HEINZ NOONAN
and
Captain Heinz Noonan, the "Bearded Holmes" of the Sandersonville Police Department, was trying to relax in his beach chair as half the hot Hawaiian sun made its appearance out of the sea. This was the only time of day the Captain felt safe out of doors. The rest of the day was so unbearably hot that he had no choice but seek the comforting solace of the Commodore Lounge which offered the twin compensations of having a massive picture window that looked over the beach so he could keep an eye on his wife and twin boys -- and the best German beer selection east of Munich.
But this was his beach time, brief though it was, and over the two weeks he was to be in Hawaii, he had every intention of returning to Sandersonville with a tan that was deeper and darker than a fake-and-bake. But he also knew that at 15 minutes a day, usually in the morning, he could not miss even one morning immersion in the golden glow of the Hawaiian sun.
Stretching his lean 6' 2" on the 5' 6" chaise lounge, he tried to find a comfortable way to let his feet and ankles dangle uncomfortably close to the walkway. A passing dog had licked his soles the previous day, snapping his eyes wide open in alarm. Later he learned that the dog was somewhat of a vagabond licker, known to be drawn to those feet which had walked through the occasional spills of beer, wine or mixed drinks in the entryway of the Commodore Lounge. After that first day, Noonan had only entered the Lounge from the beach in his flip-flops. If the dog wanted to lick them, fine.
Halfway between fretful sleep and slumber, the sun washing the underside of his eyelids with a hot, red sheen, he felt the unwelcome presence of another. It was too early to be Otto, Fritz, or Lorelei. He had just purchased a large beer so it could not have been the beach waiter and he had not called a cab.
"Herr Noonan," a soft female voice said softly as he opened his eyes slowly. "You are, Herr Noonan, eh?"
"I hope so," he said as he pulled himself upright.
She was gorgeous, the kind of woman Hawaiian businesses import to use in tourism brochures, at front desks and as the lounge hostess. She was no more than 30, had a thin frame and breasts that were more like hillocks than Mt. Fujis. She had straight black hair that had a bowl cut.
"Herr Noonan?"
"Close enough. Why don't you call me Heinz? What can I do for you?"
She smiled weakly. "Herr Noonan, I'm Hildegard Schlemeyer, the Curator for the Hawaiian Egyptian Museum in Honolulu."
"I didn't know there was a Hawaiian Egyptian Museum."
Schlemeyer smiled just as weakly again. "Well, we are very small but we are very well funded. We don't have an established collection in the sense that most museums have back stock. Actually, I'd say that we are a museum that survives on traveling exhibits. Instead of buying artifacts, we lease shows that travel around the country. That way we have a constantly changing array of antiquities without the expense of buying them."
"Quite clever," Noonan smiled thoughtfully. "But why Egyptian?"
"Over the past five years there has been a growing interest in ancient Egyptian culture by the Japanese, both here and in Japan. An Egyptian museum in Honolulu is much closer to Tokyo in air miles than New York, London, Torino or Alexandria." She smiled wryly, "and it is so much more convenient to mix the beaches of Hawaii with viewing of ancient artifacts."
"Ah," said Noonan smiling. "Mixing pleasure with pleasure, I see."
"The Japanese government allows traveling businessmen to write on such a trip as a tax deduction." She smiled knowingly.
"What about Japanese businesswomen," Noonan replied snidely.
"Not a lot of them yet, " Schlemeyer replied quickly. "It will take a while but sooner or later we'll be there too."
Noonan smiled “Touche'. Now. What can I do for you?"
"I'm really sorry to bother you but I may have a problem and your name was given as a source of contentment.”
“Contentment?”
“That’s right,” she said. “We had a new security alarm system placed into the museum and the people who tested it are the same people who sold us the system. Frankly, we’d like another opinion.”
“Why me?” Noonan pawed around on the sand beneath his chair for his sun glasses. “I’m a detective, not a security guru.” (He pronounced “guru” as “guh-rue.”) Then, looking into her eyes he read her unspoken message. “What you really mean is that something is missing and you’d like to know if it was an inside job.”
“Something like that. An alabaster sarcophagus can’t get very far, size and weight being what it is . . .”
“And what is the size and weight?”
“Seven feet long, four feet wide and weighing in the range of half a ton.”
“Be pretty hard for it to disappear, don’t you think?”
“Yesterday I would have said ‘yes.’ Today I’m inclined to say ‘no.’”
Noonan thought for a moment. Then he peered at Schlemeyer with a sad but understanding look. “When did it disappear?”
“Two days, actually nights ago. We’ve been keeping it secret but we have to open the exhibit soon. We can’t keep anything like this secret much longer.”
* * *
Two hours later Noonan was standing in the combination stockroom of the museum pouring over a wooden crate filled with Styrofoam. Both the terms “stockroom” and “crate” were actually misnomers. The stockroom, for instance, was nothing more than a high vaulted cement tomb which was heat, humidity and temperature controlled. It was long and narrow and ran the entire length of the building. But the room was empty of any other artifacts or packing cases.
“This used to be a theater,” Schlemeyer said as she pointed up. “In the old days that was the stage. Props and the like were stored down here. Today we use it as our stockroom, vault.”
Looking up Noonan could see the bracings for the stage and what was left of the runners along the wall for scenery raising and lowering. There was a service elevator at the back of the vault which had raised its last occupant sometime during the Korean War. At the opposite end of the stockroom was a small room, its door wedged open with a plastic door jam. Noonan leaned around the door and looked inside. There were stacks of boxes, so many that the door could not open completely. On the left hand side were Egyptian artifacts, carefully stacked and labeled.
From the equipment he surmised that this was a lab of some kind. There were a couple of microscopes on a lab table with a wide assortment of specialized equipment for what Noonan assumed to be restoration and preservation of artifacts. There were some canisters behind the microscopes, stacked tallest to shortest with the tallest two canisters equidistance between the two microscopes. Then the heights of the canisters diminished as they proceeded along the back wall toward each of the twin microscopes. Two equally portioned lab lamps were between the two microscopes and a powerful exhaust hood hung from the ceiling.
The floor was solid concrete, smooth and slightly declined so water could be used to wash the floor and it would flow to the lowest part of the room where the drain was located.
Noonan noticed some scratches on the floor and upon examination found them to be wood scrapes. Looking toward the crate he could see where the lower corner of the crate has sustained some damage. Splinters were sticking out at right angles, a clear sign that the crate his hit the floor while being transported.
The crate in which the sarcophagus had been delivered was hardly a rough-hewn collection of timbers and rusty nails. It was a work of art, if that term could be used to describe a crate. It was massive and the pieces fit together in saw tooth fashion. Though nails had been used, the crate could have been held together with glue. The lid was air tight. Three massive hoops of steel had held the top in place but now, severed, stood erect but spread like an open hand.
Noonan fingered the crate. “This is the crate that contained the sarcophagus?”
“That’s right. As you can see, the crate is sturdy enough to keep the alabaster from cracking in case the crate was dropped.”
“How thick was the sarcophagus?”
“You’re thinking the same thing we did,” Schlemeyer said as he directed Noonan’s attention to three holes in three sides of the crate. “We thought someone might have hidden the sarcophagus inside the crate. We drilled three holes to make sure that the crate was just that. If you look closely at the holes you will see that there is wood all the way through, not empty spaces.”
Noonan examined the hole and they looked at the ceiling.
“We looked there too,” Schlemeyer said. “We thought someone might
have winched it up into the ceiling and disguised it to look like the ceiling.
No such luck. The trapdoors from the days when this was a theater have been
welded shut too. We also checked the lab and behind everything and under
everything and watched every running inch of every security camera. That crate
came in with half a ton of sarcophagus. It was here one night. It was not here
the next morning. There is only one crane large enough to handle the artifact,
that one,” she said as he pointed to the crane, “and security has the only key.
Even is someone was able to hotwire the crane, it would have been so loud that
the security guards would have heard it.”
“Who has access to this room?”
“Not that many people. Senior staff, researchers on occasions, janitors, people like that.”
“I’d like to see the security tapes.”
“Not a problem.”
For the next two hours, Noonan watched security tapes, or, rather, he spent two hours watching time codes at the bottom of the tapes to make sure there were no irregularities. While there was minimal activity on the outside of the vault, most notably by a team a janitors that worked their way methodically around the artifacts on the ground and second floors, there was nothing unusual on the tapes. Then he watched the tape of the crate with the sarcophagus being moved into the vault. The camera had been at an odd angle, high up on the wall and pointed at the door so it was hard to get any detail. Thus there was no way to ascertain the weight of the loaded crate but the crane was apparently having a hard time moving the load. It crept painfully as it moved slowly toward the vault, its engine whining and the tires almost flattened with the load. The door to the vault was narrow in the sense that both crate and crane could not fit through so the crate was gently lowered to a dolly just inside the doorway. When the strain of the crate was released, the crane virtually jumped off the ground, its tires appearing to instantly re-inflate. Pushing the crate into the center of the room took six men and even they were struggling. The crate was so heavy that it literally flattened the wheels of the dolly causing the leading edge of the crate to catch on the slight incline of the room when the men did not push together. Slowly they rolled it to a spot just under the camera leaving only a edge of the crate showing.
Fast forwarding the tape, Noonan watched a high speed opening of the crate and a general milling around of personnel. Schlemeyer appeared more like a proud mother hen than a curator as she strutted rather than walked around the crate. There was only one item out of the ordinary. Before the sarcophagus was exposed a photographer suddenly appeared in the doorway. There was a flash which seemed to galvanize Schlemeyer. She advanced on the photographer angrily and there was a heated discussion. Then the photographer was escorted out of the vault area.
The incident seemed to spoil the moment and Schlemeyer then ordered everyone out of the vault. She locked the door and hit the light switch. The room went black in the sense that the lights were out. But it was not pitch black because a weak light from lab bounced its luminescence off the glass of the door. Deep gloom was a better way to describe the darkness. The time code ran unbroken until the next morning when Schlemeyer reopened the vault. With the lights on, it was obvious from the way Schlemeyer acted that the sarcophagus was gone. Thereafter there was a milling around of personnel and the inevitable squadron of police.
“Who was the photographer?” Noonan asked when Schlemeyer joined him in the security booth.
Schlemeyer rolled her eyes. “Abercrombie. He’s kind of a paparazzi want-to-be. A freelancer photojournalist. Sort of. He’ll sell to anyone who’ll buy.”
“Was he invited?”
“Hardly. He shows up at openings and occasions like that but he’s not invited.”
“Why
did he show up at the opening of the sarcophagus?”
“That I don’t know. I can only assume that he thought he could sell
a photograph of the sarcophagus to one of the daily papers. It was not a secret
that the sarcophagus was being sent here. If any member of the public had
wanted to see the sarcophagus in the crate we would have made arrangements. We
are not Fort Knox.”
Noonan walked around the vault scuffing his shoes as he walked. “Where can I find Abercrombie?”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure he’ll find you.”
“Fine. Will you be available this evening? I’ll need the day to work on this.”
“No where else. Will you have something for me by then?”
“Who knows,” replied Noonan as he look a last look in the laboratory. “Stranger things have happened.”
“You’re telling me,” replied Schlemeyer.
THAT'S A PRETTY HEAVY THING TO STEAL.
WAS IT STOLEN?
WHO DID IT?
HOW DID THEY DO IT?
WRITE DOWN YOUR THOUGHTS AND
SEE IF YOU CAN
BEAT NOONAN TO THE SOLUTION!
Schlemeyer had been correct when it came to Abercrombie. Noonan had not made a dozen steps outside the museum before an overweight man in his late 20s pushed a business card Noonan’s left and hand shook his right.
“Abercrombie, I presume.”
“You, presume correctly and you are Chief of Detectives Heinz Noonan of the Sandersonville Police Department, the ‘bearded Holmes,’ I . .”
“’Heinz’ works better. Do you have a car?”
This caught Abercrombie by surprise. “Well, yes, but it’s hardly suitable for a detective of your stature.”
“I’m too tall? Come, Abercrombie, is that what people call you?”
“Close enough. But, yeah, I’ve got a car. Where do you want to go?”
“Here and there. Can you give me an hour?”
“Do I get a story?”
“An exclusive if there is one.”
Abercrombie was beside himself with glee. “This is a promise?”
“Have I ever lied to you?”
“You’ll be the first in Honolulu who hasn’t.”
Noonan smiled and Abercrombie led him toward an old Volkswagen bug, black and pitted with age. Once inside Noonan looked in the back with nostalgia. “Ah, how many wonderful memories.”
“Women?”
“No. Too much beer and not enough women.”
Abercrombie laughed. “Where to?”
“Let’s just circle the Museum slowly.”
“Whatever.”
While the Hawaiian Egyptian Museum in Honolulu was regal on the inside, on the outside it was just another warehouse-like structure. The Museum sat in the corner of a large block with two other smaller structures, both residences, one on each of the two streets left. It stood out from its neighbors because it had no windows on the lower levels. There was a large service entrance in the back with a pullout so small it could not be used for parking. Parking for the Museum was in a large lot across the street from the back of the Museum. Beyond the parking lot was a building going up. Foundation was still being constructed, a rebar jungle gym waiting for cement. The rest of the surrounding neighborhood was upscale homes.
“What are you looking for?” asked Abercrombie, trying to hold the steering wheel in one hand while he wrote with the other.
“Put the paper away,” Noonan chided him. “You’ll get your exclusive. Now, tell me about the Museum. When was it built?”
“Well, in the old days it used to be a theater, you know, as in a place where plays are staged. That was in the 1940s. It closed in the 1960s and became a movie theater and then it closed again. I guess it sat empty for ten or fifteen years before a local nonprofit bought it for a dollar.”
“Do you remember it as a kid?”
“How do you know I grew up here?”
“The only kids who know about the history of buildings are those that grew up around them.”
“Good point. Yeah, born here. I never went inside until it was bought by the nonprofit. Then I did a story on it.”
“What was left inside?”
“Not what you’re thinking. All of the old equipment was gone. The pulleys and levers and all of the other lifting equipment got pulled out and the floor was welded solid. There’s no second room that looks like the vault either. That vault is basically the whole downstairs, the length of the building.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve been doing art stories in Honolulu for years. I’ve been all over that building.”
“Which brings me to why you were there to photograph the sarcophagus? How did you know when to arrive?”
“Oh, I have my sources. Let’s just say that I had an inside tip.”
“That clearly made Hildegard Schlemeyer very unhappy.”
“No kidding. You would have thought she’d be happy to have a little publicity.”
“How many photos did you take?”
“Two or three, not that many.”
“Can I see them?”
Abercrombie looked at Noonan suspiciously. Then he cautiously said, “The sarcophagus was there. I saw it. I photographed it.”
“Do you have the photos?”
“As a matter of fact,” Abercrombie pulled them out of a briefcase and handed them to Noonan. “They’re not very good. I didn’t get much time to set up my shot.”
He was right. The first photo showed the crate and the sarcophagus with Schlemeyer leaning over the crate. In the next photo, she was looking up at the camera with a shocked look her face. The third photo was of the ceiling.”
“How much of it did you see – other than these photos?”
“They were pulling those Styrofoam balls out of the crate when I came in. I guess I saw the top foot or foot and half of the alabaster. That’s what it’s called, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Then I got ordered out.”
“Why did Hildegard order you out so fast after she asked you to be there?”
“I don’t kn. . . . Oh, that was clever! You are very clever man. Yes, you are. That’s right. Hildegard was the one that slipped me the tip. She told me when to get to the vault. That’s why I could not figure out why she got so upset when she exploded and ordered me out of the vault.”
“I can,” said Noonan. “Why don’t you come to the Museum with your photographs this evening at about 8?”
“Will I get my exclusive then?
“Sure will. Bring your camera. Now, drop me off at the Police Station. If you grew up here, you probably know just where it is.”
“Yeah,” replied Abercrombie glumly. “I do indeed know where it is.”
“You call Hildegard and tell her you’ll be there at 8 – by my invitation.”
SOUNDS LIKE HIS SOLVED THE CASE!
HAVE YOU?
ARE ALL THE CLUES THERE?
HOW ARE YOU DOING?
WRITE DOWN HOW YOU THINK
THE
DEED WAS DONE.
“Did you find the sarcophagus?” Schlemeyer was beside herself with anxiety as she leaned against the empty crate in the vault. Schlemeyer was standing next to her Senior Preservationist, a short plump man with a shaved head and a pony tail half way down his back.
“Actually,” replied Noonan. “I did. If you care to authenticate it, it’s in the Police truck right outside.”
“But, but, but . . .”
“You would like to authenticate it, isn’t that correct?”
“Well, of course. I mean,” Schlemeyer was clearly nervous. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Well, to begin with,” replied Noonan. “It’s in the form of rebar.”
“But that’s not possible!”
“Of course it is. This entire exercise has nothing more than an elaborate insurance scam. Would you like to explain this to officer Kiana of the Honolulu Police Department,” he said as he indicated a staunch policeman by his side, “or shall I?” Kiana stood alongside three patrolmen who towered over him.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” snapped Schlemeyer and, to Abercrombie, “will you PLEASE stop taking those pictures.”
“Abercrombie is a good place to start,” Noonan said as he indicated the photographer who was just then taking another shot. Then, to Kiana, “it was actually quite a simple plan. When the real sarcophagus came in, a switch was made. I’m guessing the crate was picked up at airport cargo and then transported to a warehouse where the sarcophagus was removed. The artifact was then spirited away, excuse the pun, probably to a private buyer. Then the crate was filled with rebar, reinforced metal bars like the kind that are being used at the construction site across the street from the Museum. A strong man could have done that in an hour or so. All he had to do was drop the bars through the Styrofoam balls. Then, when the crate was filled with the right weight, steel bands were strapped around the crate.”
“That’s not true,” wailed Schlemeyer. “Even if it is, I didn’t know anything about it.”
“That, my dear lady, is incorrect. This insurance scam could not have been pulled off without your assistance. But you needed a co-conspirator. Someone to authenticate that the sarcophagus was actually in the crate that was filled with rebar. You needed Abercrombie because . . .”
“What!” shrieked the photographer as he made a step toward the door – only to be stopped by Kiana and two of Honolulu detectives.
“Don’t be coy, Abercrombie. It was just a bit too convenient for you to have those photographs of the sarcophagus when I asked for them. Those pictures could have been taken at any time because they did not show the vault, only the sarcophagus. You took those photographs as the sarcophagus was being removed.”
“But, but, but,” Abercrombie was still trying to recover.
“Then,” Noonan continued, “it was simply a matter of moving the heavy crate into the vault. Once inside, Abercrombie showed up at the right instant to allegedly take those photographs. That way there would be proof by non-Musuem personnel that the sarcophagus was actually in the crate in the vault.”
“But there was something in crate,” the Senior Preservationist cut in. “I helped move the crate. The next morning, it was gone. Why couldn’t it have been the sarcophagus? If it wasn’t the sarcophagus, how was that weight moved?”
“That was the ingenious part,” Noonan tipped an imaginary hat in the direction of the Schlemeyer. “If you will notice that this room is long and narrow. The crate was carefully placed here, as per your,” he indicated Schlemeyer, “instructions. Then, during the staged uproar between you and Abercrombie, the vault was cleared. As the light was being turned off, a large mirror was lowered through the floor . . .”
“That would have been a pretty neat trick,” the Senior Preservationist snapped.
“Not really. This is an old theater and if you look along the walls of the vault you can still see the runners where the sets were raised and lowered by pulleys.”
“But those machines were removed years ago,” whined Abercrombie.
“If that’s the case,” replied Noonan as he stepped to the wall. “Why is there fresh grease in this runner?” Sticking his finger in the groove, it was blackened when he removed it. “The one who told me the pulley system was gone was you,” he indicated Abercrombie. “It would have been easy enough to lower the mirror with a pulley system and then destroy both of them after the removal of the rebar.”
“But both Hildegard and Abercrombie were here in the vault. Who lowered the mirror?” The Senior Preservationist asked quite confused.
“You did,” replied Noonan. “This entire caper needed the stamp of approval of a professional. After all, you can’t sell an authentic artifact unless someone with credentials has authenticated it. That was your part in the deception. You authenticated the sarcophagus for the new buyer. Then you went upstairs and waited for the right moment to lower the mirror. Later you assisted in the removal of the mirror and pulley – and probably helped remove the rebar.”
“That still doesn’t explain how the rebar made it out of here,” asked Kiana not at all sure he wanted to believe what he was hearing.
“That was simple. Once the mirror was in place, the rebar was just pulled out of the crate. The camera was watching the mirror in a gloomy room. There is no sound associated with the camera so it didn’t make any difference how much noise was made. The rebar was picked out a few bars at a time and then walked out of the room. The room was dark, the doorway was dark, and the hallway was dark. All the camera recorded was what was displayed on the mirror: a gloomy room – all night. Once outside the rebar was just walked across the street to the construction site and mixed with the other rebar. It would eventually be used in that building. By the time the contractor figured out he had an extra 1,000 pounds the evidence would be gone.”
“Then how do you know the rebar you found came from the crate?” asked Abercrombie?
“Because some of it had Styrofoam on it. You couldn’t see it in the dark. You just carried it out with the rebar.”
There was silence for a moment and then Kiana said. “That’s good enough for me. You three,” he indicated Schlemeyer, Airmobile and the Senior Preservationist, “are under arrest. Read them their right, George.”
As the three were hustled out Kiana shook Noonan’s hard. “Very impressive. Done in a day, as I understand. How did you do it so fast?”
“It was actually very easy. As soon as I came into the vault I knew that something was amiss. It was empty.”
“The vault?”
THE SECRET IS ABOUT TO BE REVEALED!
HOW CLOSE DO YOU THINK YOU WILL BE?
ARE YOU AS GOOD AS NOONAN?
WRITE DOWN HOW YOU THINK IT WAS DONE
BEFORE PROCEEDING!
Noonan continued, “Yes, look at it. It’s empty.”
Kiana looked around. “You’re right.”
“That’s unusual. Then I noticed that the view of the lab was symmetrical, canisters stacked in such a way that they could be reversed. When I looked inside the lab, I saw all the artifacts that should have been stored in the vault. Why were they in the laboratory? Because no matter how they were stacked, they could not look the same reversed.”
“I see. In a mirror all the images are reversed. Everything was symmetrical so the mirror could be used and no one would be the wiser.”
“A perfect crime.”
“Almost. They only made one mistake. But it was enough. The one thing they could not change was the position of the door. They tried to minimize the damage by wedging it open. When I looked inside, I saw boxes behind the door on my right. But when I looked at the security tape, I saw a very weak light bouncing off the glass in the door on what would have been my left. Thus I knew I was looking at a mirror image. Then it was just a matter of figuring out how they did it.”
“Well, you worked very hard.”
“I always work hard on vacation. That way I can get back to my vacation as soon as possible.”
HOW DID YOU DO?
COULD YOU HAVE SOLVED THIS ON YOUR OWN?