Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 122, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 745 & 746, September/October 2003

Eric worked at a software firm at the end of Edgewater Drive, across I-880 from the Oakland Coliseum. To get there on public transit, he’d have taken BART to the Coliseum station, then a bus along Hegenberger Road. Once he got off the bus, it was a half-mile hike to his office. The business park where he worked consisted of four buildings grouped around a central fountain, with a big parking lot in back. Eric’s employer had all three floors of Building C. It looked as though I’d need a name badge to get past the receptionist. But I didn’t want to get past her. I wanted to talk with her.

There was a deli on the first floor of Building D, with tables outside, the only eating establishment in the area, from what I could see. I bought a glass of lemonade and waited until I saw the receptionist leaving for lunch. She walked into the deli and went through the salad bar. As she stepped away from the cash register with her container, I approached her, business card in hand, glancing at her name badge.

“Ms. Linden, may I ask you a few questions?”

She read my card, then gave me a hard look over her salad. “What is this about?”

“Eric Terrell.”

“What about him?” she asked with a frown.

“I’m trying to verify his whereabouts on a particular day. I understand you told the police that he was at work that day.”

“If you’re talking about the day his parents died, I already talked with a cop.”

“I know. But I’d like to hear it from you.”

She shrugged. “Yes, he was at work. I saw him come in a little after nine, and I saw him leave at a quarter after four.”

“Did he take a lunch break?”

She nodded. “He left about eleven-thirty.”

“What time did he come back?”

“That I can’t tell you,” she said. “I was at lunch myself from one to two. But he wasn’t back by the time I left.”

Hour and a half, probably two hours. Would Eric have had enough time to hike up to Hegenberger, catch a bus to BART, then another bus from a BART station further up the line to Alameda, murder his father and stepmother, then make the return trip?

“He told the police he had his SUV serviced that day,” I said. “Dropped it off in the morning and picked it up in the evening.”

“He mentioned it to me when he came in that morning. Something about being late because he had to drop off his car.”

“So he didn’t have transportation that day. I wonder why he took such a long lunch hour.”

“He had transportation that day,” she said.

“How do you know that?”

“Normally I leave at five, but I left early that day. He was parked clear over on the other side of the lot, nowhere near our building. I just happened to see him getting into a car. I assumed it was a loaner from the dealership.”

That ka-ching sound in my head was the coin dropping. If Eric had a car the day of the Terrells’ deaths, it would have taken him twenty minutes to drive from his office to the house in Alameda. He already had the motive. Now he had the opportunity.

“Can you describe the car?”

“I’m not sure what kind it was. A sedan, green or blue.”

I thanked her and headed back downtown. Eric had purchased his SUV from a dealership on Broadway. I talked my way into the service department, where a mechanic remembered Eric. “Yeah, for a couple of reasons. He dropped the car off that morning and picked it up later that day, about a quarter to five.”

I pointed at the sign that indicated the service department had a shuttle available to their customers. “Did your shuttle take him anywhere?”

The mechanic shook his head. “No, he insisted on a loaner.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. That’s one of the reasons I remember him. He made such a stink about it. We were short of loaners that day and he insisted he had to have a car. Said something about meeting an important client. So we gave him a car. That one, as a matter of fact.” He pointed at a late-model sedan with a paint job the manufacturer called “seafoam” or “teal.” I called it greenish blue.

“What was the other reason?”

“One of the mechanics claims this guy Terrell took a pair of coveralls off a hook in the garage. We asked Terrell about it when he brought back the car. He got all riled and said what the hell would he want with some coveralls.”

I looked at the blue coveralls the mechanic was wearing and thought of a very good reason Eric Terrell wanted those coveralls. He’d worn them to protect his clothing from the blood spatters the day he murdered his father and stepmother.

“So Claude died first,” Wilcoxin said.

I nodded. “Eric was angry because Claude wouldn’t give him the money to start another business. He decided to collect his inheritance early.”

Eric had been calm when Sergeant Lipensky confronted him with the evidence, his voice emotionless as he described how he’d planned and executed the murders.