by Marco Ocram
Que Sera Sera put a stop to my romantic reflections. It was Como. He said he had some startling news for me for a change, and he was on his way and I’d better be ready to leave as soon as he got here.
I heard Como’s siren long before I saw his Gran Torino hurl round the bend toward me. I was waiting for him by the roadside. He executed a perfect handbrake turn to stop alongside me after a spectacular tailskid, so all I had to do was open the door and get in.
“Belt up good and tight, Writer,” he advised, flooring the pedal to jerk me back in my seat with the force of our acceleration.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see when we get there, but there’s a dead Bluther Cale waiting for us.”
“Bluther Cale! Dead?!”
“You bet. A patrolman saw a black Lancia Monte Carlo down in the surf where the road runs near the cliffs. He climbed down and there’s a body in the car. The description of the deceased suits Cale to a tee.”
“Do we know how long he’s been dead?”
Como paused to concentrate on skidding the Gran Torino through a hairpin. “Two weeks.”
Two weeks? That was almost exactly the time since Lola was found in pieces in Herbert’s study. Connections started to form in my mind, but before I could reach any conscious conclusion Como skidded the Gran Torino to a halt just yards from a cordoned-off section of the road in which a wrecking truck, surrounded by prowlers with flashing lights, was winching something up from over the edge of the cliff.
We wandered over, Como acknowledging the greetings from the uniformed officers, while I wondered why cops on TV always skidded their cars everywhere. I leaned on the fence and peered over the edge. About twenty feet down, a black car was being inched up the cliff, water seeping from its doors. The front of the car had been concertinaed by its impact with the rocks. I could see a vague shape hunched over the steering wheel. As the car was winched closer, I could smell the vague shape too—it was a foul stench of hell’s vilest corruption. I vomited all over Como’s left police shoe.
“I’m sorry,” I gasped, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
“Here.” Como offered me his handkerchief.
“Thanks,” I said. I was about to use the handkerchief to wipe my mouth, but Como lifted his foot and made me wipe his shoe instead.
The black Lancia had been hauled to the road; it sat on flat tires, dripping water. Como donned plastic gloves and used his giant strength to yank open the deformed driver’s door. I reflected that while I had meant the deformed door, what I had written could also mean the door of the deformed driver, which would turn out to be a pretty witty pun, albeit an unintentional one, if the driver was indeed the horribly disfigured Bluther Cale.
Braving the dreadful pong, Como glanced over the body inside. It was badly decomposed after two weeks in the surf, but Como’s expert eye missed no detail.
He strode back to me, stripping off the gloves.
“It’s Cale alright. No doubt about it. But there’s also no doubt he was dead before the car went over the cliff.”
“How can you tell?”
“His kneecaps were smashed, his face was pulped, and he was finished off with several blows to the back of the head.”
“Someone beat him to death?”
“Yeah. And not just any someone—someone with a police nightstick.”
LESSON TWENTY-SIX
‘What is plagiarism, Herbert?’
‘Plagiarism is the act of presenting the ideas of others as if they were one’s own. You seem very quiet, Marco.’
‘I was thinking, Herbert.’
‘Yes, Marco?’
‘Does that mean you have to have ideas of your own if you want to write a book?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
In which Marco strictly observes the tenets of good security.
I started a new chapter to allow this latest revelation to sink in, and shifted the scene to the Clarkesville coffeeshop, where Como and I had gone after we had seen the decomposing body of Bluther Cale bundled into an ambulance. We were sitting at my specially reserved table. I put the obvious question to Como as he stirred sugar into his coffee.
“How many police officers are there in Clarkesville County who are equipped with the type of nightstick that finished off Bluther Cale?”
Como said a number which I decided not to type in case it proved to be a ludicrously implausible overstatement of the capacity of a typical small-town police department.
“Could we get them all to submit their sticks for inspection?”
“What, and start a riot?”
“How else can we develop the lead? We can’t just ignore it!”
“That’s easy for you to say, Writer.” Como tore fifty paper napkins into shreds as he considered our predicament.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “I’ve had an idea. Could we invent some other reason for getting the crew to hand in their nightsticks? An equipment audit, for example, or a product safety recall.”
Como looked at me. “I suppose that’s an occupational hazard for you writers.”
“What is?”
“Making up shit.”
“Well I don’t hear any better ideas coming from you,” I said, a touch piqued.
“OK. How about this? The guys are all based at HQ. When they go off shift, they keep their kit in lockers in the basement. We slip into the basement at night and check each of the lockers.”
“But won’t they be locked?”
“Yeah, but there’s a master key for emergencies.”
I wasn’t convinced.
“I’m not convinced,” I said.
“Why not?”
“It doesn’t seem a promising plot line. Apart from the difficulties of getting hold of the master key, what would we be looking for? It’s hardly likely anyone would be dumb enough to be carrying around a nightstick caked with bits of Cale’s skull and kneecaps. Even if there were microscopic quantities of DNA on one of the sticks, we wouldn’t be able to tell which. We’d have to swab every stick in secret, keep track of which of the swabs was associated with which of the sticks, and get all the swabs analysed in secret.”
“Not necessarily,” countered Como. “You could arrange it so the first locker we opened just happened to contain something suspicious, like another photo of Lola, and we swab that stick and lo and behold it’s covered in Bluther Cale’s DNA.”
“True. But wouldn’t that identify the perpetrator, and risk the whole story ending prematurely?”
“Not necessarily,” Como countered again. “You could invent a processing hold-up at the lab. Then you could have one of those X-machine endings you were talking about, where Herbert’s saved from the chair by last-minute DNA results.”
I was starting to warm to Como’s thinking. “Ok, let’s give it a go.”
Having driven us back to Police HQ, Como led me down to the basement where the janitor had a small workshop full of tools and spares and the like. Como kindly indulged in a few paragraphs of unimaginative cop banter with the janitor to spare me the trouble of inventing some dialogue.
“Hey Marty, how’s it going?”
“Hey Como, how’s it going with you? Long time no see.”
“I got me a big case, that Lola Kellogg thing.”
“You mean the poor kid who was raped, murdered, and cut to pieces by that bastard pedo Herbert Quarry. Him and his kind need to have their cocks sliced off and fed to them with mustard.”
“My sentiments entirely. By the way, this is Herbert Quarry’s best friend.” Como waved his giant hand at me.
“Hi,” I said.
The janitor peered into the gloom of the basement. “Don’t I recognize you? Aren’t you that Marco Ocram off the tee vee? I was talking to my wife only last night about the magnetic moment of the tau muon, and she was saying that…”
“Listen, Marty,” Como interrupted, “I’ve only gone and left my locker key back at ho
me. Any chance of borrowing the master?”
“Well… you know I ain’t supposed to, Como.”
“But if you lend it to me you can tell Mister Ocram here all about that magnetic moment you had with your wife, while I go get my stuff.”
“Okay… but don’t go getting me into trouble.” Marty unhooked a key from a ring on his belt, and Como left us talking about tau muons. He was back in a couple of minutes.
“Here’s your key, safe and sound, Marty. I owe you one.”
We left the basement and went back to the car. Como said nothing the whole way, but I could tell he was bubbling with suppressed excitement.
“OK, whatcha got?” I said when we’d slammed the doors.
“Only this!”
“Wow!”
Como handed me a golden locket on a chain. Inside was a picture of a police officer and a strip of paper bearing the words ‘I love you, and I feel so safe now you’ve said you would kill anyone who tried to hurt me. Signed, Lola Kellogg.’
“It was in the first locker I opened,” said Como. “Scoobie McGee’s. I swabbed his stick. We just need to take the swab to Flora, and we should know within 24 hours whether there’s any DNA matching Bluther Cale’s.”
We drove in a state of elation from Police HQ to the pathology labs at 276 West 24th Street. The car park barrier was down.
“Shit!” Como thumped the dashboard of the Gran Torino with his meaty fist.
There was a keypad next to the barrier, so I said, “Why don’t you call Flora and ask her for the entry codes?”
“Good thinking, Writer.”
He got Flora on the hands free.
“Hello, Big Boy. Need me to examine that nightstick of yours?”
You could have made toast on Como’s blush. “I’m in the car with Ocram.”
“Oh, right.”
“We’re just outside but it’s all locked up. What’s the code for the barrier?”
“Just a minute. You got a pen?”
Como looked at me. I nodded.
“Go ahead.”
“The code for the barrier is XCJ425b39J4”&&}{nnnPQw99. The code for the door is 6^%BfffC812<<
“Okay. See you in a minute.”
Como killed the call.
“You get that all written down?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Como. One doesn’t write down access codes—it’s against every principle of good security.”
“So how are we meant to get in, dumbass?”
“I have committed them to memory, Como. Unless I am tortured by evil scientists who inject me with truth serum, they will remain a secret.”
With a look too nuanced for me to describe, Como powered down the window of the Gran Torino, and leant out his arm ready to punch the code into the keyboard that controlled the barrier.
“Go ahead,” he said.
“Six.”
“Okay.”
“Up arrow.”
“Okay.”
“Percentage sign.”
“Okay.”
“Upper-case B.”
“Okay.”
“Lower-case f”
“Okay.”
“Lower-case f”
“Okay.”
“Lower-case f.”
“Another one? You sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“Okay.”
“Upper-case C.”
“Okay.”
“Eight.”
“Okay.”
“One.”
“Okay.”
“Two.”
“Okay.”
“Less-than sign.”
“Okay.”
“Less-than sign.”
“Okay.”
“Less-than sign.”
“Okay.”
“Upper-case F…. no, hang on a minute, maybe that’s the code to the door…”
I couldn’t remember which code was which.
“Ok, ok, start again, try this…. Upper-case X, upper-case C, upper-case J, four, two, five, lower-case b…”
It took about six goes and two more calls to Flora before we got into the car park. Luckily Como knew a back way into the building, so we didn’t have to go through the ordeal all over again to remember the code for the front door.
Entering the morgue, we found Flora Moran examining Bluther Cale, or, should your beliefs incline you that way, the body of Bluther Cale. Sensing our presence, she turned, removing a glove to shake my hand.
“Mister Ocram, how nice to see you again. And you too, Lieutenant Galahad,” she added with feigned formality.
“Should we don special plastics suits, masks and gloves to inspect the body?” I asked.
“No, smart casual is fine on Fridays.”
“What do we know about the victim?” asked Como.
“He’s Bluther Cale, the deformed manservant of…oh, sorry,” I interrupted myself when I realized Como’s question was aimed at Flora Moran. She smiled at my gaffe, and took over…
“He does indeed seem to be Bluther Cale. There was ID in a wallet that was still on the body. What’s more, the gross disfigurements and cleft palate match the medical records we have been able to trace at the Clarkesville County Hospital.”
“What do we know about how and when he died?” asked Como, staring into the beautifully shaped eyes of the beautifully shaped pathologist.
“The when is easy,” said Flora. “Here.” She handed Como a stainless-steel tray on which rested a wristwatch inside a transparent evidence bag. She went on: “The watch glass was cracked, presumably by the blow that broke Cale’s left forearm. The impact of the blow has stopped the watch at exactly 1pm on the 3rd of this month.”
“But that’s…” I was lost for words at the corny improbability of Flora’s announcement.
“Exactly the time when Herbert Quarry said he went down to the beach to wait for Lola,” finished Como. “So, we’ve established the when. What about the how? Was it the blows to the back of the head?”
“As far as I can tell, yes,” Flora confirmed, ignoring Como’s clumsy syntax. “Apart from his deformities, Cale appears to have been in excellent health when he was attacked. And before you ask, yes, the blows were from a police nightstick. Lord knows I’ve seen enough nightstick injuries in my time.”
Phew, that was a relief. My plot could have been in all kinds of trouble if Flora had introduced conflicting theories about the nature of the cylindrical object that had caused the damage. My eyes pivoted to the top left as I had another moment of distracting introspection about pool cues, tire irons, stale baguettes, and so on.
“What about his other injuries? What else can you say about the manner of his death and the tragic events preceding it?” asked Como.
“To judge by the nightstick blows, by the small scratches on his face and arms, and by the traces of pollens, leaf molds, mushroom spoors, and other microscopic matter on his hair, clothes, and shoes, I should say he had been running through the woods and had stopped, as if confronted by one assailant, when a second assailant hit his left knee with a wide swinging blow from a nightstick.”
“What? The officer who did this had an accomplice?” I asked, hardly able to believe my own words.
“Yes,” said Flora. “And the accomplice was also a police officer. While one confronted him, the other broke his kneecap. Police nightsticks lead a hard life. From the time they are allocated to a patrolman (or woman, let’s not forget) they begin to gather all kinds of nicks and scratches. Since each leads a different existence, each nightstick collects its own unique combination of small marks, like a signature or fingerprint that can be uniquely attributed to the officer who owns the stick. I have examined Cale’s wounds and there can be no doubt that two separate nightsticks contributed to his demise.”
Wow. I hadn’t expected this development at all, and nor had Como. We took some moments to get our heads round the implications of Flora Mo
ran’s startling revelation. The implication foremost in my mind was the possibility that Flora’s statement, having been made up on the spot by an author utterly ignorant of police matters, might be entirely incorrect—perhaps nightsticks weren’t permanently allocated to individual officers, but shared in a pool. I could just imagine the slagging-off I’d get from reviewers for my inadequate research. Como had other concerns:
“So, this DNA swab I’ve taken was a complete waste of time. We can identify the offending stick by a direct visual comparison of its microscopic marks with those found on the body.”
“Yes,” confirmed Flora Moran.
“We’ve been stupid, Writer,” said Como. “Instead of swabbing the nightstick we should have just taken it and left mine behind in its place so no one would have suspected anything.”
“We’ve been stupid? It was your idea, remember, not mine.”
“OK. Let’s not argue about it now,” said Como. “We need to get that nightstick.” He turned to Flora Moran. “Have you anything planned for tonight?”
“No, I’m going to be in bed all on my own, Big Boy.”
Como’s blush reignited. “No, I meant can you wait here to examine the nightstick if we get it now?”
“I suppose so,” she answered, somewhat sulkily.
“Come on, Writer.”
LESSON TWENTY-SEVEN
‘Tell me, Herbert, are there any similarities between credulity and, say, an elastic band?’
‘Yes, Marco—it’s funny you should ask. Credulity is like an elastic band. You can stretch it so far, then it breaks.’
‘Are there any other parallels, Herbert?’
‘What did you have in mind, Marco?’
‘Well, you can ping an elastic band across the room into a waste basket if you practice for long enough. Can you ping credulity into a waste basket?’