26: Stirring It Up
If you think that was a big break in the case, think again.
“The hoodie and the sweatpants we found with it were well worn, no tags,” Banfield reported at our next confab. “I’m guessing the killer bought them at one of our finer thrift shops.”
That’s where I buy most of my clothes.
“I sent it all off to BCI[8] for analysis, but don’t hold your breath.”
The next morning, Wednesday, Evan Farleigh showed up at EPD headquarters to see Oscar and Gibbons. Mac and I weren’t there, but Gibbons tells me it went something like this:
FARLEIGH: “Why are you harassing my client, Roger Calloway?”
OSCAR: “We’re not harassing anybody. We’re conducting a murder investigation.”
FARLEIGH: “You talked to my client at the scene of his wife’s murder. Why was it necessary to hound him again later in his place of business?”
GIBBONS: “There was no hounding. We had more questions as the investigation developed. Here’s a question for you: Where were you during the two murders?”
FARLEIGH: “Is that a joke?”
OSCAR: “Gibbons doesn’t joke.”
FARLEIGH: “At the time of Warren’s murder on Tuesday, December 4, I was at home watching television. On Wednesday, December 10, in the late afternoon, I was in my office downtown. Satisfied?”
GIBBONS: “What were your relations with Professor Burch?”
FARLEIGH: “I represented him in matters pertaining to his removal as dean of the SBU business school.”
GIBBONS: “What were your relations with Dr. Calloway?”
FARLEIGH: “There were none. I only met her once or twice in my capacity as her family attorney and her husband’s attorney in business affairs.”
GIBBONS: “Do you happen to have a Tum-Eze on you?”
FARLEIGH: “What the hell?”
GIBBSONS: “It’s an antacid tablet.”
FARLEIGH: “I know what it is, damn it! I live on the stuff. But why are you asking me that?”
OSCAR: “Maybe you just give my assistant chief indigestion, counselor.”
FARLEIGH: “Here. Take the damned pill, Gibbons. I seem to be on a roll giving these away.”
“Calloway could have warned Farleigh that question might be coming so he’d have the Tum-Eze handy,” I told Gibbons as he related the interchange. He just looked at me. This was during a conference with Mac and Banfield that afternoon.
“We seem to have made scant progress,” Mac said.
“Time will tell,” Banfield platitudinized. “You guys got it on the record from Catherine Burch and Roger Calloway that they barely know each other. Likewise, Evan Farleigh and Mrs. Burch. If any of those people turn out to be lying about that, it would be significant.”
“If,” Gibbons said gloomily.
“What about the search for the owner of the hoodie?” I asked. “Have you had any response?”
The key portion of the surveillance video had been posted on the SBU and Erin police websites, with links posted on all known social media. It had also been shown on TV4 Action News in Cincinnati—five seconds of tape which was hyped a total of twenty seconds (I added it up) during the half-hour leading up to its broadcast. There was even a still shot in that morning’s Observer. In all media, anyone with information was asked to contact Gibbons.
“The usual thing,” he said. “Seven eager citizens have turned in a neighbor so far. Four students are sure they saw the killer that afternoon and reliably reported that the figure in the hoodie was a male, a female, an Asian, an African-American, and a Caucasian.”
No Native American?
So, there we were, stuck in a ditch two days post-Calloway and eight days post-Burch. But Mac thought he saw a way to get us out.
“A great detective once said the following: ‘When everything seems like a hopeless mess, the thing to do is to stir it up good. Then something always comes to the top that you can use.’”
“Sherlock Holmes?” Banfield guessed.
“Close, but no pipe,” I quipped. I knew what was coming because Mac briefed me in advance. I didn’t dare tell them the name of the book he quoted.[9]
“Those are the words of one of the Master’s great disciples, Freddy the pig.”
“The pig,” Gibbons repeated tonelessly. “As in bacon on the hoof?”
“Yes, but no ordinary pig! Freddy is also a detective, a magician, an author—”
“In short,” said Banfield, “your role model.” They’re even built along the same lines. “I suppose you brought up this quote because you have an idea for ‘stirring it up’?”
“I do. What is it that everyone on campus from first-year students to Grant Kingsley most fears, Aurelia?”
“Another murder, of course.”
“Precisely! And yet, if we could provoke another murder, we might be able to catch the killer.”
“Now, why didn’t I think of that?” Gibbons deadpanned. “Why settle for just two murders when we could have three?”
“There will be no third murder, of course. I am talking about setting a trap.”
“What’s the cheese?” Banfield asked.
“I am. My idea is to give our friends in the Fourth Estate, primarily the Observer & News-Ledger and the Spectator, the impression that I know the identity of the double-murderer, but I am not yet ready to reveal it to anyone. Given my curriculum vitae of crime-solving, I believe it is not immodest of me to say that would loom as a credible threat to the killer. And he, or she, who has killed twice surely would not hesitate to kill a third time to protect that secret.”
“We can’t protect you 24/7 for very long,” Gibbons warned.
“I do not think this will take very long. And I believe it is most likely to take place on campus. Either of the other two murders could have taken place elsewhere, but they did not.”
“Kate will love this idea,” I said, employing the well-oiled Cody sarcasm.
“This is a plan born of desperation, Jefferson. I see no need to disturb Kate’s equanimity with the details.”
There was some hemming and hawing, but the words “you can’t do this” were not uttered. So, Mac had me take to the phones. I called Maggie Barton and Hadley Reams, starting with Maggie. I held the phone so that Mac could hear both ends of the conversation. That wasn’t hard with Maggie. Being a little hard of hearing, she speaks loudly:
“Hi, Maggie. It’s Jeff.”
“Howdy. Are you calling about commencement or crime?”
“The latter. I wanted to tell you that Mac knows who the killer is.” But I’m not actually telling you that, because that would be a lie. Mac and I make a game of trying to avoid lying.
There was a loud silence, then: “He does?”
“Don’t sound so surprised. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Of course not. Why are you calling me?” The old gal sounded almost wary. Would I ever steer her wrong?
“Just being nice. I thought you might appreciate the tip.”
“Oh! Sure. Thanks! So, he didn’t give you the name?”
“He won’t even tell the cops. You know him—he’s probably saving it for a dramatic last scene.”
Mac scowled at me. Good thing she couldn’t hear that.
“But you think he’ll say something for publication?”
“It’s worth the old college try.”
She thanked me, and we disconnected. Before I even had a chance to move on to calling Hadley, Mac’s phone belted out “The Ride of the Valkyries” and it was Maggie. He put her on speaker phone.
After brief preliminaries, she moved quickly on to: “I understand you think you know who’s responsible for the campus murders.”
“I may.” Or I may not.
“Anybody I know?”
“Ah, that would be telling. Prudence dictates that I not reveal the name of the killer of Professor Burch and Dr. Calloway just yet. However, after one final link in the chain is supplied, I will be ready to make that identification.”
“What do you think I should do about that?”
“You may print what I just said, if you feel so inclined. It would not unduly disturb me to give the killer a sleepless night.”
Both the Observer and Spectator played up Mac’s supposed knowledge in a follow-up story on the search to find the person in the hoodie.
The Erin Observer & News-Ledger and the Online Observer, POLICE STUMPED, NOT PROF, by Maggie Barton and Johanna Rawls:
Efforts by the Erin Police Department and St. Benignus University Police Division to identify the person shown in surveillance photos entering the SBU Athletics Building around the time of Dr. Helen Calloway’s murder there have so far proved fruitless.
“Sometimes it takes a while for the right person to come forward with key information,” said L. Jack Gibbons, Erin’s assistant police chief. “Assistant Chief Banfield of the campus police and I appreciate all the responses we’ve already had from people trying to be helpful.”
But Sebastian McCabe, a member of the SBU faculty best known as Erin’s mystery writer and successful amateur sleuth, thinks he knows who killed Dr. Calloway and, earlier, SBU professor and former dean Warren Burch.
“Prudence dictates that I not reveal the name of the killer just yet,” he said. “However, after one final link in the chain is supplied, I will be ready to make that identification.”
Warren Burch, who was forced to resign as dean in 2017 because of...
That one final link, of course, was the killer trying to bag Sebastian McCabe.
The Spectator, KILLER CAPTURE NEAR, by Hadley Reams:
Although campus surveillance video has failed to identify the killer of Dr. Warren Burch, professor of business and economics, and Dr. Helen Calloway, team physician for the Lady Dragons and other women’s sports, Professor Sebastian McCabe thinks he knows who it is.
But he’s not telling—yet.
“I will not announce the name of the killer now for reasons that will become clear later,” he told the Spectator.
When asked whether he shared his information with law enforcement authorities, McCabe said, “They do not know the identity of the killer, so far as I am aware.”
Aurelia Banfield, assistant chief of the St. Benignus University Police Division...
The stories hit online early Thursday morning.
And then nothing happened.
By that I mean that no one tried to bonk Mac on the head, either at his office or at home. The officers in casual clothes who had him under surreptitious surveillance must have been as disappointed as he was.
No doubt the routine police work of the two police forces continued, not to mention the Banfield-Gibbons liaisoning after hours, but we had no further conferences over the next few days. It would be nice to report that BCI came through with DNA from skin cells found in the collar of the hoodie, but that didn’t happen until after the killer confessed.
Even though no one was arrested in the murders, exam week limped to its quiet conclusion with nary a nasty tweet from Jason Danvers and like-minded malcontents.
Mac graduated on Friday from crutches to a handsome wooden walking stick with a top carved in the shape of a hound dog’s head.
“Is that a sword cane or a gun cane?” I asked.
“Neither, old boy. It does, however, provide some new options for personal defense. Now that I am somewhat more mobile, I should like to visit A Touch of Glass.”
“Returning to the scene of your crime, eh?”
The store clerk was thirty-something, about Mac’s height of five-ten, with a harried expression on his face as he processed a credit card payment for an older woman with impossibly black hair. The Cody memory banks accessed his name as David Price, the employee who was on break at the time of the Santafest robbery.
“It is as I expected,” Mac told me after one look at him. Then he said to Price, “Ms. Stansfield?”
“She’s in the back. Be out in a few minutes, I’m sure.”
When she came out and saw Mac, her face lit up. “You have news about the robber?”
“It will be news to you, although I have known since the day of the robbery. Perhaps we should discuss this in your office.”
“Okay. Hold down the fort, David.”
“Right.”
In the back office, Mac didn’t waste any time hitting her with it. “The robber targeted this store at the very day there was a large amount of cash on hand and at the very time your one employee was absent. I immediately realized that he was either extraordinarily lucky, or he had inside information. The latter seemed more likely. There was only one person other than yourself who had that information.”
“David?” She sounded hurt. “You’re saying he was the Santa Claus robber? But he wouldn’t know one end of a gun from the other!”
“It may well have been a toy. Mr. Price is the right height, a key description that Officer Mentzel focused on when he arrested me. I came here today to verify that. And why did the felonious Santa Claus not speak? Because he feared you might have recognized his voice, even if he tried to disguise it.”
“You’ve told the police this?”
“I thought I would leave it to you to tell the authorities—or not tell them, if you so choose. It is, after all, the season of forgiveness.”
She went to the door of her office and peeked out at Price showing somebody a set of crystal glasses.
“I don’t know about forgiveness. I’m pretty pissed off right now. He’s been like a son to me.”
“I have forgiven my son many times, as my father did me.”
“David’s wife is very sick,” Clarice Stansfield said softly, as if to herself. “Health insurance doesn’t cover everything. If only he’d asked...”
“He made an incredibly bad decision. Judging by the anxiety I noted in his demeanor when he saw me, I suspect that he knows that. Well, the next step is yours, Clarice.”
That was Friday. We never heard any more about the matter, which was good news for David Price—not his real name, by the way.
December commencement took place on Saturday. Shortly after the last diploma was handed out, I got a call from Johanna Rawls.
“Somebody who should have stopped drinking after the second beer at The Speakeasy last night told me that the so-called ‘inconclusive’ surveillance video didn’t show a suspect going into Mackie Hall on the night Burch died. He said the only people who went in were Burch, the cleaning crew, and the night security guy. Can you confirm that?”
“No, I can’t confirm that.”
“Then you deny it?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You mean you can neither confirm nor deny it?”
“Don’t quote me on that.”
“Well, thanks a heap!”
“Always glad to help the media.”
Sunday afternoon, a few hours after Mass, found Sebastian McCabe and me in his study. With books on all four walls, a wet bar with a beer tap, a flat-screen television, a working desk, and a fireplace, I insist it’s a man cave even though the very unmanly Kate and Lynda were ensconced in front of the fire as well.
“I simply cannot understand why no one has tried to kill me,” Mac said.
“That’s puzzled me for years,” I assured him.
Lynda rolled her eyes.
“Only you would be upset about that,” Kate told her husband. “I’m actually quite pleased nobody dispatched you, sweetheart. I’d hate to break in a new cook.”
“The killer’s lack of action must itself be a clue,” Mac rolled on. “What can it mean?”
“It seems to me like you’ve got clues out the ying-yang—too many clues,” I said. “The problem is figuring out what they mean.”
“Precisely, Jefferson! You have put your finger on it precisely.” He drank deeply of his Edmund Fitzgerald Porter. “The dog did nothing in the night-time in the famous Sherlock Holmes story because the canine knew the thief and therefore did not bark.” Do you really want to bring up that story? “Why did the killer in this case do nothing to me in the night-time, the daytime, or anytime? It can only be that my claim of being a threat to the killer was not believable. How did the killer know that I do not know his or her identity?”
Who knows?
Lynda pointed to a stack of newspapers on the table in front of the love seat, topped by the one displaying that day’s long Sunday feature on Grant Kingsley by Maggie Barton. “Maybe the answer’s in there.”
“How so?” Mac asked.
“We’re assuming the killer’s paying close attention to media coverage of the case in order to get a line on how the investigation of the murder is going, right? That’s why you planted a story on the unsuspecting reporters. Which, by the way, I’m peeved about because it’s highly unethical. So, maybe there’s something in the story quoting you that was a give-away to the killer.”
Mac stroked his beard, possibly trying to decide whether he could buy that or not. Then he attacked the stack of papers with a will, muttering as he went.
First, he pawed through the papers at the top of the stack until he found Thursday’s piece with the planted story. “I told Maggie very little. Yes, very little indeed. Except that—Could it be? Could it possibly be?”
Next, he picked up Maggie’s account of the Calloway murder. And studied it intently. “What a fool I’ve been!” he exploded. “How could I have missed it?”
My wife, my sister, and I looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders. Sebastian McCabe no longer knew we were in the room.
Finally, he quickly scanned the profile of Grant Kingsley. When he put it down, the expression on his hirsute face was one I hadn’t seen in a long time. It seemed to me a mixture of triumph and sorrow. Or at least, that’s the way I remember it, knowing what I know now.
“What’s the matter?” Kate said.
“I very much fear that I was right when I said the murderer was someone familiar on campus, but not so familiar as to go unnoticed without the camouflage afforded by the hoodie.”
And then he told us who he meant.
“No,” Lynda said. “I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it. You are bat-shit crazy, Mac.”
“That may well be the case, dear friend. However, that does not mean that I am wrong. No matter what our hearts say, logic tells me otherwise.”