Karl Roetherl was a retired architect, grandson of the Karl Roetherl who had designed and built half the big buildings in town. He and his wife had also traveled extensively until she fell victim to senile dementia. Their record was clean except that, years ago, Roetherl had been held for some weeks in Canada as a suspect in the death of a cousin, also named Karl Roetherl. The death had eventually been ruled a hunting accident.
John D. Rayster’s firm supplied specialty hardwoods to shipbuilders, furniture manufacturers, and cabinetmakers. He and his wife Martha were patrons of the arts and champions of oddball causes, but had no criminal records or associations. The last report of a break-in on Roseland Court had been six years ago.
Preliminary laboratory reports showed no drugs or alcohol in Brendel’s blood. So far, none of the property in his closet had been traced to its rightful owners. His car was still being studied. Kestrel had found Brendel’s own prints in it and a few partials that hadn’t been identified yet and probably never would be. There were no bloodstains in or on the car. It contained no significant trace evidence and nothing that didn’t belong in it.
Except the garage door opener. Kestrel had turned it over to an electronics technician, who reported that it emitted a shortwave signal with an effective range of about forty meters. The unit was adjustable, with sixty-four possible frequency settings. It had been manufactured and marketed as a remote controller for an electric garage door opener, but it could just as well be used to start a pump or detonate a bomb.
The end of his shift was approaching and he was getting hungry, but Auburn sought out Lieutenant Savage for a conference on the Brendel murder. Savage shoved some folders aside and made room on his desk for the reports Auburn had collected. “Why isn’t this just robbery with violence?” he asked.
“I think it’s burglary with violence,” said Auburn, “and I think Brendel himself was the one who did the burgling.”
“What happened to his wallet?”
“Maybe he didn’t have one. Maybe somebody lifted it after he was dead. According to the neighbors that’s a pretty wild spot after dark.”
“In Harmony Heights?”
“You’d have to see the place. If you’re walking north along Route 5, the sidewalk ends at the viaduct. From there you can either make an eight or ten block detour to pick up Route 5 again north of Slade, or you can duck through some hedges and follow the highway between a chain-link fence and a steep hill full of trees and bushes. Or I guess if you were completely wasted you might try walking in the street.”
“Which you’re pretty sure Brendel didn’t do?”
“Not unless whatever hit him flipped him over an eight foot fence without damaging anything except his right temple. Dr. Valentine thinks he was hit with a hammer.”
“Which you think happened while he was committing a burglary in the neighborhood.”
“Well, look at the facts. He had a cache of stolen property locked in a closet—”
“Probably stolen. Which he could have been fencing for someone else.”
“Okay. For my money this guy was a professional burglar. In his car is a remote control for a garage door opener. Only he hasn’t got a garage.”
“And you think his M.O. was to gain entry to houses by opening their garage doors with this thing?”
“Why not? He had a whole workshop full of electronic equipment. That remote controller is adjustable.”
“But, Cy, you can’t put up a garage door without waking up the whole house. Not with an electric motor. Ours shakes every dish in the china cupboard.”
“Maybe he only hit houses he thought were vacant.”
“What about the neighbors? Attached garages usually face the street. When a door goes up automatically, a light comes on inside.”
“Okay, forget the garage door opener. You can’t get away from the fact that he was almost certainly a professional burglar and that he was killed in the middle of the night in a place where he had no legitimate business.”
“None that you know of. Maybe he went out there to fix somebody’s TV—”
“With two screwdrivers in his pocket?”
“—took a shortcut through the woods, ran into some muggers—”
“—who killed him with a hammer.”
Savage fell into a thoughtful silence. “Well, you’ve got to play your own hunches. But I think you’ll find the garage door opener is just what it appears to be. This death will be on the six o’clock news, and I’d bet anything we’ll hear from somebody who rented Brendel garage space, or a girlfriend that let him park in hers.”
“Could be. Meanwhile I think I’ll get that unit back from Kestrel and take it up there. Drive around the neighborhood, hit the button a few times, see if any garage doors go up. Or any bombs go off.”
“Are you trying to make me nervous?” Savage squinted at him and chewed his cheek. “Before you push that button, get with Kestrel and make sure they didn’t find any explosives at Brendel’s place. That’s an order.”
He reached for his jacket. “A detective sergeant accidentally setting off a bomb in somebody’s living room in Harmony Heights,” said Savage, “would be, as my daughter would put it, majorly uncool.”
One of the hassles of working overtime into the dogwatch was that businesses closed, witnesses and suspects went out on the town, and other members of the force — including one’s own superior officer — knocked off and went home to catch the six o’clock news. But Auburn wasn’t surprised to find Kestrel still in his office on the top floor of headquarters at a few minutes past five.
Kestrel’s reply to his query about explosives was a categorical negative. “I want you to look at something, though,” he said, leading Auburn into a small lab that was as clean and orderly as an operating room. On the workbench lay four or five tagged articles, including the garage door controller from Brendel’s car. Kestrel picked up two identical black metal boxes a little larger than the controller.
“These came from Brendel’s shop,” he said. “Each of them contains a remote-controlled solenoid. If you hook these two wires up to a hundred-and-ten-volt power source and beam a radio signal at this thing, the solenoid will jerk this rod inward with a force of about ten kilograms.”
“A signal from that garage door controller?”
“Not as it was set when we found it. But it could be reset to the right frequency for either one of these. Do you want a demonstration?”
Auburn looked at his watch. “I haven’t time right now. Just tell me what those things are for.”
“I’ve already told you. They’re remote-controlled solenoids.” Kestrel was visibly piqued that Auburn didn’t care to watch him playing wizard. “They can do anything that requires a pull of ten kilos. They were not mass-produced. Brendel made them. What he made them for isn’t deducible from the available data.”
A neat formula, thought Auburn, for admitting ignorance without admitting ignorance. He consulted a file card and, from Kestrel’s phone, dialed a number. A recorded message told him that Hick’s Red Carpet Transmission was closed until seven next morning. Mentally buffeting himself about the head and face for not calling earlier, he went back to headquarters.
While he ate a solitary dinner in the canteen, he pored over the Brendel file. Then he headed for the downtown branch of the public library, which was open until ten o’clock on weeknights.
He was back in his office before seven P.M. Auburn seldom wore his service revolver as he went about his daily chores, but tonight he spent time putting it in order before strapping it on. When he left headquarters for Roseland Court, he had the garage door controller in his pocket.