Mortimer Hughes came out of the bathroom. He was holding a closed set of tweezers in one hand, his other hand cupped beneath it.
“I dug a fiber out of the victim's neck. Red, looks synthetic.”
“From a rope?” I asked.
Hughes nodded.
“Mr. Patel, we'll be down shortly for those tapes. Crouch, Johnson, help Herb and I search the apartment. Let's see if we can find the murder weapon.”
We did a thorough toss, but couldn't find any rope. Herb, however, found a pair of needle nose pliers in a closet. Pliers with pink handles.
“They were neighbors,” Herb reasoned. “Janet could have lent them to her.”
“Could have. But we both doubt it. Call base to see if they found anything on Hale.”
Herb dialed, talked for a minute, then hung up.
“Glenn Hale has been arrested three times, all assault charges. Did three months in Joliet.”
I wasn't surprised. All evidence pointed to the boyfriend, except for the damned locked room. Maybe Herb was right and the killer just slipped under the door and...
Epiphany.
“Call the lab team. I want the whole apartment dusted. Then get an address and a place of work on Hale and send cars. Tell them to wait for the warrant.”
Herb raised an eyebrow. “A warrant? Shouldn't we question the guy first?”
“No need,” I said. “He did it, and I know how.”
#
Feeling, a bit foolishly, like Sherlock Holmes, I took everyone back into Janet's apartment. They began hurling questions at me, but I held up my hand for order.
“Here's how it went,” I began. “Janet finds out Glenn is cheating, dumps him. He comes over, wanting to get her back. She won't let him in. He uses his key, but the safety chain is on. So he busts in and breaks the chain.”
“But the chain was on when we came in the first time,” Crouch complained.
Herb hushed him, saving me the trouble.
“They argue,” I went on. “Glenn grabs her arm, hits her. She falls to the floor, unconscious. Who knows what's going through his mind? Maybe he's afraid she'll call the police, and he'll go to jail– he has a record and this state has zero tolerance for repeat offenders. Maybe he's so mad at her he thinks she deserves to die. Whatever the case, he finds Janet's toolkit and takes out the utility knife. He slits her wrist and puts the knife in her other hand.”
Five inquisitive faces hung on my every word. It was a heady experience.
“Glenn has to know he'd be a suspect,” I raised my voice, just a touch for dramatic effect. “He's got a history with Janet, and a criminal record. The only way to throw off suspicion is to make it look like no one else could have been in the room, to show the police that it had to be a suicide.”
“Jack,” Herb admonished. “You're dragging it out.”
“If you figured it out, then you'd have the right to drag it out too.”
“Are you really single?” Patel asked. He grinned again, showing more spinach.
“If she keeps stalling,” Herb told him, “I'll personally give you her number.”
I shot Herb with my eyes, then continued.
“Okay, so Glenn goes into Janet's closet and gets a length of climbing rope. He also grabs the needle nose pliers from her toolbox and heads back to the front door. The safety chain has been ripped out of the frame, and the mounting is dangling on the end. He takes a single screw,” I pointed at the screw sticking in the door frame, “and puts it back in the doorframe about halfway.”
Herb nodded, getting it. “When the mounting ripped out, it had to pull out all four screws. So the only way one could still be in the doorframe is if someone put it there.”
“Right. Then he takes the rope and loops it under a sofa leg. He goes out into the hall with the rope, and closes the door, still holding both ends of the rope. He tugs the rope through the crack under the door, and pulls the sofa right up to the door from the other side.”
“Clever,” Johnson said.
“I must insist you meet my mother,” Patel said.
“But the chain...” Crouch whined.
I smiled at Crouch. “He opens the door a few inches, and grabs the chain with the needle nose pliers. He swings the loose end over to the door frame, where it catches and rests on the screw he put in halfway.”
I watched the light finally go on in Crouch's eyes. “When Mr. Patel opened the door, it looked like the chain was on, but it really wasn't. It was just hanging on the screw. The thing that kept the door from opening was the sofa.”
“Right. So when you burst into the room, you weren't the one that broke the safety chain. It was already broken.”
Crouch nodded rapidly. “The perp just lets go of one end of the rope and pulls in the other end, freeing it from the sofa leg. Then he locks the door with his own key.”
“But poor Mrs. Flagstone,” I continued, “must have seen him in the hallway. She has her safety chain on, maybe asks him what he's doing. So he bursts into her room and strangles her with the climbing rope. The rope was red, right Herb?”
Herb grinned. “Naturally. How did you know that?”
“I guessed. Then Glenn ditches the pliers in the closet, makes a half-assed attempt to stage Mrs. Flagstone's death like a drowning, and leaves with the rope. I bet the security tapes will concur.”
“What if he isn't seen carrying the rope?”
No problem. I was on a roll.
“Then he either ditched it in a hall, or wrapped it around his waist under his shirt before leaving.”
“I'm gonna go check the tapes,” Johnson said, hurrying out.
“I'm going to call my mother,” Patel said, hurrying out.
Herb got on the phone to get a warrant, and Mortimer Hughes dropped to his hands and knees and began to search the carpeting, ostensibly for red fibers—even thought that wasn't his job.
I was feeling pretty smug, something I rarely associated with my line of work, when I noticed Officer Crouch staring at me. His face was projecting such unabashed admiration that I almost blushed.
“Lieutenant– that was just...amazing.”
“Simple detective work. You could have figured it out if you thought about it.”
“I never would have figured that out.” He glanced at his shoes, then back at me, and then he turned and left.
Herb pocketed his cell and offered me a sly grin.
“We can swing by the DA's office, pick up the warrant in an hour. Tell me, Jack. How'd you put it all together?”
“Actually, you gave me the idea. You said the only way the killer could have gotten out of the room was by slipping under the door. In a way, that's what he did.”
Herb clapped his hand on my shoulder.
“Nice job, Lieutenant. Don't get a big head. You wanna come over for supper tonight? Bernice is making pot roast. I'll let you invite Mr. Patel.”
“He'd have to call his mother first. Speaking of mothers...”
I glanced at the body of Janet Hellerman, and again felt the emotional punch. The Caller ID in the kitchen gave me the number for Janet's mom. It took some time to tell the whole story, and she cried through most of it. By the end, she was crying so much that she couldn't talk anymore.
I gave her my home number so she could call me later.
The lab team finally arrived, headed by a Detective named Perkins. Soon both apartments were swarming with tech heads— vacuuming fibers, taking samples, spraying chemicals, shining ALS, snapping pictures and shooting video.
I filled in Detective Perkins on what went down, and left him in charge of the scene.
