by Kip Chase
The reporters looked at each other quizzically; most of them had not taken notes up to this point, but now the pencils came out. One of the young fellows from a wire service turned to the man next him and said, sotto voce, ‘I think the old man’s slipped his trolley.’ He got an indecisive shrug for an answer. The by-play was not missed by Carmichael. He smiled and went on.
‘No doubt some of you think perhaps I’m going a little overboard on this. Well, let’s start at the beginning. When I first read of this case, in one of our better newspapers, The Los Angeles Sun, I remarked to my grandson that there would be no difficulty in finding the murderer. I said the only unsolved killings are when someone is hit over the head in a dark alley for the contents of his pockets. And we usually get them, too, by the way. Anyway, I said this murder appeared to be carefully planned by someone. Let me say at this point, I consider this to be the most cleverly planned killing I have ever run across. The murderer combined science and psychology to execute the crime. And timing. That’s very important, timing. But the most important thing about time is, it always works against the criminal. Once he has accomplished the deed it is the end of the line for him. What’s done is done and there’s no taking it back. For the police, it’s just the beginning. They have time on their side now; time to follow up each clue; time to sort, sift, evaluate; time to play out their hunches, One by one.
‘Again taking this case as an example, we had an inordinately large number of possibilities. Practically everyone connected with the case had something to hide, as it turned out. And each one of these concealed facts had to be patiently hunted down and brought to the surface for examination. For we had no way of knowing what was important or not important until we could see the thing as a whole, with all the factors fitted together. Work, gentlemen, lots of work. Phone calls, checking of records, interviews here, there and everywhere—not knowing if a person was spending a day’s work in tracking down something that would be completely useless. And I don’t take any credit for this myself. I did little on this case. I did do something, but it took a lot of men a lot of time to make what I did mean anything.
‘And now we come to the climax of my little story. Oh, it will be a long climax; I want it to sink in thoroughly.
‘A few days after the death of Philip Newton, I developed a theory about the murders. And then I made a mistake. I kept this theory to myself. I confided in no one. I did this because this theory was so fantastic, so improbable, I was ashamed to admit I even considered it. So I did a little work of my own. Just superficial investigation—a call to a pathologist at the university research lab, a call to an electronics man I knew in the department. Am I intriguing you? I hope so.
‘I told you this case was solved by a dead deer and a baseball player. We’ll start with the deer. When I made my first trip to Mrs. DeVoors’s lodge—it was to see if Philip Newton had returned yet—my grandson reported seeing a deer lying dead in the woods. A dressed deer, that is, skinned and cleaned. Of course, this meant nothing to me at the time. However, it did cross my mind that it was a little odd that a cleaned deer should be lying in the woods. Later on, when other developments manifested themselves, my mind turned back to this deer. I began to ask myself questions, like, how did that deer get there? Perhaps a hunter left it? Improbable; once the deer was shot and cleaned it would be unlikely it would be left. Besides, it was close to the house, the property was fenced and posted. Unlikely a hunter would chance a shot so near the lodge. Perhaps Philip Newton killed it then. He was told to keep the freezer full of venison. Why then, hadn’t he put it in the freezer? There could be a lot of answers to that, but I happened to hit on what proved to be the right one. He had put it in the freezer, but someone had taken it out again. Why would anyone take it out? Perhaps to put something else in? Let us leave that train of thought for a moment and go on to the ballplayer.
‘Dr. Newton told us he had phoned his father Sunday afternoon—that is, the day after the night Mrs. DeVoors died. Dr. Newton had not yet been informed of his aunt’s death and therefore could not have told his father about it, as he pointed out. The recording of such a phone conversation was found on a tape device Mrs. DeVoors kept at the lodge for transcribing phone calls. It seemed a harmless conversation, some talk about when Dr. Newton would be up, and a few comments by Philip Newton on baseball. Philip Newton mentioned, among other things, that he had enjoyed listening to the last game of the season that day. This figures. The major league season always ends on the last Sunday of September, the day Dr. Newton said he called. I got my baseball information, incidentally, from an old friend who is a sports announcer. I did him a favour once. But to continue. Philip Newton also mentioned “that Snider is terrific”. The only thing the name “Snider” meant to me was its connection with a famous murder case in the nineteen-twenties. As it turned out, it wasn’t even spelt the same. Anyway, I asked my friend, the sports announcer, who “Snider” was. He said the reference was probably to a Mr. “Duke” Snider, an outfielder of some note for the Brooklyn Dodgers.’
One of the reporters caught that one in a hurry.
‘You mean the Los Angeles Dodgers, Mr. Carmichael?’ he grinned.
‘Oh, pardon me’, Carmichael said. ‘I have heard some talk of a change being made. But the statement stands. At that time, they were the Brooklyn Dodgers. Shortly thereafter a germ of an idea fermented in my mind. I called my friend back. “How did Duke Snider do in the last game of the season this year?” I asked. He had me wait a minute while he looked up the “box scores” as he called it. “He didn’t play—bum knee”, he told me. “Okay,” I said, “how did he do in the last game of the season in 1956?” “I can tell you that without even looking it up”, he said, “I happened to be covering that game personally, because it was a hell of an important game. Milwaukee and the Brooks went right down to the wire last year. The Dodgers could clinch it by beating Philadelphia on the last day. They did it. And the hero of the game was your boy Snider. Hit two home runs that made the difference—his 42nd and 43rd of the year, as I recall.” I thanked him and hung up. So Duke Snider did have a terrific day, but in 1956, not 1957. Next move was to check the files of tape we had brought into the station here from the lodge. Some time between September 29 and 30, the last Sunday in September in 1956, the tape had been spliced together, I found. But there had been no tape splicings on either side of the recording of the last Sunday of September this year. The tape had not been physically substituted, then. According to my theory, it had been substituted. How? That’s when I made the call to the electronics technician in the police lab. He told me it would be simple. Get another tape recorder. Record the portion you wanted from the original tape, then record it back on the original machine at the desired spot. Clip out the original section, dispose of it and splice up the tape. Simple. I felt a little foolish. It shouldn’t take an electronics technician to tell me that; I could have figured it out for myself. Which is what the murderer did. But I still wasn’t convinced I was on the right track. Then we got that break on Elinor Wycliff’s role in the murder of Mrs. DeVoors. It turned out she actually saw the murder committed. She kept quiet because she thought she saw her brother kill Mrs. DeVoors. But she couldn’t see clearly in the dark. She saw it was a man, she saw he was short and she saw he had dark hair. That also fitted the description of the suspect I had in mind. Except for the dark hair. But my suspect does have closely-cropped hair. Closely-cropped so he could very easily get a good fit out of a dark wig which he borrowed from Mrs. DeVoors’s theatrical supplies at the lodge. Shall I go on, doctor?’
‘Please do’, Dr. Newton said. ‘It’s an interesting hypothesis.’
‘It was an interesting hypothesis’, Carmichael corrected gently. ‘It is no longer an hypothesis. On Saturday afternoon—unknown to anyone—you were visiting your father. Unknown, not because it was planned. It just happened that way. Your father’s hard work caught up with him. His heart gave out. He died while you were with him. I have no doubt you d
id everything possible to save him. But at last, it was evident to you, a doctor, he was past help. He was dead. You have strong emotions, doctor, but you also have a keen analytical mind, the mind of a research pathologist. Some people can think with extraordinary speed and clarity under strong emotional stress. Those are the kind of people who come back from the wars with the medals. Did you win any medals in the war, doctor?’
‘No. I never got overseas.’
‘Too bad. You might have been quite a hero. At that moment, when you realized your father was dead, your grief struggled with your intellect for the control of your mind. Your rationality won. Your first clear thought was that your aunt’s money would now never be yours. Under the terms of her will, you could get it only if she died before your father, then he passed it on to you. Now, here for a minute, I admit I’m theorizing. But I do not think it was greed which prompted you to embark on your daring plan. I understand you were working on a project at the hospital you considered of great importance. The supervisor had decided to abandon the project. Looking at your dead father you realized your aunt’s money could now never be made to serve what you considered a worthwhile purpose. In your mind, it would be thrown down a dozen useless ratholes, such as the Plateau of Supreme Oneness, and the like. To you, a man of science, this was a gross social injustice. Your aunt’s life meant nothing compared to the help her money could render humanity—through your project, of course. And you saw in one of those flashes of insight how, by her death, the day might yet be saved.
‘You quickly took off your tie and wrapped it round your dead father’s neck. Dead only a few seconds. You knew the real cause of his death would probably be determined, but if the tie was applied quickly enough to leave an appreciable depression, it would probably be theorized his heart gave out struggling with his “murderer”. And you were right. Now the problem was to make it appear he died after your aunt died. As die she would, when you killed her later that night. But you had already solved the problem of timing when you had that first flash of insight into the solution to your problem.
‘You quickly carried your father’s body to the deep-freeze unit in the stables. A very large, and very efficient unit. You unlocked it. It was full. Well, no problem there, simply take out one of the frozen carcasses of deer your father had shot and stored, and put your father’s body in. The deer could be disposed of by simply tossing it in the woods. The carrion eaters would make quick work of it. That was mistake number one. A slight one, but a mistake. It would have taken very little extra effort to bury the deer. But who would think it would be found so soon, and if found who would guess the reason for its presence? That is why a carefully planned murder, even a brilliant one such as this, is likely to fail. The murderer cannot anticipate every eventuality. And the police can investigate every eventuality. You turned the freezer unit on as high as it would go and locked the unit up.
‘Next, your plan called for a tape recorder. You counted on the freezing of your father’s body to suspend the natural deterioration of the cells, the examination of which determines the estimate of the time of death. But you also knew a body submerged in water, warm water, in this case, sometimes results in a breaking down of the cell structure so that time of death is not easily placed. You had to make sure there was no question about when your father died.
‘For this, of course, was the essence of your plan. To make it appear your father died after your aunt. Because if Mrs. DeVoors died first the money would then be your father’s. The will would not be probated by the time your father was “murdered”, but that makes no difference legally. If your aunt predeceases your father, he inherits. Then if your father dies, you inherit. It wouldn’t matter if they died only an hour apart. If she dies first. That’s why it was so important to make it conclusively clear your father was alive after your aunt died. The phone recorder would clinch it for you. So you planned to make it appear you had a conversation with him on Sunday—the day after your aunt was scheduled to die—as you planned to kill her that very night, barring complications. In any event you would need a tape recorder.
‘You left the lodge hurriedly and drove to the Morris Office Equipment Company in East Los Angeles and rented a tape recorder. You planned to go to San Margaret late that night, enter your aunt’s room by the back stairway and strangle her. And that is just what you did. On Sunday you returned to the lodge to fix up the phone recorder, while the police were looking for you “at the beach”, and fixed the recorder just as I have already outlined.
‘I’ll give it to you step by step. First, you wanted to find, if possible, an old recording in which your father mentioned he was going fence-riding. Because that would lend credence to the excuse you were going to use to explain his absence after your aunt was killed. You started by playing the ‘56 tape on the machine in the den—looking for any reference to fence-riding made during the ‘56 season. You found what you thought was the perfect conversation. Your father not only mentioned going fence-riding, he also made reference to having listened to the last game of the major league baseball season that day, and the World Series starting on Wednesday. It probably seemed a lucky break to you that it worked out that way for this year as well as last year. Not being a baseball fan you didn’t realize it wasn’t coincidence. The season always ends the last Sunday of September and the Series always starts the following Wednesday. Nor did you realize the significance of the remark about Snider. So you recorded the ‘56 conversation on the machine you rented, then with the correct tape back in the den machine, recorded it back with the proper time sequence. Then you clipped out the incriminating conversation from the ’56 tape, spliced it, and returned it to the files.
‘Let me take out a minute here to point out to you others the folly of this recorder business. While it’s true the water-soaked body would make it difficult to determine the exact time of death, because of the freezing process it certainly would be estimated well within the time limit necessary for Dr. Newton’s purpose. The doctor knew this, but he was over-anxious. He wanted to make certain there would be no doubt. And perhaps he wanted to be a little clever too. That is the mistake most amateur murderers make. Being clever.
‘Next, Dr. Newton, you thought of another clever move. You realized it might be possible someone would see you, driving through San Margaret, or actually on the grounds of the estate that night. A disguise would be a good idea. What could you use that would be simple but reasonably effective in the dark? A wig, of course. You took one from Mrs. DeVoors’s trunk in the den at the lodge. You returned it on Sunday.’
Carmichael finished the water in the glass he had been holding in his left hand. He gave a tired sigh.
‘Not much more to tell’, he went on in a quiet voice. ‘Dumping the body in the pool was done on Monday night. It so happened my grandson, Miss Drew and I were at the lodge when Dr. Newton arrived to “wait” for his father. The story he gave us later about his father showing up and not wanting him to stay, et cetera, was, of course, pure hokum. His father was stiff as a board in the deep-freeze at that point. Anyway, we left. It took a little persuading by the doctor to get Miss Drew to leave with us, by the way. She wanted to stay with him that night. Considering Miss Drew’s, ah, qualities, I should have suspected the doctor right then and there. But in my senility, I supposed Dr. Newton was merely being chivalrous in trying to protect a lady’s reputation. Another shattered illusion. However, as I said, we left and the doctor forthwith dumped his father’s body in the pool, taking care to weight it down with stones before putting it in the water—I might explain that a little better: he wanted it weighted for two reasons; one, so that it would be completely submerged to speed up the process of thawing, and two, because there was an outside chance some police officer or other witness might pass by the place that night. He would not be likely to notice a body on the bottom of the pool, in the dark, but if it were floating, he’d be almost sure to see it. As I was saying, the doctor dumped the body in the pool and left.
&nb
sp; ‘In the morning the body was discovered by Sergeant Picketts. The natural processes of deterioration which were halted by the quick freezing began again as soon as the body started to thaw. The medical examiner placed the time of death at about twelve hours previous when the body began to feel the effects of the warm water. And as he pointed out in his report, it is difficult to determine the exact time of death when tissue has been submerged in warm water. I checked on this with a pathologist at the university, by the way. He said the freezing would halt deterioration, and that once thawed an autopsy would not reveal the tissue had been frozen. Dr. Newton knew what he was doing.
‘I have said Dr. Newton made his first mistake when he didn’t dispose of the deer more effectively. That is true, but it was not a mistake that would convict him. His second mistake will convict him. I told you where he rented the tape recorder. I gave the exact name of the shop. We know that’s where he got it because that’s where the clerk recognized the picture of the doctor shown to him by one of the city detectives. That was our big project after I heard Elinor Wycliff’s story and decided it was time to tell Chief Delmar of my theory. You see, a police organization is like a big machine; we set it in motion and it grinds away indiscriminately uncovering fact after fact, some of them useful and some of them not. But when we have a specific formula to feed this machine it can work with incredible speed and efficiency. Once we knew what we were looking for it was a comparatively simple matter to have men cover every place within a hundred miles of here that rents tape recorders. This was the same police machine that uncovered Elinor Wycliff’s safety deposit box in Ventura, and the deposits in Laguna Beach. The same machine that … well, I guess you get the idea. I want you reporters to remember this machine the next time you are apt to speak disparagingly of any police department.