4 Murder at Breakfast Page 23

  “Sometimes what you think you have is really missing.”

  “I was afraid it would sound the same the second time.”

  “Try to figure out what it means before I get there.”

  “Watch yourself. Sometimes brilliance takes time.”

  “More than fifty years in your case.”

  “If you didn’t have my pride and joy, I might forget all about you today.”

  “That’s sounds good. I think I’ll go out and tell Tweetie that we’ll skip breakfast this morning.”

  “My next-door neighbor is about to get a love note from you.”

  “I’ll be right there, Cy.”

  I hung up the phone and wondered what the strange message meant. I wondered what in the world I thought I had that I really don’t have. Or could it be something someone else thought he or she had?

  I knew about how long it would take Lou to get to my house, so I sat down in a chair until a couple of minutes before I expected him, then got up and went to the window to watch for him. Lightning was already setting in the driveway. I hoped Lou hadn’t pushed her. Maybe she was anxious to see me, and she had revved up as soon as she saw where she was headed.

  I stumbled out the front door and to the car. Lou motioned, as if to ask me if I wanted to drive or wanted him to drive. I decided to test my ribs.

  As soon as I was sure I had escaped my neighbor’s clutches I turned to Lou.

  “Well, Lou, got any idea what the clue means?”

  “I thought you were going to be working on it while I drove over. I thought that was the reason you kept me waiting for five minutes.”

  I was sure Lou hadn’t been sitting in my driveway for five minutes, so I didn’t nibble at his bait.

  “Actually, I’ve already figured it out. I think this was one of the easiest clues we’ve ever had.”

  “Oh! So what does it mean, Cy?”

  “Well, the clue is about you. What you think you have that is missing is a brain. That must mean that you’re the murderer, Lou.”

  “Well, I’m not guilty of this one, but if you don’t watch yourself I’ll be guilty of the next one.”

  We continued our repartee all the way to the Blue Moon. We arrived and Lightning slid into our customary place right in front of the Blue Moon. I had often wondered if, some day, someone might put a plaque there in Lightning’s honor, and bronze the stools inside to remember what Lou and I meant to the place.

  I pretended to be enjoying the nice almost-summer-like day that was already summer in my book. I didn’t have to wait until the twenty-first. The first of June was summer in my book. Lou’s too, when he was still thinking right.

  In a matter of minutes my face was adorned with maple syrup and whipped cream. As a part of my breakfast, I had ordered buckwheat pancakes with whipped cream, bananas, and pecans drowned in maple syrup. I even poured a little more and dipped my bacon and sausage in it, but my eggs had to make do with the cheese mixed in, and my biscuits were quite comfortable hidden under all that sausage gravy. Surely some of these major food groups would be enough to entice those leetle gray cells that made Hercule Poroit so popular. If I was not his equal, I was close to it. Of course, I would mix some chocolate in for good measure. I bet if I had eaten my normal amount of chocolate the day before, my ribs wouldn’t hurt. Maybe then I would have realized that the vulture returned to her nest before making it all the way downstairs to supper.

  In a matter of days, I had rested up from my feast and clutched whatever was necessary to navigate my way back to Lightning. I think Lou left the restaurant after I did, but he was standing next to Lightning’s passenger door when I managed to pull myself around to the other side.

  +++

  On the way to Parkway Arms Lou suggested that I might question Elaine Jewell and Christine Hunt when we arrived. This caused me to beat myself up because I neglected to have an ejector seat installed. I often wondered how high Lou could fly if propelled properly.

  I managed to gain entrance to the apartment without encountering anyone except the officer on duty. Other than the incident where an officer caught Hilda Winters climbing down the rope ladder, I had heard of nothing that revealed that someone was trying to escape, and I didn’t believe she was leaving the premises, either, so maybe after the weekend we would release the two officers to other duties.

  I ambled into the apartment and hurried to a comfortable chair. Not only was the chair a good location to ponder or mull, but I was certain the two pieces of chocolate pie that had topped off my breakfast at the Blue Moon had not yet found their final resting place. I wanted to give them that opportunity.

  I waited over thirty minutes before I picked up my Hershey kisses. Somewhere during the celebration of the sucking on the chocolate Lou reached into his pocket and plucked out his M & M for the day. It looked yellow. So did Lou. Maybe a combination of this case and a starvation diet were too much for him. It had been at least twelve hours since he’d mentioned his Wii. Had he grown tired of it? Or could it be that he no longer exhibited the energy to Wii every day? I wasn’t going to ask him. I was thankful that he had refrained from using the “W” word.

  +++

  After sitting for an hour, I got up and did something that was against my disposition. I walked around the apartment, hoping that a stirring creature might find something to break the case. After a few moments, I felt hot breath on the back of my neck. Surely my next door neighbor hadn’t sneaked into the apartment. I glanced over my shoulder and found a formerly robust-looking sergeant. When I walked, he walked. When I stopped to peruse, he stopped to peruse. I thought about bending over to see if he tripped over me, but I didn’t want to go there. After toying with him for a few minutes, I shook my head and returned my thoughts to the case at hand, finding a murderer in a haystack.

  I stumbled to the bedroom, sat down on the bed, and looked around. I was thankful that Lou didn’t sit on the bed with me. I sent him on an errand, told him to count his M & Ms while I rechecked the clues in the bedroom. Nothing in the chest or dresser turned on any lights. I had been through the room a couple of times. I had almost memorized what the room contained. I opened the closet doors and one of the photo albums fell and hit me on the arm. I opened it and carefully looked through. No one in the building claimed to have known Mrs. Higgins prior to her moving to Parkway Arms. I studied each face, found no one who looked familiar. Dejectedly, I returned the album to the closet shelf. I had hoped to thumb through it and find someone smiling, holding a bottle of poison.

  I left the bedroom, stopped off in the bathroom. I stood in the doorway looking for anything that should have been there that wasn’t. The soap and shampoo were still in the shower. I thought of having Lou drink a little of the shampoo to see if he keeled over, but refrained from doing so. In his condition, even if there were poison in the bottle I doubt if he would have drunk enough to kill himself. I turned to the sink. The bar of soap was still there. The toothpaste and toothbrush were missing, but then the lab boys had checked them out, found nothing wrong. I turned off the bathroom light, returned to the living room, the room that housed the small refrigerator. I looked inside. The small appliance reminded me of Lou’s refrigerator. There was nothing inside. But then there shouldn’t have been. Mrs. Higgins ate her meals downstairs, and the lab boys removed the piece of cheesecake that Lover Boy had left. It wasn’t poisoned, either. Was there something else that should’ve been in the refrigerator that wasn’t there? Or did the clues the murderer left us draw our attention away from the dining room where the woman was actually murdered? Was there something that should’ve been in the dining room that wasn’t? I decided to sit down, mull things over. I visualized the layout of the apartment, the dining room, the dumbwaiter that allowed things to move from one place to the other. I tried to put myself in the victim’s shoes, visualize what she had done on the day of the murder, and the night before. What was missing? What was I missing?

  After sitting there for some time, it hit me. Th
ere wasn’t just one thing missing. There were two things missing, and they were missing from different places. I thought of a way that someone could’ve murdered Mrs. Higgins. I shared it with Lou. He agreed it could’ve happened that way, and if it had, that would allow for our clue of the day. I had questions for two people before I went any further. I sent Lou to ask a couple of questions of someone while I got on the phone and called Frank. In a few minutes Lou returned with the answers I had hoped for. That, along with Frank’s answer to the question I asked him, meant that I wouldn’t be wasting my time if I proceeded with that rationale.

  My stomach growled, interrupting my thoughts. I knew that figuring everything out would take some time, so I posed a plan to Lou, and he agreed that we could drop by Antonio’s, pick up something to eat, then go to my house and chow down while we thought things through.

  Before I called in the order in to Antonio’s, I needed to know what the weakling was willing to eat. We ordered two Strombolis and two orders of fries with gravy. While it was easy to divide two by two, we both knew that each of us would not eat the same amount. Lou would cut off half of his sandwich and give it to me, and I would get some of his fries, too. At least he was willing to eat real food, even if it was for only one meal.

  +++

  Thirty minutes later, we were firmly ensconced at my dining room table. I wolfed and gobbled down my food while Lou picked at his. Once I determined that there were no strays, I plopped down in one chair, Lou in another. Both of us had a legal pad and a pen. It was time to go over everything we knew for sure. If I could line up everything the way I wanted, it wouldn’t be long before the two of us were once again retired.

  We concentrated on four areas. Who was with the victim at breakfast? Where was everyone from 7:30-9:00? How accessible was the victim’s apartment? And what did her apartment look like when she was found? The two of us worked separately, and silently. That way, one of us might come up with an idea that the other one had not. I jotted down what answers I had for each of the four questions. Lou did the same.

  After about an hour, we took a break. I asked Lou if he was willing to run an errand. He looked at me skeptically. Thirty minutes later, while I lay resting on the couch, regaining my strength from my rigorous day, Lou returned with a care package from the Blue Moon. He handed me the sack, and I looked inside and smiled. By the time, I had opened all my Christmas presents I had discovered homemade creamy banana pudding, chocolate pie, and pecan pie. There was enough stuff in there for the two of us to hole up for a couple of hours. I sampled some of each, and once again had enough strength to write down all the answers that came into my head.

  By the time our dessert stash had diminished to just enough to feed Lou for a month, I felt it was time to compare notes.

  “Okay, Lou. Let’s see where we are. Who do you have down as the people who were with the victim at breakfast?”

  “Well, Cy, as far as the staff is concerned, she saw only the cook and the apartment manager. The handyman and the two maids weren’t in the dining room during the time she was there for breakfast. As far as the residents are concerned, Christine Hunt, Joanne Moberly, and Hilda Winters were there. Russell Cochran and Elaine Jewell were not. As far as we know, all those who weren’t in the dining room were in their apartments. Do you have anything to add, Cy?”

  “No, everything you said correlates with what I’ve written down. Now, as far as we know, who was where from 7:30-9:00?”

  “From everything I can tell, the cook only left the kitchen or the dining room to send breakfast up to two people, the manager was in the dining room, her office, or her apartment the entire time. The handyman and the two maids were either in their apartments or at breakfast. None of these people were seen anywhere else during that time. Agree, Cy?”

  “I agree. Now, how about the residents?”

  “As far as we know, each of them was in his or her apartment.”

  “Right! Of course, the maids hadn’t started shampooing the carpet yet, so anyone of these people could have stopped by and knocked on the victim’s door, offered her something to snack on, which leads us to the next question. How accessible was the victim’s apartment?”

  “Well, from 10:15-4:00 it was off limits to anyone. If anyone had gone to the victim’s apartment between 9:00-10:00, when most of the residents left, I think either Wally Gentry or Margie Washburn would’ve seen them. Of course, there was no reason for anyone to go then. She was already dead, and her partially eaten lunch had not yet arrived. So, I think we’re safe in saying that no one stopped by to visit her apartment then.”

  “I concur. And unless the victim let her murderer inside the apartment, if the chain on the door was latched, then whoever entered had to have gotten in from the roof, whether he or she used one of the two ladders available, or tiptoed over by way of the roof from Elaine Jewell’s apartment. Regardless of how he or she did it, it’s obvious that someone entered Mrs. Higgins’ apartment. There’s no way the dead woman removed her tray of food from the dumbwaiter, nor was she the one who moved her body after she died. So, Lou, let’s move on to the fourth question. What did the apartment look like when she was found?”

  “Well, first of all, the apartment manager said that the chain was latched, but Officer Davis said it wasn’t. That means that either the manager is lying, or the murderer was inside the apartment when the manager came to check on her tenant. Mrs. Higgins was seated at the table, with a partially eaten plate of food in front of her, a plate of food that she herself didn’t eat.”

  When we began, we had ten suspects and a few different ways each could have committed murder. When you have that many possibilities, it’s hard to figure out anything. But now, because of two mistakes the murderer made, I knew how and when the murder was committed, and when I used logic I was able to deduce who committed the murder. There were two ways I could prove who committed the murder, but for both it would take weeks before I would have either form of the proof. I wanted to wrap up the case. I would have to get the murderer to confess, after I confronted said murderer in front of everyone else.

  I was going to arrange a grand finale, Charlie Chan style. As I said, the only evidence would take weeks to arrive, so it was going to have to be this way. I called up Martha Carpenter, told her I had a friend who was looking for a place for his mother, and asked her to cook for six more people for breakfast. I told her the food would be what would convince my friend to relocate.

  I hated to lie, but I needed to get inside Parkway Arms, and I needed some backup in case there was a problem. I called George and asked him to assist me, then asked him to assign Officers Dan Davis and Heather Ambrose to Saturday morning detail at Parkway Arms. I told him that I had arranged for breakfast for all five of us. George wanted to know if I told them there would be twenty more at breakfast. I accused him of being jealous.

  +++

  After setting my plans in motion, Lou and I left to enjoy a good steak. Well, I would enjoy a good steak. Lou would nibble a little. We pulled into Burkman’s parking lot. I was confident that Saturday would be our last day on the case, and I would be back home by lunchtime.

  I ate a nice juicy steak, then dropped Lou at his place. If he wanted to Wii the night away, that was his prerogative. I, on the other hand, was headed home to pick up an Erle Stanley Gardner book and see what Perry Mason was up to.

  36

  I awoke Saturday morning with a smile on my face, even though I was awakened by one of those devices that God didn’t intend for man to buy. The fact that I smiled doesn’t mean that I didn’t want to throw something at my old-fashioned clock, but I refrained. I knew that sometime in the next six months I would have to set the thing again, and I didn’t want to have to buy a new alarm clock each time I set it.

  I stretched, hurt four muscles and two ribs in the process, then figured I had better get up while the getting was good. I stumbled to the bathroom and eventually into the shower. It was not the pool of Siloam, but at least I felt som
e better when I emerged.

  I looked out. The sun was thinking about getting up, just not quite there yet. I called Lou to let him know I was on the way. He wanted to know who was calling. It seemed like Lou was getting funnier. A lot of people use humor to help themselves through adversity.

  I got away from the house before my next-door neighbor could sink her claws into my skin. Either she had broken both legs by then, or she figured my car was still stolen. I looked through my rear-view mirror, and still there was no enemy sighting.

  On the way to Lou’s I thought about the case. I was glad to bring it to a close, but it still saddens me every time I have to arrest someone for murder. I cannot help but think, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

  George Michaelson, Dan Davis, and Heather Ambrose were supposed to meet us in the Parkway Arms parking lot at 6:45. We would storm the palace together.

  I had no desire to reveal our hand any sooner than necessary, so as far as anyone at Parkway Arms was concerned, Dan and Heather were replacing the two officers who were on night duty, which they were, and George was there to check out the place for his mother. Contrary to public opinion, cops have mothers. It’s just that George’s mother and father are doing well and have no plans to downsize at the moment.

  I picked up Lou and was surprised when he said “one shining moment.” I was so excited about getting back to my mundane lifestyle that I had forgotten about a clue for the day.

  “What’s that mean?”

  He gave me the usual dirty look that he gives me when I want him to speak in tongues and interpret them, too. Since he didn’t plan to speak, I did.

  “I think He’s telling us that soon we’ll be back to reading and eating and not much else.”

  “Cy, I’ve been thinking, and I think you need to take up Wiiing, so you don’t get ahead of me on these books. We need to stay together in order to be able to discuss them.”

  “Lou, I’m not sure that I want to stay with you, but I do have a solution. Each time you plan to Wii, call me and I’ll take a nap, and when you get through Wiiing call me again, so I’ll wake up. Now, isn’t that easy? I wish all our murder investigations were that easy.”