by Marco Ocram
I exchanged glances with Como, each of us raising eyebrows to express disbelief.
“No,” said Bow. “You are right to suppose pity played a role, but I was not one of those privileged kids.”
“What were you, then?” I asked, dreading what was to come next.
“I was… the prom queen,” said Bow.
Even I, in bad-writer mode, was taken aback by this latest twist. I didn’t know what to say except to ejaculate the words The prom queen.
“The prom queen!”
“Yes, gentlemen. I assume this interview is confidential, so I do not mind telling you I live a double life as a gay transvestite. I took pity on Bluther Cale because of a responsibility I felt for his gross deformities. He has lived with me ever since I became able to afford my own domestic establishment. And while the world believes him my manservant, his relationship to me is that of an artist to a wealthy patron. He produces amazing artworks of various forms; his versatility is unmatched, in my experience. For that, and for what I did to him, I allow him whatever freedoms he wishes to take as far as his movements are concerned.”
I didn’t want to get into the subject of Cale’s movements, as we’d had enough shit to deal with, so I nodded to Como to spring one of the questions we’d prepared.
“Mister Bow, when the Writer first met you in this house, you said the murderer of Lola Kellogg had been caught red handed. Can you tell me the approximate time and date of that meeting?”
“I can tell you the exact time and date, Lieutenant, as I am most particular about recording my activities.” He scrolled through an iPad or a Rolodex, depending on whether you had imagined him to be a trendy technophile or a traditionalist. “Let me see, it was 2.03pm, on the twelfth.”
“Then explain this. You said Herbert Quarry had been caught ‘knife-in-hand’. That detail of the arrest has never been released to the media, so how do you account for your knowledge of the fact?”
“A knowledge,” I added, “that outside the police could be possessed only by someone who had framed Herbert Quarry!”
Bow smiled.
“You are wrong in your logic, Mister Ocram. You should understand that in a small community such as Clarkesville, where people have few secrets, I, a prominent billionaire, a frequent visitor to City Hall, and an admired figure in the local gay transvestite scene, am taken into the confidence of the most senior law enforcement officials. Officials, I might add, who could bust you down to patrolman, Lieutenant Galahad.”
While Como paused to ponder Bow’s threat, I took my chance and intervened.
“Mister Bow, could my character and I have a moment alone?”
“My library is at your disposal, gentlemen.”
Bow gestured at double doors to the left of his desk. I winked at Como to follow me and closed the library doors behind us.
“Listen,” I said, “I think we should end the interview now and go.”
“Are you shitting me? We haven’t even started. We haven’t even got to Cale’s death, and the statue, and the taxidermy thing. And he seems to have connections to the City Hall gay scene, so God knows what else Chief McGee has been up to.”
“Yes, yes, yes. I know, I know, I know.”
And I did know, but I also knew that if we carried on with our questioning, my mold-breaking novel would start to read like a clichéd police procedural. Como was never going to understand or care about my literary concerns, so I thought fast about how I could persuade him to leave. I had an idea. If Como was going to carry on behind my back with Flora Moran, maybe I could turn it to my advantage…
“I’ve had a text from Flora,” I lied. “She says she has something absolutely earth-shattering to tell us.”
As I hoped, Como perked up at the mention of the beautiful scientist.
“Okay, Writer, why didn’t you say so earlier? Let’s get moving.”
We made our apologies to Bow, albeit with a stern warning from Como to the effect that we weren’t through with him yet, then we leaped into the Gran Torino and left rubber all the way down Bow’s drive. I was starting to worry about the state of the tires.
En route, I texted Flora. On our way to see you. Hope you might have something earth-shattering to tell us. I kept my fingers crossed for the rest of the drive. Como would have a big sulk if he found I’d been lying.
We found Flora Moran gowned, masked and gloved, examining a spectacularly well-endowed male corpse. Como looked quite put out and got down to business in a cold way.
“Any news about the nightsticks? Have you been able to confirm the microscopic nicks and scratches match those on Cale’s body?”
“No. I’m afraid we’ve encountered an unexpected barrier to progress. A crucial component in my microscope has failed. Ordinarily it would mean a day’s delay at most, but I’ve just discovered there’s a statewide shortage of spares. The Swiss manufacturer has been contacted, but an industrial dispute has closed the factory. It might be a matter of hours before the strike is resolved, or it might be weeks. We are in the lap of the gods.”
Well, at least my deus ex machina ending might be back on the cards.
“But that’s nothing,” said Flora Moran to my surprise. “I have something far more earth-shattering to tell you…”
She paused to ensure she had our full attention.
“…Lola was two months pregnant when she died.”
LESSON THIRTY-TWO
‘Tell me, Herbert, which chapter in a bestseller is the most important?’
‘All are equally important, Marco. Chapters are like rounds in a boxing match. If you let your guard down in any one of them, you may be knocked out. Even if you are not knocked out, you may lose points. And the match is decided by the points from all of the rounds.’
‘I see, Herbert.’
‘You must sock your readers mercilessly in every chapter, Marco. Never pull your punches.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Which ends with another stunning revelation—
can we take any more?
When I had rallied from the shock of Flora Moran’s staggering announcement, I asked the obvious question.
“Was the baby…Herbert’s?”
“No.”
I punched the air.
“Yes! I knew Herbert was innocent.”
Como brought me down to earth.
“What are you talking about, Writer? The parentage doesn’t clear Quarry. It could even be a motive. Suppose Lola confessed she was pregnant by another man. That might have tipped Quarry over the edge.”
It was a good point, and I instantly felt my elation drain completely away. I asked the next obvious question.
“Can we run some kind of search against some kind of DNA database to identify the father?”
“Yes, but there are procedural difficulties,” said Flora Moran.
I’d no idea what she was talking about, so she explained.
“We have to persuade the relevant authorities that identifying the father would be material to determining who murdered poor Lola. And right now, with the local elections due, the mayor won’t want to offend the Christian vote, and the DA won’t want to offend the mayor, so we’re going to have a battle on our hands.”
I was beginning to regret choosing crime as the subject for my mold-breaking bestseller—the red tape was fierce.
“Unless…” interjected Como.
We waited for him to continue.
“Unless we can get Lola’s next of kin to sanction the search, in which case the DA can’t overrule it, election or no election.”
I crossed my fingers and hoped none of the readers would be legal experts who’d realize that what I had just typed was pure Pollocks.
“Lola’s only known next of kin are dead,” I said. “I can’t see us getting a statement from either of them soon.”
“Point taken, Writer, but we might find a next next-of-kin. Lola must be related to someone.”
&n
bsp; We made a quick plan with Flora Moran: she would approach the DA via the usual channels, while Como and I would attempt to identify some other living relation of Lola’s.
On the way to Police HQ, Como told me the process for finding next of kin.
“Identifying next-of-kin, or NOKs, is routine police business. We’ll start with her parents’ medical records, which usually identify NOKs for emergencies, and their pension providers, who need to know NOKs for probate purposes. We’ll get them in five minutes flat.”
After five minutes flat in front of Como’s computer we’d got exactly zilch. Lola’s mother’s NOK was Lola’s father, and Lola’s father’s NOK was Lola’s mother. We were obviously dealing with some hard NOKs to identify. We decided to go back to basics and look through Lola’s parents’ house for clues. Como did the necessary paperwork to legitimize a search, and we drove back to the Kelloggs’ place, where the commemorative garlands had all wilted.
Lola’s house was a mythical Arabian hollow in the rocks, better known as an Aladdin’s cave. I had never seen such an odd mix of artifacts. There were rooms-full of old correspondence between Lola’s father and the Catholic Church, correspondence hinting at some form of scandal which Father Kellogg was threatening to expose if he wasn’t promoted to bishop, a post he considered his by right. I skimmed the correspondence which had bounced between the parties, letters of increasing acrimony and bitterness.
The earlier correspondence was between Father Kellogg and his local diocese; but as the years passed, Kellogg clearly felt it necessary to raise the stakes: his later correspondence was with the Vatican and some shadowy organization called Dei Profundis. Much of the text was in Latin, which was a relief because it meant I could keep it from Como. The scandal seemed to be about the status of the Holy Virgin herself, although it was difficult to be sure, since the correspondence was couched in euphemistic terms, presumably to avoid the dangers of a leak inherent in plainer language. It was clear enough to my insightful mind, however, that the pillars of Kellogg’s argument were the possibility that Christ had a human father, and that the youth of the Blessed Virgin provided biblical legitimacy for a lower age of consent.
What dawned on me as I read the immense trail of corresponddence was the parallel with the death of Lola, there being a question of parentage and under-age sex in both.
I decided to sit on my findings, as goodness knew how many readers we might alienate if our investigations got entangled with the Holy See and some shadowy ecosystem of money-laundering Italian powerbrokers. The thought of what Barney might say made me break into a sweat.
I stuffed Father Kellogg’s letters into some plastic sacks and looked around the house for other leads.
It was in a filing cabinet labelled W-Z that I found it: a holographic will in Kellogg’s neat and distinctive hand. Although signed and dated, it was unwitnessed, which meant the probate lawyers would have a field day arguing for and against its admissibility, so most of the estate would be lost to their fees. The uncertainty about the validity of the will was not really relevant, but I mentioned it in the hope of lending the paragraph a much-needed air of legal credibility. I smoothed the document on the kitchen table to read it.
I, Solomon Nathaniel Obadiah Kellogg, being of sound mind and body, do bequeath all my worldly goods and chattels to my beloved wife Frances Dorothy Kellogg in the event she survives my death by a clear period of six weeks.
In the event Frances Dorothy Kellogg does not survive the six weeks following my death, then my entire estate shall be put into trust for the benefit of my legal daughter Lola Kellogg.
Subject to his decision, the trust shall be administered either by the Diocese of Clarkesville or by Lola Kellogg’s natural father, Elijah Bow.
Elijah Bow!!!
LESSON THIRTY-THREE
‘Herbert, which is more important, the beginning of a chapter or the end?’
‘They are equally important, Marco, although in different ways. At the end of a chapter you want to hit your reader with a knock-out plot twist or punchline if you can, leaving them reeling with surprise. At the start of the next chapter, however, you need to lure them into the ring from their corner. You will find the answer to almost everything in a boxing analogy, Marco.’
‘But Herbert, surely it is not possible to deliver a knock-out plot twist or punchline at the end of every chapter?’
‘You are right, Marco. It is an ideal to which you should aspire, although like all ideals it may be unattainable. In practice it is rare for an author to achieve a knock-out plot twist in more than one chapter out of every five. If you exceed that, you are doing well.’
‘I’ve just checked, Herbert, and I’ve had a knock-out plot twist or punchline at the end of nearly all of my chapters.’
‘That is truly superb, Marco. I always said you had greatness within you. Clearly you are starting to let it out.’
‘I’ve just had an idea, Herbert.’
‘What is that, Marco?’
‘How about I take any chapter that doesn’t finish with a knock-out plot twist, and simply merge it with the next. Then all of my chapters will end with a knock-out blow, and I will have attained the unattainable.’
‘But to do that you would have to edit what you have written. Great writers never go back, Marco.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
By the end of which, the plot resembles a corkscrew.
I ran outside holding Father Kellogg’s will. Where the hell was Como? I spotted him at the door of one of the farther houses along the quiet suburban street, which was a shock because twelve chapters ago I said the Kelloggs lived in an isolated house near a lake. Hoping the readers would consider that to be a deliberate act of mold-breaking, rather than a dumbass mistake, I jogged down the street to show Como the explosive evidence I had uncovered. As I approached, he made a polite gesture of farewell to the householder he had just interviewed. I blurted out the news:
“Como,” I panted, “Elijah Bow was Lola’s father! It’s all here.” I pointed at the will.
Como plucked the will from my hand and frowned as he read it. I stood breathing heavily from my run. His next gesture was a massive slap of triumph on my shoulder. It nearly knocked me sprawling into a flowerbed, but its impact was more emotional than physical. At last I had earned his comradeship and respect.
“Good work, Writer. We’ll make a cop out of you yet. Come on.”
We strode purposefully, like men with a new sense of purpose, to the Gran Torino.
“Where to now?” I said. I knew exactly what his answer would be.
“Where do you think?”
We left rubber along the street and turned right to head for Bow’s ranch.
As we drove, Como and I talked through the open leads in our mushrooming case. In no particular order, we had the following questions still to answer:
Was Scoobie McGee’s one of the nightsticks used in the attack on Bluther Cale?
Assuming Scoobie McGee had been one of Cale’s assailants, who was his accomplice?
How was Cale’s death linked to Lola’s?
What was Bow’s relationship to Herbert?
Who had called the police to trigger Herbert’s red-handed arrest?
What were Lola’s movements immediately before her death?
What was Chief McGee’s role in the conspiracy?
Who had been trying to frighten me off the case?
I was beginning to think my book about the Herbert Quarry affair might never get finished.
Bow wasn’t the least bit pleased to see us back in his study.
“Gentlemen, my patience is at an end. If this nuisance is not immediately stopped, it will not just be City Hall on your back, but the White House too. I have indulged your investigations for reasons of my own, but you are abusing my leniency.”
“What if we told you,” asked Como, “that we knew what those reasons are?”
For the first time Bow looked
discomposed. His eyes flitted between us.
“What do you mean, Lieutenant?”
Como leaned across Bow’s desk and placed the holographic will in front of the industrialist.
“I suggest you read that, Sir.”
Como stood with his hands behind his back as Bow read and re-read the document. At last Bow took off his spectacles and rested them on his desk. He rubbed the corners of his eyes.
“How many people know about this?” he asked.
“Only the three of us,” said Como. “We’ve no desire for anyone else to know, Mister Bow, but unless you cooperate fully with this investigation, we will have no choice but to bring it all out in court.”
Como’s words hung in the air. We let them do their work and waited for Bow to hit us with another dollop of blatant exposition.
“Very well. I will tell you all I know. I have admitted to you already that I lead a double life as a gay transvestite. You might wonder then why I, with all my wealth, have never taken advantage of modern medical techniques to change my gender completely. The answer is I have retained a deep-rooted desire for fatherhood, a desire which I thought would never find an opportunity for fulfilment, until a chance conversation sixteen years ago.
“In those days the Kelloggs had newly arrived from out of state. Father Kellogg had moved to the prosperous Clarkesville parish from another diocese, some say as a reward, others say as a bribe to end some longstanding dispute with his bishop. Whatever, the truth is long buried. All I know is that in spite of his popularity, and the flourishing state of his wealthy congregation, both he and his young wife harbored a deep sadness.
“One day I was sitting in Clarkesville Central Park when Mrs. Kellogg came by. I could see she had been crying. I was dressed as a woman but unobtrusively so, and I suppose I must have seemed a motherly figure to Father Kellogg’s young wife. She shared my bench and we got to speaking. Eventually, the emotions she had been bottling up came pouring out. She was desperate for a child.