The Sticking Point
His arm reached out to turn off the alarm. He slapped the button down but it continued ringing. That’s when his brain started processing. He reached for his phone and blinked at the backlight. Crap. “Riley speaking.”
After a few uh-ums he got up and took a fresh set of clothes from the drier rack at the balcony. White shirt, green tie, navy trousers like all of his other clothes. He read somewhere that if you free up every second of your time you’d have more time to think about important stuff. Or more time to sleep. Made sense to him. He grabbed his keys, a bag of chips and left.
He entered the flat building. It was as impressive as his own, which is to say not very at all. He walked up the stairs to the second floor to the end of the corridor where a door was open. The place looked like the Intel commercial shot with all the white suits, only this time with a few blue uniforms. He was hoping he’d miss the body, but like himself, his chance was fat. He quickly averted his eyes to the shabby room, taking in the untidy papers, the balcony curtain blowing softly, the unwashed coffee cups in the sink.
“Hey Riley. What’s that, you eating.. chips? What the..”
“Breakfast. In the base of breakfasts, potato chips is greater than no potato chips,” he munched. His maths was impeccable. “Brief me.”
“Thomas Kendall. Journo guy, 46. Syringe stuck in the neck there. Forensics to confirm time of death and the contents. Best guess is last night around midnight. Found by girlfriend, Kirsten Fourier, who called it in.”
“Where’s she now?”
“We sent her home, with someone to accompany her. Wasn’t reacting well to the body and we needed her out. We told her she’d get a visit or two soon.”
“Any other witnesses?”
“Lady next door says she didn’t hear anything. She’s home today, doesn’t work on Wednesdays. So you should be alright to knock.”
“Right, I’ll go talk to her again. Thanks.”
“Do you want to take a look at the body?”
“Does this look like I want to?” He shook his head slowly left to right.
The unit was cleaner than his ex-wife’s teeth, which meant something. He grinned at the woman in front of him, popped a chip in his mouth and wiped his right hand on his jacket. Then he extended it for a shake.
“Riley Strauss at your service. Could I come in for a few minutes?”
She looked at him in horror and very slowly met his hand with hers before quickly pulling back. “Teresa. Williams. Uh.. okay.”
He stepped in as she flew to the kitchen sink a few steps away and washed her hands. His grin widened.
“Ahh, you have company. I apologise for the intrusion.”
“Not at all, officer. I’m just here to support Teresa. She was quite shaken with what happened next door. Claire. Something to drink? Whiskey, maybe?” This other woman lifted the glass in her hand, presumably containing whiskey.
“No, thank you. Can’t drink on duty, unfortunately.” He gravely responded.
She shrugged and went back to the sofa. Teresa joined her on the two seater which left him the hard backed chair from the dining table. He professionally organised his blubber on and around the tiny seat.
“Ahem. Do you know Mr. Thomas Kendall well, ma’am?”
“Who?”
Well, that answered it. “Your neighbour.”
“Oh, is that his name? We met several times, on the way to work, etcetera.” Teresa replied while Claire nodded, either encouraging her or agreeing with her.
“How long have you stayed here?”
“Oh, about three months or so.”
“Did you like it here?”
She scrunched her face for a bit, “It’s… tolerable, I suppose. I suspect I’ll move away soon, especially with what happened.”
“I totally understand. I probably would too. So where were you yesterday evening?”
“Well I came home around eight after dinner, I cleaned up my room and went to bed at around eleven.”
“Did you hear anything while you were at home?”
“My room shares a wall with the corridor. I heard someone knocking on his door in the early morning and fell back asleep. Then nothing else until the police came.”
The corners of his chair began to make war with his thighs. He frowned and grabbed a corner with his hand. The corner just laughed at him. He got up and walked around the place, allowing blood to flow again.
“Did you work yesterday? ”
“Yes I did. I work till six every day except Wednesday.”
“Right.” He idly browsed the mint condition bookshelf, his back against the women. Books with no creased spines sat beside vases, frames and trinkets. His eye turned to a single thin picture book among the fashion books.
“I’m studying fashion. This is my last year,” she offered.
He nodded as he slid the picture book out. “The Ugly Duckling. Isn’t this a kid’s story? The one where the duck got adopted by some goose?”
“It’s a beautiful story, about a duck who turned into a swan after being mocked and abused by others.” He turned to Claire, her eyes looked alive and she was smiling as she explained the story.
He returned the picture book and shrugged. “Well thank you for your time today. I’m sure you’d like to rest. Could I just take a quick look at your balcony?”
Teresa nodded and slid the balcony door open for him. He got out to the balcony and spent a few moments leaning on the railing and viewing the construction work on the building across the road. He swept his eyes to where Thomas’s empty balcony sat beside hers in its gleaming silver railings as he re-entered the living room.
“Thanks once again. Have a good day.”
“Could you tell me again what happened, Ms Kirsten?”
The TV screen had been showing Daenerys Targaryen for the last five minutes since she paused the dvd. Her coping mechanism after finding her boyfriend’s body was to watch bloody murders, rapes, blackmails, and treason. He would never understand some people.
“I went to his apartment in the morning at around 7, knocked on the door and got no reply. I thought he must be still sleeping so I used my spare key to enter and he was there, on the ground... I’m sorry.” She looked visibly upset.
“Apologies for bringing these memories up, ma’am. Just a few questions and I’ll leave you to your day.” And Daenerys.
She sniffed and grabbed the tissue box beside her.
“So why did you go to his apartment so early this morning?”
“Well, last night I had a missed call from him. I was out to the club and the phone wasn’t loud enough with all that music, you know. I do that sometimes, visit him and see what he’s up to. He’s a writer. He doesn’t go out much and just gets holed up in that place.”
“I see, I see. Would you mind telling me which club you went to and what time you left there?”
“I went to the Vix’s at around eleven and left maybe at two?”
“Uh-uh. Where did you go after that?”
“Well, home. I was pretty drunk by then.”
“Did you have a friend maybe at the club, or who brought you home?”
“Yeah, Marge went to the club with me. She hailed me a cab from the club.”
“What time was the missed call?”
“Let me see,” she grabbed her phone. “11.43, right here.”
“Right, thanks for that. One last thing, how and when did you meet Mr Thomas?”
“We met at a coffee shop. He used to work part time there, when writing wasn’t bringing enough dough. Three months ago I ordered coffee from him. We hit it off straight away.” She smiled wistfully.
“Alright, we might ask you to come in for more questions. We’ll call you so please don’t go out of town or anything like that.”
“Umm sure. Did you find out anything else about how he died?”
“Nothing conclusive at the moment, but we’ll keep you posted. Have a good day.”
“Sure, I’ll show you to the door.”
They passed by the mahogany book case on the way out and Riley’s eyes caught something. “Hey, it’s that book.”
“Which one? Oh, that? That’s my favourite story. You’ve read it?” She seemed to sparkle.
“I forgot most of it.”
“The duck who turned into a swan and found her family.”
Riley googled the victim’s name and found the articles he wrote for the second rate news site. The latest one was a dry piece about a celebrity he accused of tax evasion. Granted it seemed like Thomas had done some research. He might have made a few enemies in his job. He scrolled past the titles under Thomas’s profile.
Men Deserve a Hall Pass, Ten Massage Parlours You’ll Forget Your Boss In, Social Rules in Stepford Lane, Join The March Save Starving Kids, Planet of the Apes Is Our Reality, Disturbing Cults and Their Ugly Truths, Finally, Science’s Answer to ‘Scrunch or Fold?’. The list went to hundreds; Riley groaned, that’s a day gone. He started clicking.
Twenty minutes later he sat back and mussed his hair. It didn’t make him look any more attractive. The articles were sending him to death, and he wouldn’t be surprised if the guy turned out a suicide case. He needed a break.
He googled ‘The Ugly Duckling’ instead, just because. Ten minutes into the story, he wasn’t sure the break was a good idea anymore. He pressed back and scrolled down out of habit. His eyebrows lifted as he clicked on a link.
“It’s not a good idea having these three people in the one room. One doesn’t even know the other two.”
“It’s a good idea to not have me say the same thing three times.” He pushed the door open, “Afternoon ladies. Sorry to call you in, much easier than doing separate visits. I see one of you have got yourself a lawyer, that’s good. Feel free to exercise your rights as you’ve been read.”
“What is this about now, my client..”
“I’m just here to share what I found. We’ll talk to each of you separately later. I’m sure there’s ample chance for you to prove your prowess, Mr Deodorant.
“Now. The Order of The Ugly Duckling. I found this interesting club online today. Website was horribly built I must say, looks like something from 1999. In the homepage, among all the other text that you could read in the print out here it says, ‘If you’re tired of a life of abuse, if you’re tired of being ugly, come and join us. We will turn you into real-life swans and give you a family within our sisterhood. This is a warm and supportive place yada yada yada.’ Then it says when you click on the sparkly Join button, ‘We require all our ducklings to prove themselves and commit by leaving their old self. This is done through several steps to prepare your mind to be a true swan.’ I mean this is all fine really except if the step involves murdering journalists.”
“This is ridiculous. You’re delusional, detective. There’s no proof whatsoever that this club is asking anyone to murder anyone. Also, there’s no proof that my client is a member of it.”
“We’re sending subpoena to the site owners and the hosting companies to get the database. Also, we have warrants on your computers and email accounts. They sent you specifically to Mr Thomas as a target, didn’t they, because he named your Order in one of his articles. Dangerous cults and where he thinks the people belong in.
“The chemist three blocks away from the flat would testify that Ms Teresa here, has regularly — since the last three months — been buying barbiturates for her insomnia. An insomnia you started having after moving in to the new flat. A few things didn’t add up, though alone each detail might be overlooked. You moved in — right about the time Ms. Kirsten met him — from quite a posh apartment to this dank horrid flat. It was quite a step down for you. You have a very clean house, Ms Teresa, and the late Mr Thomas didn’t. However his balcony was as clean and shiny as yours. I found it rather strange.” He ran his fingers through his hair, found a piece of potato chip in it, and stuffed it in his mouth. He grinned innocently at Teresa.
“Ms Kirsten, you spent the night in a club, getting quite drunk you mentioned, and managed to show up fine at seven a.m. at Mr Thomas’s unit. And then the books, quite odd for two unacquainted ladies to own the same book, same edition and cover, a single children’s book among other unrelated books. You also explained the story to me, Ms Claire, which likely meant that you have the book too. We’ll find out soon enough.
“One other thing is the choice of words you both had chosen when you told me the story. About the duck turning into a swan. You see, ducks don’t turn into swans at all. The swan was born a swan, it just never realised it. You used the same choice of words as the site does.
“Well, the only ‘turning into’ that is going on here is three beautiful women into murderers.”
He left as the weeping started.
This story is part of the Murder Room project on Chalkboard.
