Trueman Bradley - Aspie Detective (6 page)

“Ah, nuts!” she said.

“Nuts?” I asked. “Where?”

“No!” she said. “I don’t mean real nuts. Sorry, that’s an expression. ‘Ah, nuts!’ means I’m unhappy about something. I’m unhappy because this intercom doesn’t even work. It’s broken. How can we talk to Eddie if we can’t call his apartment?”

“Can we go inside the apartment?” I asked. “We already know he lives in the front left apartment of the second floor.”

“The front door of the building is locked,” she said.

“Oh,” I said.

I had given another wrong answer. I sighed.

“Trueman?” she asked. “I need your help. Do you have any ideas how to get into the building?”

“Can you climb that fire escape?” I asked.

The bottom ladder of the fire escape was on the second floor and she would need to jump very high to be able to grab it. Nora walked away from the building and looked up at the windows of the second floor.

“You’re right!” she said. “One of those windows leads into the second floor hall! If I grab the fire escape ladder and climb on the fire escape, then I can get in the window. Then I can get into the building! I’ll come down to the first floor and open the door for you. Then we’ll knock on Eddie’s door!”

Nora looked around. No one was on the sidewalks and no cars were passing. Nora ran towards the building. Just then a truck came round the corner. Nora stopped running and walked back towards me.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said, breathing heavily. “I’m okay, but that truck passed by and so I couldn’t climb up to the fire escape.”

“Why not?” I asked. “Why is the truck important?”

“Are you kidding?” she asked. “I thought you knew all the laws. It’s illegal to trespass on a fire escape unless you live there. According to the law, this is an illegal entry.”

“Really?” I asked. “You mean New York Penal Law, section 140.10?”

“Uh, yeah. I guess,” she said.

“I don’t think it would be ‘criminal trespass in the second degree’ because that only refers to trespassing in a ‘dwelling.’ The fire escape is not a private dwelling. And I don’t think it is ‘criminal trespass in the third degree’ because the law says nothing about fire escapes. It says you should not cross property ‘enclosed in a manner designed to exclude intruders.’ I don’t see how a fire escape is designed to exclude intruders. It’s designed to help people escape fires.”

“Maybe so,” she said. “But, trust me, this is illegal.”

“It is?” I asked. “But I don’t want to commit a crime!”

“Look, Trueman,” she said. “This is only a very little crime and all we’re doing is getting into the hall because the intercom doesn’t work. It’s the apartment caretaker’s fault for not fixing it! How are people supposed to talk to tenants?”

“Will the police arrest us if we trespass?” I asked.

“I doubt it,” she said. “Besides, I’m the trespasser, not you. If they do discover us, I’ll tell them you’re innocent.”

She winked at me. I was overjoyed. Her wink must have meant she was in love with me again. Even if I didn’t understand why, I was happy to have her love. I forgot about my opposition to her trespassing. I decided to agree with everything she said, to ensure I wouldn’t lose her love again.

“Okay, Nora,” I said. “I don’t mind if you trespass. Is that why you couldn’t jump when the truck passed? Because you don’t want anyone to witness your trespass?”

“Exactly,” she said. “Now, watch for people, Trueman. I’ll try to jump again. If you see someone coming, tell me.”

Nora walked away from the building and prepared to jump up and grab the fire escape ladder. I saw no cars or pedestrians.

“There’s no one around,” I said.

“Good,” she said.

She ran towards the building and jumped to catch the bottom of the ladder. She caught it and swung from it, like a monkey swinging from a tree branch. This thought amused me and I started laughing. A car sped very quickly down the street, its engine roaring. The shock of this unexpected noise made me fall down on the sidewalk and cover my ears with my hands. Nora dropped from the ladder and squatted beside me.

“Trueman!” said Nora. “Why didn’t you warn me?”

“Sorry!” I said. “I was distracted by a funny thought and that noisy car came so fast! I had no time to warn you.”

“Urg!” she said. “I hate people who speed down the street making a lot of noise. And he has to come just when it’s most inconvenient too. It’s like he does it on purpose, just because he’s a jerk! That guy’s got some serious jerk magic going!”

“What is jerk magic?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s an expression I invented,” she said. “Some people seem to know the worst, most inconvenient time to appear. It’s as if they do that on purpose, because they’re jerks. It’s as if they can magically predict where to be at any given time of day, to ruin something for somebody. It’s like they have magic powers. So I call it ‘jerk magic.’ That guy who sped past in the sports car, he’s got a lot of that jerk magic!”

“That’s not real magic, is it?” I asked.

“Of course not!” she said. “I just made it up.”

“Oh, I see,” I said. “Well, even if it was real, we could easily defeat the magic powers of these ‘magic jerks.’”

Nora started laughing.

“Magic jerks,” she said. “I like that. But what do you mean, defeat them? I’m trying to jump up to the fire escape without being seen, but these magic jerks keep coming. You’re saying there’s some way we can avoid them?”

“Sure,” I said. “I do it all the time. It’s a game I would play in my room at home, in Heartville. I sat at my window and watched the cars and pedestrians pass by. I counted the time it took for a pedestrian or a car to come and I made an algorithm to fit the data. This algorithm can predict when the next disturbance will come.”

“What’s an algorithm?” she asked.

“It’s a kind of logical structure,” I said. “A set of mental instructions. The steps in the algorithm are composed of Bernoulli probabilities and Bernoulli trials and…”

“Wait, Trueman,” she said. “I don’t understand any of this. Can you speak to me in clear, understandable English?”

“Oh,” I said. “Usually I’m the one asking people to speak clearly. Okay, I’ll explain it simply. I can use a calculation to determine if someone will arrive in the near future.”

“Really?” she asked. “And it’s always correct?”

“Well, about 75 percent of the time,” I said.

“That’s good enough for me,” she said. “So I’ll get ready to jump and you use that algorithm to tell me when no one will be coming for a while. Then I’ll jump. Ready?”

“Yes,” I said.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on the algorithm. I could see it in my mind, as if it was a physical thing in front of me. I remembered all the data I’d collected about the pedestrian traffic in this area of East 13th Street and calculated when the next person or car would arrive.

“After this old lady walks past us,” I said, “then we will probably not be disturbed for four minutes and two seconds.”

The old lady was walking past as I said this. I guessed she heard what I said because she stared at me. I turned my head so I couldn’t see her. Suspicious stares always make me uncomfortable. I talked to Nora while I waited for the old lady to go away.

“I used to call this equation the ‘disturbance detector’ because I would use it to determine when loud sirens would pass our house. Loud sirens make me nervous if I don’t expect them. But now that we’re using it to defeat the magic of magic jerks, I think I’ll call it the ‘jerk magic detector.’”

Nora laughed. “I like that name,” she said.

The old woman went into a neighboring apartment building.

“Okay, now it’s safe!” I said.

Nora ran to the apartment building and jumped up to the fire escape. She grasped the bottom of the ladder with both hands and pulled herself up to the fire escape. She looked down at me and winked, then she walked into the second floor window.

I smelled smoke from a Winston brand cigarette. I could see Eddie leaning out of a window. I looked at my wristwatch.

“Oh, Eddie’s here,” I said, to myself. “That’s a disturbance. He would have seen Nora if he came to the window a few seconds sooner. I was wrong. It was only thirty-two seconds before a disturbance came, not four minutes and two seconds. Well, my jerk magic detector is wrong 25 percent of the time.”

I was at the front door of the apartment building and I could see Nora inside. She walked down the stairs and opened the door for me. As I entered the building, I could smell Eddie’s cigarette smoke and I followed the scent. I followed it up the stairs to the second floor. We arrived at a brown wooden door with the number “20” written on it, with black paint.

“This is it,” I said. “What do we do now?”

Nora stood there, biting her fingernails.

“Why are you biting your fingers?” I asked.

“Huh?” she asked. “I do it when I’m nervous.”

“Why are you nervous?” I asked.

“Because I’m not sure what to do,” she said. “We have to knock on his door. But I’m not sure what to say to them when they answer. We have to find out where Eddie was last night. We need to find out everything we can. We need some clue to let us know how to get evidence. But we can’t let him know about our investigation. We need to pretend we’re not detectives. Who can we pretend to be to ask him questions? Any ideas?”

The door to Eddie’s apartment opened and a young boy with brown hair and a dirty shirt walked into the hall.

“Hi!” said Nora, to the kid. “Don’t be scared, kid. We’re friends. Are you Eddie’s son?”

The kid nodded his head.

“You are?” she asked. “Okay, good. We’re friends of your father. Can you answer a few questions for us?”

“Okay,” said the kid.

Nora grabbed the kid’s arm and gently shut the apartment door. Now we were alone in the dim light of the hallway.

“My name’s Nora,” she said. “What’s your name?”

“Eddie,” he said.

“Ah, Eddie Junior?” she asked. “Well, Eddie Junior. Do you know where your father was last night?”

“He was gone to his friend’s apartment,” he said.

“His friend’s apartment?” she asked. “Where?”

“At 620. That big building,” he said.

“You mean he was at 620 East 13th Street?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“When did he get home?” she asked.

“About 11:30, I think,” he said.

“Aha!” I said. “The murder was at 11:15. So, Eddie must have come home immediately after he murdered Eric Lendalainen!”

“Trueman!” said Nora. “Remember rule one?”

“Yes, keep our investigation secret,” I said.

“Don’t say that out loud!” she said.

Eddie Junior ran back into his parents’ apartment and slammed the door shut. I could hear him yelling and crying.

“Oh, great!” said Nora. “We have to get out of here, now!”

Nora grabbed my shoulder and led me down the stairs. We ran out of the apartment building. We ran so hard that I was breathing heavily. I could recognize panic on Nora’s face.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“That kid got scared!” she said. “Because you mentioned a murder! He ran to tell his parents that we were asking about the murder. If that Eddie guy is really the murderer, he’ll get really angry. He looks like a violent guy! So, we have to get out of here, fast, before he finds us!”

We ran towards where Sal was waiting in the Lincoln car.

“Hey! What’s the matter?” asked Sal.

“Nothing, Sal!” said Nora. “Just drive, okay?”

We got into the car and Sal drove onto East 13th Street, away from apartment building 545 and the violent carpenter.

“I’m sorry I ruined the investigation,” I said.

“It’s okay,” said Nora.

“I just can’t do anything right!” I said.

“That’s not true!” she said. “It’s true you mentioned our investigation twice and so we missed the chance to get some important information. But if it wasn’t for your crime-fighting equation, we would not have even known the murderer lived at 545 East 13th Street. If it wasn’t for your ‘jerk magic detector’ algorithm, I would never have gotten into the apartment. It’s true, you’re not perfect at everything. But you can understand things I couldn’t possibly understand. Your different way of thinking does more help than it does harm. You understand?”

“I think so,” I said.

I felt relieved that my mistake didn’t make Nora stop loving me, this time. I was happy to feel my different way of thinking could be helpful to someone and not a hindrance. For all my life I’d felt like my different way of thinking was a problem, which others couldn’t accept. But Nora not only accepted it, she saw good in it, and it made me feel confident and accepted. Her acceptance meant a lot to me. Her gratitude for my help made me wish I could help her even more.

“Although, now I’m lost,” she said. “We can’t go back to Eddie’s apartment. Because now he knows there’s an investigator asking questions about him. If we get near, he’ll probably chase us away. How are we going to ask questions and find evidence? I have no idea what to do about the case now.”

“I wish I could help,” I said.

“Well, did you get any clues?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You know, clues,” she said. “Did you see something suspicious, that might indicate a crime? Some hint that can lead us to evidence or something.”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Ah, nuts!” she said. “So, neither of us saw anything.”

“I didn’t say that,” I said. “You asked me if I saw any clues. I don’t know if what I saw was a clue. But I saw a lot of things. I saw Eddie Junior was wearing his father’s baseball cap. I know that because it was too big for him and had glue on it. A lot of sawdust was stuck in the glue. So the cap must belong to his father, because his father’s a carpenter and carpenters often get sawdust on their clothes.”

“That’s all you noticed?” she asked. “That doesn’t help.”

“There was also a lot of blood on the cap,” I said.

“What?” she asked. “I didn’t see blood!”

“You didn’t?” I asked. “Well, the blood had been washed out of the hat. I noticed it because I’ve seen what blood stains look like after they’re washed out, and I can remember how they look perfectly.”