Killer X

I was reading a book in my living room on a stormy night when a knock at the door interrupted me. It wasn’t entirely unexpected, however, and when I opened the door, I wasn’t all that surprised to see the rain-drenched figure of Detective Hyller standing at my doorstep with an apologetic smile on her face.

“Mr. M—, I’m sorry to show up unannounced like this…”

I motioned her out of the pouring rain and into my house, waving off her apology.

“No matter. I know you’re just doing your job. We all want to find the man who killed my brother, after all. You’re working late, aren’t you?”

“Ah, well, when I have a feeling about a case, I have to act on it, no matter the time,” she said, rubbing her hands to warm them up.

“You have more questions for me, I presume? I’m afraid I’ve told you all I know.”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “Actually… I’m here about something different tonight. I’ve been working on a theory, and I wanted to get your feedback on it.”

“Anything I can do to help,” I said. I pointed to the sofa, and Detective Hyller sat on it with a small nod. “Would you like some tea? You look like you could use a warming drink.”

“Ah, thank you. Tea would be lovely.”

I excused myself to the kitchen where I made the tea and brought it out on a tray. I put the tray on the coffee table between the sofa and the reading chair. I sat back in the chair, moving my book out of the way. The detective took a sip of tea and nodded her thanks again. After a minute of awkward silence, I said, “You mentioned you had a theory about my brother’s murder?”

“Right, yes,” she said. “It’s just a vague sketch so far, but I think it has promise. Let me go over the facts of that night first. Now, as we know, your brother was struck in the head with a dull, strong, metallic object. Particles of shiny, chrome-like metal were found in his skull…” she stopped for a moment. “Am I bringing up too many disturbing details?”

I shrugged. “I’ve heard these gross depictions a dozen times now. It’s been a long week, and the shock has worn off, I assure you. Please go on—I’m curious to hear your new theory.”

“Right. The lab seemed confident that the weapon in question was a smartphone. About five and a half inches long, a third of an inch thick, with generously rounded corners. In other words, an iPhone.”

I nodded my agreement.

“A chrome iPhone, because of those shiny particles,” she continued. “So, unless the killer used an iPhone 3G, or an original iPhone”—she chuckled—“the likeliest weapon is the new iPhone X, in a ‘silver’ finish. Now, here’s another interesting point. We didn’t find a single fingerprint in your brother’s apartment, except his own prints. That, combined with the cold weather we’ve been having lately, has led us to conclude that the killer wore gloves. After all, this was a premeditated murder, and bringing gloves is the simplest precaution a well-prepared killer could take.”

“Yes,” I said. “That makes sense. And let me guess—you think that if the killer wore gloves, he couldn’t use the phone’s Home button to unlock it…”

“Precisely!” the detective said. “Oh, he could have taken off the gloves or typed in his passcode, but that would have taken up too much of his time in this crucial moment. Now, with iPhone X and its Face ID feature, there would have been no need to take off the gloves.”

“I see. But explain this to me: why unlock the phone at all? If the phone was used as a blunt weapon, why did the screen have to be on? A locked iPhone X makes just as good a weapon… I’d imagine so, anyway.”

“Ah, yes. That bothered everyone else at the station when I first told them my theory. But I remembered something about your brother: he was an artist, isn’t that right?”

“He painted. He made murals, he illustrated books, and so on,” I said.

“And he designed magazines as well?”

“Yes.”

“He had an aesthetic sense, then. A sense of proportion, symmetry, visual order. Now, on top of that, he was in good shape—strong and fit. I tried imagining how it was that the attacker could strike a healthy, strong man in the forehead, from the front, without any effort—no struggle, no attempt to bat the weapon away. And my guess is… It was the ‘notch.’”

I smiled. “Yes, I can see what you’re thinking. The attacker unlocks his phone and turns it around so its screen faces my brother. My brother sees the “notch”—the strangely protruding sensor housing at the top of the screen—and he is so befuddled by its odd appearance…”

“…That he doesn’t even notice the phone is about to strike him in the head. Yes. This is precisely why I wanted to bring my theory here tonight, you see. I knew you’d agree with me about your brother’s aesthetic sensibility.”

“It makes sense,” I agreed. Detective Hyller refilled her tea cup. She reached into her purse and pulled out a photo print.

“Now, I have here something we haven’t shared with the public yet… or with you. But since we seem to be getting closer to the solution, I reasoned I could show it to you now. It’s a photo of your brother. Do you think you’d be up for seeing it? It may be upsetting.”

“Like I said, we’ve gone over the murder so many times in the last few days. It hardly affects me at all anymore. I just want to get it over with. I’ll be ok—let me see it.”

The detective turned the photo toward me. It was a black and white picture of my brother’s face, surprised and somewhat disgusted. The entire background was black, fading softly into my brother’s hair and beard and shoulders. He looked like a lost soul, floating in eternal darkness, confused about where he was and how he got there.

“This photo was sent to us the day after the murder, you see. A cruel joke; the killer’s way of mocking us, I think. Unfortunately, all the EXIF metadata—information the camera usually saves with the photo, containing the location, the date, and so on—has been removed. It was sent from a throwaway email account, and we’ve had no luck tracking it down. The killer took great pains to ensure that we didn’t get anything out of this photo except what’s in it—your brother’s face the moment before he died.”

I looked down at the photo. My brother, frozen in time. The furrowed brow, the annoyed look, the picture’s dramatic lack of color.

“But of course, we can tell a little more from this,” Hyller said. “For instance, we know the photograph was taken with an iPhone X.”

“You said the metadata has been wiped—so how can you…” I trailed off. “Ah, I see now. Portrait Mode.”

She smiled and nodded. “Yes. Portrait Mode, with the Stage Light Mono effect. Available only on iPhone X. Now, I know what you’re thinking—isn’t it available on iPhone 8 as well? It’s true; but on iPhone X, the feature works with the front-facing camera. This means the killer was able to use it right after he had stunned the victim by showing him the screen ‘notch’ on the front.”

I handed the photo back. “That’s a remarkable theory. You’ve worked out quite a bit about the murder from very little information.”

The detective smiled. “That’s my job, I suppose. The fun part of it, anyway. Other parts of it are… not so fun.” She put the photo back in her purse, closed the purse, and set her tea cup down.

“Now,” she said, “the iPhone X has been in very short supply. Quite hard to get. It’s unlikely that a random stranger would have one this quickly. Isn’t that right?”

I frowned and nodded.

“And we know from your blog that you’re an Apple enthusiast and an early adopter of popular ‘gadgets,’ aren’t you? Just the person to have an iPhone X within a few days of the launch.”

I snorted at this. Detective Hyller went on, leaning in as she spoke.

“In fact, I’m certain you have one. Which leads me to conclude that the likeliest culprit in your brother’s murder is… you.”

I sipped my tea without saying anything. Her eyes showed a triumphant hunger, like a tiger who had cornered its prey.

“I imagine you were planning this heinous act since the iPhone X was announced in September. Its features were widely advertised, which let you figure out exactly how you were going to use each one of them to pull off the murder. Face ID… Portrait Mode… the ‘notch’…”

Now it was my time to smile.

“Well, what can I say. You got me. It all fits! I killed my brother—I blinded him with the distracting appearance of the front-screen sensor housing; I used Portrait Mode to take his last photo just so I could rub it in the face of the police; I wore gloves but I was able to unlock my phone quickly anyway. A brilliant theory. Like I said, all the pieces fit. Except… Well, except for one thing.”

Detective Hyller put down her tea and leaned in.

“And what might that be?”

I quickly reached into the front pocket of my pants. I saw the detective’s eyes dart to my hand for a second, but she relaxed when she realized that I was only holding a smartphone. However, her eyes grew large and filled with shock after I placed the phone on the coffee table between us.

“You see, I don’t have an iPhone X,” I calmly said. “I have an iPhone 7 Plus. Space Gray, not Silver.”

Hyller jumped up from the sofa, spilling her tea on the sofa, the coffee table, and the rug.

“But that’s impossible!”

“Is it?” Now it was my turn to cherish my moment of bitter victory. “You are welcome to check my T-Mobile account and my order history with Apple. Go through my iCloud logs, see if an iPhone X has ever used it! I do not now, nor have I ever, had an iPhone X, of any color or storage size.”

The detective jumped up and paced the small room like a trapped animal, swinging her purse around as she talked.

“How can that be? You’ve owned every model of iPhone released since 2007. You’ve waited in line for them; you’ve woken up in the middle of the night to order them. We were sure that you’d have the iPhone X the day it was released!”

“So was I,” I barked back. “Do you think I didn’t want to get an iPhone X? Here, look at this,” I said. I picked up my iPhone and launched the Apple Store app. Tapping on the Account tab, I pulled up my latest order. “Delivers 08 Dec, 2017. More than a month from today. You see, due to issues with T-Mobile’s upgrade process, I wasn’t able to order the iPhone X until a week after pre-orders had started. By then, shipping estimates had slipped—four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks! So, unless I waited to get the iPhone X in December and then traveled back in time with it, how could I have used it to murder anyone? I don’t have it yet.”

Detective Hyller collapsed onto the sofa with a defeated look.

“We’ve wasted days of work trying to prove this iPhone X theory. Do you realize what this means? The investigation is back to square one now!”

I shook my head and sipped my tea.

“How can you be so calm about it?” she asked. “Don’t you want to help us find the real killer?”

I sighed. “Help? This is you asking for help? Let me tell you something. You think your situation is bad because you have to start your murder investigation from scratch. But put yourself in my shoes: my brother has been brutally murdered. I’m the key suspect, and I’ve had detectives coming here and asking me intrusive questions for days on end. Worst of all, I don’t yet have an iPhone X.” I grabbed my phone and threw it at the front door in anger. “You want me to feel sorry for you?” I yelled. “You don’t know what sorrow is, Detective. Now get the hell out of my house.”

Detective Hyller got up slowly and walked to the door. She stepped out onto the porch and closed the door halfway, then paused and turned around.

“Look, I…” She reached for her purse and dug around in it. “I’m sorry. I don’t normally do this, but I’d feel better if… Well, I know this doesn’t make up for the loss of your brother, but…”

Standing in the rain, she held out her phone toward me. A brand new iPhone X. Silver, 64 GB, T-Mobile. Raindrops fell on its water-resistant, all-screen front, beading on it like pearls torn from a necklace. Somehow, an overworked cop had been able to grab a new iPhone X, while my order was sitting in a faraway warehouse somewhere, weeks away from arriving at my doorstep. There was truly no justice in this lonely world.

“Good night, Detective Hyller,” I said, and I closed the door.