Fourth Wall

by Jason Blacker

  “I’m afraid I can’t recall when he came in,” she said.

  She had four windows open of the four cameras that were aimed towards the front. The two closest to the door and the two that looked from behind the till towards the customer. The quality was excellent, most probably high def and not grainy, though it was grayscale. We didn’t have to wait long. At ten thirty-three in the morning a young guy came into the store wearing a baseball cap. That was probably to conceal his features from video cameras.

  Usually, that’s not a bad choice because most video cameras are aimed downwards from the ceiling. But not at Brigitte’s Baskets and Gifts. The first two that caught him as he came in were at waist level and with his head cast slightly down they captured him perfectly. He went straight to the till. Nobody else was in the store from what I could tell. The two cameras aiming at him from behind the till caught great images of him too. He pulled out the six Pommies from a canvas bag he carried with him. The canvas bag was printed with the name Midnight Walks With Madness. It was the name of a movie that Willy Open had been in. And this was not Willy Open in the store.

  The young man was likely Orpen’s age though he wasn’t handsome and he had a short beard more like stubble that didn’t do him any favors. The baseball cap was embroidered with Role of Jimmy Mime. That was another Orpen movie. Thank God for idiot perpetrators. From the video recording of this young man, I put him at around five eight or nine, a little shorter than Brigitte and therefore a little shorter than me.

  If I was a guessing man, I’d have to say it was likely Clifton Gudaitis. I’d never met him, but he was the only one of the men who’d been at both parties who I hadn’t met. The other two being Kyle and his partner Gary. But I had my doubts about them, they were supposedly older than the man staring at me from the other side of the till on the other side of time. The only other person who was his age was Rip Peso, and I knew what he looked like and he didn’t look like this guy on the camera.

  And that got me thinking. If Gudaitis was involved, did that mean that Orpen was too? That seemed like a stretch from everything I’d seen of him. I didn’t think he was that good of an actor. But then why would Gudaitis be helping out Penman? It didn’t make any sense. Gudaitis was probably in on the rape, and now he was helping the victim murder who had helped rape her. I shook my head. Brigitte noticed.

  “Is that not your guy?” she asked.

  I shook my head again.

  “No, I was just thinking about something else. Sure looks like he’s involved.”

  I watched as he spoke with Brigitte.

  “Can you recall what he was talking about?” I asked.

  “Vaguely. He said he wanted the gift basket to be filled with the Pommies he’d brought in and he wanted only pomegranate products included. We carry things like pomegranate fruit leather and pomegranate hard candies, pomegranate chocolate and things like that. Quite a few products actually. They’re not all that popular but some people like them.”

  “Is it unusual for you to include gift items that you don’t sell?”

  “Not very unusual. Of course it’s not the bulk of our business but I’d say around ten percent or a little more of our customers like to bring in specific items for us to include in their basket.”

  I nodded. He was paying with a credit card now.

  “What else did he say?”

  “He said he’d been sent by his uncle and he wanted the note to read something along the lines of ‘break a leg, love…’ what was his uncle’s name again, he’s that famous director, oh yes, ‘love LE’.”

  “For Lavan Emmett?”

  She nodded.

  “And that credit card he’s paying with?”

  “Just a sec,” she said. She brought up a different software application and opened it up. She searched for that date and time.

  “Here it is.”

  She brought the receipt forward for me to have a look at. It had an electronic signature that was probably nothing like Emmett’s. Though the credit card itself was Lavan Emmett’s. The amount was two hundred and fifty-three dollars and change. The date was Friday the seventeenth of June and the time was ten thirty-six in the morning.

  “Was that all he said to you?”

  “Mostly, he also wanted it delivered in time for the play to start on Saturday. He seemed like a very nice man this nephew of Mr. Emmett.”

  “Only problem is he’s not Emmett’s nephew,” I said. “Do you check ID when someone pays by credit card?”

  She shook her head.

  “To be honest, Detective, if I was suspicious of anyone paying with credit I’d hardly have a business to run. Like I said. He seemed like a nice young man and there was nothing about him that gave me reason to believe he was anything other than what he said.”

  “I’m not accusing. I’m just asking.”

  She smiled and looked away.

  “I’d like a copy of that receipt if you don’t mind and I’d like a copy of a still image of his face and bag if you can find a good one.”

  She printed off the receipt and then went back to the camera footage which started playing automatically. There was ample opportunity for any number of good stills of Gudaitis as he wasn’t aware he was being filmed. When she finally paused the recording she found an image that showed the bag and his face well, he was smiling at her shortly before he left the till and the store. It was a pleasant smile but perhaps one that held a mischievous bent to it.

  She took them from the printer on the side of her desk and offered them to me.

  “I hope you’ll capture the culprit. Do you think he was the one who poisoned her? He seemed like such a nice young man.”

  I shrugged.

  “If you’re asking me if he filled the bottles with poison then I’d have to say I don’t know. If he knew what was in them, well that’s an entirely different matter.”

  I thanked her for her time and I left her store. I went back to my car. It was hot and humid. I was hungry and tired and I fished out my phone. I figured while I was here that I might as well see if Styles had seen the tramp since I’d been gone. It was a long shot, but then I’d once one won a grand on a long shot who’s name was Lucky Luciano. That was a horse. Looking at my phone I noticed that Racquel had called twice and left a message. Wasn’t gonna happen. I wasn’t gonna fall for her vitriol. She was probably pissed I had Aibhilin overnight on an unscheduled visit. I’d let her simmer down before I called that fire breathing dragon.

  I punched in the number for Britain’s Best. It rang and rang and then I got a recording. I hung up. I punched in Styles’ personal number. It rang and rang until I got voicemail. I left a message reminding her to call me as soon as she’d seen the homeless guy who bought all those Pommies. I hung up and looked at my phone. It was almost six thirty. I was thirsty and hungry. I knew exactly the place I was headed. There’s a pub not far from where I live. It’s called ‘Wot Ales Ye’. It had the answers to all my ails and fails.

  SEVENTEEN

  Bullet to the Brain

  WHISKEY is a good friend on long lonely nights, but he leaves you naked and bleeding with an axe in the head in the gutters of regret if you let him outstay his welcome. And my problem was I never knew when to let him go. I was up at eight on Monday morning. And Mondays are the worst days to have a hangover. I was up because I was over the toilet bowl dry heaving. That was ten minutes of body punches with nothing to show for it.

  When I thought I was done with that, I walked to the kitchen with the axe in my head and looked for some painkillers. I knocked a fistful of them back with two glasses of water. Just when I thought I was gonna stick the landing I was kicked in the gut and back I was to porcelain prayers. I watched my precious pills drown in the bowl, and after more dry heaving I thought I’d give it another college try.

  Once bitten twice shy as they say and this time I only drowned the fistful of pills with a few sips of water. I went into the living room and sat gingerly on the edge of the couch leaning on my
knees hoping to hell that something was gonna pull the axe out of my head. While I was waiting for that I got to thinking about Caolán from Wot Ales Ye. I think he’d been a generous pourer of the Irish whiskey. And I wasn’t mad about it neither. But I was wishing I hadn’t had quite so many.

  My phone was on the coffee table in front of me. It started to vibrate and it felt like I could feel it in my teeth. It was also doing a little drunk jig on the table, slithering hither and thither. I reached for it. I recognized the number.

  “Captain Rotten,” I said, surprised at not recognizing my own voice.

  “You drunk, Sid, or hungover?” he asked.

  I didn’t know how he could tell.

  “No, just getting up,” I said through a mouthful of dry sand.

  “Bullshit,” he said.

  I didn’t say anything to that. I was trying to placate the dancing jackhammer in my head.

  “Okay then,” he continued. “We’ve just got a call from an anonymous tipster. Said homicide should head over to Orpen’s.”

  “Homicide?”

  “Yeah, that’s us, and you if you want to meet us there.”

  “Don’t move anything, I want to see it all.”

  “Yes, chief,” he said. “And get your shit together, Anthony, you’re not gonna find answers to your problems in the bottom of a whiskey bottle.”

  “How’d you know it was whiskey?”

  “Have we met?” he asked.

  It wasn’t really a question, and he hung up. He was right about one thing. I couldn’t carry hangovers like I used to. And maybe I had taken a few too many fingers of whiskey. But then again, in half an hour I’d feel swell and everything’d be alright in the world and whiskey.

  I got up like a man just released from surgery and headed back into the bathroom. Ten minutes later I came out dressed, refreshed and ready to be impressed. The head still had an axe in it, but I could feel the beginnings of release.

  Outside my car had been perfectly parked. That meant I’d walked to Wot Ales Ye. I was grateful for that. But then I couldn’t remember the last time I drank and drove.

  Orpen’s place looked like a new police station with the amount of cop cars parked in the drive and on the street. A couple of uniforms let me in when I told them who I was. I had to find street parking which meant I was begging for a ticket, but I knew Roberts would help me out with that, or I’d bill them for it. I was on my third day of consulting for the LAPD. Fifteen hundred sweet bones for my troubles. But I was earning it.

  I walked into the place like I owned it. Orpen was sitting on the couch he’d been on just two days before, but there was no half naked model with him. And he’d changed places. Instead of facing me, he was facing the windows that looked outside. Roberts and Beeves were facing him from across the coffee table. Roberts had his hands on his hips as if trying to figure out what the fuck he’d been up to. But even from here I could tell he had a bullet to the brain, and two to the chest.

  There wasn’t as much gore as you see in the movies. But then movies are in it for the effect not the realism. Small caliber handguns’ bullets will often not leave an exit wound. Even in the face. And the entrance wound being as small as it is there is often not a lot of blood leaking through it. The blood that runs generally pools inside the body, in the gaps and spaces between organs.

  So looking at Orpen, it looked like someone had placed a couple of poppies over his white wife beater on his chest, dead poppies the color of dark purple. The bullet to the brain was another matter. This also hadn’t exited for their was no splatter on the back wall, but a teardrop of blood had trickled down his face, alongside his nose before it stopped just before his lip.

  What always astonished me is how fast the flies came seemingly out of nowhere. They were already buzzing around like little winged vultures. But the worst of it, really, the very worst of it was the stench. And I’m not talking about the stench of death, that never leaves you, and Orpen had not started releasing putrescine and its cousins. Or perhaps that’s not accurate of me to say, only that my nose could not detect the volatile organic compounds of eau de décès.

  Sitting as he was, his blood had pooled into his buttocks and his legs, swelling them tight against his pants. His feet too looked like elephant legs or fat Aunt Annie’s cankles. But so far, the worst of it was the stench, the stench of his bowels having released. The smell of shit was thick enough you thought you were swimming in it. Beeves looked at me and I looked at him. He looked pale compared to how I’d usually seen him.

  The front door was open and the glass doors to the outside were open too. That helped, but there was very little breeze coming through on this warm, humid day. Beeves walked over to me. I was not standing as close to Orpen as they were. I’d learned that long ago. If I didn’t need to, I didn’t stand close. The stench was more manageable the further away you are.

  “Do you ever get used to it?” he asked me.

  I was still looking at the distorted corpse of Orpen. Trying to breath shallowly on the crests of the odd breeze that wafted clean air into the room. I shook my head.

  “No,” I said. “You never get used to it. Who opened the glass doors?” I asked.

  It was probably a rookie mistake. Until the ME had been to assess the body you didn’t do shit like that, on account of it affecting TOD.

  “Officer Dufus,” said Beeves, smiling. “A new guy just three weeks in. He wasn’t thinking. Lost his breakfast in the toilet too. You probably passed him by the entrance gates to this house. We stationed him there. Looked green to the gills.”

  “What time did he get here?”

  “About ten minutes before we did. He’ll be reeducated. Probably not a lot of harm done on account of how soon the ME’ll arrive.”

  “When did you guys get here?”

  “About five minutes before you.”

  I turned to look at commotion coming down from the hall. I saw Dr. Emily Stratham heading in with a couple of guys and a stretcher. She was in business casual underneath her white coat. The other two were in blue coveralls. She smiled at me and winked as she passed in front of me towards the DB. I winked at her back.

  “Good morning, Doctor,” I said, “fancy meeting you in a place like this.”

  She smiled and walked over towards Captain Roberts.

  “What time did you get the call, Captain?” she asked.

  “It was around eight twenty. We got here about five minutes ago.”

  It was around nine already.

  “Did you open the doors?” she asked, looking past him at the glass doors wide open to the yard.

  He shook his head.

  “No, I’m afraid that was a rookie mistake by an actual rookie. He got here about fifteen minutes ago.”

  Stratham nodded and went over to the body and took a look at it. We watched silently, trying to breathe as shallowly as possible. Stratham took his temperature and then turned back towards Captain Roberts.

  “Obviously he’s died from gunshot wounds. Which one killed him I can’t say without doing the autopsy first. I will tell you that he’s been dead since around two or three am this morning. Rigor is slowly setting in so we’ll be taking him as soon as you’ll let us.”

  “You can take him now,” said Roberts. “CID has taken the evidence they need for now.”

  Stratham nodded and then turned to her men and they started getting Orpen on the stretcher. I saw a man coming down the stairs. It was tall Mike Cardigan, one of our forensic specialists. He was all in white coveralls and booties. He nodded at me.

  “I see you still don’t respect my crime scene,” he said grinning.

  I looked at Roberts and Beeves’ feet. Their shoes were covered in little disposable booties too.

  “I like to keep it real,” I said. “Besides, I’ve disturbed nothing.”

  He nodded.

  “Nothing really to disturb.”

  Roberts joined us.

  “Looks like nobody was upstairs except for our dec
eased,” said Cardigan. “No struggle anywhere as you can probably tell. The vic probably knew the guy who did it.”

  “Or woman,” I offered.

  Mike nodded at me.

  “You haven’t found the murder weapon?” I asked.

  They all shook their heads.

  “We’re still looking,” said Cardigan, “but it looks like he might have taken it with him… or she might have. You really think it could be a woman?”

  He was looking at me. I shrugged.

  “I wouldn’t exclude the possibility. He was going for some sort of record to see how many women he could sleep with,” I said. “He was a real slut. Last time we spoke he said he’d banged two thousand and fifteen.”

  I looked at Cardigan and Beeves and Roberts. Cardigan was trying to do the math in his head.

  “It’s probably a few a week,” I offered.

  Cardigan smiled.

  “I was thinking of something else.”

  “Yeah, what’s that?”

  “There’s no womanly things in this house at all. I mean no second toothbrush, no perfume, no clothing, nothing.”

  “What are you suggesting?” I asked.

  “That if there was a woman here last night, she probably didn’t come for a sleep over. Or it was a man.”

  He grinned at me.

  “You really want to be a detective, don’t you?” I said, patting him sarcastically on the shoulder. “All our dreams can come true Cardigan, if we just dream the right ones.”

  He knew I was teasing. He was a good natured fella like that. Emily and her team of two were leading Orpen out. There was a brown stain on the couch where he’d been sitting. There was nothing modest about death. I looked at Roberts.

  “I think I’ve had my fill. I’ll wait for you guys outside,” I said.

  “I think I’ll join you,” said Beeves.

  “Why don’t we all leave Mike to his work,” said Roberts.

  “You guys are just being babies,” he said.

  “At least you’ve got a breathing mask,” I said.

  And with that he donned it and went back about his business. We three left the way we came. Outside I opened a fresh pack of cigarettes and lit one. I half-heartedly offered one to Beeves, not remembering if he smoked or not. He didn’t. The headache was gone and the cigarette took the edge off my nerves.