Dollinger led the way around the corner and halfway along the left wing to a couple of offices opening off the corridor. The door to the first one bore the name mr. pyzegger in peeling gilt letters. The first thing Auburn saw when he stepped inside was a sign on the wall proclaiming, “Ignorance Is the Only Sin."
The second thing he saw was the body of a middle-aged man sprawled faceup on the floor between the door and the desk. His blue business suit had seen a lot of service and his shoes had been resoled. A gunshot wound in the middle of his chest, surrounded by a scanty patch of blood now dried and mahogany colored, told its own story.
"Weapon?” asked Auburn. “Shells?"
"Not here."
Auburn squatted to examine the wound and satisfied himself that powder charring was present, indicating point-blank firing range. The dead man's hand felt tepid, the joints already inflexible. Rocking back on his heels, Auburn took a file card from his pocket and read over the data he'd recorded before leaving headquarters: Ernest John Pyzegger, age 51, native of Switzerland, naturalized U.S. citizen at age thirteen. Part owner of Andover Group. No local police record, no warrants or wants in any of the fifty states.
Pyzegger's fingernails were gnawed down to the quick. A Masonic ring was the only jewelry in sight. He wore a small, well-trimmed mustache. That thin-lipped mouth must have been habitually compressed in life, to judge by the deep groove that ran down on either side of it. Probably a little pompous, a little compulsive, a little obstinate...
Auburn leaned closer to examine Pyzegger's left earlobe.
"We saw that,” said Dollinger. “Looks fresh, doesn't it?"
"Tortured?"
"That's what we figured. You can see another mark just like that by his right thumb if you stand over here."
Continuing sounds of mechanical activity reached them faintly from the work area, but otherwise the place was as still as a mausoleum. “Who's here with you?"
"Wales. She's next door with the business manager, Yarst, and his wife."
Auburn stood up and examined his surroundings. The scratched wooden filing cabinets and letter trays hardly suggested a thriving operation. The computer, itself by no means new, contrasted sharply with the aged and battered desk, where it nestled among files and stacks of papers. An antique safe with a combination dial as big as a soup bowl stood against the rear wall with door ajar.
"Anything missing from the safe?"
"They say not. Lots of papers in there, records, computer disks ... Apparently they don't keep any cash on the premises."
"Who found him?"
Dollinger consulted his clipboard. “A Jitzi Swa. Chief technician. Comes in every morning at seven thirty, half an hour before the rest of the staff. Walked in this morning and found this."
"Does he work out there in the shop—"
"She."
"—or does she have an office?"
"Out in the shop. You should probably talk to Yarst first. He's got some kind of a heart problem and his wife says he's not even supposed to be out of bed."
The office next door was bigger and better furnished than Pyzegger's. Gaylan Yarst, wrapped in an overcoat and slumped in the chair behind the desk, didn't budge when Auburn entered. Chronic illness was plain to read in the man's sallow complexion and lusterless eyes. The lower part of his face looked like a faded canvas poster hanging in tired wrinkles from his bifocals. At a doorway leading to yet another office, Patrolwoman Georgie Wales stood conversing in undertones with Yarst's wife.
Auburn introduced himself to Yarst and showed identification. “I'll try not to keep you more than a few minutes,” he said. “I hear you've been sick."
"It's just that he's not allowed to drive,” said Mrs. Yarst, who was dark, plump, and very pretty at forty-five, “and I have to pick up a grandchild from preschool in about an hour. I could leave and come back—"
"I don't think that'll be necessary.” Auburn turned back to Yarst. “I understand you weren't here when Pyzegger was found dead this morning?"
"Correct. Our chief technician, Jitzi Swa, found him when she came in to work at seven thirty. After she called the police she called me, and I thought I'd better put in an appearance, for what it was worth. By the time Rosalind got me in traveling condition and dragged me in here, these officers had already arrived and taken over. Sit down, you make me nervous."
Auburn suspected that a great many things made Yarst nervous. He and Pyzegger must have had some grand times together.
"What's your position here, sir?"
"Business manager."
"Is there a clerical staff?"
"You're looking at it. We don't do any walk-in business, and we have virtually no paper correspondence, so we get along without gophers and girl Fridays."
"How long have you been with the firm?"
Yarst closed his eyes in reflection and before he came up with an answer, his wife answered for him. “Sixteen years."
"Are you a partner ...?"
"No. Employee. The ‘Group’ in Andover Group is a cartel in Boston that put up the cash when Pyzegger started the business about twenty-five years ago. They skim off their share every quarter, but I don't even know their names."
"When was the last time you saw Pyzegger alive?"
"Around eleven yesterday morning. I've been using sick leave for the past week because of a heart rhythm problem, but I came in to get my mail and do some routine chores."
"And just about made a widow out of me,” said Rosalind Yarst. “I still think you forgot to take your medicine yesterday morning."
"Honey, he's investigating Pyzegger's death, not mine.” He shuddered slightly as if with the kind of chill against which coats afford no protection. “It would probably have been the other way around if I weren't sick."
"How do you mean that?"
"Well, Pyzegger only stayed over to do the payroll last night because I was too sick to do it. Otherwise the killer would have found me here alone instead of him."
"You say he was here alone. When do the rest of the staff leave?"
"Five sharp. And the biweekly payroll figures can't be taken off the time cards until they're all gone."
Auburn had noticed the old-fashioned time clock and the racks of cards in the corridor. “How long would it have taken him to finish that job?"
"It takes me about an hour. But he didn't finish it. Apparently he'd just started when they got him."
"Do you keep cash for the payroll in the safe next door?"
"Absolutely not. We send our payroll figures to an outside company and they mail checks to the employees’ homes. There's nothing in the safe but contracts, licenses, and a lot of floppies and CDs with backup copies of our payroll records and daily work sheets."
"And that's all still there?"
"Seems to be."
"Petty cash?"
"In Pyzegger's wallet."
"We haven't checked yet, Sergeant,” said Wales. “Waiting for somebody to take pictures...” Her tone conveyed a hint of query and even of mild reproof, as if she thought the coroner's office hadn't yet been notified of the death and that no evidence technician was on the way from headquarters.
Auburn's casual nod assured her they were both coming. “Is anything missing from anywhere in the building?"
"If it is,” said Yarst, “we haven't figured out what it is yet."
"Would Pyzegger have had the safe open while was doing the payroll?"
"I doubt it very much."
"Who knew the combination besides Pyzegger?"
"Nobody."
"That doesn't seem like a very satisfactory arrangement, especially if the safe was used for records instead of cash or valuables."
"Tell me about it,” said Yarst with an eloquent shrug. “That's just the way he operated."
"Kind of a difficult person to get along with? Make a lot of enemies?"
Yarst smiled sourly. “I'm not going there. He had everybody's respect, including mine, whether or not it shows. But he was a
cold fish—stubborn, rigid..."
"Distant,” said Rosalind Yarst.
"That's the word. Distant."
"How well did he get along with the technical staff?"
"Well, let me put it this way. They all knew his name, but he didn't know any of theirs. But they don't have anything to do with this. They have their discontents like the rest of us, but they bring them to me, and I flatter myself that I give them satisfaction. They make about fifteen times here what they could earn by working longer hours in their home country, and they know it. They'd have no reason to harm Pyzegger."
"I see this building has an electronic alarm system. Would Pyzegger have switched that on after everybody left yesterday?"
"Absolutely not. You couldn't even scratch your nose in here without setting it off. It's a deluxe package with about fifty motion detectors, thanks to Uncle Sam."
"How does Uncle Sam come into the picture?"
"About a third of what we do is government contract work. That means the Feds dictate everything from our security arrangements to our hiring and firing and overtime pay practices."
"What exactly is it that you do?” asked Auburn.
"Repair and reconditioning of small electronics. Including replacing batteries in digital cameras for civil servants who are too lazy or too ignorant to do it themselves.” Auburn remembered the sign on the wall in Pyzegger's office. “Besides the government contracts, we handle warranty work for about thirty manufacturers."
"So the alarm would have been turned off. Would the doors have been locked?"
"The doors are permanently locked. You can't get in from outside without a key unless somebody lets you in."
"Not a trace of damage to either door, Sergeant,” remarked Wales.
"Who has keys?"
"Just three people. Pyzegger, Jitzi Swa, and me."
"Then unless the killers had one of those three keys, Pyzegger must have admitted them voluntarily. By all indications, they tortured him into opening the safe and then killed him."
Rosalind Yarst's features contracted in horror. “Tortured ... how?"
"There are marks on his left earlobe and his right thumb that were probably made by a tool, say a pair of pliers. It'll be up to the coroner to decide on that."
"But that's crazy,” said Yarst. “Why would they force him to open the safe, which didn't have anything in it they'd want, and then kill him?"
"They may have thought there was something in there that they wanted, and killed him out of anger or frustration.” Auburn didn't mention the other likely explanation—that this was a plain case of premeditated murder that had nothing to do with the safe.
Yarst stirred and looked at his watch.
"I know you have to leave,” said Auburn, “but I need to ask you about next of kin."
"His wife Sylvia,” said Yarst. “I called her right after we got here. About the toughest thing I ever did in my life, even though they've been separated for four or five years."
"Children?"
"No."
Yarst was writing down Sylvia Pyzegger's work and home phone numbers for Auburn when a buzzer announced the arrival of reinforcements. Dollinger went to open the door.
"One other thing,” said Auburn as the Yarsts prepared to leave. “Could we possibly get from you a complete list of the entire staff with Social Security numbers, current addresses, and phone numbers?
"We've already got that, Sergeant,” said Wales.
Yarst was winding a woolen muffler around his neck and stuffing it inside the collar of his coat. “They're all naturalized citizens,” he said, “and most of them are related in one way or another. Jitzi Swa and her husband came to the States first, got established, and then brought the others over as their resources permitted."
"Does her husband work here too?"
"No. He's a chef at one of those Asian diners in the Phoenix District."
Sergeant David Kestrel of the forensic lab made one of his spectacular entrances, staggering under the weight of a camera case and an armload of paraphernalia, and seemingly trying to take in his surroundings with three hundred sixty degree peripheral scanning.
"Wait a minute, sir—ma'am,” he said to the Yarsts as they passed him in the corridor. Although he was as introverted as a hermit, Kestrel displayed no diffidence when it came to collecting or preserving evidence. “Don't leave yet. I need your fingerprints. For comparison with any latent prints I find at the scene."
"But I don't work here,” objected Mrs. Yarst. “And I haven't touched anything."
"That remains to be seen."
While Kestrel set up shop in the entrance hall, using a concrete ledge as a workbench, Auburn conferred with Dollinger and Wales.
"Have we accounted for all the cars out there in the lot?” he asked.
"The Ford belongs to Pyzegger,” said Wales. “It's locked. The Yarsts came in the Grand Prix. The other cars belong to two of the employees. They car-pool most of the rest of the staff to work every day. They're all related and most of them live together at the same two addresses."
"Which means they'll all alibi each other."
"Speaking of alibis ... according to his wife, Yarst wasn't out of her general vicinity from the time they left here yesterday till he got the call this morning telling him Pyzegger was dead. She says he was so sick all evening she almost took him to the hospital."
"So maybe they wasted the old boy together. It took at least two, if he really was tortured. You didn't happen to get any details on this heart rhythm problem, did you?"
"Oh, but I did. He has a malfunctioning pacemaker—either a loose wire or a dead memory cell—and he's scheduled for surgery on Tuesday to fix it."
Kestrel, having finished with the Yarsts and sent them on their way, was prowling around shooting flash pictures in the corridor before zeroing in on the crime scene.
From Wales and Dollinger Auburn got a copy of their preliminary data sheets and Andover's personnel roster and then released them to return to patrol duty.
In the work zone the technical staff still labored on intently and unconcernedly, just as if their boss hadn't been murdered last evening and the investigation weren't going on in their midst. No, not all of them. Four workers were taking a break in a dining area equipped with vending machines, including a hot coffee and soup dispenser, a refrigerator, and a microwave oven.
He approached their table and showed identification. “I'm looking for Jitzi Swa."
One of the diners wiped her mouth with a paper napkin and bobbed to her feet as if impelled by a spring. “I Jitzi,” she said.
"Don't let me interrupt your meal."
"No, no. I finished.” She swept a paper plate, a cup, disposable utensils, and the paper napkin into a trash receiver with one comprehensive and definitive movement.
"Is there somewhere we could talk privately?"
"Yes. Here.” She led him to a big square room with a folding gate like a bank safety deposit vault. Two walls of the room were lined with cabinets, their transparent doors labeled with parts numbers. Most of the floor space was occupied by wheeled carts, each of them bearing two rows of parcels of a uniform dark green. Auburn had seen a similar cart at each of the workstations. Evidently these were electronic appliances that were either awaiting repair or were ready to be shipped back to the senders.
"I understand you're the chief technician,” said Auburn, “and that you come in every day at seven thirty."
"Yes.” Tall and thin as a stork, Jitzi Swa seemed lost in a pair of saffron-colored bib overalls. Her fingers were thin and mobile like the legs of a spider. She wore a cheap digital wristwatch on her left wrist with the dial turned toward the palm side, but no jewelry.
"Tell me about this morning—what you did, what you saw. Do you drive to work?"
"No, ride bus. I come seven thirty. See Mr. Pyzegger car outside. Alarm turn off."
"You found the alarm turned off?"
"Yes. Come in, see Mr. Pyzegger dead."
"Was the outside door locked?"
"Always lock."
"Were the lights on?"
"Lights on in Mr. Pyzegger office."
"Did you see anything out of place? Anything different from the way it usually looks?"
"No."
Auburn wasn't sure on just what level they were communicating. Despite her somewhat eccentric grammar she was evidently thinking in English. But was her manner naturally this aloof and impassive, or was she struggling not to display signs of grief—or guilt?
"What about this gate? Was it locked this morning?"
"Always lock at night. Millions of dollars of parts here."
"So as far as you know, nothing was stolen?"
"Maybe take money from safe."
"You think there might have been money in the safe?"
She must know a great deal about the operation of the business, reflected Auburn, since Yarst had virtually left the place in her hands when he went home for the day.
"Don't know. Never see inside."
"What about this morning? Did you look inside then?"
"No, no. Not touch. Call police."
"Do you know of anybody who might have wanted to kill Mr. Pyzegger?"
She permitted herself an expression of faint surprise. “Kill? No, no."
Auburn stepped to the nearest cart and examined the neat rows of parcels arranged on its top. They were pre-addressed mailers in three sizes, each bearing cancellation marks and each still sealed as it had arrived. Picking up the one on the end, he felt the unmistakable sensation of Bubble Wrap inside a sturdy pasteboard carton. The return addressee was a Colonel in the Medical Corps at Ireland Army Hospital, Fort Knox, Kentucky.
The sea-green outer wrap was thickly plastered with notices, warnings, and threats:
AHMM, March 2010 Page 8
