The Jumper
As he drove past Coit tower, Jeff pounded on the wheel, cursing the traffic. How could it happen twice? First Jane, and now Carol. “What is wrong with you, boy?”
He pulled out the box that had been in his jacket pocket, and threw it onto the floor. He had been sure tonight was the right moment. Maybe it would be better if it got stolen, he thought, even though it had cost him two months’ salary. Maybe it was cursed. Maybe he was cursed, he thought with a bitter smile. He would have said he did not believe in such things, but the second time . . .
He had bought it for Jane, two years before, but she left before he could propose, walking out without explanation. Devastated, he did not want to give up on her, on them. He spent a month trying to get her back, finally understanding that she really was through with him when she threatened to get a restraining order. He had not called or tried to contact her since that phone call, but it took him six months even to begin to notice other available women around him.
When he did, he had several pleasant dates and casual relationships, but it was another year before he met Carol. She charmed him, seemed to fall in love with him, and moved into his apartment. His friends in the department had commented on how much happier he seemed. The relationship continued to grow, until finally he began to look at the little unreturned box, and thought about giving it to Carol. He still hesitated another month before setting up tonight, only to have, for the second time, his would-be fiancée walk out on him the very night he planned to propose to her.
Still in shock, Jeff drove into Chinatown, then to Clay Street near Grant Avenue, where his detective’s badge got him through. It was a relief to have something concrete to think about. Corpses were much easier to understand, and a dead body was just the thing to take his mind off his misery.
There was a body waiting for him here, and he took a deep breath as he approached. As horrifying and sad as it nearly always was, there was something fascinating about the violent end of human life, which drew him.
The body had already been marked and photographed, and someone from the coroner’s office was there to remove it, as soon as Jeff said it was okay.
The body looked strange, aside from the fact that it had fallen from the eighth floor. He frowned at it for a minute, trying to think of what was odd, before the assistant coroner said, “Looks like he was unconscious when he hit.”
That was what was strange. Even if it was a suicide, people usually changed their minds on the way down, and tried to fly or land on their feet, but this guy–old man, he saw from the white hair–looked like his arms had been relaxed and at his sides, moved around by the wind, but not by his muscles.
“Any ID?”
“Not here, but you should go up. Apartment 822. They tell me there’s another body, but, well, you’ll see.”
Puzzled, Jeff thanked him and went in. When the elevator door opened, he was surprised to see that it was full. Two paramedics came out with a stretcher, followed by a regular police officer. On the stretcher was a handsome young man with wide shoulders, unconscious, but handcuffed to the stretcher.
Jeff showed his ID to the cop, whom he didn’t know. “What gives?”
He shrugged. “This guy was on the floor in the apartment. It looked like he was all the way out, but then we found a heartbeat. We marked where he fell. Cap’n said to keep him cuffed until you brainy guys tell us what’s going on.”
“Okay, thanks.” Jeff took a few seconds to look over the young man. Aside from being almost indecently good-looking, with chiseled features, blond hair and cleft chin, he seemed unhurt, except for being unconscious.
“Any idea what his issue is?” he said to the medics.
“No,” said one, “but we can’t stay to talk about it.” He turned to his partner. “Come on.” As they started rolling away, he said to Jeff, “He’ll be at Saint Francis.”
“I gotta go,” said the cop, and followed them.
“You’ll stay with him?” said Jeff. His instincts were beginning to twitch. The Captain had been right. This was a strange one.
“Captain’s orders.” He touched his cap, said “Detective,” and headed outside.
Jeff rode the elevator up, wondering what was the deal with the young man.
When he got to the apartment, strange turned into bizarre. There was a body outline marked on the carpet, near the window. A small step ladder was folded, standing up against the wall across from the window.
The window was a wooden sash window, with the bottom half down. The top half, which could not be moved, no longer had glass. There was broken glass and some wood on the floor beneath the window, and some stains which looked like blood.
“It’s blood,” said the captain, coming over to shake Jeff’s hand. “I’m sorry to call you in, Jeff, but this one was too weird, and we really need your head on it.” He paused a second. “Was Carol upset?”
Jeff opened his mouth, and realized there wasn’t anything he could say that wouldn’t make things worse, and he couldn’t quite trust his voice not to give him away. He just swallowed, squeezed the captain’s arm and shook his head, then looked over the scene.
“So far, it doesn’t look all that strange, except for the unconscious young man. Was there any kind of note?”
The captain didn't say anything, just watching with eyes that missed nothing, but one of the others spoke up. "Yeah. Over here." He was just finished lifting fingerprints from an envelope sitting on a small writing desk. He picked up the envelope in his gloved hand. "In the event of my death," was on the front in block printing that looked shaky. “We already took a quick set of prints from the body, and from the young man in here. We’re pretty sure the only prints on this envelope belong to the old man, but we’ll confirm that. Ready to open it?”
“Go ahead,” said Jeff.
The officer picked up the letter opener that was beside the letter on the desk, and slit open the top of the envelope.
“I see one folded piece of lined paper,” he said. He pulled out and opened the paper, and held it for Jeff and the captain to read.
It appeared to be a rambling suicide note, citing aching 98-year-old bones, the government, the weather, and the loss of his fortune as the reasons for his wanting to “end it all.”
It was signed “Adolfus Crane,” with the current date, and that was all. There was no mention of anyone else.
Jeff opened his mouth, closed it, frowning, and looked over to where the young man had fallen.
“Yeah,” said the captain. “That’s the rub. It would be an open-and-shut suicide, except for the young man.”
“What was he doing here?” said Jeff. “You said the witnesses saw him holding Crane–if that’s who the man was–through the window?”
“Yes. Multiple witnesses saw that.”
“And they all saw him let go of the man.”
“That’s right. Nobody thought he pushed him, though.”
“This might be a head-scratcher, Cap.”
“Yeah, well, now you know why I called you in.” He put his hand on Jeff’s shoulder. “I hope Carol gets over it soon. Would it help if I called her?”
Jeff swallowed hard, and said, “No. Let’s get this stuff back to the precinct.”
Jeff didn’t get back to his empty apartment until well after midnight. As he brushed his teeth, Jeff noticed that even her toothbrush and shampoo were gone. She had lived with him for six months, and she had left nothing but a hollow ache.
He slept fitfully. Partly, he missed Carol, but mostly, his head was filled with the case.
In the morning, he did his exercises as he had for the past week, although he was looking forward to using two hands for his push-ups in a few more weeks. The captain had told him the night before that he could return to full-time active duty in the morning. Jeff suspected it was out of guilt for messing things up with Carol the night before.
There was no way Cap couldn’t have called him in, he thought as he sat down at his desk.
Three days later, Jeff had decided it was the strangest case he had ever seen. He was looking at the result of a suicide. Maybe, he thought with gritted teeth.
The old man was dead; there was no doubt about that. Mr. Crane had apparently been planning to jump from the ledge outside his apartment window. He had lost his fortune a couple of months before, and he died a pauper. No one benefitted from his death, including the young man in the apartment with him when he fell to his death.
The formerly wealthy recluse had moved to the small apartment after the sale of his estate to pay his debts. The suicide note and the sealed envelope only had his own fingerprints.
The broken window glass had Mr. Crane’s blood on it, and no fingerprints. Some latex gloves in the trash can had some of his blood on them, and were cut on the palm of one hand. The coroner confirmed, later that first day, that Mr. Crane had a matching cut on his right hand.
A caulk stripping tool, a screwdriver, and a hammer were found in the apartment, which apparently had been used to remove the upper window. They also had only Mr. Crane’s fingerprints.
All in all, it looked like an elaborate suicide, carefully prepared.
When the noise began in the street below, several residents across the street had opened windows, and two had used video cameras. These had come forward to the press first, but the police had managed to get raw copies.
Jeff looked at the recordings, and had interviewed some of the witnesses. Their statements agreed with what it looked like to
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