Jack Daniels Stories

by J. A. Konrath

  Benedict cleared his throat. “You're telling us this is authentic? That he fell five stories into a living room?”

  “I'm telling you it looks that way.”

  I've been with the Chicago Police Department for twenty years, half of those with the Violent Crimes unit, and have seen a few things. But this was flat-out weird. I almost ordered my team to do a house sweep for Rod Serling.

  “Could somebody have dumped him here? After he died someplace else?”

  “That seems reasonable, but I don't notice any tissue or fluid missing. If he were scraped off the street, there would be blood left behind. If anything, there's too much blood in this room.”

  I would have asked how it was possible for him to know that, but Phil knew more about dead people than Mick Jagger knew about rock and roll.

  “Also,” Phil motioned us closer, “take a look at this.”

  He crouched, holding some tweezers, and used a gloved hand to gently lift the corpse's head. After some prodding and poking, he removed a small fiber.

  “Beige carpeting, deeply embedded in his flesh. The deceased has hundreds of these fibers in the skin, consistent with...”

  I finished the sentence for him. “...falling from a great height.”

  “However improbable it seems. It's as if someone took off the roof, and he jumped out of a plane and landed in his living room. And don't forget about the doors.”

  I felt a headache coming on. The house had two entry points, the front door and the rear door. Each had been dead-bolted from the inside—no outside entry was possible. The locks were privacy locks, similar to the ones on hotel rooms; there were no keyholes, just a latch. The first officers on the scene had to break through a window to get in; the windows had all been locked from the inside.

  “Lt. Daniels?” A uniform, name of Perez, motioned me over to a corner of the room. “There's a note.”

  I watched my step, making my way to the room-length book shelf, crammed full of several hundred paperbacks. Their spines were splashed with blood, but I could make out some authors: Carr, Chandler, Chesterton. Perez pointed to a pristine sheet of white typing paper, tacked to the shelf between Sladek and Stout. The handwriting on it was done in black marker. I snugged on a pair of latex gloves I keep in my blazer pocket, and picked up the note.

  God doesn't understand. Eternal peace I desire. The only way out is death. Answers come to those who seek. Can't get through another day. Let me rest. Until we meet in heaven. Edward.

  I pondered the message for a moment, then returned to Benedict and Blasky.

  “What about a steamroller?” Herb was asking. “That would crush a body, right?”

  “It wouldn't explain the spatters. Also, unless there's a steamroller in the closet, I don't see how...”

  I interrupted. “I'm looking around, Herb. When the techies get here, I want video of everything.”

  “That a suicide note?” Herb pointed his chin at the paper I held.

  “Yeah. Strange, though. Take a peek and let me know if you spot the anomaly.”

  “Anomaly? You've been watching too many of those cop shows on TV.”

  I winked at him. “I'll let you know if I find the steamroller.”

  Notebook in hand, I went to explore the house. It was a modest two bedroom split-level, in a good neighborhood on the upper north side. Nine-one-one had gotten an anonymous call from a nearby payphone, someone stating that he'd walked past the house and smelled a horrible stench. The officers who caught the call claimed to hear gunshots, and entered through a window. They discovered the body, but found no evidence of any gun or shooter.

  I checked the back door again. Still locked, the deadbolt in place. The door was old, its white paint fading, contrast to the new decorative trim around the frame.

  I checked the linoleum floor and found it clean, polished, pristine.

  Running my finger along the door frame, I picked up dust, dirt, and some white powder. I sniffed. Plaster. The hinges were solid, tarnished with age. The knob was heavy brass, and the deadbolt shiny steel. Both in perfect working order.

  I turned the deadbolt and opened the door. It must have been warped with age, because it only opened 3/4 of the way and then rubbed against the kitchen floor. I walked outside.

  The backyard consisted of a well-kept vegetable garden and twelve tall bushes that lined the perimeter fence, offering privacy from the neighbors. I examined the outside of the door and found nothing unusual. The door frame had trim that matched the interior. The porch was clean. I knelt on the welcome mat and examined the strike panel and the lock mechanisms. Both were solid, normal.

  I stood, brushed some sawdust from my knee, and went back into the house.

  The windows seemed normal, untampered with. There was broken glass on the floor by the window where the uniforms had entered. Other than being shattered, it also appeared normal.

  The front door was unlocked; after breaching the residence through the window, the uniforms had opened the door to let the rest of the crew inside. I examined the door, and didn't find anything unusual.

  The kitchen was small, tidy. A Dell puzzle magazine rested on the table, next to the salt and pepper. Another sat by the sink. The dishwasher contained eight clean mason jars, with lids, and a turkey baster. Nothing else. No garbage in the garbage can. The refrigerator was empty except for a box of baking soda. The freezer contained three full trays of ice cubes.

  I checked cabinets, found a few glasses and dishes, but no food. The drawers held silverware, some dishtowels, and a full box of Swedish Fish cherry gummy candy.

  I left the kitchen for the den, sat at the late Edward Wyatt's desk, and inched my way through it. There was a bankbook for a savings account. It held $188,679.42—up until last month when the account had been emptied out.

  I kept digging and found a file full of receipts dating back ten years. Last month, the victim had apparently toured Europe, staying in London, Paris, Rome, and Berlin. Bills for fancy restaurants abounded. The most recent purchases included several hundred dollars at a local hardware store, a dinner for two at the 95th Floor that cost over six-hundred dollars, a one week stay at the Four Seasons hotel in Chicago, a digital video recorder and an expensive new stereo, and a bill for wall-to-wall carpeting; the beige shag Mr. Wyatt was currently staining had been installed last month.

  I also found several grocery lists, and the handwriting seemed to match the handwriting on the suicide note.

  Next to the desk, on a cabinet, sat a Chicago phonebook. It was open to BURGLAR ALARMS.

  The den also had a cabinet which contained some games (Monopoly, chess, Clue, backgammon) and jigsaw puzzles, including an old Rubik's Cube. I remember solving mine, back in the 1980s, by pulling the stickers off the sides. This one had also been solved, and the stickers appeared intact.

  I left the den and found the door to the basement. It was small, unfinished. The floor was bare concrete, and a florescent lamp attached to an overhead beam provided adequate light. A utility sink sat in a corner, next to a washer and dryer. On the other side was a workbench, clean and tidy. The drawers contained the average assortment of hand tools; wrenches, hammers, screwdrivers, saws, chisels. Atop the workbench was an electric reciprocating saw that looked practically new.

  A closet was tucked away in the corner. Inside I found an old volleyball net, a large roll of carpet padding, a croquet set, some scraps of decorative trim, and half a can of blue paint. Also, hanging on a makeshift rack, were three badminton rackets, an extra-large super-soaker squirt gun, and a plastic lawn chair.

  After snooping until there was nothing left to snoop, I met Herb back in the living room.

  “Find anything?” Herb asked.

  I described through my search, ending with the Swedish Fish.

  “That was the only food?” Herb asked.

  “Seems to be.”

  “Are we taking it as evidence?”

  “I'm not sure yet. Why?”

  “I love Swedish Fi
sh.”

  “If I poured chocolate syrup on the corpse, would you eat that too?”

  “You found chocolate syrup?”

  I switched gears. “You figure out the note?”

  Herb smiled. “Yeah. Funny how the note is perfectly clean when everything around it, and behind it, is soaked in blood.”

  “Find anything else?”

  “I tossed the bedrooms upstairs, found some basics; clothes, shoes, linen. Bathroom contained bathroom stuff; towels, toiletries, a lot of puzzle magazines. Another bookshelf—non-fiction this time. Some prescription meds in the cabinet.” Benedict checked his pad. “Diflucan, Abarelix, Taxotere, and Docetexel.”

  “Cancer drugs,” Phil Blasky said. He held Wyatt's right arm. “That explains this plastic catheter implanted in his vein and this rash on his neck. This man has been on long term chemotherapy.”

  A picture began to form in my head, but I didn't have all the pieces yet.

  “Herb, did you find any religious paraphernalia? Bibles, crucifixes, prayer books, things like that?”

  “No. There were some books upstairs, but mostly philosophy and logic puzzles. In fact, there was a whole shelf dedicated to Free-Thinking.”

  “As opposed to thinking that costs money?”

  “That's a term atheists use.”

  Curiouser and curiouser.

  “I found receipts for a new stereo and camcorder. Were they upstairs?” I asked.

  “The stereo was, set-up in the bedroom next to that big bay window. I didn't see any camcorders.”

  “Let me see that note again.”

  The suicide letter had been placed in a clear plastic bag. I read it twice, then had to laugh. “Quite a few religious references for a Free-Thinker.”

  “If he was dying of cancer, maybe he found God.”

  “Or maybe he found a way to die on his terms.”

  “Meaning?”

  “The terms of a man who loved mysteries, games, and puzzles. Look at the first letter of each sentence.”

  Herb read silently, his lips moving. “G-E-T-A-C-L-U-E. Cute. You know, I became a cop because it required very little lateral thinking.”

  “I thought it was because vendors gave you free donuts.”

  “Shhh. Hold on...I'm forming a hypothesis.”

  “I'll alert the media.”

  Phil Blasky snorted. “You guys have a drink minimum for this show?”

  Herb ignored us. “Wyatt obviously had some help, because the note was placed on top of the blood. But was his help in the form of assisted suicide? Or murder?”

  “It doesn't matter to us—they're treated the same way.”

  “Exactly. So if this is a game for us to figure out, and the clues have been staged, will the clues lead us to what really happened, or to what Wyatt or the killer would like us to believe really happened?”

  The word 'game' made me remember the cabinet in the den. I returned to it, finding the Parker Brothers classic board game, Clue. Inside the box, instead of cards, pieces, and a game board, was a cryptogram magazine.

  “I'm going out to the car to get my deermilker cap,” Herb said.

  “It's deerstalker. While you're out there, call the Irregulars.”

  I removed the magazine and flipped through it, noting that all of the puzzles had been solved. Nothing else appeared unusual. I went through it again, slower, and noticed that page 20 had been circled.

  “Herb, grab all puzzle magazines you can find. I'll meet you back here in five.”

  I did a quick search of the first floor and gathered up eight magazines. Each had a different page number circled. Herb waddled down the stairs a moment later.

  “I've got twelve of them.”

  “Did he circle page numbers?”

  “Yeah.”

  We took the magazines over to the dining room table and spread them out. Herb made a list of the page number circled in each issue.

  “Let's try chronological order,” I said. “The earliest issue is February of last year. Write down the page numbers beginning with that one.”

  I watched Herb jot down 7, 19, 22, 14, 26, 13, 4, 19, 12, 16, 13, 22, 4, 7, 12, 12, 14, 6, 24, and 19.

  Herb rubbed his mustache. “No number higher than twenty-six. Could be an alphabet code.” He hummed the alphabet, stopping at the seventh letter. “Number seven is G.”

  “Yeah, but nineteen is S and twenty-two is V. What word starts with GSV?”

  “Maybe it's reverse chronological order. Start with the latest magazine.”

  I did some quick calculating. “That would be SXF. Not too many words begin like that.”

  “Are you hungry? I'm getting hungry.”

  “We'll eat after we figure this out.”

  “How about reverse alphabet code? Z is one, Y is two, and so on.”

  I couldn't do that in my head, and had to write down the alphabet and match up letters to numbers. Then I began to decode.

  “You nailed it, Herb. The message is T-H-E-M-A-N-W-H-O-K-N-E-W-T-O-O-M-U-C-H. The Man Who Knew Too Much.”

  “That Hitchcock movie. Maybe he's got a copy lying around.”

  We searched, and didn't find a single video or DVD. My hands were pruning in the latex gloves. I snapped the gloves off and stuffed them in my pocket. The air felt good.

  “Was it based off a book?” Herb asked. “The guy's got plenty of books.”

  “Could have been. Let me ask the expert.” I pulled out my cell and called the smartest mystery expert I knew; my mother.

  “Jacqueline! I'm so happy to hear from you. It's about time I get out of bed.”

  I felt a pang of alarm. “Mom, it's almost noon. Are you okay?”

  “I'm fine, dear.”

  “But you've been alone in bed all day...”

  “Did I say I was alone?” There was a slapping sound, and my mother said, “Behave, it's my daughter.”

  I felt myself flush, but worked through it.

  “Mom, do you remember that old Hitchcock movie? The Man Who Knew Too Much?”

  “The Leslie Banks original, or the Jimmy Stewart remake?”

  “Either. Was it based off a book?”

  “Not that I'm aware of. I can check, if you like. I have both versions.”

  “Can you? It's important.”

  Herb nudged me. “Can I have that Swedish Fish candy?”

  I nodded, and Herb waddled off.

  “Jacqueline? On the Leslie Banks version, the back of the box lists the screenwriter, but doesn't mention it is based on a book. And...neither does the Jimmy Stewart version.”

  Damn.

  “Can you give me the screenwriter's name?”

  “Two folks, Charles Bennett and D.B. Wyndham-Lewis. Why is this so important?”

  “It's a case. I'll tell you about it later. I was hoping The Man Who Knew Too Much was a book.”

  “It is a book. By G.K. Chesterton, written in the early 1920s. But that had nothing to do with the movie.”

  “Chesterton? Thanks, Mom.”

  “Chesterton was a wonderful author. He did quite a few locked-room mysteries. Not too many writers do those anymore.”

  “I'll call you tonight. Be good.”

  “I most certainly won't.”

  I put away the phone and went to the blood-stained bookshelf. The Chesterton book was easy to find. I put the gloves back on and picked it up. Wedged between pages sixty-two and sixty-three was a thin, plastic flash video card, a recent technology that was used instead of film in digital video cameras. And camcorders...

  I met Herb in the kitchen. He had his mouth full of red gummy candy. I held up my prize.

  “I found a video card.”

  Herb said something that might have been, “Really?” but I couldn't be sure with his teeth glued together.

  “Is your new laptop in your car?”

  He nodded, chewing.

  “Do you have a card reader?”

  He nodded again, shoving the candy box into his pants pocket and easing though the ba
ck door.

  Two minutes later Herb's laptop was booting up. I pushed the flash card into his reader slot, and the appropriate program opened the file and began to play the contents.

  On Herb's screen, a very-much-alive Edward Wyatt smiled at us.

  “Hello,” the dead man said. “Congratulations on reaching this point. I thought it fitting, having spent my life enjoying puzzles, to end my life with a puzzle as well. Though I commend you for your brainpower thus far, I regret to say that this video won't be providing you with any clues as to how this seemingly impossible act was committed. But I will say it has been done of my own, free will. My oncologist has given me less than a month to live, and I'm afraid it won't be a pleasant month. I've chosen to end things early.”

  “Pause it,” I said.

  Herb pressed a button. “What?”

  “Go back just a few frames, in slow motion.”

  Herb did. I pointed at the screen. “See that? The camera moved. Someone's holding it.”

  Herb nodded. “Assisted suicide. I wonder if he moved the camera on purpose, to let us know he had help.”

  “Let it finish playing.”

  Herb hit a button, and Wyatt began again.

  “Undoubtedly, by this point you know I've had help.”

  Benedict and I exchanged a look.

  “Of course,” Wyatt continued, “I wouldn't want to put my helper in any legal jeopardy. This friend graciously helped me fulfill my last wish, and I'd hate for this special person to be arrested for what is entirely my idea, my wishes, my decision, and my fault. But I also know a little about how the law works, and I know this person might indeed become a target of Chicago's finest. Steps have been taken to make sure this person is never found. These steps are already in motion.”

  Herb paused the recording and looked at me. “I'm fine stopping right here. He says it was suicide, I believe him, let's clear the case and grab a bite to eat.”

  I folded my arms. “You're kidding. How did the body get inside when everything was locked? How could he have jumped to his death in his living room? Who's the helper? Don't you want answers to these questions?”

  “Not really. I don't like mysteries.”

  “You're fired.”

  Herb ignored me. I fire him several times a week. He let the recording play.