1 52 Steps to Murder Page 14
Lou had given me two DVDs, each with five episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies. I watched the first two episodes on one DVD, then fast forwarded to the last one, which turned out to be my favorite. The Clampetts had recently moved to Beverly Hills, and it was time for Jethro to enroll in school. Jed sets out with Jethro in tow, eager to enter his nephew in the fifth grade.
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Lou told me he had decided to put the case aside until the next day. He planned to do some solving, but his plans were to pick up where he had left off in his crossword puzzle book. It had been a few days since he’d worked on it, and he was anxious to get back to it. He told me that he had gone through the across clues once before going to bed the other night, but had left off before tackling the down column. He was in the middle of a three-star puzzle, which meant the puzzle wasn’t particularly easy or difficult. I’d seen Lou work many a puzzle on one of our slow days, so I knew he was seasoned enough that he could usually fill in each box on a medium puzzle by at least the third trip through the clues. Because of the unpredictable nature of our schedules, Lou had no idea when he’d get another chance to work a crossword puzzle. He told me he planned to spend at least a couple of hours working his way through the book.
I took a break from watching The Beverly Hillbillies. I called Lou just as he’d tossed his crossword book aside and contemplated fixing himself something to eat. Neither of us had eaten since late afternoon. Lou answered the phone as he stuck his head in the refrigerator. I laughed when he told me what he was doing. Lou said he didn’t want a full meal, but he did need a substantial snack before going to bed. I was anxious to find out what he decided to eat, so we continued to talk as he searched the refrigerator and freezer. All he saw that interested him were some meatballs left over from a few days before and a carton of rocky road ice cream. Lou’s words made my mouth water. He told me that he’d frozen the meatballs, so all he had to do was heat them until they were just right. Then, he’d place them on a hoagie bun he had stored in the bread drawer, drench them in spaghetti sauce, cover them with mozzarella cheese, slice and sauté some green peppers and onions, add them to the sandwich, and devour it. After he finished the sandwich, he’d take out the half-empty carton of ice cream, add some syrup, whipped cream, and a cherry, consume everything but the carton, and head for bed. My mistake was that I talked to Lou until his food was ready. He was ready to eat, and I hadn’t even begun to look for a snack. I just knew that Lou had rung my bell and my mouth was watering.
I hung up the phone, checked out my refrigerator. I knew that I didn’t have any leftover meatballs. When I opened the refrigerator door, and heard corned beef on rye, topped with sauerkraut and Thousand Island dressing calling me. I put up a TV tray and set the plate containing my sandwich on it, while I returned to the kitchen to pick up my root beer float. Sufficiently armed, and having had my fill of the negative aspects of underground life, I needed a few laughs from a different type of underground lifestyle. It was time to watch Hogan’s Heroes. Who knows? Maybe I would find a clue that would help me solve the case.
Four episodes later, I had mixed emotions. I still had no idea who committed the murders on Hilltop Place, but I laughed repeatedly as Col. Hogan bested Col. Klink and Sgt. Schultz. As I watched the first episode of Hogan’s Heroes first season, I noted that the underground beneath Hilltop Place is much larger than the one under Stalag 13, but that the Stalag 13 underground included more of the comforts of home. I had no idea how I felt about this, but I felt inferior as it took Col. Hogan only one episode to discover the identity of his nemesis, and I hadn’t solved my murders, even though I had been at my task for almost a week.
I suspected the next day would be another busy day, so I called it a night. When I got up from the chair, it seemed like my clothes fit a little more snugly than they had a few weeks before. My clothes must have shrunk. I wished I had bought pants with an elastic waistband. While even elastic will stretch only so far, at least it will stretch. I changed into my pajamas, took one more trip to the kitchen table to see where I’d tossed the legal pad, looked it over again, and hoped that I’d solve the murders in my sleep.
24
I woke up Wednesday morning and made a mental note to check on the prices of hot tubs, just in case my aches and pains continued. I turned over gingerly and looked at the clock. It was late enough, so I called Frank Harris to see what he could tell me about Mrs. Jarvis’s murder.
“Good morning, Frank. Do you have any information for me yet?”
“Oh, did you finally get up, Cy? I’ve already put in half a day’s work.”
“It’s only eight thirty, Frank. So, Mr. Time-And-A-Half, what do you have for me?”
“Mabel Jarvis was poisoned, codeine, just like Mrs. Nelson.”
“Anything different from Mrs. Nelson?”
“Well no one gave her a sedative first. But, as you know, we didn’t find her until a few days after she died, so the best I can pinpoint the time of her death is to say that is was probably sometime Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. My best guess is Saturday, but it could have been Friday or Sunday.”
“I think someone’s trying to play games with us, Frank. They leave enough clues to keep us interested, but manage to stay a step ahead of us.”
“Well, Cy, let’s hope they stop to rest before we do.”
“Let’s hope so, Frank. Well, I’ll let you go. I’m going to call Muriel and see what I can find out about that man we found.”
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Dr. Muriel Davenport was a police psychiatrist. I’d worked with her a few times and knew her to be thorough and competent.
“Hello, Muriel. This is Cy Dekker. Do you have any information for me?”
“Oh, hi, Cy. Well, we now have an ID on our mysterious man. His name is Don Hampton. A couple of years ago Mr. Hampton unexpectedly lost his wife and his mother within two weeks of each other. Their deaths were more than he could handle. He gave up. He’s been pretty much of a street person ever since.”
“Anything unusual about their deaths?”
“No, his wife died in a car accident. There were witnesses and Mr. Hampton was not in the vehicle. Investigators ruled that no one tampered with the car. His mother died of a heart attack. Nothing suspicious about her death, either.”
“Has he ever been in trouble with the law?”
“A couple of times. Once he got arrested for public intoxication. Another time he lashed out at a woman in a bar. Both times were after his wife and mother died.”
“Muriel, do you think he was capable of administering poison to two little old ladies?”
“It’s hard to say, Cy. I think he’d be more likely to push a little old lady down the steps. What profile I have doesn’t characterize him as someone who would poison their drinks.”
“What about his current frame of mind?”
“Let me see if the information I have is right. Was he found in a dark dungeon-like place? And had he been there for a few weeks?”
“The answer to the first question is ‘yes,’ and the answer to the second question is ‘I think so, but I’m not sure.’”
“It’s hard to tell in these cases, but my guess is that when he first got there he was distraught but coherent. I think when you add to his history spending a few days in the dark with no visible means of escape, it caused him to worsen until he arrived at his current state.”
“I assume you don’t think he’s faking his condition.”
“No, Cy, I don’t. I have no idea how he came to be there, but I feel pretty certain that he’s not faking.”
“Do you think he might have witnessed either murder? We found one of the victims in the same cave-like area where we found him.”
“I have no idea, Cy, and I have no idea if we’ll ever know.”
“Are you saying you don’t think he’ll recover?”
“It’s hard to say. He could. He might not.”
“If he does, will he remember what happened on Saturday?”
“That’s hard to say, too.”
“Thanks, Muriel. Let me know if you come up with anything else.”
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It was time for me to check in with Sam Schumann. I dialed his number, and my friend, expecting the call, picked up on the first ring. It didn’t take him long to tell me what he had found out. Supposedly, Harry Hornwell worked long hours, but then Harry Hornwell saw no reason to hurry home each night. Mrs. Hornwell was an invalid. She wasn’t expected to die soon, but all she could do was lie in bed hour after hour. She spent her time talking on the phone and reading two or three books each week. Her husband remembered the woman she used to be. No one entertained quite like Catherine Hornwell, but then Catherine Hornwell could no longer entertain. As Sam relayed this information to me, I wondered if anyone entertained Harry Hornwell.
“Oh, I checked on Hornwell’s whereabouts. His alibi checks out. I called his wife and she informed me that her husband left for the cabin Friday afternoon and didn’t return until Sunday night. She said he phoned her just after he arrived on Friday afternoon and again Sunday afternoon before he returned. In addition, she called him once on Saturday. Then, I asked her where the cabin was located. She knew, even though she’s never been there.
“I called the county boys up north and had them check up on the cabin for me. Somebody was definitely there over the weekend. They were sure because they had lots of rain on Thursday. There’s mud everywhere. They had a lot more rain than we did. There were tire tracks at the cabin, and one set of a man’s footprints leading to and from the cabin. Oh, the guy laughed when he called me back. He said, That cabin is bigger than my house.” Also, he checked the country store near the cabin. The guy knows Hornwell and he said Hornwell stopped in late Friday afternoon and again on Sunday afternoon. The first time he bought some snacks, and Sunday he bought some gas, a soft drink, and a candy bar. He was definitely there over the weekend.”
“How far is this place from here, Sam?”
“It’s a good two hours, Cy.”
After Sam told me what he had learned about Hornwell, he moved on to Fred Hartley. According to sources, Hartley wasn’t the contented mailman he pretended to be. It bothered Hartley that most of his customers had far more money than he did. Some even laughed at him when he bought a metal detector. Hartley didn’t think they would laugh at him much longer. He planned to have the last laugh, no matter what it took to get it. Sam had no idea what that meant.
I asked, but Sam didn’t have any information about Mrs. Nelson’s will. He planned to check some more. I had hoped to find a motive for more of our suspects. While I did get some, it seemed like I was getting more alibis than anything.
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After I hung up from talking to Sam, I phoned Lou to fill him in on what I’d learned from my phone calls. I found out that Lou’s revelation for the day was “Morton salt.” Having no idea what that meant, I told the sergeant that I’d be by to pick him up for breakfast after I showered and dressed. While I showered, I tried to figure out what “Morton salt” had to do with the case we were working on. Could we be going back down into the salt mines below Hilltop Place? Did God consider Sgt. Murdock and me to be the salt of the earth?
The soothing water of the shower made me think of another option. “Morton salt. When it rains it pours.” Was it going to rain? Was I going to drown in the shower? I shuddered, stepped out of the shower quickly to eliminate the last option, got dressed, and left to pick up Lou. Later, I felt better, because I’d failed to realize how much water it would take to drown me.
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It was time for another book report, which would be the last because Lou had only so much time between murders. It turned out to be a partial report. Sometime murders interrupt even the best that classic literature has to offer. This time Lou wanted to get as far away from profanity and New York as he could, so he decided on a change of pace for his fourth selection. He selected Wuthering Heights. I laughed when Lou told me he had begun to read it, but I agreed with his reasoning. After all, it was written by a woman who lived a long time ago, possibly even before cursing became commonplace. At least it was before women wanted to be just like men, and women did not spit out profanities in those days. Emily Brontë was British. Lou decided that she wouldn’t write about New York City, so he made up his mind to give the book a try and see if he could recommend it to someone at church. Because it was written by a woman and he had committed to reading it, Lou hoped that it wouldn’t have any romance. If so, he wouldn’t want it to get back to anyone else on the force that he had read it. Lou knew some of my secrets. He knew I would keep his.
Before Lou could tell me more about the book, we arrived at the Blue Moon. The book might be a good one, but no book is good enough to interrupt my appetite. I would find out more later. Besides, Lou hadn’t even finished the book. He had read only a little when duty called.
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After a more than ample breakfast, I drove to Hilltop Place to see if we could learn anything new. I maneuvered the car into the driveway of the Nelson house, and we pulled ourselves from the car. The car’s name is Lightning, but that description would never define the speed with which Lou and I emerged from the car that day.
I looked at the climb that had become much too familiar. It looked like someone had added a couple of new steps to 125 Hilltop Place while we were away. Why had God allowed someone to build these towers of Babel so high?
Lou and I trudged up the steps. Every few steps, we stopped to admire the view. Heavy breathing accompanied each stop. Double heavy breathing. I expected some day we would solve this case. When that happened, I planned to take a vacation somewhere where the land was flat. I wanted to go somewhere where a speed bump would be considered a “scenic overlook.”
Lou and I arrived at the front door sometime before the sun set. I removed the key and inserted it into the lock. I turned the key and pushed on the door. The door didn’t budge. Someone had been there since we had and had secured the second lock. I pounded my fist into my open hand. While I often had thoughts of doing worse things, pounding my fist was usually as violent as I got. I was tired of someone playing games with us. After all, we were the police, so we should have been the ones to make the rules.
I thought of an alternative action.
“Lou, let’s forget about this place for awhile. It’s only a little over an hour until Mrs. Nelson’s funeral. What say we go to her funeral and then we’ll go back to your place and go over what we’ve learned so far. Then, let’s take a break, rest a while, and come back tonight and hope Captain Midnight the trickster is once again on the prowl.”
25
Lou and I arrived at Mrs. Nelson’s funeral. Most mourners came disguised as empty pews. The sparse crowd didn’t surprise us. We didn’t recognize anyone but the grieving granddaughter. No one who lived on Hilltop Place had come to the funeral. Angela Nelson said that her grandmother had no other relatives, so Lou and I figured that most of the mourners were friends of Angela Nelson.
Nothing unusual happened at the funeral. The pastor delivered the usual message spoken at a funeral and added some personal thoughts. From the way he spoke, my guess is that he knew the victim personally and didn’t have to make up any of the good things he said about her.
The funeral ended, and we left for my place. We got as comfortable as two hefty men can get at a dining room table and began to work. Lou sat at one end. I sat at the other. Our scattered papers covered most of the surface, but both of us knew what was where and we could find what we wanted. After looking over our notes to see the progress we’d made, we began to talk it out and see if we could make some sense out of what we had.
“Okay, Lou. Let’s look at what we have so far. Let’s start with Mrs. Nelson’s murder. According to Frank, she died sometime Saturday morning. According to Mr. Silverman, at least three people visited the house Saturday morning; Miss Penrod, Mr. Hartley, and her granddaughter Angela.
“We checked with the cab company.
A driver picked up a fare at 121 Hilltop Place at 10:14. That would be Miss Penrod leaving. Another driver dropped off a fare at 125 Hilltop Place at 10:20. That would be Miss Nelson arriving. Officer Davis arrived on the scene at 10:33. We checked with the airlines. Miss Nelson’s plane landed at 9:17. The driver confirmed that the fare he dropped off at 10:20 was the one he picked up at the airport at 9:52. After dropping her off on Hilltop Place, the taxi driver used the key she gave him, delivered Miss Nelson’s luggage to her home, and left her key on top of the luggage. See anything that stands out, Lou?”
“I’d say it’s more like everything checks out. What time did we arrive?”
“We received a call a little after 11:00 and arrived on the scene around 11:20. Let’s take a look at Mrs. Jarvis. From what we know, Mrs. Jarvis was murdered either Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, so she could have been murdered before or after Mrs. Nelson. That means that the murderer could have gained entrance to Mrs. Jarvis’s house, murdered her, and moved underground to Mrs. Nelson’s house. Or the murderer could have murdered Mrs. Nelson first, gone underground and come out through Mrs. Jarvis’ house, where he or she murdered her in the process. The murderer was either admitted by the victim, meaning that the victim knew the murderer, the murderer could have gained access to the house with a key, which may or may not have been supplied by the victim, or the murderer could have been someone who lived on the street who didn’t need a key, because he or she could have entered either of the victims’ houses by sneaking up through the secret passageway. Anything strike you, Lou?”
“Only that we haven’t ruled out the possibility of two murderers, each committing one murder.”