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  Murder at Breakfast?

  Steve Demaree

  A resident at an upscale apartment building that provides meals for its residents is found dead, poisoned. But before the police can tell who murdered her, they must find out when she was poisoned.

  Copyright © 2010

  Steve Demaree

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is dedicated to the two people I love the most and whose love I deserve the least, my wife Nell and my daughter Kelly. May God continue to bless me with their presence in my life. It is also dedicated to those who cannot wait to get each new book of mine when it comes out, whether that be a book in print or an e-book. May each of them and each of you enjoy this book.

  Books by Steve Demaree

  Dekker Cozy Mystery Series

  52 Steps to Murder

  Murder in the Winter

  Murder In The Library

  Murder at Breakfast?

  Murder at the High School Reunion

  Murder at the Art & Craft Fair

  Santangelo PG-Rated

  Mystery/Thriller Series

  Murder in the Dark

  Picture Them Dead

  Body Count

  Aylesford Place Series

  Aylesford Place: The First Year

  Aylesford Place: The Second Year

  Aylesford Place: The Third Year

  Non-Fiction

  Lexington & Me

  Reflecting Upon God’s Word

  Table of Contents

  Cast of Characters

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  Cast of Characters

  Lt. Cy Dekker - The lead detective of the Hilldale Police Department

  Sgt. Lou Murdock - Lt. Dekker’s partner

  Katherine Higgins – A wealthy woman who was poisoned at Parkway Arms, who lived on the second floor in apartment one

  Margaret Draper – The manager at Parkway Arms

  Martha Carpenter – The cook at Parkway Arms

  Wally Gentry – The handyman at Parkway Arms

  Margie Washburn – The second floor maid at Parkway Arms, the one Lt. Dekker calls “the linebacker maid”

  Ginny Adams – The third floor maid at Parkway Arms, the younger of the two maids

  Russell Cochran – Boyfriend of the murdered woman, the only male resident who pays to live at Parkway Arms, who lives on the third floor in apartment six, who has a ladder leading from his apartment down to the second floor roof

  Hilda Winters – The murdered woman’s best friend, who lives on the second floor in apartment four at Parkway Arms

  Elaine Jewell – The woman who lives on the second floor in apartment two at Parkway Arms, an apartment whose window opens on to the same roof as the murdered woman’s window

  Christine Hunt – A woman who was after the murdered woman’s boyfriend, who despised the murdered woman and lives on the third floor in apartment seven at Parkway Arms

  Joanne Moberly – Christine Hunt’s best friend, who lives on the second floor of Parkway Arms in apartment three

  Imogene Ingram – A woman who is away visiting family, who lives on the third floor of Parkway Arms in apartment five, directly above the murdered woman

  Vera Davis – Another woman who is away visiting family, who lives on the third floor of Parkway Arms in apartment eight

  Cindy Bradshaw – The murdered woman’s niece, supposedly dead, but will receive the bulk of her estate if still living

  Hazel Allnut – A busybody who lives in the house next door to Parkway Arms, a woman whom Lt. Dekker despises

  Lt. George Michaelson - A friend of Lt. Dekker and Sgt. Murdock and a fellow member of the Hilldale Police Department

  Frank Harris - The medical examiner

  Sam Schumann-A policeman who does much of Lt. Dekker’s investigative work

  Louie Palona - The man at headquarters that Lt. Dekker turns to for technological help.

  Officer Dan Davis - A young policeman who helps Lt. Dekker and Sgt. Murdock from time to time

  Heather Ambrose – A petite female officer of the Hilldale Police Department whom Lt. Dekker is fond of and wants to fix up with Dan Davis

  Heloise Humphert - Lt. Dekker’s irritating next-door neighbor

  Twinkle Toes - Heloise Humphert’s toy white French poodle

  Rosie - The daytime waitress at the Blue Moon Diner

  Betty McElroy - A friend of Lt. Dekker’s whom he sometimes takes out to eat

  Thelma Lou Spencer - Sgt. Murdock’s girlfriend

  1

  The Blue Moon Diner was celebrating a Return to the Good Ole Days, which meant that not only could the customers request everything on the menu and pay the same price they’d paid for dinner twenty-five years ago, but for three days only the Blue Moon was open at night. Lou and I were enjoying the last evening of the three day celebration. I’d just plopped my second bite of my second piece of pie into my mouth when my beeper went off. It was my fault that I hadn’t finished the pie before the beeper sounded. I’d taken too long to decide whether to enjoy the pecan or chocolate cream pie first. If I had known the department was going to beep me, I would have mixed my food groups. After all, chocolate and nuts go well together. I should know. I’ve kept the Hershey Company in business for a long time by mixing nuts and chocolate. A Hershey Almond candy bar is a food group all by itself.

  I dismissed my thoughts of heavenly delights, turned and muttered something to Lou. It wasn’t so much to inform him. He already knew what the beeper meant. Instead, I was checking to see if the meringue stuck to my teeth, mouth, and possibly my nose, would prohibit me from talking on the phone. I wanted to sound coherent when I called the department to see where the most recent murder took place.

  Lou and I already knew there would be another murder. We just didn’t know it would be so late in the day before we found out about it. Murderers are usually more considerate of our time. They stage them so that we find out about them earlier in the day, and not during a meal. There are three highlights to most of my days; breakfast, lunch, and supper. Other than reading a current or classic whodunit, I spend most of my time thinking about my next meal, savoring it ahead of time.

  It had been less than two months since we had solved our last murder. Usually we have to solve a murder only once every three months. I guess this time the murderer didn’t receive the memo. Or had the memo been replaced by a text message. I didn’t have a clue. I live too far in the past to know anything about text messages, other than I have heard that people receive them via their phone, and most of the people who send and receive them are either young or they have too much time on their hands. I merely know that I’ll never receive a text message. My gargantuan, black, rotary dial phone, whose cord won’t even allow me to drag it to another room, would never spit out a text message to me, or anyone else for that matter.

  As I stumbled to the pay phone at the Blue Moon Diner, a devise from the old days that probably remains there strictly for my use, I recalled the words Lou had shared with me that morning when I picked him up
for breakfast. “A farewell to arms.” Since neither of us is into Hemingway, we both realized that the message was God’s way of telling us that there would be another murder, and that once again, we would become unretired for a few days or a few weeks until we solved the latest murder. See, Lou and I had a deal where we were retired unless there was a murder in Hilldale. If there was, Lou and I went back to work, then retired again after we solved the murder. It was like being on vacation most of the time, but not sure when it would be time to go back to work. Which means we never took off to Bora Bora in case someone got to feeling a little nasty one day.

  I wondered where the most recent murder took place. I didn’t wonder for long. I called the department and was informed that someone had been murdered at Parkway Arms Apartments. The name didn’t mean anything to me. I just knew that it had to be somewhere in Hilldale, and was soon informed as to where in Hilldale it was. I was familiar with the area. Hilldale is large enough that I don’t know everyone who lives here, but small enough that I know each part of our metropolis.

  I hung up the phone and headed back to my business. Like I said, I had eaten only two bites of my second piece of pie. Neither Lou nor I were going anywhere until I had finished it. I doubted if the victim was going anywhere, either. In all my years of working for the Hilldale Police Department I had learned that corpses never travel unassisted.

  Lou and I have our own stools at the Blue Moon. Normally, I rest for a day or two after I finish each repast, but this time I planned to drag my carcass from my counter stool and see what I could learn about the deceased. But I operate better on a full stomach. I planned to finish my feast, just in case Jesus wanted to reenact his Lazarus miracle, but I didn’t want to take so long that the body would begin to smell just in case Christ stayed out of this one.

  In case this is the first time you have traveled with Lou and me, let me fill you in about us before we take a look at the corpse. I am Lt. Cy Dekker the head of the Hilldale Police Department homicide division, and Sgt. Lou Murdock is the rest of it. We have been solving Hilldale’s murders so long that we are retired. Well, in a way. When we retired, we agreed to come back anytime someone within the environs of Hilldale stops breathing due to someone helping them with their demise. The rest of the time I sit around my place, Lou leans back in his apartment, and we read such noted authors as Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, Carolyn Hart, and Tim Myers. Earlier in the day, we had finished reading the first book in a series by an author we had recently discovered. The book was Taken to the Cleaners by Dolores Johnson. Our many trips to Scene of the Crime Murder Mystery Bookstore and the people we have met there have enlightened us about good mystery authors old and new. For most of my life, after my wife died of cancer at an early age, I flitted away my spare time watching classic comedy TV shows, like I Love Lucy, The Andy Griffith Show, and Hogan’s Heroes. While I still like those, when Lou and I retired a few months ago we decided to take up a new hobby, and both of us wanted it to be a hobby that required no exercise. At least Lou used to think that way.

  Not too long ago, Lou suffered some type of sunstroke or lightning strike that affected his brain. This caused him to think that he weighed more than he should and that he should begin some form of exercise program. He found something called a Wii and a Wii Fit, and started doing the exercises it offered. It was bad enough that he changed his eating habits and began to waste away, but then he cited our friendship, and told me that I, as a friend, should join him, and we should include our girlfriends. He wanted to mess with the body I had worked so hard to perfect. I thought about looking for a new friend but knew that most of the people in the world are far more messed up than Lou is, so I refrained.

  Instead, one night, in a weak moment, after I thought briefly of taking up drinking so I wouldn’t remember what I was about to do, I agreed to pick up my friend Betty McElroy, whom I already knew believed in Lou’s new venture. We arrived to find Lou’s girlfriend, Thelma Lou Spencer, already at his apartment, and the Wii hooked up and ready to go. My prayers for a power outage went unanswered.

  I was a gentleman about the whole thing. I offered to let the others go first. I admit that I enjoyed the Wii thing better than I expected. Well, I enjoyed the part where I sat and watched the others do what I couldn’t do. I became mesmerized watching Thelma Lou and Betty swivel their hips as they did the hula hoop exercise on the Wii Fit. I was jolted back into reality when Lou stepped up and did his thing. I was sure one of those gyrations would cause him to fly off and hit a wall, or even worse, hit me. When Lou finished, I made an excuse that I had just eaten and knew that it wasn’t a good thing to exercise on a full stomach. I’ve known for a long time that it’s a good idea to rest for a day or so after eating before attempting any form of exercise. If the feeling persists, a rational person will lie down until the feeling passes. None of my three friends bought my story that I had just eaten. While I have been known to eat on a fairly full stomach, on this occasion I had not. Just in case I had to do what they were doing, I refrained from eating, so that I wouldn’t get sick all over the Wii board. Before I came, I had agreed to order pizza after we Wiied for a while. Mine would be a Meat Lovers pizza. Theirs would be something tasteless.

  After salivating over the pizza that would arrive within hours, I remembered the reality at hand. The gauntlet had been tossed. I had been challenged to a duel and could not beg off. I stepped up onto the Wii board without stubbing my toe. I guess I aimed a little too high. I swear I heard the board groan as I plopped my fat feet on top of it. I professed a fear of heights, but the inch or so the Wii board rose above the floor didn’t get me a reprieve. Because I’d watched my friends gyrate on the Wii, I knew the routine. I was supposed to mimic the cartoon character on the screen in front of me. I wasn’t sure if it was the same one that called me obese, but I could tell that animated pipsqueak wouldn’t become my best friend. The animated version moved, and I did my best to follow suit. By the time my session ended three days later, I thought of checking myself into the local hospital for observation, but my “friends” assured me that I would quit huffing and puffing in time for my next exercise. I didn’t want to get back up on that board even if paramedics were standing by. I envisioned my exercise to be one where my friends helped me to my feet and I ambled as best I could, under the circumstances, out the door and to my car. Well, after I finished eating my Meat Lovers pizza.

  +++

  My friends know me as someone who lives in the past. What they mean by that is that I own no modern conveniences, except for a DVD player, which allows me to watch the TV programs that were originally on TV before any of these modern conveniences were invented. Why would I want to send someone a picture of myself while I’m talking to them on the phone? I don’t even talk on the phone unless I need to. Why spend hours talking to someone about nothing? And why would I want to type words on a phone when I can hear their voices instead? I can understand sending someone a written letter that he or she can keep, but a text message? And why test someone who is in the same room I was in?

  We don’t always know what causes something to happen, but I recently made a purchase that could have been caused by magnetic rays emanating from the Wii board in Lou’s apartment. Why else would I have broken down and bought a modern convenience? Actually, it all came about one day when one of the guys at the department, Louie Palona, convinced me that I needed to buy a computer. What sold me was that after he told me all that it would do for me, he told me that he would go with me when I bought one, and that he would teach me how to use it. I already knew a little about a computer. I knew that all I had to exercise were my fingers, which meant that I didn’t have to stand on the keyboard, move in a foolish way, and pull a muscle in order to accomplish something.

  Louie said something about a couple of types, PC and Apple, and before he could tell me the difference I decided I wanted a PC. Besides, apples are fruit, not chocolate, and are good only in pies, despite what everyone says. A PC, on the other hand, is a
privileged character, and I like that better.

  Louie is the technology expert at the police department, which means he knows more about computers than the guy who sold it to me, so it didn’t take him long to select one that he felt was right for me. This was after he and the salesperson traded jokes about my lack of computer savvy. When this young person asked what kind of computer I owned, Louie told him a Smith-Corona. Then he had to explain to this young person what a Smith-Corona was. Then, the young person laughed. When he asked Louie what type of computer he thought I was ready for he didn’t understand Louie’s comment to that question, either. At least I had heard of a Commodore 64.

  After we took the computer to my place and Louie hooked it up, he showed me how easy it is to get on the Internet and what all I could do with the mouse and the keyboard. Louie showed me how I could find most anything I want to find by going to Google. He even made it one of my favorites, actually my only favorite at that time. Before Louie left that day, I had been to Hershey, Pennsylvania without leaving my house, and had found a website that told me most of the great books written by most of the great authors. I could even narrow it down to mystery novels. Time passed quickly, and I could see why some people spend so much time on the computer. I was so late calling Lou about going to dinner that he called me. It was the first time I can remember forgetting that I was hungry.

  Louie wanted to teach me how to do e-mail, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to send notes to other people. They might send a note back, and I would have to read it, which would take away from the time I spent reading, watching my DVDs, and Googling. Besides, I wanted to keep it quiet for a while that I had a computer in case I lost interest in it quickly.

  But enough about that for now. It’s time we went back to the uneaten piece of pie and the murder that would soon take us away from the Blue Moon.