Deception

by Randy Alcorn

  “The letter’s not to Noel, smart guy. I’m betting it was to Melissa Glissan, which would make it over ten years old. It’s not signed, naturally. The professor’s love letters never were.”

  How had Noel gotten the letter? When Cherianne told Noel about the professor, had he searched Melissa’s things and found it? Had he confronted her with this letter?

  Had Noel gone through police academy and been groomed for detective work by Jack, anticipating that some day he’d avenge himself on William Palatine?

  In the bottom desk drawer, I found several disguises, including a beard and mustache. I have a few of these myself that I’ve used at stakeouts and tails.

  In the medicine cabinet I found an Advil bottle with a clear liquid inside. I opened it and smelled. Nothing. This needed to go to the lab.

  We confiscated these and a few other items, hoping they’d stand up in court. But even if they didn’t, they might convince the homicide detectives. Noel needed to be convicted by that jury of his peers.

  We left the required copy of the warrant and a receipt of all items taken, a total of thirty-six, next to the lamp on the card table.

  Looking over the place one last time before leaving, I noticed the edge of a file folder barely protruding under an ink blotter on the card table. I pulled it out. It was full of neatly cut newspaper clippings, all from the Tribune. There were a couple of cases I knew Jack and Noel had solved. But there were other cases, notably Professor Palatine, Paul Frederick, and Dr. Hedstrom. And the picture of Palatine’s body and the article by Mike Button.

  Though it confirmed my hypothesis, it stunned me to see them together like this. At the back of the file was one more clipping. Before pulling it out, I held my breath, expecting it to feature the story of Detective Brandon Phillips.

  It didn’t. Seeing it put a lump in my throat, only partly because my name was in the article.

  It concerned the murder of Jimmy Ross and the arrest of Lincoln Caldwell.

  60

  “There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colorless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.”

  SHERLOCK HOLMES, A STUDY IN SCARLET

  WHAT WOULD NOEL’S REACTION be when he saw the warrant and the receipt for all the items we’d removed from his apartment? He’d be angry and scared. Maybe he’d make a drastic move. Incriminate himself.

  I thought through step by step what a man might do who’d killed Palatine and perhaps three others. There was no turning back. If someone proved a serious threat to him, what would he do?

  What would I do if I were a murderer like him?

  I’d kill Ollie Chandler.

  He’d already tried twice.

  If he set his mind to it this time, what would keep him from succeeding?

  FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 10:00 A.M.

  Once again I sat at the Glissans’ in Jack’s favorite chair.

  “I can’t bear to think that the only two people I’ve ever really loved took their lives,” Linda said. “You know how that makes me feel? Death’s hard enough. Suicide’s unbearable.”

  I weighed my words. “Linda, I need to tell you some things. First, I know Donald’s last name was Meyer.”

  “Who told you?”

  “I flew to Dade County and met his mother.”

  “Really? What’s she like?”

  “There’s nothing I can say to do her justice.” My skin crawled. “I’ll tell you about her later. Right now I need you to tell me about Noel and the relationship you and Jack had with him.”

  She sighed and looked at her hands, clasped together on her lap. “Jack was the father figure, but Noel usually came up with the ideas. Even when Jack didn’t feel like it, Noel would talk him into golfing or fishing or a ball game … or going out to dinner, even when it messed up Jack’s plans.”

  “I thought Jack called the shots.”

  “Sometimes. But when Noel wants something, which is often, he knows how to get it. He could make Jack think it was his own idea. Noel was our bridge back to Melissa since they were so close. He became our Melissa substitute. We’d lost our daughter, but now we had an adopted son. We felt we owed him something for all the grief he’d been through, and his terrible family background. It was therapy for us to take care of him.”

  “I have some things to say that won’t be easy to hear,” I said.

  I told her more about Noel’s girlfriend dying in Florida, how he was a major suspect. She turned so pale I came over to sit close, lest she fall off the couch.

  “You brought up Melissa’s suicide,” I said. “I’ve been thinking maybe it wasn’t suicide.”

  Her eyes pleaded, one part wanting me to be wrong, another right. “You mean you think it was Noel?”

  Her eyes told me she’d been wondering the same thing.

  “May I ask you something?”

  He put His hand on her shoulder. “Always, Carly.”

  “Uncle Ollie has all these questions. He thinks You don’t care, that You look the other way from evil, that You could do more to deal with suffering.”

  “I hear that daily. Hourly. From people scattered across the Shadowlands.”

  “May I ask … what’s Your answer?”

  “Think, my child. Did My Father look the other way and abandon His creation? Did we ignore evil and let it forever reign victorious? Did I stay off in some far corner of the universe and keep My distance? Or did I come to the dark planet to face it head on?”

  She looked into His eyes, nodding.

  “This is My answer—you have seen it before.” He stretched out His hands, and she studied the scars and put her fingers on them. “Tell Me, My beloved. Do these look like the hands of a God who does not care?”

  Innocent people don’t labor to avert suspicion. It rarely occurs to the innocent that they’ll look guilty. It’s the guilty who think about whether they’ll look guilty.

  Why wouldn’t Noel want Jack and Linda to know he was in town before Melissa died? Only one reason made sense to me—because he thought she was going to die. And if she did, he didn’t want them to connect it to him.

  Noel was covering his tracks even before he killed her.

  But if Noel was the killer, why did he point out the missing picture that could ultimately incriminate him? And why plant his fingerprints on the gun? But above all, what about his ironclad alibi?

  Something was still wrong.

  It was time to visit the Do Drop Inn.

  FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 2:00 P.M.

  I sat on an uncomfortable stool at the Do Drop, legs dangling awkwardly. The bartender reminded me of Billy at Rosie’s, except more amiable. This was Barry, who called seven weeks ago to confirm Noel’s alibi, and who I’d bought a drink for twenty minutes ago, and since then two more. He’d already told me about his childhood growing up on the Yukon River, son of missionaries, hunting and fishing and not having to use indoor bathrooms and living the good life. If Barry the Bartender were getting married tomorrow, I was a lock for best man.

  Kendra had been changing my habits, so I tried Diet Coke. For me, booze was out of the question. Not only was I on duty, but the most important meeting of my life with all the detectives was scheduled for 3:30, ninety minutes away. I had to be sharp. Barry would have to drink for the both of us. So far he was doing his job.

  “Was Noel acting strange that night?” I asked.

  “Sure. He’d had too much to drink. Or he was mixing booze with speed or something.”

  “But he wasn’t supposed to be drinking at all. He was on call. You saw him drinking?”

  “Well … I was just passing out pitchers. They were pouring their own. I guess I assumed he was drinking, like everybody. He’s sort of an odd guy.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Like, I remember the night he first comes to the bar. He introduces himself to me. Real friendly. Tells me his name, that he’s a homicide detective. Like he’s trying to impress me, you know? Usual
ly I learn about guys as time goes on, but he wanted me to know who he was right away. I figured, maybe that’s just him. But from then on, he didn’t talk so much. I’d just say, ‘Hi, Noel,’ and he’d nod and hang out on the fringes, like.” Barry’s voice trailed off.

  “Like what?”

  “Like he was putting in time. The guys ask him about being a detective, and he tells a few good stories, but then clams up. Mostly keeps to himself.”

  “Where was he sitting that night of November 20?”

  “If I hadn’t been asked so many times back in November, I wouldn’t have a clue, but now that night’s carved in my brain. He was sitting right down there on the end, wearing his Dolphins jacket. Don’t see many of those around here.”

  Dolphins jacket? A gold nugget among the mud and rocks, and Ray and Manny and I hadn’t dug it up.

  “Anything unusual happen that night?”

  “One thing weird. Vicki, the barmaid, makes a comment to him about being careful not to trip her. He gives her a blank look.”

  “Why is that weird?”

  “Because two weeks earlier Noel accidentally swings his leg out, and Vicki spills a pitcher of beer on him. Not something you forget. So she reminds him, and he says, ‘Yeah, I forgot,’ or something. I think, How could you forget, man? His pants got soaked with beer. Everybody has a good laugh, including him. It was just two weeks before. I figured he’s so drunk he can’t remember. He says he has a bad headache. Maybe that’s it.”

  “You just noticed the strange behavior that night?”

  “That’s the thing. He’d been acting weird the night before too. He wasn’t himself. Looked, I don’t know … different. I’m here six nights a week, and he’s been maybe a two- or three-nights-a-week guy since he first started. Noel’s okay. Not in trouble, is he? Hope he doesn’t have a brain tumor or something.”

  Barry the bartender had said, “He wasn’t himself.” Maybe literally.

  Was it possible Noel had a look-alike stand in for him? Someone with the sense to say he was tired and had a headache, excusing himself for seeming out of it? They all knew Noel, but not really. No one knew him well enough to realize it wasn’t him. Drinking dulls the senses. From what I’d seen of Noel’s brother, Rodney, it wouldn’t be easy to tell them apart.

  I’d said Noel wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.

  I’d been dead wrong.

  At three I met Clarence at a bench in the plaza, to rehearse my 3:30 meeting with the detectives. I needed the fresh air. It was cold but dry and sunny.

  “What will you tell them?” Clarence asked.

  “What I have is persuasive cumulatively, but none of the evidence on its own is enough. No proof. I’ve gone over it with Sarge and Lieutenant Nicks. We can’t arrest Noel. The lab tests aren’t back. Anybody can clip things from newspapers. An anonymous love letter? What does that prove? Sure, ten years ago Noel assumed the name of some dead guy who disappeared. Maybe he ripped off his inheritance, but Ray’s been working on it, and it’s not clear. There’s no proof he killed the real Noel Barrows or that he’s even dead. One girlfriend died in a car crash. Another committed suicide after breaking up with him. Those aren’t crimes. He even has a great alibi, the best of the whole lot, the night the professor was killed.”

  “But you think that was his brother at the bar.”

  “How can I prove it? It sounds weak, like I’m grasping at straws.”

  “Are you?”

  “I’ve put together a file to draw from.” I held it up on my clipboard. “He doesn’t know I’ve met his mother.”

  “But remember how Noel pointed out that a picture was missing from the mantel? You said it yourself—that was a key piece of evidence. Why would he hand it to you?”

  “Because he knew that’s what we’d think. The murderer would never point that out—and therefore, by pointing it out, we’d know he wasn’t the murderer.”

  “But it was important evidence.”

  “That bothered me until this morning. I talked to Mitzie, who types my notes from crime scenes. I dropped my notes in her inbox by 11:00 a.m. the day after the murder. I didn’t get them back until late that afternoon. But guess what—her records show that Noel came to her office that day at 11:15, asking her to retrieve something from the files. He had to sign for it, so it’s documented. She was in the file room at least a minute, she said. That gives him time to look through her inbox and grab my notes. Record shows he came back ten minutes later to return what he’d borrowed from the file. She walks out to refile it, and he puts my notes back in her inbox. Meanwhile he’s made a photocopy. Has a detailed report. He knows my conclusion about the pictures on the mantel before he ever shows up at the scene.”

  “So he just mentioned out to you what he knew you’d already figured out?”

  “Right. It does him no harm. In fact does him good, because how could we suspect someone who hands us critical information?”

  “And you really think he planted his own fingerprints on the murder weapon?”

  “When there’s proof someone framed you, how could anybody believe you’re guilty? It worked like a charm.”

  “But remember the films we watched with Ray? The detectives’ meeting? When Noel was reading a golf magazine?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “A nervous person looks at his PDA. A bored or disinterested person looks at a golf magazine. Isn’t that what I said?”

  “Right. Change your mind?”

  “He’s sitting in a meeting of detectives being told, ‘One of you is a killer.’ No way you casually look through a magazine. It was a pretense. He wanted to look disinterested. I underestimated this guy. Things aren’t what they appear.”

  “People aren’t what they appear,” Clarence said. “You trusted Noel more than you did Karl Baylor.”

  “Can’t argue with you there.” I latched the top button on my trench coat, sealing out the cold wind. “Let’s head back.”

  As the Justice Center loomed in front of us, I glanced at my watch. “In ten minutes, I’ve got to make my case against Noel.”

  “Don’t you think you need God’s help?” Clarence asked.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  There on Second Street, ten feet outside the entrance to the Justice Center, Clarence prayed aloud for me and the detectives and the meeting. He asked for wisdom and justice.

  My stomach was so tied in knots I hardly minded it.

  61

  “Do you feel a creeping, shrinking sensation, Watson, when you stand before the serpents in the Zoo, and see the slithery, gliding, venomous creatures, with their deadly eyes and wicked, flattened faces? Well, that’s how Milverton impresses me. And yet I can’t get out of doing business with him.

  SHERLOCK HOLMES, THE ADVENTURE OF CHARLES AUGUSTUS MILVERTON

  FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 3:30 P.M.

  SERGEANT SEYMOUR STOOD UP in the large conference room in front of eight detectives. No Clarence, no smuggled surveillance equipment. I felt like a junior lawyer about to argue his first case before the Supreme Court.

  “Look,” Sarge said as the room quieted, “it’s been crazy, with the plumbing problems and everything else. Backed up toilets don’t make for good morale. I know it’s late in the day, but there’s something we’ve got to do if we’re going to get these murders off our backs. So I’m handing the meeting over to Chandler.”

  I stood up, feeling like a left-wing commie addressing the John Birch Society. I’d made my plan to present the evidence and bring the charges, modeled after Nero Wolfe’s practice of pulling suspects together and unveiling his deductions. Now it seemed like a whopping mistake, promising to bomb like the now legendary “where’d you grow up” meeting. But there was no turning back.

  “All right,” I said. “Sit back and relax. This could take an hour.” Moans and groans ran their course. “But by then, I hope you’ll agree we may have solved a murder … maybe four murders.”

  That got their attention.

  “I’m goin
g to lay it out. I’ll tell you my conclusions. Some I can prove; some are educated guesses. You’re the jury.”

  “You’re a joke, Chandler,” Cimmatoni said.

  “I recommend this be a monologue, not a dialogue.” I looked at Cimmatoni. “That means, I talk, you listen. You challenge me early, we’ll be here late. Hear me out.”

  As I spoke, I felt the tension ratchet up.

  “Is it hot in here?” I asked.

  Tommi and Karl shook their heads. I wiped sweat and took off my trench coat.

  “We all know Jack Glissan was a decent man. He loved his daughter Melissa, his only child. Some of you didn’t know her. Melissa went to college at Linfield, but her philosophy teacher became ill midsemester, and they couldn’t find a replacement. She had to have the credit, so Portland State allowed her to pick up classes there. Eventually she got depressed, turned to drugs. On November 20, she died—ruled a suicide by hanging.”

  Chris Doyle slapped his hand on his doughboy thigh. “What’s that got to do with—”

  “Shut up!” Sarge barked.

  “Talking to her roommate and ex-boyfriend, Jack discovers that her philosophy professor seduced her. Within a few months he dumped her. While she fell apart, Palatine went on to his next conquest. Jack filed a complaint at the university, but since there wasn’t proof, nothing happened. Ten years go by and the anger simmers on the back burner. Jack hates Palatine. Then seven months ago, on June 12 he sees this picture and article in the Tribune.”

  I held up the newspaper, compliments of Carp. “There’s the heading: ‘PSU philosophy prof named Teacher of the Year.’ Jack sees Palatine in this picture next to a young female student, and he can’t stand it any longer. Something snaps. He decides to kill the professor.”

  “You know this?” Karl asked.

  “Eighty percent of it’s straight from Jack. He confessed to me.”

  “So you say.” Kim Suda scowled.

  “Anniversaries were big with Jack. On November 4, he took me to dinner. Why? It was twenty-five years to the day after we started working as partners. Several of you have had toasts with Jack on anniversaries of solving crimes, haven’t you?”