[draft]
One bright morning an unexpected web of shiny yellow police tape surrounded the apartment building down the street. Caught in the web were half a dozen police cars and officers scattered about the entrance. Cars nearby were entangled while officers redirected drivers hapless enough to approach. Everything was blocked.
I went down the elevator to get a closer look when I was accosted by a short grey presence on the way down. “Poor Mr. Jennings, murdered at 70 years of age,” lamented the speaker, elderly herself, as if the advancement of age should protect one from murder. “Stabbed with something unusual,” she added. I could only murmur.
Outside, a crowd mulled about, straining to get a better view, but the scene was blocked by police cars and an ambulance. The trappings of an investigation began to be erected inside the lobby around the body.
What the crowd outside could not see was unusual, to say the least. Peter Jennings was pierced in the heart by an ornate fountain pen, completely out of character with the modest, if outdated, 1950s style lobby decorated with floral print sofas and armchairs. A wood framed tenant directory greeted the entrance way with its curved roof frame, like a restaurant menu. Inside the frame was a row of buttons covered in stainless steel accompanied by clear plastic cut-outs labelling the tenant for each apartment. The plate glass window to the left of the entrance ran from floor to ceiling and was etched with gold leaf lettering advertising “The Dorchester,” sloping from bottom left to top right, with a font found only during that period. Inside, one could see a rubber plant growing nicely to the side of the right armchair while lighted shades sat on each side table, turned on even during the day, their fabric shade glowing with a warm light orange glow found only with the incandescent lights of old. On the modest wooden coffee table beside the deceased was a thick, heavy box of glossy dark exotic wood, reminiscent of the type that came with Swiss watches of the greatest expense and sharply out of place with the neat lobby carpeted in industrial grey carpet. Beige walls, while diligently maintained over the decades, had not been altered since the building was first built. The lobby was built to express the modern optimism after the war, looking to the future as it was seen at the time.
The lid to the polished wooden box fit together with such precision that it made a suction sound when the investigator pulled it up. Inside, encased in a cloud of sheer linen of the finest quality, was one precious satchel of jasmine tea attached to a string with what was not the usual paper label, but one made from plain silver embellished only by a tiny hallmark in the corner. Nothing appeared to be stolen as Mr. Jennings’s wallet, phone and keys were still in his pockets. But of the two things that did not fit, it was the box of tea that was more out of place than the presence of a body lying on the floor next to the coffee table. The investigator expected to see a body but a box like this was inexplicable. It was like finding a Rembrandt in a fast food restaurant.
The two police officers who canvassed the neighbourhood to locate witnesses were not themselves aware of the box of tea nor would they have seen anything in my apartment in any event. What the officers and I did not know at the time was that both I and Mr. Jennings had recently received the same sort of ornate box of tea. My box was sitting in the bedroom, quite out of sight from the officers as they questioned me at the entrance to my apartment with an admixture of curiosity and boredom as previous tenants had all said the same, unhelpful thing. They quickly left after going through their regular questions. Nothing extraordinary could enter my world, no matter how unusual. But because of this gap in knowledge, no one asked why we both had a similar box of tea. That link was missing from the inspector’s murder board back at the police station. There were no questions about the contest, no suspicion that I might have any connection to the murder, no examination of an alibi, no review of timelines. No one knew and thus this one coincidence that might have led to a path of inquiry was not followed. We in our world went along our separate way from those in the world populated by questions of murder.
While the police investigator had how, when (the time of death was estimated to have been about 2 a.m.) and where, she did not have who. To answer that and make an arrest, she needed to explore why Mr. Jennings was killed, and that seemed to be a complete mystery. Her murder board was sparse, to say the least. Mr. Jennings, 72 years of age, with one child living on the opposite coast, retired, with no known social contacts and very little interaction with his neighbours. A review of his financial records, credit card statements, and bills showed a man who spent very little and seemed to have done very little. There were no purchases of note and no transfers in or out. Everything about him seemed to be a dead end.
When she inspected Mr. Jennings’s apartment upstairs, she was startled by what she found. The entrance opened up to a wall of windows overlooking the tree lined street. The room was neat, spacious, but extremely sparse. Mr. Jennings had only one wooden table and one wooden chair in the room. There was no sofa, rugs, pictures, television, stereo or other appliances. Inside the kitchen there was one cast iron pan with lid, a set of stainless steel cutlery, one knife, fresh food, and a startling absence of any processed food: there were no cookies, snacks, chips or anything sweeter than oatmeal cereal. There were no juices, alcohol or drinks other than tea.
The bathroom had a bowl of shaving soap, brush and razer, comb and nothing else save for a toothbrush in a drawer and toothpaste: no hand soap, shampoo or other supplies intruded into the modest bathroom.
In the bedroom, was just one leather daybed with steel legs, likely Herman Miller. There was no bed, no drawers and just a few clothes, mostly black in the long closet that lined the back of the bedroom across from the wall of windows. The clothes were austere, but made out of an unusual fabric that the detective could not recognise.
Elsewhere there were no possessions save for a tablet, keyboard and wireless mouse that sat on the wooden table in the living room/dining room. There was a wireless charger for a phone next to the day bed. Oddly, there were no photos of any children, family or friends. Mr. Jennings did not own a car according to the building manager so his keychain held only the apartment key. Although there was a storage locker downstairs, Mr. Jennings did not have a locker. As far as the inspector could tell, Mr. Jennings woke, ate, worked on his tablet, walked, washed up and went to slept and that was about it. There were no books or papers of any kind in his apartment. He really lived a spartan life and the inspector was not entirely convinced Mr. Jennings lived in the apartment full time (he did according to the building manager). He didn’t seem to go out to eat or see a movie or even rent a movie. Nothing in the apartment, no one in his life, offered any clue as to why he was murdered or why he was in the lobby so late at night. The techs pulled up no emails or other messages to suggest Mr. Jennings was expecting a visitor. Whoever the visitor was, Mr. Jennings did not know him or her well enough to invite them in the apartment. Instead, he took the elevator down to the lobby and let them in, a rather odd thing to be doing so late in the night.
The inspector commented to the officer at the scene: “Look at this stuff. The vic didn’t own very much but everything he had was really expensive. My brother in law has this shaving soap: it’s $50 a bowl.” Mr. Jennings was monk-like, yet the things he bought were all expensive: an odd combination. It was as if he was super rich, so rich that status and possessions just weighed him down. Still, his possessions, or lack of them, offered no help in solving his murder. All she could see was a spartan apartment warmed by the late afternoon sun as it streamed through the canopy of trees into a living room once lived in by a man who seemed to have transcended the ordinary detritus of life.
Mr. Jennings seemed to have had no friends or other social contacts, no active connections with the community, no clubs or hobbies. In brief, he really lived like a monk. Autumn turned to winter. Suspects were interviewed but without progress, leaving nothing. Other cases intruded and the case of Mr. Jennings grew cold.
Felix qui nihil debet 