seymoure

Casefiles

“Search well and be wise, nor believe that self-willed pride will ever be better than good counsel” -Aeschylus

The note from Eddie said that there were five murders. Two were passed off as accidents, two ‘natural causes’ and one was a suicide. All of which were made to look like they didn’t even rate investigation. From the envelope I drew the first of the newspaper articles. I was instantly glad that a few print newspapers were still in business. There was a CD included, so I knew he had something visual to show me, but I would look at that after I landed.

The article was from the Sacramento Bee, one of the sillier named papers in the country, but a good one. It was dated for 18 days ago. The small blurb was circled in red ink.

“An accident happened last night at the Muenster Hotel in downtown Sacramento at 3:15 a.m. Gary Barton of Los Angeles was in town on business and staying at the hotel. The elevator, which was installed in 1916, broke loose and crashed approximately 9 floors. Detective Nate Gable said that death was instantaneous and that no reasons for concern that there was foul play were found. Gable was single, only child of Christine and Kent Gable in San Diego. Mr. Gable was an Agent for the Pacific Insurance Co.”

Hell of a small account that summed up the end of a man’s life.

The next article was from the San Diego News (not a terribly creative moniker for a journal) and said:

“On Saturday at 5:00 p.m. a 2008 Legend Cub private plane crashed near Lake Murray, just northeast of San Diego. The craft slammed down on the beach but the only casualty was the pilot, one Sarah Browning.

“At this time little is known about Browning, as she had not filed a flight plan when the plane took off from Brown Field just moments before. Police said she appeared to be in her late 30’s and was only identified by the contents of her handbag. She was listed as single and lived in Los Angeles. The authorities suspect no foul play.

“We will tell you more when the police reveal further details.”

Elevator accident and a pretty hinky sounding plane crash? Perhaps the elevator wasn’t looked into because of its age, but a person who was alone in a plane that had posted no flight plan and crashed almost immediately? I was going to have to check into these both. I would look at the others once I had a small idea what I was facing.

But I can say that Eddie’s certainty that something was wrong with these added to the strange aspects of the cases really whetted my appetite.

Time to do some investigating!

Both of the ‘natural causes’ cases were heart attacks, never something you can dismiss as un-suspect when it is coupled with other questionable circumstances.

Then the topper. The suicide was with a typewritten note (unsigned) and a fall from a 20 story window.

Any one of these could be ignored by itself; after all, every one of them took place in a different city. But all the victims were from a single section of Los Angeles. They all left town to die. That in itself was odd. That many people and not one of them died at home? Or at their work? Or around anyone who knew them? That asked for some checking.

I was going to check out the elevator first, then the airplane. I would check the suicide after that, and by then I should be getting some kind of idea about the shade of what was going on.

At that moment the plane hit some violent turbulence. I hoped it wasn’t some kind of omen.

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Continue on to Chapter 6