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Epay Stories

  German Officer's Sword - Used

  By

  Max E. Harris

  Copyright 2014 Max E. Harris

  rev. 1.01

  This edition of Epay Stories German Officer's Sword - Used has been updated and revised.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  The characters and events in this story are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Table of Contents

  Preface

  German Officers Officer's Sword - Used

  About the Author

  Preface

  This story if one in a series of fictional narratives of activities related to purchases on the Internet. Of course, there are many true stories that begin with an ecommerce sale. Most people who buy or sell on the internet encounter events they did not expect. Either there is an upset in the purchase, something happens in the delivery, or the object traded is not what the buyer thought he was buying. With goodwill and perseverance most of the misunderstandings can be resolved. Like any transaction at a distance, there is this chance for miscommunication. Sometimes the most interesting events occur when the buyer starts examining and using the item purchased, for better or worse.

  German Officer's Sword - Used

  Ever since he was a child Fred Lessing had been entranced by shiny objects. His parents quickly learned that is what not important what gift they gave him as long as it was shiny. As Lessing grew older this fascination with reflections developed into an attraction to first bicycles with sparkling accessories and later to cars with massive amounts of chrome. Lessing was only too happy to spend his spare time polishing the shiny objects. He was constantly on the lookout for cleaners and polishes that promised to make his shiny objects ever brighter. When he bought his first car it was not a new car. New cars had a lot of nice looking plastic and pleasant designs, but very little chrome. So he shopped for a 1990 model Chrysler with as much chrome as he could find and a well maintained finish.

  Lessing worked as a production planner in a large factory that made various types of industrial bearings. He liked to walk through the packaging area and see the finished products being placed in containers. No one minded this and he knew many of the people on the shop floor. Sometimes he would stop to discuss technical aspects of the production. It helped him understand his products and his customers' requirements better.

  He liked to collect small metal objects. When he was young, it was nickels, dimes, and later folding pocket knives. As he grew older it had progressed to straight hunting and combat knives, always of good quality. Now it had progressed to military swords. He had his own apartment and his goal was to cover his living room wall with nicely mounted swords. He had bought four mostly from pawn shops and through ads in men's magazines and military magazines. These tended to cost more than he was able to afford so he had started looking at on-line sites, especially Epay.

  When he saw the item listed as a used German officer's sword his heart jumped. There was only a single picture of poor quality. The seller obviously did not know much about marketing. The description was minimal but with some research online Lessing was able to establish what he thought was a fair price. It was to his benefit that the presentation of the sword was so poor for it was not until a few hours before the sale expired that anyone placed a bid. He saw that the bid was not rejected for being too low and realized the seller was really eager to sell the sword. Five minutes before the sale ended he made his first offer at a price about half of what he was willing to pay. The bidding agents moved the bids up but left him still the loser with a minute remaining. At fifteen seconds before the bidding ended he entered what he considered the fair value as his maximum bid. The bidding jumped back and forth but in the end his bid was the highest. Even better it was well below his maximum. He immediately forwarded payment for the sword, then sat back and waited a few days for the package to arrive. The seller's address was not that far from his town so the sword arrived in two days and was received by the apartment office manager. After work he stopped by the office to pick up the prize. It was well packaged. The hand written address indicated the seller was not a professional seller. This was also hinted at by the seller's sales count was only in the double digits.

  Returning to his house he placed the package on his dining table and cut open the heavily-wrapped sword with his pocket knife. He took a tape measure to make all the necessary readings to be able to construct a mounting board for the sword. He had always liked working with wood. He would use his father's power tools to fashion an attractive support for the sword. Then he picked up the sword to examine it for defects. He thought it could probably use a good cleaning and polishing so he fetched his kit. Being in the industrial metals business he had the correct products to clean the sword without damaging it.

  Then something unusual caught his eye. Where the blade met the guard there appeared to be a bit of dark red material. On an object not meant to cut flesh this would have not bothered him. But that was exactly what the sword was designed for: cutting flesh, bone, and any thing that was in the way. He brought out a magnifying glass and looked at it closer under a bright light. It did not look like simple dirt or grease. There was more than just a tiny speck. He was surprised the seller had not cleaned it better. Having seen enough police shows to have an idea of good practice, he first took a camera and photographed the area under bright light from different angles. Then he took a knife and scraped the material into a small plastic bag. He had a neighbor Sam who was a policeman. He called Sam and told him about his experience. Sam said to bring over the sample so he could take it to the lab for a check.

  The next evening Sam called.

  "Fred, this is Sam. I wanted to tell you what the lab tech found out about your sample."

  "Great, that was quick work, Sam."

  "Yes, it was quick but I am afraid the results might not be everything you would like."

  "What do you mean?"

  "The lab tech is very busy so he could not spend much time on it. We have had budget cuts and he has to do a lot of the work that another guy did before. Not only does he handle the lab but also fingerprinting and a lot of the IT support. What that means for you is that the research is going to stop at this point unless something new comes up to link your sword to a crime."

  "OK, Sam. That seems reasonable but you didn't tell me what he found."

  "You were right that it was blood. And he wasn't some farm boy chopping off chicken heads with the sword, although now that I say it, it does sound kind of cool. Maybe I should buy a sword. No, but what is significant is that the blood was human. And even more significant than that is there were some traces of human liver tissue mixed in with the blood."

  "Wow! Human liver tissue and you guys aren't going after anybody? I don't get it. I thought police loved things like this. Almost like a smoking gun."

  "Right. Almost like a smoking gun except there is no gun, no active reports of people being skewered with a sword, and no money in our budget to support any more work on it. We will file the sample. If you learn any more, we or some other police agency will go to work on it."

  "Huh. Then that's all there is to it?"

  "No, there is one other thing to keep in mind. You should hold onto the sword but not become too attached to it, or maybe I should say, not too stuck on it."

  "Ha ha, a little good police humo
r there, eh?"

  "Yeah, good police humor. If something links the sword to a crime you are going to have to turn the sword in as evidence and you probably won't see it again even if no one is ever caught."

  "OK, I get the idea. I won't bring it up with you guys again unless I have something convincing and am willing to give up the sword."

  "You got it. So mount it on your wall for now. If and when you find firm information, let us know."

  Lessing thanked his neighbor. Looking at the sword on the table in front of him he thought about his options. Without spending any money he could collect a little information on the seller.

  First, he would examine the packaging for everything he could gather. The sword had been packaged in cardboard with no information on it. The yellow packaging paper that covered the cardboard had the labels of an overnight courier. The shipping document described the sword as "steel tubing", a nice way to avoid any problems with shipping a weapon. Besides the courier shipping document there was the handwritten addressing of the seller but no name

  The seller was very open on Epay about his dealings. While his listings were minimal in information, they did not seem to hide anything. Each appeared as if the seller had come across something in his house that was of no interest to him so he was selling it in the quickest and easiest way. He bought many swords and sold fewer of them. The seller's user id gave no indication as to his real name. Lessing considered a number of ways he could attempt to obtain more information about the seller. He was not a wealthy man and he had no interest in spending much money on his investigation. His curiosity had been aroused and he wanted to learn why there was liver tissue on his sword.

  As a first step he decided to send a message to the seller requesting more information on the sword.

  "Dear Isa2878, I just received the German sword I purchased from you and am very pleased with it. Please send me whatever information you have on it as I would like to make a reference card to place below it on the display panel I am making for the sword. If you have other swords I may be interested in buying some of them for my collection. Regards, StainLess."

  While waiting for a reply Lessing checked the activity record for Isa2878. It seemed that in the last year he had bought eleven other swords. He had sold three of them. There could be a lot of reasons for this. He did not seem to be a dealer. Maybe a collector with that many swords. The idea that was prominent in Lessing's mind was that this would be a clever way to dispose of a murder weapon. A sword seemed like a strange choice as a murder weapon in the US. Japan, maybe.

  Isa2878 replied a week later. "I collect swords, too. Sometimes I sell one of them here but I try to get the best price. God bless."

  The reply was rather inconclusive. It told him the seller was willing to communicate but gave no information he did not already have other than the rather unconventional closing. He looked at the history of the seller's activity again and found that the German sword had been purchased only a month before it had been sold. The price paid by Isa2878 had been over $100 more than he sold it for. Lessing wondered what had prompted the seller to hold the sword only a month and then sell it at a loss when he purported to wish to sell his swords at higher prices. Lessing made a call to the police department to see if the technician had found anything else about the sample from the sword blade.

  "Sam told me you had found human liver tissue mixed with the blood on the sword. Was there anything else you could determine? For example, the age of the person from whom the sample was taken or how the sample could have come to be on the sword?"

  "I can't tell you much more without doing a lot more work on it. If it turns out to have been involved in a crime we could do a DNA match on it. I don't recall if I told Sam the liver tissue showed signs of cirrhosis so I would expect it came from an older rather than a younger person. The fact that the tissue adhered to a smooth surface may indicate the sword was twisted, if the material was not placed on the sword after extraction from the person. Also the sword would have had to be plunged very forcefully to have penetrated so that the blade was as deep as the liver, unless there were a series of thrusts in which the liver material was pulled out then pushed to the guard by a subsequent penetration."

  "You are saying the victim was stabbed more than once and the stabber twisted the sword while it was in the victim?"

  "I am saying that is a possibility. Then again it could all be a hoax to send us out looking for sword wielding killers that don't exist. For someone who wanted to make the police look like fools or distract them from real crimes, this might be an easy way to do it. Such tissue samples could be had from a funeral home or a hospital without too much trouble. Especially from a hospital where someone had had surgery around the liver. For example, an elderly cancer patient who had surgery and tissue was removed. The hoaxer would just need some basic knowledge of physiology and access to a surgical area or medical waste. I could see a group of drunk medical students trying to pay the police back for a speeding ticket. That's part of the reason I won't spend any more effort on it without a directive to do so."

  "I see. Thanks for your efforts. I'll see what else I can uncover without involving the police unnecessarily."