Monkey Puzzle Read online

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  Paula Gosling

  MONKEY

  PUZZLE

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  Contents

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

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  ALSO BY PAULA GOSLING

  A Running Duck

  The Zero Trap

  Loser’s Blues

  Mind’s Eye

  The Woman in Red

  Hoodwink

  Cobra

  Tears of the Dragon

  Jack Stryker series

  Monkey Puzzle

  Backlash

  Ricochet

  Luke Abbott series

  The Wychford Murders

  Death Penalties

  Blackwater Bay series

  The Body in Blackwater Bay

  A Few Dying Words

  The Dead of Winter

  Death and Shadows

  Underneath Every Stone

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  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  TOWN

  Police Department

  Captain Fineman

  Detective Lt Jack Stryker

  Detective Sgt ‘Tos’ Toscarelli

  Detective Pinsky

  Detective Neilson

  Medical Examiner

  Dr Joseph Bannerman

  Other Interested Parties

  Mrs Millicent Feather, widow

  Roger Stewart, Attorney at Law

  Mary-Louise Christie, typist

  GOWN

  Department of English

  Professor Aiken Adamson, deceased

  Dr Daniel Stark, Chairman of Department

  Dr Arthur Fowler, his assistant

  Dr Jane Coulter, Professor

  Dr Edward Pinchman, Professor

  Peter Rocheleau, Associate Professor

  Chris Underhill, Poet-in-Residence

  Franklin Heath, Associate Professor

  Lucille Grey-Jenner, Associate Professor

  Kate Trevorne, Instructor

  Richard Wayland, Instructor

  Mark Heskell, Instructor

  Karen Lasterman, secretary

  Other Interested Parties

  Dr Liz Olson, Dept. of Romance Languages

  Sam Klusky, Library Security Guard

  B. Jackson, Grantham Hall Security Guard

  Jody Longman, student

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  MONKEY PUZZLE

  ONE

  He always told himself it was like watching a silent movie. Safe and solitary in the dark vastness of the closed Uni-versity Library, the Security Guard looked across at Grantham Hall. It was mostly in darkness now, except for the reception areas in the forward corner of each floor, including the English Department in the penthouse addition.

  The Guard drank some coffee and picked a stray piece of ham out of a back molar. He’d got into the habit, once he’d made his first round, of sitting and casting a benign eye over his kingdom. Immediately before him lay the snow-covered Mall, then the bulk of Grantham Hall, and beyond it in the distance the glittering spider’s web of the downtown area, lights strung gracefully between the surrounding hills.

  At this hour it was, of course, a largely uninhabited kingdom. Earlier there had been the cleaners. They were usually good for a laugh; dropping things, reading people’s mail, tripping over their buckets, scratching their crutches and picking their noses because they thought they were alone. Everybody over there thought they were alone – but they weren’t. Not while he was watching.

  Now there was only the one light left – that of an office halfway along the penthouse floor. One of the offices of the English Department. It was like a television screen, suspended over the blackness, tuned in especially for his entertainment.

  Within the office a man sat, looking at photographs.

  ‘Oops, almost caught you, didn’t he?’ the Guard said, suddenly, sitting up with interest. The door of the office had opened and the man had turned the pictures face-down on the desk. Obviously the visitor hadn’t bothered to knock. Well, well – a little something to look at after weeks and weeks of boredom. The Guard was delighted. Amateur observer though he was, it was very clear that an argument was developing over there – wild gestures, red faces, wide-open mouths.

  He took another swallow of coffee and belched gently. His faith was being rewarded. This was really funny. The two of them were getting crazy over there. Maybe one would have a heart attack or something.

  Maybe tonight would be different.

  TWO

  ‘For Chrissakes, I can handle it!’

  Lt Jack Stryker plucked at the shirt over his waist. ‘I’m getting fat hanging around here shoving paper. Look at that.’

  Captain Fineman and Sgt Toscarelli examined Lt Stryker’s waistline with owlish concentration. A fold of shirt, yes, and perhaps a small flare of flab above the belt, but no more. Stryker was pinching air, doing a Fat Man act. His bright blue eyes whisked from Captain to Sergeant like a spectator at a tennis match, wondering which one had the weakest defence.

  ‘I’m fine, I tell you,’ he insisted. ‘Hell, how bad could it be up there? So some kid got a lousy mark on his term paper, lost his temper and offed his professor. Big deal. It’s not as if I were going to rip open the rotten underbelly of our sick urban society, is it?’ He pronounced this bit of journalese with sarcastic relish. ‘They’re not exactly bums in uni-versities, you know. They’re civilised people.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Fineman growled. ‘And you’ll roar in there like Attila the Hun, getting up their noses . . .’

  ‘Aw come on,’ Stryker pleaded, switching instantly from anger to placation. ‘I went there for two years myself. I even still take a night course now and again, you know? I’ve got manners – I just don’t waste them on you guys, that’s all. Have I stuck the hard grind all these years just to end up with my ass parked permanently behind a desk? It was only pneumonia, you know, not the bubonic plague. Put me back on the street, Fineman, help me avoid premature hypertension. Let me catch a small killer now and again. Soothe me.’

  Fineman’s mouth twisted into a reluctant one-sided smile. Maybe it was time to turn Stryker loose. He’d been out of the hospital for nearly a month, now. ‘All right, all right,’ he muttered. ‘It’s yours.’

  ‘Hallelujah!’ Stryker headed for the office door.

  ‘But Stryker –’ Fineman’s voice was cautionary.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Be nice.’

  Stryker’s eyes widened into vast blue innocence. ‘A natural charmer like me? How could I be anything else?’ He grinned and shot through the door before Fineman could change his mind. Beyond the glass they saw him grab coat and hat, scrabble in his desk for a decent ballpoint, finis
h his coffee, knock over his desklamp. He was suddenly very busy.

  Fineman peered over his glasses at Toscarelli. ‘He still looks lousy,’ he said, bleakly.

  ‘He feels lousy,’ Toscarelli replied.

  Fineman boiled. ‘Goddammit, he told me . . . Stryker! Hey! Stryker!’ he shouted through the half-open door.

  But Stryker was gone, humming down the hall like a top, his sneakered feet slapping the terrazzo with dedication, his curly hair fluttering over his receding hairline, his scarf flying high. He was alive again.

  Toscarelli sighed and prepared to follow him. He was a huge, dark, steady man. He’d been Jack Stryker’s partner for a long time, his bulk a necessary ballast to Stryker’s often self-destructive forward motion. He was in the habit of picking up the pieces, and Stryker counted on him to be there. They were an effective team, and Toscarelli, too, had fretted at Stryker’s forced inactivity, due to an injudicious all-night wait for a no-show informer, and a following guest appearance at the hospital. Stryker had almost got away from Toscarelli then, and he wasn’t about to let it happen again. He loved the little bastard like a brother, and had long ago reserved the right to strangle him himself – no interference brooked. As he swung toward the door, Fineman’s voice caught him over a frantic rustle of paper.

  ‘Here, dammit, in this memo. Look. In black and white. “The medics have given me the all-clear to return to full-time duty.” He says it right here. He signed it.’

  Toscarelli’s big shoulders rose and fell. ‘He lied.’

  Stryker scowled out of the car window as Toscarelli wound through the one-way system that surrounded the campus and finally drew up at the foot of the Mall. As he got out of the car he grunted slightly at the impact of the cold air. He pulled his tweed cap down over his forehead then tilted his head back to glare up at the face of Grantham Hall. One of the new ones. In the old days the English Department had been haphazardly housed in a couple of the graceful old houses on Lafayette. The expanding university had taken over block after block of these old houses through the years. But now, with the possibility of becoming a State University as a carrot, it had mulishly begun an architectural blitz, razing the old to raise the new. To Stryker the university had become an inhuman place. The proportions were wrong. The new buildings might have won architectural awards, but how could you curl up with a good book inside a T-square? He didn’t know how the kids could study or feel a part of it. Sure, the place was full of air and light – cold air and cold light. In the old English Department he might have suspected the butler did it. This place? Maybe a robot.

  They took one of the two lifts marked ‘Faculty Only’ up to the penthouse floor. The doors slid open into a white-walled reception area lined with square plastic padded benches behind square chrome and glass tables.

  The only colour was provided by a huge abstract painting that glowered down in conflicting shades of arsenic green, yellow, orange, shocking pink and black. A small plaque beneath said it was entitled ‘Struggle’ and had been a gift of the Art Department.

  ‘Who were only too glad to get rid of it, I’ll bet,’ muttered Stryker, unbuttoning his coat.

  ‘What?’ Toscarelli was staring around.

  ‘Nothing.’ Stryker crossed the lobby. ‘Hey, look, the stinkers had a party and didn’t invite me.’ He peered through the glass walls that enclosed an area proclaimed ‘Faculty Lounge’ in gold letters on the glass door. ‘Faculty this and Faculty that – they sure like to draw the lines, don’t they?’ The chairs within looked only marginally more inviting than those in Reception. On two of the tables pushed against a side wall there was a litter of empty plates, scattered toothpicks and a few dried triangular sandwiches that lifted their corners beside overflowing ashtrays. The windows on the far side of the glass cube overlooked the empty Mall and the blank lines of the Library. Below, under the black lacework of the leafless trees lining the Mall a lone bus growled its way over the crisp half-inch of new snow that had fallen during the night, leaving glistening black snail-tracks behind it. Even through the insulation of dead air and glass Stryker could hear the asthmatic engine and the hiss of air brakes as the bus slowed for the lights at the next corner. He took a deep breath, felt emptiness clutch at his chest, and turned it to a cough. ‘Well, where’s the bod?’ he asked, abruptly, thrusting his hands into his pockets.

  ‘Down here,’ Toscarelli said, having made a quick reconnoitre while Stryker was communing with the leftovers from the party. Could it be, Stryker thought as he followed the big man, that the corpse is a leftover, too?

  They went down a narrow corridor that ran parallel to the Mall, doors on either side. Offices overlooking the Mall had to be the choice ones, Stryker concluded. The ones on the inside would have been gloomier, and reserved for peasants, starvelings, and Baconians, no doubt.

  The scene of the crime was one of the offices overlooking the Mall, and a uniformed officer stood by the door. They stepped over the long thick ribbon of partially dried blood that curled over the doorsill. The room was about fifteen by ten, walls white, floor grey linoleum. Book-filled shelves were hung on both end walls. Filing cabinets stood against the inner wall that backed on to the corridor. The outer wall was bare save for the radiators under the windows. A couple of neutral paintings hung over the filing cabinets, but otherwise the place was workmanlike and rather bleak. It would have been cold, too, if it hadn’t been filled with men. Between them he caught his first sight of the body – and of Bannerman, the Medical Examiner, crouched over it.

  That was something, anyway. Stryker liked Bannerman, who still retained a sense of humour, despite having to deal with customers who were no longer in a fit state to laugh at his jokes.

  Stryker then cast an eye over the two junior detectives who had been despatched immediately following the uniformed officer’s call. The older one, Pinsky, he knew and trusted. He was relieved to see he’d been assigned to the case. Pinsky was a tall, shambling man of about Stryker’s age. He had a long, lived-in face and always looked as if he were wearing a larger man’s clothing picked up by accident in some steam-fogged Turkish bath. The other one was a new face – Neilson? That was it. He’d come on to the strength while Stryker was still in hospital. Young, dark, well-dressed and sleek, he looked like a smart-ass, but Stryker reserved his judgement. With training, many smart-asses turned out to be smart. (Some, of course, turned out to be just the other half.) Pinsky seemed able to put up with him – so maybe the kid had something.

  Stryker glanced at Donovan, the photographer. ‘Don’t forget my extra prints,’ he reminded him.

  ‘So you can get everything backwards? I won’t forget,’ Donovan grinned. Every time, on every case, Stryker asked for two sets of photographs, one normal, one reversed, in which left became right. He claimed you saw things differently that way. He’d read it in a book somewhere. Nothing had come of it, and probably wouldn’t this time, either. But Donovan always obliged to keep the peace because Stryker could be an awful nag.

  Stryker went over to stand beside the body. ‘Messy,’ he observed.

  ‘More than you know,’ Bannerman said, looking up. ‘The killer went way over the top on this one. At least ten wounds in the chest – probably from that knife.’ He gestured towards a brass dagger visible through folds of a clear plastic bag. Stryker recognised Pinsky’s small backhand script on the tag. ‘Paper knife or letter-opener, looks like,’ Bannerman said.

  Stryker stepped over the legs of the corpse and bent down. ‘Quite an item. Belong to the deceased, you reckon?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Odd thing for a college professor to have.’ The knife was actually a heavy brass dagger, the handle in the shape of an erect human phallus, life-sized and fully detailed.

  ‘Here’s another odd thing – for a college professor not to have. Take a look,’ Bannerman said.

  Stryker and Toscarelli bent over the body. Stryker said noth
ing, but Toscarelli gave a choke of revulsion and turned away, making quickly for the door. ‘Sorry,’ Bannerman apologised. ‘I forget about Tos’s stomach.’

  ‘You might have spared a thought for mine,’ Stryker said, looking around. ‘Have you found it?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘Damned if I know. Done after death – fortunately for him. I make him dead sometime between eleven and one, pending the post-mortem. The windows were left open, and the central heating goes off in this place around eleven – the cold made him stiffen up faster. Even so – I’d say no earlier than eleven.’

  ‘Did he put up a fight?’ Stryker asked.

  Bannerman shook his head. ‘Nope – at least, I don’t think he did. Has a hell of a dent on the left temple – probably knocked out before he was stabbed.’

  ‘From the front or the back?’

  ‘Could be either.’

  ‘Windows opened by the killer, you think?’ he asked, going over to inspect the catches, which bore traces of fingerprinting powder.

  ‘Maybe,’ Bannerman said. He was rolling the corpse over and the out-flung right arm, stiffened by rigor, rose over his shoulder to point to the ceiling. For a moment Stryker was visited by the whimsical notion that the corpse was waving at him, trying to get his attention.

  ‘No prints on the window latch,’ Pinsky said. ‘Only smudges.’

  ‘Gloves?’

  ‘Why not? It’s winter, isn’t it?’

  Stryker looked down at his own hands. He was wearing gloves himself. Did that mean the killer had come in from outside? The victim was not dressed for outdoors. He wore a beautifully soft grey suit which looked like cashmere, an ivory shirt, crimson tie, black shoes and black socks.

  ‘Is that a red tie or – ’

  ‘Red tie,’ Bannerman nodded. ‘The blood ran down over it, but the tie was also red to start with.’ He pulled back the jacket and showed Stryker the stab and blood pattern. ‘He was half on his side when the killer finished with him – position of post-mortem lividity confirms that. These are big wounds. If he’d stayed on his back most of the blood would have remained in the body. Turned on his side, facing the door, the poor bastard just drained to death.’