1 52 Steps to Murder Page 21

“So, Lou called his sweetheart. Have you been talking all this time?”

  “No, Cy. I just called to see if she’d like to go out this weekend in case I have some free time. After I hung up, I plopped down in front of the card table and worked on my latest puzzle. I’ve been neglecting it the last few days.”

  “Well, Lou, at least you’re a bachelor. You don’t have anyone telling you to work your puzzle or put it away.”

  “No, I can leave the card table up as long as I like, which is most of the time. Anyway, I put together a few pieces. You know how exhausting that can be, so after a few minutes I ambled over to the recliner, let gravity have its way, and took a nap. I just woke up a few minutes ago. I’d just picked up my book to see what those wuthering people were up to when you called. So, Cy, did you solve the case or are you just calling to brag on your love life?”

  “No, something far more important than either of those.”

  “You must mean food.”

  “You got it. Do you want to go out and get something to eat, or just remain in your cocoon until the need arises to break out?”

  “I may regret this later, but unless you care, I think I’ll just stay here and heat up some of that fiber stuff.”

  “Fiber stuff?”

  “Yeah, you know. That stuff in the frozen food section at the grocery that comes in a cardboard box and whatever is inside looks as much like someone’s latest decoupage project as it does something edible.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been sneaking around in my refrigerator. Okay, I’ll probably do the same. I’ll call you if we get any breaking news.”

  +++

  I stuffed myself with food that made me long for the Blue Moon Diner. Talking to Lou had inspired me, so I allowed my food to digest in peace while I leaned back in the recliner and took a nap. While I slept, I dreamed I was Wile E. Coyote, and my next-door neighbor was that dastardly Road Runner. While I dreamed, I envisioned the doorbell ringing. I hurried to the door and found a shipment from the Acme Warehouse. With saliva dripping from the side of my mouth in typical Wile E. Coyote fashion, I uncrated each purchase, and did something no man has ever done. I read the instructions.

  As I continued to dream, I saw myself counting the minutes until it was dark enough to sneak next door undetected. Then, I eased out of the house, crept to the house next door, hooked up the explosive device, slithered home under the cover of darkness, and waited for the contraption to put an end to my problems.

  Little did I know that that Muffy varmint had seen me make my delivery. Silently, Scruffy Muffy sneaked out of her house, disconnected the device, lugged it back to my house with her formidable teeth, and hooked up the device, again.

  I suspected nothing when the doorbell in my dreams rang and went to see who was calling. I opened the door, was horror struck as I looked down at the ticking device, and woke up just before the apparatus ticked down to zero. It was then I realized that I needed to get rid of the dog before I eliminated the neighbor.

  It was still early when I woke up, so I sifted through my DVD collection and found one Lou had given me. It was filled with commercials from my childhood. I took a chance and watched some of them. If any of them made me hungry, I could always make myself a snack before going to bed.

  A few minutes in, I was so disappointed. Instead of commercials I remember, like the Speedy Alka-Seltzer commercial, Johnny the bellboy hollering, “Call for Phillip Morris,” or seeing a man falling from the sky to let Hertz put him in the driver’s seat, I saw a mishmash of repeats of a few commercials that were made in the 70’s. I was so disappointed I went to bed without eating again.

  39

  I’d had a little more rest the night before, so I woke up a little earlier on Saturday morning, rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and read my daily devotional before I took a shower. I smiled as I envisioned Lou doing the same. There weren’t many times when I got up at nearly the same time as my friend. I read, then reflected on what I’d read, as I watched darkness change into daylight.

  So this is what a sunrise looks like.

  I eased into my day and headed to the shower. I’d just stepped out of the shower when the phone rang. I hurried to the phone to see who was calling. The ringing phone meant the time had come when I needed to change from ordinary citizen Cy Dekker to Lt. Dekker.

  “Lt. Dekker, this is Officer Davis. I thought you might want to know that one of the parties has returned to the street.”

  “Are we going to play Twenty Questions or are you going to tell me who it is?”

  “It’s the next-door neighbor, Irene Penrod, or at least it’s somebody who went into her house. She just stepped out of a taxi, gave me a furtive look, and then lugged her luggage up to her house.”

  “Thanks, Officer Davis. You’ve done well. Stay there and Sgt. Murdock and I will be there as soon as we get through with our preliminaries. If by some chance she leaves, follow her.”

  Officer Davis had no idea that “the preliminaries” meant overindulging in breakfast.

  As soon as I finished my phone call with Officer Davis, I called Lou to let him know there might be a break in the case.

  “I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” I informed Lou. Even though I couldn’t see his face, I could envision the surprise that must be on it as he looked at his watch and realized that I was ready so early.

  My mind wasn’t so focused on Irene Penrod that I forgot to ask Lou what message God had given him that morning. Because it brought back pleasant memories, Lou let me know.

  “Carnac the Magnificent.”

  “Carnac the Magnificent?”

  “Yeah, you know, the character Johnny Carson played on his show who could tell what message an envelope contained before he opened it.”

  “I know who Carnac was. I stayed up later in those days. I was younger then.”

  “So, Cy, what do you think it means? Will we run into some guy in a turban or someone with a boatload of envelopes?”

  “I was kind of hoping that when we get to the Blue Moon Johnny Carson will be there to entertain us, sort of tickle the ham and eggs to make digesting them a little easier.”

  I hung the phone up, got ready to pick up Lou. On the way to breakfast, I kept thinking of the latest development. Would Irene Penrod be able to shed some light on the case and provide the clue of the day? I thought about that until Rosie sat a giant plate in front of me.

  +++

  Lou and I shoveled in our breakfast, then hurried for Hilltop Place. We parked behind Officer Davis’s cruiser, got out to see if there had been any new developments. As we sauntered up to the cruiser, Officer Davis got out and greeted us. We said our hellos, and the three of us turned and looked up at Miss Penrod’s house. The red brick exterior looked no different than any other time in the last week, but the house’s lone resident had returned, and Lou and I were eager to question her. Officer Davis filled us in with what little he knew.

  “As far as I know, she’s still in there. At least she didn’t come out the front way, and I haven’t seen anyone else. The rest of the street is as dead as it has been.”

  “Thanks again, Officer Davis. We’ll go up and talk to her now. We’ll stop on our way out.” My voice cracked as I mentioned going up and talking to Irene Penrod. I didn’t relish another climb of that magnitude.

  “Say, Lou, what do you say we stand at the bottom of the steps and call out to her? Do you think she’d come down and talk to us on the street? Or better yet, what did Romeo have on us. How about ‘Irene, Irene, wherefore art thou, Irene?’”

  Even though Lou had grown accustomed to my sense of humor, it still brought a smile to his face.

  “I don’t mean anything by it, Cy, but I can’t see you being anyone’s Romeo. And I doubt if Miss Penrod will come down to us. The only one I know who ever came down to His people was Jesus. Everyone else expects you to climb up and bow down to them.”

  “Good point, Lou. We don’t know her yet, but she’s definitely not Jesus.”

&n
bsp; “No, and while it may be a long way up to her house, that’s not heaven up there, either.”

  “No, but it’s higher up than the Tower of Babel ever got.”

  Eventually, we quit stalling and reached for the railing. How many steps was it again? Too many. That’s how many. Surely, the Washington Monument had less.

  Lou and I wheezed in unison as we climbed a little, rested a lot, and climbed a little more. Eventually, we arrived at the front porch with the sun still high in the sky. We were about to meet the elusive Irene Penrod.

  40

  I punched the doorbell and waited for Miss Penrod to answer. In a few seconds, I was relieved to see that Miss Penrod had not been murdered, nor had she disappeared with the Reynoldses and Silverman. It was comforting to know that not everyone on Hilltop Place had been abducted.

  “Miss Penrod?”

  “Yes, I’m Irene Penrod,” the woman answered quizzically. Miss Penrod wore a beige knit top and camel-colored pants. She appeared to be around five-six, had light brown hair, and was slender. I guessed her to be somewhere in her early to mid-thirties.

  “I’m Lt. Dekker and this is Sgt. Murdock. We’re with the local police department. We’re detectives.”

  “Is there something wrong, Lieutenant?” I noticed that the woman remained calm, at least on the outside.

  “I’m afraid there is, Miss Penrod. Have you been out of town?”

  “Yes, Lieutenant. I left last Saturday and I just got back a little over an hour ago. What can I help you with, Lieutenant?”

  “And where have you been, Miss Penrod?”

  “Visiting relatives.” Miss Penrod was straightforward with her answer. She didn’t seem to have Mrs. Reynolds’s belligerent attitude.

  “Miss Penrod, I want to show you something. Tell me if you’ve seen it before.” With that I reached into my coat pocket and extracted the envelope we’d found underground. I handed it to Miss Penrod, and she opened it and looked at it.

  “Yes, Lieutenant. This is the note I received from my aunt whom I’ve been visiting. How did you get it?”

  I avoided her question and continued.

  “Miss Penrod, are you aware that there are tunnels under the houses on this street?”

  “Of course, Lieutenant. Everyone on this street knows about them.”

  “Well, Miss Penrod. I found this envelope lying in the dirt in one of those tunnels. Do you have any idea how it got there?”

  “I have no idea, Lieutenant. Mr. Hartley, our mailman, delivered the note just before I left. I’m pretty sure I left it on the table in the hall. But I guess I couldn’t have. Otherwise someone would have had to have broken into my house and taken it. There would be no reason for anyone to take the note, and as far as I can tell, there’s nothing missing.”

  “Miss Penrod, did you know Mrs. Nelson and Mrs. Jarvis?”

  Miss Penrod seemed visibly shaken.

  “Y-y-you said ‘did I know.’ Did something happen to them?”

  “Yes, Miss Penrod. Both of them were murdered.”

  Miss Penrod grabbed the door facing.

  “I think I need to sit down. Would you like to come in?”

  Miss Penrod used the wall for assistance and helped herself to the nearest chair. I looked for somewhere to sit and noted that most of Miss Penrod’s furniture appeared to be antiques. Either they were handed down, or Miss Penrod spent a lot of money furnishing her home.

  “I can’t believe this, Lieutenant. No one would’ve wanted to murder either of these dear old ladies. Everyone loved them.”

  “Everyone, Miss Penrod?”

  “Everyone who knew them. How did it happen, Lieutenant, and when?”

  “Mrs. Nelson was murdered last Saturday morning.”

  “But that was the day I left, and I saw her Saturday morning.”

  “Tell me about the last time you saw her, Miss Penrod, and the last time you saw Mrs. Jarvis.”

  “I saw Mrs. Jarvis Saturday morning, too. Mrs. Nelson called me and asked if I was coming over before I left town. You may or may not know that Mrs. Nelson had fallen recently and had just gotten out of the hospital. She was incapable of doing anything for herself, so I went over a few times each day to empty her bedpan and fix her something to eat. I was concerned about her, but Mrs. Nelson told me not to worry, that her granddaughter Angela would be back that same morning and would come to check on her.

  “I had tried to get hold of Angela to let her know that her grandmother had fallen, but she was away because of her job and I was unable to reach her.

  “Anyway, Mrs. Nelson asked me if I had time to run over to Mrs. Jarvis’s house and pick up something and bring it to her. I told her I would be glad to. She told me that Mrs. Jarvis was expecting me. When I got to Mrs. Jarvis’s house, she hollered for me to come in. Mrs. Jarvis was confined to a wheelchair, so I stepped inside and Mrs. Jarvis handed me an envelope and asked me to take it and give it to Mrs. Nelson. Then, Mrs. Jarvis told me ‘goodbye.’ She seemed so afraid. Now that I think of it, it’s just as if she knew she was going to die.”

  “What did you think of Mrs. Jarvis?”

  “She was a nice lady, but I felt sorry for her.”

  “Sorry enough to put her out of her misery.”

  “Absolutely not, Lieutenant.”

  “Miss Penrod, someone overheard you say something about not having to take care of Mrs. Jarvis much longer. What did you mean by that?”

  “Mrs. Jarvis didn’t want to leave the house where she had lived for such a long time, but it was difficult for her to take care of herself and the house. The last few years she’d had to hire someone to come in and do her cleaning, but still that didn’t seem to be enough. For some time Mrs. Jarvis had been contemplating having a young person move in with her, and give her free rent in exchange for helping her whenever she needed some assistance. She told me that next week she was going to contact an agency to help her find someone.”

  “Did anyone else know about this, Miss Penrod?”

  “I’m sure Mrs. Nelson did, but I don’t know of anyone else. Mrs. Jarvis didn’t confide in a lot of people.”

  “Just you and Mrs. Nelson?”

  “You act like you don’t believe me, Lieutenant. I loved those ladies, and both of them were alive the last time I saw them.”

  “I didn’t mean to insinuate otherwise, Miss Penrod. Carry on. Pick up with when you left Mrs. Jarvis’s house.”

  Miss Penrod was not as calm as before, let out an indignant breath, and then continued.

  “Anyway, I told Mrs. Jarvis goodbye and hurried off to Mrs. Nelson’s house, since I didn’t know how much help she would need and I had a bus to catch.”

  “Did you catch that bus, Miss Penrod?”

  “You ask that as if you know I didn’t, Lieutenant.”

  I didn’t give away whether I knew or not, so Miss Penrod continued.

  “Just after I got to the bus station my cousin drove up. He gave me a ride to his mom and dad’s house. Not only did it save me the price of a bus ticket, but we didn’t have to stop in every little town along the way.”

  “And you’re just now getting back from your visit?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Sorry to interrupt, Miss Penrod. Please continue from the moment you went to Mrs. Nelson’s house.”

  “Well, I went up and rang the bell and Mrs. Nelson let me in.”

  “I thought you said she was disabled.”

  “Sorry, I’m a little nervous, and I’m getting ahead of myself. I rang the doorbell and Mrs. Nelson pushed a button above her bed to let me in.”

  “So, you didn’t have a key?”

  “Oh, yes, I had a key, but as you probably already know, Mrs. Nelson’s front door was double bolted. You could unlock one lock with a key, but you still couldn’t get in until Mrs. Nelson pushed that button. Say? Wait a minute. How could anyone get in and murder Mrs. Nelson? She would’ve had to admit them, and she would never admit anyone she didn’t know. Do you thi
nk someone murdered Mrs. Jarvis first, and then went down into the tunnel and came up through Mrs. Nelson’s house that way?”

  “I don’t know, Miss Penrod. You’re the detective.”

  “You don’t think I did it, do you, Lieutenant? I know how it must look, since I admit I saw both women on Saturday morning, but someone had to have entered those houses after I left.”

  “So, Miss Penrod. Do you know who else has a key to Mrs. Nelson’s house?”

  “Most of the neighbors and who knows who else.”

  “So what did you do when you arrived at Mrs. Nelson’s?”

  “Well, I turned the key, and spoke into the intercom to let her know it was me. She buzzed me in, and I immediately went up to her bedroom. She asked me if I had been to Mrs. Jarvis’s, and I started to hand her the envelope. She waved me away, and said, ‘just put it on top of the other one.’”

  “There was another envelope?”

  “Yes, Lieutenant, but I suppose you already know that, too.”

  I didn’t reveal that this was news to me, and continued with my questioning. “Where was the other envelope?”

  “On the table beside her bed.”

  “Describe the envelopes to me, Miss Penrod.”

  “Well, both of them were long envelopes. Both of them were white. There’s nothing much to describe.”

  “Do you have any idea what was in either envelope?”

  “Of course not. I didn’t open them. Neither lady confided in me, and I didn’t ask, but Mrs. Nelson said something that frightened me.”

  “What was that, Miss Penrod?’

  “She said, ‘Irene, I want you to take these envelopes when you leave, and if anything happens to me, I want you to give them to the police.’”

  “So, will you get them for me?”

  “I, uh, don’t have them. I forgot and left them on the table.”

  “I see, Miss Penrod. Well, from the size of the envelope, did it appear to be paper inside or something else?”

  “Oh, I’d say both of them contained paper, probably two or three sheets from the thickness of them.”

  “So, did you put Mrs. Jarvis’s envelope on top of the other one?”