Five-minute Mysteries 2. Ken Weber

her side window. “Smelled smoke down here ’n’ went up t’see. ’S’about coupla hunnert yards or so. Fools!”

      Before he got into the car, Billy had told Sharnell he’d found the pack left behind at a campsite. During the telling he’d become quite upset over the fact that the campers had left the site without putting out their fire completely.

      When the two of them reached the camping spot, it appeared much as Billy had said. The remains of a campfire were strewn in front of flattened grass where a tent had been pitched. Sharnell had to get to her knees to see them, but it didn’t take her long to find the holes the tent pegs had made. She focused the camera she’d brought with her, and began to shoot the scene from various angles. Just like fiddling with the sun visor and the radio, taking pictures gave her something to do while she worked out her strategy. Clearly, she was going to have to challenge Billy with the flaw in his explanation of how he found the backpack. As well, she was going to have to have the campsite examined more thoroughly, and then she’d have to organize a search party. All that had to be arranged from town, however. For now, she felt it best to take Billy back to Schomberg before confronting him.

      ?

      What is the flaw in Billy’s explanation of how he found the backpack?

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      10

      The Identikit Decision

      The watch commander in charge of the unit covering a rundown part of the city known as The Meadow was Wally Bricken. An aging, overweight, desk-bound cop, Wally, in his long years on the job, had developed a thick skin of cynicism, not only out of disappointment in his fellow human beings and their capacity for evil, but also because of a deep-seated disillusionment with the will of his superiors to respond to it. This attitude accounted for his look of surprise when he joined the meeting – already in progress – up in Homicide on the third floor.

      “This’ll be one a’ yer quick-’n’-dirtys,” he’d told the desk sergeant as he left his office. “Th’ vic was just some hooker from over in Th’ Meadow. Way I hear, she was cut up pretty bad, but then ...”

      But for “just some hooker,” Captain Spate of Homicide seemed to have pulled out all the stops. While making the few steps from her office door to his accustomed corner chair for meetings like these, Wally was impressed by the presence of two crime scene investigators, the head of Vice and a sergeant from Robbery, one of the young computer wizards from the lab – he didn’t know the guy’s name – four homicide detectives, and a captain from highway patrol! One of the CSI types was just finishing up.

      “ ... So we think it’s pretty clear this was a crime with intent, not some spontaneous argument over money or drugs. And not a crime of passion either: he cut her up in the back seat of that car like he was taking a puzzle apart. Whoever did this set out to kill somebody.” He held up a plastic evidence bag with a brown flask inside. “There are prints on this liquor bottle, but only hers are clear. The others are too smudged. A tiny trace of some kind of adhesive on the rim here. And this is weird. See this?” He pointed to a small, irregularly shaped blob stuck to the label.

      “Looks like a booger!” someone blurted out.

      Everyone chuckled except the crime scene investigator, who carried on without responding. “We’re getting it analyzed. Now on the prints. Only her prints on the inside of the car – stolen car, of course. Seems kind of odd he’d be wearing gloves when he picked her up, because that could tip her off something’s not right, but then with AIDS these days who knows? Anyway, we’ll have more on the car by this afternoon; pathology report by then, too. Meantime ...”

      “Excuse me, Gerry,” Captain Spate interrupted. “Now that Watch Commander Bricken has honored this task force with his presence – so nice of you to take the time, Wally – I think we should deal with the street canvass. That’s got to get underway fast.”

      She continued before Wally could respond. “I don’t think everyone here knows Arnold Sheen-Revy.” She waved expansively at the young computer tech. “Go ahead, Arnold.”

      The young man reached behind him and brought out a picture on fluted white cardboard. “I have two dozen of these for you, Watch Commander,” he said, holding up a computer-generated picture of the face of a male in his thirties.

      One of the homicide detectives, an older one, spoke directly to Wally. “Two girls on the street think they saw the guy. Said he was cruising and came down the street twice, and you know how this kind of woman peers into cars a little more carefully than others do.”

      “This representation of the face is what they seem to agree on,” the technician broke in. “Couldn’t see eye color, of course, since it was after dark, but they both described the hair style and the moustache in the same way. Nothing remarkable about either one, unfortunately.”

      Wally started to speak, grateful that the captain’s barb had seemed to disappear in the urgency of the situation, but she interrupted again.

      “Right away, Wally – if you can manage that concept – I want you to get a copy of this picture into the hands of every street officer in your watch and do a blitz. Somebody in The Meadow has to have seen this guy, and the longer we wait the weaker their memories will be.”

      Wally looked directly at the young computer tech, pointedly ignoring Captain Spate. “These computer Identikits – they’re easier than the old flip charts, aren’t they? So how fast can you get me some copies without the moustache?” he asked.

      “Without the moustache? Why do you want ... oh, because he might shave it off?”

      “No,” Wally replied, “Because I’d say you’ve got evidence here that suggests it was a fake in the first place.”

      ?

      What evidence suggests to Wally that the moustache was a fake?

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      11

      Waiting for Sahdeen

      Harry was slouched way down in the seat. The position enabled him to watch the street behind him in the side mirror and, at the same time, through the windshield he could keep an eye on the exit from the parking garage at Old Church Towers. An added bonus was that the position was reasonably comfortable. In the grubby old van they were using today, there weren’t many comfortable positions. Beside him, Max had pulled his elbow back inside after a jogger had bumped it dodging through the sidewalk traffic. Max was sitting now with his chin balanced on top of the steering wheel, both arms hanging simian-like to the floor. The pair had been parked here on Dacey Street since two in the morning and still had a couple of hours to go before their relief showed up.