Locked Police Station - 1

A Falls Bend Short Story

photo credit: Barb Miller

“Welcome, Chief Moore,” Cassie Kingston said, glancing around the basement library meeting room at her writer friends. “I assume you want our Sleuths and Serpents Writers Group to help you solve a case?”

Roz Moore, now chief of police in the small town of Falls Bend, nodded her cropped blond head and walked to the front of the room looking petite in her official tan uniform. “Well, I don’t have much hope of a solution, but I know how good you all are at brainstorming and I’m hoping your discussion will spark some ideas for Detective Brendan Manelli on who killed our part-time officer.”

Cassie looked at Detective Manelli, a tall man with curly black hair and startling blue eyes. “He’s in charge of the investigation, even though it happened here in Falls Bend?”

Roz sighed. “Most murder investigations are handled out of the District Office at Laurel Falls. Besides I can’t lead it, since I may very well be one of the suspects.”

Manelli leaned against the doughnut table and chuckled. “Of course you are not a suspect, Chief Moore, but it’s standard operating procedure for a small police force to ask assistance from the district office, especially on a murder case. I’m a detective in the homicide division of the Laurel Falls district.”

“I want the case solved,” Roz said, “but I don’t want any civilians in danger. So rule one, nobody takes any chances. Nobody confronts or goes anywhere near a suspect. We want armchair help here, not another body. Do you want to go over the facts for them, Detective Manelli?” Roz folded her arms with finality, stepped back and sat down in one of the multitude of cast off chairs in the archives room under the library.

“Of course. I’m not telling you anything the papers haven’t printed or anything that would give the murderer an advantage to know. As I’m sure you are all aware, besides administrative offices upstairs, City Hall contains the public library here in the east wing and the police station in the west wing.” While he talked, he sketched the building on the chalkboard.

“Two doors are normally used,” Manelli said. “The front entrance into the foyer is open all day and anytime the library is open but electronically locked at night. The back door at the other end of the hallway is open the same hours since it can be seen from the foyer desk, where a police employee is always stationed. The alarms on these two doors are turned off during the day so people can go out to the rear parking lot or to the street without being buzzed in and out. At night the doors are locked, but the person at the desk can unlock them and let someone in or out.”

“There are two emergency doors as well, right?” Colleen McKiernan asked. She tucked her long brown hair behind her ears as she waited for Manelli to mark the other exits.

“Correct. The one at the end of the library can be opened from inside anytime, but an alarm sounds. Same for the one at the end of the police wing -- that is, if the alarms are on.”

“What makes you emphasize that?” Laconia Griffin nailed him with her gray-eyed gaze.

Manelli looked arrested and Cassie wondered if he could sense Laconia’s varied background. She was an expert in everything from Aikido and anthropology to ethnopharmacology and shamanism.

Roz uncrossed her arms, stood up and and walked to the front. “I’d better explain that one. A few years ago someone took a number of books from the library because she had convinced one of the part-time officers that she was too feeble to walk the whole way to the front entrance. He would turn off the alarms when she came to the library, and her limo would pick her up outside the library emergency exit with her loot in a tote bag.”

Several chuckles caused Roz to smile but she continued, “That officer is no longer with the department.”

Detective Manelli turned back to the board. “On the morning of the 7th, Conrad Mack was found shot to death with his own gun behind the foyer desk.” He chalked a little stick man on the blackboard floor plan. “We considered suicide, but he was eating dinner at the time.”

“What about prints on the gun?” Lazlo Flannahan asked. He wasn’t taking notes but had his usual intense look.

“His and some smudged ones. Nothing we can use.”

“Any prints elsewhere?” Curtis Dupre, a tall black, Vietnam vet, was making notes in his let, as were some of the other writers.

“His wife’s prints were on his holster, but that’s to be expected. There were a few prints around the marble desk. We’d have to print everyone in town to figure out who they belong to.”

“So it’s the traditional locked-room mystery,” Cassidy Flint mused.

“With a twist,” Gwyneth Gates added. “It’s a locked police station.” She patted her dog, Tazz, who was a frequent visitor to their meetings and who had a very good nose for tracking.

“What about windows?” Matt McCauley asked.

“Occasionally one gets left unlocked,” Roz said, “but I checked every window in the building personally and none were unlocked that morning. The window locks are mechanical.”

“But the door locks are all electronic?” William McGill was drawing his own diagram in his notebook. From his graying brown hair to his shadow of a beard, he looked intense.

“Yes, they can be turned off individually to let someone in. Same with the alarms. Each door has its own alarm.”

“Are the windows alarmed?” Colleen asked.

“No, they’re pretty calm,” Lazlo joked.

The group chuckled. Cassie sensed they needed a laugh to lighten the dark moment. This murder had happened in the very building where they met. They had to solve this one.

“All the ground-floor windows have alarm tape,” Roz said.

Cassie could see several people writing furiously in their notebooks.

“Would anyone like to see the alarm system?” Roz asked.

“Yes,” Nick Oakley agreed. He’d been quiet up till now, but Cassie knew that meant he was thinking. “I want the others to see what buttons would have to be pushed to let someone in.” He rose with a slight hitch since he had a prosthetic left foot, a relic of the Vietnam War. Of all of them he had the most personal stake in this case since his firm, Highland Security, had designed the security system for the building.

They all got up and left the meeting room, some taking the elevator and some climbing the stairs from the basement. They stood in a circle around the marble desk in the foyer almost as though they could see the dead stick man on the floor.

“Here are the individual door lock switches and door alarms.” Manelli pointed to a large control panel mounted beneath the desk where the public could not reach it. “You can turn off either the alarm or the lock for any door from this desk.”

“That’s why this control panel cover is locked over the panel if an officer has to leave the desk for a minute,” Roz said, “our standard time for a bathroom break.”

Several of the group giggled.

“What are those two buttons?” Matt asked.

“Master door lock and master alarm switch,” Nick answered. “Sorry, didn’t mean to butt in.”

“That’s ok, Nick,” Roz said. “I hope you can help.”

“So, if an officer was feeling lazy and wanted to buzz someone in,” Gwyn said, “he could just hit both main switches instead of figuring out which to hit.”

Tazz was sniffing around on the floor. He found a bit of food, which he wolfed down. Then he smacked his lips and sighed. Cassie hoped it hadn’t been important evidence.

Manelli shrugged and glanced at Roz. “He could, but why would he? The one to open the front door is right beside it.”

Cassie leaned over and studied the buttons. “Maybe he was expecting someone who wasn’t coming in the front door.”

“But if he was expecting someone,” Colleen said, “he’d know what door they were coming in.”

“He could have hit the master one by mistake,” Roxie Brown said. The tall shapely African American woman leaned over the console and tried her elegant fingers over the buttons. “Say if he were rushing back from a potty break and someone was pounding at a door, he could have been struggling to get the panel open and just hit the master one.”

“He could have,” Roz said.

Laconia jotted something in her notebook. “And opened, if only for a moment, all the doors and turned off all the alarms.”

Cassie looked her way. “What are you suggesting, Laconia?”

“That anyone could have gotten in any door while his pizza was being delivered.”

Everyone chuckled at that.

“That would be very opportunistic,” Manelli said.

“Not if he got food delivered every night at about the same time,” Lazlo replied.

It was Manelli’s turn to make a note.

Roz nodded. “All people entering, except library patrons, are supposed to sign the log, but I know Conrad didn’t bother when he ordered food in the daytime. I talked to the folks at Lou’s Place, but it might pay to check with some of the other restaurants to see if a delivery was made that night. Thanks.”

Roxie flipped back a page in her notes. “So what we’re saying is that if he ordered pizza every night at the same time, it’s possible that someone else could have sneaked in another door while the delivery guy was keeping Mack busy at the desk.”

“It’s possible,” Manelli said. “It’s also possible the pizza guy shot him for not tipping, but it’s unlikely.”

There was general laughter among the group.

“So, we have an unknown possibly inside the building,” Matt agreed. “How hard would it be for someone to sneak up on the officer, grab his gun, and shoot him?”

Roz smirked. “Easiest thing in the world, since he had been caught sleeping on duty repeatedly. Frankly, we were about to let Mack go. At every review we went over the same problems, and he never changed. He never tried to be on time, follow the rules, or stay awake. I would have to let myself in at seven a.m. because he was sleeping at the desk, or even in an office.”

“A-ha,” William said. “Who knew you were about to fire him?”

Roz shrugged. “I don’t see how that matters. Everyone in town knew he was an SOB. He had been here a long time, sort of a legacy from before even the last Chief of Police.”

“So lots of people had motive,” Curtis agreed.

Roz squinted. “For murder? I don’t know. He was just nasty. If you couldn’t take that, you simply stayed away from him. Probably I had as much motive for killing him as anyone.”

Another chuckle.

Manelli rubbed his hands together. “So that’s the case, except for this final problem: when Roz arrived that morning, all doors were locked and all alarms were on. There is no way someone could have turned them on and then left.”

Matt frowned. “Would anyone even notice a door alarm at night? It would have sounded for only a few seconds, right?”

“No,” Roz said. “When an emergency door opens, it sets off the main alarm and has to be turned off at the console. It would have continued to ring until someone called me.”

Colleen looked up. “Maybe the murderer just waited inside until they could escape.”

“We did think of that,” Roz said. “I secured the building and called in all officers to search. A mouse couldn’t have gotten out of here in the hours after I discovered the body.”

“Wait a minute,” Roxie said. “If everything was locked up, how did you get in?”

“Each shift officer carries a portable opener that works the back door.” Roz pulled hers out and showed it to the group. Then she demonstrated by locking and unlocking the back door. They could see the back door light on the panel go from red (energized), to green (off), then back to red.

The writers all looked at each other.

“To anticipate your question,” Roz said, “there are six of these things. I have one. So do Tony, Will, Diane and Jessie, the other full-time officers.”

“What about the part-timers?” Nick asked. “When we first installed the system, they had one too and handed it off from shift to shift.”

“Theoretically they shouldn’t need to anymore since their schedules overlap and the console is manned 24/7. But we did have a case where an officer got locked out while attending to an accident in the diamond. So the sixth key is supposed to be carried by the desk officer while on duty and handed off at each shift change.”

“Did Mack have it on him?” Nick Oakley asked.

“No, it was locked in the drawer for his replacement to pick up the next day. But since he didn’t obey most of our rules, I’m not surprised.”

“So five of you could have gotten into or out of the locked building undetected that night,” Curtis concluded.

“Exactly,” Roz said, “but I’m the only one with no alibi, since my husband was away.”

Lazlo smiled. “And that’s the reason you talked Detective Manelli into letting us work on the case.”

Manelli quirked an eyebrow at him.

Roz smiled. “I had no real motive, at least not a strong one. The reason I want help is that this building is not secure now.

Nick nodded. “And there is no way we can make it secure until we figure out how the murderer got out, not just how he or she got in.”

“Did anyone hear the shot?” Gwyn asked.

Roz shook her head no. “One older neighbor thought she heard firecrackers, but she doesn’t remember when.”

“Do we want to go back and brainstorm or take this home with us for a week?” Cassie asked, “keeping in mind the urgency of finding a solution.”

“I need to think,” William said. “We could call an emergency writers meeting if one of us comes up with something.”

“I agree,” Gwyn said and the rest nodded. Tazz barked his response.

“Okay,” Cassie said. “Let’s meet back here next Thursday night unless someone finds something sooner.”