Date: Fri 12-Feb-1999

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

Laso-Zimmermann-crime-fiction

Full Text:

FROM THE CASE FILES OF DETECTIVE LASLO BRISCOE: Final Installment of the

Series

By Andrea Zimmermann

I accompanied my good friend, Dr E.L. Kingman to a recent meeting of the

Connecticut Public Health Association to see demonstrated the new rapid method

of diagnosing tuberculosis by X-ray. Dr Kingman knows of my incurable

curiosity -- he refers to it as my "terminal affliction" -- and is well aware

I have been without anything to occupy my mind of late.

I don't know if local villains have found legitimate work pays better, or if

they have simply set their sights higher than the marks that might be hit in

Newtown. Although all the better for residents here, I have been bored to

death with the relative quietude of 1933.

No. 1089 -- The Case Of

The Hard-Headed Proprietor

James Solen of Pines Inn has always been considered about town as "hard

headed" and the events of Christmas night have confirmed this popular notion.

Just before 11 that evening, a man by the name of William Brown held up Solen.

Brown had been staying at the Federal Camp on Botsford Hill until the night of

the robbery.

Mr Solen was in the act of making change when Brown entered, approached him

and suddenly struck the proprietor a terrific blow, knocking him to the floor.

The assailant then grabbed $25 from the cash register and ran toward the front

door. Solen regained his footing and got ahold of the robber. A violent

struggle ensued whereby Mr Solen's head was pushed through a window pane.

Brown managed to escape the scene, and made off down the state road toward

Bridgeport. Upon notification, Officer Preston Beers and I made our way in

that direction and arrested the culprit in Stepney. He is now jailed and will

be brought before the justice after we have checked up on his past record.

No. 1093 -- The Case Of

Farmer Turned Murderer

Religion is a fine path to guide wandering souls, but those who dip into the

world of spiritualists are simply inviting trouble to call. These are men and

women who seek advice of soothe-sayers not at a carnival for entertainment but

for guidance as to how to live their lives. Anyone who thus entrusts a

stranger to know his future through cards or lines on a roughened palm may

find he succumbs to a dastardly fate that would never befall a reasonable man.

And so it has happened with Abraham Brier.

A farmer in the Huntingtown district, Brier, age 22, had a premonition that

something terrible was going to happen. Trusting this feeling, rather than

shaking it off as any sensible man would do, the notion continued to fester in

the farmer's mind. That evening, he paced about, read the family Bible for a

short time, then listened to the radio. All the while he was waiting for

something dreadful to manifest.

So when farmhand Andrew Spenko, 45, came into the house with an armful of wood

for the fire, Brier told him not to take another step forward. Spenko had been

working at the farm for six months, and had been a sort of travelling farmer

working in the area for four years. Brier said Spenko had a "peculiar look on

his face" and when issued the warning did take another step. That is when

Brier lifted his axe and struck his hired man, cutting off his left ear and

the left side of his neck. The fatality occurred about 10:30 Wednesday night.

It is believed Brier had become temporarily insane, as heretofore he has borne

an excellent reputation throughout the town. He is being held at the Danbury

jail on the charge of homicide.

No. 1098 -- The Case Of

The Disappearing Safe

It is one thing to steal a bay and have the enormous prize move under its own

hoof-power, but to haul away 500-pounds of dead weight in the form of a safe?

I am all too well acquainted with men who have done worse for less than the

$200 stashed inside the box.

During the early hours of Monday past, thieves broke into The Kegs restaurant,

forcing their entry by way of a window in the rear of the building.

William C. Baxter, the owner of the restaurant and filling station, closed the

place about 1:30 Monday morning and returned about 5:30, when he discovered

the break. Evidently, the bandits rolled the safe to the front door and

carried it off in a car or truck. They took nothing else.

Acting on a good tip, I retrieved the safe from the woods near the Sherman

property in the Gray's Plain district. The hinges had been knocked off and all

the money had been taken. Baxter, however, expressed gratitude for the

recovery of valuable papers relating to his business. All signs of the

incident indicate the guilty parties are quite familiar with the surroundings.

I am but a little disquieted by the notion I will not be here to pursue these

bold bandits; today, I surrendered my evidence and notes to Constable Blake.

These remaining case files of mine will be secured in a leather sheath and

placed in a box with evidence from the more remarkable crimes I have solved. I

will request some young officer -- the state trooper, perhaps -- to mind my

papers. My steamship ticket is in hand and there is nothing to rival my

pursuit of the science of fingerprinting at the Bureau of Identification in

Brussels. Almost nothing, that is. There is before me a cryptic communique

from a mysterious woman in Madagascar...