An Exaggerated Murder: A Novel

by Josh Cook

  But The Joyce Case wouldn’t paint.

  Sitting on that bench, looking at a landscape built by humans with no evidence of humanity, Lola couldn’t make an image of what she knew. Not the painting of a madman compelled by psychosis; a torture victim painting a lie as fast as possible just to make it all stop.

  Lola ate half her sandwich slowly and deliberately to do something that didn’t ache her brain.

  It was ten to one.

  Then a procession, from each direction, of evenly spaced cars. Five minutes of automobile flow. The range of sensible American vehicles. Lola guessed lunch breaks, but she had no idea what nearby entities could foster such an exchange.

  It was five to one, with an empty road before a corporate landscape. Lola figured she might as well spend those five minutes waiting in the waiting room. Maybe the receptionist had come back early. She packed her sketchbook and returned to the Water Department.

  Lola went straight up to the reception desk. No one was there. Lola sat in one of the waiting room chairs. She waited. 1:17. 1:31. 1:44. 1:50. 2:03.

  Lola went to the desk looking for a bell or buzzer. Neither. She peered over the counter into the workspace. She saw a blotter, a computer monitor, phone with headset plugged in, notepad with a blank page, pencils, pens, and a stapler. Near the back wall by the door the receptionist had left through were three unlabeled filing cabinets. Next to them was a cork board with a half-dozen papers pinned to it. Legally required workplace posters filled the wall on the other side of the door. Back on the desk there was also a coffee mug with “I’M NOT EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE HERE TODAY” printed on it, and an iPod paused on “Rockaway Beach.”

  Lola sat down.

  2:12. 2:18. Lola sketched a little more. 2:34. 2:41. 2:57. 3:12. Lola ate the rest of her sandwich.

  At 3:39 the receptionist burst through the door behind his desk apologizing.

  “I am so sorry to keep you waiting. You know how these meetings can be.” He sat down. “Now,” he bent down and turned his computer on, “how can I help you?”

  “I would like to see the city’s sewer maps.”

  “The city’s sewer maps,” the receptionist repeated, dropping his head and tone.

  “If it’s not possible to get maps for the entire city, I would like to see maps around this address.” Lola handed the slip of paper with the Joyce House address toward the receptionist. He did not take it.

  “I’m sorry, Miss. There’s been some recent policy changes. I’ll have to double-check with my supervisor just to be sure. Hold on just a second. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  The receptionist stood up quickly and as quickly dashed back out the door.

  “Why didn’t he call?” Lola thought. “Weird to go in person.” She wrote, “couldn’t call superior, had to see in person,” in her book.

  3:47. 3:52. 4:09. 4:19. The sound of $50,000 evaporating and with it the colors of paint she needed to replace, the chance for quiet time at the cafe, new inserts for her running shoes—Lola arrested her frustration as well as she could. 4:27. The receptionist repeated his bursting and apologizing.

  “I am terribly sorry for keeping you waiting again, Miss. It’s funny that you would come in today, because that meeting was actually about our new policy on the sewer maps and I just wanted to double-check with my supervisor about it because, obviously, this is the first time I’ve had to apply the policy.”

  “You have a new policy about the sewer maps?”

  “Among other city records, yes. Well. You see, in light of certain security concerns, the Water Department, in conjunction with The Mayor’s office and the City Council, has decided to restrict access to certain city records and documents, including the sewer maps. I’m sure you can see why, in today’s world, we would want to be careful about these things, which is a real shame if you asked me, but, well, nobody did, but if they had I would’ve said the best way to keep ourselves safe is to stop acting like arrogant douche-bags, but what are you going to do. Anyway, the point is that we’re going to have to run a background check on you before access to the maps is provided. And you won’t be able to make any copies of them, of any kind.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish I was, Miss. I really do. But if you give me your driver’s license or other state-issued identification, I can get this taken care of as quickly as possible.”

  Someone had been waiting for her in the Hall of Records. After a suspicious delay, the receptionist was asking for ID. Lola assessed the security situation.

  Both entrances were in full view. There was no one else in the waiting room. If someone came from the offices, they would have to get around the partition first. Whoever was in the Hall of Records would still be crying pepper-flavored tears. The assessment took one second. Lola handed over the license.

  The receptionist took it and reenacted his dashing and bursting. “Back in just a sec.”

  4:38. 4:42. 4:49. 4:53. 5:08.

  The receptionist returned without the burst. He sulked. Handed Lola her license and sat down.

  “I’m really sorry about this, but while we were running your check, which totally checked out, we got word that we are not allowed to show the sewer maps to anyone under any circumstances.”

  Lola remembered the mug and the iPod. No tie. Goatee. She drew a conclusion.

  “Sir.” Lola dropped her voice, leaned closer, and told a kind of a lie. “I am investigating a kidnapping. A kidnapping that could become a murder at any moment. I know what your superiors told you, and I’m sure they have their reasons for such an authoritarian policy. But you have a chance to help save a life. Policy is policy. Life is life.”

  The receptionist sighed. “Under any circumstances, I was told. In this case, I’m sure you can get a court order.”

  “So I’m supposed to wade through a bunch of red tape to talk to some stuffed-shirt judge. It’d make more sense to start digging the grave.”

  “I’m sorry, Miss. Under any circumstances. Even if I wanted to help you, I couldn’t get the maps without talking to my supervisor.”

  “Can I talk to your supervisor?”

  The receptionist leaned back in his chair. His face had exhausted all of its apology muscles. It was the end of the day. He only had enough energy for a stony countenance.

  “She’s left for the day,” he said.

  “Of course.”

  “I can take your name and phone number and call you when the records are available again.”

  If she had Trike’s six-shooter—Lola stopped the thought. It is irresponsible to speculate about weapons one could never employ.

  “I’ll just call ahead.”

  “Sorry, again, for everything.”

  “Don’t apologize to me. Wait for the headline and then apologize to the family.”

  The receptionist tried to offer some final formality but Lola had already turned her back and was ducking into the bathroom. Wanted to go out on that one.

  She changed back into her jogging clothes. Decided to head home. One level of Internet research had turned up nothing, but there were others. She didn’t make eye contact with the receptionist. Ran through the door, down the walkway. She was at pace by the sidewalk.

  WAS SEPPUKU INDUCED?

  Trike committed the police report to memory Monday afternoon while vigorously circumnavigating his office. A page of data per circuit, set on the desk when completed.

  Most of the data were the police version of what Trike had observed at the crime scene. The next significant percentage was the police version of what Lola and Max had discovered, a lesser approximation of meaningful nothing. The remaining data were a long, empirical elaboration of the statement, “Not a single extant individual gives two flying fucks in an artisan food truck about this rich fucking fucker.”

  With the report assessed, sorted, labeled, and correlated with the data they’d uncovered since the report was generated, Trike began his rigorous analysis. Discovered underlying investigative assumpti
ons. He sat in a client chair. Discerned trajectories of future research. He stood by the window. He muttered, “What follows is perhaps one of the great moments of inexplicable, inexcusable, inhuman dickishness committed to literature.” Constructed preliminary deductions. He lay down on the floor. It was definitive that the FBI weren’t talking to the police, but that was pro forma. All else remained open to interpretation.

  After three hours of applying typical tools, Trike opted for his intellectual dynamite.

  Hung up his fedora. Cleared a spot on his desk. Sat down in his chair, put his feet up and his hands behind his head. Closed his eyes. He imagined possible explanations, instantaneously fact-checking them. Dynamite that sometimes reached deeper parts of his imagination; one discarded explanation involved disgruntled students from a bankrupt clown college. Dozens of stories a minute. Without moving. For another two hours.

  As long as there is one more trial than error.

  Max showed a young woman into Trike’s office.

  “Someone to see you, Mr. Augustine,” Max said.

  Trike didn’t move. Kept his eyes closed. “Just doesn’t make sense, Max.”

  “What, boss?”

  “Crime entertainment tells many lies about crime to those who are entertained by it, but perhaps the most persistent and most damaging is the lie of the impersonal criminal. There are jewel thieves and gangsters and drug dealers, but most crime is personal. There is a preexisting relationship between the criminal and the victim. And yet, here we have what looks like a very personal crime and no evidence whatsoever, either from our research or whatever it is the police do, that Joyce had any personal relationships of any kind.”

  “Right. Someone to see you, boss.”

  “The influence of the FBI does raise certain impersonal possibilities, but given what you have discovered, not very satisfying possibilities. There is also the chance that the relationship is simply so distant, so tenuous, so concealed that no one investigating has yet discovered it. Then, of course, the whole issue of relationship might be irrelevant as there is convincing evidence that there is no other in this crime, and that includes the recently announced anonymous reward. Five million dollars is quite a lot of money, even as it diminishes, and the only person, thus far, definitively involved in the crime definitively able to part with such a sum, is Joyce the victim/criminal himself.”

  “Right. Someone to see you.”

  “Is it Joyce?”

  “Not according to the portrait.”

  “Is my visitor about to confess to the kidnapping and/or murder of Joyce?”

  “No.”

  “Take said visitor’s information. I will continue imagining thousands of possible solutions to the mystery.”

  “I’d open your eyes.”

  Trike knew when to listen to Max. Opened his eyes.

  He saw the second-most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in person. She was a little over five foot six, not counting heels. She had rich brown hair as thick as it was wavy, cut so it fell one and a half inches above her shoulders, a sprinkle of freckles across her pale nose, and large blue eyes. She had the physique of an action-movie star. Maybe a dancer. At least someone who taught fitness workshops at the Y on weekends. She wore a retro-style blue polka-dot dress with an open collar and a matching belt. Athleticism rippled the liquefaction of her clothes. Intelligence flashed in her eyes.

  “Just let me pick up my jaw, sweetheart. Then we can get down to business.”

  “I’m just delivering a message. I wouldn’t call this business.”

  Sometimes you say things you know you shouldn’t say. “Then what are we going to mix our pleasure with?”

  She sighed. Stood with poise waiting to see if Trike offered any additional folly. “If you don’t mind, I get an extra five hundred dollars if I give you my message before seven.”

  Sometimes you do it again. “I’ll give you an extra five hundred dollars to never leave.”

  An elfin incarnation of charmed blush whispered across her countenance.

  “How about this,” she said. “I will give this gentleman my card,” she handed Max her card, “and then the legendary, and now that I see him, fairly attractive, in an indie-band-drummer kind of way, Trike Augustine can use the five hundred dollars to take me to the symphony and a very fancy dinner and we can interact without all the detective posturing. Now, I was given a thousand dollars to say, ‘Unless you get off The Joyce Case, your life will be like a coffin that’s fallen from its hearse and flopped its corpse into the street.’ ” She checked her watch. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have student loans to pay.”

  Trike and Max watched her leave. A second after she was gone, they both shook their heads.

  “Posturing?” Trike muttered.

  “No … questions, boss?” Max asked.

  Trike shrugged. “You heard the dame, got student loans to pay. Besides, whoever is behind all this is an autoclave artiste. She’d have a key to the Midway, if she had anything.”

  Max pursed his lips. Furrowed his brow. “Autoclave … sterilized information. Key to the Midway … football bat. Need a phrase book with you.”

  “Second edition is due in the spring.”

  “Thoughts on the threat?”

  “If one does not have the balls to get to Nausicaa, one is not capable of meaningful threats.”

  Max pursed his lips. Furrowed his brow. “No idea.”

  “Threats drawn from Oxen in the Sun, however, are to be heeded.”

  “What?”

  “Strange. One might think Joyce himself sent these messages, given their shared reference universe with the sitting rooms, but doing so makes as much sense as sassing soldiers outside brothels.”

  “What?”

  “Forget it. Let’s just get some Thai food.”

  “Sure thing, boss.”

  They went through the process of leaving the office.

  “Will you call her?” Max asked.

  “Like I need another seppuku-inducingly beautiful woman in my life.”

  “More than anything.”

  “Max, I don’t pay you to be piercingly insightful about my emotional being.”

  “You pay me?”

  “Not if you keep that up. But then again, you’re the kinda guy who’d throw penny cakes to seagulls.”

  “What?”

  “Forget about it. You get a van?” Trike transitioned.

  “I got a van.”

  “I do not like that tone, Max.”

  “With no money … you get what you get.”

  “I like that statement even less.”

  “It’ll do the job.”

  “You are somehow making this worse, Max.”

  “You haven’t seen it.”

  “I picked a hell of a week to quit smoking.”

  “Yep.”

  Max closed and locked the door behind him.

  LIKE THE DARK WHEN YOU TURN ON THE LIGHT

  Five masked robbers stormed into the city’s largest bank. Firing guns into the ceiling. Shouting for everyone to get down on the ground. Shouting over the screaming and panicking that they were not playing around. Four of the robbers grabbed the four tellers. The fifth made the manager open the vault and head for the big bills.

  For 180 seconds he pressed his gun right at the top of the manager’s spine. Whispered about wife and kids. Encouraged the manager to stuff fistfuls of hundred-dollar bills into a bag. On second number 180, the robber coldcocked the manager. A fistful of bills still filling his fist.

  Ten seconds later, the four tellers got the same good night.

  With the employees napping, the five robbers stalked back into the lobby. They stomped around the people lying on the ground. Shouting about nobody moving and everybody behaving and let’s not have any heroes and other robber nonsense.

  Sirens approached.

  One by one the robbers slunk to the back of the bank. When 210 seconds had elapsed, there was only one voice shouting. Tires screeched in the parking l
ot. The voice shouted, “You there, you get down, I said get down.” Someone got down.

  The cops bullhorned at the bank. About coming out with your hands up and surrendering peacefully and having the bank surrounded and other cop nonsense. No response. Nothing cops hate more than being ignored. They stormed in.

  The robbers were gone. Like the dark when you turn on the light. The only people in the bank were unconscious or kissing carpet. A gun-drawn squadron of cops surrounded by silence is a Kraken of anxiety. The robbers vanished with $978,000.

  The second-largest manhunt in the history of the state was launched. Three weeks later, two of the robbers were arrested at the state line. They had to tell somebody the setup. It was just so damn clever.

  You see, it all came together when the oldest brother learned how to throw his voice. And boy, could he chuck that thing. You got him in a place that echoed, like a bank lobby, and it was like someone was shouting at you from across the room. The youngest’s job as janitor of the bank became the best thing that ever happened to them.

  They filled money bags on an exact schedule based on average police response time. When the bag-filling time was up, they walked quickly around the people lying down so no one could keep track of their feet. While the other four made their way to the back, the oldest kept up the shouting. When the others were gone, he threw his shout one more time and, mask and gun passed off, proned himself like everyone else. He walked right out the front door after the police secured the bank. Even gave a statement.

  The other four went to the janitor’s closet in back. It had a big drain for dumping out mopping water. They removed the grate.

  Eighty years ago, the Jameson brothers had pulled off the biggest bank heist in city history by escaping through a janitor’s drain into the sewers.

  For hours, Lola only found places on the Internet where pictures of sewer maps should have been, but weren’t. She drank three pots of tea. She ate four strips of fruit leather and a bag of trail mix. Three times she took quick jogs around the block. Twice she watched ten minutes of TV, just to look at a different screen. She took alarming comfort when Dig Safe matched what the Water Department had told her.