please
tell us how he solved this case?" A loud acclaim of cheering and applause started up, aided by Bowser barking in displeasure at the noise. I gave my dog (okay, Carole's dog) a comforting skritching before moving over to the group.
"All right." I said as we all sat down in chairs and on the sofa in the main room of The Cabin, the view outside fading as it began getting dark and the lights of the room reflected off the bulletproof glass of the windows.
"This was one of the most interesting cases I've had since coming to the TCPD. It looks simple, but as I think about it, it was pretty complex." I thought about it, then said "So... in order to help everyone can understand this, I'll reverse my usual pattern. I'll talk first about my own observations, then about what led up to the murder and the burglary."
I began. "We had a body of a Jane Doe, a married woman who had no fingerprints on file with the FBI. The body was dumped in a 'dead/live' zone behind the Ladies Auxiliary Clubhouse, which is interesting in and of itself. She had bruising on her face, which would suggest that the beating was a cause-and-effect relationship to her death. That turned out to not be the case.
"I'd expected to hear from family of this woman's disappearance, but we never did. Considering that even prostitutes have had family contact us in the past when their loved ones went missing, this was really strange. And it got more strange when we responded to a burglary call, and lo! and behold! there is a photo of our victim on the wall. This could not possibly be a coincidence with two crimes surrounding this woman, could it?
"But before I ever saw that photo, I already had an idea that something was wrong with this picture, pun fully intended." I said, to tepid laughter. "As I looked around, something was odd. A mantle clock had been moved from the mantle, where it had sat for a very long time, to the long side table. But when I looked under the clock, there was plaster dust scattered evenly on the table from where the TV had been ripped off the wall. I realized that the most likely explanation of that was that the burglars had moved the clock from the side table, maybe to the floor or a nearby chair, to get to the TV on the wall...
and then someone put the clock back on the side table!
"
"Now why would someone do that? I thought to myself. Why not either leave the clock where the burglars put it, or put the clock back where it came from on the mantle... where I could see it had been, and where Cassie confirmed it had formerly resided upon my asking her about it. I asked Captain Ross to make sure that the Crime Lab documented that strangeness, though I did not know yet what it meant."
"I found that out soon enough," I said, "when I went into the office room. I saw the picture of Emma on the wall... our unreported, unclaimed, dead victim. And
that
is the moment I suspected Cassie of being the murderer. It could have been Sean, but I suspected Cassie, especially over time, because she had the explanation of the clock being moved, she had moved it herself by her own admission. And I was already discounting Emma's husband, who we had not yet met. The reason for that is the photo I found on the office desk, of Emma posing in front of the clock on the side table."
Seeing the looks of utter fascination, but also of non-understanding, I said "I realized immediately that the clock had to be put on the side table so that it would appear behind Emma, and that the clock had to be returned to the side table because it was meant to be an alibi for someone. The clock was not operating when the photo of Emma was taken, and Cassie had set it to 8:00pm when she took the photo of Emma.. yes, Cassie was the one who took the photo. She knew the Police had to see that clock on that side table so it would appear natural that it was in the photo. She lied and said she didn't take the photo, but that was easy enough to see through over time."
"I'm already lost." said Seth Warner. Joanne patted his thigh.
"It's harder to explain it than to have realized it." I said. "The photo being found on the desk was necessary for the alibi, as well. Cassie had that photo with her at Marlena's home, so it wasn't stolen. This was actually a bit of coincidence and luck that she did have it, as she could not print another one... the printers were stolen... and it was an important piece of her alibi. So, who knows why she had the pic with her at Marlena's?"
"Oh, isn't that obvious?" said my mother Phyllis, her eyes twinkling, already seeing it fully. "That one is easy, son."
"Easy?!" Cindy exclaimed. "Maybe to you, Mycroft, but not to me!" Everyone laughed and agreed.
"And Mom, why is that?" I asked.
"Why, the Facebook upload, of course." said Phyllis with a knowing smile. Everyone else was still stymied.
"Okay, let me show you this." I said, taking out my Police cellphone and bringing up the photo. "This is what I made the mirror-image out of. It is the picture I took of the photo on the desk... let me say that again: I took a photo of a photo. And I realized that
that
is what Cassie had done... she used the burner phone to photograph the photo, and it auto-uploaded. She did this at Marlena's house. She excused herself to go to the bathroom at just the right time, clicked the pic, and it uploaded. The Facebook photo is
a snapshot of another photograph, not the original photograph!
"
"Ohhhh, I get it!" Joanne said, as if she'd found a new toy to play with. "The original photo of Emma was taken earlier, this photo of that photo was uploaded at 8:00pm, though Emma must've been killed earlier! It was an illusion, to create an alibi."
"Yes, exactly!" I said. "The auto-upload was crucial to the alibi. Without it occurring at the right time, Cassie is left hanging in the wind. So is Chris Washburn, for that matter, but I'll get to that later."
"So I already knew two things..." I continued, "that either Cassie or Sean was the culprit in the murder, and also that
the burglary was a separate, coincidental event.
"
"Okay, I've followed you to this point," said Tanya Perlman, "but now you've got me."
"The reasoning goes like this." I said. "The clock was put on the side table, removed, then put back, and I know this because of the way the dust settled on the table in such an even manner, and only then was the clock put back on the side table. If Cassie or Sean was staging the burglary, either would have likely left the clock where it was, knowing its importance to the murder alibi. I might add that Cassie and Sean were not at home during the burglary, and we have witnesses to that."
"So the burglars moved the clock, Cassie put it back. Ergo, the two crimes are very likely
not
as directly related as it would appear. This became very important later on, too."
"We move to the Washburn home." I said. "When we arrived, Chris was drunk as a skunk, like some of you are about to be if you keep drinking that beer." Tepid laughter. Your Iron Crowbar is just not a comedian.
"Even in his presence, I had already all but exonerated Chris as the murderer of his wife. Co-conspirator? Maybe, but I was skeptical, which would be borne out later. At any rate, we found several cellphones and the pictures in the house. I thought of the possibility that those phones were planted to incriminate Chris, though I did not follow that route very hard. But it
would
come in handy for the sting."
"So," I said, "returning to Chris: he's drunk, he'd been drunk for a while. He took the Fifth, which in a rare occurrence actually showed me he was innocent! Why? He knew that his wife was in danger, he knew that he himself was in danger. By taking the Fifth, he keeps from slipping up. And only afterwards does he find out that his worst fears are confirmed and his wife is dead, when I told him we'd found her body."
I added "He also knows that he'll be the primary suspect, and he thinks his explanations won't hold water with the Police--"
"And with any Police Department that does not have the Iron Crowbar, that would probably be true." said Cindy Ross. "I need not add that I'm still not following this very well."
"Yes, this is where I went outside the box and used some imagination." I replied. "I realized it almost unconsciously, and it was because of the bruising on Emma's face from days earlier. The beating was systematic, as revealed by M.E. Martha's astute observations that were in her autopsy report. The beating was not the wild randomness of a drunk man beating up his wife, so it likely was not Chris in a drunken state."
I went on: "Someone had beaten Emma to get information out of her, I realized. What information? Photographs and/or videos. Which ones? The only anomaly in those photos... was the hairy-legged man fucking Emma that was on Chris's computer. Not Sean... but another man. Emma sent Chris that pic, risking trouble in her marriage, as a way of preserving a record of his existence. She may have sent others to her husband, or to somewhere else, but so far the FBI has found nothing in Alaska. She may have done it so that if something happened to her, Chris might ask the Police who the Hairy-Legged Man was in that photo. Alas, her 'protection' did not work.
"Anyway, this other man obviously thought she had more photos of him, that gave more of his features, even his face. And that is why he beat the hell out of her, to get the photos that would identify him--"
"Ah, and this confirms that the burglary was separate from the murder." said my mother. "This man was behind the burglary, after Emma told him that the other pics were in Cassie's house."
