Cube Sleuth (14 page)

* * *

I get an email from Cody before lunch with a screenshot of the winning bid for my tape recorder on eBay. He sold it for fifteen dollars less than I paid for it.

Underneath the screenshot, Cody has written his plan to spend his profit on a sex swing with a stand, a luxury he’s always wanted but an expense he’s never been able to justify.

I hope Cody names the sex swing after me, so that whenever he has some middlingly attractive forty-something victim with no self-esteem dangling precariously while engaged in a vertigo-laden romp, I’ll be there in spirit. Yuck.

* * *

“I’ve already left it three times, but why not. It’s Bobby Pinker. P-I-N…” Every time I call Detective Capillo’s office, I get his secretary. I have a list of questions to ask him about Ron’s death, and eventually he will have to answer them.

Capillo seems to approach his job, or at least Ron’s case, with as much care and attention to detail as I give my editing job. Disconcerting, to say the least.

I MapQuest to Capillo’s precinct, a ten-minute drive. I decide to spend my lunch break on a field trip.

* * *

Capillo taps his pen on his watch. “Five minutes. That’s all you’re getting.” His office isn’t covered in Missing Persons flyers and FBI Most Wanted posters. It just looks like an office. Disappointing.

I pull out my little green notebook and flip to my list of questions, which, considering all the time I’ve had to think, is also disappointing. I decide to lead off with:

“The gun that killed Ron, did it have serial numbers or were they filed off?”

“Filed off.”

“Isn’t that weird? Why would a guy have an untraceable gun to kill himself with? What would he care if the gun could be traced?”

“He didn’t buy the gun in a store. Didn’t have a license for it. He got it on the street. Those guns always have the serial numbers filed off because they’re all stolen and the people who sell them don’t want them traced.”

“Did you find out who he bought the gun from?”

“That wasn’t necessary once his death was ruled a suicide. Keeping guns off the street isn’t my department.”

“When we talked on the phone that time, you said there was conclusive evidence that he killed himself. What was it?”

“Angle of the bullet, for one thing. Consistent with a self-inflicted gunshot.”

“I’m sure that can be staged. Blood was all over the right side of the car, so that would mean Ron used his left hand. Was he left-handed?”

“Yep.”

“What else?”

“He had powder burns on his hand. That means he pulled the trigger. That
can’t
be staged.”

“OK. OK. Let’s say the killer walks up, shoots Ron. Ron dies. Then the killer puts the gun in Ron’s hand and forces his finger to pull the trigger. Would that work?”

“If he did it fast enough, sure. After fifteen minutes or so, livor mortis sets in.”

“Meaning?”

“If the pretend killer pressed on Ron’s finger, he’d leave an impression on the flesh. But no one fired a second shot, that’s for sure.”

“How are you so sure?”

“If the make-believe killer fired a second shot, then where’d the second bullet go?”

“Maybe he took the shell with him.”

“Not the shell, dummy. The actual bullet. Bullets make holes. There were no other bullet holes in the car except the one in Ron.”

“What if the second shot was a blank?”

“Doesn’t leave the same kind of powder burns.”

“OK, I’ll think about that one and get back to you.”

“I don’t want you to get back to me. I’m not giving you puzzles to solve. I’m telling you the facts so you’ll let this delusion go. Your friend’s dead. He did it to himself. He typed a suicide note on his work computer, printed it from his work printer, and signed it. The handwriting analysis on the signature was conclusive.

“It’s sad, but it happens every day. People move on. They don’t have any other choice. Move on.”

“What did the note say?”

“It was addressed to his mom. He apologized, told her not to feel bad for not being able to save him this time; that he didn’t want to be saved. He tried to end it with pills once and she pumped his stomach herself.”

“Yeah, she told me.” I look down at my notes for the next question, but a more pressing one pops into my mind. “What about your gut? Don’t cops go on instinct?”

“Your gut might make you turn over a certain stone, but that’s it. Facts, evidence, that’s the way it works. It’s not even your gut so much as experience. You’ve probably seen something similar before.”

“Your gut says Ron killed himself? Or just the evidence says that?”

“Both. I walked into that scene figuring it was a suicide, and every bit of evidence proved me right.”

“Maybe you were only looking at the things that proved you right.”

Capillo stands and leans on his desk. For a short man, he’s imposing. He seems to have more veins than a normal man, and most of them are bulging right now. My eyes may be playing tricks on me, but his hair seems to rise like he’s touching one of those static electricity balls at a science museum. “You telling me how to do my job? I’m—no, I’m not even gonna bother. We’re done. Your five minutes are up.”

“We haven’t even hit four minutes yet.”

“Felt like an eternity. We’ll split the difference. Get out.”

“I have three—”

“If I have to come around this desk, you’ll regret it.”

I bolt up, backing out of Capillo’s office with a frightened smile. “Alright, then. Thanks for your time.”

“No one wanted to kill your friend. If it were you I found dead, I’m sure I could round up half a dozen suspects in a day.”

Ouch.

As I step into the hall, Capillo yells, “No more calls. I mean it. We’re done.”

If burning bridges were a skill, I’d be a master. Most times I don’t realize I’ve even burned it until it’s nothing but ash.

The angle of the bullet and the powder burns should convince me that my little investigation is a fool’s errand. Instead I start to think about how the killer could fire a second shot that wasn’t a blank and wouldn’t leave a hole in the Jeep. Capillo
is
giving me puzzles, whether he wants to or not.

* * *

I pick up a Wawa hoagie on my way back from the precinct and eat it in my car in Paine-Skidder’s parking garage. I park in P3, where Ron died. His spot is taken, so I park to the right of it. I don’t know if you can retire a parking space, especially when they’re not reserved spots, but I feel like Ron’s should be. I hope Ron haunts whatever jerk took his old spot.

Sitting with my sandwich in my lap, my windows rolled down to give the onion and hot pepper smell an easy escape, I try to edit out the other cars in the lot, imagining that Ron’s Jeep is sitting beside me. His window is rolled down. The killer holds Ron’s lifeless hand and aims the gun.

P3 is the ground level of the parking garage. Giant cutouts break up the concrete every few feet; each cutout is about triple the size of a normal house window. Trees line the outside of the garage on three sides.

Directly in front of me through the cutouts, a walkway runs along the Schuylkill behind the trees.

Behind me a chain-link fence lines the railroad behind the trees; freight trains roll by once or twice a day.

On my left only a few feet away is a concrete wall, the back of the enclosure for the elevators.

A loading dock sits behind the concrete cutouts on my right. Trees shade the side of the loading dock opposite the parking garage wall.

So, unless the killer actually opened the hatchback of Ron’s Jeep—which would have meant twisting Ron’s arm in an unnatural position, aiming around whatever crazy props and equipment Ron had in the back of his Jeep—he only had the option of rolling down Ron’s passenger window and shooting toward the loading dock. But he couldn’t have rolled down the window because of the blood spatter on it; the smear of the blood wiping inside the door console when it was rolled down and rolled back up would be undeniable evidence that someone else was there when Ron died. The killer could’ve moved the Jeep, but that seems unlikely without moving Ron’s body and disturbing the blood on the seats and floor. No, it had to have been aimed toward the loading dock. He would have had to angle it just right to get it through one of the cutouts along that wall, and even then the bullet would be embedded in the wall of the loading dock.

I eat quickly, dripping oil onto the paper the sandwich had been wrapped in, the plastic Wawa bag lies across my lap to protect my dress pants. When I finish, I exit my onion-y car with an echoing burp and walk to the wall by the loading dock. I check the wall for a bullet hole in case the killer missed the cutout. The lot is dimly lit; I have to come back later with a flashlight. I run my hands over every inch of that wall, as high as I can reach. No bullet holes.

I go outside and examine every inch of the loading dock. No bullet holes. I’ll still come back with a flashlight, but this angle already seems like a dead end.

The only place I can think of that the killer could’ve put the second shot was into himself, but even I know that’s outlandish. Aiming with Ron’s hand would be tough, and the wound would’ve definitely left some trace of blood outside the Jeep, if not a huge trail of it. And unless he knew how to remove a bullet, he’d have had to go to the ER with some cockamamie story about shooting himself and not even have the gun with him, because he left it in Ron’s hand.

The killer really thought of everything. He took his time planning Ron’s murder. Luckily now I have all the time in the world to figure out how he did it.

After the night she told me she loved me and I told her to wash her face, Helen starts showing up at my place every other night. She brings pizza or Chinese food and we eat, watch TV, fuck, and go to sleep. I buy an ashtray for my apartment.

It’s as if we skipped a few years ahead in our relationship to a comfortable routine, but with frequent sex—the good stuff, not a lot of cuddling or saying I love you. And the best part of this relationship time machine is that we barely speak. Helen lacks that talking gene that I thought every girl had. Other than her ability to take me in an arm wrestling match, Helen being a guy in a hot girl’s body is perfect.

This cycle of visits goes on for a few weeks. I see her all weekend and one or two days during the week. Every other weekend I stay at her place. We have fun. She gives me what I had with Nancy and what I had with Ron at the same time.

I convince Helen to take the dead roses Ron sent her for Valentine’s Day and press them in a book, so that saving them feels sentimental and not morbid. We stop talking about Ron after that without discussing the idea explicitly. We both know we can’t be together and keep bringing him up. Thank goodness we barely speak, because we have very little in common that doesn’t involve Ron or at least remind us of him. Weeks pass without either of us invoking the sacred R-word.

When Nancy and I got comfortable, I could fart in front of her. With Helen, I can fart in her face and she’ll laugh and save her next fart for the back of my neck (gross, but it just feels like a warm two-second air massage). For the first time since the R-word died, I feel happy. Work still sucks, and I still spend most of my alone time trying to figure out who killed him, and why. But I don’t think about any of that when I’m Helen. In fact, I barely think at all.

If I had any sense, I would be able to see trouble coming and recognize that Helen doesn’t really want happiness. She wants to be with a dead guy, and since she can’t have him, she wants chaos and pain.

* * *

For the first time in weeks I go three days without seeing Helen, but then she shows up with hot wings, curly fries, a six pack of Yuengling for her and some Hank’s Root Beer for me. I try to hug her as she puts the food on my kitchen counter, but she holds out her hand to stop me.

“I fell off my bike the other night and bruised the hairy fuck out of my ribs. Let me hug
you
.” She inches forward, gently pats my back, kisses my cheek.

I try to kiss her. She sticks out her tongue like a lizard, her mouth in an exaggerated frown. She quickly flicks her tongue against my teeth and makes what I assume are supposed to be lizard noises. I take the hint and turn my attention to the curly fries.

While we eat, Helen takes out a thread from her pocket. “I gotta good one for you. Simple, but it’ll blow your dick out the back of your ass. You got a college ring, or any ring, lying around?”

I retrieve my college ring from a shoebox in my closet and give it to Helen.

She ties the thread to the ring and dangles it in front of me. “Got a lighter?”

I grab one from my utility drawer and try to hand it to her.

“No. You do this part. Light the thread down here by the ring. Then step back.”

I light the thread, stepping back as it quickly burns up to Helen’s graceful fingers.

Helen winks at me, lowering her eyes.

I follow her sight line and see that the ring is floating in midair. My dick metaphorically blows out the back of my ass.

* * *

We sit on the couch watching this amazing Korean movie called
Old Boy
, two TV trays covered in crumpled, orange-stained napkins in front of us. I reach back to put my arm around Helen and accidentally elbow her ribs. She sucks in air through her teeth, hunching over, tears streaming from both eyes. Her arms cross in front of her chest to protect her.

I apologize profusely, moving away from her in case she decides to knee me in the nards in retaliation. She can hardly move. Her face is gray. She leans back, her head on the backrest of my futon, looking like she’s going to faint.

“How bad was that fall? Did you go to the doctor?”

She shakes her head, blinking hard like she’s trying to stay awake.

“Let me take a look at your ribs.”

“No.”

“Your ribs might be broken. Let me look.”

“You can’t
see
if they’re broken, Dipshit. And if you try to touch them, I’ll end your life.”