by Jerold Last
Eduardo got busy on his cell phone making arrangements for someone to meet me at the crime scene in two hours and supervise us wandering through the apartment. My guide at the crime scene, it turned out, was going to be Martin Gonzalez. Score one for the good guys.
Lunch was great, and we were finished in an hour. We headed back to the hotel, dropped Suzanne off to feed Robert and make some plans for what to see and do with Bruce and Robert, and arranged to meet back at the hotel by 7 PM at the latest. I took a taxicab to the murder scene while Suzanne and Eduardo each went off to do their various chores.
Chapter 4. A visit to the crime scene
Martin Gonzalez and another Montevideo detective that I didn't recognize met us in front of a grimy old apartment building on a side street off Avenida Italia that had seen better days a generation or two ago. There were six floors in the building with a rickety old elevator on the far wall after we entered through a narrow hallway with apartments on each side. Martin pushed the button for the third floor (in South American usage, the lobby is zero, so we traveled up three floors) and the arthritic old elevator slowly ascended to our destination. He led us to one of four apartments on the floor, with the other detective bringing up the rear from where he could watch both of us in case Martin or I wanted to plant any new evidence or remove anything from the already well searched apartment.
All three of us used the doormat in front of the door to remove any mud or dirt from the bottoms of our shoes then we were given paper booties by our policeman chaperone to put on over our shoes to protect the crime scene from contamination. Martin stopped to show me the door in detail, an elegant old-fashioned hardwood slab with an ornate lock that required a complex key to open that most closely resembled the type of narrow key used to lock and unlock a safe-deposit box.
He pulled out the key and opened the door, which moved silently on well-oiled hinges despite its obvious weight. He pointed to the floor on the inside, directly under the lock. “This is where we found the key. It obviously fell out of the inside keyhole after the door was locked. You’ll note that the only way to lock the door from the inside is with this key. There are no signs of tampering with the lock, so it had to have been locked from inside. The police case against me has two pieces of circumstantial evidence to make me the top suspect, and perhaps a third reason they are focusing on investigating me is just because there isn't anyone else to investigate. The two pieces of circumstantial evidence seem to be incriminating, but clearly aren't enough to suspend me, much less arrest me. But the suspicion kind of hangs there like a dark cloud, nevertheless. The first piece of evidence is that there are a lot of witnesses, all of which are on the police force, that there had been a loud and acrimonious argument between us the day he died.
"The second piece of evidence that is making me a suspect is a variant on the classic locked door problem of countless mystery novels. As far as we know, there was only one key made for the lock on the front door we just opened, at least according to the locksmith who installed the lock. It was found inside the locked door of the apartment, so the killer couldn't have used it to lock the door from the outside as he left the murder scene. All of the higher-ranking officers like me on the Montevideo Police Force are issued skeleton keys to facilitate their getting into and out of locked apartments and other crime scenes in the course of their investigations. That includes me, so the inference is that since the killer had to have access to one of these specially made skeleton keys, I move up a few levels on the list of suspects. And before you ask the obvious question, my partner was not considered to be high in rank and should not have had one of those keys."
We walked through a small foyer into a compact little apartment typical of middle class apartments throughout Montevideo. In front of us was the living room, with a large window and a view of the urban complex that sprawled out to the north of Avenida Italia and the west of the street the building sat upon. To the immediate right was the kitchen, which was quite small by North American standards. A hall running east from the living room passed the kitchen and showed several doors leading to two bedrooms, a bathroom, a closet, and a small laundry room. There were tiny balconies off of the living room and kitchen. We walked through the entire apartment in less than four minutes.
We stood on the small balcony just off the living room, looking at the city spread out in front of us. Our chaperone watched us from the front hallway, discretely out of hearing distance. "Did they find any forensic evidence here?" I inquired.
"Sure," answered Martin. "Lots of fingerprints, a few of which belonged to the victim and lots of which are still waiting to be matched to anybody in our files. This has not been a high priority thus far in this investigation, since leaving fingerprints in a residential apartment isn't a crime and nobody on our local police force seems to be looking for more suspects as long as they have me. The same logic pertains to cigarette butts, DNA, and all of the dirt, floor sweepings, and other junk the crime scene investigators collected from here. The murderer used a semi-automatic, but seems to have picked up the spent shells, so we don't have them. The bullets were recovered from the body and are waiting patiently to be matched to a specific gun. They don't match my service pistol, which is probably the main reason I'm still free to be working rather than in jail."
"Where, exactly, was Officer Gonzalez' body when it was found?"
"In the living room, sort of in the middle, laying on his back between the coffee table in front of the sofa to your right as you look into the room and the wall with the furniture and bookshelves on your left. His head was pointing towards the front door, so the murderer was further inside the living room when he shot him."
I looked back through the glass doors to the balcony at the living room "Can I take a closer look?"
Martin said a few words in rapid Spanish to the watching cop, who nodded.
"Go ahead."
I kneeled on the floor in front of the coffee table and looked closely at the floor from all of the available angles. Then I lay down on the floor and sighted along the surface parallel to the hardwood floor. Finally I looked carefully at the top of the coffee table.
I had found what I came here to look for. "OK, I'm ready to go. Let's lock things back up and go somewhere to get a coffee and talk. I'm starting to feel my jet lag."
We went out in single file, me first, our watchman cop last. Martin turned around, locked the door with the fancy key, stopped for a moment to remove his paper booties and wipe his feet on the doormat, and led us to the elevator.
"It may seem to be a bit unusual wiping my feet on the way out as well as on the way into the apartment. There's method in my madness. These paper booties really don't do much of anything and are used more for image than for forensic hygiene, kind of like the facemasks that never fit right they give you to wear at a hospital when everyone else is coughing. I don't want to own a pair of shoes that contains trace evidence from the floor of the apartment all over the heels and soles just in case things ever get that far."
A few minutes later we were sitting over coffees and sweet pastries in a local restaurant. Our companion on the apartment tour was back on the boring job of watching the building in case the killer returned to the scene of his crime, even though there was no way he would know it was happening even if the real killer did revisit the apartment house.
Martin leaned towards me, a hopeful expression on his face. "Did you learn anything from our visit that might help my case, Roger?"
"As a matter of fact, I did. I think you can rebut one of those pieces of circumstantial evidence against you."
Martin's expression turned skeptical. "You've got to be kidding. I've been over that place half a dozen times and didn't find anything. Now you have? I know you are very good at detection, especially deduction. Is that also true of your powers of observation? I can hardly wait to hear what you've found, my dear Sherlock. Tell me!"
I owed the policeman a few moments of anxiety while he had to wait for an answer and
was enjoying spreading this out. "Elementary, my dear Columbo. I think I know how to unlock our locked door mystery."
"OK, OK, you've had your moment of suspense. Are you going to tell me now?"
"Of course. I just think I'd like to taste one of these dulce de leche cookies first. You call them Alfores, don't you?"
Martin sat back with a "play your silly little games, I have plenty of time to wait" expression on his face. "Go ahead and have your fun, Roger. Sooner or later you'll get to the point. I truly hope it is worth waiting for."
I chewed the cookie slowly and carefully. Then I slowly sipped from my cup of coffee.
"For the record Martin, if you find that getting information parsed out to you ever so slowly, or even held back, pisses you off you should feel free to remember that you did that to Suzanne and me during the Ambivalent Corpse case and neither of us appreciated it then."
"Point taken and I most sincerely apologize. If I had known more about you when I first met you, I wouldn't have done it. Are we ready to get to the point now?"
"I think so. When we wiped our shoes so carefully on the doormat before we put on the protective booties, we apparently dislodged the mat from its normal position, flush against the sill and the bottom of the door. Do you remember when I laid down on the floor of the living room? When I looked towards the front of the apartment from the living room, I could see a little bit of light from the outside hall. I remembered how thin the key to the apartment is, like a safe deposit box key. I'll bet you if we go back to the apartment we'll find enough space between the floor and the door to slide a thin piece of paper or cardboard with the key on it under the door to return the key to the inside of the apartment, then yank the paper back out leaving the key behind. Voila, a locked door mystery with a pretty obvious solution, a solution well known to every reader of mystery novels in the world."
We went back to the apartment and did the experiment. Using the correct door key and a sheet of fairly high quality (and therefore fairly stiff) paper from Martin's briefcase, we were able to replicate the locked door murder scene, with the key that we used to lock the door from the outside reappearing inside the locked room as if by magic. Thanks to Martin's skeleton key we were able to open the door, retrieve the original key, lock the door, and return to the hotel and police station while we considered how best to use this new information.
"I think maybe it would be best not to say anything to anybody yet," suggested Martin. "As long as I am being treated as a suspect in this case I'm not being assigned any new cases and that makes me pretty much free to come and go as I please. It will make it a whole lot easier for me to help you out on the big case you and Eduardo are interested in without having to clear an investigation of the Sanchez Bank and the old man who owns it with my superiors."
"That sounds like a good idea unless the Montevideo Police Department decides to suspend you or does something administrative that will encourage them to continue trying to fit you to a jail cell even if the evidence isn't there. Is that likely to happen?"
"I don't think so. I'd be more concerned that they'll pile hundreds of folders of unsolved cases on my desk and ask me to solve them while I'm sitting there waiting for my next assignment. They've done that to me before."
"OK, Martin, I'll trust your judgment. What do you want to do next on our case?"
"How about the logical distribution of labor? I'll look at all of the land deals in Uruguay and at anything in our computer files about Andres Sanchez and his bank. Eduardo can maintain his low profile while he does the same for the land deals in Paraguay and Argentina. You, and Suzanne if she wants to stay involved, can take the lead in poking Andres Sanchez with a small stick or two to see what happens. You need to come up with an idea of why you and Sanchez might want to do some business together. Maybe you two are wealthy Americans looking for a way to invest your money in Uruguayan real estate or something like that? If you can come up with a plan I think I can persuade an old friend of ours to arrange the introductions to the Sanchez Bank for us."
""Let me discuss your new suggestions with Eduardo and Suzanne and call you back. Offhand I'd say we have a game plan."
While all of this was occurring Suzanne, Bruce, Robert, a portable stroller, and a bag full of a dozen or two kilos of diapers, milk, towels, and assorted baby necessities took a bus from the hotel to the Facultad de Quimica of the Universidad de la Republica, where Suzanne was going to show off the newest member of our family to her friends and colleagues there.
The Facultad de Quimica was housed in a century-old building that probably was elegant in the 19th Century, but was now just old, overcrowded, and dirty. It was terribly in need of remodeling and maintenance. Obviously, money was an issue. Students crowded the tiny lawn area in front, the entrance, and the narrow halls inside the three-story building. The Colletti lab, which was at the top of a wide flight of stairs, was small, old, crowded, and poorly equipped. Most of the students were female. Patricia nominally had an office in the back of the lab, but the tiny space was shared with six students, three small computers, and two pieces of modern laboratory equipment.
Patricia Colletti, her closest colleague, picked up Robert and played with him as she commented that Suzanne had obviously been productive in the year since they had last seen her. They talked science for a while, and caught up on mutual friends. Patricia explained that she had never paid much attention to her husband’s political leanings until after the Ambivalent Corpse affair. Her big news was that she divorced Bernardo as quickly as she could after she found out, and was enjoying her new life as a single woman. She took a long speculative look at Bruce, blushed in embarrassment, and went back to playing with the baby.
As they were leaving the Colletti laboratory they literally bumped into our friend Andrea, another professor at the Facultad de Quimica, walking towards her labs. Abrazos were exchanged among the adults, while coos and baby talk were shared between Andrea and Robert. After the formalities were completed, Suzanne handed Robert to Andrea to play with. As Robert cooed contentedly, Suzanne asked how Andrea's research was coming along.
"Really well lately," she answered between coos and kisses. "Our ELISA assays for microcystin toxins made by blue-green algae have been adopted by the Intendencia of Montevideo, and they're using the method to monitor toxin levels in the Rio de la Plata off of any beaches where swimmers might be exposed to harmful algal blooms. They've worked out a system where if the toxins are found at concentrations high enough to be dangerous they close the beaches so nobody will go into the river and be exposed. If a beach is closed due to toxins in the water, they signify this with a special flag called the Banderia Sanitaria that they fly from the lifeguard stations. Everybody in Montevideo knows what it means when the flags are flying, so you'll see completely empty beaches during the bad algal blooms in the river."
More hugs were exchanged, vague promises to get together for dinner were made, and good-byes were said.
Their next stop was the Palacio Legislativo (the Uruguayan Congress) across the street from the College of Chemistry. The regular hourly scheduled tour was one of the things I recommended they take to enjoy paintings, elegant architecture, and a short course in Uruguayan history. I had done this the last time we were here while Suzanne was giving lectures and working across the street, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The building is truly a palace, albeit an aging palace, constructed of marble with granite floors, gold leafed ceilings, and ornate chandeliers for the lighting.
There was still time for them to take a taxi to the Blanes Museum, properly calledthe Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes Juan Manuel Blanes, an old manor house that is now an art museum. It features much of the work of Uruguay's most famous and important 19th-century artist. His classic oil painting, the huge“Los Treinta y Tres Orientales”,commemorates the landing of the 33 patriots led by General Artigas who liberated Uruguay from Argentina during the 1825 insurrection and created the country. Prints and reproductions of this classic pa
inting are a familiar sight throughout Uruguay.
We had arranged to meet Eduardo and each other back at the hotel for an early dinner, 9 PM or so in Uruguay, so they had a tight schedule. They made it, with the baby well fed and fast asleep and lots of stuff they had seen to talk about.
We quickly reviewed the day's events for all of us. Eduardo didn't have anything new to tell us, just that he had read and re-read his pile of faxes from Martin and still found them boring. I filled them in on what I had deduced during the apartment tour with Martin. Suzanne had a key observation to make about my new theory to explain the locked room murder.
"If we need a name for this case, I'd suggest that the best way to capture the most important clue thus far, which has been a loose doormat, and the overall South American theme would be to call it "The Matador Murder".
This was also Suzanne's big chance to introduce Robert for the first time to two of his South American "uncles". No way was she going to miss this opportunity. So we went back to the room accompanied by "Uncle" Martin and "Uncle Eduardo". Robert's deep sleep was interrupted to allow him to be passed around.
