A Striking Death Read online

  Drumm stood up and grabbed his jacket. “Right. Are the fisties there yet?” The Forensic Investigation Services team, popularly known in the force as the fisties, was routinely called to all violent crimes.

  Chappell moved out into the hall. “They are, and the Coroner is on her way.”

  Following behind, Drumm asked. “Can I have Lori Singh?”

  Chappell smiled briefly. “Thought you might ask that. She’s on her way there. Talk to you later. Keep me up to date.”

  Drumm watched him go and then stopped to collect his thoughts. His day had just changed completely and he wanted to make sure he was ready for it. He would have to call Emily but he could do that from his car. He was moving now, thinking as he went. Having Detective Lori Singh would be good. They had worked together before and she knew his methods. She was young and competent, an up and coming detective. He hurried out to his car.

  four

  Drumm’s Miata was his pride and joy. An ice-blue Limited Edition Mazda MX-5, he’d had it for a year and a half and liked it more every day. He loved the way it handled and he took a secret pride in the way people stopped to look at him as he went by.

  Drumm arrived at Billinger’s Gladstone Street address to find the familiar clutter of emergency vehicles, groups of curious bystanders and Lori Singh’s green Toyota Prius. Singh herself was standing on the front step talking to a uniformed officer; yellow crime scene tape surrounded the property. Other uniformed police were handling crowd control and restricting access. Drumm saw a small brown brick backsplit house, with neat gardens in the front and a couple of mature maple trees whose leaves were mostly on the ground already. He lifted up the tape and approached Lori Singh, who saw him coming and turned to meet him, after a final word with the uniformed cop.

  “Lori Singh. We meet again on life’s rocky road.”

  “Good morning, Nick.” She looked up at him carefully, noting the weary eyes and brown hair, greying at the temples. She was at a height disadvantage, being much shorter. “You look tired.”

  “Oh, I’m alright. It was trying to go for a run this morning that did me in. You’d think at forty-nine I’d know better.” Drumm ran his hand back over his hair and stared around at the scene. “What have we got?”

  Singh was wearing a leather jacket over a turtleneck sweater; she pulled a notebook out of the jacket pocket now and consulted it. Drumm knew it would already be filled with neat and detailed notes; Lori Singh was rapidly earning a reputation for being meticulous. “Constable Davidson was the first officer on the scene.” She indicated the uniform to whom she had been speaking. “He met Cameron Garmand here on the walkway, got his story, went around to the side window with him and saw the body on the bed. He tried the front door and found it locked, used his pry bar to break it open, went into the bedroom and verified that the victim was dead. He said he didn’t touch anything, said in fact that he could tell Billinger was dead, even from the doorway. He came back out and called for help.”

  Drumm was looking at Officer Davidson. “Thank God, a uniform who knew what to do.” Drumm looked around. “Where’s Garmand?”

  Singh indicated an older man leaning against a car, watching them. “That’s him there. I haven’t interviewed him yet, just told him to wait.”

  Drumm thought for a second, and then said, “Right, let’s ask Davidson to keep an eye on Garmand while we take a look at the scene.”

  Arthur Billinger’s home was typical of those built in the sixties. From the front entrance, there were stairs down to a basement, and more stairs up to the main level, where the bedrooms, living room, kitchen, bathroom and dining room were. Putting their gloves on, Drumm and Singh mounted the short flight of steps and entered the house. There was considerable activity in the kitchen where the FIS team was getting organized. The two detectives turned right to go down the hallway. There were three bedrooms and a bathroom along this way. The last room on the left was Billinger’s bedroom.

  The FIS photographer and a technician were busy in the room, but the latter waved them in. “Just getting started,” she said.

  Drumm and Singh entered carefully. The victim was lying flat on the bed with his upper torso, arms and hands exposed. He was wearing a blue pajama top. The rest of him was under a bedcover and sheets. Where his head had been was a mess of blood, bone, gristle and brain. Someone had brutally smashed in his head, that was clear. There was a lot of blood spatter on the headboard and the wall behind the bed, the pillows and the bedcover, and a huge pool of coagulated blood under and around the head. Arthur Billinger had ceased breathing some time ago, it was obvious. And it was apparent why Officer Davidson had been able to tell from the doorway that the victim was dead.

  “It’s a bad one, Nick.” Ken McIntee, the FIS team leader, had come down the hallway behind them. He nodded to Lori Singh whom he had also met before.

  “So I see. Somebody was extremely angry with our Mr. Billinger. I assume it is Arthur Billinger in there.”

  McIntee grimaced. He was an experienced forensic investigator, forty-nine years old, approaching retirement, and in his long career he had seen a good deal of violence. “Nick, this is one of the worst things I have ever come across. It looks like he was asleep and the attacker just bashed him, and then did it again, and again….. Sigrid will be able to give you a better idea of the number of times he was hit, but it was a bunch, that’s for sure. And you can see he didn’t defend himself at all.” McIntee rubbed his nose with one sleeve. “As for whether it’s Billinger or not, time will tell. We’ll have to use dental records and fingerprints, because I don’t think anybody will be able to recognize him now.”

  Looking at the bloody mess that had been the victim’s head, Drumm could only agree. “That the murder weapon?” He indicated a baseball bat leaning up against the wall in the corner.

  McIntee nodded. “That’s it alright.”

  They all looked at the bat which was standing with its handle up. The business end was matted with dried blood and bits of bone and brain, and there was a small pool of the same stuff on the carpet around it.

  Lori Singh looked around the room. “How’d he get in, do we know yet? That window there looks like it’s locked. Did he come in the front door? Officer Davidson said it was locked when he checked it and he broke it open.”

  McIntee was shaking his head. “That window is locked. But, if your eager Officer Davidson had checked around the back, he would have found that the door in the kitchen was smashed and the door was unlocked. No need to break open the front door at all. Still, I don’t think Mr. Billinger will be complaining. It looks like the killer came up onto the back deck, gained entry through the kitchen door and also exited that way.”

  Drumm said, “Breaking in would have made some noise. You’d think Billinger would have heard it.”

  The bedroom contained a chair with clothing, presumably the victim’s, on it, a bedside table with a clock radio and paperback book on it and a dresser with an attached mirror. On the dresser was a small oscillating fan, pointed at the wall. Singh asked, “Was the fan on when you got here, Ken?”

  “No.”

  “But maybe that’s why Billinger didn’t hear anything,” she went on. “If he had the fan running, he probably wouldn’t have heard the glass breaking at all. And the killer might have turned it off. I wonder if Billinger is wearing earplugs?”

  Both Drumm and McIntee looked at her, then at the body on the bed. They had identical expressions of dismay on their faces.

  “I’m not checking,” said Drumm hastily.

  “Let’s leave that little task for Sigrid,” agreed McIntee.

  “But it’s October,” said Drumm. “Why use a fan at all? It’s not hot at night anymore.”

  “Some people use them for background noise,” said Singh. “Helps them sleep.”

  “You could be right,” said McIntee. “If you’ll excuse me, time to get back to work.” And he headed back towards the kitchen.

  The technician continued col
lecting samples from the body and the bed. Drumm and Singh did a quick inspection of the room. The contents of the dresser showed Arthur Billinger to be a tidy, organized man. Socks, underwear, shorts, tee shirts were folded neatly in the drawers. The closet contained dress shirts, pants and suits all hanging neatly, shoes arranged carefully on the carpet below. Drumm took down a wicker basket from the closet shelf; in it were a wallet, keys, a band-aid and some coins.

  “Well, robbery wasn’t the motive,” said Drumm. “Billinger had over two hundred dollars here. Driver’s license in the name of Arthur Billinger. Also, he’s got a card in there naming a Louisa Billinger as next of kin. I don’t recognize that area code, though.” Drumm wrote the phone number in his notebook, bagged the wallet and returned the basket to the shelf.

  Lori looked up from the bedside table where she was noting the contents of the drawer. “And there’s more in here, a hundred and fifty in American money.” She showed Drumm a white envelope fat with bills.

  “Bring it along, Lori. Anything else interesting in there?”

  “The usual junk. And a couple of prescription pill bottles. Looks like Billinger had trouble sleeping. One’s a sedative, the other’s an antibiotic.”

  “We’ll leave those for the fisties. And we’d better get out of here and let them do their jobs. Let’s look at the other rooms.”

  One of these was a second bedroom which appeared not to have been used much. Its door was closed and it smelled musty inside. There was a neatly made-up bed, closed curtains, a bedside table and an upright dresser.

  The third bedroom had been turned into an office. Behind its closed door was a desk with a laptop computer, a couch and a filing cabinet. Drumm moved to the laptop and switched it on while Singh started looking through the filing cabinet.

  “An organized man, our Mr. Billinger,” said Lori.

  “What’s in there?”

  “He’s got everything filed away nice and neatly. Utility bills, income tax, travel information. Let’s see, pension statements…” Lori whistled. “Wow, he was doing okay. His pension is more than I make!”

  “You deserve a raise. Is there anything about family in there? Or friends?”

  Lori shook her head. “I can’t see anything.” She looked up. “What’s on the laptop?”

  “Not a whole lot of anything. It looks like he didn’t use it much. Maybe he did at one time but not now. There’s some school stuff on here that must go back years. But there’s no recent internet history; looks like he doesn’t have a connection.” Drumm looked carefully at the computer. “This is an old machine, too. And it’s running Windows XP. This computer wasn’t an important part of his life, I don’t think.” He shut the laptop down. “We’ll leave it for the fisties to do a thorough inspection, but I don’t think they’ll find much.”

  The two detectives walked back down the hallway and had a quick look in the kitchen. Drumm noted the broken glass in the window pane of the door and said, “Ken’s probably right about this being the entrance and exit route. Around the back of the house, out of sight of the street – makes sense. The killer likely waited out in the yard until he was sure Billinger was asleep. We’ll check that later. Let’s get out of the fisties’ way for now and have a chat with Mr. Garmand.” The two detectives went back out the front door. Outside on the sidewalk they met the Coroner who had just arrived.

  “Good morning, Sigrid,” said Drumm.

  “And a fine one it is.” The Coroner put down her bag and pointed at a V of geese flying overhead, their honking clearly audible. “I love that sound. Even though it means we’ll all be freezing soon.” Sigrid Brandt had been Coroner for the York Police Services for more than a decade. She and Drumm had worked together a number of times. She looked now at Drumm and Lori Singh. “What awaits me inside?”

  “It’s a bad one, Sigrid. Elderly male beaten to death with a baseball bat. At least, that’s the way it seems. And when I say beaten, I mean really beaten. A very angry person committed this crime.”

  “I’ll get right to it, Nicholas.” Brandt picked up her bag, nodded to Lori Singh, and entered the house.

  Drumm sighed. “Right, let’s talk to Mr. Garmand. I wonder if he’s French Canadian?”

  five

  Cameron Garmand was not French Canadian, as it turned out. At least, he did not speak with any trace of an accent, and he told the two detectives that his surname was pronounced to rhyme with “hand”.

  “Art and I had a date this morning for coffee. We got together most every Tuesday at Tim Hortons. A bunch of us retired teachers have been meeting there for more than a year now.” Garmand, Drumm and Singh were standing behind the police tape on Arthur Billinger’s front lawn. “I called him last evening to make sure that we were on for today. So, when I rang his bell this morning and there was no answer, I was surprised.”

  Lori Singh was writing in her notebook. Drumm studied Cameron Garmand. He saw a man in his late fifties dressed in baggy blue jeans and a checked shirt, holding a black jacket which he had removed in the course of the conversation. He had thinning grey hair, bags under his eyes and the typical paunch that most middle-aged men sported. He was five feet eleven at the most, and so he was looking up at Drumm, as most people did.

  “You’re a retired teacher, Mr. Garmand?” asked Drumm.

  “We both are – were. I used to teach in the intermediate division, Art was my French teacher.”

  Lori Singh looked up. “So you were going to meet for coffee with some friends and he didn’t answer the doorbell. What did you do then?”

  Garmand gestured to the side of the house. “I went around the side there because I thought maybe Art was outside. Sometimes he does a little gardening while he’s waiting for me. But I didn’t see him at all.”

  “Let’s take a look,” said Drumm. He led the way around the side of the house. The grass was short and patchy with unraked leaves crackling underfoot. “Is this where you came to then?” At Garmand’s nod, Drumm went on, “What did you do next?”

  “I was going to go right around the back but then I looked in the window and I saw him… he was lying on the bed.” Garmand stopped because they could all see that the body was still there and that there were various people working in the room. “It was pretty obvious that something was wrong. So I went back around to the front and called 9-1-1 on my cell.”

  “What time was that?” interrupted Singh.

  “That would be just after nine, I guess.”

  “Go on,” said Drumm.

  Garmand shrugged. “Not much more to tell. I waited on the front walkway; the first cops – cop, actually – showed up a few minutes later. We came around here and looked in, then went back around to the front. He told me to wait and then he tried the door. He went back to his car and got a crowbar and jimmied open the door. He went in and came back out a minute or so later and by then the paramedics and more police were starting to arrive.”

  Drumm said, “Did you go in the backyard at any point?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Let’s go back around the front,” said Drumm.

  Back at the front of the house, Garmand asked, “You haven’t actually said, Detective Sergeant. Art’s really dead, isn’t he?”

  “To be honest, sir, we aren’t sure who is on that bed, but whoever it is – well, yes, he’s dead. And we have no reason to think it’s anyone other than your friend.” Drumm paused. “I’m sorry for your loss, sir,” said Drumm. “Were you two close?”

  “Colleagues, rather. Retired colleagues. Aside from this coffee get-together thing, we didn’t see each other much.”

  Lori said, “It seems odd that you would call ahead and then pick him up. Why wouldn’t you just meet at the coffee shop?”

  “Oh, we usually did that. But I was bringing over a leaf blower that Art wanted to borrow. His place is on the way, more or less.”

  “A leaf blower?” Drumm asked. “Where is it then?”

  “It’s in the trunk.” Garmand led
the way to his car and opened the back of his car to show a Black and Decker cordless leaf blower. “All charged up, ready to go.”

  Drumm nodded. “Mr. Garmand, Mr. Billinger’s wallet lists a Louisa Billinger as next of kin. Do you know who she is?”

  “That would be his sister. He has her listed as next of kin?” Garmand looked surprised.

  “Yes. Why? Is there something strange about that?”

  “Well, no, I guess not. She is his sister. But she’s in a nursing home in California. She has dementia, I think. He didn’t talk about her much, only mentioned her a couple of times to me. But I know he told me she didn’t know who he was anymore. So I don’t think there would be much point contacting her.”

  Drumm asked, “Is there any other family?”

  “His parents were dead, I know that. And he was never married, not that I was aware of. Art rarely mentioned family to me.” Garmand suddenly looked uneasy. “Are you going to ask me to identify his body?”

  Drumm looked at Singh quickly, then back to Garmand. “That won’t be necessary, thank you.” He paused. “We’ll want to talk to you again, Mr. Garmand, but that’ll do for now. I’m sure you’re pretty shaken up. We’ll be in touch.” Drumm gave Garmand his card. “If you think of any other family members, please get in touch with me.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s it,” said Garmand. The two detectives watched him get in his vehicle and drive away.

  six

  “You can’t meet me for lunch? Again?” Emily’s voice was chilly.