The body in the lobby

 

That morning, a lovely fresh Sunday, the body of Poppy Cockburn lay in a heap of rumpled tulle on the checkerboard floor in the lobby of the Rose Hill apartments. Her pale powdered skin scorched around the neat bullet hole in her left temple.   

 

First arriving on the scene at 5:38 a.m., Officer Edward J. Eager began initial questioning of those present while the immediate area surrounding the body was processed. It was an “Only Murders in the Building” situation, he could figure that out at first glance--body in the lobby, stands to reason they were killed here, by someone also in the near area--the tenants of Rose Hill were all to be considered suspects. To shoot at point blank range, you’d have to move in real close, the killer would have to be someone the victim knew, someone maybe she might have seen every day. A neighbor. 

In his eighteen months with the force, Eager had learned to pay close attention to the first bystander to come forward. There is something psychologically dark about some people, they call 911, they hang close to the action, they offer to be part of the process. The officer took careful notes as he questioned Andy Li who had reportedly discovered the body of the young woman when he was taking his dog out for a morning walk. He had called it in to emergency dispatch at 5:17 am. 

There was a lot of fuss getting the dog to shut up, until she was brought upstairs. Mr Li was far more emotional over his pet’s trauma, than he was for his neighbor who lay dead just a few feet away. The man was stone cold as he reiterated the facts: 

“I came down the stairs, ChiChi started to bark, we saw Poppy sprawled out there in front of Arthur Shaw’s door,” even as he pointed toward the deceased, he did not register the least distress, and Eager could easily imagine a gun in the man’s outstretched hand, unshaking, steady. 

Officer Edward J. Eager stood expressionless; his pen poised over his notepad.

Andy nodded to the corpse, “she was kind of arranged there, it didn’t seem normal—”

“Arranged?” repeated the officer. 

“Like someone placed her there, it didn’t look like she just kind of, fell there or—”

“Someone?” 

“Whoever did it?” Andy Li was not the least aware of how intently he was being studied. 

 

Another tenant, who identified herself as Mrs. Rhoda Krantz, widow, residing in apartment 24, responded to the apparent noise created by the dog on finding the deceased, “I sleep with one ear open,” she had said, and she too was there when the first responders arrived. Officer Eager noticed her tightly curled head of blonde hair was an obvious wig set at a haphazard angle, her ratty robe misbuttoned over a long nightgown like she put both on in a big rush. The officer recognized Mrs. Krantz as the other kind of person who invariably shows up at a crime scene- the ones who love the excitement. She had plenty to say about how just yesterday the deceased had maliciously kicked Mr Li’s dog, and how it caused a big to do. Everything she said just dug Mr Li in even deeper for Officer Eager, but the kid didn’t bat an eye even when Mrs. Krantz asked him bluntly: “Did you do it?” She wagged a finger in Andy’s face, “Shoot her?” The finger was a crooked gun pointing at him. “Pow. Pow.”

Andy laughed. “You crazy kook. Oh. My. God.”

Officer Eager jumped in, “We can take a more formal report at the precinct, if you’d like to make a statement.”

The young man scoffed. “I don’t go around killing mean girls who think they’re princesses. I have an actual job.  I’ve never even touched a gun. I’m against them—” the look of disgust on his face at the idea seemed genuine to the officer. “I went down to the precinct right after Poppy assaulted my dog, when she hurt my girl, there’s a report already filed from yesterday morning, see for yourself,” this he said directly to Eager. “That’s what a normal person does when something like that happens. You don’t go around shooting people. This is Cambridge.” Mr Li tugged on his Harvard Chess Club sleeveless T shirt as if emphasizing the ridiculous idea that anyone could be murdered so close to the gated hallowed halls of academia, but even a young policeman knows that this kind of thing happens every day, everywhere. Even Harvard Chessmen do it. Still, Eager made note to check on that report when he got back to the department.  

“You should talk to that one,” Rhoda Krantz said with a nod toward apartment 2. The body was just a few steps away. “That Shaw fellow. Him and his fat little friend started it all by beating on her door yesterday complaining about the noise she was making with the tap tap tap. He was hopping mad she told him to go pound sand. Now. Kaput.” Mrs. Krantz shrugged with a worldly weariness suggesting it was just a matter of time before someone knocked off the dead stage dancer whom she summed up as “a real pip.” 

 

So far, no one had shed a tear for Poppy Cockburn.

 

Shaw came to the door pulling his old blue sweater over the T shirt he’d slept in and zipping up his jeans. He was still in an Ambien haze, and his glasses were opaque with smudges, he gradually took in the solid bulk of officer Eager, the young man’s square face, but he could not understand why he should have been woken up so abruptly, why the series of officious knocks, why Andy Li was standing there, and Rhoda, why there were people in uniform acting busy, hovering just outside his front door.

“Mr Arthur Shaw?” said the officer.

“That’s him,” Rhoda said from where she stood by the stairs. The show was just getting interesting, and she was thoroughly enjoying herself. “That’s the one,” she said. This was better than Mannix.

Just now ChiChi’s disconsolate crying bark from upstairs echoed throughout the lobby—a keening mournful sob—and then he saw.

 

A small foot. A tap shoe. The white dress.

 

A discarded doll, dressed in her favorite party frock, left here on the cold tiled floor. That face. Even in death, Poppy Cockburn seemed to sneer, as if someone had made a mistake and she wanted to see the manager over it. He felt a heaviness, there was something so cold blooded about that clean hole in her head. 

The police were taking pictures, measuring out tape to cordon off the area, collecting fibers and prints. There was a policeman at his very door, looking at him. He shivered and tasted a metallic tang at the back of his throat. 

Officer Eager asked him the usual questions regarding whereabouts and movements. There was little to tell. After last night’s show at the Langdon, he and Peter Kaye had gone to the Eliott for the usual nightcap, they went their separate ways, and Shaw was blissfully in a medicated doze by 10:30 or so. No, he hadn’t heard anything. He slept like the dead, he said, then regretted his choice of words. Yes, there had been an altercation yesterday, there had been ongoing tension with his upstairs neighbor, but--- Eager took notes, considering that the body being found literally on the man’s threshold did not look good for him. Mr. Shaw was maybe older than the typical shooter, Eager knew the stats--young men 17-35 were most likely to commit homicide by firearm—and Shaw did not look like someone prone to violence as he stood there, blinking behind his glasses—that did not mean he wasn’t capable of anger. What Officer Eager was not sure of, was whether this guy could blow with the kind of rage that puts a bullet in someone. He was muddling this thought as he listened. For his money that young  Harvard kid was suspect numero uno, he fit the profile, but Mr. Arthur Shaw could be in the running. Just then he saw his supervisor coming through the lobby door, she was waving him over. “Stick around,” he told Shaw, “I’ll probably have a few more questions for you.”

Shaw exhaled. 

Rhoda Krantz deflated audibly. The anticlimax of the moment left her itching for something to happen. 

 

Homicide Detective Eileen Orr looked like she had just been called out of a warm bed, which she had. Not twenty minutes ago, she was snug next to Angie and the pugs. Her face still  creased from the buckwheat pillow which was supposed to be good for her neck but wasn’t. She had a coffee for Edward Eager, his usual regular light with seven sugars, she got her iced, extra ice and two Splendas. “Stopped at Dunks when I heard you were still on shift,” she handed him his cup. “You must be wiped out.” 

 “I’m clocking out at 7 and hitting my bed hard. But I can’t forget to pick up a card for Kelly, she’ll kill me if I don’t.”

“You kids have a fight? Is it your anniversary already?”

“Ei, it’s Mother’s Day,” he stopped in mid sip. “Jeez. Ei. Detective Orr. I’m sorry. I—you know how I am—”

            “It’s ok. Relax Teddy. It’s fine. Can you believe it’s going on 3 years?”

            “No shit.”

            “I know. Ange’s been on me to take her to Saint Bernadette’s, visit the grave. She keeps saying it’s about fuckin’ time my wife meets my mother.”  This was the joke Eileen always had ready in her pocket, whenever the subject of mom came up. Keep it light and keep it moving. Change the subject. “Kelly’s first Mother’s Day, you better not forget a card. Maybe get some gas station roses, you cheap wad” Eileen took a gulp of her coffee, good and cold going down, her brain hummed to life, synapses fired up. Time to work. 

 

She was looking over at the deceased, who was waiting on the city coroner to officially pronounce her dead. Teddy--Officer Eager she should call him at work--filled her in on his initial thoughts in a low undertone. True to form, he always went for the first person he questioned. He was convinced this was like some Netflix series scenario, one of the tenants, one of these sad characters standing around the lobby probably did it, but Officer Eager was plugging for the young guy in the T shirt and flip flops. Andy Li did not look like a kid who had ever even held a firearm to her, much less handle the recoil from the gun that did this. 

Eileen wasn’t really listening. Her senses keyed to the body on the floor, something not right. She noticed blades of grass, dirt stains, on the soles of the tap shoes, on the dress, grass and earth in her hair. Aside from that, the body was oddly clean. No blood. A shooting like this would have been a messy scene. The victim lay as if put to sleep, tucked into bed by a doting parent, with her arms neatly by her sides. 

 

Homicide Detective Orr noticed one of the tenants, the older gentleman in the baggy pants, who was also studying the body with the same intense focus as she was, he eyed the scene with a clinical attention. She nudged Eager. “This one seems more than the usual lookie-loo. What’s his story?”

“Arthur Shaw. Apartment 2. Had a run in with the deceased yesterday over noise she was causing. The old nut in the janky wig had a lot to say about it.”

“She would,” Eileen laughed, spotting Rhoda Krantz as a classic turd-stirrer, there was one at every scene. She walked up to the man in the blue sweater. 

Shaw recognized her as the Detective who had testified at the trial of the cardiologist that poisoned his wife. Peter Kaye and Shaw attended the trial, followed it with great interest. Orr’s statements on the stand succinctly tied together the evidence that helped convict the murderer. 

 

A competitive, venal thrill went through him at the thought--how Peter Kaye would writhe when he was told he’d missed out on meeting their hero. For once, Shaw had the edge. Wuss no more.

 

“Mr. Shaw?” Orr said, a smile on her face though her eyes showed she was all business, not interested in any foolishness. 

He did not notice. He went right into it, a true fan,  going on about how he’d been there that night at the Eliott when Mrs. Pappas collapsed, how he and his friend Peter had thought she had been poisoned, how Peter figured it was likely the husband.

Eileen heard that Mr. Shaw was another type that always insinuates themselves in a murder case: the wanna be amateur. They listen to true crime podcasts, read mysteries with their book clubs, they have theories. Annoying. For now, he was still a potential suspect in this soup, and she knew enough to let him talk. If he was full of shit, no harm done. If he was the killer, he would be the kind who thinks he’s so much smarter than anybody else, he’d want to show off just how smart he was, he’d go out of his way with his “helping the investigation” and eventually hoist his own petard. They always do. 

Shaw marched in head first, completely unaware, in his mind already re-telling the moment to an envious Peter Kaye about how nice that Detective Orr was, really, one on one, once you get past that gruff exterior. He ticked off on his fingers things that he had observed: “one, the lack of blood at the supposed place where the shooting happened, an injury of that sort would surely have left a sizeable swath of  blood and brain matter and bone fragments.; two, the grass stains on her dress, the grass in her hair; three, the way she was positioned, unnaturally.” All of these led up to his over-arching thesis : “Poppy wasn’t shot here. The murder happened somewhere else, and for some reason brought here.” Shaw allowed himself a moment of smug bravado.

 

The fact that each of his points matched her own gave Orr something to gnaw on. Either the man was a smartie, or he was a smartie who killed someone. It bothered her that the body would be left here, drawing attention to Shaw, and if he did it, it wouldn’t make sense he’d be so dumb as to leave his crime at his own doorstep---unless he was so smart he’d figured on everyone else being dumb—it was feasible in her head either way. What was apparent was that Shaw’s conclusion, that the murder was committed elsewhere, and for some unknown reason brought here, posed here, that had her chewing her ice chips. She ordered Officer Eager to have a look-see around the building, outside, get a few of the idling officers on it, now. Please. She was a little irritated this was not already being done, pretty basic procedure, but she decided to not give Teddy a rough time. Not on Kelly’s first Mother’s Day. 

“What are you looking for?” Officer Eager asked. 

“Whatever you find.” She sipped the last of her coffee, her eyes looking over the cup at Shaw who was starting to come to the unsettling realization that he was in her sights much like a mouse is with a hawk. He never felt more like a wuss in his entire life.

 

When Eager returned, he’d seen clear signs in the damp grass, the flower bed was trampled—everything led to the back of the Langdon School. Whoever killed Poppy Cockburn likely carried or dragged her body through the lawn,  to a back door of the apartment building that had a wonky latch--Eager made a mental note to cite the Rose Hill building management for its egregious lack of security-- he’d left a couple uniforms at the site to continue investigating. 

 

But even as he was telling Eileen, he felt that something had changed. In the few minutes it had taken him to go and come back, something happened, she must have had a phone call, she was still holding it in her hand. “What?” he asked. 

“There’s been a confession.”

“No sir!”

“Just heard from desk officer. Someone walked in, gave a full confession,” Detective Orr could not help but feel a bit cheated, she was just getting into this one-- and now, case closed. Nothing left but paperwork. “Get the team going, hustle all these folks to the station so we can get formal statements.”

“Who was it?” Eager was also disappointed. 

Eileen leaned in close enough to see the kid needed a shave, and a shower, and a breath mint wouldn’t hurt. “Keep it under your hat until we get to the office,” she made him promise.

“Come on. Who?”

“The mother. The girl was shot by her own mother.”

“Jeez.”

 

Peter Kaye was also jarred awake by a knocking on his door. He slept nude, which isn’t important, but it did take him a while to find something suitable to wear, which took some minutes, all the while an energetic pounding on his door. He was tying the belt of a silk robe around his ample waist, when he discovered an excited Shaw on his doorstep.

            “Poppy’s dead. Shot,” Shaw’s eyes were wide behind his glasses. “I have a Lyft waiting to go to the police station. I might be a suspect!

            Both men laughed at the idea of Arthur Shaw killing anyone. “That’s preposterous,” Peter led his friend to his usual seat on a low divan, “Give me five minutes to get dressed,” he said. Out of habit, he poured a hefty Amaro at the bar cart and handed it to his guest.

            “It’s 7 o’clock in the morning,” Shaw said.

            “Give it back then. I’ll brush my teeth with it. Waste not, want not.” Peter headed to his room, leaving the door open so he could hear. “Tell me everything.”

            “For one thing, I met that Detective, the one from the trial. She’s a real pistol. I thought for a minute she would cuff me right on the spot. But I overheard. She got a call. Someone confessed. You’ll never believe--”

            “Who?” Peter said from his closet.

            “Abigail. The mother. I can’t picture her doing it, but there was that affair with her husband. Do you think—”

            Peter stopped buttoning his shirt. He thought about Abigail. Her laugh. Her long dress grazing the damp grass. The glittering crucifix she wore. No. She didn’t do it. Couldn’t have. Could she? “Arthur. Slow down. I need you to slow down, tell me. Every detail you can remember. Start at the beginning.”

 

            The scene at Rose Hill was done. The body was en route to the medical examiner’s office. The tenants were asked to come to the station for interviews. The lobby empty, quiet, except for ChiChi’s lonely crying from the third floor. 

 

Detective Orr offered to ride Officer Eager over. 

While they were buckling up, Eager sighed and said he felt a little letdown. “You know how it is.”

She did. “Maybe we got a false confession this time. Sometimes they’re covering for someone else.  That happens a lot more than people think. A lot of times. People come out of the muck. Crackpots. Maybe she’s one of those.”

“Her own mother,” Eager said. “Can you imagine? Your own mother doing something like that?”

Eileen swore at the problematic stick, jammed it into gear, jolting the Crown Vic as it backed out into the street.