The Puzzle of Piri Reis Read Online Free PDF Page B

feet long,
I guessed, hung on the interior walls on either side of
the door. The couch and two matching chairs were
heavy and plush with richly woven fabric. Thick pillows of matching fabric trimmed with gold piping lay
on the couch.

    An elaborately carved desk sat before a span of
windows overlooking San Madreas and San Antonio.
On either side of the desk stood some sort of Oriental
statues. Could have been Genghis Khan or even Tokyo
Rose for all I knew.
    In front of one set of bookcases sat a long table of
heavy timbers, almost black from age with a lion's head
standing out in relief on each panel on either end of the
table. Several books were stacked on top.
    The room reminded me of a gloomy old library
straight from a Frankenstein movie. In fact, I might
have been startled but certainly not surprised if the
bookcases had opened up into a secret room.
    I frowned and scanned the fairly neat room. Unlike
my own apartment where papers are scattered, books
lie where I tossed them and unwashed dishes fill the
sinks, everything in Odom's den was stacked or filed.
"I thought you searched this room for the map?"
    "Oh, yes. After the police had completed their investigation. But I put everything back just as it was. I
even looked under the carpet. Father was a stickler
for neatness. Every scrap of paper, every folder had its
place."
    I surveyed the room.
    He drew a deep breath. "I'll never forget. It was October second. I'd been out with some friends. I came
in and headed for the kitchen for a nightcap." He hesitated, blinking back the tears suddenly filling his watery
blue eyes. "It was almost eleven. When I passed the den, Father's office, I saw a light under the door. I opened it
to see if Father wanted to join me in a glass of wine.
We often had a nighttime drink together."

    I kept my mouth shut and nodded.
    "He was lying right over there in front of the couch,
between that end table and the coffee table. The police
decided Father stumbled over the ottoman, struck his
forehead against the end table, and when he bounced
away, hit the back of his head on the coffee table"
    I made a wry note to myself that more bouncing went
on there than in a pinball machine. "And so if someone
had taken the map that night, it would have had to be before eleven."
    For a moment, Ted didn't reply, his attention focused on the plush red carpet between the end table
and coffee table. He jerked himself back to the present. "What? Oh, yes, yes. Eleven. I stayed in the den
until the police arrived thirty minutes later."
    "Did the medical examiner suggest a time of death?"
Ted frowned. I explained. "That might let us know just
how much time the killer had to search"
    "Oh" The pasty-faced man nodded. "They put his
time of death around nine." He shrugged. "Something
about body temperature"
    That I understood. Upon death, under normal conditions, a body loses around one and a half degrees of
heat per hour. If they measured body temperature at
eleven-thirty or twelve, it would have lost four or five
degrees.

    Jotting down my notes, I asked, "Did you see anyone around that night, someone who might have wanted
the map?"
    "No. Edna left at seven, her normal time. I saw Father about eight when I returned his Encyclopedia of
Ancient Phoenician Maps just before I went out for the
evening, and like I said, when I came in, I stopped to
see if he wanted something to drink with me. He was
lying on the floor there with the encyclopedia at his
side."
    Studying the den, I remarked, "You searched the
room thoroughly."
    "After the police left. Yes"
    I glanced at the pictures on the walls. "Even behind
the pictures?"
    He grinned. "I even took the pictures out of the
frames. I'd heard about papers hidden behind paintings and that sort of thing." He chuckled and nodded
to the framed crossword puzzles on the wall. "I even
worked Father's crossword puzzles to see if they gave
any clues."
    Chuckling, I studied the various