CHAPTER ONE
After midnight in East Revachol. Several RCM motor carriages parked in the private cull-de-sac of a driveway, the garden’s beauty more apparent in the daylight than in the current blackness interrupted by flashing police lights. Those lights reflected off of the white halogen rectangles on the uniforms and outer coats worn by the various people going about their police business on the expansive, beautiful property. Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi’s Coupris Kineema’s engine simmered down with a shuddering grumble along the brick curb. While many others on the scene wore uniforms or suits, Lt. Kitsuragi stood out in his orange aerostatic bomber jacket. A middle aged man with a slight build, receding hairline, and glasses, he normally kept a much more diurnal schedule than this, but like the others the station had called him out from his slumber to inspect a scene in one of the mansions in the affluent mountainside neighborhood of Le Jardin.
Just as he stepped out onto the driveway, another MC puttered up to park right behind his: a Peugeot 403 Cabriolet. Kim had seen others of this model kept in relatively decent condition, but this motor carriage with its dented, faded exterior was a piece of junk. A short, middle aged man in a beige raincoat stumbled out of his motor carriage and put a hand to his forehead. The sun had burnt the creased skin of his face into a ruddy complexion. He had a glass eye, the one on the right, and kept his dark brown hair long enough to form an expressive poof around his head. A green cigar stuck straight out from his mouth, unlit. He looked asleep yet somehow upright, one lock of his fluffy dark hair just as upright on the top of his head. Lieutenant Columbo took a few steps, bent a little to admire the sleeker vehicle parked in front of his own, then nearly walked right into Lt. Kitsuragi.
“Oh, pardon me, I’m very sorry.” Columbo held out a hand and smiled sheepishly.
Kitsuragi shook his hand. “Don’t worry about it. I can see you’re not fully awake yet.” They each introduced themselves and continued in step to the tall and elegant front doors of the mansion.
Columbo walked up the front steps and into the foyer. He looked over himself with some dismay. “Gee, I forgot my jacket. That means I forgot my badge.”
“You don’t have your badge?” asked Kitsuragi. Something about this seemed a bit too familiar. Though much more composed, he was just as sleep deprived as his colleague and didn’t particularly like the idea of corralling another eccentric mess around a crime scene.
“I was dead asleep,” explained Columbo. “I got here as fast as I could.”
“We all responded as quickly as we could. I hope you at least haven’t lost your possessions and merely forgot them at home?” Kitsuragi asked hopefully.
“Oh, yes, yes, of course. I just forgot a few things in my hurry.”
“Yes, I see that.”
An officer near the door informed the two of them, “They’re upstairs.”
Columbo looked up at the high ceiling above them. “Oh, this is quite a place!”
Wood paneling covered the walls of the foyer on the first floor, matching the hardwood floors. A few paces from the door, an oval rug with a champagne-color center had a broad red border. A framed mirror mounted to a small chest of drawers stood near potted ferns by one wall. A wooden lion perched on the banister of an impressive staircase. Above the level of the first floor, he could see gold wallpaper with a large floral design of red flowers with green leaves.
A blonde woman with her hair in a bun rose to greet them. Alma looked to be in her thirties, a modestly pretty woman in a maid uniform, black with a white apron, red polish on her nails. She wiped her face with a handkerchief then stood up a little straighter.
“Good evening, Madam,” greeted Columbo.
“Evening, Sir,” responded Alma.
Kitsuragi introduced the both of them.
Before she could respond, Columbo asked, “You wouldn’t by any chance have a cup of coffee in the kitchen, would you?”
“Yes, I do,” confirmed Alma. “I’ll get it for you, Sir. Would you like a coffee too, Sir?” She directed the question to Kim.
“If you would, please. Thank you, Miss,” Kitsuragi replied.
“Thank you very much,” added Columbo. “Just black would be fine.”
“For me as well,” decided Kitsuragi, to keep things simple.
After Alma left for the kitchen, Columbo continued to assess himself.
“I forgot my watch, too. Do you have the time? I’m lucky I didn’t show up in my pajamas.”
Kitsuragi checked his watch. “One thirty in the morning.”
“Oh no wonder.” Columbo struck a match and lit up his cigar.
Alma returned with two saucers set with fancy, dark blue porcelain coffee cups. “Here you are, Sir. Sir,” she said as she handed one each to the two officers.
“Thank you, Miss,” said Kitsuragi.
“Oh, thank you very much,” said Columbo. He made his way up the stairs.
Kim took a sip then handed it back to Alma. He didn’t want to divide his attention between the scene and trying not to spill hot coffee. Besides that, a crime scene was no place for food or drink. Columbo carried his coffee with him up the stairs.
“Oh Sir, could you please be careful with the coffee?” fretted Alma.
“Sure,” mumbled Columbo.
He swayed slightly on his feet, forward and back. Kim’s concern grew and he resisted the impulse to guide this man away out of the house before he could fall over. As they somehow made it up the stairs without incident, an officer in uniform approached and briefed the two of them. Kim fetched out his blue notebook and blue pen and begun jotting down notes.
“The deceased is Henry Willis,” the officer informed them.
“Willis,” repeated Columbo.
“Doctor, retired.”
“What kind of doctor, may I ask?” asked Kitsuragi.
“Medical. I don’t know more than that. Maybe somebody else will know.”
They walked with the officer from the hall into a large bedroom with a red carpet. The blue and white floral bedspread on the four poster bed matched exactly to the blue and white floral wallpaper. A large mirror with an ornate metal frame hung on the wall, flanked by dark blue vases on a narrow, ornate black table with a radio between them. Two black and white photos of the same slender, beautiful blonde woman in a hinged silver frame stood next to a dark wooden horse statuette a glass-topped nightstand. An old man with a neatly trimmed white beard lay in light blue pajamas in his bed, a folder open in front of him with papers inside, and a book on the nightstand. A gunshot wound, small but final, had ceased leaking blood not long before. He had died quite recently, and while there was a distinct scent of death and blood, the old fellow hadn’t yet begun to ripen.
A balding man with glasses standing near the body held out his hand. “I’m Anderson, station lazareth,” he introduced.
Kitsuragi leaned closer to the body to inspect it while Columbo averted his eyes. Kim’s blue pen scrabbled quickly across the paper.
“It appears to be a suicide,” explained Anderson.
“Mmhm,” muttered Kitsuragi. “Eight millimeter muzzle-loading pistol…”
“One shot fired,” Anderson contributed.
“One shot…fired,” Kitsuragi muttered as he wrote. “What are these papers he was looking at?” He indicated the typed papers strewn from the open folder on the deceased’s lap.
“He was looking through this medical report just prior to his death,” replied Anderson.
“Was that door broken?” asked Columbo, continuing to avoid looking at the body. He appeared squeamish; an odd quality in a homicide detective. He set his coffee on the nightstand.
“The butler discovered it bolted,” said Anderson. “He forced it, then he called the RCM.”
Kitsuragi meanwhile looked over the papers, putting a glove on before lifting them so he wouldn’t disturb any prints. “It’s from a Dr. Lansberg to Dr. Willis. I can’t understand all of the terminology here but it appears to be about a prostate surgery. You’re more familiar with medical lingo, Anderson.” Kim held the paper over to the lazareth. “What can you make of this?”
“You’ve got the right idea. Prostate surgery,” confirmed Anderson. “It seems the old boy had been putting it off for a while.”
“Mmhm.” Kitsuragi set the papers back where he’d gotten them from and resumed taking notes.
Columbo yawned with the back of his hand over his mouth then picked his coffee up for another sip. He observed a stout, neatly dressed man wearing a shirt and vest, the vest a light patterned green on the front and black in the back. “Is that the butler over there?”
“I would think so, Lieutenant,” replied the officer who had briefed the two detectives on the way to the bedroom. “He’s certainly not one of ours.”
Columbo walked over to the butler, an aging white-haired man named Raymond. “Lieutenant Columbo, Revachol Citizens Militia.”
“At your service, Lieutenant,” greeted Raymond, and he introduced himself.
“It was a terrible thing, Raymond, and I hope you don’t mind going over it again.” Columbo set the coffee cup on another side table and began to pat down his pockets for his notebook. He found his necktie, a dark gray article, in one of his pockets and draped it over his neck.
“Not at all,” assured Raymond. He lifted the cup and used a handkerchief to wipe down the table beneath the cup before setting it back down. “My wife and I had some -”
“Just a minute, please,” interrupted Columbo. “I’m getting out my notebook.” He continued patting his pockets and looking around his person. “I don’t function too well at night.”
Kitsuragi looked over at his colleague, then down at his own notebook and pen. He was reluctant to even lend out his pen; there was no way he was lending out his Mnemotechnique A6 notebook.
Raymond watched with some patience then dug a small brown notebook and a white pen from the breast pocket of his vest. “Will this assist you?”
Kitsuragi sighed with relief.
Columbo accepted the notebook and pen gratefully. “Thank you, Sir. All set now, go ahead.”
“My wife and I, as we usually do, were listening to the Jacques Motorson milieu on the radio. When it finished at one, I came up here to tidy up,” related Raymond.
Columbo fidgeted with the pen the butler had lent him. “How do you, how does this -”
Kitsuragi reached over and clicked the pen for him. “There you go, Officer.”
“Thank you,” said Columbo. “Motorson. Is that something you usually do?”
“It is,” confirmed Raymond. He carried an ashtray with him for the lieutenant’s cigar and periodically reminded Columbo to tap his ashes into it.
“When was the last time that you saw him alive?” asked Columbo.
“About eleven, when I brought up his milk and sleeping pill,” the butler replied.
“Did he seem down in the dumps, depressed?”
“No, he was reading his book when I came up here,” replied Raymond. “I didn’t see any signs of despondency or depression.”
“All right Sir. Did you hear the shot?” Columbo asked.
“No.”
“Really? I would think it would be louder than a radio milieu,” mentioned Kitsuragi.
Raymond looked at Lieutenant Kitsuragi. “Our quarters are at the other end of the house.”
“Ah.” Kitsuragi nodded. “It is quite a large house. I’d think at least an echo would reach you but, thick walls maybe?”
“We didn’t hear it, Sir,” Raymond insisted.
“Did anyone hear the shot?” asked Columbo.
“No, there was no one else in the house except Mrs. Willis and she was in the projection room watching a movie,” explained Raymond. “She couldn’t have heard it either.”
Kitsuragi had his doubts, but he’d already voiced them so he just nodded and made a note. “Thank you very much, Sir.” Columbo thanked the butler.
Back over near the bed, Anderson said, “Kitsuragi, lend me a hand here, will you?”
The lieutenant turned his attention back to the body and leaned in to help pry the deceased’s fingers open so Anderson could remove the gun.
“Be careful of prints,” added Anderson.
“I’m no psychologist but why does a man about to kill himself take sleeping pills?” asked Columbo. He still didn’t look directly at the corpse.
Anderson bagged the gun. “Well, Lieutenant, if it wasn’t suicide, how did he experience cadaveric spasm?”
“Cadaveric spasm?” echoed Columbo.
“The moment Dr. Willis shot himself, spasm occurred in his fingers,” explained Anderson. “Now that could only take place if the deceased’s fingers were on the trigger at the moment the bullet made impact with his brain.”
“Cadaveric spasm,” repeated Columbo. “That’s very good, Anderson.”
“Interesting,” remarked Kitsuragi. He used his pen to rotate the book on the nightstand so he could better see the cover. The title crossed the cover at a jaunty angle, large playful font squeezed up to a cartoonish illustration of a woman wearing a hat and some sparkles. “The Transformation of Mrs. McTwig,” he read aloud, quietly. Rather than using a bookmark, Dr. Willis had dogeared pages.
Columbo looked through the window in a door to the balcony on the other side and sipped his coffee. He walked with the notebook held out straight in front of him with his cigar in his other hand. Raymond and Kitsuragi followed him down the stairs. They passed an officer in a brown suit taking photographs. Two men passed them on the stairs holding a gurney with the body covered in a sheet. They did have to step aside to make room, but the stairs were wide enough that it wasn’t too difficult for all five, well, six of them to pass one another on the landing.
“This is all most disconcerting, the police walking about the house, looking about. Couldn’t you speed it up a bit, Lieutenant?” requested Raymond.
“We will be out of the house just as soon as we have finished our work here,” promised Kitsuragi.
They continued the rest of the way down the stairs and stood in the foyer near the open front door. Outside, the men with the gurney loaded it into lazareth wagon.
“Where did Dr. Willis usually keep his gun?” asked Columbo.
“In the pull-out compartment of the motor carriage,” replied Raymond. “He was robbed once in a parking lot and kept the gun in the motor carriage for security.”
“Where’s the garage?” Columbo asked. He leaned out the front door and looked around. He spotted a likely building. “It’s over there, isn’t it?”
“Correct,” confirmed Raymond.
“How did he get there from here?”
“Through the front door, of course.”
“Did Dr. Willis bring his gun into the house each night?”
“No. House security is taken care of by a patrol that comes by every hour.”
“Excuse me,” said Kitsuragi. “You have the RCM act as your security?”
“No, no. A patrol from a security company,” clarified Raymond.
“That makes more sense. I think I would have heard of it if we were sending a patrol MC to drive out here once an hour,” Kitsuragi remarked.
“I’m sure you would, Sir.” Raymond held the ashtray out for Columbo again. Columbo dutifully tapped the ashes from his cigar into the silver dish.
“Was Mrs. Willis in the projection room at the time that you found the door bolted?” asked Columbo.
“There’s a projection room? May I see it?” asked Kitsuragi.
“This way, Sir,” said Raymond, and he led the two detectives through the house to a wood-paneled room with bright purple couches. Photos of the same elegant young woman hung on the wall, the same girl that the doctor had displayed at his bedside. On the way to the viewing room, the actual projector stood in a separate, smaller room, with a slide-out panel covering a small window through which the projector could project. The machine stood tall as a person, with four reels mounted on it. A small table held a splicer and repair equipment.
“And as for your question, Sir,” Raymond said, addressing Columbo, “No. No, she had gone to her room. When the Motorson milieu ended, I went to the projection room to take off the last two reels. The film had nearly ended.” As he described the events from earlier that same night, Raymond walked back up the stairs to the hall. “Then she said good night, and after I’d closed up the viewing room, I came up here,” he gestured to Dr. Willis’s room, “and found the door locked. When she heard me calling Dr. Willis, she came from her room and joined me there.”
“Oh, that must have been a terrible experience for the two of you,” said Columbo.
“Yes,” agreed Raymond. “Quite.”
“Where is Mrs. Willis’ bedroom?” asked Kitsuragi.
“Up there.” Raymond pointed down the hall past potted ferns. “At the end of the hall.”
“Thank you,” said Kitsuragi.
Walking in that direction, the detectives came across an old man in a black suit carrying a black doctor’s bag. He had closed the door to Mrs. Willis’s room and turned to face the three of them.
“Pity, pity,” said Raymond.
“What is a pity?” asked Kitsuragi.
“The doctor was so set on his Insulandic trip.”
“Traveling through the pale?” checked Kitsuragi.
“I steer clear of the pale wherever possible, personally. The world slipping away into nothingness. It just creeps me out,” said Columbo. “Oh, but nothing against Dr. Willis! That’s an ambitious trip. Rather dangerous, wouldn’t you say?”
“Oh, a bit. They usually kept their travel within this insula, to protect Mrs. Willis, you see, but it had been such a long time since he had seen the sights on the other side of that expanse and thought it worth a little risk,” replied Raymond.
The living doctor, not Dr. Willis, who had emerged from Mrs. Willis’s bedroom moved past the three of them on the way to the stairs.
Columbo approached him and introduced himself and Kitsuragi.
“Oh, I’m Dr. Westrum,” the doctor replied.
“Is that Mrs. Willis’ bedroom?” asked Columbo.
“Yes. Yes, it is,” replied Westrum.
“Do you think it’ll be all right if I spoke to her for a few moments?”
“She’s very upset, Lieutenant,” said Westrum. “I just placed her under sedation.”
“Poor woman,” sympathized Columbo.
“She’s in a state of complete shock.”
“Of course.”
“We can come back and talk to her later,” said Kitsuragi. “When she’s had some time to process.” They walked with Westrum back down the stairs. Kitsuragi lightly wished they could keep the interviews to one floor. All this up and down the stairs again and again. He tried not to appear out of breath.
“Maybe you can help me, Doctor,” said Columbo. “I’m trying to find a reason to explain the suicide. Was Dr. Willis depressed? You know, over his health or anything?”
“Not to my knowledge,” replied Westrum.
“Are you the family doctor?” asked Kitsuragi.
“In a manner of speaking, yes,” the doctor replied. He turned to the butler. “Goodnight, Raymond.”
The doctor and detectives continued out the front door. The lazareth wagon as well as most of the RCM motor carriages had driven away, leaving a more peaceful garden surrounding the cull-de-sac driveway.
“Oh, Henry insisted on running up his own physicals,” explained Westrum. “And why not? There’s no more eminent diagnostician in the business.”
“You know, Doctor, I’ve been having pains myself lately, not exactly pains, but my heart feels like there’s a hammer inside,” mentioned Columbo.
“We are not here for an examination,” said Kitsuragi quietly to his colleague.
“Oh, I know,” said Columbo.
“Well, in your business, I’m not surprised,” replied Dr. Westrum. “And those cigars don’t help any either.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’re right,” agreed Columbo.
“Good night,” said Westrum, and he walked out to his own motor carriage.
“Good night, Doctor,” said Columbo.
“Good night,” added Kitsuragi.
“Oh, Lieutenant.” Raymond appeared at Columbo’s side. “Lieutenant, my notebook and pencil, if you please.”
Columbo stopped to rip out the pages he’d written on, then handed what remained of the notebook and pen to the butler. “Thank you very much. Good night.”
“Good night, detectives.”
Kitsuragi watched as Columbo hurriedly took one last trip upstairs, and decided this time not to go with him. When Columbo returned, he asked, “What did you go back inside for?”
“Oh, to look at Dr. Willis’s slippers, to see if he’d gone to the garage after he was already in his pajamas. Not a mark on them. He clearly hadn’t been outside in those slippers,” Columbo told Kitsuragi in a low voice as they walked back to their respective vehicles.
“Very interesting. Well, good night, detective.”
“Good night. It was very nice meeting you.”
“Keep in touch.”
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