AHMM, April 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "This last job you gave him—would it have had something to do with a locked cabinet?"

  "Exactly, exactly,” nodded Dorjack, somewhat nonplussed. “An old telephone stand. In pretty fair condition, just needed some buffing up. But the compartment was locked, and I asked Dane to open it for me because I didn't have the key, and I didn't want to mar the finish trying to jimmy it open."

  "Was the cabinet empty?"

  "No, it wasn't. We could hear stuff clunking around in there. Figured it was just odds and ends, but who knows? Stands like that were manufactured by the hundred thousand back in the days when residential telephones were all tabletop units in basic black with rotary dials, and they all belonged to the telephone company."

  Apparently already over his shock at learning of Sackler's death, Dorjack had his mouth in high gear again. Anyway, the mention of the cabinet had triggered yet another spate of verbiage. “Your telephone and your pad and pencil went on top, your phone book on the shelf underneath, and down in the cupboard you kept—you name it, from shoe polish and spare lightbulbs to the fancy ashtrays you put out when company came over."

  And sweet vermouth, thought Auburn.

  "Can you tell me where you got that cabinet?"

  "Yes, sir. I bought it with several other pieces from a man named Guy Iddings, who used to run that big used furniture store on Heron Pike. He sold out back in March or April and retired to Florida. Something interesting turn up in the cabinet?"

  "We'd like to find out who the last owner was."

  "I've got Guy's address here somewhere if you want it. But frankly, I doubt if he'll be able to help you trace that piece. He bought and sold stuff right and left, and his records were pretty sketchy, to say the least."

  Auburn made a note of Iddings's name and current address. “Did Sackler seem his usual self when you saw him on Monday?” he asked.

  "Oh sure. He was always quiet—sort of lost in his own thoughts. Hey, he didn't kill himself, did he?"

  "We don't think so. Do you know if he had any family? The coroner's office is still looking for the next of kin."

  "Dane never talked about any family to me. Never talked much at all."

  "Do you know of any other regular business contacts he had, any close friends?"

  "No, sir, I don't. He was a loner—practically a hermit. Lived all by himself out in the country. I guess you know that. Only person I can think of who knew him besides myself was Lori Burleigh. Maybe you know her—she works for the city, keeps track of all the traffic signs."

  "Thanks, I've already talked to Ms. Burleigh."

  As Auburn left the shop, Hervey Dorjack was heading for the back room, quite probably to call Ms. Burleigh.

  At headquarters, Auburn reported in to the second watch commander and requested record searches and security probes on Burleigh, Dorjack, and Iddings. An attempt to reach Guy Iddings by telephone was unsuccessful. After locking the plastic bin and its contents from Sackler's workshop in his office closet, he went home for the day.

  He found the Sunday papers and the breakfast dishes exactly where he'd left them. He spent an hour cruising the Internet and learning about picrotoxin and benzyl alcohol.

  Monday morning's newspaper contained a brief note about the finding of Sackler's body on Saturday and a plea for information about next of kin. Shortly after Auburn arrived at headquarters, Stamaty called to report that the liquid in the wine bottle they'd found in Sackler's workshop contained a very high concentration of picrotoxin, along with traces of benzyl alcohol. None of the foods from the kitchen contained any poison.

  "I dusted the wine bottle for latent prints,” said Stamaty, “since I've got Sackler's prints and I doubt if you do. And his were absolutely the only prints I found on it."

  Auburn told him the results of his interview with Dorjack. “I did some research at home last night on picrotoxin, Nick. A solution of picrotoxin in benzyl alcohol, called ‘pickle juice,’ is used to dope racehorses."

  "Well, you're one up on me. Good luck on tracing that bottle."

  Auburn placed another call to Iddings's number in Florida and again got no answer.

  He unlocked the closet and got out the plastic bin of articles that had presumably come from the same place as the poisoned bottle of sweet vermouth. He set aside the pipes, the package of tobacco (hard and brittle as broken glass), and the pipe cleaners ("All-Ready Pipe Cleaners—30 ct.,” of which nineteen remained) as unlikely to be of much help.

  Before handling the framed photographs, he dusted the glass for prints and found only useless smudges. Disassembling the frames revealed only the expected mats and padding. The pictures had been taken by the Haverska Studio, the local firm that had done Auburn's high school yearbook photos almost twenty years ago. A call to the studio elicited the information that negatives were retained for only one year.

  At first glance the photocopies of articles on naval history, mostly referring to the nineteenth century, seemed to be no more promising than the other materials. But then he noticed that one set of them was in a manila envelope, along with a mail routing slip bearing the printed name of the Caldwell Building and a handwritten room number, 302.

  The Caldwell Building, on the western fringe of downtown, had been demolished fifteen or twenty years ago to make room for a more modern office complex. Instead of calling Records and asking a clerk to look up the information in the Department's library of old city directories, Auburn went down the back stairs and looked it up himself. The tenant listed for Suite 302 in the Caldwell Building the year before the building was torn down was Pretty Penny Imports, Stephen J. Callender, proprietor.

  An entry in the alphabetical section of that directory gave a home address for Callender on Potomac Street and indicated that his wife's name was Penelope. The only Callender in the current directory was Leonard, an attorney. But Pretty Penny Imports was still in business, now with offices in the Patterson Tower Annex, and the current proprietor was listed as H. T. Marienthal.

  Glad for an excuse to spend some time outside in the sun, Auburn walked across the street to the Bureau of Vital Statistics in the courthouse. There he learned that Stephen J. Callender of Potomac Street had died seventeen years ago at the age of thirty-seven. His death certificate listed the cause of death as a heart attack, with hypertension as a contributing cause. However, no autopsy had been done. Callender's body had been cremated.

  Stamaty and associates had been ready to attribute Dane Sackler's death, at the age of forty-four, to a heart attack until the autopsy turned up the real cause. Had Callender, at thirty-seven, also succumbed to a fatal dose of picrotoxin?

  Auburn walked seven blocks farther to the newspaper office. The usual midmorning downtown throng had been swelled by dozens of kids lately released from the thralldom of school for the summer. As he made his way north, keeping to the sunny side of the street, he thought back seventeen years in his own life. That was the year his paternal grandfather died. The year he broke up with Earleen after eighteen months of a relationship that was going nowhere. The year he dropped out of college after a semester of pre-law and nearly killed himself working construction for four months during the coldest winter on record.

  An old schoolmate of Auburn's, with whom he'd carried on a mock feud for more than twenty-five years, was in charge of the file room at the newspaper office.

  "I'm looking for an obituary on a Stephen J. Callender,” Auburn told him after a perfunctory exchange of insults, “and any other news items about him from that same year."

  "What year did he die?"

  "The exact date of death is right here, along with his name.” Auburn handed him a slip of paper. “Think you can decipher that? I heard you finally passed remedial reading in night school."

  "Gimme that. Hey, I heard there's a new law now that says you black guys can work for the city. And carry guns. Not loaded, of course."

  "Hansen, if you don't have that obituary on this counter in about three minutes, I'm going to start some
target practice down here, and then we'll see what's loaded and what isn't."

  It took more than three minutes because everything from that far back had been transferred to spools of microfilm, and the relevant spool had to be laboriously cranked through a reader by hand. But the results were well worth the effort. Callender's obituary notice was accompanied by a head-and-shoulders portrait photograph that pretty obviously represented an older version of the man who appeared in two of the photographs from the telephone cabinet.

  The obituary notice itself provided only the usual information about education, military service (discharged from the Navy with the rank of lieutenant), survivors (brother Leonard, wife Penelope, son Kyle), and funeral arrangements. But a lengthier news item in the same edition of the paper stated that Callender, proprietor of Pretty Penny Imports, had been found unconscious in his office by a coworker and that rescue efforts by paramedics had been unavailing.

  A search of the newspaper's computerized alphabetical index elicited two news items pertaining to Callender from earlier in the same year. One of these reported a small warehouse fire that had destroyed some merchandise belonging to Pretty Penny Imports. Fire authorities suspected arson. The other article listed Callender among recipients of an award from the Downtown Business Alliance for “enterprise and integrity."

  When Auburn returned to the office, he found that background checks had come in from Records. Loretta Burleigh was squeaky clean, but the Better Business Bureau and the Robbery Division had files on Dorjack and Iddings. Both had poor customer satisfaction records, and both had been caught fencing stolen merchandise, though neither had ever been convicted of wrongdoing.

  After bringing his computer file on the Callender death up to date, Auburn took a printout of it, along with other relevant papers he'd accumulated so far, to Lieutenant Savage's office. The lieutenant seemed neither more nor less dour and unflappable than usual this morning after his weekend on duty. He sat through Auburn's recital of the case, looking as solemn as an archbishop with a toothache.

  "So,” said Auburn, summing up, “it looks like Sackler's death was just an unfortunate accident. He was pretty much of a loser—a problem drinker with no close friends but apparently no enemies either—anyway, not a threat to anybody. But somebody put the poison in that wine bottle for a reason, and I think the reason was to wipe out Stephen J. Callender, seventeen years ago."

  "Which would be impossible to prove without an autopsy, even if it had happened seventeen days ago. I don't know, Cy. This sounds to me like another one of your long shots. Next thing I know, you'll be trying to figure out who slipped the hemlock to Socrates."

  "I think we already know that,” said Auburn. “Napoleon might be more of a challenge. Or maybe Mozart."

  "Or how about ‘Who put the arsenic in Beethoven's Fifth?’ Where do you want to go with this from here?"

  "Well, I've got a list of survivors. And among the survivors, as somebody once said, you usually find the murderer."

  "If there is one. And if the murderer is still alive by the time you get around to looking for him."

  "Callender's widow has either died, moved away, or remarried. Anyway, there's no Penelope Callender in the current city directory or phone book, and she's not listed by her maiden name of Penelope Fries either. But there's a Leonard Callender practicing law in town."

  "What else are you working on right now?"

  "Just routine stuff. I'll be in court Thursday morning when Orlie Prewitt comes up before the grand jury."

  "Okay. See how many of these people are still around. I mean around here. I'm not authorizing any long-distance calls to New Zealand or any trips to L.A. Go slow, and be careful what you say and who you say it to. But my gut feeling is that if Callender did die of whatever hellish concoction was in that wine, he put it there himself."

  Now thoroughly captivated by the beauties and attractions of this summer day, Auburn set out immediately on foot for the Patterson Tower Annex, where Pretty Penny Imports was currently doing business. Along the way he stopped for lunch at The Wedge, a popular downtown restaurant squeezed into an impossibly narrow smidgen of land. The diners, most of them regulars from nearby stores and offices, stood at tables as narrow as windowsills, bumping elbows with one another and breathing a stifling atmosphere of tobacco smoke, burning grease, melted cheese, and scorched onions. But Auburn knew by experience that his digestive system could handle most of the items on the menu here without rebellion.

  According to the sign on the door, Pretty Penny Imports dealt in “Asian and East Indian specialties,” which might mean just about anything. The receptionist, dark and middle aged, looked up from her computer monitor to glare at him like a sleek, overfed cat whose afternoon nap has just been interrupted by a snarling Chihuahua.

  "Is Mr. Marienthal in this afternoon?"

  "Did you have an appointment?” Her breathy, cooing voice reminded Auburn of a commercial for baby food or a birthing center.

  "No, I'm sorry, I don't.” Auburn showed identification. “If he isn't busy I have just a couple of routine questions I'd like to ask him."

  "I'll see."

  Hart “Hank” Marienthal received Auburn in his private office, a big messy room with a view of the street. A huge message board plastered with dozens of scribbled notes covered one wall. On the long table below it, two computers lay nearly buried amid stacks of papers, file folders, cartons, and a nondescript litter of samples, broken china, brass figurines, and pottery.

  Marienthal was fiftyish and chunky, with a slightly disarranged hairpiece. He cast a perfunctory glance at Auburn's badge and motioned him to a chair in the corner. “How can I help you?"

  People react differently to a visit from a police detective. Some welcome it as a diversion from their dreary daily routine. Others, whose consciences perhaps aren't quite so clear, betray anxiety, impatience, even open hostility. Because his fingernails were chewed to the quick, and all the pens and pencils strewn over the worktable showed tooth marks, Auburn surmised that Marienthal's flushed face and jittery manner were probably chronic rather than a reaction to this visit.

  "I'm not sure you can. How long have you owned this company?"

  "About fifteen years.” Marienthal had seated himself in his spring-backed desk chair and now sat hunched forward like a prizefighter waiting for the starting bell. “Why?"

  "Were you acquainted with the former owner, Stephen Callender?"

  "Well, sure. I mean, I worked for him for seven or eight years."

  "So you were with the company at the time of his death?"

  "That's correct. What's this all about?"

  "My investigation doesn't have to do directly with your company. I'm trying to trace a piece of furniture..."

  Marienthal was shaking his head vigorously. “We've never handled any furniture.” He said it with such finality that it was evident that he now expected Auburn to go away immediately and leave him alone.

  "What I have in mind is a piece of office furniture—probably a telephone stand that belonged to Mr. Callender."

  "Anything like that is long gone. In those days we were in a different office, over on Second Street. When they tore down the building we moved in here and got all new furniture."

  "Do you know what happened to the old furniture?"

  "Not for sure. Steve's brother Len, who's a lawyer, handled all that. You could ask him—he's in the book. But I think he just had a junk dealer clear all the stuff out after we left. What was it you said you're trying to find out?"

  "Were there other employees besides yourself at the time Callender died?"

  "Just his wife Penny."

  "Would you know how I might get in touch with her?"

  Marienthal leaned back in his chair and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Hey, Pen! Come in here a minute."

  When the receptionist appeared in the doorway, Auburn finally recognized her as the woman in the pictures from the telephone cabinet.

  "This is Penny,” ex
plained Marienthal. “She did all Steve's secretarial work. In his will he left the whole business to her, and not much else. I was the only one on the payroll, and after a year or two of that she decided it would be cheaper just to marry me and keep it all in the family.” Marienthal leaned forward again, elbows on knees. “He's asking about Steve, Pen. Something about a cupboard he had in his office over on Second Street."

  "Telephone cabinet,” said Auburn. “With a locked compartment."

  She paused to reflect before answering. “I remember that,” she said. “It was walnut. Ancient, and the top was all scratched. But my brother-in-law, Len, who handled Steve's estate, sold all the old furniture to a dealer. Not right away, but before we moved in here."

  "Would you remember what he kept in that cabinet?"

  "Oh, goodness no. Just odds and ends, I guess. Why do you ask?"

  "I understand Mr. Callender died quite suddenly."

  She blinked at the abrupt change of topic. “Well, suddenly, yes. But it wasn't exactly a big surprise. He had high blood pressure, he drank too much, he was overweight, and he smoked pipes and cigars constantly. I warned him and the doctor warned him, but he just wouldn't take care of himself. And one fine Sunday afternoon he had himself a coronary, working at the office when he should have been home relaxing."

  "Did he drink at the office?"

  "Oh my, yes. He had a complete bar with a refrigerator and everything, and it wasn't just to entertain the people he did business with either."

  Deciding it was probably time to draw this preliminary interview to a close, Auburn left the Marienthals looking a bit bewildered.

  The day had grown windy, and it was starting to smell like rain as he walked six more blocks to the offices of Callender and Cannon, Attorneys at Law. Leonard Callender, Esq., was in conference, but after a wait of about twenty minutes Auburn was ushered into a dark, plush office whose last visitor had been wearing a heady lavender scent.

  Leonard looked about the way his brother Stephen would probably have looked had he survived another seventeen years of overindulgence and dissipation. His neck was exactly the same circumference as his head, and he had the fleshy face of a man who takes particularly good care of himself and never on any account gets up from the dinner table until he has reached the stage of repletion.