Read from the beginning
Read Part 17
Parme had no particular problem with Captain William Allen, his immediate superior and the only other man in the building with as many years on the force as Parme had. That said, he had no particular love for the man either. He was adept at doing his job, which seemed to be mostly remaining under the radar, maintaining the morale of the men, as much as that was possible, and serving as the paperwork gatekeeper between the force on the ground in his precinct and the paper shufflers at division. It was all important work, but not what Parme considered real police work.
Which was not to say that what Parme did during his working hours was real police work, not these days at any rate. It used to be a real job, years ago when he still believed in the system, before his partner was killed. When he was a young man, police work was an important job to him. But those days were behind him now. In a way, he envied men like Captain Allen who had never known what the job was really supposed to be all about.
Back when Parme was cruising with Mike Hernandez, Miguel when he was off duty, he took his work very seriously. To serve and protect, whatever the cost. They were young and stupid and neither of them ever considered how high the cost could actually be. After Mike was killed, Parme never took another partner. Sure, the young detectives he mentored called him that, but Parme’s partner was long dead.
These days, Parme did a pretty good job of staying out from under the Captain’s feet. He felt he owed him that after the way he acted after Mike was shot and how he gave Parme time to recover, as much as that was possible, and then let him have the job he has now. It wasn’t real police work, not in Parme’s estimation, but it was important. He was teaching these kids how to stay alive, how to do the job without getting shot and maybe, if the stars lined up and the lawyers had a bad day, make a difference in the world. None of that would have been possible if Captain Allen hadn’t signed off on it.
The Captain also made sure that Parme got his first choice of cases, which allowed him to cherry pick the easy ones, the ones where the bad guy made so many mistakes that even the rookies could follow the trail and bring him in. It was important for the younger detectives to taste success early on. It was like holding a bloody rag to a bloodhound’s nose. Once they got the scent, they took to the job. Then, all he had to do was hold the leash firmly until they developed the kinds of habits that would keep them alive. Once that was done, he would turn them loose and pick up another rookie to run through the same paces.
When Parme pulled the paperwork on the Paula Kelly murder, it seemed like a perfect case for his current rookie. The crime scene was a nightmare for any normal person, but a dream for Wayne Singleton and his team. There was evidence everywhere. But now, weeks into the investigation, none of the evidence seemed to be pointing anywhere and people who somehow knew much more than they should about the case were showing up dead. This was not the kind of case to train a new detective on.
Parme had made the decision to kick the case back to White and Nauscott to handle and find something a bit more straightforward to work on with Gilbert. He had made an appointment with the Captain for later in the day to discuss it and so was surprised to get the call from Harriet, the rail thin woman who handled Allen’s front office. Parme was expected to appear at once. He would have argued but he didn’t want to rile up Harriet. People who underestimated that woman were never pleased with the outcome. It was a mistake Parme had only made once.
He stomped up the stairs to the second floor after grunting hello to Sargent Larsen at the front desk. Captain Allen’s office was right off the stairwell, but you couldn’t get to the glassed in inner office without making your way past Harriet in the outer one. Parme held his breath and pushed open the door.
Harriet was a battle axe, but her sharp edge was carefully concealed behind a model-pretty mask. She was beautiful in a 1980s Sharon Tiegs poster kind of way, only with a couple of decades of wear on it. Somehow, the wear made her more attractive. When she smiled, she could turn an angry paper pusher from division into a pussy cat begging for her attention. When she was provoked, which seemed to happen anytime anyone did anything that upset the delicate sensibilities of Captain Allen, her deadly blade made its appearance.
“Good morning, Harriet,” Parme said as he entered the outer office. He started to smile, which always took a bit of extra effort for Parme, when he caught a glimpse of the visitor already seated in Captain Allen’s office.
“What the hell!” Parme started for the inner office door, but suddenly Harriet was between him and the door knob. His hand was almost touching her left hip when she slapped it down. Parme’s frown started to turn into a snarl before the slender woman got up in his face.
“Shut it!” she hissed up at him. Even on her tip toes he was still a full head taller. He looked over her 80s style hairdo at the men in the inner office. “That man in there is a man of the cloth,” Harriet stated with a note of reverence in her voice.
“I know what he is,” Parme muttered.
Harriette continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Captain Allen is very respectful around the clergy. Everyone knows that. Don’t you embarrass him.”
Parme looked down at the little woman who had thrown herself between him and her superior as if she were the last line of defence against a dangerous enemy. He blinked at her. She stabbed a manicured finger up at him to punctuate her point.
“Are you gonna let me in or did he just want to see me through the glass?” Parme asked.
Harriette rolled her eyes, turned and opened the door. “Detective Parme to see you, Captain, as requested.”
She stood aside to let the old detective in. The Captain and Cardinal Mara stood to greet him.
Read Part 19
Monday, June 5, 2017
Monday, April 17, 2017
17. A Morning Dirve
Read from the beginning
Read Part 16
Parme had been at the diner earlier in the morning. Pat had dropped her Olds at the shop for an oil change the day before, so she rode in with the old detective. After dating him for nearly a year, she knew that he wasn’t much for talking before his coffee, so she just smiled ahead as they made their way across town to their respective workplaces.
It’s funny how things work out, she thought to herself. Before meeting Parme, she had spent years living in that gray place between anxiety and total panic. Her first husband had been long gone by the time her mother got sick, which, in hindsight, had been a blessing. He had never been a good provider and having to take care of both him and her mother would have pushed her over the edge.
Pat’s mother, Barbara, had worked at the diner for as long as her daughter could remember. She had started there right out of high school and was there when the police department’s new building went up across the street in ‘68. She met Pat’s father a couple of years later and married him, something she would spend the rest of her life warning her only daughter not to do.
“Cops don’t make good husbands,” she would say. “They may serve, but they can’t protect. They may say they do, but don’t you believe it!”
And she hadn’t. Despite the facts that she followed in her mother’s footsteps, starting at the diner before she was even out of high school, and then living in a near constant state of puppy love with the young police officers that frequented the diner, she had never dated one. Instead, she said yes to former classmate who became a successful real estate developer. She married him a year before the big recession hit that wiped him and half of the city’s builders out completely. He had never recovered.
She never really held it against him. Growing up without a father, she had no real example in her life of what a man should be. For many years afterward, she assumed that men were like her ex-husband: little boys; delicate creatures who acted tough until things got tough and then folded up and crawled away. No one she met in the diner convinced her otherwise, though in truth she knew them all only as “customers,” which kept them at a distance from which actual qualities could not be discerned.
Thankfully, Pat had not become pregnant during her short marriage, so she would not have a daughter of her own to warn about real estate developer suitors. Her ex-husband left the area a few years later and she never heard from him again. She was fine with that.
But living on her own, even without children, proved to be difficult and stressful. This surprised her. Stress was new to her and something she had never experienced at work. She could remember every item ordered for a table of 10 and get the order to the kitchen and then back to the right customer without writing it down. She could open the diner, handle the customers, keep the books, pay the taxes and close up at night without ever once worrying that she had missed an important step. But when it came to managing life beyond the diner, she faltered.
The city recovered slowly from the recession and the diner always seemed to bring in just enough to make it to the next pay period. Her pay was well below the poverty line but she never complained. It was her landlord or her car mechanic or her doctors who complained. There were always more bills to pay than paycheck to pay them with.
Her mother helped, as best she could, as did Paul Calloway, her dad’s old partner. Calloway was like an uncle to her growing up. Barbara treated him poorly, but he was often around when she was younger, bringing groceries or money to her mother and gifts to her on birthdays or Christmas. It wasn’t until many years later, when she learned about her father’s passing, that she learned why her mother disliked the man. He had retired from the force years ago.
But even with their support, her life was a constant race to stay ahead of the next collector who caught her scent. She wasn’t an extravagant person, just woefully underpaid. It was a condition she shared with most of the people living in the city. She accepted it, as she accepted most things in her life, as one more order she was called upon to fill and took it with her to the diner, the only place she felt any control over her life at all.
Then, her mother became ill and her world got darker for a long time. And then, she met Parme.
To look at the man, any sensible woman would see nothing worth salvaging and look elsewhere at once. Pat might have done that if she had seen him at all during the first few months he began having his breakfast at the diner, but she only saw him as another customer and settled in to serve him as best she could. She was always good at her job.
Over time, Parme’s conversation with his rookies started to make its way into her consciousness. She listened discretely as he lectured them, mentored them, scolded them and turned them into good detectives. He was the first father figure she had ever encountered, though she did not realize that she saw him that way. She fell in love with him. But love alone was not enough to overcome her mother’s warning, so she did nothing. It took another month for Parme to notice that she was paying more attention to him than his tips warranted. He came around slowly.
When he finally asked her out, it took a few moments for Pat to understand what he was suggesting. She opened her mouth to turn him down, feeling like her mother was watching her from the shadows of the afterlife, but stopped. She just looked at him for awhile, trying to figure out what she was feeling. When she noticed how tortured he looked waiting for her to respond, she couldn’t help but smile. She agreed and they saw a movie.
Afterward, when he dropped her back at the diner to pick up her car and make her way home, he leaned across the front seat to kiss her. Despite his unkempt exterior and the roughness with which he normally carried himself, his kiss was so gentle that it took her breath away. Later, she would think that he treated her like she was made of crystal and that he worried he might shatter her.
It was months before they went to bed together, where he treated her the same way. Afterward, he held her so tenderly that she felt like the most valuable thing in the world. When she looked up into his eyes, he confirmed it and it struck her so that she began to weep. Parme became flustered, worrying that he had hurt her, which made Pat smile but cry even harder. She tucked herself into his chest as tightly as she could and let the emotions run through her. He never stopped stroking her hair.
After that night, Pat decided that should Detective Walter Parme ever ask her to marry him she would say yes without hesitation. Her mother would be disappointed, but she knew she would never love another man like she loved him.
Since then, she had watched him bluster at the younger detectives he was training and learned to see through his angry exterior to the caring man underneath. She had no doubt that he could be as violent as any man, but she could see how much he cared about the younger men he was bringing into the law enforcement business. He was tough, but she could see how hard he was working to teach them to be good at their jobs, capable of both serving and protecting.
Parme parked at the diner and walked her to the door. She unlocked it with her key and he followed her inside. Manuel, the cook, was already in the kitchen, preparing for the breakfast crowd. Pat smiled over her shoulder at him as she moved behind the counter to start her day. Then his phone rang.
She knew he was unhappy by the way he held his mouth against his cell phone. He grunted something and then hung up, telling her he would see her later and asking her to tell his partner to wait for him here. He had a meeting with his captain, but would return soon. She watched him leave the diner and walk across the street, leaving his car in the diner’s lot.
She watched him make his way to the police station’s front entrance with a purpose and smiled. Parme was not happy and that meant that whomever he was meeting with was about to be unhappy. Still, she had no doubt that whatever he did or said, it would be for his co-workers own good.
Read Part 18
Read Part 16
Parme had been at the diner earlier in the morning. Pat had dropped her Olds at the shop for an oil change the day before, so she rode in with the old detective. After dating him for nearly a year, she knew that he wasn’t much for talking before his coffee, so she just smiled ahead as they made their way across town to their respective workplaces.
It’s funny how things work out, she thought to herself. Before meeting Parme, she had spent years living in that gray place between anxiety and total panic. Her first husband had been long gone by the time her mother got sick, which, in hindsight, had been a blessing. He had never been a good provider and having to take care of both him and her mother would have pushed her over the edge.
Pat’s mother, Barbara, had worked at the diner for as long as her daughter could remember. She had started there right out of high school and was there when the police department’s new building went up across the street in ‘68. She met Pat’s father a couple of years later and married him, something she would spend the rest of her life warning her only daughter not to do.
“Cops don’t make good husbands,” she would say. “They may serve, but they can’t protect. They may say they do, but don’t you believe it!”
And she hadn’t. Despite the facts that she followed in her mother’s footsteps, starting at the diner before she was even out of high school, and then living in a near constant state of puppy love with the young police officers that frequented the diner, she had never dated one. Instead, she said yes to former classmate who became a successful real estate developer. She married him a year before the big recession hit that wiped him and half of the city’s builders out completely. He had never recovered.
She never really held it against him. Growing up without a father, she had no real example in her life of what a man should be. For many years afterward, she assumed that men were like her ex-husband: little boys; delicate creatures who acted tough until things got tough and then folded up and crawled away. No one she met in the diner convinced her otherwise, though in truth she knew them all only as “customers,” which kept them at a distance from which actual qualities could not be discerned.
Thankfully, Pat had not become pregnant during her short marriage, so she would not have a daughter of her own to warn about real estate developer suitors. Her ex-husband left the area a few years later and she never heard from him again. She was fine with that.
But living on her own, even without children, proved to be difficult and stressful. This surprised her. Stress was new to her and something she had never experienced at work. She could remember every item ordered for a table of 10 and get the order to the kitchen and then back to the right customer without writing it down. She could open the diner, handle the customers, keep the books, pay the taxes and close up at night without ever once worrying that she had missed an important step. But when it came to managing life beyond the diner, she faltered.
The city recovered slowly from the recession and the diner always seemed to bring in just enough to make it to the next pay period. Her pay was well below the poverty line but she never complained. It was her landlord or her car mechanic or her doctors who complained. There were always more bills to pay than paycheck to pay them with.
Her mother helped, as best she could, as did Paul Calloway, her dad’s old partner. Calloway was like an uncle to her growing up. Barbara treated him poorly, but he was often around when she was younger, bringing groceries or money to her mother and gifts to her on birthdays or Christmas. It wasn’t until many years later, when she learned about her father’s passing, that she learned why her mother disliked the man. He had retired from the force years ago.
But even with their support, her life was a constant race to stay ahead of the next collector who caught her scent. She wasn’t an extravagant person, just woefully underpaid. It was a condition she shared with most of the people living in the city. She accepted it, as she accepted most things in her life, as one more order she was called upon to fill and took it with her to the diner, the only place she felt any control over her life at all.
Then, her mother became ill and her world got darker for a long time. And then, she met Parme.
To look at the man, any sensible woman would see nothing worth salvaging and look elsewhere at once. Pat might have done that if she had seen him at all during the first few months he began having his breakfast at the diner, but she only saw him as another customer and settled in to serve him as best she could. She was always good at her job.
Over time, Parme’s conversation with his rookies started to make its way into her consciousness. She listened discretely as he lectured them, mentored them, scolded them and turned them into good detectives. He was the first father figure she had ever encountered, though she did not realize that she saw him that way. She fell in love with him. But love alone was not enough to overcome her mother’s warning, so she did nothing. It took another month for Parme to notice that she was paying more attention to him than his tips warranted. He came around slowly.
When he finally asked her out, it took a few moments for Pat to understand what he was suggesting. She opened her mouth to turn him down, feeling like her mother was watching her from the shadows of the afterlife, but stopped. She just looked at him for awhile, trying to figure out what she was feeling. When she noticed how tortured he looked waiting for her to respond, she couldn’t help but smile. She agreed and they saw a movie.
Afterward, when he dropped her back at the diner to pick up her car and make her way home, he leaned across the front seat to kiss her. Despite his unkempt exterior and the roughness with which he normally carried himself, his kiss was so gentle that it took her breath away. Later, she would think that he treated her like she was made of crystal and that he worried he might shatter her.
It was months before they went to bed together, where he treated her the same way. Afterward, he held her so tenderly that she felt like the most valuable thing in the world. When she looked up into his eyes, he confirmed it and it struck her so that she began to weep. Parme became flustered, worrying that he had hurt her, which made Pat smile but cry even harder. She tucked herself into his chest as tightly as she could and let the emotions run through her. He never stopped stroking her hair.
After that night, Pat decided that should Detective Walter Parme ever ask her to marry him she would say yes without hesitation. Her mother would be disappointed, but she knew she would never love another man like she loved him.
Since then, she had watched him bluster at the younger detectives he was training and learned to see through his angry exterior to the caring man underneath. She had no doubt that he could be as violent as any man, but she could see how much he cared about the younger men he was bringing into the law enforcement business. He was tough, but she could see how hard he was working to teach them to be good at their jobs, capable of both serving and protecting.
Parme parked at the diner and walked her to the door. She unlocked it with her key and he followed her inside. Manuel, the cook, was already in the kitchen, preparing for the breakfast crowd. Pat smiled over her shoulder at him as she moved behind the counter to start her day. Then his phone rang.
She knew he was unhappy by the way he held his mouth against his cell phone. He grunted something and then hung up, telling her he would see her later and asking her to tell his partner to wait for him here. He had a meeting with his captain, but would return soon. She watched him leave the diner and walk across the street, leaving his car in the diner’s lot.
She watched him make his way to the police station’s front entrance with a purpose and smiled. Parme was not happy and that meant that whomever he was meeting with was about to be unhappy. Still, she had no doubt that whatever he did or said, it would be for his co-workers own good.
Read Part 18
Monday, March 6, 2017
16. Another Breakfast Meeting
It took Gilbert a long time to fall asleep that night. His mind was working the case, of course, but it was also stuck on the most recent dead end. He couldn’t help but think that Eagan had been trying to tell them something. Something they had failed to grasp. Had it cost the man his life? Had they cost Eagan his life?
As for the case, they now had a new prime suspect who, if it was even possible, seemed even less likely than Eagan to have committed the crimes. Having checked his e-mail before laying down for the night, Gilbert knew that Singleton’s crew had found the crowbar in Boyle’s apartment. There was little doubt that it was the murder weapon.
So, that was it? Boyle was the killer?
It would mean that around 7pm on Friday night three weeks past, Boyle had abducted Paula Kelly as she left a high school football game, took her to an equipment outbuilding not far from where more than 300 students, their parents and teachers were watching the last minutes of the game and brutally murdered her. He then left without being seen.
Somehow, his neighbor had stumbled across the truth and worked it into his own neurosis. He hadn’t been capable of accepting the truth consciously, she he buried it deep. It emerged in the form of sleep-writing the victim’s name in the dark basement in the middle of the night on a piece of parchment stuck into what appeared to be a very old book bearing an inscription on its leather cover so interesting that it attracted two Catholic priests from half a country away to investigate.
Gilbert shook his head and shut his eyes tightly for anything that would make any of this make sense. He continued to work down through his analysis.
Then, Boyle had wandered down the hall and killed Eagan, set a fire to alert the authorities and then waited in his apartment, covered in the victim’s blood until the authorities arrived, at which time he began asserting his innocence and claimed to remember nothing.
No prosecutor was going to touch this case. Even if Boyle’s DNA was all over Eagan’s apartment it just didn’t add up. Now, if Boyle’s DNA was a match for that found in the school’s shed, that might make a difference.
Gilbert expected Parme to lead the way into a full investigation of Boyle’s life. If they could find some other incriminating evidence it might help create a case that looked like it held water. He resolved to be early for breakfast in the morning and finally fell asleep.
When Gilbert walked into the cafe the next morning a steaming cup of coffee was waiting for him in the booth. Parme’s side of the booth was empty. He checked his watch.
“You’re not that early,” Pat said from behind the counter. “You want eggs?”
As Gilbert approached the booth he noticed that Pat was still wearing the wrong name tag. He wanted to ask her about it, but he more pressing matters. “You haven’t heard from my partner, have you?” he asked.
“I have,” she smiled. “Sit down, I’ll get Manuel to start you some eggs.”
Gilbert looked back to the door and then through the plate glass window to the street and the stone and steel police station beyond it. He tried to see if Parme’s car was in the lot. He hadn’t event thought to look for it after he had parked and then walked across the street to the diner.
“He told me to tell you to wait for him here,” Pat said. “Now, do you want those eggs?”
Parme had never missed breakfast. It was the cornerstone of his new detective training program. Something was wrong. He turned back to Pat.
“Keep the coffee warm for me, will you? I’m going to run over and check on him.”
Pat opened her mouth to say something but Gilbert was already moving toward the door. He stopped in his tracks when Father Miller walked through it.
So, that was it? Boyle was the killer?
It would mean that around 7pm on Friday night three weeks past, Boyle had abducted Paula Kelly as she left a high school football game, took her to an equipment outbuilding not far from where more than 300 students, their parents and teachers were watching the last minutes of the game and brutally murdered her. He then left without being seen.
Somehow, his neighbor had stumbled across the truth and worked it into his own neurosis. He hadn’t been capable of accepting the truth consciously, she he buried it deep. It emerged in the form of sleep-writing the victim’s name in the dark basement in the middle of the night on a piece of parchment stuck into what appeared to be a very old book bearing an inscription on its leather cover so interesting that it attracted two Catholic priests from half a country away to investigate.
Gilbert shook his head and shut his eyes tightly for anything that would make any of this make sense. He continued to work down through his analysis.
Then, Boyle had wandered down the hall and killed Eagan, set a fire to alert the authorities and then waited in his apartment, covered in the victim’s blood until the authorities arrived, at which time he began asserting his innocence and claimed to remember nothing.
No prosecutor was going to touch this case. Even if Boyle’s DNA was all over Eagan’s apartment it just didn’t add up. Now, if Boyle’s DNA was a match for that found in the school’s shed, that might make a difference.
Gilbert expected Parme to lead the way into a full investigation of Boyle’s life. If they could find some other incriminating evidence it might help create a case that looked like it held water. He resolved to be early for breakfast in the morning and finally fell asleep.
--
When Gilbert walked into the cafe the next morning a steaming cup of coffee was waiting for him in the booth. Parme’s side of the booth was empty. He checked his watch.
“You’re not that early,” Pat said from behind the counter. “You want eggs?”
As Gilbert approached the booth he noticed that Pat was still wearing the wrong name tag. He wanted to ask her about it, but he more pressing matters. “You haven’t heard from my partner, have you?” he asked.
“I have,” she smiled. “Sit down, I’ll get Manuel to start you some eggs.”
Gilbert looked back to the door and then through the plate glass window to the street and the stone and steel police station beyond it. He tried to see if Parme’s car was in the lot. He hadn’t event thought to look for it after he had parked and then walked across the street to the diner.
“He told me to tell you to wait for him here,” Pat said. “Now, do you want those eggs?”
Parme had never missed breakfast. It was the cornerstone of his new detective training program. Something was wrong. He turned back to Pat.
“Keep the coffee warm for me, will you? I’m going to run over and check on him.”
Pat opened her mouth to say something but Gilbert was already moving toward the door. He stopped in his tracks when Father Miller walked through it.
Monday, February 20, 2017
15. Unwelcome Guests
Read from the beginning
Read Part 14
Parme and Singleton made room in the hallway so the two uniformed officers could escort Mark Boyle past Eagan’s apartment and on down the hallway toward the stairwell. Gilbert caught a glimpse as they passed by and it looked like the suspect wasn’t doing a very good job of keeping up with his escort. He could hear Boyle becoming increasingly agitated the further he was taken from his own apartment. His cries and complaints were abruptly cut off by the slamming of the stairwell door.
“Wayne, make sure your boys get some good shots of that design on the ceiling,” Parme said before turning to another uniformed officer in the hallway. “Canvas the building. Find out if anyone saw or heard anything. And keep everyone out of that apartment,” he said, pointing to Boyle’s door.
He turned back to Singleton. “I guess we’ll need your boys in there next. It looks like this is going to be a long night.”
Singleton smiled, but didn’t reply. He just started giving orders to his technicians.
“And keep an eye out for any blood-covered blunt objects,” Parme deadpanned.
Gilbert was still studying the ceiling and trying to figure out how a person could have created that pattern. It was too large to fit on the ceiling so some of the marks on the outside of the main circle extended down the walls. It was almost a perfect a match for the mark on the leather journal they had found downstairs. But there were no brush strokes of any kind. It appeared to have just splattered there, which was impossible.
Parme turned to Gilbert. “Good job, Rookie.”
The younger detective was caught off guard and jolted out of his reverie, both by having his thought interrupted in Parme’s typical style -- Gilbert realized that his partner tended to speak at you instead of to you -- but also by the fact that he had just been praised. “For what?” he asked.
“For realizing that Eagan had an accomplice.” Gilbert still had a confused look on his face so Parme continued. “The second chair in the basement. You asked who the second chair was for.”
“You heard that? I thought you were gone.”
“I hear everything you say, Rookie. Remember that.” Gilbert thought he caught the shadow of a smile on the older man’s face. Then his cell phone rang.
“Gilbert,” he announced into the handset. He listened for a moment, made a few replies and hung up. When he looked up, Parme was standing closer to him.
“Hot date?” he asked slowly.
“Actually, that was Father Miller, the friend…”
“I know who he is,” Parme grunted. “Did he know anything of value?”
“Not yet, but his plane just landed and he wants to help.”
Parme looked at the younger man for a moment before replying. “Landed where? Help with what?”
“Corporate Charter Services,” Gilbert replied. “Out at the airport. He thinks he might be able to help with the case.”
“Unless you’re in bad need of confession, you don’t need a priest’s help. And it’s against department regs to share any information about an open case without approval anyway. And we don’t have approval. So, tell him to fly home.”
Gilbert grimaced. “He said he flew all the way from Boston just to see me. I should at least see him.”
Parme stared at his partner and thought this over for a moment. About the time Gilbert opened up his mouth to make another argument, Parme answered. “Fine. We’ll both go see him.” Without another word the older detective headed for the exit.
Singleton was in the hallway outside of Boyle’s apartment, supervising some techs as they moved lights and cases of equipment inside. “You guys leaving?” he called down the hallway. “It’s still early.”
Gilbert look at his watch. It read 10:45 PM.
“Good night, Wayne,” Parme said over his shoulder without looking back.
Once they got outside, Parme headed straight for his car. He said over his shoulder, without looking back at his partner, “Follow me.”
Gilbert made his way carefully through the snow the city plows had piled up against the curb to his own Crown Vic and started it up. Parme had already left the curb so Gilbert gunned it to keep up.
The ride to the airport took about 30 minutes. It took another 5 minutes or so to navigate around the main terminal building to the private terminals. On the ride, Gilbert thought about the strange turn of events. He was having trouble making it all fit together.
Eagan wasn’t their killer. The DNA evidence had ruled him out. He was afraid to go home and it appeared that he had reason to be afraid. What was left of him had been shoveled into a body bag. All except the blood and plasma that had become part of some kind of gruesome art project on his apartment ceiling.
The artwork was completely indecipherable. But what about the other facts?
Someone had been waiting for Eagan to return home. Either in his apartment or outside, though probably inside or he would have seen them and fled. The killer let him get into his apartment and then beat him to death with a blunt instrument. Then, for some reason, the murderer set the victim’s body on fire, setting off the fire alarms in the process and alerting the authorities.
Once the authorities arrived, a man stumbled out of the apartment down the hall covered in blood. If it was Eagan’s blood, this case was closed. Or was it?
If Eagan had an accomplice and that’s who he was afraid of and if that accomplice lived down the hall from him, why did he go home at all? Why didn’t he just tell the authorities and have Boyle arrested?
If Boyle did it, why didn’t he run? And if he was going to stay, why call attention to the murder with a fire in the building? And if he was going to stay and call the authorities to the scene, why stumble out into the hallway covered in blood? In his experience, there were no criminals this stupid.
The key had to be in the image on the ceiling and his old friend Father Miller, who had gone to the trouble of flying in from halfway across the country to see him, must have information to share.
Gilbert followed Parme into the airport and then around to the private aviation section. There was a single private jet parked outside the big building marked Corporate Charter Services. The office was a small metal box that seemed bolted onto the side of a large hanger. The jet bore no distinctive markings.
Gilbert parked and stepped out to join Parme, who was already standing by his car and looking out at the jet. It was big and expensive looking, but other than that there was nothing Gilbert could discern from it. The older detective didn’t remark on the aircraft, just glanced over at his partner. Gilbert just shrugged.
Double glass doors on one end of the building led into a comfortable lobby, made to appeal to a corporate clientele. A long counter was situated along the wall on the right and at the end of it another set of glass doors led further into the building. Only a hallway was visible through the glass doors, with the same industrial carpeting on the floors and framed certificates on the white walls. The rest of the lobby was appointed comfortably enough, with couches, chairs and coffee tables one would expect to see in the waiting room of any mid-tier corporate office.
The room was empty at this late hour, save for two priests who shared one of the couches farthest from the entrance and who stood as soon as the detectives entered. One was younger and stood a head taller than the other, dressed all in black save for the small white Roman collar at his heck. The other was older and dressed in long black jacket that looked more like a cape, lined with a very dark red material so dark that it seemed almost black. Something about the cut of his clothing didn’t look domestic.
The younger man smiled as soon as he caught Gilbert’s eye and moved quickly to close the distance between them. Gilbert extended his hand but was instead embraced by the smiling priest. He was surprised by the warmth of the embrace. Fr. Miller broke it to look into this friend’s eyes.
“It’s good to see you, Rob,” he smiled. “It really is.”
Fr. Miller’s companion had come up on his shoulder and so the priest made a half turn to make the introductions. “May I introduce His Eminence Armando Cardinal Mara of The Vatican.”
“It is good to meet you, Detective Gilbert,” Mara said. “And this must be your partner, Detective Parme, is it?” He gave it an Italian pronunciation so that it sounded like “Parm-ay.”
Parme stuck out a thick hand, which the Cardinal shook without hesitation. “Glad to have met you. We can’t discuss the case with you. If you had told us you were coming, we could have saved you the trip.”
Gilbert and Fr. Miller locked eyes but neither moved. Mara just smiled at Parme. “Of course,” he replied. “We would not expect you to discuss your case with us, however we understand you have a document in need of translation.”
“Our people have looked at it and judged it to be gibberish that is not related to the case,” Parme said.
“If it’s not related to the case, then there should be no harm in having it examined,” Mara answered in a calm voice. “I assure you, we have experts in the Church who can tell you with certainty…”
“No, thank you,” Parme said. “I’m afraid it’s still evidence in our ongoing investigation. It was good meeting you both. Enjoy your stay.” He turned to Gilbert and said, “We don’t discuss open cases. See you in the morning.” He left the building.
The three men watched him go and then Gilbert turned to the priests. “I’m so sorry…”
Mara took his arm. “It’s fine. He’d doing his job. A good man does his job. Come, sit with us a moment.” He led him to the seating area and sat down in a chair across from the sofa. He motioned to the sofa. Gilbert sat down and Fr. Miller sat beside him.
“Wayne, make sure your boys get some good shots of that design on the ceiling,” Parme said before turning to another uniformed officer in the hallway. “Canvas the building. Find out if anyone saw or heard anything. And keep everyone out of that apartment,” he said, pointing to Boyle’s door.
He turned back to Singleton. “I guess we’ll need your boys in there next. It looks like this is going to be a long night.”
Singleton smiled, but didn’t reply. He just started giving orders to his technicians.
“And keep an eye out for any blood-covered blunt objects,” Parme deadpanned.
Gilbert was still studying the ceiling and trying to figure out how a person could have created that pattern. It was too large to fit on the ceiling so some of the marks on the outside of the main circle extended down the walls. It was almost a perfect a match for the mark on the leather journal they had found downstairs. But there were no brush strokes of any kind. It appeared to have just splattered there, which was impossible.
Parme turned to Gilbert. “Good job, Rookie.”
The younger detective was caught off guard and jolted out of his reverie, both by having his thought interrupted in Parme’s typical style -- Gilbert realized that his partner tended to speak at you instead of to you -- but also by the fact that he had just been praised. “For what?” he asked.
“For realizing that Eagan had an accomplice.” Gilbert still had a confused look on his face so Parme continued. “The second chair in the basement. You asked who the second chair was for.”
“You heard that? I thought you were gone.”
“I hear everything you say, Rookie. Remember that.” Gilbert thought he caught the shadow of a smile on the older man’s face. Then his cell phone rang.
“Gilbert,” he announced into the handset. He listened for a moment, made a few replies and hung up. When he looked up, Parme was standing closer to him.
“Hot date?” he asked slowly.
“Actually, that was Father Miller, the friend…”
“I know who he is,” Parme grunted. “Did he know anything of value?”
“Not yet, but his plane just landed and he wants to help.”
Parme looked at the younger man for a moment before replying. “Landed where? Help with what?”
“Corporate Charter Services,” Gilbert replied. “Out at the airport. He thinks he might be able to help with the case.”
“Unless you’re in bad need of confession, you don’t need a priest’s help. And it’s against department regs to share any information about an open case without approval anyway. And we don’t have approval. So, tell him to fly home.”
Gilbert grimaced. “He said he flew all the way from Boston just to see me. I should at least see him.”
Parme stared at his partner and thought this over for a moment. About the time Gilbert opened up his mouth to make another argument, Parme answered. “Fine. We’ll both go see him.” Without another word the older detective headed for the exit.
Singleton was in the hallway outside of Boyle’s apartment, supervising some techs as they moved lights and cases of equipment inside. “You guys leaving?” he called down the hallway. “It’s still early.”
Gilbert look at his watch. It read 10:45 PM.
“Good night, Wayne,” Parme said over his shoulder without looking back.
Once they got outside, Parme headed straight for his car. He said over his shoulder, without looking back at his partner, “Follow me.”
Gilbert made his way carefully through the snow the city plows had piled up against the curb to his own Crown Vic and started it up. Parme had already left the curb so Gilbert gunned it to keep up.
The ride to the airport took about 30 minutes. It took another 5 minutes or so to navigate around the main terminal building to the private terminals. On the ride, Gilbert thought about the strange turn of events. He was having trouble making it all fit together.
Eagan wasn’t their killer. The DNA evidence had ruled him out. He was afraid to go home and it appeared that he had reason to be afraid. What was left of him had been shoveled into a body bag. All except the blood and plasma that had become part of some kind of gruesome art project on his apartment ceiling.
The artwork was completely indecipherable. But what about the other facts?
Someone had been waiting for Eagan to return home. Either in his apartment or outside, though probably inside or he would have seen them and fled. The killer let him get into his apartment and then beat him to death with a blunt instrument. Then, for some reason, the murderer set the victim’s body on fire, setting off the fire alarms in the process and alerting the authorities.
Once the authorities arrived, a man stumbled out of the apartment down the hall covered in blood. If it was Eagan’s blood, this case was closed. Or was it?
If Eagan had an accomplice and that’s who he was afraid of and if that accomplice lived down the hall from him, why did he go home at all? Why didn’t he just tell the authorities and have Boyle arrested?
If Boyle did it, why didn’t he run? And if he was going to stay, why call attention to the murder with a fire in the building? And if he was going to stay and call the authorities to the scene, why stumble out into the hallway covered in blood? In his experience, there were no criminals this stupid.
The key had to be in the image on the ceiling and his old friend Father Miller, who had gone to the trouble of flying in from halfway across the country to see him, must have information to share.
Gilbert followed Parme into the airport and then around to the private aviation section. There was a single private jet parked outside the big building marked Corporate Charter Services. The office was a small metal box that seemed bolted onto the side of a large hanger. The jet bore no distinctive markings.
Gilbert parked and stepped out to join Parme, who was already standing by his car and looking out at the jet. It was big and expensive looking, but other than that there was nothing Gilbert could discern from it. The older detective didn’t remark on the aircraft, just glanced over at his partner. Gilbert just shrugged.
Double glass doors on one end of the building led into a comfortable lobby, made to appeal to a corporate clientele. A long counter was situated along the wall on the right and at the end of it another set of glass doors led further into the building. Only a hallway was visible through the glass doors, with the same industrial carpeting on the floors and framed certificates on the white walls. The rest of the lobby was appointed comfortably enough, with couches, chairs and coffee tables one would expect to see in the waiting room of any mid-tier corporate office.
The room was empty at this late hour, save for two priests who shared one of the couches farthest from the entrance and who stood as soon as the detectives entered. One was younger and stood a head taller than the other, dressed all in black save for the small white Roman collar at his heck. The other was older and dressed in long black jacket that looked more like a cape, lined with a very dark red material so dark that it seemed almost black. Something about the cut of his clothing didn’t look domestic.
The younger man smiled as soon as he caught Gilbert’s eye and moved quickly to close the distance between them. Gilbert extended his hand but was instead embraced by the smiling priest. He was surprised by the warmth of the embrace. Fr. Miller broke it to look into this friend’s eyes.
“It’s good to see you, Rob,” he smiled. “It really is.”
Fr. Miller’s companion had come up on his shoulder and so the priest made a half turn to make the introductions. “May I introduce His Eminence Armando Cardinal Mara of The Vatican.”
“It is good to meet you, Detective Gilbert,” Mara said. “And this must be your partner, Detective Parme, is it?” He gave it an Italian pronunciation so that it sounded like “Parm-ay.”
Parme stuck out a thick hand, which the Cardinal shook without hesitation. “Glad to have met you. We can’t discuss the case with you. If you had told us you were coming, we could have saved you the trip.”
Gilbert and Fr. Miller locked eyes but neither moved. Mara just smiled at Parme. “Of course,” he replied. “We would not expect you to discuss your case with us, however we understand you have a document in need of translation.”
“Our people have looked at it and judged it to be gibberish that is not related to the case,” Parme said.
“If it’s not related to the case, then there should be no harm in having it examined,” Mara answered in a calm voice. “I assure you, we have experts in the Church who can tell you with certainty…”
“No, thank you,” Parme said. “I’m afraid it’s still evidence in our ongoing investigation. It was good meeting you both. Enjoy your stay.” He turned to Gilbert and said, “We don’t discuss open cases. See you in the morning.” He left the building.
The three men watched him go and then Gilbert turned to the priests. “I’m so sorry…”
Mara took his arm. “It’s fine. He’d doing his job. A good man does his job. Come, sit with us a moment.” He led him to the seating area and sat down in a chair across from the sofa. He motioned to the sofa. Gilbert sat down and Fr. Miller sat beside him.
Mara leaned toward Gilbert. “We have studied the photographs you sent Fr. Miller. We have reason to believe that these markings are related to early Church writings. We would be very interesting in seeing the journal. We could review it in your presence. There would be no reason to remove it from your possession.”
Gilbert shook his head. “I’m afraid that would be very difficult, Cardinal Mara. I don’t have the authority to grant what you ask.”
Mara leaned back. “I understand, of course. Tell me, detective. Were there numbers written in this journal?”
Gilbert thought back and then shook his head. “I didn’t see any numbers. Just strings of characters. Although I guess some of those characters could have been numbers in a language I don’t know.”
“But none of the characters were arranged in columns. It wasn’t a ledger,” Mara suggested.
“No, I don’t think so,” Gilbert replied.
Mara glanced over at Fr. Miller, who met his gaze. Mara rose.
“It’s late. We shouldn’t keep you. Thank you for coming out to meet with us,” Mara extended his hand. Gilbert shook it, then turned to his friend.
“How long will you stay? I’m really very interested in anything you can tell me about the symbol on the book. Despite what my partner says, I can’t help but think it’s related to our case,” Gilbert said. “Besides,” he said turning to Fr. Miller. “I really would like some time to visit with you.”
Mara answered, “We’ll be in town for a few days. You two will have time to catch up.”
Both men smiled. “How about lunch tomorrow?” Gilbert suggested. They exchanged numbers and said goodnight. When the detective had left the building, the two priests sat down.
“If it’s not a ledger, then it won’t have anything to do with the Church finances,” Fr. Miller said. “I knew he wasn’t investigating us.”
Gilbert shook his head. “I’m afraid that would be very difficult, Cardinal Mara. I don’t have the authority to grant what you ask.”
Mara leaned back. “I understand, of course. Tell me, detective. Were there numbers written in this journal?”
Gilbert thought back and then shook his head. “I didn’t see any numbers. Just strings of characters. Although I guess some of those characters could have been numbers in a language I don’t know.”
“But none of the characters were arranged in columns. It wasn’t a ledger,” Mara suggested.
“No, I don’t think so,” Gilbert replied.
Mara glanced over at Fr. Miller, who met his gaze. Mara rose.
“It’s late. We shouldn’t keep you. Thank you for coming out to meet with us,” Mara extended his hand. Gilbert shook it, then turned to his friend.
“How long will you stay? I’m really very interested in anything you can tell me about the symbol on the book. Despite what my partner says, I can’t help but think it’s related to our case,” Gilbert said. “Besides,” he said turning to Fr. Miller. “I really would like some time to visit with you.”
Mara answered, “We’ll be in town for a few days. You two will have time to catch up.”
Both men smiled. “How about lunch tomorrow?” Gilbert suggested. They exchanged numbers and said goodnight. When the detective had left the building, the two priests sat down.
“If it’s not a ledger, then it won’t have anything to do with the Church finances,” Fr. Miller said. “I knew he wasn’t investigating us.”
“And you were right. He has no idea what he is investigating,” Mara said and turned to study the doors that Gilbert had just passed through. “But it’s more dangerous than he knows.”
Read Part 16
Read Part 16
Sunday, January 29, 2017
14. Another Murder Scene
Read from the beginning
Read Part 13
Gilbert surveyed the cheap formica countertop that took up most of the tiny kitchen in his rented apartment and the ingredients he had lined up carefully along its fake green-veined granite surface. Tomatoes, red onion, three kinds of peppers, blue cheese crumbles and the cheap bag of salad greens that would form the base for his dinner. He would have liked to have had a jar of sun dried tomatoes, but he was out and hadn’t been to the grocery. He would have to do with what he had.
He didn’t really care, from a culinary perspective. All of his salads seemed to taste pretty much the same, which he didn’t mind. It wasn’t the taste of a salad that attracted him to it, nor its lack of weight inducing calories. He thought of it as art. He had found over the many years he had lived on his own, that if you combined all of the right ingredients, you couldn’t help but have a satisfying outcome when it comes to a salad.
As it turned out, that rule didn’t always hold when it came to other forms of cooking because heat created its own problems. Even with all of the right ingredients, a mistake over the fire would render the result less than satisfying. In some cases, downright catastrophic. Salads, on the other hand, required no heat and had therefore become his culinary art form of choice. He was just dropping some sliced banana peppers into the salad bowl when his phone rang.
By the time he got to Eagan’s apartment building, the fire department’s trucks were already rolling away. He could see the crime tech’s bright lights shining from the window off the 4th floor corridor. He shook his head as he trotted up the front steps to the apartment building’s front door.
He couldn’t believe that Parme was right. He could see his partner waiting for him through the glass front door. They had cut Eagan loose and he had killed someone in his own building. He felt like a fool for falling for his act. As soon as he opened the door, the smoke hit his nostrils and he came up short.
“I didn’t know you smoked?” Gilbert said. “You stink!”
“It’s not me. And it’s about time you decided to come to work, Rookie. Come on,” Parme said as he turned to the stairwell. Gilbert fell in line behind him.
“The fire department responded to a building fire on the 4th floor. It was contained. Singleton said they smothered it with a blanket,” Parme said.
“Oh, Singleton’s here? I like him,” Gilbert replied.
“Great. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to hear it,” Parme said. “Where else would he be?”
“I can’t believe you were right about Eagan,” Gilbert said. “I guess he really was crazy. We never should have let him go.”
“For the record,” the older man said as they passed the third floor doorway and continued on up toward the fourth, “the lab is very rarely wrong. It’s not our job to second guess them, so the department did nothing wrong by releasing him.”
“Who is the victim?” Gilbert asked.
“Don’t know yet,” Gilbert said as they reached the fourth floor landing. “I hope it’s not another kid.” As soon as they opened the door to the fourth floor corridor, the stench hit them like a wall.
Wayne Singleton was standing in the door to Eagan’s apartment when the detectives arrived. He wore a mask and latex gloves. His shoes were covered with disposable booties.
“We’ve got to quit meeting like this,” he said through the mask.
“What have we got, Wayne?” Parme asked.
Singleton just nodded at the apartment’s open door and offered the detectives both masks. “You’ll want these. Have a look.”
As they neared the doorway, the smell got even worse, causing both men to slap the masks up over their mouths and noses. Gilbert’s eyes were starting to water. It was cold inside the room, suggesting that someone had opened up the windows in the back to disperse the smoke. It wasn’t working very well. Clouds of it still hung in the air, mostly in the vicinity of a pile of burned human remains just inside the doorway.
“Oh God,” Gilbert mumbled involuntarily. The floors and walls were covered with splattered blood, as was the furniture, except for a band on the bottom and back of the couch, where something must have been sitting and later removed. The stench was almost overwhelming. Parme donned the mask and started pulling on the latex gloves.
“Do you have an ID yet?” he asked.
“These remains belong to the resident, one Arlington C. Eagen. C for Conrad,” Singleton replied.
"Are you sure?" Parme asked.
Singleton nodded. "A victim of foul play, it would seem."
“Yeah?” Parme growled, though not unkindly. “What was your first clue? Shouldn’t you leave the detecting to the detectives?”
Singleton’s eyes suggested a smile over the mask. “Well, I suppose he could have set himself on fire, but probably not after bashing in his own skull and breaking most of his own bones with a blunt object.” He pointed to a large plastic bag that held a blood-stained crowbar.
Gilbert donned his mask and gloves and then asked a nearby tech for a pair of shoe covers. He looked at Singleton for permission and then, after receiving the nod, moved carefully into the room.
“We didn’t find a crowbar among Eagan’s possessions on our first visit, did we?” Parme asked.
Singleton just shook his head. “It seems to have been left by the victim’s assailant.”
Gilbert had only gone a couple of steps into the room. He stopped and turned around to face the lead tech and his partner. “Well, that doesn’t make any sense.”
Something about this scene was altogether wrong. People who committed murder, unless it was purely motivated by passion, did not create unnecessary problems for themselves. Gilbert couldn’t imagine anyone getting that passionately angry over Eagan and yet this scene was filled with problems.
The assailant cooks the body in the middle of his apartment, absolutely guaranteeing that the body will be found immediately when the fire department responds, and then leaves the murder weapon to be found by the police? Gilbert shook his head. Cooking always causes problems; who doesn’t know this?
“Why didn’t he just leave the body?” he asked his partner. “Why burn it? It would have been days before anyone noticed that Eagan was missing. We had written him off and wouldn’t be surveilling him. The killer could have drug the body to the basement and it would have been months before the weather warmed up and the smell led someone to the body. This doesn’t make any sense.”
“Crazy people seldom do, Rookie.” Parme said quietly. “Besides, no one outside of the department knew we had written him off."
"Even so," Gilbert shook his head.
"But it looks like you were right about one thing," Parme continued. "We should have been asking who that other chair in the basement was for. It appears that Eagan had an accomplice. Someone who knew he was talking to us. He won’t be talking to us anymore.”
Down the hallway, someone opened one of the apartment doors and stepped into the hallway. Parme turned to tell whomever it was to remain in their apartment and out of the way, but then stopped. Singleton turned, too, and both men stared at Mark Boyle as he stood in the center of the hallway, looking like he’d just awoken from a nap.
He saw them staring at him and then slowly raised his hands to see them covered in dried blood. “What the…,” Boyle shook his head as if trying to clear it and then blinked his eyes. That’s all the time it took for the two police officers stationed at the far end of the hallway to tackle him.
From inside the apartment, Gilbert heard the scuffle in the hallway. He head a man yelling all of the things criminals always yell when they are arrested, but he had other things on his mind. He stood in the center of the room, fishing around in his pockets for the copies he had made of the cover of Eagan’s book. He unfolded the image and then turned slowly around the room. The rational part of his brain was feeling stupid, but something made him search the blood stains for the pattern that was engraved into the leather journal.
Finally, he found what he was looking for. Parme and Singleton were no longer in the doorway, so he called over the closest member of Singleton’s team.
Ronnie Smith answered his summons, his eyes narrowed over his disposable face mask. Detectives were always asking questions at crimes scenes that the techs were in no position to answer. The information had to be carefully gathered, transported back to the lab and then tested and considered before any clues would be revealed or meaningful conclusions could be drawn. Cops always wanted quick answers and in his line of work there were never any quick answers. Anyone who offered one was bound to be wrong.
“Yes, detective?” he asked cautiously.
“Could any of these bloodstains have been painted on the walls?”
Smith shook his head. At least this was an easy one. “No,” he answered quickly and started to turn around.
“Then,” Gilbert said, placing a gloved hand on his shoulder, retarding his escape, “how did that get up there?” He pointed up at the ceiling.
Parme and Singleton returned to the doorway in time to hear his question and they, too, looked upward.
While the blood was splattered as expected on the floor, walls and furniture, on the ceiling it had created a circular pattern that matched, almost exactly, the printed image that Gilbert had in his hand. A couple of the techs began snapping photos of the image, but Smith just stood there, his open mouth pulling down the disposable mask.
“Why, that’s impossible,” he said.
“I was afraid you’d say that,” Gilbert replied to the technician, but he was looking at his partner.
Read Part 15.
Read Part 13
Gilbert surveyed the cheap formica countertop that took up most of the tiny kitchen in his rented apartment and the ingredients he had lined up carefully along its fake green-veined granite surface. Tomatoes, red onion, three kinds of peppers, blue cheese crumbles and the cheap bag of salad greens that would form the base for his dinner. He would have liked to have had a jar of sun dried tomatoes, but he was out and hadn’t been to the grocery. He would have to do with what he had.
He didn’t really care, from a culinary perspective. All of his salads seemed to taste pretty much the same, which he didn’t mind. It wasn’t the taste of a salad that attracted him to it, nor its lack of weight inducing calories. He thought of it as art. He had found over the many years he had lived on his own, that if you combined all of the right ingredients, you couldn’t help but have a satisfying outcome when it comes to a salad.
As it turned out, that rule didn’t always hold when it came to other forms of cooking because heat created its own problems. Even with all of the right ingredients, a mistake over the fire would render the result less than satisfying. In some cases, downright catastrophic. Salads, on the other hand, required no heat and had therefore become his culinary art form of choice. He was just dropping some sliced banana peppers into the salad bowl when his phone rang.
By the time he got to Eagan’s apartment building, the fire department’s trucks were already rolling away. He could see the crime tech’s bright lights shining from the window off the 4th floor corridor. He shook his head as he trotted up the front steps to the apartment building’s front door.
He couldn’t believe that Parme was right. He could see his partner waiting for him through the glass front door. They had cut Eagan loose and he had killed someone in his own building. He felt like a fool for falling for his act. As soon as he opened the door, the smoke hit his nostrils and he came up short.
“I didn’t know you smoked?” Gilbert said. “You stink!”
“It’s not me. And it’s about time you decided to come to work, Rookie. Come on,” Parme said as he turned to the stairwell. Gilbert fell in line behind him.
“The fire department responded to a building fire on the 4th floor. It was contained. Singleton said they smothered it with a blanket,” Parme said.
“Oh, Singleton’s here? I like him,” Gilbert replied.
“Great. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to hear it,” Parme said. “Where else would he be?”
“I can’t believe you were right about Eagan,” Gilbert said. “I guess he really was crazy. We never should have let him go.”
“For the record,” the older man said as they passed the third floor doorway and continued on up toward the fourth, “the lab is very rarely wrong. It’s not our job to second guess them, so the department did nothing wrong by releasing him.”
“Who is the victim?” Gilbert asked.
“Don’t know yet,” Gilbert said as they reached the fourth floor landing. “I hope it’s not another kid.” As soon as they opened the door to the fourth floor corridor, the stench hit them like a wall.
Wayne Singleton was standing in the door to Eagan’s apartment when the detectives arrived. He wore a mask and latex gloves. His shoes were covered with disposable booties.
“We’ve got to quit meeting like this,” he said through the mask.
“What have we got, Wayne?” Parme asked.
Singleton just nodded at the apartment’s open door and offered the detectives both masks. “You’ll want these. Have a look.”
As they neared the doorway, the smell got even worse, causing both men to slap the masks up over their mouths and noses. Gilbert’s eyes were starting to water. It was cold inside the room, suggesting that someone had opened up the windows in the back to disperse the smoke. It wasn’t working very well. Clouds of it still hung in the air, mostly in the vicinity of a pile of burned human remains just inside the doorway.
“Oh God,” Gilbert mumbled involuntarily. The floors and walls were covered with splattered blood, as was the furniture, except for a band on the bottom and back of the couch, where something must have been sitting and later removed. The stench was almost overwhelming. Parme donned the mask and started pulling on the latex gloves.
“Do you have an ID yet?” he asked.
“These remains belong to the resident, one Arlington C. Eagen. C for Conrad,” Singleton replied.
"Are you sure?" Parme asked.
Singleton nodded. "A victim of foul play, it would seem."
“Yeah?” Parme growled, though not unkindly. “What was your first clue? Shouldn’t you leave the detecting to the detectives?”
Singleton’s eyes suggested a smile over the mask. “Well, I suppose he could have set himself on fire, but probably not after bashing in his own skull and breaking most of his own bones with a blunt object.” He pointed to a large plastic bag that held a blood-stained crowbar.
Gilbert donned his mask and gloves and then asked a nearby tech for a pair of shoe covers. He looked at Singleton for permission and then, after receiving the nod, moved carefully into the room.
“We didn’t find a crowbar among Eagan’s possessions on our first visit, did we?” Parme asked.
Singleton just shook his head. “It seems to have been left by the victim’s assailant.”
Gilbert had only gone a couple of steps into the room. He stopped and turned around to face the lead tech and his partner. “Well, that doesn’t make any sense.”
Something about this scene was altogether wrong. People who committed murder, unless it was purely motivated by passion, did not create unnecessary problems for themselves. Gilbert couldn’t imagine anyone getting that passionately angry over Eagan and yet this scene was filled with problems.
The assailant cooks the body in the middle of his apartment, absolutely guaranteeing that the body will be found immediately when the fire department responds, and then leaves the murder weapon to be found by the police? Gilbert shook his head. Cooking always causes problems; who doesn’t know this?
“Why didn’t he just leave the body?” he asked his partner. “Why burn it? It would have been days before anyone noticed that Eagan was missing. We had written him off and wouldn’t be surveilling him. The killer could have drug the body to the basement and it would have been months before the weather warmed up and the smell led someone to the body. This doesn’t make any sense.”
“Crazy people seldom do, Rookie.” Parme said quietly. “Besides, no one outside of the department knew we had written him off."
"Even so," Gilbert shook his head.
"But it looks like you were right about one thing," Parme continued. "We should have been asking who that other chair in the basement was for. It appears that Eagan had an accomplice. Someone who knew he was talking to us. He won’t be talking to us anymore.”
Down the hallway, someone opened one of the apartment doors and stepped into the hallway. Parme turned to tell whomever it was to remain in their apartment and out of the way, but then stopped. Singleton turned, too, and both men stared at Mark Boyle as he stood in the center of the hallway, looking like he’d just awoken from a nap.
He saw them staring at him and then slowly raised his hands to see them covered in dried blood. “What the…,” Boyle shook his head as if trying to clear it and then blinked his eyes. That’s all the time it took for the two police officers stationed at the far end of the hallway to tackle him.
From inside the apartment, Gilbert heard the scuffle in the hallway. He head a man yelling all of the things criminals always yell when they are arrested, but he had other things on his mind. He stood in the center of the room, fishing around in his pockets for the copies he had made of the cover of Eagan’s book. He unfolded the image and then turned slowly around the room. The rational part of his brain was feeling stupid, but something made him search the blood stains for the pattern that was engraved into the leather journal.
Finally, he found what he was looking for. Parme and Singleton were no longer in the doorway, so he called over the closest member of Singleton’s team.
Ronnie Smith answered his summons, his eyes narrowed over his disposable face mask. Detectives were always asking questions at crimes scenes that the techs were in no position to answer. The information had to be carefully gathered, transported back to the lab and then tested and considered before any clues would be revealed or meaningful conclusions could be drawn. Cops always wanted quick answers and in his line of work there were never any quick answers. Anyone who offered one was bound to be wrong.
“Yes, detective?” he asked cautiously.
“Could any of these bloodstains have been painted on the walls?”
Smith shook his head. At least this was an easy one. “No,” he answered quickly and started to turn around.
“Then,” Gilbert said, placing a gloved hand on his shoulder, retarding his escape, “how did that get up there?” He pointed up at the ceiling.
Parme and Singleton returned to the doorway in time to hear his question and they, too, looked upward.
While the blood was splattered as expected on the floor, walls and furniture, on the ceiling it had created a circular pattern that matched, almost exactly, the printed image that Gilbert had in his hand. A couple of the techs began snapping photos of the image, but Smith just stood there, his open mouth pulling down the disposable mask.
“Why, that’s impossible,” he said.
“I was afraid you’d say that,” Gilbert replied to the technician, but he was looking at his partner.
Read Part 15.
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