Murder in Alphabet City - 2. Chapter 2

Ken called his precinct, and a bevy of uniformed policeman descended on the crime scene. They had no warrant, but they did have probable cause, and they broke into the apartment. Fortunately, the door had two locks and the dead bolt was unlocked. That didn’t eliminate, but it reduced the probability of suicide.

“Don’t touch a thing until the ME gets here,” Ken warned. “He should be here any minute now.”

Gustav Hamm’s body lay sprawled out in the kitchen. Ken heard one of the policemen yell, “There’s a dead female in the bedroom.”

When the ME arrived, he and his crew took dozens of pictures of the bodies, and then the remains were removed and taken to the police morgue for autopsy.

“They both suffered head injuries from a blunt instrument,” the ME informed Ken, “but that didn’t kill them. They both have multiple gunshot wounds to the chest.”

As soon as the bodies were gone, the policemen scoured the apartment for clues, and they also took dozens of additional pictures. They brushed for fingerprints, and took samples of the blood, just in case some of the blood belonged to the murderer. They put Gustav’s laptop in an evidence bag to take back to the precinct.

When Ken had time to breathe again, he spotted a picture of the unlucky couple on a mantle. Theresa was an absolute knockout, and Gustav was good looking enough to arouse the gay detective. He took the picture for ID purposes and decided that he could leave. There was nothing more requiring his attention at the moment. As he started toward the door, he thought he heard snivelling. He looked over to a corner of the room, and saw his two wards wrapped together, and crying.

“Good God,” he said, “I forgot all about you two. C’mon, I’m taking you home.”

After they left, the police secured the premises with yellow tape which read, “Crime Scene.”

The boys calmed down somewhat on the drive home. “It’s all so sad,” Tom said.

“I know,” Ken commented. “Death and murder are not exactly happy events.”

“No, I mean that it’s so sad that neither Mr. Hamm nor Miss Sachs had anyone close enough to them to report them missing. If it weren’t for Joe and you, George and I could be in the same situation.”

That having been said, he started to cry again. George joined him.

“You’re right,” Ken said with a slight sob of his own. “If Joe and I didn’t live together, there is nobody else that might have reported me missing.”

Nobody said another word until they got home. When they arrived, and Joe could see the red eyes and chafed noses of the people he loved most in the world, he demanded to know what happened. They not only filled him in on the murders, but they explained why they were all in tears.

“If we didn’t have each other,” George explained, “we might not have anyone to report us missing either.” Joe was so moved, he hugged them all.

‘Let’s have lunch,” he said.

“I’ll pass today,” Ken said. “I’ve got to get down to the station and see if autopsy and forensics have found anything enlightening. I’ve already ordered background checks on the victims, but I’ve got to find out what they did, and where they went, this past weekend. I also need to get a warrant to search Theresa Sachs’s apartment.”

“I guess that means we won’t see you for dinner, either” Joe said. He sounded exasperated. This happened too often. But what could he do? He loved the guy, and he put up with it.

“I’ll try to make it home at a decent hour, but no promises,” Ken said meekly.

After the maid cleaned up the dining room, Joe, Tom, and George tried to watch a Yankee game on television, but they couldn’t concentrate. The boys excused themselves and decided to go to their bedroom. When George came to live with them, Joe offered him a room of his own, but both boys wanted to share a bedroom. Tom’s room already had a queen-size bed, and that was more than enough room for both of them. Joe had no objection. He remembered how his hormones exploded when he was sixteen.

On the way to his bedroom, Tom remembered that he had promised to call his principal. “I’ll be with you in a minute,” he said, “I’ve got to call Mrs. Baum.” He found her telephone number in his wallet and made the dreaded call. Even Joe and George could hear her shrieking at the other end.

“The police are going to get a warrant to search Miss Sachs’s apartment,” Tom told her. After a slight pause, he added, “I promise to call as soon as we know something.”

The computer geeks back at the station, found an E-Mail on Gustav’s computer, confirming a reservation to a hotel in The Poconos. Ken called the hotel and verified that the couple had checked into the hotel late Friday evening, and left at noon on Monday, Memorial Day. The ME confirmed time of death as Monday evening, so the information agreed, with respect to timing.

Aside from both of them teaching at the same high school, Theresa and Gustav’s background checks showed that they had nothing in common except two things. They both graduated together from CCNY four years ago and from Lincoln High, in the same class, eight years ago. Of course, Ken never knew them because he and Joe had graduated fifteen years ago. He decided to interview Mrs. Baum first. She had been the principal at Lincoln High when he and Joe graduated, so she was certainly around when the two teachers graduated. Ken gave her the courtesy of a telephone call instead of barging in on her, and flashing his badge, as he usually did.

Incredible as it may seem Mrs. Baum had a vague remembrance of the victims. She remembered all her students to some degree, but she could not recall anything special which might shed any light on the case.

“I wish I could help, but I’ve told you all I can remember,” Mrs. Baum whined.

“Mrs. Baum,” Ken said, as an idea struck him. “Do you keep copies of all the old yearbooks?”

“Why, yes, in the school library. Why do you ask?”

“I have no idea; it’s just a hunch. If I could peruse the yearbook of when they both graduated, I might discover something.”

“Come with me to the library,” she requested.

Mrs. Baum led Ken to a section of the library which seemed to contain at least the last fifty years of yearbooks. They found the one of the year the victims graduated. Mrs. Baum pulled it from the shelf and placed it on a table.

“Why don’t you look at it in here? I’d prefer it doesn’t leave the library. When you’re through, please put it back in its proper place on the shelf and return to my office.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ken said. He laughed to himself. Mrs. Baum was being a principal, and he was a student again.

Ken started at page one, and studied every page as if each one of them might contain a clue. The early pages were filled with pictures of various school clubs. He recognized Gustav and Theresa in several club pictures. The next section exhibited pictures of the graduates in caps and gowns. There was a little blurb next to each picture. Next to Theresa’s picture it said, “School Linguist.” Next to Gustav’s it said, “School Math Geek.” That surprised Ken because the picture looking at him was of one handsome guy. He sure didn’t fit the stereotype of a geek. Ken wouldn’t have minded a roll in the hay with the poor deceased, even if he were straight.

Eventually, Ken got to the “most likely to” section. He found two “likeliest” which piqued his interest. The first was ‘most likely to launch a rocket ship to a galaxy far, far away.’ That person was Gustav Hamm. The second was a picture of Theresa with a guy even more handsome than Gustav. Next to the picture it said, ‘most likely to get married, Theresa Sachs and Calvin Davenport.’

Ken turned back to the listings and pictures of the graduates. He located Calvin Davenport. Next to his picture he read, “School Jock.”

He returned the book to its rightful place on the shelf, and then he stopped by Mrs. Baum’s office.

“Thank you for being so helpful,” he said.

“I didn’t think I’d been helpful at all,” she replied.

He rushed back to his office to access his computer. He wanted to learn everything he could about Calvin Davenport.

Calvin lived in Manhasset, New York, out on Long Island. He manufactured microchips in his plant in Brooklyn, NY, and he lived a wealthy lifestyle. Ken had no reason to suspect Calvin of any wrongdoing, so he gave him the courtesy of a telephone call to set up a meeting.

Ken identified himself to Calvin’s secretary, and she put him right through.

“What’s this all about?” Calvin asked.

Ken decided to leave Gustav out of it for the moment. “Well, Mr. Davenport,” Ken said, “an old high school classmate of yours has been murdered, and we’re interviewing everyone she knew, hoping to get a clue to her murderer.”

“That’s terrible. Who is it?”

“Theresa Sachs.” Ken waited for a reaction. There wasn’t any.

“I haven’t seen Theresa since high school graduation, so I don’t think I can be of much help. I’ll be in my Brooklyn office the rest of the day if you’d like to come here. I’ll be happy to tell you whatever I know about her, no matter how little.”

“That’s nice of you. I can be there about 2 o’clock.”

“That’s perfect.”

Ken couldn’t wait to meet the guy who had been so handsome back in high school. He wondered if he had the same good looks now.

When his secretary ushered Ken into Calvin’s office, he confirmed immediately that Calvin Davenport was even better looking in his maturity, than he had been as a high school senior.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Davenport. “I graduated from Lincoln High years before you.”

“I’m always glad to meet an alumnus, Detective Hall. But please, call me Cal.”

“It’s a deal, if you call me Ken.”

Cal sat down at his desk. His good looks were causing a definite stirring in Ken’s groin, and he sat down quickly in a chair facing the desk.

“Now, what’s going on?” Cal asked. “You’re raising ghosts from the past for me.”

Ken decided to be candid and tell Cal everything he knew. He would study Cal’s face and his reactions as he narrated the facts, to see if he could determine anything which might tell him something about Cal.

“I have two wards,” he began. “They both go to Lincoln High. They reported to me that two of their teachers had gone missing, and nobody had put in a missing person’s report on either of them. They begged me to investigate. I’m sorry to report that we found them murdered in one of their apartments. Do you remember Gustav Hamm?”

“Sure, I do. He was Gus to me. I was a terrible math student, and he tutored me. This news is horrendous, but please, I beg you, tell me about Theresa.”

“She and Gustav spent Memorial Day weekend together, and now they’ve been murdered. I was hoping you might know if either of them had any enemies back in their high school days.”

“If anything, they were among the two best-liked people in our class. If they had any enemies, I sure didn’t know about it.”

“You said you hadn’t seen Theresa since you graduated from Lincoln High. How come? Your yearbook says that you two were voted most likely to get married.”

“That’s what everyone thought, but the real item was Gustav and Theresa. I was lucky enough to marry someone else, someone I love very much. Look.”

Cal turned around a picture on his desk so that Ken could see it. In the picture, Cal and another handsome gentleman are wearing tuxedoes and smiles.

“This is my husband, Franklin, Frank. We got married last year. I dated Theresa as a cover. You know how cruel high school kids can be. Gustav and Theresa dated secretly, and we were all in on it. As close as we three were in high school, I came out after graduation, and we drifted apart. Believe me, those two had plenty of sex in high school, and I don’t imagine they quit after graduation. Please, Ken, find the bastard who killed them.”

“That’s my job, and I intend to catch that piece of shit. I’ve struck out on their high school friends, so now I’ll investigate their college friends, or enemies, as the case may be.”

“You know,” Cal said, “we could be on opposite ends of this drama.”

“What do you mean?” Ken asked.

“I did two years at John Jay studying criminal justice, but then my dad died, and I inherited this business. I did what I had to do. By the way, Frank and I met at John Jay, but he quit when I did, and we run this place together.”

“Don’t be sorry about quitting,” Ken said. “You’re much better off than I am.”

Ken saw no need to tell Cal how wealthy his partner was, but he did want Cal to know that he was gay, and that he slept with Mr. America.

“Before I leave, let me show you something.”

Ken removed a picture from his wallet. “This is a picture of my partner, Joe. We’ve never discussed marriage, but honestly, I’ve been thinking of asking him to make us legal.”

“Man,” Cal said, “you two dudes sure are handsome. How’d you like to get together with Frank and me sometime? We have an open marriage.”

“Sorry, Cal, Joe and I are monogamous.”

“Bummer.”