you almost gave me a heart attack.”
I put two and two together quickly enough, but Officer Henry Perez wasn't endowed with the same preternatural detecting abilities.
“Where's the gun?” he croaked, arms and legs locked in full Weaver stance. “Who's got the gun?”
“Easy, Officer.” I put a hand on his elbow and eased his arms down. “There is no gun.”
Perez's face wrinkled up. “No gun? That sounded just like...”
Herb finished his sentence, “...the gunshots you heard when you arrived on the scene. I know. It's all right here.”
Herb held up the CD.
“It's a recording of gunshots,” I told Perez. “It was used to get you to break into the house. Probable cause. Or else you never would have gone in—the 911 call talked about a bad smell, but the corpse is fresh and there is no smell.”
Perez seemed reluctant to holster his weapon. I ignored him, holding out my hand for the CD. It was a Maxell recordable CD-R. On the front, in written black marker, was the number 209. I held the disc up to the light, checking for prints. It looked clean.
“Maybe this is one of those clues the dear, departed Edward Wyatt mentioned in his video.” Herb said. “You ready to get some lunch?”
“I figured out how the doors were locked from the inside,” I said.
We went downstairs and I showed Herb the fruits of my labors, prying off another piece of trim.
“Smart. What made you think of it, Jack?”
“The trim is glued on, rather than nailed. Which made me wonder why, and what it covered up.”
“Impressive, Oh Great One. Did you also happen to notice the number?”
“What number?”
“Written on the back of the trim, in black marker.” Herb pointed at the number 847.
“What did Wyatt say in his recording? About being a sharpie? What's the most popular black marker?”
“A Sharpie.” Herb grunted his disapproval. “Wyatt's lucky he's dead, because if he were still alive I'd smack him around for making us jump through these hoops.”
“Are you saying you'd rather be interviewing a domestic battery?”
“I'm saying my brain hurts. I'm going to need to watch a few hours of prime time to dumb myself back down. Isn't that reality show on tonight? The one where the seven contestants eat live bugs on a tropical island to marry a millionaire who's really a janitor? My IQ drops ten points each time I watch that show.”
I stared at the black marker writing. “Eight four seven is a local area code. The two zero nine could be a prefix.”
“Almost a phone number. Maybe there's another clue with the last four digits.”
We went back to the game of Clue, but nothing was written on or inside the box. Another ten minutes were wasted going through the pile of puzzle magazines.
“Okay, what have we figured out so far?” I said, thinking out loud. “We figured out the gunshots that brought us to the scene, and we figured out the locked room part. But we still don't know how he fell to his death in the living room.”
“He must have jumped off a building somewhere else, and then his partner brought the body here and staged the scene.”
I rubbed my eyes, getting a smudge of eyeliner on my gloves.
“It's a damn good staging. ME said the blood spatters indicate he fell into that room. Plus there are carpet fibers embedded in his face.”
“Maybe,” Herb got a gleam in his eye, “he jumped onto that carpet at another location, then both the carpet and the body were put back into the room.”
“The entire living room is carpeted, Herb.”
“Maybe the helper cut out a section, then put it back in.”
We went back into the living room, wound plastic food wrap around our shoes and pants, and spent half an hour crawling over the damp carpet, looking for seams that meant it had been cut out. It was a dead end.
“Damn it.” Herb stripped off some bloody cling wrap. “I was sure that's how he did it.”
I shrugged. My neck hurt from being on all fours, and some of the blood had gotten through the plastic and stained my pants. “Maybe the fibers embedded in the body won't match the fibers from this carpet.”
Herb sighed. “And maybe the blood found squirted all over the room won't match, either. But we both know that everything will match. This guy was so meticulous...”
“Hold it! You said 'squirted.'”
“It's a perfectly good word.”
“I think I know why the living room looks that way. Come into the kitchen.”
I opened the dishwasher, showing Herb the mason jars and turkey baster. Herb remained dubious.
“That turkey baster wouldn't work. Not powerful enough.”
“But what about one of those air-pump squirt guns? The kind that holds a gallon of water, and can shoot a stream twenty feet?”
I led Herb into the basement closet, holding up the squirt gun I'd seen earlier. Written on the handle, in black marker, was the word 'Charlie.''
“Okay, so we've got two three-digit numbers, and a name. Now what? We still don't know how the fibers got embedded in the victim.”
Herb rubbed his chin, thinking or doing a fair imitation of it. “Maybe the helper embedded the fibers by hand after death?”
“Phil would have caught that. I think Wyatt actually leapt to his death and landed on carpeting.”
“I've got it,” Herb said. He explained.
'Herb, that's perfect! But there's no way you can put black marker on something that isn't here. What else do we have?
“Got me. That revelation taxed my mental abilities for the month.”
“The only other obvious clue is the Swedish Fish candy.”
Herb pulled the box out of his pocket. The package, and contents, seemed normal. So normal that Herb ate another handful.
I racked my brain, trying to find something we'd missed. So far, all the clues made sense except for that damn candy.
“I'm going back upstairs,” Herb said. “Want to order a pizza?”
“You're kidding.”
“I'm not kidding. I have to eat something. We might be here for the rest of our lives.”
“Herb, you can't have a pizza delivered to a crime scene.”
“How about Chinese food? I haven't had Mu Shu Pork since Thursday. You want anything?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“I'm sure.”
“You're not getting any of mine.”
“Get me a small order of beef with pea pods.”
“That sounds good. How about a large order and we split it?”
“What about the Mu Shu pork?”
Herb patted his expansive belly. “I'll get that too. You think I got this fat just looking at food?” He turned, heading for the stairs. “Where's Wyatt's phone book?”
“It's on his desk.” Insight struck. “Herb! That might be another clue!”
“Chinese food?”
“The phone book! It's open to a page.”
I squeezed past my portly partner and raced up the stairs. The phone book was where I left it, BURGLAR ALARMS covering the left-hand page. I went through each of the listings, put there was no black marker. I checked the other page, and didn't see anything unusual. But on the very top of the right hand page was spillover from the previous entry. A listing called CHARLIE'S, with the phone number 847-209-7219.
