Detective Cecil put Jack Sharpe in the interrogation room, asking him, “Did you tell Gloria Parsons you wanted her to cover for you while you and your buddies vandalized school property?”
Jack looked uncomfortable. He realized his alibi fell through and now he didn’t have anything to barter with except the truth. “Listen, I may not have been with my girlfriend-”
“May not have been with her? That’s precious,” Moore said with a chuckle.
“All right, I wasn’t with her, but I sure as hell wasn’t with Nigel Friday night either and I don’t know where he is.”
“Where were you when Mary Donovan was being sliced up on a dirt floor?” Cecil asked.
“I was with my friends. They can vouch for my whereabouts.”
“And where was that exactly?”
“Were you vandalizing school property?” Moore asked.
“It was no big deal. We were just trying to humiliate our opponents before the up-coming game.”
“What did you do?”
This was hard for him to admit, but it was better than going down for murder. “We took a dump in their pool and pissed on their walls… and spray painted ‘loser,’ ” Jack had a sorry expression on his face feeling like he was the loser now.
Cecil asked him, “Why do your teammates say you weren’t vandalizing school property, said you were with your girlfriend. Were they in on the lie, or are they telling the truth? Which is it jack? Where were you?”
“I was with them. They’re lying to protect me.”
“Then what’s this?” Cecil showed him a picture of himself, waiting outside a gay club in San Francisco. “This is where you were Friday night, at a gay bar, admit it?”
Cecil couldn’t believe it, but Jack wouldn’t fess up. “You would rather go down for vandalism, then admit you’re gay?”
Whatever shapes and symbols were carved into Mary Donovan’s flesh, Cecil felt in his bones, they were the key to this case. Those symbols meant something, they stood for something. He didn’t know what, but he had to find out, so the next morning, he went back to the murder house, and had another look in that basement, where he saw bloody gouge marks in the floor, depicting some kind of runic symbol, Connor, the lab guy mentioned. Leaning in close and removing his glasses, he studied the lines closely, then looked around the basement and found a piece of cloth, torn on one edge, a corner edge hemmed straight, with many straight lines embroidered on it. The cloth was neither old looking, nor musty smelling, very likely left here recently, on the floor underneath the work bench. Cecil shook off the dust and put the torn piece of cloth in a baggie and looked around for any other torn fabric, when he found a small angular stone with intersecting lines he didn’t understand. How could the forensic team miss this?
Meanwhile, Detective Moore arrived for morning briefing and sat down behind Detective Stuart, an error he would soon regret.
Two more detectives arrived: Woodman and Carlos were talking, when they all heard it: a long gaseous emission that was interminable and went on for nearly a minute and the following smell was so horrid, men who inhaled the stench of death, were revolted by the unwelcome odor and tried in vain to drive it from their nostrils. Waving it away, Moore made for the door in disgust, as Carlos turned his face to the wall.
They knew from where the horrid stench came: Stuart was embarrassed by her own bodily functions, for which she lost control, she tried to hold it back, but more gas escaped from below. Gripping her large behind, she made a B-line for the door, passing Detective Lan, as he came in and turned toward her, smiling, saying, “Amy,” then feeling overcome by the stink.
Soon the repellent odor passed and everyone sat down in chairs as Cecil came in and stood by the white board with it’s pictures of suspects and victim, a big question mark, possibly two victims. He told them what he had so far and asked Carlos and Woodman if they had a line on where the drugs came from.
“Did we have a line? Yeah we had a few lines.” Woodman thought and almost laughed. He stifled a smile and felt embarrassed.
Even Cecil could see his expression of humor and asked him if he thought something was funny about a homicide investigation.
Woodman said, “Nothing, sorry,” and looked ashamed.
Cecil didn’t like this behavior while he was trying to solve a double homicide, when they don’t even know what happened to the second victim. To him, Woodman was being amateurish. He was going to keep an eye on him.
Being overly serious now, Woodman said, “The cocaine we found in Nigel Man’s residence matched a sample we confiscated from Donny Donovan. There’s no doubt in our mind, he sold a quarter gram to his sister, Mary.”
“Yeah,” Carlos concurred, “but we don’t think he was involved in his sister's death. He had no motivation to murder her, swears she didn’t use drugs, maybe they were for Nigel.”
“Besides which, his alibi checks out for the night of the murder. He was with his friends snorting lines and watching the all star wrestling match.”
Cecil turned to Lan, “What have you found out about Blair Thomas?”
Lan said, “In 1986 he declared bankruptcy, and filed under chapter 11. Six months before he became insolvent in 1984, he had a job with Rockland, a stock brokerage firm on Market Street in San Jose, before he was fired.” Lan looked to Cecil for assignments. “Should we bring him in for questioning?”
“First, find out what you can from his old coworkers at Rockland.”
Lan nodded and left.
“We need to find Nigel Mann yesterday.” Cecil said, eyeing Woodman and Carlos.
“Donny has no connection to Nigel Mann. I doubt he will be helpful finding him, but we’ll lean on him some more, maybe he’ll spill the beans.” Carlos said.
When Elaine entered the women’s room, her olfactory sense was struck by a foul odor and she could hear someone in one of the stalls emitting large amounts of gas.
She decided to hold a full bladder instead of relieving herself, she went back to her office and sat down. About fifteen minutes later, a haggard looking Detective Stuart stuck her head in and asked if she might be excused for the day, due to her loss of bowel control.
“Yeah, yes, take as much time as you need.”
Stuart said, “I would also like to lodge a complaint, but… perhaps this isn’t the right time for it.”
“My door is always open.”
“It’s just… I think someone sabotaged my food.”
“What?” Elaine was shocked. “My God, you poor dear.” She got her large frame out of her seat and went over to Stuart and ushered her to a chair. “Sit down. What happened? Tell me all about it?”
Stuart said, “I was having breakfast before the morning meeting at a restaurant on University, Jim’s Cafe.” Suddenly she felt another bowel attack coming on and rushed to get out of Elaine’s office, gas seeping out of her clenched buttocks.
Elaine sighed and went back to work, her urge to pee, clenched in by crossed legs. Ten minutes later and Elaine was wondering if it was safe to use the ladies room, when Stuart reappeared, exhausted and in obvious pain. She plopped herself down in a chair before the desk.
By now, Elaine was rocking back and forth to hold it in. She wanted nothing more than a quick resolution to the problem and said to Stuart, “What happened to you?”
“I think Moore put X-Lax in my food at the restaurant.”
“What?” Elaine froze in place, startled by what she heard. “What makes you think Moore did that?”
“I saw him!”
Startled, Elaine eyes were wide open. “You saw Moore put X-Lax in your food?”
Stuart was wondering if Elaine understood. “Not exactly,” she said.
“Then what exactly?”
As she was about to answer, she felt gas pressure build up and ran for the door. When she was barely out of Elaine’s office, a huge gas bomb exploded and the smell was enough to make someone go “Pee-u.”
Five minutes later, and Elaine had as much as she could handle. She would find another restroom if she had to walk a mile. On her way out the door, Stuart came by, feeling humiliated and angry and determined to get Moore, for what he did to her.
She was a frightful mess and Elaine suggested that maybe she should go home. They could talk later.
“Oh, are you on your way out? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”
“No, no,” Elaine said, feeling guilty that she was concerned with only her own problem in this moment.
“This won’t take long,” Stuart said, sitting down in the chair before the desk.
“I thought you weren’t feeling well,” Elaine said, bending her knees and extending them, repeatedly.
Stuart turned toward the door and asked Elaine, “Are you going to come in and close the door?”
“Oh, sure, sure,” Elaine never felt more unsure as she took baby steps to her desk, crossed her legs and rocked back and forth, the urine cresting and her ability to hold it in, greatly diminished, as Stuart reported the incident.
“I saw the back of his head, as he left the restaurant. I was in the bathroom when he sabotaged my breakfast food.”
“You sure it was him?”
“Same haircut and body type: tall, thin, broad shouldered. It was him.”
“But you didn’t see his face.”
“I saw enough to know! It was him.”
Elaine came around the desk and walked Stuart to the door, coddling her, “Go home,” she said sympathetically. “When you’re feeling better, you can file a grievance, if you still want to.” The last part she said under her breath.
“What?” Stuart was feeling woozy.
“I’ll have an officer’s drive you home. Stanley, will you take Detective Stuart home please?”
She handed Stuart off to Stanley and made a bee-line for the bathroom.
Now Lan had some new information on Blair and he was eager to share it with Cecil. Meeting him at his desk in their office, Lan told him about his interview with a Rockland employee, who knew Blair personally and said, “He had his problems.”
Cecil looked up at Lan, standing in the doorway and asked him, “What kind of problems?”
“Trouble getting along with women,” Lan responded, then explained, “Blair made a move on a woman, who happened to be the boss’s daughter, the owner of the firm.” He was checking his notes. “It was at a dinner party around Christmas time and he was subsequently fired after she rebuffed him.”
“What was the name of the Rockland employee you spoke to?” Cecil asked.
Lan was flipping through his notes, “Gerard…”
“Gerard Donaldson?”
“Yeah, that’s him,” Lan said.
“Hun,” Cecil was deep in thought.
“What?” Lan asked, wondering what Cecil was thinking.
“Donaldson was the guy Dan Murdock went to see here in Palo Alto.”
Cecil turned to Moore, who was sitting at an adjacent desk. “Say George, What is the connection between these guys: Dan Murdock, Donaldson and Blair?”
Moore furrowed his brow and thought about it.
“What do you think Lan? Did they know each other?”
“Well, Donaldson knew Blair and Blair knew Nigel as well as Dan. It’s possible Dan knew Blair.”
“More than likely,” Cecil concluded. “You think this might be a conspiracy?”
“The question is, why would they want Mary Donovan dead.” Lan said.
“Say, since I have the two of you here, take a look at this,” showing them an angular stone in a plastic baggie, “I found this in Nigel’s basement and the lab guy identified the stone as a rune, and the markings on it: the symbol for the Nazi SS: Sowilo: shaped like lighting bolts, and the meaning of the carving in blood on the floor, was a talisman, a powerful binding tool in Nordic, or Scandinavian lore.”
He showed them the torn piece of cloth he kept in a baggie, the one with embroidered lines. “This was in the basement of Nigel’s house, along with this stone.”
George handled the evidence and looked closely at it, then said, “Runes, an ancient form of communication…”
“Also, a way of communicating with the dead,” Cecil added. “Look at this cloth, this hand stitching, you see there? Somebody took their time with this.”
“Hun,” George looked closer, “yes.” Then he turned to his partner for further explanation and Lan made a close examination of the evidence too.
“It’s possible this embroidered cloth is a hand made talisman, used in… some kind of black magic blood ritual.”
Copyright 2016 William Leslie
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