2 Murder in the Winter Read online

  17

  Lou and I walked out silently, and made our way to the last apartment, number eight. I knocked, but no one answered. I knocked again. Still, no one came to the door. I heard no noises from within. It was time to return to Mrs. Crouch’s apartment to ask her a few more questions.

  She opened the door.

  “Back again, Lieutenant.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Crouch. This won’t take long. I just have a few questions to ask you after talking to some of the tenants.”

  She opened the door to let us in, again offered us coffee, which we again declined.

  “Mrs. Crouch, I just have a few questions about some of your tenants. Let’s begin with Mr. Rothschild. Have you ever seen him walk?”

  “Never.”

  “What about when he gets his mail or goes somewhere?”

  “Each time I’ve seen him get his mail, he’s in his chair. He seldom goes anywhere, but on the few occasions that he has, I’ve seen the painful look on his face as he struggles to put his chair in the back while holding on to the door for support. He never gets out in bad weather, and he has his groceries delivered. Some of us check with him from time to time, when we’re going out, to see if he needs anything. Sometimes, one of the men or I pick up something for him.”

  “Let’s move on to Mr. Mulroney. He claims he was in and out this weekend. Did you see him at any time over the weekend?”

  “No, but I seldom pay any attention to noises. The only noises I ever hear are when someone comes in the front door or gets his mail. Few people use the front door, because our residents seldom have guests, and all of our residents park out back. I seldom hear anyone walking down the hall, or opening the door to his apartment.”

  “Okay, now about Mr. Profitt. He said his sister visited him last week. Did you by any chance meet her?”

  “Yes, on Friday morning. Mr. Profitt knocked on my door, introduced his sister, and asked me if I’d be willing to take pictures of the two of them outdoors.”

  “Why outdoors?”

  “Well, Mr. Profitt’s sister seldom sees snow, and she was so excited to see all this white stuff. I think if they’d been younger she’d have talked her brother into making a snowman, but she told me that she’s afraid to drive in it. I don’t like driving in the stuff, myself.”

  “Do you have any idea how long Mr. Profitt’s sister was here?”

  “She got here sometime early last week, left early this morning.”

  “And how do you know that, if you only saw her the one time?”

  “She kept her car parked out front, on the street. Every time I looked out to check and see if we had any more snow or any of it had melted, the car was there. It’s possible they went somewhere in it, but if so, they didn’t go much.”

  “You’re so helpful, Mrs. Crouch. Let’s move on to Mr. McArthur.”

  “Nice man, Mr. McArthur. He’s our youngest tenant.”

  “Do you by any chance have a key to his apartment?”

  “I have a key to every apartment.”

  “Why’s that, Mrs. Crouch?”

  “In case any of the gentlemen accidentally lock their keys in the apartment, or in their automobile. Or, as in the case this past week when a workman needed to get into an apartment for some repairs and the tenant wasn’t at home.”

  “And whose apartment was that, Mrs. Crouch?”

  “Mr. McArthur’s. A plumber stopped by, said that Mr. McArthur called and said a faucet was leaking. It’s strange that Mr. McArthur didn’t let me know the plumber was coming, because our tenants usually do if they’re not going to be home, just to make sure I’ll be home to let them in.”

  “Did you recognize the plumber?”

  “No, but he had his credentials, and he works for the company we usually use.”

  “And what company is that?”

  “Burris Plumbing.”

  “And what day was he here?”

  “I believe it was Thursday. Yeah, it was, because he said he felt we’d get more snow than those few flurries that had been predicted. Maybe he should become a weather forecaster and let the weather forecaster learn how to be a plumber.”

  I’d check with McArthur before I left to see if he called the plumber, then check with Burris Plumbing to see if they sent anyone out. If someone did come out, was the guy really a plumber, an actor in disguise, or someone else?

  “Mrs. Crouch, I have one more tenant I want to ask you about, then I’ll be through. Do you have any idea where the man in apartment eight is?”

  “Bob Gravitt should be in his apartment. His car’s here. I noticed this morning that it hasn’t been moved since before the snowstorm. Maybe you didn’t knock very loud.”

  “I knocked a couple of times, Mrs. Crouch, and I knocked loud enough for anyone inside to hear me.”

  “Well, maybe he was in the shower.”

  “Now, that’s a possibility. Just in case, I’d like for you to let me have his key. I just want to make sure he’s okay.”

  “Promise you’ll knock again before you go in. I don’t want him to get mad at me.”

  “I promise, Mrs. Crouch. And if he doesn’t answer, I’ll even call out after I open the door, before I go in.”

  She got the key for me. I promised to return it as soon as we were through with it. After finding out what make of car Bob Gravitt drove, as well as the rest of the tenants, Lou and I stood, thanked her, and walked out. I motioned for Lou to walk to the back door with me. I wanted to check out the cars behind the building.

  +++

  Lou and I stood on the back porch, studying the parked cars. Only three of the cars hadn’t been moved since before the snowstorm. I consulted my list and learned that those three cars belonged to Arthur Rothschild, the man in the wheelchair; Virgil Profitt, the man whose sister had visited; and Bob Gravitt, the man who hadn’t answered his door. Was Gravitt in the shower, did he have something to hide, or was he incapable of answering the door? We would soon find out.

  Before going to Gravitt’s door, I knocked again at McArthur’s apartment, eager to see if he’d called a plumber, and if so, why he didn’t tell me about it. It turned out McArthur knew nothing about a plumber, or said he didn’t. Could it be that McArthur called the plumber in case the boots were found in his apartment? That way he could blame someone else. Did someone else call the plumber? Or was there a plumber? I planned to at least answer the last question as soon as we left Oppenheimer Arms.

  +++

  I walked to the adjacent apartment, knocked again at the door to number eight. Still, no response. I knocked again, then tried the key. I opened the door and was about to call out when I realized that there was no reason to call out. I whispered to Lou to guard the door, to see that no curiosity seekers forced their way inside, and then I went in, looking for the body.

  I found Bob Gravitt lying on the floor, a chair and desk nearby. On the desk I saw several items that could alter the way a person looked. Evidently, Gravitt planned a weekend at Overlook Inn, but died before he could carry out his plans.

  I walked over to the phone, held the receiver with my handkerchief, and dialed Frank Harris’s direct number.

  “Frank, Cy here. I’ve got another one.”

  “Are you back at that inn looking for bodies?”

  “No, Frank. But I have good news and bad news. The good news is this body is closer to you. The bad news is my guess is that this guy was killed the same way as the others, and at the same time. He’s been here a while, Frank.”

  I gave Frank the address and asked that he bring a fingerprint crew with him. While we were at it, we would go over the apartments of the other deceased tenants. I wondered how Mrs. Crouch would take having three vacancies in the building.

  +++

  While we waited on Frank and the fingerprint team, I locked the apartment and the two of us went back to see Mrs. Crouch and asked for two more keys. As we waited, we took a candy break. I had eaten and savored three almonds and who knows how many fat gra
ms of chocolate before Frank arrived. Lou managed to devour most of a package of M&Ms and refrained from kicking the two he dropped. I had spotted a broom on the front porch, and swept Lou’s M&Ms out into the snow, where they would stand out until the first candy-eating-animal devoured them. When Frank pulled up behind Lightning, I carefully rewrapped my Hershey Almond bar and got ready to go back to work.

  18

  While Frank checked out Bob Gravitt’s body, I sent the print crew to check for prints in apartments four and five. As expected, they came up empty. Both apartments contained only one set of clear prints and few smudged ones. As they left one apartment, Lou and I cased the joint, hoping to find something that would solve the case for us. We found no notes left by a murderer with a guilty conscience. Nothing in either apartment seemed like a clue. We were coming out of Plankton’s apartment when we saw Frank. He was about to whisk the body away to the morgue.

  “Cy, I’d appreciate it if you call me a little sooner next time.”

  “I knew how busy you were Frank, and I wanted you to pace yourself. I also wanted to keep this one as an ace in the hole, just in case someone messed up and said something about playing cards with Gravitt over the weekend.”

  We waited for Frank to remove the body, then stepped inside the apartment while holding handkerchiefs over our mouths and noses. The place was a few plug-in air fresheners short of a baby’s nursery. It was the kind of place I wanted to walk into when I had a bad cold. Lou and I unlocked and opened a couple of windows to air the place out, then did a quick search of the premises. We had no plan to check out the place inch by inch. If Gravitt had sewn his fortune into his mattress, I would stay a poor man. The smell was almost enough to make a man lose his appetite. Almost, but not quite.

  +++

  It was after six before we got through at Oppenheimer Arms. Too late to stop by Burris Plumbing. That chore would have to wait until the next day. I planned to stop by early, just in case they did send a plumber to McArthur’s apartment. If so, I wanted to talk to the guy and find out how he fit into our case, if at all.

  Just as we were getting ready to leave the building, we ran into Profitt.

  “Hey, Lieutenant! I just printed the pictures my sister took when she was here. Want to see them?”

  I did want to see them and was glad he offered to show them to me. I was particularly interested in the pictures he took that showed which cars were at the apartment building on Friday morning. His sister took some nice pictures, as did Mrs. Crouch, and something told me they might help us solve the case. I thought even more so when I remembered the message God had given Lou that morning.

  “Mr. Profitt, would you mind if I borrowed these four pictures? I won’t let anything happen to them, and I’ll return them ASAP.” I imagine Profitt wondered why I was interested in pictures his sister had taken, but he agreed to let me have them. When we had time, I wanted the two of us to study them, maybe even get them blown up and see if any of them might tell us something we didn’t already know.

  +++

  Lou and I had a couple of errands to run, which had nothing to do with the case. When we finished, we were off again to the Blue Moon. Even a couple of men looking for a murderer had to eat.

  While I drove, Lou and I discussed the case.

  “So, what do you think, Lou?”

  “About today?’

  “About anything.”

  “I was just thinking about the people we met today. None of them came across as the murderer. Even Mulroney, who lied to us. In a way, Longworth seems like the most likely suspect, but I don’t see why he’d have done it, with the guys dying at the inn.”

  “Supposedly, Longworth didn’t know anyone was coming to the inn. If he did it, he probably thought that each of the three guys would die in his apartment and might not be discovered for days.”

  “One of them wasn’t.”

  “Don’t remind me, Lou.”

  “At this moment, my frontrunner would have to be the guy we haven’t met yet, the plumber. At least we know he was in one of the apartments. The one with the boots.”

  “Well, we should know more about him in the morning.”

  “So, what’re you thinking, Cy?”

  “I’m thinking anybody could’ve done these guys in, but nobody could have left me the note.”

  “What you mean by that?”

  “I mean snow. Anybody could’ve walked in this place Wednesday and waxed these guys, but nobody could’ve left the note at my place because of the snow.”

  “The snow wasn’t that deep.”

  ‘It has nothing to do with deep. It has to do with footprints.”

  “But whoever it was left footprints.”

  “You’ve got me all mixed up. I don’t mean footprints. I mean tire tracks. Remember how nothing had messed up the snow when we got to the inn on Friday. Half our suspects were at the inn. Now, let’s look at the others. Rothschild can’t walk, but that doesn’t matter. His car hasn’t been moved since the snowstorm. Neither has Profitt’s. And McArthur was out of town. Who’s left, Lou?”

  “Remember, Cy, that inn has tunnels underneath. What if one of those tunnels leads out to the bridge. Our murderer walks across the bridge to some place where he’s stashed a car. As for the those guys who were here, Profitt could’ve taken his sister’s car. McArthur could’ve sneaked back into town earlier than he told us. And Rothschild could’ve called a taxi. And then, who’s this plumber guy? Where does he fit in?”

  “I don’t buy the tunnel to the bridge. I think all those guys were tucked in for the night, unless maybe everybody thought someone was there, but he really wasn’t. Sort of like when Mulroney checks in the second time, but sneaks out on us. Come to think of it, we didn’t see anybody except Longworth and his wife until well after we checked in. It could be that an employee or a guest left the inn before the snow hit and returned after we checked in. Then, they could’ve gotten out and back in without making tracks. All I know is we can’t check now. There have been so many cars in and out of that driveway that we won’t be able to tell one tire track from another. As for the rest of our suspects, I don’t know about the plumber, but I doubt if Rothschild called a taxi. Too easy to trace, although I’ll check it out tomorrow. And McArthur has an alibi. As for Profitt, what’s his motive? He doesn’t even know any of these people.”

  “Or so he says.”

  “There has to be something we haven’t thought of. Maybe even something obvious.”

  Lou and I discussed the case all the way to the Blue Moon. As we arrived, we decided that things might fit together better if we thought about them on a full stomach.

  +++

  We ate and I dropped Lou off at his place. Both of us needed to unwind before another busy day on the case. I had no idea what the next day held for us, but I planned to take off my thinking cap and enjoy the evening, or at least part of it. I planned to go to bed earlier than normal.

  Most of the time, I vary my entertainment, but I was on a Lucy kick. I finally owned every DVD episode of I Love Lucy and planned to pick up where I’d left off with the first year’s shows. I just hoped that nothing I watched that evening had Lucy donning a disguise. I’d had enough disguises to last me a while.

  I was almost upon my driveway before I noticed another one of Overlook Inn’s guests had checked out. It was too late. She’d spotted me. The busy day I’d experienced allowed me to forget about her. I could forget no longer. My gloom had changed to doom. I had trouble getting my seat belt off. My neighbor charged up my driveway and was standing by my car door before I could open it. Not nearly close enough for a whack and an “oops,” but way too close to suit me. That yippy mutt of hers stood next to her, just far enough away to avoid a swift kick. Evidently the mutt had overcome its fear of snow.

  “Well, Miss Humphert. I’m sorry you had to cut short your vacation at the inn.”

  “Oh, Cyrus, it was so depressing. Knowing that you were so close, and yet too busy to visit me in my
room.”

  “Oh, but I did visit you, Miss Humphert. Remember when I offered to hang your dog out the window?”

  “Cyrus, you know you adore Twinkle Toes.”

  “Almost as much as poison ivy. So what can I do for you? I still have work to do.”

  “Oh, Cyrus. You don’t know how it warms my heart to know you still care, even when you’re in the middle of your little police work.”

  “Miss Humphert, I can’t begin to tell you what it does to me, but you’ll have to excuse me. We have criminals to catch, you know.”

  “Just in case you don’t catch any, you can always bring your handcuffs over to my place.”

  “Okay, as long as you promise to try on the straitjacket first.”

  I turned away before she could touch me. I hurried toward my house, hoping that my neighbor would fall down on the ice, but not until she got back on her own property. I knew better than to wish ill on my neighbor. I knew it better after taking the tumble I wished upon her. Before I could get up, she hovered over me. Even worse, that varmint of hers licked me on the nose. I wanted to wish more bad things on that woman, but I knew God didn’t want me to. I considered becoming a Catholic. My Catholic friends, sinned, went to confession, then sinned some more. I wondered if they still spoke Latin. I would have to ask one of them. English was hard enough. I certainly didn’t want to learn a language that no one spoke outside of a church service, but then I heard that Catholics speak English now. I’d have to ask someone.

  I grasped hold of something, lifted myself to my feet, and gingerly walked into the house. I went to the bathroom to wash the doggy licks off my nose before an infection set in. Boy, did I need an episode of I Love Lucy . Fifteen minutes later, I’d forgotten all about a murderer, and all about a neighbor with a dog. Sometimes it’s good to have amnesia.

  19

  When I went to bed Monday night, I set the alarm. I don’t usually do that, and most of the time I wake up at a reasonable hour, but we had so many things to do Tuesday morning. I wasn’t sure what time Sam got up, so when I opened my blurry eyes for the first time on Tuesday morning I stumbled to the shower to wake up. It worked. By the time I stepped out, got dressed, and spent my time with God, I felt that Sam would be up.