doing here, O’Brien?” stare but didn’t bother to stop and say hello. Once he spotted me, Norton always concluded I was at the scene of the crime for a reason. More often than not, he was right. I work for Penelope Peters, and her job is solving problems. Including such problems as murder, robbery, arson, and kidnapping. Penelope hates crime like any good, upstanding citizen. Only in her case, she makes it pay.
“What a mess,” declared the good Inspector, looking inside the elevator. His voice sounded like a truck driving over gravel. A big-boned man, he stood six feet four and weighed a hundred and sixty pounds. Entirely bald, with sunken cheeks and a beak-like nose, Norton looked like a walking skeleton. A bout with lung cancer five years ago had nearly killed him. No more cigars for the Inspector. Unable to function properly without something in his mouth, he constantly chewed gum. “What a stinkin’ bloody mess.”
His hawk-like gaze swept the crowd of onlookers like a vulture sizing up possible meals. “Nobody leaves. I want statements from everybody in this hall.” His brows curled into a deep frown when he looked at me. “Especially you, O’Brien. I want to know exactly how you’re involved in this disaster.”
Immediately, everyone near me moved two steps back, as if they’d suddenly discovered a rabid dog in their midst. Norton knows how to make a guy feel two feet tall. That’s one of his more endearing talents.
He waved his team of experts forward. “Find me some answers,” he said. “The sooner the better.’
The interrogations lasted about an hour. The Inspector handled some, his assistant Stanley Dryer the rest. Nobody had much to tell. Norton, of course, left me for last. He was about to give me the third degree when three middle-aged men dressed in thousand-bucks-a-pop suits emerged from an elevator across the hall. They headed in a beeline for Norton. Following them, dressed in a green-grey uniform was a short, stocky man with a confused expression on his face. The name-tag on his outfit identified him as Roger Stern, building engineer.
Standing only a few feet from Norton, I tried valiantly to blend in with the scenery. Fortunately, nobody paid much attention to me. At my weight and size, remaining unnoticed is not one of my greatest talents.
“I’m Garrett Calhoun,” said the tallest of the men. Lines of grey streaked his black hair and his lips were thin and bloodless. “Cyrus is my brother. A terrible tragedy, Inspector. Terrible, terrible. Any clues about how it happened? Was his death an accident?”
Norton snorted. His tongue emerged, wrapped in gum, then retreated. “Accident? Unlikely when a man’s been decapitated. Not the usual method to commit suicide. Sorry, Mr Calhoun, but your brother was murdered.”
“Impossible,” interjected the second suit. Shorter than Cyrus Calhoun’s brother Garrett, this one was plump, wore thick brown plastic glasses, and had a trace of black moustache. “All three of us saw Cyrus enter the elevator alone. It’s his private car. He only rides it between the fortieth floor and the lobby. Entire journey takes less than a minute. You’re not suggesting someone climbed into the elevator somehow, chopped off my father-in-law’s head in one minute, and then disappeared? That’s absurd.”
“I don’t believe I caught your name?” said Norton.
“Tom Vance,” said the guy with the glasses. “I’m married to Grace Calhoun, Cyrus Calhoun’s daughter and Garrett’s niece.”
“Well, thanks for the info, Mr Vance,” said Norton, ever calm and polite. He could have been discussing the weather instead of a brutal murder. There was no outrage left in Norton. He’d seen too many dead bodies to get angry. To him, solving crime was a job, not a crusade.
The Inspector turned to the third member of the group. “Ralston Calhoun, right?” Norton asked. “I believe we met once or twice at the Mayor’s Spring Fundraiser.”
The man, tall and slender, with light brown hair and light brown eyes, nodded. Of the three, he was the youngest by a dozen years or more. “Your prime suspect,” said Ralston, with a slight twist of a smile. “Cyrus was my stepfather. With him dead, I stand to inherit a hefty fortune.”
“Nah,” said Norton. “Department furnished me details about the corporation. You make a great suspect, but so do your two relatives. As the three surviving stockholders in the company, you’ll all do quite well with Calhoun dead. None of you has to worry about begging on the street. It’s common knowledge you’ve been asking the old man to step down from the Board of Directors for years, and that he’s constantly refused. Dry those big crocodile tears. Everybody hated the old bastard. After I get statements from all of you, you’re free to go and get yourself smashing drunk. I know that’s what I’d do if I owned shares in this bank. From what Mr Calhoun senior stated, I assume you all alibi each other?”
“Exactly,” said Vance. “None of us could have had anything to do with the crime. It was right after our weekly board meeting. We were all upstairs in the reception lobby of the fortieth floor, saying goodbye to old Cyrus when the elevator door closed. We didn’t know anything unusual had taken place until we got a phone message from the front desk.”
“Didn’t exactly rush down here,” said Norton. “Talking to your lawyers first, I expect. Give your statements to my assistant, then you’re free to go. Good luck with the press.”
He frowned, rubbed his eyes. The usual signs he was getting a headache. I couldn’t blame him. Murders in rooms locked from the inside were bad enough. But a murder in an elevator riding down forty stories?
Around that time, Norton noticed me trying to make like a potted plant. Surprisingly, he didn’t say a word. Perhaps he was already thinking about Penelope. Not that I could blame him. More than once she’d solved seemingly impossible crimes. Though I had to admit, I was at a loss to explain how she’d figure out this hatchet job. Especially since she never, no matter what the circumstances, left her house.
Norton was talking again, this time to Roger Stern, the short stocky guy who was the building engineer. “I understand you were up on the fortieth floor of the building this morning,” said Norton. “Any special reason?”
“Mr Calhoun was complaining about the air conditioning in his private quarters. Normally, I let one of the engineers handle such complaints, but when it comes from the boss, I do the job myself.”
“Then you were present when Calhoun left the office and stepped into the private elevator?”
“Yes, sir,” said Stern. He spread his hands wide. “Don’t look to me for explanations. Once the door closed, I went back to work. Everything Mr Vance said about the elevator is true. Impossible for anyone to climb inside and chop off Mr Calhoun’s head. Or get out afterward.”
“Any chance the elevator stopping at another floor?” asked Norton. “Murderer jumps in, kills Calhoun with a machete, and jumps out all in the span of few seconds.”
“Sounds like something out of James Bond.” Stern shook his head. “This elevator was built according to Mr Calhoun’s specifications. For his use only. Operates by key. It runs from the fortieth floor to the lobby and back up again. No stops in-between. Once the boss got into the car, it descended straight as an arrow to this foyer.”
“Forget the machete angle,” called Andy Jackson, one of Norton’s team, from inside the elevator. “Wound’s a clean slice. No chop-chop stuff here. More like a guillotine than a butcher knife.”
“Terrific,” said Norton, frustration evident in his voice. “Just terrific.” He looked into the elevator where his crew was working. “Anything else you gentlemen can add to the discussion? A clue, perhaps?”
“Found a dozen slivers of wood on the carpet,” said Mel Thomas. He held one up. It was the size and shape of a large toothpick. It was red with blood. “Scattered all over.”
“There’s a door in the ceiling, right?” said Norton. “Maybe the killer shook the wood loose when he moved the light fixture coming in from above?”
“Building code requires a trap door on top of every elevator,” replied Stern. “It’s kept bolted. I’ll need to lower the elevator to the basement to inspect it.”
“Do it,” said Norton. There was a resigned look on his face, as if knowing what to
