American Sherlock by Kate Winkler Dawson

Author:Kate Winkler Dawson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2020-02-10T16:00:00+00:00

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When police asked Schwartz’s wife to identify his body, she had recognized his watch, a sure sign that the man on the table was her husband. The night guard agreed that this was his boss, because he had watched Schwartz empty his pockets and count his change that night—and the exact amount of coins were found in the victim’s pocket. What else might help identify her husband? asked police. His missing tooth, replied Mrs. Schwartz.

Charles Schwartz’s dentist had just removed an upper right molar a few weeks earlier, so Oscar reexamined the body. There was indeed a molar missing. He took a cast of the body’s teeth.

“That’s the tooth I extracted not very long ago,” confirmed Schwartz’s dentist.

And then Oscar embarked on a gruesome task. Investigators had recovered the victim’s right eyeball inside the laboratory—the sheriff handed it to Oscar.

“Replaced the eye in socket prior to making photographs,” he noted.

When Oscar later dissected the eyeball, he noted that the iris appeared to be punctured, perhaps with a screwdriver. But why? Oscar looked at Mrs. Schwartz’s interview notes. He found her statement about a bizarre burglary at the family’s home during the night of the fire.

“Every photograph of my husband was gone from the house,” she told police.

Someone was trying to prevent the police from identifying the corpse, Oscar surmised. Still—the findings seemed to tally with Charles Schwartz’s physical details. Or not. Oscar smiled at the report on Schwartz’s physical exam sent by a life insurance adjuster.

During most murder investigations, detectives pray for at least one aha moment, a key discovery that cracks the case. Oscar Heinrich was about to present this group of detectives with a chest brimming with key discoveries.

Charles Schwartz was a slight man at just five feet, four inches, according to the report. Oscar reviewed the corpse’s measurements—the man lying on the coroner’s table was actually three inches taller.

Oscar quickly scanned his notes from the fire marshal, which reported that the body was in rigor mortis when firefighters found it—knees bent. The stiffening of the muscles and joints wouldn’t usually set in until at least several hours after death. Again—he remembered that the night watchman had seen Schwartz just ten minutes before the fire. Oscar gathered more data. He turned to Contra Costa County sheriff Richard Veale, who was leading the investigation.

“I’d like to know, first of all, what Schwartz ate for dinner the night of the fire,” Oscar asked.

“Do you think that makes any difference at this point?” the sheriff replied. “Then I can tell you that he ate cucumbers and beans.”

“There is nothing in the dead man’s stomach but some undigested meat,” replied Oscar. “And there’s not the slightest trace of cucumbers and beans.”

The criminalist had received a sample of Schwartz’s hair from a brush a few days earlier and compared it to the hair from the scalp of the corpse.

“Under the microscope I found them to be entirely different,” Oscar said. “There isn’t even the slightest similarity.”

Schwartz had a prominent mole on his ear, while the corpse had none.

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