Ogrodnik

by Gary Coffin

  Elliot turned to take in the view, just as he knew his father would have done, and waited for his heart rate to slow down before moving on. This was the first time he had come up to look at the scene of the crime and, although he didn’t know exactly where the murder had occurred, he’d been on this trail a number of times and, based on the police report, he had a good idea of where it had happened. He came over the last of the pitches and then slowed down to scrutinize the trail for signs of the crime. When he turned the next corner, he saw the remnants of yellow crime scene tape fluttering from a tree limb like a beacon from the dead. There was no chalk line on the path as you might see on a city sidewalk, just a discoloration in the general shape of Australia that he thought might be a blood stain but was probably just a dark patch of earth.

  He soaked in the scene for a few moments as he stood by the trail and allowed his thoughts to stray as he recalled some memories of his father. Remembering the good times only strengthened his resolve. Justice would be served.

  The walk up the trail and the visit to the murder site was something Elliot wanted, and needed, to do. He considered it the final stage of grieving and knew it would put closure on the death of his father and allow him to move on personally. This was also the place where his investigation would begin.

  The primary goal of the walk up the trail was not to visit the murder scene and hunt for clues. The investigators would have done a complete examination of the surrounding area and, even if they missed something, a month of rain, people, and small animals would render any trace evidence left behind unusable. His primary goal was to look at the lay of the land and determine the logistics of how the killer had accomplished his task. The police did not view the case as a planned murder and therefore would not have investigated with the same rigor or methodology that he would be using.

  After climbing the trail and taking note of the sightlines, Elliot discounted the possibility that the killer had followed his father. It wasn’t plausible that the killer would follow him all the way up the mountain only to kill him at the top. There were plenty of opportunities to do the deed along the way up, so why complete the strenuous climb? It was far more likely that the killer knew his father’s routine and was waiting for him at the top. He continued along the trail in search of the parking area at the top of the mountain. He knew of a public parking spot at the place called the Lookout, or as it is known in Montreal, the Belvedere, and made his way over to it. The Lookout was on the main road that traversed the mountain and was formed by a pull out where the road widened to accommodate about twenty parking spots. At the front of the parking spots was a sidewalk area bounded by a sturdy guardrail on the down slope side. It was a popular area for tourists and sightseers and offered a spectacular view of downtown Montreal and the St Lawrence River valley beyond.

  There was no charge to park there, thus no parking meters were needed. A quick scan of the surrounding parking area also showed Elliot that no security cameras were mounted on the light standards, so if the killer did park there, there would be no electronic record of it. He sat on the guardrail for ten minutes and silently counted the joggers, walkers, and cyclists as they passed. He was already familiar with the roads that crossed the mountain and knew that the Lookout parking lot was the only parking area on the east side of the mountain. Parking on the road would be unlikely as it would surely attract the attention of the parking police, so unless the killer was dropped off and picked up, he would have parked here. Satisfied that he had a good feel for the foot traffic going past, Elliot started the walk back down the trail to his car and called his partner, Rivka Goldstein.

  “Morning, Riv, did I catch you at a bad time?”

  “Mornin. No, not a bad time. Just watching the hair on my legs grow.”

  “I thought you Ironman types didn’t grow hair on your muscly parts?”

  “That’s true. Hair doesn’t grow on steel. No wonder this is so boring.”

  “I know we have a few pokers in the fire, but I have something important that will require our undivided attention.”

  “What, did we get a job to find a chaste priest or something?”

  “No, and you won’t be peaking in bedroom windows on this one either. We’re going after my father’s killer,” he said with more zeal in his voice than intended.

  “Fey! The prodigal son wakes up. I’ve been waiting for you to get your brain back in gear and start looking into this one. The old man deserves better than that sideshow the police called an investigation. I’m almost ashamed to admit I was once one of them. When do we start?”

  “I’m on my way to the university now but will be back at the office later. Let’s meet around noon. I’ll pick up lunch on the way and get you up to speed.”

  “See you there, Chief.”

  Elliot parked in his assigned spot at the university and checked to see if Randy Mesman’s car was also there; it was. Randy was the Dean of Social Sciences, Elliot’s boss at the university and his best friend. He knocked on the door once and entered without waiting for a response “Morning, Randolph.”

  “Hey, Stretch, what are you doing here? I haven’t seen your sorry ass in this early since Christ was a cowboy,” said Randy as he looked up.

  “Christ was a cowboy? I must have missed that Testament.“

  “New Testament, in the Book of James, Jesse James.”

  “Ha-ha. And I can say the same for you. 8:30 and you’re already buried in paper,” said Elliot as he folded his lanky frame into the chair.

  Randy pushed himself back from his desk and looked over at his friend. “So… We haven’t talked in a while. How have you been coping since the funeral?”

  “I’m doing okay. I decided I’d let the investigation run its course. It’s now complete, and I don’t care for their findings, so I’m going to investigate it myself, which is the reason I’m here.”

  “What did they come up with?”

  “After three weeks of half-assed research, they’ve come up with the theory that it was a robbery gone bad. I don’t buy it though. “

  “Oh?” replied Randy.

  “The robber didn’t take Dad’s credit cards nor did he take his Rolex. Their theory was that during the course of the mugging, the thief killed my father by a blow to the head. Maybe he didn’t mean to kill him; maybe he just wanted to knock him unconscious. We’ll never know. He then took Dad’s wallet, stole the cash and tossed the wallet in the bushes. What they couldn’t explain was the broken jaw he suffered during the robbery or the complete absence of foreign fingerprints on the wallet. The coroner confirmed that the killing blow came from a big rock to the side of the head, and we know the rock was not used to break the jaw. Did the robber punch Dad and then hit him with the rock? Seems like overkill if all he wanted was the cash. And then there are the fingerprints on the wallet. They said that the only fingerprints on the wallet were Dad’s. That means the robber didn’t wipe it down, so was he wearing gloves? That indicates pre-meditation. In any event, the police theory doesn’t add up for me, so I’ll investigate on my own to see what I can come up with.”

  “You’re right. It sounds fishy,” Randy replied and then let the silence hang for a moment.

  “What else is going on in your life?”

  “Not much really. I’ve been clearing up my dad's affairs and waiting for the investigation to finish. I know I’ll have to sell his house and most everything in it, but right now, those aren’t a priority for me.”

  Randy hesitated for a moment before venturing into an area he knew would be sensitive. “Are you seeing anyone?”

  “Really, you’re going there? I just put my father in the ground and you think I’m worried about female companionship?”

  “Yeah, I am going there. You need someone in your life. Jake’s not around and your dad is gone. You have nobody.”

  Elliot nodded but said nothing.

  “What happened to that online dating site you told me you were going to try?”

  �
��I tried it once, and I’d rather have a Tabasco enema than go through that again.”

  “It didn’t go well?”

  “To say the least. My dating profile was built by answering over a hundred questions. Hell, they even asked me what my preferred sexual position was. I told them anything that didn’t include a magazine and my hand.

  “My date and I had a 97% compatibility probability. I guess we fell into the other 3%. I took her to Magnan’s for supper. She sent her steak back to the kitchen three times and then, finally satisfied with it, took one bite and decided she wasn’t really hungry. After that I spent the rest of the evening dodging questions about my net worth. It was the most agonizing eighty-three minutes of my life.”

  “Yeah, but did she have big tits?”

  “Go ahead; laugh it up. I’d like to see you put yourself out there.”

  “So you’re going to quit after one try?“

  “You know what I loved about Sarah? I loved the sound of her laugh. I loved it when I’d catch her looking at me for no reason. How do you map out those qualities in a profile questionnaire? Randy, compatibility can’t be forecast with a pile of data points. I’ll wait and meet someone the old-fashioned way.”

  “You mean like clubbing someone over the head and dragging her back to your cave by the hair?”

  “Ha. Not that I have anything against good old cave sex. I mean, meeting someone during the course of my everyday life and when something clicks, it’ll be unforced and natural.”

  “Okay, okay, moving on,” he said raising his hands in a mock surrender.

  “How’s Jake doing?”

  “I came here to discuss my future, and you’re grilling me like a T-bone steak,” Elliot protested for a moment and then gave in when he saw they were falling on deaf ears. “I guess he’s good. We didn’t have much time together at Dad’s funeral, and we really don’t talk much anymore. Mostly we exchange messages on Facebook.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a recipe for a solid father/son relationship. You two used to be so close.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s got his life, and I’ve got mine. Times have changed.”

  Mesman looked at his friend thoughtfully. “Where did it go wrong for you? Six years ago, you were the crown jewel of this faculty, a two time Perkins-Bohr winner and one of the most influential criminologists in the country. Look at you now. It’s like you’ve given up on life. What happened to the Elliot Forsman I used to know?”

  “You know damn well what happened,” Elliot said with a tone of resignation as he leaned back in the chair. “The old Elliot fell off that platform with Sarah. Now all that’s left is a bitter PI wanna-be who doesn’t have the stones to move on in his life.”

  “When are you going to accept that it was not your fault? There are two truths in this world; one, shit happens, and two, we can’t do anything about number one.”

  Elliot didn’t respond to Randy’s attempt to rationalize his situation and changed the subject.

  “Before Wilcox gets here, we need to discuss my future at the school.”

  “What makes you think Dean Wilcox is coming here?” asked Randy, talking in a high pitch as he always did when he was intrigued.

  Elliot scanned the desk and surrounding area before replying. “It’s almost 8:45 on a Friday morning, and you already have an empty mug of coffee on your desk. I also see that your desk lamp is turned on. It’s difficult to notice because of the sunlight pouring in, but you’d have only needed that light before the sun comes up, which is about 6:40 a.m. this time of year. On top of that, the chair I’m sitting on is usually against the far wall with reams of paper on it, so you’ve gone to some effort to make room for a visitor. This is April 29th, and I know that professor evaluations are due in to the Dean at the end of this month, which is today. So to summarize: coffee already consumed, desk lamp on but not needed for the past two hours, office tidied up waiting for a visitor and professor evaluation reports due today. It seems obvious. No?”

  “Damn, I love it when you do that shit!” said Randy with a grin. “I don’t want to push you out the door, but when are you going to leave the school for good and work on your investigation practice full time? You know you want to. It’s been four years since you switched to teaching night classes so you could start up your PI practice. I thought you’d have packed it in and left the university years ago.”

  “That’s what I’m here about. I came to tell you that I’m going on sabbatical, effective immediately and for an indefinite period.”

  Randy reached for his coffee and took a sip without taking his eyes off him. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “I want to get my life back on the rails, and I’m going to start by finding my father’s murderer.”

  “Well, I’m happy for you. Normally I’d scoff at approving a sabbatical on short notice, but in your case, I endorse it 100%.”

  They continued their banter for another ten minutes and agreed that one of the teacher’s assistants would take over Elliot’s night classes until Randy lined up a new professor.

  It was 9:00 a.m. on Friday, and Elliot had work to do before meeting Rivka at the office.

  Elliot still had time to get over to his father’s house to poke around, so he drove over to Elm Avenue in lower Westmount to the house that he grew up in. He’d been back to the house a number of times in the past month. All the little things like emptying out the fridge and turning off lights were done in the week immediately following the murder, and since then he’d stopped in and picked up the mail once a week.

  The first thing on his agenda was to determine what his father had been working on prior to his death. Hubert was a retired physician whose idea of retirement was not to while away the hours with a good book or play Canasta with the blue hairs. To his father, retirement was a chance to do all the things he never had time for when he was working.

  Elliot checked the mailbox before climbing the stairs to the house. His father shared a mailbox with his downstairs tenant, Anne Simmons. A couple of years ago, his father decided that the basement in-law suite was going to waste, so he put an ad in the paper looking for a tenant. He didn’t need the money, and Elliot thought that the amount of rent he charged was nominal at best. He also thought that his father was probably lonely and just wanted someone to share an afternoon tea with on occasion. He chose Anne Simmons, a forty-something, single woman of modest means who turned out to be everything he was hoping for.

  After letting himself in, he stood in the kitchen and surveyed the room as if he’d never been there before. He looked at every object in the kitchen and silently questioned its reason for being there. Elliot spent his teenage years growing up in this house and being here was like slipping on a pair of warm gloves on a cold day. It was an older, two-story brownstone from the turn of the century and although outdated by today’s standards, it had a feel of warmth and family to it. It held a lifetime of good memories for Elliot, and he’d be sad when he sold it.

  Years of learning and teaching in criminology had taught him about discipline and process when tackling complex problems. Investigating his father was just like any other data related problem. Gather information until you are able to create a probable theory, and then try to either prove or disprove the theory.

  The logical place to start was in his office at the back of the house. Elliot knew his father spent a good deal of time in the office, and it was also where he would find the computer. He turned on the light and stood there, confused for a moment. The top of the desk was almost bare aside for a few of the expected desktop accoutrements. The computer was gone. He knew it was there immediately after his father’s death because he’d had made the rounds to all the rooms and remembered turning it off. Had he given it to someone? Or taken it home? Elliot questioned his sanity for a moment and then discarded that thought. No, someone had been in the house and taken the computer. What else did they take? A quick tour of the house indicated that nothing of obvious value was missing. The
silverware was still in the buffet, and the new flat screen TV was untouched. His father’s personal belongings in the bedroom were not disturbed, so he returned to the office for a closer look.

  The lack of dust on portions of the desktop showed him where a computer and keyboard had once sat. He could also see the clean rectangular image of where a stack of paper had once been. A quick check of the desk drawers didn’t reveal anything, but he did find a sizable gap where documents may have been in the top drawer of a three drawer filing cabinet. Whether or not the documents existed in that place before the robbery, he would never know.

  He contemplated reporting the theft to the police, but his gut told him to let it be for now, so he soldiered on. The computer would likely have yielded the best clues as to his father’s activities, but there was still work he could do, so he started in the office. Overflowing bookshelves covered the lion’s share of three walls, and the musty smell of outdated publications filled the air like an invisible fog. In the corner directly facing the open door was a threadbare La-Z-Boy that still retained the imprint of his father’s cheeks left behind from many years of afternoon naps. Apparently, his father left quite an impression.

  Eating up most of the real estate in the room was a massive antique desk in the far corner that the house must have been built around. Elliot sat down at the desk to survey the room from his father’s perspective. His eyes were immediately drawn to a framed picture on the desk. It was a picture of himself, his father, and Jake as they coasted in toward the dock after an early morning of fishing. Jake was still a lad of nine or ten so that made the picture about ten years old. He remembered the day clearly; Sarah had come down to meet us at the dock and brought a picnic lunch. We put the gear away and pulled the boat up onto Dad’s trailer before sitting down with a bucket of the colonel in the shade of a large oak tree that bent out over the launch area. The tree kept the heat of the day from us, and the sound of the breeze rustling the leaves muffled the ambient city noises that might otherwise have intruded. The wafting fragrance from a thicket of wild lilacs beside the oak tree blended with the usual dock smells of oil and old fish in an odd way that I found pleasing. He remembered that he thought it smelled like paradise might smell.