"Ever date him?"
"No. He didn't seem attracted to women. But he knew his job. He was probably the best appraiser in the place."
"Did he have any enemies?"
"I suppose everyone has enemies, but I didn't know anyone in the office who disliked him."
"What about the other woman, Jenny Presburg? Did he have lunch with her too?"
"Sometimes. There's a nice restaurant in our building, and occasionally all three of us would go there."
"But not Mr. Kirk or Chris Fox?"
She shook her head. “I think Mr. Kirk likes to go over the books with Chris when we're not around to interrupt. They sometimes lunched together later."
"Do you know Miguel Fernandez?"
"I don't think so.” She paused a moment and then said, “Oh! Do you mean Miguel on the cleaning crew?"
"That's right."
"He was usually in our office early, cleaning up before any clients arrived. Mr. Kirk didn't like it done at night."
"Miss Cooper—"
"You can call me Ashley."
"Ashley, the security camera in Valencia's office recorded the killing. It appears that the killer was wearing a mask along with your raincoat and gloves from the office closet."
"My God! What does that mean?"
"It indicates the killer was someone in the office, or someone who has access to it. He or she knew the raincoat would be in there and could be used."
"None of us could have killed him. It's just not possible."
"How long had your raincoat been there?"
"Oh, since last winter sometime—March, I think. We don't get much rain, but there was a nasty morning in March when I wore the coat. By afternoon it was sunny and warm so I left it in the office."
"Was Miguel ever in the office after ten o'clock?"
"Only if someone paged him. You know, if there was damage of some sort that needed to be cleaned up. That hardly ever happened."
"When do you think you'll be able to work?"
Ashley shrugged. “Depends what the doctor says. Maybe she can give me a different prescription. The office will probably be closed till after Perry's funeral anyway."
Annie left the apartment and walked back along Grape Street to her car. As she was unlocking the door, she heard her name. “Detective Sears, isn't it?"
She turned and recognized Paul Goodhue, the reporter from the Union Tribune. “That's right,” she admitted with a smile. “You wouldn't have followed me here, would you?"
"Pure coincidence.” He was a bit older than she'd thought at first, with fine lines beginning to form across his forehead and around his eyes. She noticed he wasn't wearing a wedding ring. “I came here to see Ashley Cooper, one of the Essex employees."
"I just saw her, as you no doubt know. She's a bit under the weather. I doubt if she'd welcome another visitor."
He glanced at his watch. “What time does your shift end? Could I buy you a drink?"
All she could do was laugh. “Is this the way it's done in San Diego? You buy the detective a drink to get an inside track on the story?"
"Only if they're as attractive as you."
"Sorry, Paul. You picked the wrong one."
"You're new to the city, aren't you? I could show you around, take you on a boat ride around the harbor, or a trip to the zoo."
She got into her car. “I have to get back now. I'll promise you a scoop if there is one. Nice talking to you.” She drove away before he could say anything else.
* * * *
Back at the squad room, Josh Reynolds told her to go home. “Your shift ends in fifteen minutes. You've done enough for your first day."
"I did nothing. We've got an unsolved murder on our hands."
"Relax, Annie. It's a rare case that gets closed the first day. If you're not ready to go home, fire off a few clips on the pistol range. Get the feel of your weapon."
She followed his advice and went down to the range. Her aim was as good as ever, and after three clips she became aware that Sergeant Reynolds was standing off to one side watching her. “How'd I do?” she asked him.
"I guess you didn't need the practice,” he told her with a smile. “Here, I'll buy you a cup of coffee."
They sat at a picnic table in what served as a lounge adjoining the pistol range. “Do you know a reporter named Paul Goodhue?” she asked, taking a sip of coffee from the Styrofoam cup.
"Yeah. He been bothering you?"
"Not really. I think he asked me for a date."
Reynolds snorted. “Your first day. He doesn't waste any time."
"What's his story? Is he a good reporter?"
"He's helped us out a couple of times. He knows his way around the city."
"He offered to show me the zoo."
"I'll bet he did."
"What's next?” she asked, changing the subject.
"I'm bringing Matthew Kirk in for an interview in a half hour. I'll have the other two in the morning. And then probably Miss Cooper and that Miguel Fernandez after I read your reports on them. Your shift is over, but do you want to sit in on my interview with Kirk?"
"I wouldn't miss it."
He arrived promptly at five o'clock, accompanied by his lawyer, a stodgy man who might have been Kirk's brother but turned out to be his nephew. “There's no need for you to be present,” Reynolds told him. “We just want a statement from Mr. Kirk about what happened this morning."
"Wait out here,” Kirk told him. “I'll call you in if we need you."
Annie sat to one side, letting Reynolds do the questioning. “As you told us earlier, you were in your office at the time Perry Valencia was shot."
"That's correct. We don't have a great deal of walk-in business. Generally, someone phones for an appointment. Chris Fox handles our finances and writes the checks when necessary. Perry, Jenny, and Ashley did the actual appraising and purchased the items from our clients. Anything above ten thousand dollars has to be cleared with me."
"Were there any problems with Perry?"
Matthew Kirk hesitated. “Not—not really."
"What does that mean?"
"Last week Chris noticed something odd with a purchase he made. We receive regular fliers from your department regarding jewelry thefts, in case someone tries to sell us stolen goods. There was a diamond ring in one lot that seemed familiar to him. It had been purchased by Perry the day before, and Chris asked him about it. He told me later that Perry seemed flustered by his question and said he'd look into it. He claimed to know the person who sold him the jewelry, though the name wasn't familiar to me."
"Do you suspect Valencia was acting as a fence for stolen goods?"
He shook his head. “It hadn't gotten that far yet, but I was a bit concerned."
"Was he a Mexican-American?"
"Well, yes. But I don't see what that has to do with it. He'd lived here over twenty years, since he was a child."
"I'm wondering if he might have been friendly with Miguel Fernandez, one of the crew that cleans your office. The security video indicates that Miguel or someone dressed like him entered your office shortly before the murder."
"You think Perry was involved with Miguel just because they're both Mexican-Americans? We've got a million and a quarter people in this city, and more than a quarter of them are Hispanic."
"I'm trying to touch all the bases, Mr. Kirk. It just seems odd that Miguel came up to the office at that time."
Annie felt she had to interrupt. “When I questioned him he denied he was there. It's possible someone impersonated him."
"He had a key card to unlock the inner door, Detective,” Reynolds answered, and she knew he was displeased at her interruption. “If it wasn't Miguel, he had to obtain the key from Miguel."
She knew she should keep quiet then, but she had to speak. “There's one other possibility. Ashley Cooper must have a key card too."
"Ashley?” Kirk repeated with a frown. “She's home ill."
"I interviewed her this afternoon,” Annie said. “She
had an asthma attack, that's all. She wasn't in bed or anything."
Sergeant Reynolds sighed. “We have the tapes from your security cameras here. Suppose we look at Miguel again.” He chose a tape from the pile on his desk and popped it into the tape player. After a moment's fast-forward they again came to the spot where the figure of a man in work clothes entered the waiting room and used his key card on the inner door.
"That's Miguel,” Kirk insisted. “It's no one else."
"It looks like him,” Annie had to agree. “But why did he lie to me about being there?"
"Perhaps because he killed Perry,” Kirk said. “And that's how the Batman mask left the office."
They advanced the tape further and saw Miguel leaving at 11:01. He'd been in the office for exactly five minutes. “Let's see the tape of the killing again,” Annie suggested.
They watched it once more and froze it at the instant of the shooting. “Look at the time!” Annie said, rising from her chair. “It's 11:09, eight minutes after Miguel left the office. Why didn't we notice that before?"
Reynolds nodded. “Whether or not that was Miguel, he was gone before the killing. We're back to just three suspects."
Annie had another thought. “Look, you have tapes there showing each of the offices. Let's see who wasn't in their office at the time of the killing."
They played the tapes one at a time, with Matthew Kirk's first. In each case the camera was positioned to look over their shoulder, focusing on the visitor. Kirk seemed to be alone, but all they could see was his left elbow. It did move from time to time, and at 11:16 they saw Chris Fox burst into the office and both of them went out. The tape of Jenny showed her more clearly, opening her mail and taking a thick reference book from the shelf. She left the office at 11:17. Chris Fox was also moving around, though the angle of the camera in his office didn't show the bank of TV monitors. He muttered a soft curse and left the office quickly at 11:15.
"Nobody could have done it,” Annie concluded.
Reynolds shut off the monitor and thanked Kirk for coming in. “What happens now?” the jeweler asked.
"We sleep on it. And in the morning we find out what Miguel was doing in your office and why he lied about being there."
* * * *
Annie went along with Reynolds in the morning. Somehow, she felt responsible for Miguel since she'd interviewed him, and if he'd lied she wanted to know why. Arriving at the building, they were directed to eighteen, where they found him using an electric polisher on the floor by the elevators.
He smiled at Annie. “The lady with the questions."
"That's right. This is Sergeant Reynolds. He has questions too."
"Is there someplace we can talk?” Reynolds asked.
"I've got to finish polishing the floor."
"All right, just stop for a minute. I have only one question. Why did you go to the Essex office just before eleven yesterday morning?"
"I told the lady it wasn't me!"
"You've been positively identified on the security tape. You entered the office at 10:56 and left five minutes later."
Miguel shifted his gaze from Reynolds to Annie and back again. “I didn't kill him!” he insisted. “Someone left a message for me to check with Valencia about some problem in his office, but when I got up there everything was fine."
"You spoke to Valencia?"
"Sure. I poked my head in his office, and he said everything was fine there. Said he hadn't called, that it must be a mistake."
"Did you talk to the person that called?” Annie asked.
He shook his head. “It was a text message on my pager.” He showed it to them. “It just said, ‘See Perry V. at Essex.’ But when I went up there, he said he hadn't paged me."
"Were those his exact words?"
Miguel thought a bit. “He said there was nothing for me. I figured he'd taken care of whatever there was, so I left."
"Did anyone else see you?"
"No. They all had their doors closed."
Josh Reynolds took over the questioning. “Did you at any time remove a Batman mask from that office?"
"No sir! And I didn't remove a thing when I went back yesterday."
When they were in the elevator, Reynolds asked, “Can we believe him?"
"We can about the mask. The security camera shows him leaving the office at 11:01, and the murder didn't happen till 11:09."
"There's something not quite right here,” Reynolds decided. “I can almost sense it."
"Do you think they're all in it together?"
He gave a low snort. “I may feel like a master detective sometimes, but not Agatha Christie. If they were in it together they could have devised any number of methods better than this one. But I do think the key to it is what Kirk told us about Valencia buying a stolen diamond ring. If someone else there arranged for him to act as a fence, that would provide a motive for killing him before he talked and the whole operation went down the drain."
"Yeah.” She was still thinking about his words when the elevator reached the lobby. “Look, Josh, I've got an idea about that Batman mask. I'm going to check out neighborhood stores that might have sold it."
"Good luck. It was probably left over from Halloween. It might mean the killer has children."
"I'm working on another angle. I'll see you back at the squad room."
There were no costume shops in the upper-class neighborhood, but she found a large toy store a few blocks away in Horton Plaza Shopping Center. Yes, they had several superhero costumes for sale, the sales clerk said. Wouldn't she prefer Wonder Woman?
"No, all I really need is one of these rubber Batman masks that covers the whole head."
She bought it and headed back to the squad room, wondering what her new boss would think of the idea.
* * * *
The Essex office was still closed for business the following day, but Sergeant Reynolds had asked Kirk to assemble his staff for further questioning. Ashley Cooper was feeling better and agreed to come in too. They gathered in Kirk's office where there were seats for everyone. Reynolds and Annie had arrived with another detective in overalls carrying a toolbox. He went into the restroom and closed the door.
It was Reynolds who did most of the talking, and Annie could see he was enjoying it, facing the suspects like Charlie Chan at the end of one of those old movies. “We've developed a theory that the shooting of Perry Valencia was connected with an earlier incident in which a stolen ring was discovered in a group of items he'd supposedly purchased from an estate. If someone in this office supplied it to him, that person might have killed him to silence him."
"But who would be brazen enough to commit the murder in front of our security cameras?” Kirk asked.
"The killer used those cameras to advantage, hiding face and shape. And a text message sent to Miguel brought him to the office within minutes of the killing, as a possible suspect. Unfortunately for the killer, he came and went minutes too soon."
It was Ashley Cooper who interrupted at this point. “I wasn't here myself, but Chris says the security tapes show everyone in their offices at the time of the shooting. If that's true, and if Miguel was already gone, who could have done it?"
"Exactly!” Reynolds said, glancing in Ashley's direction as he followed the reasoning she'd outlined to him. “The only possible explanation is that the killer arrived in the office early and changed the digital clock that records the time for one of the security cameras."
Chris Fox was out of his seat. “Look here, if you think I—"
That was when Annie pressed the pager in her pocket, summoning the detective in overalls waiting outside. He entered with a triumphant flourish, holding several small pieces of wet rubber. “I found them in the toilet trap,” he announced, “just like you thought, Sergeant."
It was Jenny Presburg who jumped up then, trying for the door. But Annie grabbed her by the waist. “All the time you were being sick in the restroom you were in there cutting up your Batman mask with manicu
re scissors and flushing it down the toilet."
Sergeant Reynolds made it official by arresting her and reading her rights. She just shook her head, looking dazed. “How could you have known?"
"If anyone changed the time on their security camera, it almost had to be you. You told us you were the first one in the office that morning. It was Annie here who figured out what happened to the mask."
Later, after she'd been taken away and booked, Reynolds turned to Annie Sears. “We could have looked in the toilet trap for some real pieces of rubber, you know, rather than cutting up the mask you bought."
She merely smiled. “Why risk it? I knew she'd crack when she saw them."
"You did pretty well for your first case. First blood's not always that easy."
"I've had practice,” she said. Then, “Do you have the phone number for the Union Tribune? There's a reporter I promised a scoop."
Copyright (c) 2006 Edward D. Hoch
[Back to Table of Contents]
REEL CRIME by STEVE HOCKENSMITH
January is the Elephant's Graveyard of the movie industry—it's where crappy movies go to die: Long-delayed dramas plagued by bad buzz. Sequels to movies you've never heard of. Films in which Justin Timberlake or Cedric the Entertainer aren't making cameos ... they're the stars. That's what gets dumped in cineplexes come the first of the year.
"It's too cold,” the studios reason. “Nobody wants to drive to a movie theater."
And they're right. Which doesn't mean you can't catch some great flicks while Hollywood goes into hibernation.
Thanks to DVD home-delivery services such as Netflix and Blockbuster Online, you can program your own winter film festival and leave all the driving to the mailman. If you're stumped for choices, take heart: We've asked eight acclaimed novelists to name the DVDs they'd recommend for mystery fans trying to stay cozy on the couch until the spring thaw.
* * * *
Charles Ardai, founding editor of Hard Case Crime, Edgar- and Shamus Award-nominated author of Little Girl Lost, and AHMM contributor since 1989
Nothing sets off a cold winter night like a bracing jolt of film noir, and some outstanding titles have been released on DVD in the past few years. Plunder of the Sun (based on a novel by David Dodge, author of To Catch a Thief) stars the late Glenn Ford as a resourceful American hired to smuggle a mysterious package from Cuba into Mexico. Touch of Evil is Orson Welles's classic tale—now available in a version recut to Welles's final instructions—of a government narcotics man (Charlton Heston) going up against a border cop of questionable ethics (Welles himself, in a memorably grotesque role). And Robert Mitchum's Out of the Past nicely presages the 2005 Oscar-nominated A History of Violence, with Mitchum as a man haunted by a murderous past he's tried to put behind him. Rent them both for a great double feature.
AHMM, March 2007 Page 6