The Little Black Book

Tom Bell sat with his head held in his hands, elbows propped on the dull metal finish of the interview desk staring into the remainder of his coffee. It would be an understatement to say that he was not having a good day. He took a deep breath, but he could not focus his thoughts they kept crowding his mind with catastrophic scenarios of a life in jail and the grief this would cause his family. His world, which up to that point had rarely hit any high notes and felt like it was consistently off-key had now decided to take a sudden and dramatic turn for the worse. That morning he had only had to contemplate being unemployed and unable to pay his rent, now he was waiting to be interrogated for a murder and robbery of a man he hadn’t even known before the day began.

Tom struggled to piece together how this all happened. A born sceptic, he’d always been suspicious of the strings attached to good fortune and now having turned his back on his better judgement his future seemed about to fall off a cliff. Behind him the door opened and closed with a soft click the detective sat down opposite him. He recognised her from the search warrant conducted at his apartment earlier in the day. Tom thought she looked weary. On the table she placed some items in clear plastic evidence bags and Tom’s eyes were immediately drawn to the small, black, suede covered notebook he’d found earlier that morning.

Detective Julie Baker, informed Tom she was making enquiries into the death of Alois Pavel and in the search of his apartment earlier she had found exactly $20,000 in various denominations, complete with his finger prints and a backpack with Alois Pavel’s on an inside tag. She looked earnestly into Tom's face until he was looking back into her eyes, “Mr Bell these are serious charges, are you sure you don’t want a lawyer present?” Tom sensed that behind the formality and the indifference of her demeanour that must come from seeing the worst excesses of human nature there was something in her eyes that gave him a confidence that she would believe him if he simply explained what had happened with the notebook.

“I don’t need a lawyer, I’m not guilty, I just want you to understand I did not kill or rob anyone.”

Julie’s brow furrowed, Tom could tell that she didn’t like that he had waived his right to representation – something as the investigating officer she should have been pleased with. At this stage though he had no idea what had happened so he couldn’t even begin to understand what he could say to clear his name. “Why don’t you start from the beginning and tell us what you remember about your day and we can take it from there,” she prompted him.

Tom sat up straight and cleared his voice, he wanted her to believe him, he needed her to believe him. He spoke with a confidence and calmness that belied the whirlwind of butterflies in his stomach.

"I work in construction, which is to say I mainly do a lot of concreting formwork and landscaping. I’m working – or at least was until this morning – on the Moreland Interchange Project. I usually get up about four and get to work about 5.30 for a six o’clock start. I get to work this morning to find the gates locked and a notice on the gate saying that there’s another snap COVID lock-down and the project has been delayed until further notice. Apparently they forgot to text me to not to come in, but that’s not unusual when you work as a casual labourer. I’m already a month behind in my rent and I still owe my family three grand. No work means no pay, so it’s kind of a kick in the guts and here I am in breach of lock-down protocols two suburbs outside my designated zone standing around like a shag on a rock wondering how I will make ends meet when I see that little black notebook you have there lying on a park bench. It’s a got a nice black leather cover and its lying exposed to the elements. Someone’s going to miss that, so I open it up and there’s a name and address on the inside cover, Alois Pavel, 12 Bannister Lane, Moreland – it’s only a few blocks from the work site. Underneath that is a yellow post-it note in the same handwriting as the name and address with the message:

Should this notebook be found please restore

to above address, a reward of $20,000.00 will

be rendered on its safe return.

NO QUESTIONS ASKED

I look through the rest of the book and it’s in beautiful copperplate handwriting, but it’s in a language I can’t read so I’ve got no idea what it contains.

Normally I would’ve just gone around and left it in the mailbox, the post-it note – well something about it seemed off and if something seems too good to be true it always is in my experience. I go and grab a coffee from the nearby café and wait for a more presentable hour and about 8 am I go and find the address. I should’ve known better; even if it is a nice notebook, twenty grand -come on – I should have turned and ran. But when I get to the address it’s this big old Victorian double story house, box hedges, paved driveway, it’s got CCTV cameras everywhere and roller shutters rolled down like it’s Fort Knox. I mean Moreland is a leafy suburb anyway, but whoever lives here isn’t short of a crust and isn’t probably too concerned about parting with a spare twenty K. There’s an intercom box on the front gate, so I buzz and hear a voice asking me what I want, I have trouble understanding him at first because he has some sort of European accent, but when I explain what I have this old man comes and unlocks the gate and asks me to come into the house. And that where things get weird.

I’m not very comfortable about going inside the house because it is all sealed up and there’s no one else around, but he insists that I open the door and walk through first. He shuts the door behind me and I’m sure I hear the deadbolt lock. Like I said the shutters are down even though the sun is well up and there’s only this ancient half rat-powered lamp on a dresser so I can hardly see, but I know I’m standing in the hallway and all the doors are closed. The house smells musty, like it’s been boarded up for ages and there’s dust everywhere except the floor where someone has obviously swept the floor Anyway the old man takes the notebook from me and looks on the inside cover and smiles, I have to say that unnerved me; this old man isn’t a kind old Poppa waiting for his grandchildren to visit, there’s something sinister in the way he looks. Time to go I think to myself and as I turn to open the door he grabs my arm and waves the post-it note at me. He tells me I have to wait while he gets my money, so I wait while he goes through a door at the end of the hall and he takes a good five minutes and comes back with a glass of water and puts it on the dresser. He points to a drawer in the dresser and tells me ‘open’. So I do like he asks but the drawer is so old I have to put one hand on to brace myself as I try not to pull it too hard, but it flies open and all these notes just spill out. There’s hundreds and fifties, twenties, money everywhere. I’m just standing there with my mouth open and he thrust the glass into my hand with that same smile and says ‘drink’. and he gathers up the money and starts shoving in in this backpack.

A few minutes later he’s literally pushing me and the money towards the door tells me to close the door behind me and that's the last that I see of him. Like I said it’s weird I was carefull not to ask any questions like the message said and I didn’t even know whether the name in the notebook was the same person who gave me the money, but for a few brief hours I'd convinced myself that lady luck had finally blown me a kiss.

Julie looked up from the pad she’d been scribbling notes on, and pushed a photo of Alois Pavel at Tom “is that the man you were talking to?”

Tom recoiled in horror, staring at him with bulging dead eyes was an Ashen and contorted Alois Pavel, the electrical cord used to strangle him still around his neck; “yes, that’s him” he said hoarsely.

Tom struggled to continue.

After I left I wanted to go home and count the money, just to make sure I wasn't dreaming, twenty thousand was the most money I'd ever seen in my life. When I got back to the apartment I saw old Mrs Jensen from 4B had locked herself out again. The only way to open her place is to jump the fence and climb in through her kitchen window which is how I got this. Tom raised his right forearm that had a number of raw deep scratches. As I came through the window I lost my footing and fell on her cat Winston who obviously wasn't happy about the intrusion. Anyway it's not unusual for Mrs Jensen to lock herself out, but she always insists on making me stay for a cup of tea and some cinamon biscuits to thank me. So after that I go upstairs to my place to start counting the money and I hadn't even had a chance to finish when you show up with a warrant. Looks like Lady Luck wasn't being that nice to me afterall.

Julie Baker cocked her head to one side, intrigued as Tom was led to a holding cell. As the only suspect, he'd left his fingerprints and DNA all over the crime-scene with a clear motive for murdering the unwitting resident as he interrupted the robbery. If Tom regreted ignoring his instincts in returning the notebook, he now rued listening to them by participating in the interview without a lawyer.

Tom spent a sleepless night and was staring enviously at a beetle oblivious to the irony of life scuttle across the floor of the cell when he heard “you’re free to go”.

He looked up incredulous to see Julie standing there a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. "Everything you said checked out and nothing else in this case made sense until last night when we finished searching Mr Pavel's House". The man you talked to was actually Antek Pavel, Alois’ identical twin. They were originally from Hungary and apparently blood is thicker than water except where money is involved. Alois was probably already dead by the time you arrived. I think Antek was relying on his DNA being identical to his brother because they were twins - which twenty years ago he may have got away with, but not with modern analysis. Alois was probably already dead when you arrived after nominating yourself as the fall guy by finding that little black book. An anonymous tipoff of the suspects licence plate, but again he failed to understand that all those crimestopper calls are recorded and his accent is distinctive.

Tom struggled to process that it was over as quickly as it had started, "That's it then - Thank you for believing me" Julie still looked weary but this time the smile broke through "none of the murderers I've come across take the time to perform random acts of kindness after brutally strangling a completed stranger for sack full of money." Tom stood to shake her hand but instead she handed him an envelope, “don’t thank me too soon, there are some things I have no control of." Tom opened the envelope and looked quizzically at the fifteen hundred dollar COVID fine. “No good deed goes unpunished,” he heard her say on her way out.