his account of who, what, where, and when. In this business, short statements are made by people with nothing to hide; long statements are a little suspicious and this was a long statement.

  As I perused his tight, neat handwriting, I said to him, “This seems to be a very helpful account of what happened here.”

  “Thank you.”

  I asked him, “Do you think the police arrived promptly?”

  He nodded.

  “Good. And the EMS?”

  “Yeah…”

  “Good.” And are you now thinking I’m here to evaluate the response to your 911 call? I’m not. I dropped his written statement on the table and asked him, “How you doin’?”

  He seemed unsure about how he was doing, but then replied, “Not too good.”

  “Must have been a shock.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How long have you worked here?”

  “Three years this June.”

  “Right after college?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good job?”

  “It’s okay.” He volunteered, “Pays the bills while I’m writing my novel.”

  “Good luck.” Every store clerk and waiter in this town wants you to know they’re really a writer, an actor, a musician or an artist. Just in case you thought they were a clerk or a waiter. I asked Scott, “What time did you get here this morning?”

  He replied, “As I told the other policeman, I got here about seven-thirty.”

  “Right. Why so early?”

  “Early?”

  “You’re scheduled for eight-thirty.”

  “Yeah…Mr. Parker asked me to get here early.”

  “Why?”

  “To stock shelves.”

  “The shelves look stocked. When’s the last time you sold a book?”

  “I had some paperwork to do.”

  “Yeah? Okay, take me through it, Scott. You got here, opened the door – front door?”

  “Yeah.” He reminded me, “It’s all in my statement.”

  “Good. And what time was that?”

  “I opened the door a little before seven-thirty.”

  “And it was locked?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you know that Mr. Parker was here?”

  “No. Well, not at first. I noticed the lights were on in his office up in the loft, so I called up to him.”

  “I assume he didn’t answer.”

  “No…he…so, I thought maybe he was in here – in the stockroom – so I came in here to get to work.”

  “And when you saw he wasn’t here, what did you think?”

  “I…thought maybe he was in his bathroom upstairs.”

  “Or maybe he ducked out for a ham and egg on a roll.”

  “Uh…he…if he went out, he’d turn off the lights.” Scott informed me, “He’s strict about saving energy. Was.”

  “Right.” Now he wasn’t using any energy. I said, “Please continue.”

  “Well…as I said in my statement, after about twenty minutes I carried some books to the counter up front, and I called up to him again. He didn’t answer, but then I noticed something…I couldn’t see the top of his bookshelf.”

  In fact, I’d noticed that bookshelf myself on my two or three visits here. You could see the top two or three shelves from the front of the store. But not this morning.

  Scott continued, “I didn’t know what to make of that at first…and I kept staring up at the office…then I went half way up the stairs and called out again, then I went all the way up and…”

  Rourke said Scott looked nervous, but now Scott looked appropriately distraught as he relived that moment of horror when he found his boss flattened by a half ton of mahogany and books.

  I didn’t say anything as he spoke, but I nodded sympathetically.

  Scott continued, “I shouted his name, but… there was no answer and no movement…”

  “How’d you know he was under there?”

  “I could see…I wasn’t all the way up the stairs, so I could see under the bookcase…”

  “Right. I thought you said you went all the way up the stairs.”

  “I…I guess I didn’t. But then I did. I tried to move the bookcase, but I couldn’t. So I called 911 on my cell phone.”

  “Good thinking.” I glanced at his statement and said, “Then you called Mrs. Parker.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How well do you know her?” He thought about that, then replied, “I’ve known her about three years. Since they started dating.”

  “So they’re newlyweds.”

  “Yeah.” He volunteered, “Married last June.”

  “Previous marriage for him?”

  “Yeah. Before my time.”

  “How about her?”

&n
bsp; “I think so.”

  Recalling the photo on the deceased’s desk, I asked Scott, “How old is she?”

  “I…guess about forty.”

  Booksellers always get the young chicks.

  I asked Scott, “Was she a nice lady?”

  “I…guess. I didn’t see her much. She hardly ever comes to the store.”

  By now Scott was wondering about my line of questioning, so I volunteered, “I like to get a feeling for the victim’s next of kin before I break the news to them.”

  He seemed to buy that and nodded.

  I asked Scott directly, “Did the Parkers have a happy marriage?”

  He shrugged, then replied, “I don’t know. I guess.” He then asked me, “Why do you ask?”

  “I just told you, Scott.”

  Recalling that Scott told Tripani that Mrs. Parker worked at home, I asked him, “What does she do for a living?”

  “She’s a decorator. Interior designer. Works at home.”

  “Do you have any idea where she is this morning?”

  “No. Maybe on a job.”

  “Could she be out of town?”

  “Could be.” He informed me, “She’s from L.A. She has clients there.”

  “Yeah?” L.A. Who else do I know from L.A.? Ah! Jay Lawrence. Small world. I asked him, “Did she decorate this place?”

  He hesitated, then replied, “No. I mean, not the store.”

  “His office?”

  “I don’t know. Yeah. I guess.”

  “That’s three different answers to the same question. Did she decorate his office? Yes or no?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Uh…I think about two years ago.”

  “When they were dating?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So she put the bookcase up there?”

  He didn’t reply immediately, then said, “I guess.”

  Scott was a crappy witness. Typical of his generation, if I may be judgmental here. A little fuzzy in his thinking, his brain probably half baked on controlled substances, educated far beyond his ambitions, marking time while he wrote the Great American Novel. But he did get to work early. So, he had some ambition.

  As for Mrs. Parker, I was concerned that she’d take it very badly if she was the person who bought that bookcase and failed to secure it to the wall. I mean, that would be hard to live with. Especially if she took those furniture wedges for another job…well, too early to speculate on that.

  I asked Scott, “Was her business successful?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is this bookstore successful?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just a clerk.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “I…I think he makes ends meet.” He let me know, “I get paid.”

  “Does the rent get paid?”

  “He owns the building.”

  “Yeah? Who’s on the top three floors?”

  “Nothing. Nobody. Loft space. Unrented.”

  “Why unrented?”

  “Needs heat, a new fire escape, and the freight elevator doesn’t work.”

  And there’s no money to do the work. I was wondering what Mr. Parker was thinking when he bought this building, but then Scott, reading my mind, volunteered, “He inherited the building.”

  I nodded. And he should have sold it to a developer. But he wanted to own a bookstore. Otis Parker, bibliophile, was living his dream, which was actually a nightmare. And Mrs. Parker’s decorating career could be a hobby job – or she did okay and had to support her husband’s book habit.

  Motive is tricky, and you can’t ascribe a motive and then try to make it fit the crime. I mean, even if Otis Parker was worth more dead than alive – this building, or at least the property, was worth a couple mil, even in this neighborhood – that didn’t mean that his young wife wanted him dead. She might just want him to sell the building and stop sinking time and money into this black hole – this Dead End Bookstore – and go get a real job. Or at least turn the place into a bar.

  Maybe I was getting ahead of myself. For all I knew the Parkers were deeply in love and his death – caused by her bookcase – would cause the grief-stricken widow to enter a nunnery.

  Meanwhile, I made a mental note to check for a mortgage on the building, plus Mr. Parker’s life insurance policies, and if there was a prenup agreement. Money is motive. In fact, statistically, it is the main motive in most crimes.

  I returned to the subject at hand and said, “So, after you called 911, you called her.”

  He nodded.

  “From upstairs or downstairs?”

  “Downstairs. I ran down to unlock the door.”

  “And you used your cell phone.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Her home number is in your cell phone?”

  “Yeah…I have their home number to call if there’s a problem here.”

  “Right. And you have her cell phone number in your cell phone in case…what?”

  “In case I can’t get Mr. Parker on his cell phone.”

  “Right.” And when I look at everyone’s phone records, I might see some interesting calls made and received.

  The thing is, if a murder actually does appear to be an accident, there’s not much digging beyond the cause and manner of death. But when a cop thinks it looks fishy, then the digging gets deeper, and sometimes something gets dug up that doesn’t jibe with peoples’ statements.

  It had taken me less than fifteen minutes to determine that I was most probably investigating a homicide, so I was already into the digging stage while everyone else – except maybe Officer Rourke – thought we were talking about a bizarre and tragic accident.

  Scott – baked brains aside – was getting the drift of some of my questions. In fact, he was looking a bit nervous again, so I asked him bluntly, “Do you think this was something more than an accident?”

  He replied quickly and firmly, “No. But that other officer did.”

  I suggested, “He reads too many detective novels. Do you?”

  “No. I don’t read this stuff.”

  He seemed to have a low opinion of detective novels and that annoyed me. On that subject, I asked him, “Is Jay Lawrence scheduled to come in today?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. To sign his new book. He’s on a book tour. He’s supposed to come in sometime around ten A.M.”

  I looked at my watch and said, “He’s late.”

  “Yeah. Authors are usually late.”

  “Where’s he staying in New York?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you have his cell number?”

  “Yeah…someplace.”

  “Have you met him?”

  “Yeah. A few times.”

  “How well does he – did he – know Mr. Parker?”

  “I guess they knew each other well. They see each other at publishing events.”

  “And Mrs. Parker?”

  “Yeah…I guess he knew her, too.”

  “From L.A.?”

  “Yeah…I think so.”

  Out of curiosity, or maybe for some other reason, I asked Scott, “Is Jay Lawrence a big bestseller?”

  Scott replied with some professional authority, “He was. Not anymore.” He added, “We can hardly give his books away.”

  “Yeah? But you bought five boxes of them for him to sign.”

  Scott sort of sneered and replied, “That’s a courtesy. Like, a favor. Because they know each other and because he was coming to the store.”

  “Right.” It could be awkward if there were only two books here for Jay Lawrence to sign.

  Well, you learn something new every day on this job. Jay Lawrence, who I thought was a bestselling author, was not. Goes to show you. Maybe I make more money doing what I do than he makes writing about what I do.

  I had more questions to ask Scott, but there was a knock on the door and Officer Simmons opened it and said, “There’s a guy here – a writer named Jay La
wrence, to see the deceased.” He added, “Rourke notified him that there had been an accident in the store, but not a fatality.”

  I looked at my watch. It was 10:26, for the record, and I said to Simmons, “Keep Scott company.” I said to Scott, “Keep writing. You may have the beginning of a bestseller.”

  I went out into the bookstore where Mr. Jay K. Lawrence was sitting in a wingback chair, wearing a black cashmere topcoat, his legs crossed, looking impatient. He should be looking concerned – cops, accident and all that – and maybe he was, but he hid it with feigned impatience. On the other hand, authors are all ego, and if they’re detained or inconvenienced by say, an earthquake or a terrorist attack, they take it personally and get annoyed.

  I identified myself to Mr. Lawrence and again pointed to my shield. I have to get that stupid movie scene out of my head or people will think I’m an idiot. Actually, it’s not a bad thing for a suspect to think that. Not that Jay Lawrence was a suspect. But he had some potential.

  Before he could stand – if he intended to – I sat in the chair beside him.

  He looked like his photo – coiffed and airbrushed – and I could see that under his open topcoat he wore a green suede sports jacket, a yellow silk shirt and a gold-colored tie. His tan trousers were pressed and creased and his brown loafers had tassels. I don’t like tassels.

  Anyway, I got to the point and informed him, “I’m sorry to have to say this, but Otis Parker is dead.”

  He seemed overly shocked – as though the police presence here gave him no clue that something bad had happened.

  He composed himself, then asked me, “How did it happen?”