THE CASE OF THE LANDLORD FROM ABOVE

    You arrive on the scene to find a crowd gathered 
around the victim. Mr. Cory's lifeless body lay on the 
sidewalk in front of his twelve-story building. 
   "His name is Cheeks Cory," answers the patrolman on 
duty. "He's the owner of the building." 
    "Did he fall off the roof?" you ask. 
    "No," he answers definitively. "The door to the roof 
is locked from the inside and only Mr. Cory had the key. 
His keys were found on his body." 
    "Any witnesses?" 
    "Only one," answers the patrolman as he walks you 
to a woman sitting in the lobby of the building. "This 
is Ms. Bullseye Aim.  She lives on the tenth floor. Poor 
woman saw the man drop past her front window just a 
few minutes ago." You escort Ms. Aim back to her 
apartment and take her story in detail. 
    "I was hanging my new drapes when I heard an awful 
scream," claims Ms. Aim. "And then he just fell past my 
window like a sack of potatoes." She sits in a rocking 
chair next to the very window she was speaking of. You 
observe the room. It is very bare. In addition to the 
rocking chair and new drapes there's an old sofa on 
the other side of the room and a tiny black and white 
television set. 
     "What did you do after you saw the body, Ms. Aim?" 
you ask of her. 
     "I immediately called the police," she replies. "And 
then I took the elevator down to the lobby." 
     You then walk up one flight to the eleventh floor and 
interview Tim Markantes who lived directly above Ms. Aim. 
     "I didn't see anything," claims Tim. "My wife was at 
work all day. I had my hands full with the kids." You cross 
to the front window and try to open it. "Sorry. Can't open 
that window. I nailed it shut a while back. Can't be too 
careful with children around." The tall French door style 
window was nailed shut and dried paint covered the nails. 
     "Did you know the victim very well?" you inquire. 
     "I hate to speak ill of the dead," answers 
Mr. Markantes. "But Mr. Copeland was a no good crook. This 
used to be a pretty crummy neighborhood. Now that it's 
been revitalized, people are dying to get into this place. 
Suddenly, that no good landlord ups the rent to almost 
twice what we were paying. Some people have been living 
in this building for years now. How can they afford to 
pay that kind of rent?" 
     Finally, you venture up one more flight to interview 
the occupant of the twelfth floor apartment, Grace Cory, 
the victim's wife. 
     "I last saw Cheeks an hour before the horrible 
accident," cries the grieving widow. "He said he had a 
couple of odd jobs to take care of and then he would come 
back for lunch." 
     "What kind of odd jobs?" you ask. 
     "He wasn't specific," Mrs. Cory answers as she watered 
fresh roses in her front window box. "He was always very 
attentive to the tenants needs. He was such a good man." 
     "Did anyone else have a key to the roof?" you ask. 
     "No, just my husband," she replies. "Why do you ask?" 
     "I'm just ruling out all the possibilities," you answer. 
     "And the way I see it, there is really only one."