Fatal Encounters
Chapter 3
by Irv Pliskin
White haired, portly, obviously American , he was standing at what he considered the main
entrance of Harrods in Knightsbridge, London.
American from the clothes: he was overdressed for the time and the occasion. Blue button down oxford shirt, striped rep tie, Brooks brothers three button blazer jacket in a rich navy blue and light but beautiful gray flannel slacks. He wore dark brown, thick soled bluchers and solid color black socks.
He looked like what he was presenting himself as, an Ivy league undergraduate 40 yeas earlier.
Carl was waiting there for a woman he had met only on the internet, as he had so many times before. He decided he would have to change his pitch, a little. Eliana had almost trapped him when he said the grave they cavorted on in Cambridge was that of his father. Those guys had died too many years ago. He needed to come across as being younger, so maybe It’ll be my grandfather. That would work, and my dad bought it during Nam. That would work too.
The grave thing is a good shtick. If they come across then, I know I've got a live one. I’ll have to consider it.
Where the hell is that bitch? She should be here by now.
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There was a pretty sharp wind on the Delaware that Saturday Morning. Pack Parson was sitting in his small boat, his Evninrued set low for trolling, with a line hanging over the side. He hoped that he might catch something today, something big enough to make the trip from Princeton to the river worthwhile. A good-sized Bass would placate his wife who had had many chores lined up for him. Any good-sized fish would do.
He pulled close to the rocks near the shore, let the boat drift and cast in that direction. Sometimes the big ones got over there and they might be hungry. Pack caught something, the Shakespeare started to whir, and he pulled against it. The line got taut but there was no further movement. It was only thirty pound test, so he slowly moved the boat in the direction of whatever it was he had hooked on to. it was pretty big, he could tell.
He got close, looked down and almost fell out of the boat. Looking up at him was a human skull, leering through the water. He was hooked onto what was left of a human body.
He could see parts of it through the water, and it was pretty unnerving.
He pulled his cell phone out of his fishing jacket pocket and dialed 911. When the operator came on the line he said, “Ma'am, my name is Pack Parson and I am fishing here on the Delaware just below Upper Black Eddy. I have a problem; I think my line is snagged on a body in the water. Can you send some one to help me here? Yes ma'am.. I’ll stay right here until someone comes, that way they can find the spot easily. I’m wearing a red jacket, and my boat is dark green. Just a little row boat with a small Evinrude on it.”
Within minutes, a state police cruiser pulled up on the road along the river and a Statie with a loud hailer got on the air.
“Are you okay out there?” he asked. Pack shook his head yes very vigorously.
“Okay,” the cop said. “Hang on. You got a cell phone out there, right?”
Again, vigorous shake. “Well wayncha call me on mine and we can talk more easily.” He gave him his number. Once on the phone the cop told Pack to hang on, they would have someone down there pretty soon.
After a while, a larger boat showed up with a team of state police. A cop pulled his boat over, cut the engine and asked, “Watchagot?”
Pack motioned to his line; the cop looked over, nodded and went to work. Within minutes, they had the body in a plastic tub on the deck of their boat.
Pack followed them to a dock and told them, in detail, what had happened and how he had found the body.
The body was in pretty lousy condition. It had, obviously, been in the water a long time. The fish and the sand and the rocks had taken their toll.
The cops and the coroner determined that It was the body of a woman.
There had been several women’s bodies floating in the Delaware over the past few years, and the Staties had an open case file on them. This was one more.
Sate Police Detective, Jerry Hallen had been troubled over the past few years by the increase in the number of unidentified women’s bodies that had been found in the lower Delaware. Five unidentifiable women’s bodies in five years was too many for coincidence, he felt. His instincts told him that there was a pattern to this and he was very concerned.
Over the past few years, Hallen had had some contact with the Vidoq society of Philadelphia, a group of former police professionals who spent their time solving “cold cases” He had originally been rather disdainful. Hallen had pooh-poohed the idea that such a thing was possible. Then he began to hear about some of their successes, and he eventually viewed the results as impressive. So he decided to ask if perhaps, just perhaps, someone there might be able to help him with this latest grisly find.
He had heard about Frank Bender, a forensic sculptor and a leading member of the Vedoq Society. Bender had a world wide reputation for being able to reconstruct a face from just a skull, and very often the results were absolutely startling. The sculpted head Bender created looked exactly like pictures of the deceased. Hallen figured that if he had a picture of this poor woman, he might be able to get a lead on her identity.
He called Bender who came out and looked at the woman’s skull. “Maybe we have a pretty good chance at an ident here," Bender said. “This gal had a cleft palate. See, here, it was fixed pretty good, but she still had one. That might help us find out who she was.”
When Bender began to work, he also realized from subtle dental technique differences that the woman had spent some time in Great Britain. Since he knew that Americans who went to Britain to work, usually had their dentistry when they come home for a visit, he assumed that this person may even have been British.
“Look," he said to Hallen on the phone, “some of the dental work is very specifically British. They make their crowns a little differently from ours. I can get some dental X-rays and I think that might help with an ident in the long run, too.”
Hallen sent some pictures of the finished head to Inspector Murchinson, an acquaintance of his at New Scotland Yard, with an explanation of what they were. He asked Murchinson to see if there might not be a missing person that matched his head.
One afternoon at lunch Murchinson mentioned the idea of forensic sculpture to a friend of his who was a reporter on a London tabloid. The reporter was impressed and sensed a story.
“Does it really work?”
“I think so,” Murchinson said. “My American friend sent me some pictures of a head that was reconstructed from a skull. It looks real to me. It certainly does.
“You know,” he added, “crime is pretty much universal. It is possible that I got a picture reconstruct of a skull of a British lady who died in America. They found her in a river.”
Over his Kidney Pie he explained to the reporter for the Galaxy Express what the process was. He told him about Bender and the photo, and said that Bender had thought the skull was of a Brit, something about the dental work. The reporter was intrigued; the whole idea could make a good human-interest story, he thought. They ran it in the paper on a slow news day under a two column headline. American Forensic Sculptor recreates head believed to be missing British Woman. Do you know this lady?
There was a full two-column picture of the bust that Bender had created. Eliana looked almost alive in the photo. Leaning back at his desk in the Extraordinary Antiquities showroom, Chris Andrews turned to one of his colleagues and said, “Have you heard about the bloke in America who says he can reconstruct faces from skulls? It says here they found this skull they think is a British lady, and they rebuilt the face. Here, take a look.”
His associate looked at the picture and gasped.
“You know,” she said, “that looks just like Eliana. You don’t know her Chris, she left here about a year ago to go to America with a fellow she met on the internet. She promised to write, but I haven’t heard from her.” Has anyone? She wondered. She looked at the picture again, read the story and reached for the telephone.
When the phone rang at his desk Inspector Murchinson was looking at the two column story in the Galaxy Express. It was one of London’s most popular tabloids and if the idea were to work, this was a good way to find out.
The story had a very provocative headline: “Do you Know this Woman?” And it showed a reconstructed bust of the dead, unidentified woman created from just the skeleton of the head by American forensic sculptor, Frank Bender of the Philadelphia based Vidocq Society.
Murchinson was wondering if the story would do any good for them, or if it was just another chase in the darkness of crime. He picked up the phone. “Murchinson.”
“Sir,” a lady said. “I'm Maggie Morgan of Extraordinary Antiquities LTD. I don’t know if this means anything, but I was looking at the photo of the bust of the dead woman that is in the paper today, and I think I may know who she is. I am not sure, mind you, but if there is a chance”
Murchison felt his heart jump. Such quick results. “Yes, Mrs. Morgan, tell me about it please.”
“Well, we had a young woman here at the company who looked much like your bust. She even had a scar where you show one on her upper lips, from some sort of palate operation, I think.”
“Yes, go on please.”
“Well, she left the firm about a year or so ago to take a holiday in America with a man she had met on the internet. She promised to write, but no one has ever heard from her and when I saw this picture, it looked so much like her; I thought I should call and tell you about it. It really does look a lot like her.”
“Thank you," Murchinson said. “For calling. Give me your name and address please and I'll come over and we can talk.”
He interviewed Mrs. Morgan.
”Yes, inspector, she met this man, I don’t know his full name, but I think she called him Carl, on the internet. I thought it was silly and dangerous, but the poor dear, she was somewhat lonely. Alone, you know. She felt her cleft palate made her undesirable. She lisped, too, when she was nervous. ‘Didn’t do much for self image, I’ll tell you. But she was wrong, she was perfectly fine, didn’t even talk funny, you know. She was a luv, she was.”
“At any rate she met this man, frightfully rich, apparently. He flew over just to meet her and she had a wonderful few days. She told me about it. He had a very fancy hotel room and they had gourmet dinners. He was so rich; she was so taken with him. And then he asked her to come to America with him, see the sights, you know. He even waited a fortnight for her so she could give proper notice, he did. Very nice man. I think he may have paid the rent for her flat for a year or even more for her too. So far as I know she still has the flat and her things are still there. Just a little one room and bath over near Hyde Park, you know. I think she still has the place.”
“Hmm,” Murchinson said. “We’ll check it out. You have the address, do you?”
“No, but I am sure it is in the company records. Let me see if I can get if for you.”
Maggie left her desk and went to the offices in the back of the showroom. She returned a few moments later with Eliana’s address written on a sheet of paper. She handed it to the police man who thanked her and then left to go to the young woman’s flat.
It was on the other side of Hyde Park from Harrods, in the Bayswater section of London.
Eliana had lived in a vintage apartment building, well kept in good repair. Murchinson showed his credentials to the landlord, and the picture he had of the woman whom he assumed was Eliana, and the landlord was quite shocked.
“This is from a dead woman you say? It looks just like the tenant who lived here.”
The landlord let him into the flat, and the inspector poked around. The place was neat and orderly, but it had the musty smell of disuse.
The landlord confirmed Maggie's information. Miss Montward, Miss Eliana Montward had indeed arranged to pay rent in advance.
“I don’t know where she got that much money, but she gave it to me in cash. And I wrote a receipt for her,” he said. She said she was gone on a protracted trip. That was some time ago. I have the date in my records. I’ll get it for you if you like. "You know,” the landlord a plump, organized man said, "she promised to let me know where she could be reached, but I’ve not heard a jot from her. Not a jot. Not like her, you know, she was a lady you could rely on. Very strange.”
He looked again at the picture in the paper. “That’s her. That’s our Miss Montward. She’s dead you say. That picture’s been reconstructed from a dead person's skull?. Well, I’ll be. I really will. How did you Bills manager to do that?.”
“It wasn’t us,” Murchinson said. “The cops in America did that. They found her skeleton floating along in a river in the states and they have specialist there who can determine from the skull what the person might have looked like. He did it from the skeleton he did. Good likeness is it?”
“Just about perfect,” the landlord said, “you can even see the scar she had on her lip, from the cleft palate, you know. Didn’t affect her speech at all, that cleft palate, but she sometime lisped a little. Inspector, since she won’t be coming back, what do I do with the flat? Do you think I can get it ready to lease again?”
“I don’t know,” Murchinson said. “Let’s see what we can find. She may have left instructions, or even a will. She has possessions, I am sure and you’ll need to know what to do with them, too. She doesn’t owe you any money does she?”
“Well, no.”
“We’ll have to find out what is happening, I’ll get back to you in just a few days.”
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Carl, coming back to London on the train from Cambridge was holding hands with his second conquest since Eliana. He looked up and saw someone reading the Galaxy Express. The tabloid was open to a picture of a woman that looked familiar. He stared at it. He was sure it was a picture of Eliana. He felt a physical jolt, and the flop sweat started. Jesus H. Christ, he thought. Where the hell did they get that? Oh, damn. What is going on?
To be continued in Chapter 4.
