"Would you want to repeat that a little slower?"
* * * *
Around two thirty P.M. two patrolmen took Willy Kennebaugh into custody on a charge of illegal disposition of human remains with intent to commit fraud. Once he arrived at headquarters he wasn't permitted to see or communicate with his mother. Nearly five hours passed before Auburn was ready to meet with him. During that interval both detainees were treated to dinner and other creature comforts at city expense. Neither had decided yet to retain a lawyer.
Auburn took Fritz Dollinger and a police stenographer with him into the conference room and started the session by having Dollinger read the prisoner his rights for the second time. Kennebaugh, wearing a voluminous coverall and workboots with soles like the treads of snow tires, fidgeted as he nodded his comprehension of the regulation cautions.
"Mr. Kennebaugh,” said Auburn, “according to your witness statement, as amended today, you were at home on Tuesday evening, not at the Carney County courthouse. Around eight thirty that evening, while your mother was away from the house, you found your cousin Gilda Kennebaugh dead. Or at least you believed she was dead."
Kennebaugh nodded again.
"But then during the night you heard noises and found her lying on the stair landing. You called an emergency squad and they determined that she was indeed dead, at least by then. All correct so far?"
"Yes, sir.” If Willy smiled here, it was only because Auburn had passed right over the fraudulent exchange of identity between Iris and Gilda. And if that smile was faint and sickly, it was because Willy was sure Auburn was eventually going to come back to it.
"When we made our investigation on Wednesday, the appearances suggested that the tenant of the downstairs bedroom had been shot by a burglar, who had broken in by pushing in the window air conditioner and stolen some jewelry. But if you found her in a condition resembling death as early as eight thirty, the burglary must have taken place while it was still light. And although the gunshot would have to have been fired while you were in the house, you say you didn't hear it."
Kennebaugh nodded agreement with these conclusions of Auburn's, and his furrowed brow showed that he found them just as mystifying as Auburn did.
"Another thing. If the two of you only moved that jewelry box downstairs after your cousin had been shot, what became of the jewelry? There was no sign of damage or looting in any room except the downstairs bedroom. Even if a burglar had cleaned out the jewel box while it was still upstairs, your mother would have noticed that it was empty before she took it down.
"But that gunshot wound is the hardest thing of all to understand. Because the pathologist says it was almost instantly fatal. And although there were bloodstains on the stairs, there weren't any on the bedsheets. So that looks like she must have been shot right where the paramedics found her. Doesn't it?"
Kennebaugh started to comment, thought better of it, and sat silent.
"Let me suggest another version of your statement. At eight thirty you found your cousin apparently dead and thought she had died a natural death. When your mother came home at ten you told her that. The two of you moved a few things around in the house so you could persuade the undertaker that the dead woman was your mother, and then you drove your mother to a motel in Wilmot.
"During the night you woke up and got a shock when you realized that your cousin hadn't been dead after all. But by that time you'd already sent your mother away and set the stage for her fake death. You practically had your hands on that life insurance money, and now here was your corpse still alive. So ... you shot her. At four o'clock in the morning. And then you faked the break-in and the robbery. And I imagine you got another shock when the paramedics didn't even notice the gunshot wound."
Willy Kennebaugh was nodding again, even though the gesture now amounted to a confession of deliberate homicide. Auburn felt nothing but pity for his prisoner. Until earlier in the week, Kennebaugh's worst fault had probably been just that he was a loser—unskilled, unambitious, unsuccessful. And what was probably his first venture into serious crime had swiftly progressed from fraud to murder. Which he had botched every which way.
"Where did you get the gun?"
"My father used to carry it in the truck when he was out on a job by himself. I don't know where he got it. I doubt if he ever fired it in his life."
"All right, Mr. Kennebaugh. I'm going to let you talk to your mother upstairs now. And I can't urge you strongly enough to get in touch with a good lawyer before Monday.” Auburn gathered his papers together and stood up. “There's one other thing I'd like to get straight with you.
"The autopsy on the woman you shot on Tuesday showed that she had had at least one child. That worked all right when we thought she was your mother, but it didn't fit so well with the idea that she was your cousin. Before the body was released to the undertaker for cremation, a set of fingerprints was taken. And those prints prove that the dead woman wasn't your cousin Gilda Kennebaugh. She was Gilda's companion, Rachel Ferrante, who's been wanted for murder and grand larceny for the past thirty-six years."
Kennebaugh was now shaking his head just as vigorously and persistently as he had nodded it before.
"It was Gilda,” said Auburn, “who hit Ferrante over the head with a granite statue, shot both her parents, and took off with the money and the jewelry. The authorities had to put the story together with the help of neighbors and relatives who hadn't seen Gilda for years, and they got it backwards. Your aunt and uncle must have kept her pretty completely out of sight because even your mother didn't pick up on the switch."
"I sure never saw Gilda until after they died.” Kennebaugh's broad brow was gray and pearled over with droplets of sweat. “Does my mother know about it now?"
"If she does, she didn't get it from me."
"Well, will you promise me never to tell her that it wasn't Gilda we took care of all those years? Because if she ever finds out, we'll have to cremate her all over again. And once was enough for me."
Copyright (c) 2008 John D. Hirckx
[Back to Table of Contents]
Department: REEL CRIME by J. Rentilly
Long before the controversies of jingoism, camp dilution, or rubber nipples, all the way back to the moment Bill Kane and William Finger first committed to paper the mythology of a long-suffering billionaire turned demonic crime fighter, the character of Batman—nay, The Dark Knight—was a detective, a mystery solver, a noirish gumshoe, inspired in equal parts by Sherlock Holmes, Dick Tracy, and The Shadow.
Sure, over the years Batman has become known for his gadgetry, his ‘Biff! Zap! Pow!’ fisticuffs, and his sleek, nightmarish costume—nipples (in the 1995 film, Batman & Robin) or not—but, at the core of the character is a steely determination, a preternatural gift of deduction, and a passion for cracking tough cases. It's not for nothing that Batman has spent his career in publishing with Detective Comics.
"For seventy years, Batman has been referred to as ‘the world's greatest detective,'” says Mark White, Associate Professor of Political Science, Economics, and Philosophy at College of Staten Island/CUNY and co-author (with Robert Arp) of Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul. “Sure, Batman is an Olympic-class athlete and master of many martial arts and boxing styles. He has his physical prowess, like a superhero needs. But at his best he solves crime using impeccable logic and amazing powers of observation."
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Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman in The Dark Knight. Photo by Steven Vaughan.
* * * *
It's the sheer humanity of Batman's backstory—orphaned at an early age when his parents are gunned down in cold blood, Bruce Wayne commits his life to solving crimes in his beloved Gotham City—that has kept the character current through several generations of fans.
This July, Warner Bros. will release their much-anticipated The Dark Knight, written and directed by Chris Nolan, the director of 2005's Batman Begins. Christian Bale returns as the Caped Crusader and Heat
h Ledger appears as The Joker. To bridge the narrative gap between the two films, Warner Home Video will that same week release Batman: Gotham Knight, a direct-to-DVD animated movie consisting of six interlocking stories, teeming with darkness, mayhem, and detective work.
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"Batman's appeal can be summed up quite easily: he's the thinking man's hero,” says Arie Kaplan, author of the forthcoming book, FromKrakow to Krypton: Jews and Comic Books. “And he's popular not only with fans of superheroes, but with fans of detective fiction too. Because he's only a man in a costume solving crime with pure intellect and deductive reasoning, he's more like Sam Spade or Sherlock Holmes or James Bond than he is guys with incredible powers, like Spider-Man or Superman. Batman is one of us."
Indeed, inspired by pulp fiction, noir literature, as well as Victorian mysteries, Batman—from his first appearance in Detective Comics #27, “The Case of the Chemical Syndicate,” May 1939—was playing sleuth to a perplexing homicide. Two issues later, readers were introduced to Batman's cherished utility belt—"pretty much a portable forensics lab,” according to Kaplan.
"Right off the bat, pun intended, Batman was solving mysteries in the classic fashion,” says Kaplan. “Like all great detectives, Batman relies on scientific analysis of clues."
Paul Levitz, Publisher/Editor at DC Comics, notes that over the years countless authors of literary thrillers and detective fiction—from Gardner Fox to Mike Barr to Billy Schwartz to Walter Gibson to Brad Meltzer—have contributed to the character, adding to The Dark Knight's appeal to lovers of tight, provocative mysteries, not merely four-colored commotion.
"Batman has frequently tipped his hat to the classic mysteries,” says Levitz, who counts among his favorite Batman series the 1964 run, edited by Julius Schwartz, called The Mystery Analysts. “Batman worked with a club of detectives, each one an analog for a classic detective-story figure. They were great pieces."
"Batman is always in the Batcave, studying criminal files, scouring the Net for information to improve his databases. He visits murder scenes and figures out clues, just like a classic detective,” says Bob Greenberger, author of The Essential Batman Encyclopedia. “And he notices stuff even the mightiest heroes in the DC universe may have missed. A few years back, Superman couldn't find a kidnapped Lois Lane, but Batman did. Everyone considers Batman the smartest hero on Earth."
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Brad Meltzer, who penned the best-selling DC mystery, Identity Crisis, prominently featuring Batman, always adored Batman's sleuthing expertise. “One of my earliest Batman memories is a story where he teaches a class about being a detective, using the example of a man who walks backward in his shoes to leave the crime with no footprints,” says Meltzer, whose next novel, The Book of Lies, will be published in September. “But Batman figures it out because the footprint is deeper in the toe instead of the heel. I ate every panel of that. I was ten."
Through the years, however, Batman comics—not to mention the campy-culty Adam West television series of the 1960's and the feature films of the past twenty years—have spent less time with procedural and more time on pyrotechnics and cliffhanging.
"As comics were increasingly seen as a children's medium, the detective work was downplayed in favor of simpler adventures,” says Greenberger.
Still, many interviewed for this story—Batman enthusiasts and experts, admittedly—say The Dark Knight suffered more mightily with this dumbing-down than he ever did with such nefarious villains as The Joker or The Riddler. “There's a scene in 1995's Batman Forever (directed by Joel Schumacher) where a car crashes into a barrel filled with glitter,” says Arie Kaplan. “Glitter, people! That's what Batman had been reduced to for a while."
DC's Levitz confesses, “Some writers are more passionate about constructing and solving a complicated mystery, while others are more interested in a great romp. Both are completely valid."
In recent years, Batman—in feature films, animated TV series, and comic books—has returned to his noirish roots and his classic detective work. “I think there has been a return to the detective work,” says Batman & Philosophy author White. “Detective Comics, ideally, has always focused on this side of him, and I think it's truer today than it has been in a long time. People are hungry for great crime-solving stories, and Batman is delivering them."
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The Dark Knight. Photo by Steven Vaughan.
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In addition to Meltzer's Identity Crisis, recent comic series penned by Grant Morrison and Paul Dini, separately, have been widely heralded for their brain-twisting mysteries. And Bruce Timm and Paul Dini's animated series, The Batman, has been given high marks.
Everyone interviewed for this story believes that filmmaker Chris Nolan, the acclaimed director of Memento, delivered the goods with 2005's Batman Begins, and is looking forward to this summer's The Dark Knight.
"Ultimately, this is a character that has been around for more than seventy years,” says Paul Levitz. “The world changes a lot in seventy years, and so do the stories we tell. Sometimes Batman is more dramatic. Sometimes he's more comedic. Sometimes he's doing a lot of detective work. Other times, he's using his fists. It goes with the times."
Levitz, though, along with so many mystery lovers, is clearly pleased to see Batman back to his crime-solving roots. “I've always been happiest when Batman is solving mysteries I never could,” he says. “It's the brain in that character, not the brawn that is most interesting to me. And I know I'm not alone."
Copyright (c) 2008 J. Rentilly
[Back to Table of Contents]
Fiction: THE BIRTHDAY WATCH by G. Miki Hayden
Kate Forman
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Miriam had bought Nana three or four ten-dollar watches on the street, yet for some reason, they never seemed to last longer than a month. Miriam herself didn't own a watch, but then she never held a job where she had to be at a certain place at a particular time. Besides that, Nana simply liked to wear a wristwatch, which made her feel like a lady of some value. Therefore, Miriam decided to buy her daughter a watch for her birthday in February, and she began small forays here and there on 125th Street in Harlem where they lived to look at what was in the stores.
The sad truth was that either the watches Miriam saw were horribly ugly or they were extremely expensive. The one watch she saw and liked in Marshalls department store was gone by the time she went back to buy it. Thus she determined to go on an excursion to Midtown Manhattan looking for a watch that would make her young and beautiful child happy.
Miriam found some ads for Bloomingdale's in a newspaper she saved out of her building's recycling stack. The department store advertised watches, and Miriam spotted a couple of gold-plated ones under a hundred dollars—watches that would shine splendidly against Nana's dark mahogany coloring. Miriam then studied a well-creased transit map until she understood how to get to Fifty-ninth and Lexington, and one morning she put a significant amount of cash in a handkerchief between her breasts and descended into a subway station other than the one closest to home.
At Fifty-ninth Street, she got out and entered the overwhelming store through the basement. Luckily a sign listed the floors for each of the departments and Miriam was able to find her way to the jewelry area on the main floor.
She didn't see in the cases either of the watches she was interested in buying. Moreover, the less expensive watches were of silver, while the gold-colored ones had small diamond chips and cost quite a lot. The jewelry clerk was engaged with a gentleman interested in spending around a thousand dollars on a slender gold bracelet.
Miriam walked away in order to regroup. She examined scarves and purses that interested her, especially their price tags. People paid as much as seventy-nine dollars for small, nothing purses and forty dollars for scarves to decorate their necks—not keep them from the cold, no, because the material was silk, but decorate their necks. The world had gone truly berse
rk in a scramble for such luxuries as struck them as necessary to their continued existence. Miriam smiled to herself.
Then she saw it. A slender white boy had slipped such a scarf from its hook and put it into the inside pocket of his shabby leather jacket. Miriam looked around to see if anyone else had noticed the move; the store must have security to protect its goods. Concentrating on the young man—maybe he was eighteen or maybe he was a year or two older or younger—Miriam followed him toward the door. This is not your business, Miriam Obadah, she told herself. You're in this store to buy a watch. She bit her tongue to try to stop from doing anything rash.
Finally, when the boy was about to exit Bloomingdale's entirely, Miriam sidled up quite close to the thief and clearly enunciated four simple words into his ear, “Aren't you forgetting something?” She just couldn't help herself.
He turned and looked to see who had spoken. One emotion after another was etched on the suspect's face: guilt, bravado, fear, and anger.
"The scarf,” she said, as if he didn't know.
"I was about to pay for it,” the boy protested.
"Is there a problem?” asked a man. Since the man didn't have a coat suitable for the cold January weather, Miriam could only assume he worked for the store.
"The son of my employer has a mental disorder,” Miriam said. She indicated to the boy that he was to remove the scarf from inside his jacket. Panic and resentment still warring in his expression, he obeyed her, and Miriam grabbed the scarf and handed it back to the worker. “We're terribly sorry,” she added. “I hope you will be sure not to let him in the store on his own."
"If you'll come up, we can take a picture of him,” the worker offered.
Miriam shook her head, took the boy's clammy hand, and led him outside, onto the street.
"Was that really necessary?” asked the young man.
"Because of you, they must charge forty dollars for a simple scarf,” Miriam chided. “All the shoppers must pay for your theft."
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