Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I’m Lieutenant Deviled Yeggs.  I work homicide in the big city of Tracy.  Working for me are my old partners: Detective Sgt. Jim Wednesday and Detective Poached Yeggs, my nephew who is slowly becoming a good detective.

Wait.  Hold on.  This intro needs to be changed since I am in charge of all detective divisions.  But, no, I may supervise all divisions, but I still work homicide…  Hmmm.  I’ll have to think about that one.

Then again, I got so busy the last few weeks, closing the case on the molestation of Brooke and Booger.  I had to let Jim and Poached investigate a homicide on their own until I saw how Poached had narrowed the suspect list down to almost two hundred college students or recent graduates.

I had to kick him hard to point him in a different direction.  Now, he was reporting the case was solved.

It got me to thinking.  It was not going to be a paid group meeting, but if I got a particular son of mine to bring popcorn and a purple-haired dynamo that runs the precinct, or she thinks she does, to pull some strings…  We were going to have a story-telling night.  It would be instructive in many ways, and it would touch on the kinds of things our different divisions have in common.

We promised them visual aids of an “R” rated movie type, and popcorn and nonalcoholic beverages.  We had quite a few who stayed late that Friday Night.  Jim, Poached, and I were the team that closed the case.  Georges loved poking fun at his old partner when they were on patrol together.  Don Cahn, one of Dot Com’s grown children, was our white-collar crime detective and he was there.  He was young and eager.  Besides, he needed to get to know his teammates.  Nick the Pick was there, along with Jack Gripper.  Beau Junko was coaching a little league team.  And Bones Rattler was about half awake, but present.  He had worked through the night trying to ingratiate himself with a new group of gamblers.  He took a nap, but he wasn’t quite awake yet.

Captain Hart and Gisele fixed up a batch of hot apple cider.  Gisele came in with everything on a cart, and a catering warmer to keep it warm.  “The cider is ready, but each of you get one cinnamon stick.  If you use it up quickly, you will have to go without when you come back for seconds.”

Nick said, “Great, but where’s the popcorn?”

I laughed, “It’s coming!”

At that moment, the elevator burst open.  Easy came in with a huge box filled with bags of popcorn.  Easy said, “I had no idea what anyone wanted, and my supplier is trying some new ideas out.  I promised him feedback.  There is a label on every bag.  Flip the label over and print a comment on the back.”

Behind Easy was Jemima with Stormie in a stroller, and another dozen bags hanging from the arms of the stroller.

Poached said, “Drop off the popcorn and leave.  This is police business.”

Jemima said, “If we go, the popcorn goes.  I have become addicted to the stuff.”

Poached shook his head, “No, no, no.  This is R rated material, maybe X.  Yes, definitely some X stuff.  No minors allowed.”

Jemima said, “Poached, we are cousins by marriage.  I have given birth to as many children as your wife.  Easy and I are not only older than 18, we are 21.  It’s our popcorn.  We are staying.”

Poached said, “But Stormie is underage!”

I explained, “Poached will have to admit to a little tunnel vision on this report.  It would be embarrassing.”

“Under that circumstance, wild horses could not get rid of us.”  Jemima sat down next to Gisele and offered her some popcorn.

Gisele took one bite and shouted, “This is pecan praline!  Give me the entire bag!  Nurse!  Nurse!  Set up an I.V. and pump this directly into my bloodstream!”

Captain Al Hart grumbled.  “Sweetie, I love you with all my heart, but that comment makes no sense.  If you get an I.V. of that stuff, it bypasses the taste buds.”

Gisele winked at Jemima, “Keep my comment the same, but address it from anonymous in case we have another smarty pants like my lovable Hubbie.”

Jemima snickered, “Got it!”

As everyone was getting settled in, Polly Pulice walked in with Handy Randy, a doctoral student in Glyce’s department named Randall Handel.

Poached sat in the corner, his head in his hands.  “No, no, no.  I can never contain this now!”

I said, “Poached, chill! You needed a little help, but you closed the case!  You earned the closure.  Never be ashamed of asking for help.  I would rather have all of you ask how to get unstuck or how to relook at the suspect list.  I picked this case because it’s current and crosses various disciplines…  And it is closed!”

Poached stood and brushed off his pants, “Thank you, Lieutenant.  Let’s get this show started.”  He turned to Georges, “Can you get the lights?”  Georges turned the lights off so the PowerPoint could be seen more clearly.

Jemima said, “No theme music to put us in the mood?”

Poached grumbled, “That’s enough from the peanut gallery!”

Polly said, “But Poached, they have the pecan praline over there, and we have the chocolate and peanut butter and the peanut brittle over here.”

Don Cahn said, “Oh, can I have a taste of the peanut brittle?”

Poached threw up his hands. “Can we all settle down?!”

Gisele snickered, “Folks, he is usually not this testy.  In fact, when he’s not the presenter, he’s the one cutting up.  Since I have spoken, Poached, they know to behave now.”

Poached grunted, “Thanks, boss.”

Gisele bowed.

Poached said, “Okay, this is the case of the Cougar’s Quarry.”

Beau Junko said, “Wait!  Do we have to invent names when it’s our turn like it’s a case for Perry Mason?  And didn’t Perry Mason always find where the police got it wrong?”

I said, “Mason lost one case when he found that his client had lied to him.  And no, Poached likes the dramatic.”

Poached grumbled, “Can we move on?  The cougar in question was Cecilia Bacon Fields.  She was the wife of the late Walter Charles Fields, who was killed in a freak accident at the petrochemical plant south of Tracy.  He had a nice life insurance policy.  She cashed in on his accidental death and dismemberment insurance.  And the company gave her a few million to avoid a lawsuit.  She never needed to work, but she did some rare consulting work at the plant that took her husband’s life.  She had been an employee there.”

Poached continued, “As you know, a cougar is a woman who is attracted to much younger men, men, not a pedophile looking for boys.  But I will get to that later.  Let’s see.  I’ll start with what Jim and I learned at and around the scene.  Since some of you aren’t used to a murder investigation, this first photo may be shocking.  Please, no one throws up in the squad room.”

Jemima said, eating her popcorn as if Poached was showing photos from his vacation in Florida, “Poached, if that is real, how does that happen?”

Poached said, “She was poisoned.  The poison took effect when she was in the shower, the steady supply of warm water quickened decomposition.  Just like a deer on the side of the highway, after a while, the gases cause the deceased to expand.  I will quickly get off that picture.  Here is the scene.  The kitchen showed that she had someone there who had a drink with her.  We assumed that the tousled sheets with DNA evidence left behind was the same person.  DNA testing proved that it was the same person.  Of course, the drink glass with her lipstick marks and her DNA also had the poison and we were able to identify the poison that killed her.  If the deceased had not started to smell, the maid who discovered the body might have washed all the evidence, but she went to the source of the smell and then called 9-1-1.  The maid had last been in the house three days before.  So, this gave us a window on time of death, but with all the warm water, the body was well past three days of normal decomp.  In having the evidence, it showed the perpetrator was probably not a professional.  He did not think about any coverup of the crime.  If he had washed the cup and the sheets, we might never have proven that he was the murderer.”

Georges spoke up, “I did a canvasing of the neighbors.  There was a steady stream of young men who entered or left the house.  All seemed to be about college age, if the witnesses had a guess of any kind.  A couple of people thought they saw an older person, maybe near the victim’s age on one occasion.  Since a couple of days had passed, no one could swear whether this person or that person had visited her one day or another.  The DNA evidence in the bed said she was sexually active, at least with one person.  With the steady stream of younger men, it seemed she might be very active.  But one neighbor said that she went to the university every day and came back around noon.  She helped the young men with their homework and preparing for exams.  This could have been what the deceased used as a cover story for the nosy neighbor.  Back to you, Poached.”

Poached thanked Georges and continued, “Jim decided to take the college angle while I went through her financials.  We had taken her laptop, calendar from the fridge, and a few notebooks.  Her PIN was her late husband’s birthday.  I found a spreadsheet that was named ‘them.’  It had initials, a date, and a number between 1 and 3.  The number was some kind of code.  If the number was a one, the initials never came up again.  A two, in most cases, got a second entry unless there were two young men with the same initials.  A three almost always led to the initials appearing from Friday through Sunday of that week.  If not, the initials appeared on a following weekend, or more often during the week.  It was guess work at this point, but my guess proved helpful.  The men who did not work out for one reason or another got the one and not invited back.  Others got a two, in that there was potential, but if the two was never changed to a three, they failed to be invited back after a few tries.  The three rating meant they spent the weekend.  Thus, that corresponded with what Georges got from the neighbors, young men coming and going at odd hours, not a young man coming and then three hours later leaving.  So, the witnesses might catch the young man arrive, but they did not catch that one leave the next morning, or vice versa.  The thing was that there were nearly 200 sets of initials.  If this was a young man who could not handle rejection or wanted a monogamous relationship, it could be a person of any of the three ratings.  And the rating of three in the spreadsheet matched a gold star on the calendar.”

Jim nodded, “I went to the head of the Chemistry department, since the victim had been a graduate student in that department.  She had completed her masters, and had started work on a PhD when her husband was killed.  She took a semester off but then started showing up in classes without being registered as a student.  The department head noticed that she hung out with the exceptionally brainy guys in each class.  And almost without fail, the young men that she hung out with started making better grades.  She would always hang out with the higher performers, but even a top student under her tutelage, if that was what it was, improved to perfect scores.  When I asked some of the students, they became defensive, claiming that she simply helped them with their homework.  They were shocked when they later found out that she wasn’t a student in the class.  The department head thought she was doing that as a method of grief.  He and the other professors welcomed her tutoring.  One professor, Alfred Bunsen, was a bit combative.  He was agitated and gave evasive answers, but some of the academics were a bit strange.  I noted his reaction but thought little of it at the time.”

Poached picked up from there, “While the head of the department was cooperative in letting us talk to the entire staff, when we asked for the names of the students, just a list, they required a warrant to protect the rights of 18-22 year old adults.  This move by the department is understandable, especially with parents getting involved, but the warrant was no problem.  We needed to compare the initials with those enrolled in classes at the time of the encounters with the victim.  We needed that just to figure out what was going on.  We might suspect a cougar finding its prey among college aged young men, but we only had proof that she slept with the person who had a drink with her, and her drink containing poison.”

I added, “And see how Poached phrased that.  Could someone have poisoned one cup, not knowing who would drink it?  There were only the victim’s fingerprints on the tainted cup.  I do not like tunnel vision.  Let the evidence point the way.  Do not jump to a conclusion early.  You might start interpreting the evidence to fit your theory instead of letting the evidence lead the way.” Everyone nodded eagerly.

Poached said, “With the warrant, we had the class rosters from every chemistry class from the moment Walter Fields died until the present classes that are in session.  We ignored the poor performers.  She was going after the top students and making them better students, while she recaptured something she was missing.  I started interviewing the people we suspected of having been tutored by Cecilia Fields.  Jim went back to her high school friends.  He wanted a profile of what made Cecilia Fields tick.  Her parents had been aloof.  They said she was a good girl.”

Jim picked up the narrative.  “Her girlfriends and a couple of old suitors said she was extremely smart, but a bit of a wild child when it came to romance.  She loved public displays of affection.  It was as if she wanted everyone in school to know she was easy, but she would only date the smart kids in school.  When I finally tracked down one of these smart kids, now happily married to someone else, he said the date consisted of doing their homework together and then bedroom gymnastics.  Her parents knew about everything that was going on and had no moral hangups with it.  The homework was done and now she was learning life skills, as the guy said her parents called it.”

Poached nodded, “So, Jim and I went to work interrogating her boyfriends, ratings one through three.  When they admitted what was going on, they all admitted having sex, but she had taught them so much about how to study and how to take notes in the classroom.  They were far better students as a result, but there were rating three guys who got one weekend with her and no call backs while others got a second weekend.  There were rating two guys that thought they were good enough for a weekend.  And there were rating one guys who knew the entire affair was clumsy, but they wanted a second chance.  I had two problems.  One was that I had nearly two hundred suspects.  And two, none of them made it sound like they were so upset that they would kill her.  All were smart enough to make the poison in the chemistry lab.  All had access to the necessary ingredients.  I checked her financial records and with the life insurance payout, double indemnity accidental death insurance, and the company payout to keep her from a lawsuit, there was no financial angle that I could see.  She was living off the interest.  No unusual expenses.  She wasn’t a big traveler.  She had no connections to organized crime.  And back to the evidence, either the assailant had a key or was let into the house by the victim.  So, we assumed this was someone she knew.  And that is where the lieutenant came in the squad room.”

I smiled, “Poached, you could have said that I pointed in a different direction.  I read all their reports.  I especially took note of how Jim characterized Alfred Bunsen as being highly agitated.  We knew that she was on track to get her doctorate, but when her husband was killed, she dropped that idea altogether, pursuing young men instead and not matriculating in a doctorate program.  I did not send them back to the faculty.  They took that angle and went with it.”

Poached nodded, “And a couple of his colleagues threw Alfred Bunsen under the bus.  He had been infatuated with Cecilia.  She had a wonderful mind.  She would be a great asset to the university and probably run the department.  But the other professors thought he might be smitten.  He had been her doctorate advisor, and he worked with her closely.  Jim and I played a little good cop, bad cop with him and he finally cracked.  He went to her house to plead with her to stop her trysts with the little boys, as he called them, and she got the idea that he wanted in on that action.  She took him to bed.  They had drinks afterwards, and since it was obvious she was willing to waste her life on meaningless physical activity, he only had one choice.  To save the school from a sex scandal, he had to end it right there.  He had brought the tasteless poison with him in case he could not convince her to return to her academic endeavors.  He submitted to a DNA test, and we had a confession and all the evidence we needed if he recanted.”

Poached turned to me and said, “And Uncle Dev, can I say something off the record that bothers me about this case?”

I groaned, “If you must, go ahead.”

Poached said, “As police detectives, we follow the evidence.  The moral side of things is not part of the equation.  But Cecilia had the idea that love was simply love making, a physical act.  She did that at home when she was growing up.  She lured her husband into her clutches in college, and she went back to promiscuity after he died.  But Dr. Bunsen, the murderer, thought love was a pure intellectual thing.  He thought they were the perfect pair due to their intellect and when she rejected him, he took that as a rejection of education, creating a better world, and all intellectual endeavors.  He killed her because she was not being logical.  But love transcends both the physical and intellectual.  When you know Jesus, it transcends even the emotional.  She died and Bunsen is going to prison because neither one knew true love.”

I smiled, “And that, gentlemen, is a great summary.  We are not to use what Poached just concluded as part of our reports.  We just state the facts.  But this case was close to human trafficking and the sexual activity involved underage statutory rape that her parents allowed.  We need not go after it, since her parents lost their daughter.  They basically have a second family now, with two in high school.  We might need to watch those two children.  But that would be a vice thing.  Poached looked for any angle of theft of any kind, anything that might lead us to a financial motive.  With the help of Georges, we ruled out an organized crime angle.  I don’t know a lot about what each of you do, but I know homicide investigates all those angles to find motive for murder.  We can all learn from each other.  If your family at home does not mind you having a case wrap up party maybe once a month, Jemima and Easter will be glad to provide the popcorn.”

Gisele said, “Get all the reviews of the different flavors to me and I will make a report for the popcorn people to use in their advertising.  Note whether your assessment of the flavors is anonymous or if they can use your name.”

At this point, Bones snorted and shook his head, “Popcorn?  I dozed off.  Do we have popcorn?”

Credits

Alfred Bunsen is a mash of Alfred Nobel and Robert Bunsen, both noted chemists.  I cannot remember where I was going with Cecilia Bacon Fields.  I am thinking it was something to do with Cecil B. DeMille, but I will change that to make the C. B. correspond to Marie Curie, who discovered radiation, and Alice Ball, a chemist who developed the first effective treatment for leprosy.  But Walter Charles Fields would be W.C. Fields, a clownish nerd caught in the web of a sexual predator.

And I think I developed the entire story for Poached to make his aside comment about the moral issue here.  Even in church circles, when someone says that two people are in love, someone will ask how long they have been going to bed together.  But with my wife and I, we had almost half of our married life where that kind of thing was not part of the equation, and it was during those years that we loved each other the most.  My wife thought she could answer my sentences when we first married, and it became a comedy act as to how wrong she was.  But in the last years, we might look at each other and smile.  Neither of us starting the sentence.  While she loved her kisses, she got to the point that her favorite thing to do was long hugs, over ten Mississippis, easily, with neither of us saying a word.