A Detective Bass Collection

Chapter 1-1

Chapter

1The book sale, held annually at a local church in late summer, was in its second day—a Saturday—when the victim’s body was found in a small room set off from the main area of books.

The discovery at first provoked a low murmur from the dozen shoppers who were milling around the book tables. The browsers spoke in hushed tones of shock, fear, and disbelief. The murmur soon subsided into complete silence as police sirens sounded in the distance. The sounds grew louder until they reached the church, where they abruptly stopped. A cascade of police lights followed, reds and blues pulsating into the narrow windows along the church south wall.

A tall, white-haired man stood out front in the hot morning sun and met the officers as they left their squad cars. He immediately led them through the double set of doors and up the four entryway steps, where they met another church member. This person then took the officers directly down a narrow hallway, bypassing the large room where the sale was being held, to a small, side room where the body—that of a young man in his early twenties—lay dead on the floor. The lower portion of the youth’s white checkered shirt was drenched in blood. A knife lay three feet from the body.

The officers, two of them, surveyed the room, which was empty except for the table and chairs pushed up against a wall, a window facing the back, and of course the dead youth. His bloodstained body lay in sharp contrast to the wall’s dull green paint.

“That window?” one officer asked.

“Locked,” the man replied, speaking softly.

“What’s this room for?” the officer asked.

“Mostly consultation. Family matters, divorces.” The man was near the doorway, and he stepped further into the room so they could hear him. He introduced himself as Shawn Morton, and explained that the reverend, Reverend Farlee and his wife, were away on vacation. Morton, a man in his late fifties, was noticeably shaken. He spoke slowly, as if to hide the twitching of his upper lip, which was under a thin mustache that did little to hide the redness of his face. His response to each question was specific and carefully thought out, but he appeared to be at a loss with what to do with his hands. One waved in the air aimlessly, then ran down the front of his buttoned shirt, and then reached up into the air again as he pointed out the location of various rooms. The other hand seemed bashful, remaining in the pocket of his slacks. “We have lots of groups,” Morton continued. “They use the outer area—where the books are now—for meetings and events.”

“You know who he is?” one officer asked.

“Who?” Morton asked with a bewildered expression.

“The guy on the floor,” the officer replied.

“Oh, him. No. I’ve never seen him before.”

“You find the body?”

“No. He did.” Morton pointed to the white-haired man who had led the officers in and followed at a slower pace.

“He went to the bathroom,” Morton continued. “Then, he said he was going to go to the kitchen for a drink of water. He saw him then, when he went by the room. This room.”

The other officer then questioned the white-haired man. “You have some identification? A driver’s license?”

The man slowly removed his wallet from a back pocket, removed the laminated license from the leather slot, and then handed it to the policeman. “William L. Chackiowski,” he said as he introduced himself.

The officer made notations in a small black book while the other officer took down the names of those standing near the doorway.

Chackiowski said, “It’s Bill. You can call me Bill.”

The officer nodded and made another notation.

The name-collecting had a thinning effect on the bystanders. They moved into the larger room, where they spread out further among the book-laden tables.

When additional police officers entered with the paramedics, Bill Chackiowski and the officers had to step into the small hallway to make room for the others.

By then, the numerous police officers who had gathered outside the church were evident. Inside, the red and blue lights continued to spiral across the sunlit walls. A half dozen three by six tables filled the center of the large room, another set of four tables were across the aisle, additional ones lined the outer walls, and they all had used books piled on them. Some books had their spines turned upward so the titles and authors’ names were visible, others lay flat. More books, similarly arranged, were in shallow cardboard boxes under the tables, waiting to replace the books above. Another room, a smaller room, perhaps a half-room, an anteroom, was set off from the large room by a sweeping archway. Two women sat there to collect the money.

The officers, all in standard police uniforms, belts loaded with their communication equipment and gear, were now streaming in and out, first to the front door, then back to the small side room. Several more policemen were taking down names in this anteroom near the card table where the two women sat.

The first police officer concluded his interview with Bill by saying, “A detective will be here shortly. You might have to repeat some of this to him.”

Twenty minutes later, the first police detective arrived: Detective Gilbert Bass.

A group of onlookers had gathered outside the church annex, which told Detective Bass which entrance to use. He approached the building, following a flagstone path to where an officer stood.

“What do we have?” Detective Bass asked.

“Up there, to the back,” the officer replied, pointing inside.

Bass glanced up the four wooden steps, looking through the doors of the entrance to the open hallway and the area between the two rooms. He was familiar with the church and had driven past the sunny brick exterior often; this was his first occasion to enter.

The morning air was thick and humid, so he took his time climbing up the steps. He was already tired. Once on the landing, Bass paused to absorb through his suit what cool air the room offered. An air-conditioner was braced on one of the narrow window sills, but it did little to comfort him. Dressed in his usual browns, his tie knotted loosely and dangling freely over his white shirt. He was average in height compared to the others in the room. His age showed around his stomach.

Bass stood briefly on the perimeter of the main room where the book sale was underway and noted the poor lighting and the dismal blue-green color that lined the narrow hallway straight ahead. From his vantage point, he could see into the rooms on either side: the small anteroom to his left, and the larger one on the right. At the moment, he was looking for a chair, a specific type of chair that would be suitable to use later. But he saw no such chair. He did see the line of wooden ones, but they had no padding, and seemed too solid to be comfortable.

His presence there, while he scanned the room, caused the dozen faces, which had been browsing books, to turn in his direction. He assumed it was his suit: not because it was rumpled or smelled odd, but because he was the only one in the room wearing a suit.

The book browsers themselves were dressed in short-sleeved shirts or blouses. Two of the men shopping wore polo shorts. Several men and women were in t-shirts. Unfortunately, Bass knew they all would need to be interviewed, and that would be his job. A uniformed officer was currently taking down names in each of the rooms. If this wasn’t an open and shut case, he and his partner, Chet MacIntyre, would have to talk to each of these people one by one. He doubted that they would offer anything but the usual witness chatter, nothing definite, every answer commonplace and routine, the average daily clucking between two human beings, and this would go on and on. That was the bad part of the job—the endless interviews—until an odd fact or misspoken word would pop up from their mundane conversations. He liked it when someone was spotted running from the scene. A fleeing suspect made his job easier and cut down on the interviewing time.

Two female volunteers sat in the anteroom, each at her own card table setup to act as checkout stations. One table had a yellow notepad, a pen, and several pencils on it, and the other had a metal cashbox. For a moment, Bass wondered if anything had been stolen. He also noticed that each of the tables had a foldout chair. They too looked terribly uncomfortable. He would use one of them, but only if he needed to.

An officer motioned for Bass to follow. He complied and went down the dull-painted hallway. He made a turn at a water fountain and then, to his immediate right, he saw an open doorway that led into that same large room of books. The door itself had been removed for easy access back and forth to the main room. For the purpose of the book sale, however, a table had been placed in front of the opening, blocking passage and acting as a barricade. Naturally, there were books on that table and more books in the cardboard boxes under it. Across this expanse, Bass could see the high, narrow windows. The one without an air-conditioner was partially open. He wondered why they even bothered.

The small room where he was further directed, was less than two yards from this blocked opening. If a person passed by in the hallway, he or she would have been spotted, at least briefly; that is, if someone was looking in that direction.

“Where does this go?” Bass asked the officer, pointing down the narrow hallway.

“Around to the back,” the officer replied. He pointed to another doorway that was across from the book tables. “Then it goes around the room and into the main part of the church sanctuary. This area is a separate construction.” Next, the officer pointed forward, down the hall with its nooks and turns, to where the addition again joined the church. “Bathrooms and such are there.”

Bass thanked the officer.

Then—finally—he peered into the small room where the body lay. Between the weaving shoulders of the Medical Examiner’s assistant and the bobbing heads of two paramedics, Bass saw the victim. He was a young man, a white male in his early twenties, with a slim build. His face had blotchy skin, his mouth seemed to have contorted into a painful, agonizing expression, but the portion of his face that showed the soft, fleshy muscles seemed to have relaxed in death. His eyes also appeared to have relaxed, remaining open as if in resignation. The lower half of the youth’s checkered shirt was stained red with blood. One hand lay near the wound to the stomach, fingers slightly extended. The left hand lay to his side, flat on the painted wooden floor. His blue jeans seemed modestly worn. A knee was bent and lay outward. Slight scuff marks showed on his brown loafers.

Bass sighed. He knew if there wasn’t a witness, someone who saw another person run, he would have a long, hot afternoon ahead of him.

He leaned toward the nearest officer. “Do we have a name?”

“I don’t touch dead bodies,” the officer replied.

“Afraid of getting a little blood on your hands?”

The officer answered with a scowl.

Bass continued: “Where’s Hodgins?”

“Another homicide on the north side, near North Avenue.”

“How do you know this one’s a homicide?”

The officer rolled his eyes and replied, “What? He fell on the knife?”

“I don’t see a knife.”

“He didn’t cut himself shaving his chest.”

“Probably not. But I don’t see a razor either.”

When a paramedic stood up, Bass saw the knife. It lay a few feet from the body. The blade was seven to eight inches long, shiny—and bloody. An average kitchen knife, Bass thought.

He squatted down, ignoring the cameraman from forensics who was snapping a picture, and examined the bloody shirt. The wet area of the fabric clung to the victim’s flesh along the stomach area. Bass could see the entry wound where it cut straight through the checkered shirt. A clean cut. None of the material was pushed into the wound with the knife blade. Bass determined that the knife must have been sharp. The gash itself was uneven and ugly, as if the knife, once inside the victim, was turned and twisted.