Shred of Evidence

The one-sided conversation was being conducted with enthusiasm. Homicide Detective Sergeant Gina Nolan had discovered the joys of low-carb dieting and was expounding on it at some length to her bored partner on the other side of the desk.

Detective Jill Waliewiski still felt obliged to show some interest. “But if you eat only the meat, what do you do with the bun?” Waliewiski decided it was a dumb question, but it was all she could think of to ask, and now it was too late to take it back.

“Hungry Joe solved that problem. They feature a double, no-bun burger. It’s terrific. And you can have cheese, two slices of bac…” Nolan’s phone broke in.

Waliewiski felt a distinct sense of relief when the half of the conversation she could hear had nothing to do with food.

Nolan looked puzzled as she hung up. “Come on,”she said. “It’s Captain Shaughnessey. He wants to see me, and he sounds annoyed about something. You might as well get the beef first hand. Speaking of beef…”Waliewiski tuned out as they walked down the corridor to the captain’s office.

Rather than being annoyed, Shaughnessey seemed in an expansive mood. “Hey, Whisky, I’m glad you came along. You’re just the one we need. Don’t you have a set of lock picks?”

“Sure. Don’t you remember? Dad was a locksmith. He taught me how to use ’em, and I always keep ’em handy. Need your desk drawer opened?”

“I may not need anything opened, but take them along—just in case. I’ve got three patrol cars out at the pile-up on the Halsey off-ramp; otherwise I’d send a uniform over to the Pratt Club. Security guard called. One of the members is behind a closed and locked door. Doesn’t respond to knocks. My guess is the old boy’s snoozing, but we’d better check. And I’d hate to have to smash one of their fancy doors.”

Nolan thought she saw a hint of amusement on Shaugnessey’s face as they turned to leave. She would understand the reason for it later on.

“Know anything about the Pratt Club?”Nolan asked as they rolled out of the station lot.

“Uh-uh, except it’s a men’s residence club. Exclusive, I’ve heard.”

“Yeah. That’s about all I know about it.”

The two-story building wasn’t especially imposing, though it occupied almost half a city block. The ornate knocker on the triple-sized mahogany door was imposing, however, and was well matched by the person who opened to their knock: a tall, gray-haired, middle-aged male of military appearance. Within moments, the guard, who at first gave every appearance of being able to cope with any situation, seemed taken aback both by Nolan’s proffered badge and by her general appearance.

Waliewiski couldn’t account for the response, since Nolan was hardly a gargoyle. The dismay in the doorman’s eyes only intensified when he caught sight of Waliewiski. I’m glad all men don’t react that way when they look at me, she thought.

“Carl Grayson?”Nolan asked

“Yes, yes.”

“You called the police?”

“Yes, but I thought. I didn’t think. Really, I’m not sure. I have strict orders. Absolutely strict.”

Nolan raised an eyebrow.

“Well, you see, no women are allowed. That’s a long-standing club rule.”

I’ll bet Shaughnessey knew what these assholes were like when he sent us out here, Nolan decided. What she actually said got Waliewiski’s full approval. “That’s fine with me. Maybe when one of the male officers is available he could see his way clear to coming out.”

Protestations followed. “Oh, no! No. Really. These are exceptional circumstances. Professor Colomb hasn’t answered my knocks. I know he’s in there, but his door is locked. I’m sure he would have answered if he was all right. No. No. Do come in.”

Their reluctant guide double locked behind them, before leading the way down carpeted and paneled corridors past several closed rooms to the offending door.

“Isn’t there a master key to all these doors?”Nolan asked as she knocked.

The nervous doorman: “Yes. Of course. But Professor Colomb had his own lock installed some months ago.”

Another raised eyebrow.

“He never did explain why. He’s the only member who’s done that.”

Nolan knocked again, this time with considerably more authority. “What makes you think there’s something wrong?”

“We monitor who comes and goes, as a security measure, so I know he didn’t go out. I called him about 2:30 this afternoon to let him know a FedEx package arrived for him, but he didn’t answer. He doesn’t take naps, so I assumed he must be in the bathroom, or maybe visiting one of the other members’ rooms. So I tried again an hour later, and there was still no answer. I checked with Mr. Harperworth,”a nod toward a room further down the corridor, “and Mr. Wesley and Mr. Lamb upstairs, but no one knew anything. They’re the only other members here, today.”

“Bathrooms?”

Grayson seemed puzzled at first, then, “Oh, no. Each apartment is self-contained. Some are studios and some are suites, but they all have bathrooms and cooking facilities. Yes, quite self-contained. I even checked the janitor’s closet.”

“O.K., Jill. Let’s see if you learned anything from your father.”

Waliewiski removed a fat leather wallet from her jacket and extracted a ring holding steel rods of various shapes and sizes. “Don’t expect this to be movie-fast. Every set of tumblers is different. So relax and give me elbow room.”

The detective surprised even herself, as her second try caused an audible click. The knob responded to a twist, and the door opened onto a bizarre scene. There was no question but that this was the home of a chess enthusiast.

A small kitchen and a dining table with four chairs in front of three double-hung windows occupied the far side of the main room. A small fireplace in the left-hand wall was flanked on both sides by glass cases containing at least a dozen exotic chess sets, some unmistakably ivory, others fashioned from various stone, metal and wood products, all laid out on beautiful boards. On the opposite wall was the door to the bedroom and a large tapestry depicting a chess game about to begin, with two seated medieval figures leaning over the pieces. To the right of the front door was a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, which needed only a cursory inspection to reveal a vast collection of chess books.

A recliner and reading lamp sat in the corner between the tapestry and the bookcase, but the centerpiece of the room was a mahogany table with an inlaid chess board, illuminated by a hanging brushed-brass light fixture. Black and white pieces were arranged on the board, ready for play. Two chairs were drawn up to the table, but only one was occupied. The occupant was clearly dead. A trickle of dried blood showed on the left side of his face, his left temple was crushed, and what appeared to be the weapon—a fireplace poker—lay on the floor beside him.

* * *

Having evidently now become accustomed to the unthinkable, Grayson seemed less shocked when the crime scene personnel—which included two additional women—showed up. Nolan continued her questioning and found the man a nervous, but probably reliable, witness.

“I arrived a few minutes before nine this morning and relieved Tuscar—Bill Tuscar, that is. He didn’t have anything special to report. We had only two overnighters last night: Professor Colomb and Mr. Lamb. Actually, Professor Colomb is—was—a permanent resident. When he wasn’t traveling to chess tournaments, that is.”

Nolan broke in. “Did Tuscar see Professor Colomb before he left?”

“He didn’t say. I didn’t ask. But the professor came by my station around eleven and asked me if Mr. Harperworth had arrived. He hadn’t. Not until two in the afternoon. All in all, it was a quiet day. Dr. McNail came by at one, just to pick up his mail, which I had at my station. He left after only a few minutes. Mr. Wesley came in around one-thirty. Those times are in my log book. And we have an in-and-out board, by the way. You probably noticed it at my station.”

“No one else?”

“No, ma’m. No one.

“And Colomb was alive at eleven.”

“Definitely.”

* * *

An experienced Nolan soon had the scene well under control, had made a report back to Shaugnessey, and had stationed a patrolman outside the building to move gawkers along. Waliewiski had found an empty suite across the hall, pried further information from Grayson before sending him back to his station to await additional questioning, informed the other occupants of the club that the sergeant would be wanting their statements, and made sure the evening security guard was properly installed and instructed.

Nolan pocketed the room key she’d removed from the victim, and went across the hall to the room which had been made available to them. After making sure the crime scene personnel had finished, the medics had taken the body off to the morgue and Colomb’s suite had been locked up and sealed, she settled down in one of the luxurious chairs in the borrowed suite across the hall. “We can start with it being an inside job.”

Waliewiski looked up from her notes. “At least it’s not a locked-room mystery. The door locks itself when it’s closed.”

“The windows in there are barred,”Nolan added. “So no one crept in from that direction.”

“Grayson says all the first-floor windows are barred, and the rear entrance has a panic bar. It can be opened only from the inside, and then it sets off an alarm here and at the security company. I’ll check that out before we leave. I’ve done some looking around already. The current occupants have been alerted to what happened and told to hang tough.”

“Anything else?”

“Lots,”Waliewiski said, flipping back to the first page of her notebook. “Grayson’s a vast font of knowledge about this place and the creepos who make use of it. To begin with, that all-male business is worse than in a monastery. The security guard has a switchboard and all calls come there first. If it’s a woman, he contacts the recipient first to see if he wants to receive the call. If it’s a male, he just plugs the call through.”

“Phew. Do they allow email from women?”

Waliewiski grinned. “Maybe they have a spam filter to weed them out. Anyhow, it’s obvious this is a male refuge from females—mainly wives. There are fifteen members, twelve of them married.”

“Let’s concentrate on the ones who are here.”

“Right. Waltham Harperworth…the one who has a suite on this floor, is a local attorney. I’ve never heard of him, so he probably handles civil cases. Easy to check. He’s married. No kids. Grayson guesses he’s about his age, fifty-five.

“Terrance Wesley is a stockbroker. Much younger—late thirties. He’s also married, with a couple of children. Brings them around once in a while. Both of them boys, needless to say.

“Ernest Lamb’s a bachelor, or at least Grayson thinks he is. No indication there is or ever was a Mrs. Lamb. He’s close to sixty. Has something to do with finances. Grayson didn’t know what exactly.”

“Colomb?”

“Grayson waxed eloquent about our victim. As you may have guessed, Colomb was a chess nut.”She paused and added with a grin, “Not too tough a chess nut to crack, though.” She quickly resumed her narrative, half fearing Nolan might launch into a discussion of the pleasures of roasted chestnuts. “Grayson’s a player himself but says he never had a game with Colomb. ’Out of my league,’ as he described it. The professor—a widower by the way, and retired—was always looking for someone to set up the pieces with. Grayson’s quite sure it was why he was waiting for Harperworth today. The deputy coroner give an estimate on time of death?”

“Best guess: around three. He adds the usual, of course. Allow half an hour either way. He’ll know better after the PM. He’s busy. Won’t be able to get to it before tomorrow at the earliest…you know the deal. Did you tell Grayson to stick around?”

“Yeah. His relief showed up. Name of…Curtis Chang. I left them chatting up a storm at the guard’s station. Incidentally, Grayson says Chang’s been here since opening day some twenty years ago, and knows all the crooks and crannies of the place, if we need help with anything.”

“Nice to know, but I don’t imagine we have a killer hiding out anywhere in the building.”

“Right. And the DC’s estimate narrows down the possibilities.”

“Exactly. We have four possibles. Any preliminary guesses?”

“Aw, c’mon, Gina. I’ve hardly spoken to any of them except Grayson.”

Nolan laughed. “Well, your lock-picking skills got us into the room without our having to break the door down, so I guess you’ve done your share already.”

“There is something else, though. Something about that room. Something wrong…more than just having a corpse sitting there. I think it has something to do with chess.”

“What a surprise! You a chess nut, too?”

“Used to be. Came in first in our high school sophomore tournament. ”

“What happened when you got to be a junior?”

“Boys happened.”

Nolan guffawed. “To work. Let’s start with the other chess player, Harperworth. Maybe we should get some take-out. It may be a while before we can finish up.”

“This I’ve got to see.”

“What’s that?”

“A low-carb take-out.”

* * *

Waltham Harperworth was a small, thin, intense looking individual with piercing brown eyes. Waliewiski quickly decided she wouldn’t have been comfortable facing him from the witness stand. Nolan moved on quickly with the questioning as Waliewiski wrote down the standard full name, address, home phone, work phone and so on.

Harperworth didn’t need much in the way of urging. “Colomb and I agreed to have a game this morning, but I just couldn’t make it. Tied up in court. Sent him my apologies at noon and thought I might be able to make it by one. No luck. Clients come first, you know. Got here sometime after two and dropped by his suite to add to the earlier apologies. He still wanted to have a game, but I needed a couple of hours to prepare a memo. So, more apologies.”

Waliewiski broke in. “Did he have the board set up for a game?”

A head shake. “No. He never did set up ahead of time. Took a lot of relish out of letting his opponent pick out the set before the game. He enjoyed the whole process. Getting out the set, putting out the pieces, choosing the color. He really lived for chess. When he wasn’t playing it, he was thinking about it. Probably dreamed about it.”

“Was that the last time you saw him?”

“Yes. Sometime around two. I can’t be more exact than that. Oh. Old Grayson keeps a log. It must have been just a few minutes after I arrived.”

“Could you give us some idea about what Professor Colomb was like? Did he have any enemies?

Harperworth appeared amused. “Let me answer the question you really want to ask. No; I didn’t kill him. And, since it seems rather obvious you suspect he was done in by someone who was here today, all I can say is that he was an abrasive and opinionated person, but I can’t believe anyone in the club would have wanted him dead.”

* * *

“Well, we got something out of that interview,” Nolan commented to her partner, after letting Harperworth leave, with the promise that he would approve and sign a statement the following day.

“Someone showed up to play a game with Colomb.”

“Right. It might have been Harperworth.”

Waliewiski looked puzzled. “There’s still something strange. Did you look close at the board? I got caught up with the rest of the room and didn’t check it over.”

Nolan shrugged. “Nope. If chess is like checkers, the pieces were just lined up to start. Damn, but I’m getting hungry. Let’s move on to the next one.”

Waliewiski checked back to an earlier note. “Ernest Lamb.”

“Hey, have you ever tried Hungry Joe’s grilled lamb chops? They’re absolutely the…

“I’ll go up to his room and get him.”

* * *

Ernest Lamb was a considerable contrast to their first interviewee. Short, rather cherubic, gray-blond hair and washed-out blue eyes. Nolan took him rapidly through the preliminaries.

“From what we can make out so far, Professor Colomb was killed while there were four other occupants of the building, and there seems to be no possible way some outsider could have come in here today.”

Lamb was obviously annoyed by a question which hadn’t been phrased as such. “Don’t expect me to point the finger at anyone. I didn’t kill him, and I can’t think of any reason why any of the others would have. For that matter, I can’t think of anyone who would have had the nerve to do such a thing. How was he killed, anyway?”

Nolan ignored the question. “Did you see him anytime today?”

“No.”

“You didn’t talk to him? Call him up? Offer to play a game of chess with him?”

“No to all of that, especially the notion of playing that silly game with anyone. I never have played. Never will. It’s just an excuse for doing nothing. Just sitting there. Wesley and Harperworth would take him on. And a couple of the other members were ready enough to waste their time at it, but not me. I don’t know a rook—whatever that is—from a pawn, and I don’t want to learn.” As an afterthought he added, “Grayson—the guard—plays too, I’m almost sure.”

“When did you arrive here?”

“Let me think. Must have been last Tuesday. I haven’t strayed from my room since. Working on a paper. I’m an economist…consultant for Charles Schwab. That’s the reason I joined this club. Nice quiet atmosphere. Nobody bothers anyone else. I can hole up with something important that I’m working on, pull the phone connection, use the computer for my research needs, and things fall into place.”

After a few more questions and the admonition to remain in the building for the time being, Lamb shrugged and said he had no intention of leaving until he’d finished his paper. With that, he left the officers to ponder his answers.

* * *

“This place gets weirder and weirder, the more I hear about it,” Waliewiski commented as the door closed behind Lamb.

“Yeah. Sounds like a morgue. Lots of empty rooms. No one has much to do with anyone. Peace and quiet the big drawing card. You can sit in your suite and shuffle papers to your heart’s content. I wonder if that was the whole point to this organization.”

“Hey, Gina, I know how we can find out. Chang, the relief guard who came on. He’s been around since year one, and since he wasn’t here today, he might be an objective ’third party’ with nothing to hide. It’d be nice to get a fresh look at Colomb—and the others.”

“Great idea. I wonder if he knows a good Chinese restaurant nearby.”

* * *

Despite the name, Curtis Chang was clearly more Caucasian than Asian. Almost as tall as his fellow guard, he was somewhere in the region of his late sixties or seventies, with an alert-looking face. A few moments into the interrogation it became clear that he was an enthusiastic raconteur, only too ready to reveal all he knew about the Pratt Club—which turned out to be plenty.

“Let’s see. It must be twenty…no twenty-five…years since I was hired from a temp agency as a security guard here. Went on permanent payroll shortly afterwards. Easy duty. Good tips.” He grinned. “Christmas is my favorite time of the year.”

While Waliewiski rapidly filled her notebook, Nolan steered her informant through a quick sketch of the building’s current occupants.

“Professor Colomb was a strange duck. Seems all he could think of was chess. I don’t know much about the game, myself, but from what I could make out, he was a first-class player. Used to rub his opponents’ noses in their losses when he beat them, which was almost always. He got to be a pain, and those who were chess players pretty much just avoided him.”

Waliewiski broke in. “Did he ever set up games and play alone?”

“Uh-uh. A couple of the members—can’t remember who—were talking about that in the foyer one day. They said he played games in his head.” Chang tapped his forehead to make the point. “He even liked to play blindfolded in some of his actual games, if you can imagine.”

Harperworth was emerging as an avoider. Someone who did his best to keep away from the persistent Colomb. Wesley, an occasional player, was considered an unworthy opponent by the deceased. Lamb, as Chang confirmed, knew nothing about chess and was openly proud of the fact.

While Chang was only too willing to expound on the characteristics of the remaining eleven members, Nolan steered him off in another direction.

“What was the original purpose of the club?”

Chang grinned. “To get away from wives—women in general. They were pretty open about that, the original members. The bylaws explicitly exclude women. I kind of feel the atmosphere has changed, though. I think most of the current members just look on this place as somewhere to relax or to do some private work without being disturbed. We’ve got a couple of authors that I know of.” He paused.

“There is something different going on, come to think of it. There are two membership meetings each year. First Tuesday in December and June. Budget stuff, mostly. Dues, that sort of thing, and those are sky-high, as you can imagine. But there’s something different, something big coming up at the scheduled meeting next week.”

“Yes?”Nolan encouraged.

“This is all second hand of course, but I heard Colomb was proposing a rule change to be voted on at the session.”

“Yes?” This time it came from both officers.

“I’m not sure I should be mentioning this, but for a murder investigation…”

Two nods of encouragement.

For the first time, Chang appeared visibly nervous. Looking over his shoulder at the closed door, his voice dropped. “He wanted to allow women to visit. Only during the day, of course.”

“Could he change the rules by just getting a vote at the meeting?”

Chang shook his head. “Not that easy. He needed ten votes…but I heard he had them.”

* * *

Between the take-outs—Nolan’s Shanxi-style braised beef and Waliewiski’s steamed vegetables—and the information they had gleaned, there was a lot to digest. Waliewiski struggled to keep the discussion on the case and away from the virtues of protein. “Do you think the possible rule change had anything to do with Colomb’s murder?”she asked.

Nolan grinned. “Do you think someone hated his wife’s company so much he’d take a drastic step like that to keep her out of here?”

“I’m more interested in finding out why Colomb wanted to change the rule. No one claims he was a womanizer. And, from what Chang said, the proposed amendment was a completely new idea for Colomb. He’s been a member for over fifteen years. Why the change of attitude, and why now?”

Nolan stuffed her paper napkin and plastic fork into the empty cardboard container and tossed it all into the wastebasket. “Good question to ask our last suspect.”

* * *

Of the three club members, Terrance Wesley was the most relaxed. As he explained, “I do ninety percent of my work right here in my suite. All I need is a computer and a high-speed connection, and today was time for a wrap-up. I still have work to do, so I’ll probably be here until nine or so.”

“When was the last time you played chess with Colomb?”

“Ages ago. I don’t have much time for that these days. Not like grad school, where we were all bored and looking for something to do.”

“You did hear Colomb was proposing a rule change?”

“Sure did. He distributed his proposal a couple of weeks ago. You should have heard the moans and groans.”

“So most of the members objected?”

“I wouldn’t say most. But the ones who did were pretty vocal.”

“Wouldn’t it have been difficult for him to get the needed ten votes?”

“I see you’ve been checking out our bylaws. Actually, he had the ten votes in his pocket. In case you’re wondering, Colomb was rolling in dough. Money talks, as you probably know. To put it bluntly, he’d bought the necessary votes. Big deposit to his account in one of the club member’s banks. A contract for a major developer—he had lots of influence with City Hall. You know the sort of thing.

“I was one who objected, and I planned to vote against the proposal. Harperworth was one who didn’t object. Lamb was madder than hell at the idea and talked to me about it. We both saw the handwriting on the wall, though. With Colomb pushing it, the amendment was bound to go through. He did have a sure ten votes.”

“Do you have any idea why he wanted the rule change, after all these years? And why he wanted it so badly?”

Wesley grinned. “Not passion, I can assure you. At least, not in the ordinary sense. The reason was Eva Sugar. In case you’ve never heard of her, she’s one of the top players in the world—a Hungarian who just moved here recently. Colomb has spent weeks refurbishing his digs to impress her, but no way could he just defy the membership. Even he wouldn’t do that. Most of the members are sticklers for following the rules.

“So he did a lot of politicking, a lot of arm twisting, and he lined up his ducks for next week’s meeting. I, for one, fully expected to see Eva come waltzing in by the weekend after next.”

* * *

“Well, what do you think?” Nolan looked across the ornate desk at her partner. “You’ve now talked to all four suspects. Any favorite? Shall we just shoo them home to their spouses and start making background checks on them tomorrow?”

“Let’s take one more look at the crime scene, first. There’s still something about it that bothers me.”

“OK. But let’s make it short. That braised beef didn’t stay with me. First thing I’m going to do when I get home is check the freezer and…”

“Alright. One last look.”

The crime scene personnel had done their usual careful job. Except for traces of powder and the absence of a corpse, nothing differed from that first encounter when the door had swung open.

A gasp made Nolan turn around.

“That’s it! That’s it! Look at the board on the table. Look at the way the pieces are set out.”

Nolan shrugged. “Looks just the way the pieces do on that wall hanging, and on all the boards in the cabinet.”

“If you were going to set up the pieces for a game would you set them up that way?”

“Well…not knowing the first thing about it… Yeah. I guess I would. I’d just look at the way the others are set up. It’s all the same as far as I can see. The pieces look a bit different, but I can tell what’s a king, what’s a queen, a horse and so on.”

“Exactly. Well, that’s not the way it works. When someone sets up the pieces to play, he makes sure there’s a white square to his right in the first row.”

“And there is.”

“That’s because the board is part of the table. So we can skip that step. You wouldn’t have gotten it wrong. It’s the next step in the setup that’s haywire here.”

“OK. OK. What’s the next step?”

“You set up the pieces so the white queen is on a white square and the dark queen—in this case the red one—is on a red square.”

“Gotcha. They were set up wrong. But so what?”

“Stop and think about it. Would Colomb have set them up wrong? Or Grayson? Or Harperworth? Or Wesley?”

“I see what you’re getting at. But Colomb wouldn’t have been planning to play a game with Lamb. He knew he didn’t play.”

“Right, Gina. Now fill it in.”

There was a long pause before Nolan spoke. “Lamb came in to talk to Colomb, probably to talk him out of proposing that amendment. They argued. Colomb was adamant, and if the others report his personality correctly, he probably made Lamb mad as hell. Lamb picks up the poker and clobbers him. Probably didn’t mean to kill him, but he did. And, with the red haze fading, he suddenly realizes he’s one of four possibles for the murder. That’s when he decides to throw suspicion as far away from himself as possible.”

“You’ve got it. He carefully wipes off the poker, then sets up the board for a game—always being careful to leave no prints. Since he’s the only one in the building who doesn’t play, he figures that with the board set up, he’ll be eliminated as a suspect. Except that the result is just the opposite. The finger points right at him.”

“Let’s go have a chat with Lamb.”

As they were leaving, Grayson met them at the door of the suite, a box in his hand. He seemed embarrassed. “Dr. McNair left this for me when he dropped by today. Said a patient gave it to him and he doesn’t eat chocolates. Unfortunately, I don’t and neither does Chang. I thought you folks might like them. I also wondered if I could leave now. The little woman called and said my supper is getting cold.”

Nolan sampled the box as the officers went up to the second floor.

“There’s a lot of carbohydrates there, Gina,” Jill said.

“Nah. Chocolate’s mostly fat.”