I cannot lie in bed
until the sunlight wakes the world.
I must be up, my pencil
taking me to distant climates
where thoughts await
and poems sail on paper boats.
I am welcomed by the chatter
of the birds, but not a human sound.
My page is an ocean without shores
and I the swimmer floating endlessly.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Saturday, April 5, 2008
A SHORT STORY PUBLISHED IN FMAM
A PENGUIN CLASSIC
AN AARON GUEREVICH/ANN BERENDT MYSTERY
The body of Evan Seitz lay in his bed. Next to the bed, tearfully looking at their father, stood William, his son, and Sheila, his daughter. A nurse and two paramedics stood behind them. The old man’s emaciated form, covered by a blanket up to his chest, made him look like a man sleeping peacefully, arms at his sides, bony wrists protruding from navy blue pajamas. His eyes, which now saw nothing in this world, were fixed on a scene no one understood. His stark white, hairless head almost buried in the middle of his pillow, his facial features smoothly relaxed. A single night stand, an old dresser, and the bed were the only furniture.
A faint odor of antiseptic filled the room, mixed with with the stale, bad breath smell of death.
Detective Aaron Guerevich, notebook in hand, questioned Yolanda Rodriguez, the nurse. “And that’s the way you found him? You didn’t touch anything?”
“I come in at ten o’clock, like I always do. To see if he need to be changed. When I see him cold like that, I ran outta the room. I call 911 and then I call William. I didn’t touch nothing. Is okay I leave now?”
“Was anyone else in the house?”
“Only a man from museum. He brought a gift for Señor Seitz. To add to his collection in the garage. Big pingüino. Rellenado.”
“That’s a penguin,” said one of the paramedics. “It was stuffed.”
Guerevich agreed she could leave. The two paramedics mumbled their condolences and left the room with her. Only Guerevich, William, and Sheila remained.
Guerevich looked questioningly at William Seitz, dressed in a plaid cotton shirt, jeans, and moccasin style loafers without socks. Slightly thinner and shorter than the Detective he looked more like a college student than a thirty-five year old lawyer.
“No. Nothing. We touched nothing, Detective.” William folded and unfolded his arms as if he didn’t know what to do with them. His eyes, moist with tears, never left the elderly man in the bed. “I’m a prosecutor with the District Attorney’s office, and I know better than to touch anything. That’s exactly the way he was when we arrived.”
“And the pills?”
“The bottles of pills are just as you see them,” said Sheila. “One on the bed. Empty. The other on the night stand. I had just filled the prescription for the empty bottle two days ago.”
“What kind of pills were they?” Guerevich picked up the empty container in his gloved hand.
Sheila shook her head. “He was taking Thalidomide and OxyContin. The bottle of Thalidomide is still on the table.”
“Thalidomide? Isn’t that what caused all those birth defects in the 60s?”
William rubbed his eyes. “That’s what we said to Doctor Foster. But they helped him for a while. He started taking them last year. Doctor Foster said they might make the chemotherapy work more effectively and help the chemo kill tumor cells that had spread to his lungs. Dad actually regained some weight, and his cancer went into remission. But about four months ago, it returned. Deadlier than ever. That’s when he started taking OxyContin.”
“The other pills?”
“For pain. It’s common for terminal cancer patients in chronic pain. When he took them, the pain subsided, but left him lethargic. He’d fall asleep in the middle of a conversation. Actually, we’ve sort of expected something like this.”
“You expected him to commit suicide? How do you know it wasn’t something else? An accident.”
William walked to the window and looked out. “Unlikely. His mind was still intact. Actually, I’m surprised he had the strength to reach the pills.” He paused and walked back to the bed. “Why don’t we go into the living room. I really don’t want to have this conversation in this room.”
The two men walked from the bedroom to the other end of the large house. They sat in overstuffed fabric chairs before a cold fireplace surrounded by a few stuffed Arctic animals - a wolf, several white hares, a puffin, and a small white fox. Guerevich looked around at the wealth of pictures on the stark white walls showing a young Evan Seitz in the company of various dark-skinned men, all wearing sealskin parkas trimmed in wolf fur.
As soon as William was seated, his sister, Sheila Workman, went into the kitchen and returned with a carafe of coffee and two cups. There was a small table, but the two men balanced the cups on their laps.
William took a sip and replaced the cup on the saucer. “Don’t get me wrong. I love my father. I may sound unemotional, but actually, I’m relieved. What my sister and I hated, what Dad hated, was this disease that was destroying his body.”
Guerevich put his cup on the table and jotted in his notebook.
“Yes,” added Sheila. She stood next to William's’ chair. “He knew he was dying, and he detested what the pills did to him. But he had no choice because of the excruciating pain. Until he became sick, he was an energetic man, full of life, well respected in his field.”
“His field?”
“The Arctic.”
William took another sip, put down his cup, and looked at Guerevich. “As a young man, he’d been an Arctic explorer. He continued his trips to the Arctic well into his sixties, even lived there for a time, until the difficulties of the journey became too much for him.”
“He lived with the Eskimos?”
“That’s a term he never used. The two groups of Indians he studied were the Inuit, who live mostly in northern Alaska, Canada and Greenland and the Yupik of western Alaska and the Russian Far East. That’s how he ended up as the curator of the Arctic section of the Hart museum. He actually learned to speak Inuktitut.”
“I see. Well, there’s nothing more I need from you two. You have my sympathy. Unfortunately, because this may be a suicide, the Medical Examiner will have to determine the actual cause of death. That means you’ll both have to wait for his report to make final arrangements.”
“We understand.” William leaned forward and spoke in a stage whisper. “There’s one thing, however, that makes this unusual. Dad gifted this house and its contents to us last year with the stipulation that after his death, his Arctic artifacts be donated to the museum and his collection of Arctic animals be auctioned.”
“Auctioned? These animals?”
“These and the collection that fills the entire garage,” continued Sheila. “The proceeds from the auction are to be sent to the Arctic Studies Center in Barrow. They work to preserve the indigenous cultures before they get lost to the incursion of Western society.”
Guerevich looked around at the sparse furnishings in the small house. The entire house was painfully simple. A sofa and two chairs in the living room. A wooden floor with a single carpet in front of the fireplace. An old wood table and four high back chairs in the kitchen. “So all you’re left with is the house?”
“It may be small, but it’s worth quite a lot. My sister and I grew up here. It’s enough. As far as material things, we have just about everything we want or need. When I was sixteen, I accompanied my father on one of his expeditions, and I saw how the Inuit lived. Little material wealth, but they seemed content. At the time, I hated it, but I did learn how to live with a minimum of material comforts.”
“Father always chided you on being too materialistic, Billy.” She turned to Guerevich. “He’s probably the only non-materialistic lawyer in the DA’s office.”
“Maybe,” William responded. “But there’s something else. The Inuit and Yupic are great carvers. I suppose on the long winter nights, there was little else to do. Dad had a collection of very old carvings, some of which may be over 5,000 years old. They were given to him by tribal elders.”
“Carvings? And why did you say he had a collection?”
“This is something you might not have known about, Sheila. He told me recently he thought they were probably worth millions to collectors. He kept them in the floor safe, under that carpet. He hoped to give them to the Smithsonian. When I looked in the safe, it was empty.”
“When did you look in the safe, Billy?”
“Right after the paramedics said Dad was dead.”
“You’re not as non-materialistic as I thought.”
“I guess not.” He looked embarrassed. “But those carvings meant a lot to Dad. And they mean a lot to us, and not just because of their value. I wanted to remove them before anyone else learned of Dad’s death. Before someone else got to them. Which seems to be exactly what happened.”
“Could he have hidden them somewhere else?”
“That wouldn’t be like him,” said Sheila. “He was a very cautious man. Besides, for the last two months, he was almost completely bedridden.”
“I’ll have some officers search the house. We’ll let you know if we find anything. Who else had the combination to the safe?” Guerevich wrote more in his notebook.
“Besides my sister and me, it’s hard to say. It just might have been left unlocked. It was unlocked when I opened it. There have been so many people taking care of him or visiting him in the last couple of months. The doctors, hospice nurses, caretakers. Even some of his colleagues from the museum. They were always bringing him gifts to cheer him up. My father might have given any one of them the combination to the safe.”
“Why would he do that?”
“It’s hard to say what he might have thought when he was doped up with OxyContin. He might have thought he was talking to my mother, who died fifteen years ago.”
A man in a white jacket marked ME entered the room and walked up to Guerevich. “We’re ready, Aaron? Need any more time?”
“No, I’m done. This is Sheila Workman, Mr. Seitz’s daughter, and William, his son. They want to make final arrangements when you’re through.”
The ME looked at William and shook his hand. Then he looked at Sheila. “Sorry about your father. I read one of his books on the Inuit culture. Fascinating man.”
“He was that,” said Sheila. “But to us, he was always Dad.”
Everyone left. Guerevich returned to his office at the police station to start the paperwork that always accompanied an unexplained death. He hoped the ME would rule this one a suicide, which would make his work much easier. He made a note to call the ME the next day.
Later that evening, at Ann Berendt’s apartment over dinner, Guerevich discussed the Evan Seitz case with the forensic researcher and fiancé.
“Sounds to me like he wanted to end his agony, Aaron.” She scooped up two helpings of spaghetti and ladled sauce over them. Then she set the two plates on the table and sat down. “To say nothing about the pain he was putting his son and daughter through,” she continued. Can’t say I blame him. Do you?”
“No, I don’t. I’m sure it was suicide.” He twirled his fork to wrap strands of spaghetti around it. Before he put the food in his mouth he looked at Ann. “What I’m concerned about are the missing carvings. His son told me one of them was a whale bone polar bear. Almost two feet long. The others were smaller. Walrus tusk ivory. Things you could just walk off with.”
“You think the son or daughter took them?”
“Then why did they tell me about them?”
“The son told you. The daughter didn’t. They must have been taken by someone who knew their value.”
“She was surprised when he told me. I think it had to be someone else.”
“Maybe. It still could mean the daughter? Who else?”
Guerevich cleared the table, rinsed the dishes and stacked them in the dishwasher. Then he joined Ann on the sofa, where she was watching the news on TV. He picked up the remote and pushed the mute button.
“What about one of the old man’s colleagues from the museum? William told me his father might have given one of them the combination to the safe when he was doped up.”
Ann put her feet up on the sofa and rested her head against Guerevich’s shoulder. “I’ll bet the carvings are still in the house somewhere.”
“That sounds logical. With so many people in the house every day, it was risky to walk out with them. He could just wait till he was in the clear. But we searched the entire house.”
“Your guys are thorough. But it’s possible they missed something.”
“I’m going back there tomorrow. I want you to come with me and see what you can find.”
“Be happy to, “ said Ann. “But right now I’m going to bed. You staying or going home?”
“Who could resist such a suggestive invitation?”
The next morning, Ann called the Medical Examiner and learned that Evan Seitz had enough OxyContin in his blood to kill him several times over.
She and Guerevich visited Evan Seitz’s house, looking at every possible place a two foot polar bear and other smaller carvings could be hidden. They rolled back the carpet and looked in the empty safe. They tapped on walls and looked for evidence of new plaster. Ann walked into the kitchen to examine the cupboards. Guerevich remained in the living room. As he removed some book from a bookcase, a man entered, taller than Guerevich but slightly round-shouldered, carrying a clipboard.
“You must be Detective Guerevich,” he said. “I’m Dr. Fredrick Weber. I’m here to catalogue the artifacts for the museum, although why Ramsey didn’t send a clerk I’ll never know.
“Ramsey?” asked Guerevich.
“Doctor Peter Ramsey. The head of the Board of Directors for the museum.” He paused and looked over his glasses at Guerevich. “I thought your work was done. I do hope you won’t get in my way.”
“Not at all, Doctor. We’re just finishing up a few loose ends on Dr. Seitz.”
“Let correct you, Detective.” Dr. Weber straightened his shoulders, adjusted his glasses, and looked down at Guerevich. “It’s Mr. Seitz. Just Mr. Seitz. Sad, really. The man never did manage to finish his doctorate.” The condescension in his voice was clear. “Too busy traipsing off to the Arctic to help the poor indigenous natives.”
“I see. Thanks for telling me.” Guerevich took out his notebook.
“Now, if you will excuse me. I really must finish and get back to the museum. Although why the museum would want this stuff is beyond me.”
“You’re not with the Arctic section?”
“Dear me, no. My specialty is rare manuscripts. The history of cultures that could read and write.”
“I just have one question. Do you know the combination to Mr. Seitz’s safe?”
“His safe? Why on earth would I want anything in that man’s floor safe. Probably some old Eskimo bones. Nothing of real value, if you know what I mean.”
“Is that other man also from the museum?” Guerevich indicated a man who was writing in a three ring notebook.
“I believe that’s Robert Henley from the auction house. Obviously, he’s making a list of those damned stuffed animals Seitz was so proud of. They are to be auctioned next week.”
“I can understand someone wanting the smaller animals. The puffin or the fox,” Guerevich said to Dr. Weber. “But those large ones in the garage are something else. Who’d have room for a caribou or a polar bear?”
Hearing the conversation, Henly walked toward the men. “Oh, they’ll probably be bought by some sporting goods store.”
“Or some bar,” intoned Dr. Weber.
“How are you today, Dr. Weber? Any more animals to contribute to the auction?”
“No. Nothing.” Dr. Weber looked at his clipboard. “I really must get back to my cataloguing.” Dr. Weber hurried into the next room.
Ann entered the room and walked directly to Guerevich. She spoke quietly. “You need to come with me to the garage.”
He followed her to the kitchen, and through the door to the garage.
“Did you find something?”
“There’s a very interesting specimen.” He looked at where she was pointing.
“It looks like a penguin, but it’s so big. What is it?”
“Oh, it’s a penguin, all right,” said Ann. “An Emperor penguin. You can tell by its size. Now we can go.”
“But we haven’t found the carvings. I don’t think they’re here.”
“Let’s go, Aaron,” insisted Ann. “I’ll tell you something about that penguin when we get back to the car.”
As soon as they were back in the car, Ann said, “I know where the carvings are hidden. And tomorrow at the auction, we’ll know you who hid them.”
“Ann, you know I love you. But how did you come up with that?”
“Simple, my dear Aaron. Apparently, you have forgotten your geography. Seitz was an Arctic explorer, right?
“Right. And a collector of stuffed animals, among other things. So?”
“But you only find Emperor penguins in the Antarctic. Now, do you think Seitz would have one stuffed Emperor penguin with his collection of Arctic animals?”
“Probably not.”
“I examined that penguin, and found out just what he’s stuffed with. We’ll need something the size of the large carving that weighs about twenty or thirty pounds.”
“I think I know where you’re going with this.”
“That ugly brass table lamp of yours. The one you keep in the bedroom on your night stand. I’ve always hated it.”
“But that was a Bar Mitzvah present from my Aunt Minnie.”
“I don’t think she’ll notice. When’s the last time you saw her?”
“It’s been a few years. She hardly ever leaves the Senior Center in Sun City. And I’ve never really liked the lamp, either.”
That evening, Guerevich and Ann entered the garage carrying the base of the old brass table lamp. They cut the stitching in the back and removed the polar bear and several other carvings, neatly wrapped in burlap. They placed the lamp in the opening and sewed it back the way it had been.
The next day at the auction, both Guerevich and Ann were anxious to see who would bid on a stuffed Emperor penguin.
When they walked into the house, the auction was already in session. As Guerevich stood next to Ann listening to the auctioneer, Sheila Workman and William Seitz came up to them.
“I can’t thank you enough for returning Father’s carvings, Detective,” said Sheila, her voice a low whisper. “Wherever did you find them?”
“I can’t take credit for this one. Ann is the one who discovered their hiding place.”
“Bone carvings make poor stuffing,” said Ann. “And never underestimate the lack of knowledge of educated people.”
“I don’t understand,” said William.
“There are some in the academic community who think they are smarter than everyone else,” said Guerevich.
“You must be talking about Dr. Weber. That arrogant bastard never let my father forget that he had never earned a doctorate degree.”
“Is he the one who took the carvings?” asked Sheila. “Why don’t you arrest him?”
“He never took the carvings out of the house. And we can’t prove he removed them from the safe. But I think he outsmarted himself. Wait a minute. The penguin is coming up for bid.”
“Penguin?” asked Sheila. My father didn’t have a penguin.”
“We know,” said Ann. “Weber brought it in. I’ll explain later.”
After several bids from interested individuals, Dr. Frederick Weber pushed the bidding higher and higher, until he owned the penguin.
As Weber left the house, Guerevich caught up with him. “I didn’t think a penguin would be worth so much, Doctor,” said Guerevich. “Especially to someone whose specialty is rare manuscripts.”
“Oh, this one has special value for me.”
“As in Penguin Classics? I thought Emperor penguins were creatures that inhabited Antarctica?”
“Really. Now that you mention it, I think they are. I’m surprised you knew that, Detective.”
“I wonder why Dr. Seitz had one, since his area of expertise was the Arctic.”
The expression on Dr. Weber’s face froze in an insincere smile as he opened the trunk of his car and gently placed the penguin in a waiting box, exactly the size and shape to receive it.
“Mr. Seitz, Detective. Remember? Just Mr. Seitz.” He paused. “One wonders why Mr. Seitz collected most of his things. But I really must be going, Detective. I have work to do at the museum.”
“Of course. Well, Doctor Weber. It was interesting meeting you. Enjoy your penguin.”
AN AARON GUEREVICH/ANN BERENDT MYSTERY
The body of Evan Seitz lay in his bed. Next to the bed, tearfully looking at their father, stood William, his son, and Sheila, his daughter. A nurse and two paramedics stood behind them. The old man’s emaciated form, covered by a blanket up to his chest, made him look like a man sleeping peacefully, arms at his sides, bony wrists protruding from navy blue pajamas. His eyes, which now saw nothing in this world, were fixed on a scene no one understood. His stark white, hairless head almost buried in the middle of his pillow, his facial features smoothly relaxed. A single night stand, an old dresser, and the bed were the only furniture.
A faint odor of antiseptic filled the room, mixed with with the stale, bad breath smell of death.
Detective Aaron Guerevich, notebook in hand, questioned Yolanda Rodriguez, the nurse. “And that’s the way you found him? You didn’t touch anything?”
“I come in at ten o’clock, like I always do. To see if he need to be changed. When I see him cold like that, I ran outta the room. I call 911 and then I call William. I didn’t touch nothing. Is okay I leave now?”
“Was anyone else in the house?”
“Only a man from museum. He brought a gift for Señor Seitz. To add to his collection in the garage. Big pingüino. Rellenado.”
“That’s a penguin,” said one of the paramedics. “It was stuffed.”
Guerevich agreed she could leave. The two paramedics mumbled their condolences and left the room with her. Only Guerevich, William, and Sheila remained.
Guerevich looked questioningly at William Seitz, dressed in a plaid cotton shirt, jeans, and moccasin style loafers without socks. Slightly thinner and shorter than the Detective he looked more like a college student than a thirty-five year old lawyer.
“No. Nothing. We touched nothing, Detective.” William folded and unfolded his arms as if he didn’t know what to do with them. His eyes, moist with tears, never left the elderly man in the bed. “I’m a prosecutor with the District Attorney’s office, and I know better than to touch anything. That’s exactly the way he was when we arrived.”
“And the pills?”
“The bottles of pills are just as you see them,” said Sheila. “One on the bed. Empty. The other on the night stand. I had just filled the prescription for the empty bottle two days ago.”
“What kind of pills were they?” Guerevich picked up the empty container in his gloved hand.
Sheila shook her head. “He was taking Thalidomide and OxyContin. The bottle of Thalidomide is still on the table.”
“Thalidomide? Isn’t that what caused all those birth defects in the 60s?”
William rubbed his eyes. “That’s what we said to Doctor Foster. But they helped him for a while. He started taking them last year. Doctor Foster said they might make the chemotherapy work more effectively and help the chemo kill tumor cells that had spread to his lungs. Dad actually regained some weight, and his cancer went into remission. But about four months ago, it returned. Deadlier than ever. That’s when he started taking OxyContin.”
“The other pills?”
“For pain. It’s common for terminal cancer patients in chronic pain. When he took them, the pain subsided, but left him lethargic. He’d fall asleep in the middle of a conversation. Actually, we’ve sort of expected something like this.”
“You expected him to commit suicide? How do you know it wasn’t something else? An accident.”
William walked to the window and looked out. “Unlikely. His mind was still intact. Actually, I’m surprised he had the strength to reach the pills.” He paused and walked back to the bed. “Why don’t we go into the living room. I really don’t want to have this conversation in this room.”
The two men walked from the bedroom to the other end of the large house. They sat in overstuffed fabric chairs before a cold fireplace surrounded by a few stuffed Arctic animals - a wolf, several white hares, a puffin, and a small white fox. Guerevich looked around at the wealth of pictures on the stark white walls showing a young Evan Seitz in the company of various dark-skinned men, all wearing sealskin parkas trimmed in wolf fur.
As soon as William was seated, his sister, Sheila Workman, went into the kitchen and returned with a carafe of coffee and two cups. There was a small table, but the two men balanced the cups on their laps.
William took a sip and replaced the cup on the saucer. “Don’t get me wrong. I love my father. I may sound unemotional, but actually, I’m relieved. What my sister and I hated, what Dad hated, was this disease that was destroying his body.”
Guerevich put his cup on the table and jotted in his notebook.
“Yes,” added Sheila. She stood next to William's’ chair. “He knew he was dying, and he detested what the pills did to him. But he had no choice because of the excruciating pain. Until he became sick, he was an energetic man, full of life, well respected in his field.”
“His field?”
“The Arctic.”
William took another sip, put down his cup, and looked at Guerevich. “As a young man, he’d been an Arctic explorer. He continued his trips to the Arctic well into his sixties, even lived there for a time, until the difficulties of the journey became too much for him.”
“He lived with the Eskimos?”
“That’s a term he never used. The two groups of Indians he studied were the Inuit, who live mostly in northern Alaska, Canada and Greenland and the Yupik of western Alaska and the Russian Far East. That’s how he ended up as the curator of the Arctic section of the Hart museum. He actually learned to speak Inuktitut.”
“I see. Well, there’s nothing more I need from you two. You have my sympathy. Unfortunately, because this may be a suicide, the Medical Examiner will have to determine the actual cause of death. That means you’ll both have to wait for his report to make final arrangements.”
“We understand.” William leaned forward and spoke in a stage whisper. “There’s one thing, however, that makes this unusual. Dad gifted this house and its contents to us last year with the stipulation that after his death, his Arctic artifacts be donated to the museum and his collection of Arctic animals be auctioned.”
“Auctioned? These animals?”
“These and the collection that fills the entire garage,” continued Sheila. “The proceeds from the auction are to be sent to the Arctic Studies Center in Barrow. They work to preserve the indigenous cultures before they get lost to the incursion of Western society.”
Guerevich looked around at the sparse furnishings in the small house. The entire house was painfully simple. A sofa and two chairs in the living room. A wooden floor with a single carpet in front of the fireplace. An old wood table and four high back chairs in the kitchen. “So all you’re left with is the house?”
“It may be small, but it’s worth quite a lot. My sister and I grew up here. It’s enough. As far as material things, we have just about everything we want or need. When I was sixteen, I accompanied my father on one of his expeditions, and I saw how the Inuit lived. Little material wealth, but they seemed content. At the time, I hated it, but I did learn how to live with a minimum of material comforts.”
“Father always chided you on being too materialistic, Billy.” She turned to Guerevich. “He’s probably the only non-materialistic lawyer in the DA’s office.”
“Maybe,” William responded. “But there’s something else. The Inuit and Yupic are great carvers. I suppose on the long winter nights, there was little else to do. Dad had a collection of very old carvings, some of which may be over 5,000 years old. They were given to him by tribal elders.”
“Carvings? And why did you say he had a collection?”
“This is something you might not have known about, Sheila. He told me recently he thought they were probably worth millions to collectors. He kept them in the floor safe, under that carpet. He hoped to give them to the Smithsonian. When I looked in the safe, it was empty.”
“When did you look in the safe, Billy?”
“Right after the paramedics said Dad was dead.”
“You’re not as non-materialistic as I thought.”
“I guess not.” He looked embarrassed. “But those carvings meant a lot to Dad. And they mean a lot to us, and not just because of their value. I wanted to remove them before anyone else learned of Dad’s death. Before someone else got to them. Which seems to be exactly what happened.”
“Could he have hidden them somewhere else?”
“That wouldn’t be like him,” said Sheila. “He was a very cautious man. Besides, for the last two months, he was almost completely bedridden.”
“I’ll have some officers search the house. We’ll let you know if we find anything. Who else had the combination to the safe?” Guerevich wrote more in his notebook.
“Besides my sister and me, it’s hard to say. It just might have been left unlocked. It was unlocked when I opened it. There have been so many people taking care of him or visiting him in the last couple of months. The doctors, hospice nurses, caretakers. Even some of his colleagues from the museum. They were always bringing him gifts to cheer him up. My father might have given any one of them the combination to the safe.”
“Why would he do that?”
“It’s hard to say what he might have thought when he was doped up with OxyContin. He might have thought he was talking to my mother, who died fifteen years ago.”
A man in a white jacket marked ME entered the room and walked up to Guerevich. “We’re ready, Aaron? Need any more time?”
“No, I’m done. This is Sheila Workman, Mr. Seitz’s daughter, and William, his son. They want to make final arrangements when you’re through.”
The ME looked at William and shook his hand. Then he looked at Sheila. “Sorry about your father. I read one of his books on the Inuit culture. Fascinating man.”
“He was that,” said Sheila. “But to us, he was always Dad.”
Everyone left. Guerevich returned to his office at the police station to start the paperwork that always accompanied an unexplained death. He hoped the ME would rule this one a suicide, which would make his work much easier. He made a note to call the ME the next day.
Later that evening, at Ann Berendt’s apartment over dinner, Guerevich discussed the Evan Seitz case with the forensic researcher and fiancé.
“Sounds to me like he wanted to end his agony, Aaron.” She scooped up two helpings of spaghetti and ladled sauce over them. Then she set the two plates on the table and sat down. “To say nothing about the pain he was putting his son and daughter through,” she continued. Can’t say I blame him. Do you?”
“No, I don’t. I’m sure it was suicide.” He twirled his fork to wrap strands of spaghetti around it. Before he put the food in his mouth he looked at Ann. “What I’m concerned about are the missing carvings. His son told me one of them was a whale bone polar bear. Almost two feet long. The others were smaller. Walrus tusk ivory. Things you could just walk off with.”
“You think the son or daughter took them?”
“Then why did they tell me about them?”
“The son told you. The daughter didn’t. They must have been taken by someone who knew their value.”
“She was surprised when he told me. I think it had to be someone else.”
“Maybe. It still could mean the daughter? Who else?”
Guerevich cleared the table, rinsed the dishes and stacked them in the dishwasher. Then he joined Ann on the sofa, where she was watching the news on TV. He picked up the remote and pushed the mute button.
“What about one of the old man’s colleagues from the museum? William told me his father might have given one of them the combination to the safe when he was doped up.”
Ann put her feet up on the sofa and rested her head against Guerevich’s shoulder. “I’ll bet the carvings are still in the house somewhere.”
“That sounds logical. With so many people in the house every day, it was risky to walk out with them. He could just wait till he was in the clear. But we searched the entire house.”
“Your guys are thorough. But it’s possible they missed something.”
“I’m going back there tomorrow. I want you to come with me and see what you can find.”
“Be happy to, “ said Ann. “But right now I’m going to bed. You staying or going home?”
“Who could resist such a suggestive invitation?”
The next morning, Ann called the Medical Examiner and learned that Evan Seitz had enough OxyContin in his blood to kill him several times over.
She and Guerevich visited Evan Seitz’s house, looking at every possible place a two foot polar bear and other smaller carvings could be hidden. They rolled back the carpet and looked in the empty safe. They tapped on walls and looked for evidence of new plaster. Ann walked into the kitchen to examine the cupboards. Guerevich remained in the living room. As he removed some book from a bookcase, a man entered, taller than Guerevich but slightly round-shouldered, carrying a clipboard.
“You must be Detective Guerevich,” he said. “I’m Dr. Fredrick Weber. I’m here to catalogue the artifacts for the museum, although why Ramsey didn’t send a clerk I’ll never know.
“Ramsey?” asked Guerevich.
“Doctor Peter Ramsey. The head of the Board of Directors for the museum.” He paused and looked over his glasses at Guerevich. “I thought your work was done. I do hope you won’t get in my way.”
“Not at all, Doctor. We’re just finishing up a few loose ends on Dr. Seitz.”
“Let correct you, Detective.” Dr. Weber straightened his shoulders, adjusted his glasses, and looked down at Guerevich. “It’s Mr. Seitz. Just Mr. Seitz. Sad, really. The man never did manage to finish his doctorate.” The condescension in his voice was clear. “Too busy traipsing off to the Arctic to help the poor indigenous natives.”
“I see. Thanks for telling me.” Guerevich took out his notebook.
“Now, if you will excuse me. I really must finish and get back to the museum. Although why the museum would want this stuff is beyond me.”
“You’re not with the Arctic section?”
“Dear me, no. My specialty is rare manuscripts. The history of cultures that could read and write.”
“I just have one question. Do you know the combination to Mr. Seitz’s safe?”
“His safe? Why on earth would I want anything in that man’s floor safe. Probably some old Eskimo bones. Nothing of real value, if you know what I mean.”
“Is that other man also from the museum?” Guerevich indicated a man who was writing in a three ring notebook.
“I believe that’s Robert Henley from the auction house. Obviously, he’s making a list of those damned stuffed animals Seitz was so proud of. They are to be auctioned next week.”
“I can understand someone wanting the smaller animals. The puffin or the fox,” Guerevich said to Dr. Weber. “But those large ones in the garage are something else. Who’d have room for a caribou or a polar bear?”
Hearing the conversation, Henly walked toward the men. “Oh, they’ll probably be bought by some sporting goods store.”
“Or some bar,” intoned Dr. Weber.
“How are you today, Dr. Weber? Any more animals to contribute to the auction?”
“No. Nothing.” Dr. Weber looked at his clipboard. “I really must get back to my cataloguing.” Dr. Weber hurried into the next room.
Ann entered the room and walked directly to Guerevich. She spoke quietly. “You need to come with me to the garage.”
He followed her to the kitchen, and through the door to the garage.
“Did you find something?”
“There’s a very interesting specimen.” He looked at where she was pointing.
“It looks like a penguin, but it’s so big. What is it?”
“Oh, it’s a penguin, all right,” said Ann. “An Emperor penguin. You can tell by its size. Now we can go.”
“But we haven’t found the carvings. I don’t think they’re here.”
“Let’s go, Aaron,” insisted Ann. “I’ll tell you something about that penguin when we get back to the car.”
As soon as they were back in the car, Ann said, “I know where the carvings are hidden. And tomorrow at the auction, we’ll know you who hid them.”
“Ann, you know I love you. But how did you come up with that?”
“Simple, my dear Aaron. Apparently, you have forgotten your geography. Seitz was an Arctic explorer, right?
“Right. And a collector of stuffed animals, among other things. So?”
“But you only find Emperor penguins in the Antarctic. Now, do you think Seitz would have one stuffed Emperor penguin with his collection of Arctic animals?”
“Probably not.”
“I examined that penguin, and found out just what he’s stuffed with. We’ll need something the size of the large carving that weighs about twenty or thirty pounds.”
“I think I know where you’re going with this.”
“That ugly brass table lamp of yours. The one you keep in the bedroom on your night stand. I’ve always hated it.”
“But that was a Bar Mitzvah present from my Aunt Minnie.”
“I don’t think she’ll notice. When’s the last time you saw her?”
“It’s been a few years. She hardly ever leaves the Senior Center in Sun City. And I’ve never really liked the lamp, either.”
That evening, Guerevich and Ann entered the garage carrying the base of the old brass table lamp. They cut the stitching in the back and removed the polar bear and several other carvings, neatly wrapped in burlap. They placed the lamp in the opening and sewed it back the way it had been.
The next day at the auction, both Guerevich and Ann were anxious to see who would bid on a stuffed Emperor penguin.
When they walked into the house, the auction was already in session. As Guerevich stood next to Ann listening to the auctioneer, Sheila Workman and William Seitz came up to them.
“I can’t thank you enough for returning Father’s carvings, Detective,” said Sheila, her voice a low whisper. “Wherever did you find them?”
“I can’t take credit for this one. Ann is the one who discovered their hiding place.”
“Bone carvings make poor stuffing,” said Ann. “And never underestimate the lack of knowledge of educated people.”
“I don’t understand,” said William.
“There are some in the academic community who think they are smarter than everyone else,” said Guerevich.
“You must be talking about Dr. Weber. That arrogant bastard never let my father forget that he had never earned a doctorate degree.”
“Is he the one who took the carvings?” asked Sheila. “Why don’t you arrest him?”
“He never took the carvings out of the house. And we can’t prove he removed them from the safe. But I think he outsmarted himself. Wait a minute. The penguin is coming up for bid.”
“Penguin?” asked Sheila. My father didn’t have a penguin.”
“We know,” said Ann. “Weber brought it in. I’ll explain later.”
After several bids from interested individuals, Dr. Frederick Weber pushed the bidding higher and higher, until he owned the penguin.
As Weber left the house, Guerevich caught up with him. “I didn’t think a penguin would be worth so much, Doctor,” said Guerevich. “Especially to someone whose specialty is rare manuscripts.”
“Oh, this one has special value for me.”
“As in Penguin Classics? I thought Emperor penguins were creatures that inhabited Antarctica?”
“Really. Now that you mention it, I think they are. I’m surprised you knew that, Detective.”
“I wonder why Dr. Seitz had one, since his area of expertise was the Arctic.”
The expression on Dr. Weber’s face froze in an insincere smile as he opened the trunk of his car and gently placed the penguin in a waiting box, exactly the size and shape to receive it.
“Mr. Seitz, Detective. Remember? Just Mr. Seitz.” He paused. “One wonders why Mr. Seitz collected most of his things. But I really must be going, Detective. I have work to do at the museum.”
“Of course. Well, Doctor Weber. It was interesting meeting you. Enjoy your penguin.”
Thursday, December 27, 2007
CHOICES
CHOICES
A NOVEL BY MEL GOLDBERG
A story of murder, revenge, alcohol, sex, and suicide.
Bill Forrest wants revenge for the the deaths of his wife and child. They were run down and killed by an attorney, who was legally drunk at the time of the accident. When the attorney escapes punishment because of his connections, Forrest waits six years and then murders the attorney.
At the same Bill’s wife and child are killed, 100 miles away at Northern Illinois University, Alice Solinsky has an abortion when her wealthy live-in boy friend, Gregory Varonian, leaves her for another woman.
Alice and Gregory accidentally meet again six years later in Lake Forest, Illinois, where Alice is living with her husband, Larry McBride. Gregory blackmails Alice into an affair, resulting in another pregnancy. But this time, she keeps the baby, letting her hard-drinking husband thinks Jason is his son.
After she divorces McBride, she meets Bill Forrest. When an accident causes Larry to discover Jason is not his son, his anger prompts him to make an attempt on Varonian’s life with disastrous results.
A story of two lives that begin in deceit and end in death and suicide. But for one, the understanding of how our choices determine our future.
BUY IT NOW AT
www.iUniverse.com/bookstore
www.amazon.com
www.bn.com
ORDER BY NAME &
ISBN NUMBER 0-595-27527-3
A NOVEL BY MEL GOLDBERG
A story of murder, revenge, alcohol, sex, and suicide.
Bill Forrest wants revenge for the the deaths of his wife and child. They were run down and killed by an attorney, who was legally drunk at the time of the accident. When the attorney escapes punishment because of his connections, Forrest waits six years and then murders the attorney.
At the same Bill’s wife and child are killed, 100 miles away at Northern Illinois University, Alice Solinsky has an abortion when her wealthy live-in boy friend, Gregory Varonian, leaves her for another woman.
Alice and Gregory accidentally meet again six years later in Lake Forest, Illinois, where Alice is living with her husband, Larry McBride. Gregory blackmails Alice into an affair, resulting in another pregnancy. But this time, she keeps the baby, letting her hard-drinking husband thinks Jason is his son.
After she divorces McBride, she meets Bill Forrest. When an accident causes Larry to discover Jason is not his son, his anger prompts him to make an attempt on Varonian’s life with disastrous results.
A story of two lives that begin in deceit and end in death and suicide. But for one, the understanding of how our choices determine our future.
BUY IT NOW AT
www.iUniverse.com/bookstore
www.amazon.com
www.bn.com
ORDER BY NAME &
ISBN NUMBER 0-595-27527-3
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
