Murder with a Twist (2 page)

T
here's another reason why it was ironic to find myself looking at a hanging victim: last night's test case at the bar had also involved a hanging.

It was a Friday night and I was doing a thriving business. Several of my regular customers were gathered near the bar; they often rearrange the tables and chairs to make one big table they can all sit around. The group included Cora, a forty-something, single, compulsive flirt and computer nerd. She has red hair like me, though hers comes from a bottle, and she owns her own computer troubleshooting company. She and one of her employees are working on a software program that will help analyze crime evidence and suspects—sort of a computerized version of the game Clue—and come up with the name of the most likely culprit. While the software still has a lot of bugs in it, so far it has done slightly better than I have when it comes to solving the proposed cases that come up at the bar, although it still falls far short of any acceptable grade.

Cora is also using her computer skills in another way. She is helping me build a database of my sensory reactions to things, so Duncan and I can consult it anytime I'm unable to recall the connection between one of my synesthetic reactions and a real sense.

Also part of the Friday night group were the Signoriello brothers, Frank and Joe, two seventy-something retired insurance salesmen who are like kindly old uncles to me. I've known the brothers my entire life, because my dad and I lived in an apartment above the bar and the brothers have been patronizing the place since before I was born. And, ever since my dad died, they've taken on a more active role in watching out for me.

Tad Amundsen, a very attractive man in his late thirties who works as a CPA and financial advisor in an office near my bar, was also part of the group. Tad, like the others, is a regular at my bar, primarily because he is very unhappily married to a wealthy woman he is unwilling to divorce. Consequently, he spends a lot of time in my bar under the guise of working late, often fending off women—and the occasional man—who flirt with him. Tad has movie star looks, and I'm pretty sure his wife, Suzanne Collier, who is eleven years his senior, married him so she could have some eye candy to sport on her arm and escort her to the many functions she attends. Since Suzanne and Tad live in an upscale condo that is within walking distance of my bar, Tad often drops by during nonworking hours, too.

While Cora, Joe, Frank, and Tad are longtime regular customers, I also have a new batch of regulars who have been coming on a steady basis for the past six weeks.

On this particular Friday night, the newer regulars in attendance at the CSI table included two women friends named Holly Martinson and Alicia Maldonado, and their male companions, Sam Warner and Carter Fitzpatrick. Holly and Alicia both work at a nearby bank and have become frequent lunchtime and evening customers. They are good friends and an interesting duo in that they are like the yin and yang of women. Holly is tall, blond, blue eyed, and slender, whereas Alicia is short, heavy, dark skinned, and has brown eyes and hair. Carter, who is Holly's boyfriend, is also tall and slender, with strawberry blond hair and green eyes. He's a part-time waiter and wannabe writer who is always working on the next great novel or screenplay. Whenever he comes into the bar, he brings his laptop along, and his standard uniform every time I see him is jeans with a corduroy shirt. So far, he hasn't managed to sell any of his written works, but that doesn't keep him from trying, and the CSI angle of my bar intrigues him because he says it keeps his mind churning and thinking up new ideas. Sam Warner is Carter's friend—the two have known each other since grade school—and a grad student studying psychology with the hope of eventually becoming a practicing psychologist. He, too, is intrigued by the crime-solving aspects of the bar life at Mack's, and his insight into human nature gives him an edge from time to time.

I suspect Alicia's primary motivation for coming to the bar stems from the giant crush she has on my bartender, Billy Hughes, who is working to pay his way through law school. She finds endless excuses to talk to Billy, manages to sneak in plenty of supposedly casual touches to his arms and hands, and laces every conversation they share with sexual undertones and innuendo. Unfortunately for Alicia, Billy has a girlfriend named Whitney who he seems to be serious about, which is also unfortunate for him, in my opinion. I don't like Whitney much. She deems bartending to be a job far beneath Billy's talents and has made it clear she thinks being in my bar is akin to hanging in the slums. She's all about appearances, snobbish, and rude, and it's hard for me to see Billy with her since his personality is the exact opposite. At least he stands up to her and defends both his job and my bar, but I sense that if the relationship continues, Whitney will soon be the one in charge.

I keep hoping Billy will succumb to someone else's charms and dump Whitney. But aside from the gently flirtatious banter he uses on all the women who come into the bar, Billy, like Tad, never gives Alicia, or anyone else, any hope that her feelings are reciprocated, even though he has plenty of opportunities. With his tall, lanky build, emerald green eyes, and café au lait–colored skin, the man is a looker, and his charming, fun personality round out the package. Despite all the attention he gets, Billy manages to keep his admirers at a safe distance without pissing any of them off. And because he is a law student, he seems to enjoy the crime-solving games as much as anyone. Not only is he good at thinking outside the box, he's smart enough to figure things out a lot of the time. My goal is to train myself to think more like Billy.

On the flip side of the coin is my cocktail waitress, Missy, the female version of Billy—a lovely girl with silky blond hair, a curvaceous body, huge blue eyes, and milky smooth skin. Men flirt with her all the time, and I have several customers who I know come in to my bar solely to see her. Unfortunately, Missy doesn't have Billy's ability to keep her admirers at a safe distance. As a result, she is now a single mother of two and lives with her parents. Missy is very intrigued by the crime games despite her inability to understand the most basic connections and concepts, and on that Friday night before I came face to face with the real hanging man, she was hovering by the tables where the others were sitting, listening when she probably should have been making rounds and taking drink orders.

Unfortunately, Missy isn't my smartest employee. She's about as sharp as a bowl of oatmeal, at least when it comes to everyday knowledge and common sense, although she has a savantlike ability to match a face with a drink. If you are someone who orders the same drink most of the time, you'll only have to tell Missy once. She'll remember it forever after that. She might not remember your name or anything else about you, but she'll get that drink order right every time. While I know I should probably get on Missy more about hanging around the crime game folks—something she does every time she works—I often let her get away with it for one simple reason I'm not proud of: Missy's dim-witted attempts to solve the crimes make my comments and feeble guesses look almost brilliant by comparison.

Since it was a Friday night and therefore a homicide night, the drink special was an Alibi—a vodka-based drink flavored with ginger and lime—which was offered half price to all customers, and free, along with something to eat, to anyone who solved the “crime” for the night. Most of the folks at the CSI table had ordered one in preparation for the night's crime-solving puzzle.

I smiled when I saw that both of the Signoriello brothers had pens and little notepads just like the one Duncan uses, so they could take notes as Cora talked. The brothers love these little crime-solving sessions, and lately they spend as much time in my bar as they do at home. They are like eager children, which is funny given that they are both in their seventies with salt-and-pepper hair and a lot of well-earned wrinkles.

“To justice,” Cora said, offering up a toast. Everyone clicked glasses and drank. When they were done, Cora kicked off the night's crime solver. “Here's our scenario. Listen carefully.

“A woman named Penelope comes home from an overnight visit to her daughter's and finds her husband, Harry, dead, hanging in the utility room in the basement from a pipe in the ceiling. Harry had been ill with cancer, but according to his wife, he was in full remission and on the mend. The open ceiling in the basement is ten feet high. There is no chair, stool, or anything else in the room that Harry could have stood on, and his feet are dangling a good foot above the floor.

“The noose is fashioned from a long utility-style extension cord, one end of which is around Harry's neck and tied in the back using a typical hangman's knot. The other end has been looped over two pipes in the ceiling and is then tied around a floor-to-ceiling beam several feet away. Harry's hands are secured in front of him with a zip tie and his wrists are slightly bloodied, presumably from his attempts to escape his restraints. The sink in the basement utility room is plugged and the hot water faucet is turned on, resulting in the sink overflowing. There is a drain in the utility room floor, but it has been blocked by an empty plastic kitchen-size trash bag, resulting in three to four inches of standing water in the basement. Some recyclable trash—an empty, half-gallon-size plastic milk carton, the soggy remnants of a large cardboard box, and three plastic containers from some microwaveable meals, all of which are presumed to have come from the trash bag—is floating on top of the water.

“The house has been ransacked and, according to Penelope, there are electronics and jewelry missing, along with some cash from a money jar the couple had. The police investigate and find that the couple is financially drained, as both were self-employed and much of Harry's cancer treatment was paid for out of pocket. Harry does have life insurance, and the payout doubles for an accidental death. However, a death from his cancer is excluded for a period of five years because he had it at the time he applied for the policy and there are still two years to go before this exclusion expires. Fortunately for the wife, the settlement from the insurance company will be enough to pay off all the debts the couple has incurred and still leave her with a tidy nest egg.

“At first the cops decide poor Harry was the unfortunate victim of a break-in and burglary gone wrong. They surmise that the water in the sink was left running and intentionally allowed to flood to eliminate or compromise any trace evidence. They later begin to wonder if Harry committed suicide, but they can't figure out how. Since Harry's hands were secured in front of him, and there was nothing found in the room that he could have stood on in order to hang himself, could Harry have committed suicide, or was he murdered? Go.”

Cora then sat back and smiled at the group. Since the purpose behind these games was for me to try to learn to be more deductive in my reasoning and think like a detective, everyone turned and stared at me. Duncan had recently prepped me by suggesting that I analyze each crime scene with an eye toward motive, means, and opportunity. So I started there.

“Hanging seems like a rather extreme way to kill someone on the spur of the moment,” I said. “So I can see why the cops might have been suspicious. Maybe the killers were sadistic. It does seem like they used stuff that was readily available, so maybe they were surprised by Harry's presence and had to think on the fly.”

“However,” Sam said, “the apparent randomness of the crime suggests a killer or killers who aren't very organized in their thinking. Could the wife have strung him up?”

Cora shook her head. “Penelope's alibi is verified. She was nowhere near the house at the time of the crime. And even though Harry was thin, he was still quite a bit heavier than Penelope.”

“Did Harry have any drugs in his system?” I asked.

“Good question,” Cora said. “As a matter of fact, he did. The coroner found morphine in his blood, but not enough to have killed him. A chat with Harry's doctor reveals that his cancer had recurred, something he had kept from Penelope, and he had a prescription for morphine that he was taking on a regular basis.”

Carter jumped in then. “Is it possible he committed suicide and staged it to look like a murder?”

“Excellent!” Cora said. “While processing the house, one of the crime scene techs notices a very tiny drop of blood on the broken window of the door, which is assumed to be the mode of entry the burglars used. DNA typing shows that this tiny drop of blood belongs to the victim. No trace of anyone else is found in the house except for Penelope. After further investigation by the insurance company and the police, it is determined that Harry's death wasn't a murder at all, but rather a cleverly staged suicide meant to look like a murder. Eventually, they find all the missing jewelry and cash in a trash bin behind a convenience store. They also discover that the insurance policy excludes suicide as a payable death for five years, meaning that if Harry did himself in, Penelope gets nothing. But you still have to figure out how he did it.”

I frowned, unable to come up with an answer. Apparently, I wasn't alone, because no one else offered up a solution, either. Someone suggested that Harry somehow jumped up and grabbed an overhead pipe and then managed to get his head in the noose and tighten it. Cora nixed that one pretty fast. I could see why. It would take a talented and very fit contortionist to manage all that with his hands zip tied together.

After several minutes of discussion, Carter suggested that the zip ties could have been applied by Harry himself easily enough and Cora said he was correct in that assumption. But no one had an idea about how Harry had managed to then hang himself a foot above the floor without anything to stand on.

Before long, the group was busy drawing pictures on napkins of elaborate setups that used physics to perform the feat, but one by one each idea was discarded. Even Duncan was stumped.