A Mint Condition Corpse, page 24
part #1 of Kirby Baxter Series
"Mine too," said Ashmore, standing behind the bar.
"Check it out," repeated the purse this time with Henry Hack's voice.
"In comedy," said Cooperman, "as in life, timing is everything."
"She had a beautiful soul," said Erica Cross from the behind the bar, "does anyone want another drink?"
"I'll have a Mai Tai," said Molly, holding up her hand.
"One Mai Timing coming up," said Erica, her image growing fuzzy around the edges as she passed a bottle to Molly.
"Delicious," declared Molly, somehow able to speak while chugging the contents of the bottle.
"Does anyone want anything else?" asked Erica, now growing transparent.
"I'll have a beautiful soul," said Henry Hack sitting on the bar where his wife's purse was just a second ago.
"One beautiful soul coming up," said Erica, almost completely insubstantial, passing a bottle over to Hack.
"Why are you here?" asked Bruce Haring as he emerged from the lighthouse turned clock tower. "You have work to do!"
"What work?" asked Kirby. "I'm not a cop. I'm just an idiot with really screwed up luck."
"You're supposed to find out who killed me," said Erica, now just a few wisps of mist hanging in the air behind the bar.
"But–"
"No buts," said Mitch as he and Sandra Doyle stumbled past.
"This is not my job!" declared Kirby as he stood up and stepped away from the bar. "I draw pictures for a living, I don't solve murders!"
"But you're so good at it," said a wisp of Erica as it floated by. "Can't you do it for me?"
"Can you do it for me?" asked Molly.
"But I can't!" said Kirby. "All I'm doing is making everything worse!"
"Why?" asked the wisp of Erica, as everything around him started to fade, everything but the lighthouse turned clock tower.
"Because the timing is all wrong!" yelled Kirby.
"The timing is all wrong..."
"All wrong," muttered Kirby as he snapped awake.
A phone was ringing.
This time it was Kirby's phone, he sat up and grabbed it.
"Hello," he muttered.
"Did I wake you?" it was Darling.
"Yes," said Kirby, "but it's okay." He looked over at the bedside clock, it read seven thirty in the morning. "What's up?"
"There's a lot of strange stuff going on," said Darling.
"What do you mean?"
"Cooperman just got bail."
"How did he get bail in the middle of a Saturday night?"
"Technically it was on a Sunday morning," corrected Darling. "It seems a judge showed up at the jail and called a special emergency hearing. The crown prosecutor had to get out of bed and drive like a maniac to make it there on time. This judge seemed very adamant that Cooperman get bail, but the crown was able to get it bumped up to five hundred thousand and have Cooperman surrender his passport. Then someone sent by Cooperman's brother arrived, paid the bail, and he just walked out."
"I don't know much about the Canadian justice system," said Kirby, "but this seems highly unusual."
"It is extremely unusual," answered Darling, "I put a tail on him, and the tail says that he's heading back to the hotel as we speak."
"What about Weatherby?" asked Kirby.
"Weatherby," is in a safe house with his handlers. They say his family's preparing to seize control of MaxCo on Monday morning," answered Darling. "But that's not why I called, it's because I'm concerned about him going after you."
"I saw the fear in his eyes when he saw Gustav," said Kirby, rubbing his eyes, "it was the only sincere feeling I got from him. I don't see him doing anything that stupid, but he might try to run for it. He's already pretty much lost everything, becoming a fugitive is not that big a stretch right now."
"There's some other news," said Darling. "We got the autopsy results."
"What are they?"
"I want to tell you face to face," said Darling, "with everyone taping and filming everyone else I've become convinced that someone's listening in on us right now."
"An epidemic of buggery?" asked Kirby with a half-smirk.
"That's a new definition of that word," answered Darling.
"Have you eaten yet?" asked Kirby.
"I barely slept," answered Darling.
"Okay," said Kirby, "come and join us for breakfast, because I have something to tell you too."
"You do?"
"Yes," said Kirby, "I just realized that Erica was already dead when we heard the scream. That means that everything we thought we knew about alibis and evidence is all wrong."
ISSUE #18
OVER EASY
Something that smelled really good hit Darling's nose as Gustav opened the door to the Royal Suite. Of course, since the last thing she ate was half a half-stale bran muffin over ten hours earlier, anything edible would have smelled good.
"Sergeant Darling," said Molly Garrett, dressed in an oversized black bathrobe, her hair wet. "We weren't sure what you liked, so we asked the hotel to send up a buffet kind of thing, and it's got everything."
Molly was not exaggerating, lined along the wall next to the dinner table were three long carts, bearing heated serving trays. The trays were so full they were almost tipping their shiny silvery lids.
"You weren't kidding," said Darling.
"The concierge even said it's on the house," added Molly. "I guess they lost a lot of guests and are just grateful to anyone willing to stay."
Marvin Mitchell Mandelbaum came out of his room, clad in a red t-shirt with a logo featuring a yellow lightning bolt in the centre of a white circle, dark blue jeans and lime green socks.
"Good morning Sergeant," he said.
"Good morning Mr. Mandelbaum," replied Darling.
"Call me Mitch," replied Mitch, "grab a plate, fill it up and grab a seat, Lord Peter Flimsy will be joining us shortly."
"'Lord Peter Flimsy?'" asked Baxter as he came out of his room, dressed in a plain black t-shirt and matching jeans.
"The rich amateur sleuth," said Mitch, as he scooped up a spoonful of scrambled eggs from one of the heated trays. "I thought it was fitting. I even thought about buying you a monocle."
"Sometimes you amaze me Mitch," said Baxter as he approached the improvised buffet, getting in line behind Darling and saying, "good morning Sergeant Darling."
"Good Morning Mr. Baxter," replied Darling.
"Just call me Kirby," said Baxter, "it's easier that way."
"I like to think that I always amaze everyone," said Mitch getting back on his favourite topic, which was himself.
"Not always," said Kirby as he got a plate and loaded on some bacon, French toast, and real Canadian maple syrup. "But sometimes you do succeed at being amazing when you can dig up a pun from the nineteen twenties, and it's still fresher than your Thom Bray reference."
"Who is Thom Bray?" asked Darling, not having a clue what they're talking about.
"He's not involved in this case," said Kirby.
"At least not yet," said Molly.
"The day is young," added Kirby, "but for now he's just a bit of flotsam from the bottomless vault of trivia that we call Mitch's brain."
"I'm going to toss some clothes on, save something for me, I'm starving."
"I'm not making any promises," said Mitch, as he squirted some ketchup on the side of his plate.
Gustav filled glasses of orange juice and placed one by each place setting before getting himself a plate of two eggs, bacon and toast, and sitting down across from Darling and next to Mitch.
"I guess we should get down to business," said Kirby.
"You better not whip out any autopsy pictures from that file," said Mitch. "Not that I'm the type that gets queasy easily. I'm just concerned about Molly."
"You're truly chivalrous," said Kirby.
"That's duly noted," said Darling, putting her zippered leather folder on the floor by her seat. "Don't worry, I won't be too graphic."
"That's good," said Molly as she re-entered the room. Her hair was still wet, but she was now dressed in a dark purple t-shirt and blue denim shorts. "Mitch is the sensitive type. He can't even watch CSI."
"I guess I should start with the cause of death," said Darling, dribbling that real maple syrup on her waffles.
"It was cyanide," said Kirby.
"Yes," said Darling, starting to slice up her first waffle into neat squares. "You were right all along."
"Were there any needle marks?" asked Kirby.
Darling shook her head, not wanting to talk with her mouth full.
"But that's not the odd thing," said Darling after swallowing.
"What's the odd thing?" asked Kirby.
"Erica Cross was a virgin," said Darling.
"No needle marks," said Mitch, "and she was virgin. I guess she never–"
"Gustav," said Kirby, "do me a favour."
Gustav's meaty finger flicked Mitch across the ear.
"Ooowww!" howled Mitch almost falling off his chair. "That almost took my ear off." Then he said to Darling: "That's assault."
"I think it's justified as self-defence," said Darling.
"Sheesh," said Mitch rubbing his sore ear.
"I think that remark needs a matched set," added Molly, flicking Mitch across the other ear.
"Ouch!" screamed Mitch. "That hurt even more."
"The sharp fingernail has many uses."
"Can we get back to business?" asked Kirby.
Darling agreed, followed by Gustav and Molly. Even Mitch agreed, grateful for using his ears for hearing, instead of target practice.
"So the cyanide had to have been in something she either ate or drank," said Kirby as he cut up his French toast.
Darling nodded, realizing that someone in the Waterloo's vast kitchen had somehow managed to make the greatest waffle she ever ate. She swallowed and asked Kirby: "So what's your theory about time of death and alibis and all that?"
"I read somewhere that cyanide acts very quickly," said Kirby.
"That's right," replied Darling. "The coroner looked at the amount in her blood and thinks it took a little more than ten seconds to kill her."
"She also wouldn't have been able to scream." Kirby took a sip of his orange juice, "which is why I think the scream we heard was some sort of distraction engineered by the killer."
"But it sounded like her," said Molly.
"There are ways to fake that," said Kirby, "Erica was in a horror film last year and she told me that her role was just a lot of running around and screaming. It doesn't take much technology or know-how to swipe a scream from a movie and play it back at just the right moment. Like when the killer is supposed to have an alibi."
"But you think she was already dead then?" asked Darling.
"I think she was killed at the party," said Kirby. "Remember that she left the Friday night party early, but no one saw her leave."
"Oh my God!" gasped Molly. "She was in the freezer while we were dancing."
"That's what I think happened," declared Kirby.
"That means everyone's alibis are worthless," said Darling.
"Exactly," said Kirby, "no one was dancing in the area behind Henry Hack's stage. The killer somehow lured Erica behind the stage, gave her something to drink and then slipped the body into the freezer, which wasn't even locked at the time, because who would steal dry ice."
"Now we have to reinterview everyone," said Darling.
"And trying to retrace their movements at a party where everyone's mingling," said Kirby, "and milling around in a dimly lit room filled with loud music will be next to impossible."
"Our killer may have committed the perfect crime," thought Darling aloud, "by doing it in a room full of people."
"Nothing's perfect," said Kirby, "there's a trail to Erica's killer."
"And how do we find this trail?"
"We follow the scream."
"All right," said Darling, "and how do we do that?"
"I haven't figured that out yet," said Kirby. "Let me do a little thinking while I eat."
"I could get used to this," said Darling as she stepped out onto the Royal Suite's expansive balcony.
"It does have its perks," said Kirby crossing over to the carved marble Art Deco railing and looking down at the street below. There was a crowd at the entrance to the convention centre. Kirby looked over what looked like a mass of ants and wondered how many were there for the convention, and how many were ghouls looking for the morbid thrill of being close to the site of so much murder and mayhem, and how many were reporters sniffing around for a scoop. When he talked to the concierge about breakfast Stevens warned them that reporters were starting to call, looking for information on him. They agreed that none should get through, but Kirby knew that the media had ways of getting what they wanted. Once they did, getting the time to think straight would be impossible, and this whole damn mess could remain unsolved. "But it seems to come with its own baggage."
Gustav slid out an elegantly formed metal chair for Darling to sit in.
"Thank you," said Darling.
Molly came out onto the balcony carrying her laptop. "The sun feels great."
"Yeah," said Kirby pulling over a long outdoor chaise lounge, "why don't you sit down and join us, we're just going to brainstorm for a bit."
"Don't mind if I do," said Molly, lying across the piece of high-end patio furniture and barely taking up any space on it.
Kirby pulled up a chair and sat down.
"How do we follow the scream?" asked Darling.
"That's the tricky part," said Kirby. "Everyone who heard the scream heard it coming from different directions. What does that tell you?"
"The PA system," said Darling.
"Exactly," said Kirby, "except that there are half a dozen ways to access the PA system, especially when the hall is pretty much empty."
"I'll call the tech guys and ask them to look it over," said Darling, taking out her cell phone.
"Just a second," said Kirby, sitting up straight. "Do you have the information on when the pictures were taken?"
"Yeah," said Darling, picking up her leather binder and unzipping it. "I have a printout that has all the dates and locations."
"Molly?" asked Kirby.
"What is it?"
"I need you get on the internet," asked Kirby, "and look for Henry Hack's website."
"What are you thinking?"
"Of something blindingly obvious," said Kirby taking the printout from Darling.
Molly typed and clicked.
"I found it," said Molly, and Kirby could hear tinny techno music playing on the laptop's tiny speaker.
"Check to see if he's got an archive listing past performances and public appearances," asked Kirby.
"I think I see where you're going with this," said Molly.
"Can you pass me the laptop?" asked Kirby, and he took the machine from Molly.
"Well?" asked Molly.
"I hate being right," said Kirby. "When musicians do a tour they try to lay out their schedules along a simple predictable pattern. You start at one city, go the closest one next and then the next closest, it's all to save money and time – do you see what I'm getting at?"
"But Hack's not a musician," said Darling, "he's some sort of celebrity DJ, doesn't he have to go wherever the celebrity parties take him?"
"One thing I learned about being a rich person," said Kirby, "is that the other rich people act a lot like migrating birds. They move in groups, from place to place, depending on the time of year. These movements, like music tours also follow predictable patterns."
"But Hack's appearances don't follow these patterns?" asked Darling.
"They are all over the place," said Kirby. "He's skipping some key markets to zigzag halfway across the world to places that are out of season, or never in season."
"But they're all places and times that put him near Erica?"
"Not all," said Kirby, "but I figure that three quarters of his 'tour dates' coincide with the dates and locations of the stalker photos. Erica does a fashion shoot in Berlin; Hack plays a small nightclub in Berlin. Erica appears in that low budget horror movie in Vancouver; meanwhile Henry Hack does a dance show at a nearby ski resort, even though it’s in the fall and the ski season hasn't started yet. I'll bet dollars to donuts that if we do some digging over all his other travel, like business trips and holidays, he'll pop up in all the other places. What brand of camera did the tech boys say was used by the stalker?"
"There are some data markers in the pictures," answered Darling, "that say it's a mid-range digital camera, the brand is Canon, but they can't get more specific."
"Hack owns a mid-range Canon digital camera, and if we let your tech boys look at it they'll find that if it isn't the stalker's camera then it's got a twin."
"We'll need a warrant for that," said Darling, "and warrants are harder to get than bail these days."
"I know where we can get you what you need," said Kirby, "and you already have a warrant to search it."
"Where's that?"
"We're going to need Mitch," said Kirby, rising from his seat, "where is he?"
"He said something about putting ice on his ears and sulking in his room," answered Molly.
"Gustav," said Kirby. "Could you get Mitch to come out here, please?"
Gustav nodded and slipped back into the suite.
"What do you need Mitch for?" asked Darling.
"Mitch is very good at using Macs," said Kirby, "and Hack just happens to have one left in the middle of our crime scene and it's hooked up to the PA system."
"I see where you're going," said Darling.
"But I can't see where I'm going!" said Mitch from his place slung over Gustav's right shoulder.
"Mitch," said Kirby, "what the hell are you doing there?"
Gustav turned around to let Mitch look up at Kirby.
"He let Molly ride on his shoulder," said Mitch, "so I asked if I could get a piggy back ride to make up for the ear flicking, and this was his answer."
