Mystery: The Isherwood Case Files (Mystery, Suspense, Crime, Murder, Detectives, Fiction, Unsolved Mysteries, Mysteries, Thriller, Intense, Drama)

by Johnny Scotland

  “This week, we have a first rate example of where we are failing.” said the Chief. Isherwood was asked to explain his report on the case of the complaint by Jessica Randall, since the other detectives had found nothing untoward during the interview and had concluded that there was no case to be investigated. Isherwood on the other hand had given a very detailed report.

  “I concluded from talking to the man” said Isherwood, “that he is a misogynistic liar.” The others looked on in astonishment. The interview had lasted less than ten minutes. How could he be so sure? “The man has a hatred for women. He also has something very real to hide within his house. As soon as I noticed this, I changed my tactics and came up with another excuse to use as to why we needed his help.”

  “There wasn't anything suspicious there.” said Charley in disbelief.

  “Did you not notice the wallpaper?” asked Isherwood.

  “It was pretty flowery stuff but average for a house like that.” answered Robert.

  “If you looked closely, you would have seen that one wall had been papered many years after the other walls. This particular wall was new and had been built after the others, thus indicating that there is something hidden behind it.”

  The detectives were astounded at this assertion. “How on earth did you get that impression?” said Charley.

  “The baseboard or skirting on that particular wall was missing. Thus it wasn't the original wall. On all the other walls, the baseboard was intact.”

  “You remember that you questioned my motive for letting the suspect know that we were about to call?” Isherwood continued.

  “I sure do.” said Charley. “I've never heard of anything so silly.”

  “When people have only minutes to hide their guilt, they make mistakes.” explained Isherwood. “In this case, you may have noticed in the fish tank that the sediment was recently disturbed. What that means is that the man hid something there seconds before we entered the house, and I would guess this is the key to the door in the false wall.”

  No one made a sound. The level of this guy's observations were more than they had ever expected. They thought he may come up with some reason for suspecting the man, but nothing as detailed as this.

  “In fact.” said Isherwood, “If the man has a door to this area, then no doubt he plans on using it again which makes me fear for Jessica's sister.”

  “Looking out of the window of his living room, there was a specific plant in the garden which I presume to be the chosen weapon used to kill his victims.” said Isherwood. Now, the detectives really were lost. They had seen nothing at all that gave them cause for concern.

  “The ornamental plant in the border next to the house is an Amaranthus retroflexus. What a concoction of the seeds and leaf pulp from this plant cause looks like heart failure. I suspect that if we look into the death of this man's first wife, it will have been a heart attack that took her life. However....” he said, “to lose more than one wife in this way would certainly throw suspicion on the man, so I suspect that the other deaths were not reported and that the space behind the wall is where he hid their bodies.”

  “We do not have much time. The Amaranthus retroflexus only forms the toxic parts at a specific time of the year. I would suggest that the ladies were killed in late summer, early autumn. I actually noticed the recipe and weight equation written on a note underneath his address book when he was looking for the telephone number we asked for which suggests he knew what he was producing.”

  The Chief stood up. “Now what we need is a reason for a warrant. We want this case to be water tight and we want to get the guy for the attempted murder of Jessica Randall as well as the murders of his second and third wife. Jessica's sister is called Ruth Cummings. I want Charley to try to persuade Jessica to influence her sister to stay away from William Walters for a few days while the investigation goes on. Charley, can you also use your contacts to find out what financial position Walters is in. He needs a motive for murder.”

  Charley nodded his approval and took notes as he did so.

  “Robert. I need you to check on dates of marriage and the names of the wives and for you and Isherwood to visit any family members to find out what happened to the wives. Discretion at all times, Robert, as this man is pretty influential.”

  “Have I missed anything Isherwood?” asked the Chief.

  “Actually you have.” said Isherwood. “We need access to a blueprint of the house, and somehow need to measure the depth of the room from the false wall to establish whether this is indeed a hiding place. We also need somehow to make sure this isn't as the result of a remodeling job, so need to see the room the other side. It would be pretty embarrassing if we issued a warrant and found that the wall was moved to extend another area of the home for aesthetic reasons.”

  “I know how we can achieve this.” said the Chief. “Leave that to me.” He had friends within the planning department and that would be pretty easy. Getting someone to call at the house would also be fairly straightforward but it had to be someone that wasn't recognized from a previous visit. The Chief knew just the right person to do this. An undercover cop was ideal for this and could pose easily as a visitor that Walters wouldn't suspect. Getting a couple of guys on the beat to watch for Walter's movements and find the ideal time to call would also be very simple to arrange.

  A rock solid case had to be formed but, on the basis of the amazing amount of detail provided by Isherwood, the Chief could see hope and he could also see his men having a lot to learn from this visitor's power of observation.

  Chapter 6 – Dead Wives don't Talk

  “In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

  Martin Luther King

  Isherwood was not surprised at the responses they got from family members. Robert, on the other hand, was finding it hard to believe that he could have assessed the situation so wrongly. He had thought that Walters was a decent kind of person, but realised that he had judged him by American standards. He was rich and powerful but he was welcoming when they called at his home, as if he had nothing to hide. The observation of Isherwood had amazed him.

  “Don't you ever get fed up of getting things right?” he asked.

  “Don't you ever get fed up of underestimating people's power for evil?” Isherwood answered, knowing already that Robert liked the rhetoric rather than facing up to the fact that he may actually be wrong.

  There had been two wives. Elizabeth Haslow and Emily White had both been married to Walters. Their family members had a mixed response to the call of the Detectives. Elizabeth Haslow's family had been told that she was dead and had gone through a memorial service in her memory. The White family had grieved in private and had been told that Emily had died overseas. Haslow's family were not certain as to the exact details of death but were told that she had drowned and that her body had been lost at sea.

  The dates of death had indeed tallied with the dates suggested by Isherwood, thus meaning that the mature shrub plant in the back garden may well have been used. The house where Walters lived was the biggest conundrum. He had lived there all the way through all of his marriages and he never seemed to want to move to pastures new. Isherwood assumed that the reason was that someone might just discover the bodies.

  A plain clothes policeman had indeed measured the room in question, by telling the maid at the premises that he had been asked to look into a squeak in the parquet flooring in the living room. She had been quite chatty but had only worked there for the past year and didn't know much about Walter's matrimonial habits. It seemed that he had employed quite a number of different staff over the years. Taking advantage of her chatty nature, the cop had been able to discern that no remodeling had taken place at the house, at least since she worked there. He joked with her about houses of the rich and famous and she was quick to show him how the rich lived. That meant gaining access to the room at the other side of the wall was simple. The plans of the house measure
d against the physical measurement of the room showed that there was indeed a discrepancy and that at least two feet had been lost inside the wall.

  Charley had been hard at work finding out about the financial situation of Walters. It seemed that the man spent a great deal of money on stocks and that he had lost a fortune several times. These dates of losses coincided quite nicely with each of his marriages.

  Having gathered sufficient evidence, and knowing that Jessica had been able to stall her sister's visits to Walters meant that they almost had enough to go on. It was by sheer chance that Jessica gave them the last piece of evidence needed to actually get the warrant and arrest Walters. It was a strange event, though Jessica had persuaded her sister to take a blood test, on the pretext of having a family problem which may affect her later in her married life. Ruth had not suspected at all that the sample was taken to see if there were traces of toxic matter. Indeed the report was conclusive. She had recently eaten with Walters and had, as a result, found herself feeling very ill. Jessica persuaded her that this family illness may be responsible. Ruth was easily persuaded and the results were sent direct to Isherwood once they had been seen by Jessica.

  Although, strictly speaking, these should not have been obtained without permission from Ruth, she had entrusted them to her sister because she trusted her sister to check them against her own blood tests. “She said she didn't know about stuff like that.” said Jessica. “She just gave me the tests and asked me to check them out, which is what I am doing.”

  Chapter 7 – Closing the Case

  “Irony regards every single truth as a challenge.”

  Mason Cooley

  It is never easy to tell someone that a relative was murdered. Isherwood knew that this responsibility was his. After all, he had talked to the relatives several times over the past few weeks. At least now, they could put their ghosts to rest. They were grateful for the news and to a certain degree, it gave them satisfaction that the man responsible for their deaths would be put away for a very long time.

  Inside the house of William Walters, the evidence bags were filling with items that linked him with the murder of his former wives and the attempted murder of Ruth Cummings. Walters was taken by surprise when arrested, though knew as soon as the detectives mentioned the hideaway space behind the wall that his freedom was at an end and that his story of killing was over. Even without the key that he had hidden safely in the fish tank, they would still be able to access the place where he had hidden their bodies and their remains would tell a story of their own.

  A mortar and pestle in the kitchen stood poised and ready to crush its next concoction of poison. The seeds and the leaves from the shrub in the garden told the same tale that Isherwood had upon his observation of the scene. The irony was that no one had believed that anything was wrong. Now, as the murder inquiry was reaching its end, these implements would be used to prove premeditation of the worst kind.

  “Congratulations are in order.” said Charley, as he patted Isherwood on the back.

  “It doesn't do to celebrate death.” said Isherwood, “but it does feel gratifying when your powers of observation don't let you down.” he added. “I thought for one moment that I may have missed something.” he admitted.

  “The great British detective? Unlikely after the way you handled this case.” said Robert. They were warming to this character, even if he did pronounce words differently and came to work with an umbrella and briefcase. All that was missing was the bowler hat. Charley had laughed about that with the lads in the office, though they had corrected him. “Sherlock Holmes didn't wear a bowler” one of them said.

  “It was a deerstalker.”

  The chief was delighted with the results. Here was a case of three murders, one which had been written off as a heart attack. There had been the saving of a life as well and that was rewarding for the Chief. The papers would congratulate the police service for their prompt help in solving the case, though the Chief would be grateful that he had invited Isherwood and immediately begin training his officers in the powers of observation.

  As he closed his evening paper, having read what Americans say about the British way of investigating crime, he stroked his black cat. This cat was his comfort and had been with him for many years.

  The price of bringing the cat with him had been one of the conditions of coming here and had been borne by the Los Angeles Police department. He felt that although he was working among strangers, he still had all the comforts of home that helped hone his instincts.

  The only instinct he felt at this moment in time was prompted by the purring of the cat, and the fall of night. Tomorrow would be just another day.

  Mystery 2:

  The Isherwood Case Files

  The Case of the Ghost Writer

  By Johnny Scotland

  Introduction

  Jon Isherwood, a detective from Scotland Yard, has been employed by the Los Angeles Police Department, in an attempt to help them to improve their record at solving murder cases. The homicide detectives are sceptical about the assistance this Brit can give them, but in his previous case, he startled them into learning the importance of observation. In this case, the Chief has ordered that Isherwood hones in on this aspect of observation and teach his detectives how to use their instincts while casing out a murder scene. Will it work? Will he be able to use his British tactics to entice the American cops to understand what is seen beyond the eye glass?

  Chapter 1 – Listening, Observing and Learning

  “A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.”

  Bruce Lee

  There was a hush in the conference room today. The Chief was determined to get his point across. He had observed how his detectives were getting sloppy and a little apathetic in their duties. If the answer wasn't obvious, it seemed as if it was too hard for his detectives to work toward finding. The whole purpose of inviting Isherwood into their presence was to influence his staff into a new way of thinking.

  “I want you to take the next case that comes up and use this as an exercise.” he said. “There is much that you can learn from Isherwood, and that's the whole point of his visit.”

  The detectives whispered among themselves, but they knew that if the last case was anything to go by, they would have to be in their toes. This guy was incredible for detail and they had missed each of the points he had raised, which had eventually led to the capture of the killer. Charley had conceded that perhaps it was time to sit up and take notice. It wasn't as if the Brit was even trying to be superior. He just had a better eye for detail.

  “On the next case, Isherwood, I want you to simply be there, observe and then question my officers on their observations to see if they match yours.”

  Isherwood was comfortable with the proposal though always a little reserved when it came to being picked out in a whole conference room full of officers. He nodded his agreement. His observation skills were better, but it was only because of his background and his need to go beyond the normal investigative routes to find answers to things he cared passionately about. Having lost a great friend, he had suddenly realized that even a death which seems insignificant can never be treated as such. The police had an obligation to the dead to discover what had happened. This event in his life had taken him through the route from apathetic to observant and since that time, he had joined forces with Scotland Yard detectives because he knew he would be able to solve murders that apathetic policemen hid under carpets. The death of his friend, James Elliott, had indeed had such an impact on him that it drove his curiosity and had been the reason for his one hundred percent success record.

  “There is no time like the present to learn.” said the Chief, looking toward his officers with a kind of disdain. They were a good crowd of officers who were honest and that was something to be thankful for. All he needed now was that they became invested in seeking out the perpetrators, rather than getting accustomed to filing cardboard box
es in the cold case shelves, where stories remained unfinished. This was their opportunity to start again and, with Isherwood's help, he was determined this was going to happen. The bleeper carried by the Chief went off in a timely manner. He had finished his discussion and wasn't sure how to round off the pep talk. The bleeper afforded him an abrupt end to the discussions, since there was a report of a murder and this is what his guys were about to investigate, learning new techniques from Isherwood.

  “We have a murder to investigate. Carry your notebooks at all times and follow Isherwood's lead.” he said. As they left the hall, there was a certain sense of anticipation, a little like there had been in the academy years ago when these officers had first been rookies. Learning again, or at least learning new ways to catch culprits would be a fun exercise, they had decided among themselves, although they were not ready to embrace Isherwood's ideals quite yet.