The Case of the Devil’s Helmet

I was working on a sim corpse when I was called to Professor Sheehan’s office on urgent business. Never in a million years did I think I’d find him dead when I got there. As a criminology student and graduate lecturer at Limeridge University with an internship with major crimes at Limeridge PD, the last thing you expect to be doing is investigating a crime scene in which your own mentor is the victim.

When I arrived, Christina Papadakis, the Professor’s TA, was already on site. She wore a sharp pantsuit over a thin, wiry frame. She had an innocent nose that mediated between devilish copper eyes with flecks of hazel dashing out like spokes.

“Rory, you were the Professor’s last phone call,” Christina said.

“Has anyone called Limeridge PD? Called Scrappy?” I asked.

“They are on their way,” Christina said.

I gave her a hug and she cried on my shoulder as we waited for the police to arrive and secure the crime scene. I could feel the heat of her neck on my cheek—so much heat radiating off such a slight woman. I could see what Sheehan loved about her. But I couldn’t accept he was gone.

“I can’t believe he’s gone,” she said as if reading my thoughts.

“It’s one thing when it’s academic, but it’s another thing altogether when it’s your mentor,” I said.

Detective Merve “Scrappy” Pereira walked in with a parking ticket in hand. He asked Professor Sheehan’s assistant, Dorothy, if she knew the meter maid who tagged him and explained what he was going to do if he found her. It put Dorothy right over the edge and she started wailing, head in hands, huffing, the bouncing bun of her up do the only part of her still visible. Dorothy was like a greyhound, noble and loyal, and she always wore blue blouses and smelled of talcum powder.

Peering past Dorothy, into the Professor’s Office, Scrappy saw that someone had placed a plastic tarp over Michael Sheehan’s body. Infuriated, he waved to a girl on the crime scene forensics crew and said, “Get that tarp off of him—a body should never be covered in plastic.” Then Scrappy pointed at me and said, “Stop goofing off—get in there and sweep the scene, would you?”

Dean Lawrence Solan came storming in and said, “Who is in charge here, and what in the Lord’s name is going on?” Scrappy said, “Limeridge Homicide—which would be me.” Dean Solan looked blankly at him. “And where were you when this murder took place, Professor,” Scrappy asked.

“Murder?” Dean Solan asked. “What murder?”

* * *

Professor Sheehan’s office was filled with sports memorabilia, with baseballs and footballs signed by Red Sox and Green Bay players displayed in clear square display cases. The walls were covered with laminated news articles from his various arrests and convictions. Below the window, on a side table were his New York Press Club Award, his IRE Award, and a .22lr bullet encased in gold from the time Freddy Four Fingers shot him in the chest on his way to church but the bible in his overcoat stopped the bullet.

There were also a handful of framed pictures of Sheehan with presidents (several of him and Clinton, for whom he was a one-time speech coach). And the obligatory press shots with police commissioners, mayors, and even O.J. Simpson—from the day of their jailhouse interview. There was a big one of Sheehan and Elmore Leonard, whom he collaborated on a story with. To this day, I still don’t know which one. Sheehan had lived multiple lives, and they were immortalized on little sheets of plastic film, in the creases of resin-coated paper, bathed in silver halide salts.

But now the office had become a private mausoleum where Sheehan’s worldly deeds adorned the walls and his words were frozen for all time, with only a final cry for justice left unanswered.

As for Sheehan himself, his enormous torso was flailed out in a prone position on his desk. He had gone from vindicator to victim. There were slashing and chopping injuries all over his face, neck, and torso, and trickles of blood scattered over his papers. These were superficial wounds that couldn’t possibly be the cause of death, as far as I was concerned. Which begged the question. These tattoos of agony meant it was personal for the killer—he’d wanted to see Sheehan in pain. I’d heard slashing of the face and neck referred to as “the Devil’s Helmet” because it was shameful and humiliating to deprive someone of high stature an open casket in this manner. It was a mark of a passion crime—a sign of true hatred. Sheehan had been a social magnet who attracted connections like a veritable force of nature and who knew everyone; but, as many friends as he made, he had crossed just as many. Generally, even his cop-and-robber rivals were good sports who liked Sheehan, and figured if they had to go down it might as well be Sheehan—it was almost a badge of honor—even to rate his attention. But there were enough suspects with dripping malignity toward him to fill a deck of cards.

I noticed that there was fresh vomit in Professor Sheehan’s waste basket. As I knelt down to inspect the vomit, I began sneezing uncontrollably. I always carried a handkerchief. Several handkerchiefs. The slightest hint of red pepper or a solid whiff of black pepper, and I’d go off sneezing like the dickens. The sneezes sent me back against the wall, where I knocked over a prized baseball, with the case exploding all over the floor. After thoroughly contaminating the entire crime scene of my mentor’s murder, I got a vial full of vomit to bring back to the crime lab for further inspection. I could see the culprit in the slurry, a film of half-digested black pepper flakes and a fine sprinkling of paprika—the unmistakable orange coloring looked like Chicken Curry—the same Chicken Curry from the Faculty Banquet the night before.

Doing a quick sweep, I saw that Sheehan’s left hand was clutching desperately onto an envelope. I pried it out of the cold rigid maw of his grip and stowed it in my coat.

Then it was time to be off. I’d always seen myself as a head lecturer, revealing the masterstrokes and deductive brilliance of hard-nosed, unrelenting ace detectives in their prime—never as the bloodhound on the killer’s trail—but I knew that I had to find Sheehan’s killer or I’d never be able to live with myself.

* * *

Christina and I walked together, me to Sheehan’s apartment, and she to pick up Ava at daycare.

“Mother f**king shit,” she said staring at her cell phone. Whose a playful cat?, you’re a playful cat Ava, came ringing through Christina’s cell phone. She was watching a video sent to her from daycare. “Oh no. Hell no. I’m home-schooling this kid. They are going to turn her into a pussy.”

“Isn’t Dimitrios kind of … you know, in touch with his feminine side, being that he’s a Chef and all?” I asked.

“Oh no, she’s taking after her father,” Christina said.

“After her mother you mean, i.e. you?” I said.

“That’s what I meant. I’m just totally thrown right now—I’m not myself.”

Arriving at the daycare, Ava came running out and said, “Mommy, mommy, we learned how to scratch the wall like a playful cat today—” and she demonstrated. Christina rolled her eyes.

Just then another girl came running out, and said, “Give me the cat claw glove before you go Ava. It’s not yours. You can’t keep it.”

Ava crossed her arms. Then the girl did it. She got too close. And Ava reached out her hand as if to claw her and then scrunched her face and full-on hissed like a cat. The other girl was startled and fell back on the ground.

Christina grabbed her daughter in her arms, saying, “Way to stand up for yourself, munchkin but, and now we’ve got to go,” and we sailed off while the daycare worker whom Christina straight up ignored was left talking to herself, something about playing nice with the other kids and all that.

“Where’s Daddy? Can we go see Daddy?” Ava said. And I saw Christina break out in tears that hung in the hooded lids of her eyes like rain clouds. 

I put my hand on her shoulder and said, “It’s all going to be fine.”

“I swear, this kid hates me,” Christina said, “I do literally everything to keep this kid alive and all the while Dima is playing king of the hill at the Butchered Bull, living the life of Riley. And all she ever wants to do is see Dada. She could care less about me. She’s so mean. Isn’t that right munchkin? Guess who is about to get homeschooled, you are,” as she pinched her cheeks.

I noticed that the little girl had green eyes and straw tints to her hair. She had ruddy cheeks with dimples and a healthy sprinkling of freckles. She reminded me more of a Sheehan than a Papadakis, with her fiery Irish temper and her stubborn temperament. But she sure loved her father. That was for sure.

“Rory, can you just walk home with me before you go question Marianna? I need to get this kid occupied and pour myself a glass of wine, and I could use some company.”

When we arrived at the Papadakis residence, Ava was off running and reappeared with her tablet. Christina did a whirlwind of chores and two glasses seemed to materialize half full of wine on the kitchen counter.

While Christina was in the bathroom freshening up, I stepped into Dima’s study to take a look around. There was a folder on his desk that had been placed under a paperweight, a coffee cup, and a box of cutlery that was sent gratis by a supplier.

It was a medical report with a score of 22. Outside the normal change. Sperm mobility count or something of that nature. Then I checked his desk phone and saw that Dima had been making calls to the maternity ward of Limeridge Medical Center. This might explain Christina crying and being so down on Dima. It looks like he’d been carrying on an affair. Made sense. A sexy Greek Chef at a chic restaurant, spending late nights with young waitresses and hostesses and drunk female guests hovering around the bar. The opportunity was there. And now it looked like one of them was blackmailing the bastard. Served him right. But it wasn’t helpful for my investigation.

“Rory? Did you leave?” Christina said.

“Just looking for the bathroom,” I said as I walked out through the sliding door of the study.

* * *

I had to stop at Sheehan’s apartment to question Marianna Ivanov, before meeting Dimitiros at the Butchered Bull, and then after that, I had to attend the Murderer’s Ball. Most murders are solved in the first forty-eight hours, we all know that, and I couldn’t squander my chance to get justice for Sheehan.

I remembered to open the envelope as I got to Sheehan’s stoop. The letter was written to Dorothy, asking her to take care of a very important errand concerning Christina. It was cryptic. Not at all clear. The one line read: “Christina is at the center of this whole business, and she can never know about this secret. It is for her own good.” What could it mean?

Marianna came to the door behind me, arm-in-arm with the PI, Chris Higgins, who she’d been seen around town with and carrying a bag from Christian Louboutin into the house.

“Oh, come in now, dear. No need to be glum or give me those looks. Michael was cheating on me for years. You know it. I know it. Hell, everything with two legs and a hoohah in Ballard County knows it.”

“Ahh… just need to ask a few questions about your whereabouts yesterday evening and early this morning,” I said.

“You’ll have to ask Chris about that—or you could call the bellhop at the Limeridge Lodge,” she said with a wink.

* * *

Dimitrios Papadakis was using his cleaver to apportion several dozen braised veal shanks into one-and-a-half-inch sections at the favorite restaurant of the criminology faculty, the “Butchered Bull.” He tossed them into a special oil barrel that he had filled with celery, carrots, onion, garlic, and red tomatoes. 

It was the night of the Murderer’s Ball, an annual end-of-semester celebration of the Criminology School. I was waiting in the kitchen with Dima, debating whether it was Dean Solan, who we both agreed was afraid of a challenge for his dean’s chair, or whether it was Larry Cutler, who had an eye on Sheehan’s seat on the faculty. But Cutler was making less and less sense given that he was renowned as the defense lawyer for “the Subway Slasher” and the Devil’s Helmet treatment was a bit too on the nose. Dean Solan conveniently never left the Limeridge Lodge, where the Faculty Banquet had been held. Had a bad reaction to some Chicken Curry and stayed the night. So, all of the leads were coming up short.

“The secret to tender Osso Bucco is to let it slow cook for three days. The warm water needs to be constantly moving—that’s the trick—so we spin the barrels,” he said. “Sous Vide-style.”

Dima took an entire bottle of white cooking wine and poured it into the barrel. He minced some garlic, then turned to the red pepper flakes and paprika. It caught in my nostrils, and I immediately started sneezing again, uncontrollably. Those great big sneezes where you think you're done, but another one is coming fast right behind it. Big eighteen-wheelers tailgating one another on any icy interstate, terrified to break, for fear of a crash.

Professor Luke Cutler walked into the back. Dima looked at him and said, “A girl came in the other night and said ‘Dating out here now is like trusting a public defender.’”

“Is that supposed to be a sleight?” Professor Cutler said, famous for his criminal defense representation of a series of organized crime personalities—with a personal legend that began at the PD’s office—and ended with the Subway Slasher.

“Just saying, Counselor. You’ve always been the mayor of the ‘get out of jail free’ party,” Dima said.

“I’m not just a suit, I’m also just as good as you are with the blades,” Cutler said, picking up some pairing knives and demonstrating some Kali Eskrima moves, and finishing with the progression of the twelve-strikes.

“Imagine if the two of us went at it, to the death,” Dima said.

“I’m strictly a hobbyist,” Cutler said. “But it’s tempting.”

“I can see the headlines now, ‘Cutler Cut Down by Own Cutlery!” Dima said.

“Now down to business,” Cutler said. “Detective Scrappy is on his way over. Now, which of you is the killer?”

Dimitrios strolled around the kitchen with his knives in tow, preparing various dishes. And I noticed something by the sous chef’s station, a vase full of flowers, Aconite flowers—Devil’s Helmet—with those strange, hooded leaves over the green pistil.

“I need to step out a moment,” I said.

Out in the hall, I got Becky on the phone and asked about the test results. “Any Aconite in the curry,” I ask. And she told me the sample had come up positive for Aconite. “My God!”

The whole thing clicked in an instant. Dima had made the Greek Yogurt Curry Chicken dish for the Faculty Banquet. He must have served up a special batch to Michael Sheehan on the dais. Sheehan was seated next to Dean Solan. Dean Solan must have tried a bite of Sheehan’s food, which is why he got sick. Dima had no alibi. So, he must have gone back to campus to finish the job later, and he knew how to use knives, that was for certain. But why?

The events of the day filtered back, and I grasped for clues. The test results! That was it. It wasn’t an affair—at least not on Dima’s part. It was Christina who’d been unfaithful. With Sheehan. Dima had found out he was infertile and realized he couldn’t be Ava’s father. So racked with jealousy, he’d called the hospital and done a paternity test. And after that, Dima must have simply acted on a hunch and confirmed what he’d always suspected—Sheehan had eyes for this TA—and the consummation of that relationship was Ava.

“I just have a few questions,” Scrappy said, entering with his pen and pad already in hand.

“Hold up, boss,” I said. “I’ve got this one…”

As Scrappy hauled Dima off in handcuffs, I lit up a Marlboro Red cigarette and tried to enjoy the fact I’d solved my first murder, but all I could think of was Christina.

* * *

At the Grounds for Murder Coffeehouse, I sat with Dorothy and Christina.

“You ready for your big day?” Christina asked.

“Ready as I’m going to get,” I said.

“Now that you are a famous sleuth,” Dorothy chided.

As I left them and walked into the lecture hall, I thought of how I had stepped into the shoes of my mentor so quickly. I was now responsible for Christina and Sheehan’s daughter Ava, for Sheehan’s legacy on the staff, and apparently for solving any murder mystery that descended on Limeridge.

In the middle of teaching my first class of “Motive Roulette,” one of my students asked, “Do you have any theories on the motive of the K-12 Killer?”

And just then, Scrappy burst in and said, “Time to get to work, rookie.”