The Fruitcake Murders

by Collins, Ace;

  “A thousand.”

  Garner quickly counted through the twenties as he walked over to Sunshine. “Here is fifteen hundred, but for you to earn it I need for you to do something.”

  She eagerly grabbed the cash, “Like what?”

  “Play dead.” Looking back to Lane, Garner explained, “I’ve got a bottle of blood in my camera bag, let’s go to the kitchen, pose Sunshine on the floor as if she’d been shot, have her face away from the camera, pour the blood on the back on her head and shoot a few photos. Then I’ll take them to a lab, get a print made, and send it and the ring to the post office box I was given. That will prove I did my job and keep my cover as McCoy Rawlings intact.”

  “We can make the print at the police lab,” Lane suggested. “A private lab might get suspicious and foul things up.”

  “Fifteen hundred just to play dead?” Sunshine whispered.

  “Yes,” Garner said, “and I’m also going to need to visit with you to find out why Richard Delono paid me to kill you.”

  “But,” the woman argued, “I don’t know Delono.”

  “But,” the investigator interjected, “you have to know someone or something important or this whole thing wouldn’t have been set up. You’ll get paid for any information you can give me that will bring Delono down.”

  “Okay,” Sunshine announced as she happily got up from the couch. “Wow, fifteen hundred, this night might just be the best of my life. Let’s go play dead.”

  Grabbing his camera bag Garner took the woman’s arm and led her through the study door. As they strolled into the foyer, he almost gleefully announced, “Let’s see if we can find the kitchen. In a house this size it might take a while.”

  Tiffany watched the pair disappear down a hall before turning her attention back to Lane. She glared at the cop as she coldly announced, “I’m never listening to one of your plans again. It’s one thing standing me up on a date, but allowing a hit man to grab me is another thing altogether.”

  “He’s a friend of mine,” Lane argued, “not a real hit man.”

  “You didn’t know that back at the house,” she noted. After taking a deep breath, the reporter added, “And you wouldn’t let me have a gun. If ever I needed a gun, it was tonight.”

  “No,” Lane argued, “then you might have shot Bret. That wouldn’t have been good. After all, he’s not really who you thought he was.”

  She shook her head, “I’m not so sure. Anyway, there are two other things that bother me even more than having you hang me out to dry.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The first is why would Elrod knowingly send a woman, even a prostitute, to her death? He had to understand what was in store for Sunshine. Did her life have that little value to him?”

  Lane nodded, “So you think the DA was no better than Delono?”

  “Maybe,” she admitted.

  “Tiffany, what’s the other thing that’s digging into your skin?”

  She crossed her arms and frowned, “Nothing I’m ready to share right now, but believe me I’ll let you know about it after I do some homework.”

  “For the moment,” Lane suggested, “why don’t you go give Bret a hand staging the photo? I’d help, but I’ve got a fruitcake tin I need to retrieve from the basement.”

  “I’m tired of your plans,” she grumbled. “I’ll skip the play acting, I’ve had enough of that tonight. I’ve got a story, and if I call now I can still make the first edition.” She turned and glared at the cop, “And nothing you can do or say is going to stop me this time.”

  He held his hands up, “I wouldn’t even try, but please leave out the way in which he was killed. Just say the police are investigating what appears to be a murder. I don’t want some copycat killer imitating this one.”

  “Fine,” the reporter agreed, “I will say Elrod was murdered in his home and inform my readers that the police will be releasing more details after doing an extensive study of the crime scene.”

  “Perfect,” Lane replied.

  As the woman moved over to the phone, the desk lamp caught the glow in her Carolina blue eyes. The cop studied them for a moment before shaking loose from their spell and hurrying to the basement to get the fruitcake.

  11

  Thursday, December 19, 1946

  6:09 A.m.

  As Lane looked on, the ME, a short man weighing no more than one hundred and forty pounds, dressed in a white shirt and dark slacks, his tie loosened at the collar, stood beside Ethan Elrod’s body. After parting the DA’s thick gray hair to more closely study the scalp, he frowned. Drawing his face a bit closer to the wound, Morelli sighed before slowly walking back to a table on the large gray room’s far side. The examiner’s eyes focused on the dented fruitcake tin, and he sadly nodded. After running his thin fingers gently along the can’s dented edge, he looked back to his visitor.

  “This is the murder weapon,” Morelli explained. “There can be no doubt. It fits perfectly in the area crushed on the backside of Elrod’s skull.”

  “Amazing,” an exhausted Lane hoarsely announced. “Hard to believe you can kill a man with something like that. I’m not even sure how I write this one up in the case files without becoming a laughingstock.”

  “Not so hard to believe,” the ME argued as he picked up the holiday cake. “This thing is huge. It weighs over five pounds, and with that ancient cake reinforcing the thick tin, it is as hard as a rock. If you came from the right angle and delivered a blow with full force, you could kill a gorilla with this baby. Write it up that way and nobody will laugh. And, if they do, send them down here and let me give them a demonstration.”

  “By the way,” Lane asked, “is this the fruitcake you guessed it was? I mean is this the gag gift that floated between Elrod and Jacobs each year?”

  The ME shrugged, “I can’t say for sure. What I can tell you is that the brand is the same and the can matches that one perfectly. Did you find any fingerprints on it?”

  “No,” the cop sadly admitted, “it had been wiped clean.”

  “I’m not surprised,” the usually smiling man replied. “You know, people are not as considerate as they used to be. Fifteen years ago, when I first moved into this position, only a few folks bothered wiping away their prints, now almost all do it. I blame Hollywood for that. Those crime movies give a person a primer on how to avoid being caught.”

  “You think so?” Lane replied.

  “Not really,” Morelli answered with a grin. “Movies are not nearly as good a source for that kind of information as are books. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle found a hundred different ways to do people in, and if it had not been for Sherlock Holmes, each of those folks would have gotten away with murder, because Scotland Yard didn’t have a clue.”

  “You do know those weren’t real cases?” the cop asked.

  “Sure,” the ME said. “But have you ever thought of this? Why is someplace in London, England, called Scotland Yard?”

  Lane shrugged, “Do you have an answer for that?”

  “No,” Morelli admitted, “I was hoping you did. Still, the fact is that as criminal science improves, those who want to get away with murder have to get smarter, too. The person who knocked off our DA was no dumb cookie.”

  “Was that meant as a clever pun?” the cop asked. “If it was, you failed.”

  “No, the reference to cookie was not supposed to be linked to cake. Anyway, whoever this guy was, he planned well and he executed that plan to perfection. He knew exactly where to strike, he knew how hard the blow had to be, and he knew how to set things up to be able to exactly orchestrate what he wanted to accomplish.”

  Lane stuck his hands into his pockets as he noted, “No crime is perfect. It seems to me criminals, even those who study criminal science, still always make at least one mistake.”

  “Okay,” Morelli cut in, “where is the mistake here? You’ve already told me you have no motive, no prints, and no witnesses.”

  “We do have a dented fruitcake can,�
� the cop suggested. “So, that’s a start. I’ve had a bunch of cases where I didn’t have a murder weapon. Now, where can I buy a fruitcake like the one used to knock off Elrod?”

  “Well,” Morelli laughed, “right now you can pretty much buy fruitcake everywhere, but who actually pays attention to the brands when they pick one up? So you’ll likely have to check with a few of the stores to see who carries Jan’s Old World Fruitcake.”

  “Why?” the cop demanded.

  “Lane, are you asking me to search for what stores carry this brand? I kind of figured we knew where it came from. It has to be the one that Jacobs gave to Elrod and then it was reversed the next year. I just figured it was the cake they always passed back and forth as a gag gift.”

  “Mitch, you are likely right on the origin of the so-called weapon. So, I probably don’t need to know where I can purchase Jan’s Old World Fruitcake. You misunderstood me, I’m just wondering why it was used as a weapon. Does anything you learned in college give you an insight into that?”

  The ME picked up the tin, studied it one more time, then set it back onto the table and casually strolled over to Elrod. He studied his guest for a few moments before glancing at five other bodies lying on slabs in his private lair. Using his right hand as a pointer, Morelli took on the role of a college professor. “Counting your victim, there are six people who started yesterday alive and now aren’t. They are here rather than at a funeral home because they just didn’t die of natural causes; in one way or another they all died under suspicious circumstances.”

  The examiner slowly strolled over to the body closest to Elrod’s, grabbed a sheet, and pulled it back to reveal the face of a man who looked to be in his fifties. “This guy was shot from close range. The .32 slug went right through his heart. From what his wife told the investigators, they were robbed and the old boy was a bit too slow pulling out his wallet. In other words, he thought about whether he should give in to the demands of the crook. You know, far too many people believe their money is worth more than their lives. I would bet if this guy had it to do over again he would have reacted much faster. Life is filled with second chances; death is not.”

  Covering the man’s face with the sheet, the ME moved to the next victim. After repeating the unveiling process, Morelli sadly noted, “Little kids are always the hardest. When their bodies come in I always cry before I start cutting on them.” As Lane watched, the usually upbeat ME touched the small boy’s forehead. “They haven’t found out who he is yet, so his parents don’t know he’s dead. When they do locate this little guy’s folks, thanks to my work the cops can at least explain how the boy died. My findings were his chest was crushed so badly his ribs punctured both his lungs and his heart. He was a victim of a hit-and-run. He was crossing Sixth Street and never made it to the other side. I’m guessing he was about six when he took his last breath. I’d also have to believe that somewhere there are wrapped presents waiting for this guy that will never be opened. Did you ever think about that? Imagine buying Christmas presents, wrapping them up, putting them under a tree, and then finding out the loved one who was going to receive that gift is dead.”

  A now very sober Morelli didn’t bother uncovering the next two bodies, but that didn’t prevent him from explaining the cause of each victim’s demise. “The guy under that sheet was twenty-five and his ticket was punched by a knife. From what I’ve been told, two rival gangs were having a powwow that turned into a rumble. Someone yanked out a switchblade and a second later this guy found out what’s on the other side of this world.” He paused and pointed to the other gurney, “And the woman over there was beaten to death. I’ve seen punching bags hanging in boxing gyms that weren’t hit as much or as hard. They arrested her boyfriend. Seems the argument was over money and all he can say was that he didn’t mean to hurt her.”

  The ME turned back to his guest, “None my guests died in the same manner, but each of those I’ve just introduced to you have one thing in common; their deaths were sudden, quick, and unplanned. Each was killed with something that was not so much a weapon of choice as an instrument of convenience. As you know, most homicides happen just that way. Something is said, someone reacts, they grab whatever is close, and before they can think about the consequences of their actions, it is over. Even the man in the hit-and-run didn’t ever plan on using his vehicle to murder someone. Now that I have given you the cause of death of four of my guests, let me digress and say I think your case is the exception to the rule.”

  Lane walked over to his friend’s side, and after studying the form of the beaten woman hidden by the white sheet, asked, “What drives you to that conclusion?”

  “It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to explain this one,” Morelli began. “Something was placed in Elrod’s drink to knock him out. That one element means this thing was planned. Our unknown suspect then waited until the DA was helpless and delivered the blow to the head. As the wound was to the left side of the skull, you can make a pretty good assumption the killer was left-handed.”

  “So,” Lane asked, “are you saying the murderer planned on using the fruitcake can as a weapon?”

  “I can’t say that for sure,” Morelli qualified his earlier statement, “but unlike the four victims whose stories I just shared, someone planned to kill Elrod and they carried out that plan. Maybe they had a gun jam, and thus, they picked up the can to finish him off, but whatever way it fell together, I believe they walked into the room intent on snuffing out the DA’s life.”

  “What about the knife?” Lane demanded. “What did it have to do with anything?”

  “Here is where I channel Charlie Chan and Philo Vance,” Morelli explained. “Logic tells me the knife plays into this situation in one of two ways. The first would be as a symbol.”

  “Explain,” the cop cut in, “what would plunging a knife into an already dead man’s back symbolize?”

  Morelli held up his finger and smiled. “Well, I might just be sounding like a radio detective, but when you hear the phrase ‘stabbing someone in the back’ what does that mean to you?”

  The cop nodded, “It’s an act of betrayal.”

  “Thus,” the ME continued, “I’m thinking whoever killed Elrod used the knife to symbolize why the man had to die.”

  “Elrod betrayed someone.”

  “Could be.”

  Lane nodded. “What’s your second theory?”

  “The other one,” Morelli grimly announced, “is that two people wanted to kill the DA. The first accomplished the deed with the can. The second entered the room, thought Elrod was asleep at his desk, and plunged the knife into his back. At this particular point, as the press had not gotten the story of how Elrod died, that person likely still thinks they accomplished their mission. You might be looking for a real murderer and a wannabe murderer.”

  “So,” Lane remarked, “in this case, there is no symbolism.”

  “No,” the ME agreed, “but rather than being an act driven by either hate or passion, this, too, had to be planned. The red-handled knife that was used was taken from a kitchen, and, as your team found out, it didn’t come from Elrod’s home. So it had to be brought to the location. Oh, and as the knife’s blow was delivered in such a way the blade went directly through the heart, the murderer knew exactly where to strike. That murderer was also likely left-handed.

  “Could the knifing have been a hit?” the cop asked. “As the blow was so perfect, do you think it might have been the mode of operation used by a hired killer?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” the ME answered. “After all, you can’t hang a man for trying to kill someone who is already dead.”

  The sleep-deprived Lane rubbed his eyes. This case was getting more bizarre by the moment. He suddenly found himself heading up an investigation looking for two different left-handed people with two different motives. Worse yet, the list of enemies made by the DA was long even before he started his very public campaign against Richard Delono.

  “There’s somethin
g else you ought to know,” Morelli cracked.

  “What’s that and will it help me identify either of the suspects?”

  “Probably not,” the ME admitted. “Elrod had a weak heart and the knockout potion he was served was secobarbital sodium, better known as Seconal. It is prescribed for several conditions including insomnia and epilepsy. You don’t give it to men with known heart conditions. The amount in that coffee I tested suggested that even if the fruitcake killer hadn’t struck when he did, the drug would have likely finished our victim off anyway. So, you might just have three different people who used three different methods with the same goal in mind.”

  “I suppose,” the cop grumbled, “you’re going to tell me that the person who laced the coffee with the drug was left-handed, too.”

  “I don’t know about that,” the ME announced with a wry grin.

  “Let’s get back to what you said earlier,” Lane interjected. “You told me that the killer used the drugged coffee to render Elrod helpless before he was struck.”

  “Well,” he suggested, “let me amend what you heard. I said the coffee was drugged, causing Elrod to pass out and then he was hit with the fruitcake. Did the same person do both of those things? My friend, that is what you will have to prove. I’ve told you all I can.”

  Lane shook his head, “You sure know how to wrap and deliver some holiday cheer. Don’t expect a thank-you note for this one.” The cop paused and glanced toward a covered body at the far end of the room. “You didn’t tell me that one’s story.”

  “It has yet to be written,” Morelli explained. “They just brought that guest in a few minutes before you arrived.” The ME covered the thirty feet to the rolling gurney and pulled back the top of the sheet. He looked at the body for a moment, standing as if to block the cop’s view, and then turned toward Lane.

  “The cause of death was obvious. This victim was about forty when she was strangled. The murderer used his hands rather than a scarf or rope, so this was an act of real passion. He wanted this woman to see who was killing her.”