The Carma Klown 4

Chapter 4

© 2013 by the author

Monday, ca. 6:45 p.m., June 7, 2010

The man caught the end of the story. He had just walked into his apartment, dumped his tool case in the closet by the entrance, and tossed his keys into the tray on the hallway table. As he went into the kitchen to put the kettle on for tea, he grabbed the remote and clicked on the TV. He was measuring tealeaves into the pot when he heard, “Leading the investigation into what many are now calling ‘The Carma Klown Capers’ is Captain Stephen Altmann, head of the Midtown Major Crimes Division.” There was a pause, and then another man spoke. “We are pursuing several promising leads, but we cannot discuss them . . . .” Several people began shouting questions even before the speaker finished. The last words of his meaningless pabulum were overwhelmed by the din of a hundred voices.

As that noise faded into the background, the first voice spoke again. “There you have it, Angela. In response to complaints from the business community, Mayor Beveridge Zuckermann today announced the formation of a special task force to find and stop the man calling himself The Carma Klown. This is Bob Starling for WHM News.”

“Thank you, Bob,” a woman’s voice said. “We’ll have more on The Carma Klown on WHM Local News at 11, and of course we will continue to keep you updated on this shocking story, which has taken a tragic turn following the apparent suicide last night of The Carma Klown’s latest alleged victim, John Rossiter, founder and CEO of Rossiter Investments. Next up, a heart-rending story emerging in the Southport district of Renton. Early this morning a train severed eight-year-old Cathy Parker’s pet boa constrictor into three pieces as it crawled across the tracks. The grieving family demands an investigation and new safeguards to prevent further occurrences of pet slaughter on metro area railways. This story and others after these words from our sponsors.”

The man quickly cycled through all the local news broadcasts trying to find more on the investigation. When that search proved unsuccessful, he turned to his computer and found the WHM website and a clip of the entire press conference. He watched it several times. They have nothing, he thought to himself. They have nothing but the videos and the bare fact of Rossiter’s suicide.

He found the mayor’s bluster and the police chief’s bravado amusing. Obviously this had been a PR exercise for them, a photo op to reassure the voters that they were on the job. The police chief had worn his official uniform, with his badge pinned to the left lapel. A dazzling array of ribbons and medals adorned the left breast of the jacket. The chief could almost be a general for all the citations he had won. The epaulettes on the shoulders of the jacket were made of gold braid, and gold chevrons and stripes adorned the sleeves. He wore a hat encircled by more gold braid, and a copy of his badge was embroidered in the center of the crown at the front. And they think I’m a clown, thought the man.

The mayor was dressed more soberly, in a black suit and subdued tie. He spoke earnestly and decisively, the very image of a man to be taken seriously as he promised the quick apprehension of The Carma Klown. “I will not tolerate cyber criminals in my city,” he thundered as his clenched fist struck the podium on the steps of City Hall.

Wrong, Mr. Mayor, thought the man. First, it’s not your city and, second, you will learn to tolerate what I do because you can’t stop me. But I like “cyber criminals”—a step up from “clown.” So much more classy. I wish I had thought of that—the Carma Cyber Criminal, Nefarious Nemesis of No-goodniks. Absurdist Character Assassinations of the Asinine. Additional alliteration at no extra expense. He grinned wryly at the screen and chuckled to himself.

Chief Bronson removed his hat as he stepped to the podium and tucked it under his left arm. The breeze ruffled his silver locks. He must have had his hair trimmed that morning just for the occasion, thought the man. And a shave as well. His pink cheeks were as smooth as a baby’s bottom. “My men,” he said, “will diligently pursue every avenue of investigation until we put The Carma Klown behind bars, where he belongs.”

There was more, but the man tuned the chief out. Instead he concentrated on a man standing quietly behind and to the right of the chief. As the mayor and the police chief spoke, his eyes focused intently on them as if every word they said was worthy of note, but his carefully bland, emotionless expression suggested that his thoughts might not be as respectful. At first glance he might have been anyone in the mayor’s or the chief’s entourage, one of the many bodies enlisted to stand behind the two principal speakers and lend the weight of numbers to their boastful assertions. Like many of the other men and women clustered behind the two officials, he was dressed in a dark suit. But the man’s bearing and manner drew the eye. He stood out even before Chief Bronson said, “Heading the investigation will be Captain Stephen Altmann of the Midtown Major Crimes Division” and the camera zoomed in on him.

Unlike Chief Bronson, Captain Altmann didn’t have to wear a uniform to make the point that he was a cop. His body was compact and solid—he appeared to be in his late forties or early fifties, but he looked like he could still chase someone on foot and run them down, pinning the crook against a brick wall and, in one assured motion, pulling the miscreant’s arms behind his back and cuffing them. The captain’s hairline had receded in the front. He had his graying hair cut short and kept it brushed flat against his scalp. It was so disciplined that it was impossible to imagine that a breeze would ever disturb it. His eyes looked tired—not so much from lack of sleep the night before but from a general exhaustion over many years. He had seen too much to be comfortable. He appeared to be a man who rarely smiled and almost never laughed. His face was a guarded mask of disciplined, squared-jawed aloofness and weary cynicism that marked the distance he imposed between himself and others.

Altmann stepped forward and spoke very briefly. Several promising leads indeed, thought the man. You’ve got nothing, Altmann. Nothing, and that’s all you’ll ever have. Nothing.

The man watched the clip again, just to make sure that he hadn’t missed anything. It all added up to a lot of bullshit, he concluded. A show of force and resolve to placate the big donors to the mayor’s re-election campaign. We’re doing everything we can. Stay tuned for more news. It would be interesting to see what tidbits they would feed the media to tantalize viewers and keep them satisfied. How long would it be before reporters started writing stories about the lack of results? Perhaps I can do something to speed that process up, thought the man. But first I need more information.

He opened the backdoor he had installed in the central police department computer and called up the personnel file on Altmann, Stephen. Altmann was stationed at One Police Plaza and had headed the Major Crimes Division for the midtown area for the past six years. The man hadn’t known that such a division existed. Now I’m a major criminal, he thought. It was oddly flattering. They were taking him seriously now. So I’m a threat. Good. That’s part of the program.

Altmann’s personal data had little of interest for him. His age, height, weight, hair color—none of that mattered. He scrolled down through the list of investigations headed by Altmann over the years. Later, he would read all those files and analyze Altmann’s strategy and tactics. For now, he was interested in just one case, the final one on the list. He clicked on it and found the case number.

A few keystrokes later and he was into the master file for the The Carma Klown case. My case, he thought. I am now a case. It’s official. I’ve even got a case number. He noted the names of the principal investigators and quickly perused their personnel files. The only things that struck him immediately as unusual were the names typed after the headings “spouse and/or next-of-kin” and “emergency contact” for two of the officers: Mark Webster (Dr.) was listed as Phillip Redding’s spouse and emergency contact; Jeffrey Neville Corelli was Michael Chang’s RDP and contact. He had to think for a moment to untangle RDP to registered domestic partner. So, Steve, you’ve picked two gay men to co-head the investigation. How revealing. That gives away your assumptions about The Carma Klown. It shows the line of thought you are pursuing. Set a gay man to catch a gay man. This will be easier than I thought. Their basic assumption is wrong. And why had Jeff’s parents given him that silly middle name? I bet he kept that secret when he was a kid. The playground bullies would have loved “Neville.” I have to find some way to use that. It’s too good to pass up. His thoughts lingered over the mug shots of Chang. The photos didn’t do him justice. They definitely revealed his handsome face, but they didn’t show Michael’s long elegant body. And someone, probably Michael himself, had made sure his hair was combed and oiled into a disciplined mass for once and pulled off his forehead. Which was a pity. Michael was one of those people who looked better when his hair was ruffled and his clothes in disarray.

The file already held a report from each of the three lead detectives on their day’s activities and thoughts. It was so much easier to follow an investigation now that the police department was requiring all its employees to file reports electronically. Every report was tagged by a case number and automatically added to the master file for that case as the writer saved it.

1. Detective Sergeant Jerome Baker had met the grieving widow and son at the airport and escorted them to her mother’s apartment on Central Park West. On the way he had interviewed them. The upshot of his report was that they knew nothing. Rossiter had called his wife around 7:30 p.m. California time the day before he died. He had seemed fine. Nothing unusual. Nor, as far as the wife knew, had Rossiter received any threats. He had never mentioned The Carma Klown. The wife had given Baker a number of names—business associates, his assistants at work, friends—who might be able to help. Baker said that he would begin interviewing those people tomorrow. The sergeant indicated that he had in turn given the widow of list of grief counselors for herself and her son. He noted that he would assign a pair of female detectives to contact her the next day and conduct the follow-up interviews with her and other family members.

2. The report of Detective Phillip Redding, who had evidently been in charge of the investigation at Rossiter’s home, was mostly an inventory of “evidence” removed by the crime scene technicians and a record of the coroner’s initial comments on cause of death (suicide by a single gunshot wound to the right temple). Redding noted the presence of three computers in the house. His team had removed the one in Rossiter’s home office as well as a laptop they found in its case in the hall closet, but recommended asking Mrs. Rossiter if her husband had used the other computer in the house, which was located in the son’s bedroom. Rossiter’s car had GPS and the techs were trying to trace his movements from that, as well as checking phone numbers he had called recently and the texts he had sent and received. The computers and all such data had been sent to “MC” for checking. Redding noted that the first cops on the scene had confiscated the cell phone of the man they found snapping pictures of Rossiter’s body, and he suggested that MC search the web to see if any of the people who had visited Rossiter in the wake of the posting of The Carma Klown video had taken pictures or videos with their cell phones and then posted them. This, he said, should help in reconstructing a time-line of Rossiter’s day following the uploading of the video. Redding had sent out teams of patrolmen to conduct door-to-door interviews with the neighbors. Their initial impressions were that no one had seen anything of value, but different teams would interview the neighbors again over the next few days.

3. A report by Detective Michael Chang, evidently the “MC” referred to in Redding’s report, who had spent the days watching the six videos released so far. The man was gratified to note that Michael had found no leads to his identity in The Carma Klown videos. He was equally certain that none of the methods Michael proposed would help the cops identify him.

He made himself another pot of tea, using decaffeinated green tea leaves this time, and microwaved his dinner. He had a full evening ahead of him—lots to read. And then a new video to plan. Something that would really capture the media’s attention. With some red herrings for the cops. The next video might contain that reflection in the victim’s teeth that Chang had failed to find in the earlier tapes. Or a glitch in the voice-distortion software that would allow Chang to reconstruct a voice. It was shaping up to be a fun evening.