That Sleep of Death

by Richard King

  The corpse had not been moved. We had to step over it to get into the office. The pool of blood was drying on the floorboards. Lemieux and the other cops seemed untroubled, but I was new at this. I suddenly felt more than a little queasy at being in the presence of a violent death.

  “Look but don’t touch,” said Gaston to me in an undertone. I didn’t bother being affronted, but he should have known I wouldn’t touch anything. I’d examined many a crime scene in books, analyzing the clues right along with the presiding sleuth. Besides, I didn’t want my fingerprints on anything, or I’d really be in trouble.

  The room was a mess. There were books and papers all over the floor. Three cops were filling up bottles, glass specimen plates, test tubes, and glassine envelopes with crime scene evidence, and stowing them neatly in large sample cases. Out of the corner of my eye I observed that they were giving me the curious onceover. I tried to look cool and official.

  Harold’s (I’d always called him Professor Hilliard when he was alive, but that no longer seemed necessary) desktop was wiped clean, as if someone had swept everything off the desk onto the floor, and his phone was lying on the floor, the receiver off the hook and making that annoying staccato bray they emit when they’re neglected. One of the uniformed officers saw me looking at it, smiled at me, took Harold’s coat off the coat tree and dropped it over the phone, smothering the noise.

  The star of the show, the late Professor Harold Hilliard, was lying on the floor, partially covered by some books and papers, in front of his desk. His head was surrounded by a halo of coagulating maroon blood. He had a surprised, open-eyed look on his face but I couldn’t see any wounds on his head. I did see a small iron statue with a marble base lying on the floor not far from Hilliard. The base of the statue was flecked with blood and some other stuff — bits of his skull and brains, I suppose.

  Lemieux, following my gaze, said, “Yes, that’s the murder weapon.” Turning to one of the uniformed cops he snapped out an order, which was quickly obeyed, to bag it. Lemieux took the plastic bag from the cop and examined the statue. He snorted a short laugh and handed the bag to me. I looked it over and saw why he laughed. Engraved in the base of the statue was the name of the figure: Hegel. It was a bust made of some heavy metal and it was just the right size and balance to be an excellent murder weapon. Hegel’s head was the handle; the murderer must have gripped it and whacked the victim with the marble base.

  Death by Hegel. More than one student, me included, had suffered this fate figuratively; Hilliard had met it literally. I handed the statue to the uniform cop, who took it from me and returned to the corridor outside the office, where he was joined by a second. The CSU cops had finished packing up their stuff and were on their way — to another crime scene? the police station? home? I really had no idea where they waited to be called to crime scenes.

  I forced myself to look at the body. Except for being dead, the victim was a nice-looking man. His hair, the part of it not matted with blood, was neatly trimmed but not short. He was wearing a blue blazer, a blue button-down shirt open at the neck, and expensive-looking khakis, brown loafers, and grey socks. Alive he had probably been very proud of his wardrobe. Dead, it didn’t matter.

  “Well, we know what killed him. Now we have to find out why. He was killed before the office was searched. That much we know.”

  “You mean, because the books are on top of him rather than the other way around?”

  “That’s right,” said Gaston with an approving nod that told me I was catching on. We were still standing near the door at this point and I took a tentative step into the room. “Just a minute,” said Gaston, putting a hand on my sleeve to hold me back. “Before you start poking around, take a good look at the office. This will be our last chance to look at the scene of the crime as the murderer left it. This room has the personality of the killer.”

  Lemieux could see that I didn’t understand what he meant.

  He explained, “Someone came in here, and for one reason or another killed the professor. The killer was also obviously looking for something and wasn’t careful about it. We don’t know what he — or she — was looking for, or if he found it. But the way he searched is in some way consistent with his personality. Because the searcher did such a sloppy job we can assume two things. He was in a hurry and knew what he wanted. He expected to find it in some obvious place — on the desk or behind some books.”

  “So he tossed everything off the desk onto the floor looking for it.”

  “Right. And pulled the books off the shelves to see if it was behind them. In other words, either it was too big to be concealed in a book or it was something Hilliard would have kept out in the open.”

  I contemplated the wild disorder on the floor around my feet. “Do you think there was a fight? He came here for something. Harold said no or wouldn’t play along, and so the guy got mad, killed him, and ripped the place apart?”

  Gaston didn’t even have to think about that one. “No. The murderer was focused and efficient. He did come here to get something. You’re right, there. And this something was important enough to kill for. He may not have been planning to kill Hilliard at this time but he was prepared to do it as a last resort. He could have brought the weapon with him or known it was here. We have to find out who Hegel belonged to. We have to establish whether the crime was premeditated or the result of an angry impulse. Maybe the murderer wanted to leave his options open and didn’t bring a weapon. Or chose to use a weapon that couldn’t be traced back to him. I lean towards that interpretation myself. What do you think?”

  Impressed by this display of professional expertise, I really had no opinion.

  It was a nice size room, longer than it was wide. On one of the long walls there were windows that looked out over the campus. The desk was a little to the right of the door as you came into the office. Standing in the doorway you faced the first of the three windows and a couple of chairs for visitors. You had to turn your head to the right to see Hilliard’s large desk; it was much bigger than anything the university was likely to issue to professors these days. So either the desk dated from earlier, more affluent days at McGill or it belonged to Hilliard. I wondered whether Hilliard had money. I considered asking Gaston whether he thought money could be a motive in this crime. But I was getting ahead of myself. And I was afraid Gaston would give me a precisely worded explanation of why I was wrong.

  Behind the desk was a comfortable-looking highbacked leather chair. Behind the chair was a narrow table, about a foot wide, pushed right up against the wall. Everything that had been on the table was now strewn all over the floor; it had been wiped clean like the desk. The rest of the space was filled with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. There were books on the upper and lower shelves but the middle shelves, from about my waist to just over my shoulders, were empty. The books and papers that previously resided there were dumped onto the floor.

  From force of habit I started to look over the books that were left on the shelves.

  I was standing behind the door peering at the bookcase when I overheard the cops gossiping about this and that just outside in the corridor. In my sleuth mode, I automatically started listening to them, just to pick up whatever information I could. Sidling closer, I inclined an ear as I surveyed the room. Although what I expected to learn from a bunch of cops I don’t know. At first they gave recent sports events a verbal rehash. The only hockey being played was exhibition games, so it was much too early to get into any kind of real coach-bashing or debate over the Canadiens’ prospects for the season. Without sports, conversation quickly turned to shop talk. The main topic of conversation was none other than the guy in charge — Gaston. It didn’t take long to figure out that these cops didn’t really like him. They thought he had too high an opinion of himself, the kind of guy who believes, as one of them expressed it, “his farts don’t stink.” They found Gaston too bossy and not willing to be one of the guys, un des gars. I was embarrassed and I hoped that Gaston wasn�
�t aware of the conversation, but I understood why they felt the way they did.

  Gaston could be a bit on the cool side, and in Montreal it’s always a good idea to be able to hang out; to be able to jaser avec les gars. Gaston was not that type of person.

  And my information-gathering was not adding to the murder investigation. The cops’ conversation turned to people and events I knew nothing about, and I went back to my consideration of the books.

  Hilliard’s collection of history books was excellent. I noticed a series of books that all had the same design on their spines. A set, but not in order or even all shelved together. I gave them a closer look and realized that they were the volumes of the Cambridge History of England. Volumes one, four, six, and five, in that order. Looking around, I located volume two on the floor by the desk.

  “Look at this,” I called to Gaston. “He has all the volumes in the Cambridge History of England. All except one, apparently. The one he requested from the store.”

  Gaston came over to examine the books with me. For a moment he looked meditative and I wondered if I was making a fool of myself. Obviously if Hilliard’s set was was missing one book, he would order that one.

  But Gaston was taking the matter seriously. “Maybe the way in which it came to be missing is a clue. Did the killer come here for this book? But then, why not just take it and leave — why mess up the office? Was the book hidden? I wonder if it was the object of the search.”

  “But is anyone so desperate for a book on sixteenth-century Britain that they would kill for it?” I mumbled.

  Gaston was still thinking. “Obviously, the book was missing before he was murdered. Maybe he was trying to tell us something by clutching the order for its replacement in his dying grip?” Even the calm and cool Detective Sergeant Gaston Lemieux was capable of a dramatic turn of phrase. Maybe the murder scene brought it out.

  “I’ll check into the order when I get back to the store.” I was ridiculously pleased that there was something I could actually do to further the investigation. “I’ll find out when he ordered the book and if anyone remembers anything else about the order,” I promised.

  “Good,” said Gaston.

  I decided it was time I took a closer look at the body. Feeling very brave, I threaded my way through the mess of papers and books, back to where it was lying. I had never seen a corpse outside a casket before (and precious few of them in caskets). It would have been nice to see the initials of the murderer’s name written in blood, but no such luck. I did notice, though, that there was a telephone wire not far from the body.

  “Did you see this?” I called, and Gaston stepped over the body to come and look.

  “What?”

  “A phone wire.”

  “That’s interesting. But where is the phone?”

  “Here.” Forgetting the no-touch order, I picked up the coat revealing the the phone on the floor. The distress signal had stopped and the instrument was quiet.

  “Is it connected?” He knelt on the floor, put the receiver back in its cradle for a moment, then lifted it to his ear. “Listen,” he said, holding it out to me to demon strate that there was a dial tone. Then we both looked at the disconnected wire lying on the floor.

  “Well, maybe there’s another phone somewhere.” I bent over to pick up the wire, but this time I remembered not to touch it. I straightened up.

  “Where does it plug into the wall?” Lemieux asked.

  We both looked around to see where it went. He pointed to a phone box on the wall to the right of Hilliard’s desk, about three feet off the floor. There was a small plastic envelope stuck to the box with a printed card inside it.

  “It wasn’t connected to a phone,” I said. “It was for his modem, for his computer.”

  “Then where is the computer?” Lemieux asked.

  Without moving we both turned in a slow circle, looking for a computer. We were looking for something that was pretty large and would not be buried under the books or papers on the floor. No computer.

  “Well, it’s missing. Maybe stolen,” Gaston said.

  “Maybe Hilliard interrupted the thief and got killed trying to defend his computer.”

  “Maybe.” He didn’t sound convinced.

  Two guys dressed in dark suits came into the room with a stretcher.

  “I think it’s time to bid adieu to our victim,” said Gaston.

  At that moment the uniformed police officer came up to Gaston and handed him an evidence bag with keys in it. It jangled as he held it up to the light and shook it. It looked like an unexceptional collection of keys to home and office. I looked quizzically at Gaston.

  “This will just take a minute, Sam,” Gaston responded to my unasked question. Gently, he frisked the body and looked in the pockets of the blazer and trousers, then stood and nodded to the unifirmed cop. “Rien de plus.” I was fascinated. I had assumed that the thorough body search was something he would leave to the coroner.

  “The crime scene people look for the victim’s keys before they do anything else.”

  “Why?”

  “To ensure that the murderer hasn’t got them. If the keys are missing it usually means that the murderer intends to visit the victim’s home. You’d be surprised at how many times we catch people just by beating them there.”

  He handed the bag back to cop. “Keep them with the rest of the crime scene evidence.” He signalled to the two guys from the coroner’s office to remove the body. One of them pulled a lever under the stretcher, lowering it almost to the floor. Then they heaved the body up onto it with one practised move, and worked the lever to crank it up to waist level again, where it was easier to manoeuvre, and wheeled the stretcher out the door.

  Then he turned to me. “Sam, let’s you and me go talk to the department secretary again. Maybe she knows what the professor’s computer looked like and what kind it was.”

  chapter four

  Arlene didn’t seem any more pleased to see us this time, and Julian Alexander was still hovering, as if to protect her.

  “Are you guys done?” she asked.

  “Almost,” Gaston answered. “I’m having the body removed now and we’re going to seal the office for a while and I may want to question some of the other professors, but first I have to ask you a question. Do the professors have computers in their offices?”

  “Computers?” she said as if she had never heard the word before. “Why do you want to know about computers?”

  “Just answer the question, please. Did Hilliard have a computer?”

  “Yeah, he had one. One of those small ones. A laptop. Why? What does that —” Suddenly she gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. Her eyes opened wide in dismay and then her face crumpled as if she was about to cry. The two men from the coroner’s office were wheeling the late Harold Hilliard out of the history department. They were behind us so I had to turn to see them. She pulled back as if she had been shoved. She looked so distraught that I was afraid that she was going to pass out. She stumbled and the chief of security caught her and held her close to him, his arm around her shoulder for support, and mumbled some comforting “there-theres” to her. She breathed deeply for a moment in order to regain her composure.

  “Did he have a regular computer?”

  “No. If you’re asking if the university supplied computers to the teaching staff, the answer is no. Not in Arts anyway.”

  “Well, do you know what his computer looked like? And if he kept it in his office?”

  “It was usually on his desk. The university supplies Internet access and he sent and received a lot of e-mail.”

  “So the last time you saw his computer it was in his office?”

  “Yes.”

  “In that case, it may have been stolen. Could you come into his office and take a look? We may have missed it. We were looking for a big one.”

  “I don’t want to go in there.”

  “The body is gone and we’d like your help, if you don’t mind.” />
  “I’ll go with you,” Julian told her.

  It was clear that she was very upset by the murder of someone she worked with and would have rather been anywhere else. But she also realized that she didn’t have much choice but to co-operate so she got up and marched into Hilliard’s office. She moved so fast we had to trot a few steps to catch up to her. Once inside the office she stopped abruptly and we almost bumped into her.

  “It’s not here!” she said and turned to go back to her desk. Because we were so close to her, she virtually fell against Lemieux. He reached out to the doorframe to keep from falling and she grabbed him around the waist to keep her balance. When they realized that they were tangled together they each jumped about two feet in the air to separate.

  Lemieux recovered his composure first. “Could you take a closer look? You can’t tell from here if it’s missing or not.”

  Arlene flashed him the look of someone who has just been told that there was a problem with her gum surgery and that it would have to be done again, and went into the office. She looked under the desk and the table and moved some of the piles of paper with the toe of her shoe. Finally she said, “It’s just as told you. It’s not here. Can I go now?”

  “Yes, but please stay at your desk. There are a few more questions I need you to answer.” Turning to Julian and me, he asked, “What do you think? Did Hilliard take his computer home with him last night and leave it there, or was it stolen this morning?”

  “If it’s been stolen I may have to make a separate report. All thefts should be reported to the security office,” Alexander informed us.

  “Whatever,” said Gaston.

  “I’d bet on stolen. But can’t you check to see if it’s at his house?”

  “Thanks, I’ll do that.” Gaston bared his teeth at the university cop. I guess it was meant to be a smile.. “Thank you for keeping order around here during the crime scene investigation. You can tell your faculty that they are welcome to return to their offices now. Except for Hilliard’s, of course.”