THE DEAD AMERICAN (The Inspector Samuel Tay Novels Book 3) (5 page)

Kang sipped at his coffee and let Tay think about it for a while.

“We could go over after dinner, sir. My car’s right down the street.”

Tay knew he ought to say no thank you to Kang. That would be the smart move.

But who was he kidding?

First Emma Lazar shows up with a cockamamie sounding story about a police cover up of a murder, then Kang tells him he thinks there is something off about the investigative papers which closed the case as a suicide. Under those circumstances, was there the slightest chance he would refuse to let Robbie show him the crime scene because somebody might tell teacher on him? Forget it.

“Drink up, Sergeant, and pay the bill. It’s a nice night for a drive.”

THEY TOOK NEW
Bridge Road across the Coleman Bridge over the Singapore River and drove through Chinatown. Tay often wondered why Singapore, which was a Chinese city whether anyone wanted to admit it or not, had a neighborhood called Chinatown. What seemed even stranger to him was that no one else appeared to see any irony in the name. It was only one of many things about the country in which he had spent his entire life that genuinely puzzled him.

The smoky pall lying over the city had lifted a little. A half-mile in front of them Tay could see the complex of police buildings on the corner of New Bridge and Cantonment roads that everyone called the Cantonment Complex. He had spent half of his professional life in one or another of those blue glass towers, but he had never adjusted to the squeaky-clean soullessness of them. He missed the days when police stations were grimy colonial-style buildings with cracked linoleum floors. The Cantonment Complex never felt like a police station to him. It was far too sanitized and antiseptic. It was more like the headquarters of a big international insurance company.

“Do you miss the place, sir?” Kang asked when he saw Tay looking at the Cantonment Complex.

Tay wasn’t certain how to answer that. He did, and he didn’t. He missed being a policeman, that much was true, but he didn’t really miss being part of the Singapore police force. It was hard to explain, even to himself, and he doubted Kang would understand, so he said nothing. Kang let it go, and Tay said a silent thank you.

They made a left and then a sharp right. When they got to the Maxwell Road Hawker Center, Kang slowed down and started looking for a place to park. It was a little after eleven when he found a spot on Tanjong Pagar Road.

They were in an area called Duxton Hill, a neighborhood of narrow, twisting streets lined with whitewashed shophouses of three or four floors, some of which had been converted to restaurants or bars with apartments above them. It wasn’t an area where Tay would expect a foreigner to live. Foreigners mostly lived in shiny, expensive high-rises out around Orchard Road. They didn’t live in narrow walk-ups above bars.

Kang locked the car and walked around to the passenger side where Tay was waiting on the sidewalk.

“The apartment is one block over from here, sir.”

“Did the boy live alone?” Tay asked.

“Yes, sir. He had a girlfriend, but she didn’t live with him.”

“Local girl?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Naturally.”

Kang wasn’t sure what Tay meant by that so he just nodded.

“Who found the body?” Tay asked.

“She did. The girlfriend.”

“All right, Sergeant. Let’s get on with it then.”

They walked west for about fifty yards and turned north. Duxton Road curved gently uphill from there, and the upper floors of the three-story shophouses extended above the sidewalks along both sides of it and made them into colonnaded arcades with narrow rows of spindly palm trees separating them from the street. The arcades looked like they would be welcoming and cooling in the heat of the day, but at night they were deep in shadow and felt a little ominous.

Music drifted from bars and restaurants at the other end of the block, but up where Tay and Kang were it was quiet and gloomy. A few of the windows on the upper floors of the shophouses were lighted, but not many.

Kang stopped at a wooden door in a whitewashed shophouse that had green louvered shutters on the second and third floors. The first floor had a large plate-glass window. Tay cupped his hands around his face and tried to see into the darkened area behind the window.

“It’s a nail salon, sir. You know, where women go to—”

“I know what a nail salon is, Sergeant. I may not seem to you like a man who knows what a nail salon is, but I do.”

“Yes, sir.”

Behind the door was a tiny lobby lit by a single bare bulb. It had a narrow staircase on the other side and four black metal mailboxes on the right-hand wall. Kang reached into the third box from the left, felt around, and took out an oversized brass key.

“Just like I thought, sir,” he grinned. “Still here.”

Tay nodded, but he didn’t say anything.

“There are four apartments, two on the second floor and two on the third,” Kang went on. “The dead American’s apartment’s on the third floor.”

“Tyler Bartlett.”

“Yes, sir. That’s his name. Tyler Bartlett.”

“Then call him that, Sergeant.”

“I’m sorry, sir?”

“You keep calling him the dead American. His name was Tyler Bartlett. So call him Tyler Bartlett, or Mr. Bartlett, or Tyler.”

“I apologize, sir, I didn’t mean any—”

“I know you didn’t, Sergeant. There’s no need to apologize. Just call Tyler by his name from now on.”

“Yes, sir.”

The third floor landing was illuminated by another bare bulb. Kang unlocked the right-hand door and pushed it open.

Tay pointed to the other door, the one on the left. “Who lives there?”

“No one. It’s empty.”

“Was it emp
ty when Tyler died?”

“Yes, sir, it was.”

“These are rental units?”

“Yes, sir.”

“This happened four months ago and both of these apartments have been empty ever since? This isn’t a very popular building to live in, is it, Sergeant?”

“Both apartments are rented by the company Tyler worked for, sir. They use them for their employees. Maybe they didn’t think anyone else would want to live here for a while.”

Tay pointed to the door of the apartment next to Tyler’s. “Does your key work for the other apartment, too, Sergeant?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

Tay waited a moment, but Kang made no move to find out so he prompted, “Why don’t you try it and then we’ll know?”

“It’s just an empty apartment, sir.”

“Please try the key, Sergeant.”

Kang pushed the key into the lock and turned it. There was a
click
and the door opened.

“Just leave it,” Tay said. “We’ll look at Tyler’s apartment first.”

The shutters were all open and there were no curtains. In the dim light that spilled into the room from the street, Tay saw that the apartment was bare. No furniture, no rugs, nothing on the walls.

Kang produced a penlight from his shirt pocket and clicked it on. The beam was surprising wide and bright. Tay looked around as Kang swung the light to the left and then back to the right. There wasn’t much to see but an empty room with white walls and a dark-stained wooden floor.

“His parents cleaned the place out after we released the site, sir. They took his personal things back to the States. Gave away the furniture.”

Tay nodded and walked into the apartment.

“It’s only the three rooms,” Kang said. “There’s a small kitchen over there…”

He flipped the light across the room to a door that was half open.

“And the bedroom’s through there.” Kang indicated a half-open door on the other side of the room with the beam of the penlight. “There’s a bathroom off the bedroom.”

Tay sniffed the air. It was still and heavy. He didn’t detect the smells of ammonia or fresh paint that he would have expected if the place had been cleaned and redecorated. He held out his hand for the penlight and Kang gave it to him.

Tay walked around the living room, played the light over the walls and floor, and glanced into the kitchen. He saw nothing of particular interest to him.

“Where was the body?”

“In the bedroom, sir.”

“You said Tyler’s girlfriend found it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you talked to her?”

“I didn’t talk to her myself, sir, but I read her interviews.”

“Tell me what she said about the discovery of the body.”

“She said Tyler’s last day of work had been on Friday and they had gone out with a group of his friends from work that night. She expected to hear from him on Saturday, but she didn’t. Then, when he didn’t answer any of her texts on Sunday either, she came over here to make sure he was all right. She found the front door unlocked and came in.”

“She opened the bedroom door,” Kang continued, “and found Tyler’s body. She said Tyler’s face was white and his arms were dangling straight down. She knew right away he was dead, but she pushed at the body anyway and it didn’t move. Then she began to scream and ran out of the building. She ran down Duxton Road until she stumbled into an Italian restaurant and they called the police for her.”

Tay nodded and walked to the bedroom door. Placing the palm of his left hand against it, he gave it a little push and it swung open. The bedroom was as empty as the living room.

“Where was the body?” he asked.

“It was hanging from the bathroom door, sir.”

Tay focused the light on the bathroom door. It was a completely ordinary door, painted white exactly like the rest of the room. It was hard to imagine the body of an adult male hanging from it.

“How does a man hang himself from a door?” Tay asked.

“Inspector Chin’s report said Tyler drilled four holes in the bathroom wall and bolted a pulley to it. He fed some kind of long black strap through the pulley and tied it to the toilet to anchor it. Then he screwed another pulley into the top of the bathroom door and pulled the strap through it. He got up on a chair in front of the bathroom door, tied the end of the strap around his neck, and jumped off the chair.”

“That sounds to me like a pretty complicated way to hang yourself,” Tay said.

“That’s one of the things that bothers me, sir.”

Tay walked into the bedroom and Kang followed him across it to the bathroom. The bathroom was so small both men stayed outside and examined it through the doorway. Tay pointed the light at the toilet. It was against the wall on the other side of the sink.

“I don’t see how—”

“Exactly, sir. If you tied something to the toilet and ran it to the top of the bathroom door, it would hit the side of the sink.”

Tay turned his head from the toilet to the door and back again, imagining the strap running from the base of the toilet through a pulley mounted high on the wall to the top of the bathroom door.

“But it might still have worked if the pulley he ran the strap through was bolted high enough on the wall for the strap to clear the sink before it reached the top of the door.”

“But, sir…” Kang trailed off. He seemed uncomfortable.

“Go ahead, Sergeant, spit it out.”

“There are no holes in the wall. If he had mounted a pulley on the wall, there would have to be holes.”

Tay ran the light slowly over the wall behind the toilet. He started at the middle and moved the beam side to side until he reached the top. There were no holes. At least none Tay could see.

“Could they have been filled up?” he asked Kang.

“Not unless somebody did it between the time they took the body down and the time I got here on Monday. I looked for the holes to see how high the pulley had been mounted and there weren’t any. That wouldn’t have been much more than twenty-four hours after the body was found. Why would anybody start making repairs to the wall within twenty-four hours?”

“Did you ask the other officers on scene about the pulley?”

Kang shifted his feet and looked away, clearly embarrassed. “No, sir. I figured I must have misunderstood what I had been told about how the body was hanging, and that wasn’t my part of the investigation anyway. It wasn’t until I saw the final report that I realized I had the method of hanging exactly right. But if I had it right, there would have to be holes in the wall, wouldn’t there, sir?”

Tay thought about it and looked back and forth a few more times from the toilet to the door. Then he ran the light slowly back and forth over the bathroom walls again.

No holes.

Turning around, he examined the bedroom. Like the living room, it was bare, just white walls and a dark-stained wooden floor. He ran the light over the walls, first over the outside wall that had two windows in it, then over the inside walls. Something about the wall opposite the bathroom caught his eye and he walked over and took a closer look at it.

Halfway up the wall there was a circle about an inch in diameter that was reflecting the beam of the penlight in a slightly different way from the rest of the wall. Tay rubbed his finger over the spot, and then pushed on it. It was yielding and rubbery.

“There was a hole here,” Tay said. “It’s been filled with some kind of compound that’s the same color as the wall. I only saw it because whatever it is doesn’t reflect light like the paint does.”

“I don’t see what that could have to do with Tyler hanging himself, sir. It’s too far away from the bathroom door.”

“Nevertheless, something was screwed into the wall here or hung off of it, then it was removed and the hole filled in such a way that no one would notice it.”

Tay flicked the light to the bathroom door and back again.

“A filled-in hole over here, but no holes in the bathroom. This doesn’t make any sense, Sergeant.”

“No, sir, it doesn’t. Something stinks.”

Tay nodded and went back to examining the filled-in circle.

“What’s on the other side of this wall?” he asked after a minute or two.

“I don’t know, sir.” Kang thought about it. “I think it’s probably the other apartment on this floor.”

“Let’s go have a look,” Tay said.

TAY WALKED AROUND
the apartment next door until he worked out which wall was opposite the one he had been examining in Tyler’s bedroom. When he found it, he ran the penlight back and forth at about the same height where the filled-in hole was on the other side. It only took him a few seconds for him to find it.

The crater was about a half-inch deep. A hole had bee
n punched all th
e way through the wall separating the two apartments, and whatever was used to fill the hole had been meant to make it invisible from the other side. Making it invisible from his side was apparently not nearly so important.

“Why would the hole go all the way through, sir?”

Tay shook his head.

“It’s almost like some kind of peephole into Tyler’s apartment,” Kang said. “But nobody would do that anymore. Not with all the tiny cameras you can buy.”

Abruptly Kang stopped talking and looked at the hole.

“You don’t think, do you, sir, that…”

Tay said nothing. He just stood there contemplating the crater high up on the wall of the empty apartment.

“Who would install a camera to watch Tyler’s apartment, sir?”

“Didn’t you say both of these apartments were rented by the company Tyler worked for?”

Kang nodded, and Tay flicked off the penlight.

“I think that’s your answer then, Sergeant. Tyler’s employer wanted to find out what he knew.”

“About what?”

Tay shrugged. “No idea.”

It was after midnight before they walked back down Duxton Road to Kang’s car. A warm breeze from the south carried the smell of the sea, and the air was even breathable again, more or less. At least it was clear enough for Tay to see all the way to the three soaring towers of the Marina Bay Sands a mile or two to the east. Stretching over the tops of all three buildings was an aerial platform fancifully called the Sky Garden, but the platform was blunt at one end and rounded at the other and it always made Tay think of a giant, slightly beaten up surfboard lying across the three buildings. He was pretty certain there was an architect somewhere who was having a huge laugh at Singapore’s expense.

“Did Tyler leave a note, Robbie?”

“They say he did, sir.”

“I don’t see how there can be much doubt. Either he did or he didn’t.”

“The final report has a printout of something Inspector Chin says he found on Tyler’s computer.”

“On a computer? They’re claiming Tyler wrote a suicide note on a computer?”

Tay shook his head. He supposed he shouldn’t dismiss the possibility out of hand. People, particularly younger ones, thought differently now. He understood that. But it was still incomprehensible to him that even in someone’s last moments they would still disdain picking up a pen to commit whatever last words they might have to an actual, tangible piece of paper.

Words mattered, particularly if they were going to be your final ones. They should be tangible, not left behind as electrical impulses. If Tay ever wrote a suicide note, he would do it by filling a Montblanc pen with Platinum Carbon Black ink and inscribing his final thoughts on sheets of Crane thirty-two pound pearl white kid finish stationery. If he were going to go out at his own hand, he would damn well do it with class.

“Yes, sir. Tyler typed the note on his computer. That is, he did… if he really wrote it.”

“Do you have reason to doubt that he did?”

“Only that there’s no way to connect the note to Tyler, sir, even if it was on his computer. There’s no signature, no way to show he really wrote it.”

Another good reason to use paper and pen for your last words
, Tay thought, but he held his tongue.

“What did the note say?” he asked Kang instead.

“That’s another thing, sir. It’s full of praise for the company he worked for. If he loved his job so much, why did he quit?”

“Was the note addressed to anyone in particular?”

“Yes, sir. His parents.”

“What did they say about it?”

“They say he didn’t write it. That it doesn’t sound like him at all.”

Tay and Kang walked past an Italian restaurant called Ricco’s and Tay remembered what Kang had said back at the apartment.

“Is this the place where—”

“Yes, sir. This is where Tyler’s girlfriend ran after she found the body. They called the police.”

The restaurant was dark and empty, long closed for the night. Tay glanced around but there wasn’t anything to see, so they walked on.

“This laptop Tyler supposedly wrote the note on, where is it?”

“I’m not sure, sir.”

“They haven’t returned it to his parents yet?”

Kang shook his head. “We must still have it, sir. It hasn’t been released.”

“Do you know exactly who has it?”

“No, sir, but I could guess.”

“Don’t guess, Sergeant. Do you know for sure who has it?”

“No, I don’t.”

They reached the bottom of Duxton Road and turned left.

“What did the apartment look like when you arrived, Sergeant?”

“It looked like Tyler was packing to move out. There were boxes sealed with tape, stacks of clean clothes folded on the couch, and more clothes in the dryer.”

“Any dirty laundry?”

“None that I can remember seeing, sir. It looked like he had washed and dried everything, but still had a few clothes to fold and pack.”

“Did you find a mobile phone?”

“No, sir. I didn’t see one. I imagine whoever took the laptop took his mobile phone, too. But I did see his airline ticket. It was lying on the kitchen counter.”

“Did you look at it?”

“It was one way to San Francisco on Korean Airlines.”

“Had they finished the photographs by the time you got there? Or was the photographer still working?”

“I don’t think there are any photographs, sir.”

“Of course there’re photographs, Sergeant. There are always photographs.”

“If there are any, sir, they weren’t in the report. I certainly haven’t seen them.”

Tay was still chewing that one over when they got to Kang’s car. Kang hit the unlock button on his remote and they both got in.

“Do you really think somebody was using that other apartment to watch Tyler?” Kang asked.

“Possibly.”

“There could be another explanation for that hole, sir. Something completely innocent.”

“Such as what?”

Kang shrugged, but he didn’t say anything

They sat in silence for a while after that. Then Tay shifted his gaze to Kang.

“Tell me what you really think, Robbie.”

“I don’t know what to think, sir. But something’s not right. Maybe Tyler committed suicide, and maybe he didn’t, but our investigation was shut down before it got started. No one really tried to find out what happened.”

“Are you claiming there’s some sort of vast conspiracy to cover up Tyler’s murder, Sergeant?”

“Well… maybe there is, sir.”

“I don’t see it. What was significant enough about the death of this one young American to make something like that happen?”

“I guess that’s the question, isn’t it, sir?” Kang shifted in his seat and turned toward Tay. “I don’t know who’s behind shutting us down, but it must have come from high up. That’s the only way to explain how this investigation was handled.”

Tay nodded again. He figured a
good nod generally made him look thoughtful even when he didn’t know what to think, so he nodded a lot.

“Do you have any reason to think anyone else was in the apartment with Tyler when he died?” Tay asked after a moment. “Witnesses? Fingerprints? Anything like that?”

“If there were any witnesses, their statements didn’t make it into the report. And they didn’t fingerprint the apartment.”

“They didn’t look for prints? Not at all?”

“No, sir.”

“At least there was an autopsy, wasn’t there?”

“Yes, sir, but it was only what you’d expect. Cause of death was determined to be asphyxia due to hanging. What else?”

“What did the toxicology report say?”

“Nothing really. No drugs or alcohol in his system.”

“Who conducted the autopsy?”

“The Institute for Forensic Medicine, sir. Just like always.”

“I meant the name of the pathologist.”

“Oh sorry, sir. I don’t remember.”

The street where Kang was parked was deathly quiet. It crossed Tay’s mind that it was a suitable place for talk of autopsies and toxicology reports.

“Are you going to help this reporter investigate Tyler’s death, sir?”

Tay didn’t know what to say to that so he said nothing at all.

“I know it’s not my place to say so, sir, but I think you should. Somebody needs to stir this up.”

“Let me just be absolutely clear about this, Sergeant. Are you telling me you think Tyler Bartlett was murdered and then the scene was doctored to make it look like he committed suicide?”

“No, sir, I'm not saying… well, I don’t really know.”

“Is that a yes, Sergeant, or a no?”

“It’s a maybe, sir. It’s possible he was murdered and the scene was doctored. It’s possible.”

“So let’s say I go poking around and decide you could be right about that. Let’s say I even find some solid evidence you’re right. And I give that evidence to Emma Lazar. What then?”

“I guess she writes a story about it.”

“You’re telling me you think the police will reopen their inquiry into Tyler Bartlett’s death if the Wall Street Journal runs a story saying they were wrong?”

Kang hesitated. “Probably not, sir.”

“So what good does it do for me to find evidence that the police were wrong?”

“There’s a coroner’s inquest coming up. The boy’s parents can give the evidence to their lawyer to present.”

“Do you think a coroner’s inquest in Singapore might arrive at a verdict contradicting the conclusions of the police inquiry?”

Kang hesitated again. “I suppose not, sir.”

“Then why in the world would I get involved, and why would you—”

“Because it’s the right thing to do, sir. Isn’t that a good enough reason?”

Tay sighed and consulted the back of his left hand, but he found no useful guidance there.

“Look, Robbie, these days I’m just another old duffer spending his afternoons sipping lattes at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Even if I wanted to help this woman, I don’t see what I can do for her.”

Kang looked at Tay for a long moment, and Tay saw the disappointment in his eyes. Without another word, Kang started the car and pulled away from the curb.

Kang stopped on Orchard Road in front of Peranakan Place, a lively bar area still thronged with drinkers even that late at night. Emerald Hill Road came to a dead end just on the other side of Peranakan Place so a short stroll among the tables of cheerful drinkers would see Tay emerge not a hundred feet from his house. If ISD was logging his comings and goings, that was a far better way to return home than to have it recorded somewhere that Sergeant Kang had dropped him off.

Tay got out of the car, and then he turned back and bent down.

“Thanks for dinner, Robbie.”

“You’re welcome, sir.”

“One other thing. Can you get me a copy o
f the investigative papers in the Tyler Bartlett case without telling anyone that they’re for me?”

A slow smile spread over Kang’s face. “I thought you weren’t going to ask, sir.”

“I’ll read the investigative papers, and then I’ll decide what I’m going to do. I can’t promise you any more than that, Robbie. Good night.”

“Good night, sir.”

Tay straightened up, closed the passenger door, and walked toward home.