Five minute mysteries 2, p.8
Five-minute Mysteries 2, page 8
Oxford Manor itself was not a row of mansions, any more than Corinne Wilson was a millionaire, but it was an expensive neighborhood: sophisticated, definitely high-end. And filled with people interested in keeping things that way. In her uniform, somewhat disheveled now six hours into her shift, Marni Dreyfuss looked like an intruder. Which, in effect, she was. Not many uniformed police officers were seen here in the daytime, and never on a 9-1-1 assault call. The 9-1-1 had been passed to Marni and her partner an hour ago, just as they cruised into a Denny’s parking lot. They’d been on duty since 3:00 and had just told the dispatcher they were taking twenty for breakfast when they were tabbed. It was a domestic, the kind of call every patrol cop hates. Some guy was beating his wife on the front lawn of their house.
So far, everything had gone wrong. The caller – a female voice – had used a cellphone to blurt out an address and a “Hurry, he’ll kill her!” and had then cut out. No identification; no trace possible. The guard at the gate had been a pain, dragging his feet about raising the bar. Then when Marni finally found Ashburnham Avenue after two wrong turns and pulled up to number 15, the house was empty. No one around – neither the alleged beater nor the alleged victim.
At this point, their tempers already frayed, Marni and her partner ran up against a succession of what their sergeant always referred to as “blank witnesses.” They caught up with a postie at the end of the street, for example, and from the way he refused to meet Marni’s eyes she knew he had something to offer, but all he would say is, “Look ... I didn’t see anything. I just deliver the mail.”
Across the street at number 16, it was no better.
“We just got up a few minutes ago. We’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” a woman in a kimono told them, her mouth level with the chain that kept the door from opening more than a crack. A tall man stood behind her silently nodding. He was dressed, Marni noted.
They’d split up then, she and her partner, to canvass both sides of the street. Back in the alley behind number 17, the man Marni spoke to in his garage didn’t try to be secretive, but he hadn’t seen anything. Marni could understand why. Garages in Oxford Manor, along with garbage pails, lawnmowers, and other detritus of suburban life, were kept properly out of sight behind the houses in alleyways. The design price that was paid for that feature was a pair of sidewalks at right-angles by the front door of every house. One led out to the street and the other branched left and then around the side to the alley. Unless he came right up his sidewalk from the alley, the man from number 17 couldn’t see his own frontyard, much less the one at number 15.
“I’ve been back here quite a while,” the man freely acknowledged. “Since maybe 7:00 or so. I’m an early riser, especially on these sunny fall days. Air is so nice and fresh, heavy dew sparkling on the lawns. Got to take advantage, I always say. Winter’ll be here before you know it.”
To Marni’s next question he’d replied, “Yeah, maybe. I thought I heard voices or something out on the street around that time, but I’m not sure. Had my radio on, you see.”
At that point Marni was ready to pack it in and, depending what her partner was turning up on the other side of the street, was thinking of maybe writing up a “dud” report on the 9-1-1 and calling it a day. Then the man added, “Saw Mrs. Wilson outside this morning around that time. She’s number 19 next door. Maybe she can tell you something. Doesn’t miss much.” And that explained why, at this moment, Marni Dreyfuss was sitting on Corinne Wilson’s front porch.
When she answered her front door, Mrs. Wilson’s body language expressed discomfort, which Marni figured was because the lady couldn’t decide whether it was proper to invite a police officer in, or whether she should allow herself to be interviewed standing in the doorway. The front porch was a compromise. Once she had properly positioned herself in the rattan chair, Mrs. Wilson opened by expressing curiosity about why a police officer could possibly want to speak to her. She pointedly added that she would be leaving in twenty-one minutes for the weekly meeting of the Literary Society.
Marni went straight to the point, told her about the 9-1-1 call, and said, “Number 17 – Mr. Gomes, right? – he doesn’t have a fence or a hedge, and number 15 doesn’t either, so you have a clear view of both frontyards from the porch here, don’t you?”
Corinne Wilson drew the sweater tighter.
“And, according to Mr. Gomes, you were out early this morning, around the time of the ... er ... reported incident. If the situation was serious enough to attract an emergency call, surely you must have seen or heard something. It’s a very quiet neighborhood.”
The hands came off the sweater and the fingers began to intertwine. Corinne Wilson leaned forward until the morning sunlight caught silver lights in her hair. There had been a rinse at work, Marni could see, but an expensive one. No blue shine on this lady.
“I was ... yes, indeed, I was awake and dressed early. My meeting, you know. And yes, I was outside as Edward ... Mr. Gomes said.”
“So you must have seen something at number 15, Mrs. Wilson! Or heard something!” Marni’s frustration was sitting right between them now.
Corinne Wilson leaned forward a bit more and turned her head. She raised a thin index finger until it rested on the tiny diamonds in her earlobe. “I only just put these in as you knocked. I never use them unless I go out.”
It took Marni a few seconds to figure out that the older lady was talking about hearing aids. She had one in each ear.
“I don’t confide this to anyone usually,” she continued, “but I really don’t hear much without them.” For the first time, she smiled, a soft smile, not gentle so much as genteel. “The neighbors, the Fawcetts in 15 ... yes, it’s possible I may have seen them very briefly. But, you see, there was this sheet of old newspaper.” Clearly, to Mrs. Wilson the unwelcome presence of the litter was on the level of mortal sin. “On my lawn! Breeze brought it in, I suppose. I went to get it, and actually had to chase it down between my house and the Taylors’ – they’re number 21.” She pointed to the house on the right. “Took it right to the bin in the back, of course; I suppose that may be when Mr. Gomes saw me. And then I came in through my back door. So, you see, if the Fawcetts were out, I wouldn’t have seen them, turned the other way as I was.”
Whether it was the buildup of evasions that did it, or being just plain tired at the end of her shift – whatever the cause, Marni lost her cool.
“Mrs. Wilson!” she said, far louder than she wanted to. “Do you see that police officer across the street? That male police officer? He’s my partner. Now you might have been able to fool him with a story like that, but not me. Not another woman!”
?
Marni Dreyfuss feels that being a woman has given her an edge in figuring out that Mrs. Wilson has lied to her. What part of Corinne Wilson’s story does not ring true to her?
Click here for the solution
26
"For Want of a Nail ... "
T.G. Binkley felt a clammy grip of despair in his gut when he saw the green Honda Civic round the curve. He focused hard on the driver’s face, just in case the desert heat was playing tricks with his eyesight, but it was Turgeon behind the wheel.
Had he been a violent man he might have slammed his fist into something, or shot off the big ugly Magnum he carried on his hip, but T.G. was not that kind. He was a planner: patient and careful. Those who saw only his outward side thought him a plodder, and not a very bright one at that. But T.G. Binkley had just carried off a heist that could well mean the corporate demise of Banko Armored Car Service. Well, almost carried off.
Twenty million dollars ... and everything had gone perfectly, especially the trickiest part, the detour and the holdup! When the armored car left Salt Lake, going south on I-15 toward Provo, T.G. had maneuvered things so that he was driving. That way, one of the other two guards had taken over the wheel after the pickup in Provo, while T.G. moved over to the front passenger seat where he would be in charge of the radio. He and the other two had been using this rotating system for so long it had become automatic; no matter what the travel distance, at each stop they rotated clockwise one position. Neither of the other two was even aware of just how or when the rotation had become a system; that’s how carefully and patiently T.G. worked.
South of Provo, the radio message had come right on schedule and it was T.G. who received. “Divert to Eureka and Hinckley for unscheduled pickups.”
T.G. pretended to be as surprised as his two colleagues at the instruction, for it was not standard procedure. Not only that, it would mean driving a short stretch through the Sevier Desert, which was out of radio range. Still, the instruction came from Aurelia back at headquarters in Salt Lake – “Sister Aurelia,” she called herself – and she had used all the proper codes, so they turned off the interstate.
The pickup at Eureka took only a short time, but it created another rotation, so that ten minutes later T.G. was in the back when they came upon the state trooper blocking the road. The trooper sent the armored car lumbering down a one-lane track in the desert that would, so she said, take them around the chemical spill ahead.
Things had gone so smoothly by now that T.G. was really not surprised when the truly dicey part, the holdup, went off as if rehearsed. A log across the track had forced the vehicle to stop, and before anyone could react T.G. had opened the back door. A complete violation of regulations, but the jig was up now anyway. A tall man in a ski mask appeared from the brush and pointed an armor-piercing weapon at the two guards in front, while T.G. tossed out the loot. Twenty million dollars evenly split between used tens and twenties! That’s what Sister Aurelia had said was in this load. T.G. had subtly wooed the lonely and unattractive woman for a year.
It took a bit of time to empty the armored car, but that was in the plan. The bandit in the ski mask then used hand signals to tell the driver he had ten seconds to back up, drive around the log, and get going. As the sound of the engine faded in a cloud of dust, T.G. allowed himself a small smile. This was Wednesday. On Wednesdays and Fridays he was responsible for gassing up and checking the gauges. Now all that was left was to get to the safe house, dole out the promised million each to his two new partners, set aside the same amount for Aurelia, and then ... Panama!
The fading sound of the armored car was immediately replaced by the sound of Turgeon driving up. She’d gotten rid of the state trooper uniform, and although T.G. couldn’t see, he was positive she was wearing the extremely tight shorts she always favored. The shorts had caused the only really serious argument during the planning process, because T.G. felt a car thief should realize how much attention they attracted.
On the other hand, Turgeon had accepted the logic of a “fresh scoop”: that she would have to steal a car that very morning so it stood a better chance of being unreported while they drove to the safe house. And when T.G. had instructed her to pick a vehicle that would not attract attention – they certainly could not use the fake patrol car – she had simply nodded in agreement. On the issue of the shorts, however, T.G. knew Turgeon would do whatever she pleased no matter what he said.
“It’s fresh,” Turgeon said proudly, jerking a thumb at the windshield as she got out of the car, “Right out of long-term parking at the airport in Salt Lake.”
T.G. couldn’t help but notice she was wearing slacks, but the realization softened his despair for no more than a second. What he was thinking in his patient, methodical way was that it takes only one glitch to ruin a perfect crime.
?
What is the glitch that has ruined this “perfect crime”?
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27
One Way to Break Up a Gloomy Day
Mary Margaret O’Rourke stared through the large plate-glass window at the McDonald’s wrapper floating along in the gutter. Its drift was erratic, for every few seconds a gust of wind would push it off course or a passing car would create little ripples that shifted it to one side or another. Mary Margaret watched it gloomily, wondering if the haphazard progress of the flimsy piece of waxed paper was a metaphor for her own life. Then, just as she concluded it probably was, two guys from the furniture store next door confirmed it. They were carrying a couch out to their delivery truck, and the leading man tromped the paper with a large booted foot, completely unaware he’d done so. Crushed now and more compact, the wrapper regained the surface and, floating a bit faster, snagged briefly on the furniture truck’s rear tires before disappearing.
Mary Margaret lifted her chin in the direction of the paper and pressed her lips together. That was her life right now, she thought: drifting along, pushed and pulled and trampled, en route to somewhere but never in control.
“Maybe it’s the rain,” she said out loud, wondering if bad weather for the past two days had brought on such gloom.
“You say something?” It was Ellie, leaning over her desk at the back of the narrow room.
Mary Margaret whipped around. Ellie was supposed to be on her way to the county clerk’s office. “No ... er ... noth –. What are you doing back here? Aren’t you going to –?”
Ellie didn’t wait. She never did. From the doorway she waved an umbrella. “Forgot this! I’m late – gotta hustle! See you tomorrow!”
Ellie was as bouncy and forward as Mary Margaret was introspective and private. That was why Ellie’s desk was at the back of the room: so she would be the first person their drop-in clients would encounter. The two young women shared a common hallway with the discount furniture store next door and, to get into their tiny law office from the street, clients had to come in through that hallway. After an abrupt right turn through a door badly in need of paint, Ellie’s bright smile was the first thing they saw.
Mary Margaret returned to the comfort of her gloom. Yes, the rain. That had to be part of it. And Peter. She hadn’t told Ellie yet that she and Peter were finished. He’d simply walked out. She’d known it was coming; they’d gone over it a hundred times, and he just didn’t get it. She wanted a career. And no matter how often–.
A loud boom made her grab instinctively for her coffee cup, although it had been drained hours ago. Normally, she’d have cursed under her breath – never mind what her mother and the nuns might think – but today she didn’t have the spirit for it. Besides, somewhere in her subconscious, she’d been expecting it. Whenever the furniture guys loaded up there were booms: sharp, loud, thumping bangs on the wall between her office and the common hallway. Sometimes they were forceful enough to spill her coffee if the cup was full. It was partly her fault, Mary Margaret knew. She had deliberately placed her desk as close to the front window as possible, and tight against the hallway wall. That way, by leaning forward and craning to her left she could see the one encouraging spot in this blighted area of the city: a tiny park across the street, where a few trees stubbornly offered colors other than gray. In winter, when the sun set early – that is, when the sun bothered to shine – she could watch it go down through the branches.
The downside to all this was the booming. Supposedly, the furniture guys accidentally bumped into the wall with their awkward loads, but Mary Margaret suspected it was a little more planned than that, for it had almost never happened until two of the younger types next door had come into the office one day and noticed where she had put her desk.
There was a second boom and then a third. Now it was becoming annoying! Mary Margaret was getting up to give the furniture guys a piece of her mind, when she heard them shouting out on the street. She knew right away what this would be about, and, with both depression and annoyance temporarily forgotten, went to see the street from a better angle. Sure enough, her neighbors were having another round in their ongoing fight with Melnick’s Used Electronics.
Melnick’s was across the street and two doors north of the furniture store. Mary Margaret didn’t like the people there. In fact she was just a bit afraid of them. After she’d represented a client against them and won, one of the Melnicks had let her know what he thought of her “meddling” and of lawyers in general, especially women. The furniture store didn’t like them either because the two businesses were in constant dispute about parking their respective trucks on the narrow street. Melnick’s had a big, battered old flatbed truck that somehow was always parked at a protruding angle with the back end far from the curb, thus making it even more difficult to bring the large furniture van along the curb on the opposite side. As a result, there was a tangle of some kind at least once a week. No big deal, though: in this part of the city shouts and fights were a way of life.
To Mary Margaret, this particular episode didn’t seem to be going anywhere, but along with the booms it had shaken her mood enough to make her feel that a fresh cup of coffee might help her get some work done. It was while she was in the back, in front of the coffee machine – something else they shared with the furniture guys – that Melnick’s aged truck smashed right through the plate-glass window and into her desk.
Mary Margaret dashed back to the office, but wisely stopped in the doorway. Through the dust, she could see that the big window was shattered, but what was really scary was the position of the truck. The edge of its flatbed platform covered her desk like a big blotter. Had she not gone for coffee ...
She became conscious of excited voices. All the furniture guys came rushing in. Some came from the back; others she could see squeezing in through the space the truck had left at the street door. Above all the noise she could hear Ellie.
