Consulting Detective Read online

  As the consultation wound down, Behzad laid out some refreshments. The children came up from the basement and joined the adults for cookies, tea and juice, plus some fresh baklava that Fereshteh had made. A bit before 9:00, the Montgomerys managed to pry Lua and Enoch away from their friends and leave. While they had been inside at the Rouhanis, it had started to snow, but the snow had not yet begun to stick to the roads. The silently falling snow seemed to spread its influence over them, and there was no conversation as they drove home. They all went to bed quickly once they arrived.

  Monday, Day 6

  On Monday morning, Mihdí hurried to get his snow blower out to clear the sidewalks and the driveway of the four inches of snow that had fallen overnight. It was still snowing lightly, but he hoped that there wouldn’t be much more accumulation. Both cars were in the garage, so he didn’t need to clean them off.

  Mihdí had scheduled a meeting of all the police personnel involved in any way in the Klemme case. It was a habit of his to ask others to join him to consider the facts of a case, and he found that a good, open consultation would usually open new directions and produce more creative thinking than he could do on his own. Originally, Captain Sterling and the other brass weren’t very excited about the idea. They thought it would be a distraction and a waste of time for officers only peripherally involved in a case to spend time talking about it. But after more than three years of Mihdí demonstrating results from the consultations, nobody was inclined to fight them anymore.

  The meeting had been scheduled for 8:30, but the snow had delayed Darla Brownlee and Beth Carr, so they weren’t able to begin until just before 9:00. Mihdí had invited Darla, Beth, and Kurt Childs. He had also invited Tim Roggins, but Tim was off Sunday and Monday, so he wasn’t able to come in. Mihdí had asked the patrol captain if one of the other beat cops that had been patrolling the neighborhood around the Sapp house could come, but none of them had shown up. Montgomery had extended a courtesy invitation to Captain Sterling, but he didn’t expect him, either.

  Mihdí began, “Let me just remind you of our purpose, since it’s been a while since some of you have been in on one of these consultations. We’re here to try to find the truth. It’s not important whose mouth it comes out of, it’s only important that we find whatever truth we can. Once a thought is ‘on the table,’ it belongs to the group, so you don’t have to feel like you have to defend your own idea just because it’s yours. Feel free to build on previously stated ideas. We always hope that the spark of differing ideas will shed some light on the facts of the case. We’ll only go for as long as it seems that things are progressing. Does that work for all of you?”

  Everyone nodded their agreement to the purpose as Mihdí had stated it.

  “Let me tell you what I know. Rabbi Klemme was discovered in the sanctuary, with a candelabra lying near him.”

  “Wait, sorry,” said Beth Carr. “What’s a can-dull-a-ber?”

  “Candelabra,” Mihdí corrected. “It’s a candlestick holder with places for multiple candles. I looked it up earlier, because I wasn’t sure whether one would say ‘candelabra’ or ‘candelabrum.’ It turns out you can say either, but ‘candelabra’ is more common these days.”

  “Right,” Beth said skeptically, “very common, I’m sure.”

  Mihdí continued, “The rabbi’s blood was on the candelabra, and the coroner has confirmed that the cause of death was trauma to the head, almost certainly caused by the candleholder. There were anti-Semitic slogans and swastikas spray-painted on the walls. This was not the first instance of defacement of the synagogue in recent years. On three other occasions, slogans were spray-painted on the front of the building, and once there were some swastikas. I suspect most of you were aware of those when they happened. Nobody has yet been arrested for those crimes. That’s the part I think you all knew already.”

  “Everything points to an obvious conclusion,” interjected Kurt Childs.

  “I agree,” Mihdí said, “all of these facts point to a case of interrupted vandalism turned to murder. There are a couple of others things, though, that make me wonder a bit about it. First, I called the murder weapon a candelabra, which it is, of course. But more precisely, it was a hanukkia, often known as a menorah. You may be familiar with them as a symbol of Hanukkah. It is not normal for one to be out this long before Hanukkah begins. According to Sam Schliebaum, president of Beth Shalom synagogue, this one was kept in the supply room off the sanctuary, just to the right of the front door. This makes the interrupted vandalism explanation a bit awkward, as the vandal would have had to go to the storage room, grab the hanukkia, then strike the rabbi. There are other ways it could have gone down, of course, but it makes things a bit more complex.

  “Another thing that seemed a bit odd to me was the slogans themselves. There were two swastikas, and there were three phrases: ‘Death to Jews,’ ‘Christ-killers,’ and ‘Liberate Palestine.’ To my mind, that last one doesn’t fit with the others. If we were talking about some kind of anti-Semitic group or individual, you might see the swastikas and the first two phrases, but I can hardly imagine them writing that last one. And if we were talking about a radical Palestinian Arab activist, it’s hard to picture them worrying about Jews being ‘Christ-killers’ or using a swastika, for that matter.”

  “It’s pretty difficult to imagine that there was a racist and an Arab terrorist working together on this,” said Darla Brownlee with a slight smile.

  Mihdí chuckled. “Indeed. That would be even more unusual than a single individual writing all of those things.”

  Beth Carr piped up at this moment. “I got a fax this morning from the crime lab. They said that the hairs that were found on the wall of the synagogue definitely belonged to the vic. But they said that the stuff on the hairs included both blood and paint. Having collected those hairs myself, I can tell you that means that at least some of the painting happened after the rabbi was killed. I called the technician down there and he confirmed that there was also evidence of backspray on the rabbi’s clothes, indicating that the perp must have been practically standing over the body while doing some of the painting.”

  Lieutenant Brownlee offered, “It’s hard to imagine a gang member being surprised in the act of vandalism going to a supply closet to grab a menorah, killing the rabbi by whacking him over the head with it, then standing over his dead, bloody body to complete a slogan.”

  They all muttered their agreement with that assessment.

  “I think there are actually a number of ways this crime could have gone down,” Mihdí said. “I want to work through at least a couple of them so we have a better idea of what we’re talking about. If you think I’m missing something or have some other ideas, jump in at any time.

  “Here’s one that I think is reasonable. Someone, let’s say it’s a male, came into the synagogue with the idea of doing graffiti. That seems likely, since he must have brought spray-paint and must have been wearing gloves. Some of the graffiti is so high, he must have moved a chair or stool from somewhere to stand on. So, he came in and started doing the graffiti. Apparently, Rabbi Klemme usually left the front door unlocked when he was there so people could come into the sanctuary and pray or pass through to the office area. So, while the vandal was spray-painting, he heard someone coming. He hid in the storage cabinet near the front door. He saw it was the rabbi and decided to kill him. So, he grabbed the hanukkia, sneaked up on the rabbi as he was looking at the unfinished graffiti, and whacked him. Then he proceeded to finish the graffiti.”

  Beth Carr looked skeptical. “I don’t get why a vandal would decide to switch from graffiti to murder just because the rabbi caught him. How about something more like this? The perp came in with the intention of murder, which he intended to cover up to look like interrupted vandalism. He knew the rabbi and enticed him into the sanctuary, where he killed him, then did all the graffiti after that.”

  “That makes more sense to me in some ways,” Kurt Childs replied. “If the rab
bi was in the building, it would be tough for someone to get too far along with the vandalism without making enough noise to be discovered, or at least taking that risk. If the rabbi wasn’t there, wouldn’t he have had to come right into the sanctuary himself to discover the vandal?”

  “There’s a back door, closer to the office area,” Mihdí said. “A parking spot in the back was reserved for Rabbi Klemme, but even when he walked to the synagogue, he usually entered through the back.”

  Kurt nodded. “Well, if Rabbi Klemme normally came in through the back and left the front door unlocked, your first way seems reasonable. The murderer could have come in through the front and started on the graffiti, regardless of whether he planned the murder. Then later, when he heard someone coming, he hid.”

  Mihdí considered. “It’s possible,” he said. “The door from the sanctuary that leads into the administrative area is usually closed. That door opens into a hallway, which leads past restrooms, around a corner, and past some classrooms before you get to the office, just by the back door. Unless the vandal was pretty loud, it seems quite possible Klemme wouldn’t have heard him from the office. Although there might have been some noise from moving a chair or table or ladder or whatever . . .”

  They all sat and thought for a little while.

  Darla Brownlee broke the silence. “From what you said earlier, the murder was the first thing, then the graffiti came afterward, right? The body was not far from the door to the office area, right? Perhaps the rabbi was expecting someone and met him at the front door, and the perp killed him as they made their way towards the office. Did you check Klemme’s calendar for that day?”

  “He didn’t have any appointments before 6:00 p.m., and the murder happened most likely between 1:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m.,” said Mihdí, “but I think there’s a problem with your idea. The murder weapon, the hanukkia, came from the synagogue’s storage area. I suppose it’s possible that the rabbi and the murderer stopped at the closet and got it for some reason, or that the murderer had gotten it earlier and brought it with him. But it seems more likely that it was a matter of opportunity. The murder either wasn’t planned and the hanukkia was the closest weapon at hand, or the murderer planned to hide in the closet all along and knew there would be a weapon there. Also, the body wasn’t found along the normal route people would take from the front door to the office. The front door opens into a small entrance area from which you enter the back of the sanctuary. You would then normally turn right and walk along the back of the pews to the wall, then turn left and follow that wall forward to the door that opens into the administrative area. The rabbi’s body was found along that same wall, but closer to the front of the sanctuary, so it’s not likely he was on the way between the front door and the office. It would have been a bit dark at 6:00 p.m., so it’s perfectly reasonable for Scott Craig not to have noticed the body when he came through the sanctuary and found the graffiti on his way to the office. As it was, he said he didn’t discover Klemme until he returned, after finding the office empty.”

  Beth Carr spoke up again, “How about if there were two people? One came prepared to vandalize the place. He painted a few slogans and left, before the rabbi arrived. The other one came and found the graffiti and the rabbi. Maybe he made some excuse to go to the closet, grabbed that Hanukkah thing or whatever it’s called, and killed the rabbi. Then he did some more graffiti so it would look like he was caught in the act.”

  Everyone nodded in appreciation about how well that idea worked.

  Mihdí said, “Would that mean that the vandal left some spray-paint in the sanctuary that the murderer found later? The other possibility would be that the murderer killed Klemme, then went out and bought some spray-paint, came back and finished the slogans. If I were the murderer, that would seem too risky to me.”

  After a moment, Beth Car responded. “It definitely has a problem, yes. The vandal would have no reason to leave perfectly good spray-paint there. A careless one might leave empties, but why leave enough for a whole ’nother slogan? It’s just wasteful. They could vandalize something else entirely with all that extra paint, or they could have done their own additional graffiti before leaving. It’s not impossible, but it’s kooky.”

  “The other way around seems even less likely,” replied Kurt Childs. “Someone came and murdered the rabbi and left his body in the sanctuary, then a vandal came along and calmly painted graffiti around, stepping over the dead body in the process.”

  “Hmm, yeah,” confirmed Mihdí. “Very unlikely. So, I think that makes the two-criminal version implausible. I’d say we’re back to a murderer who wanted to make it look like vandalism or a vandal who decided to take the opportunity to do murder. Anyone disagree with that assessment?”

  “Not me,” Lieutenant Brownlee said. “I don’t think we should rule out a two-criminal scenario, because we’ve all seen stranger things than that, but it seems more likely to be a single individual. If it is, what’s the motive?”

  “Yeah,” replied Mihdí, “that’s the next question, I think. I haven’t been able to make sense of the graffiti itself.” He reminded them of the odd combination of slogans that had been found. “Maybe all three of them could feel like hate speech to a Jew, but it doesn’t seem likely that an Arab political activist would write the slogan about ‘Christ-Killers,’ and an American anti-Semite probably wouldn’t like Palestinians much better than Jews. So I’m not even sure who could have written all three of them.”

  “What about a Jew?” asked Darla Brownlee. “Perhaps a Jew who was trying to cover up a murder would feel them all as attacks and wouldn’t realize how incongruous they would all be as a whole.”

  “Interesting thought,” replied Beth. “I was thinking that it could be someone smarter or dumber than we’re considering.”

  “Smarter or dumber?” Kurt asked. “What on earth do you mean by that?”

  “Well,” she replied. “If it was someone smarter, maybe they thought that writing slogans that don’t fit together would make matching a specific profile of the killer more difficult for us. Maybe they were thinking we would guess that the motive couldn’t be anti-Semitism because of the Palestinian slogan. Then they would have still said what they wanted to say, but they would have scattered the suspicion. See what I mean?”

  “That’s good thinking,” Mihdí said. “But how about someone dumber? What did you mean by that?”

  “Well,” she said, “to you it’s obvious that these three don’t fit together. But if you were just some dumb vandal trying to terrorize Jews, you might just get on the Internet and find some slogans that people had used and use a few of them without really knowing all the implications of each.”

  They all laughed. “We certainly can get too clever for ourselves sometimes, can’t we?” Mihdí said with a laugh. “When you read people’s arguments on the Internet, it is very clear that lots of them are only repeating garbage they’ve heard elsewhere and really don’t completely understand. You could be right about this.”

  “We didn’t really get to motives yet, did we?” Darla asked. “I think we got sidetracked a bit on the meaning of the graffiti itself. What could motivate someone to do this crime?”

  “Let me start by sharing something I found on the Internet,” Mihdí said. “It’s from a book in 1995 by Ruth Rendell called The Reason Why. In it, Rendell came up with six basic motives, based on depictions of fictional killers in literature, as to why people commit murders: gain, revenge, escape, altruism or duty, insanity, and impulse or curiosity.” Mihdí wrote those six together at the top of the room’s white board. “There are many ways these can each play out, but they might give us some ideas to apply to this case. Let’s brainstorm possibilities. Here, I’ll write them on the whiteboard. Just call ‘em out, and we’ll evaluate each one later.”

  “Anti-Semitism,” said Beth.

  “A grudge against the rabbi,” offered Kurt.

  “Trying to drive the congregation out,” Mihdí wrote as he said
it. “I hadn’t gotten a chance to tell you about this yet. The congregation voted a year ago to stay where they are, but there are some in the congregation who would like to see them move to a new location that’s not so close to downtown. What else do you think of?”

  “Love triangle,” Darla said. When everyone laughed, she added, “Hey, it’s a common motive—if there’s a cover-up involved, we don’t know what the murder is really about.”

  “It’s a valid point,” said Mihdí. “We have to keep in mind when we’re brainstorming that we’re not supposed to evaluate yet. And actually, the rabbi was dating a woman who broke up with her previous boyfriend, so the idea is not at all far-fetched.”

  “Money,” Beth added.

  “That’s good,” replied Kurt. “Or some combination of motives, like a grudge over money or driving the congregation out because of a love triangle. Well, maybe not that combo.”

  “A combination,” Mihdí said. “That’s quite likely. Thanks, Kurt. What else?”

  “Internecine struggle,” Darla volunteered.

  “What the heck is that?” Kurt asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that word.”

  “It means some kind of struggle within a group,” Darla said.

  “So in this case that would mean within Congregation Beth Shalom, I suppose,” Kurt answered.

  “Yep, that’s what I had in mind.”

  They sat for a while in silence, but nobody really had a lot more to offer.

  “A personal grudge is a pretty big topic and could have lots of subareas,” Mihdí said. “It seems like I need to learn more about the victim’s personal life in order to explore that one.”