4 Murder at Breakfast Read online

  4

  “Before we move on to the residents, tell me what you can about the woman who died, and her schedule today, as best you can tell me.”

  “Kate Higgins lived in apartment number one. I assume you’ve already been there.” I nodded and she went on. “She’s been with us for nine years. She was a little demanding, but nothing unreasonable, and I could always pacify her. To the best of my knowledge she had no family. She talked about a niece, but no one’s ever been to see her, so I’m not sure if she had a niece or not. Supposedly, her niece lived out west somewhere. She said she had a brother and a sister, but both are deceased. Kate was married for a while, but her husband has been gone for almost forty years. Kate came here to live when she claimed the house was getting to be too much for her. She liked being able to come and go as she pleased and liked having someone to do her cooking and cleaning.”

  “So, she never had a visitor in all the time she lived here?”

  “Oh, she had a visitor all right, but he’s one of the residents. Those two spent a lot of time together. They were the talk of the place. Everyone said they should go ahead and get married. Well, everyone except for Christine Hunt, who wanted to marry Russell herself.”

  “And both of these two live here at Parkway Arms?”

  “That’s right! Russell Cochran’s up on the third floor in apartment six. Christine lives across from him in number seven. Some of us figured we’d have to keep those two old women from coming to blows sometime. I don’t guess we’ll have to worry about that now.”

  “Miss Draper, let’s change directions. Tell me about Mrs. Higgins’s day today. I guess the first you saw of her was at breakfast, or are you around the residents at breakfast?”

  “Well, as always, Kate was the first one down for breakfast, and one of the first to leave. You could always depend on Kate. She’d be down before 7:00, sit out in the common area until breakfast was served, then come in and eat, and shortly after she finished eating she’d head for the elevator to go back to her apartment. She couldn’t wait to brush her teeth, said she couldn’t stand to have food between her teeth.”

  “So, she didn’t talk much to anyone?”

  “Kate usually didn’t talk much at breakfast, but she wasn’t one of our gabbier residents anyway, unless she was talking to Russell. While they didn’t usually come down together for breakfast, he’d sit with her when he came down, if she was still there, and they almost always sat together at lunch and dinner.”

  “What about this morning? Did they sit together?”

  “Well, today was kind of a different day in two respects. First, Russell called down this morning, said that he wasn’t feeling well, and asked to have his breakfast sent up in the dumbwaiter. We have that option available to all of our residents. It’s just that they know that those who come down for meals get served first. Martha answered the phone when Russell called down, said he didn’t sound well. Shortly after he called, Elaine Jewell called too, asked if she could have her food sent up. Martha complied, sent food up to both residents.”

  I pretended that I didn’t know anything about the dumbwaiter.

  “So, where’s this dumbwaiter, both on this floor and others?”

  “Actually, we have four dumbwaiters, each below the apartments. Each one of them has two buttons. The ones down here are marked ‘up one’ and ‘up two.’ The ones on the second floor are marked ‘up one’ and ‘ down one.’ The ones on the third floor are marked ‘down one’ and ‘down two.’ That way, all you have to do is push a button and the dumbwaiter stops exactly where you want it to. For example, one goes up to Kate’s apartment, but also goes on up to the apartment above hers. Where it stops depends upon whether I push ‘up one’ or ‘up two.’ Kate opted to eat lunch in her room today.”

  “Oh! Why is that?”

  “Remember when I said that some of our maids’ jobs are done daily, while others are less often? Well, once a quarter the maids shampoo the carpets on the second and third floors. Today was the day.”

  “Now what did that entail, for the maids and the residents?”

  “Well, the maids begin by vacuuming all the common areas on the second and third floor. Margie does the second floor, Ginny the third. They start at the far end down where their apartments are and work their way down to the other end, where the residents live. They do the lounge, the library, everything except each resident’s apartment. They clean each resident’s apartment once a week. They clean one apartment each day, Monday through Thursday. All of our residents know that they must either spend all day in their apartment or out of their apartment, and we let them know several days in advance when that day will be. The maids begin by having Wally help them move the furniture from the lounge area into the storage area beginning around 9:00, then vacuum the entire second floor, then shampoo. Most of the time, they are through shampooing by 1:00. The lease says that on the day that the maids shampoo the upstairs carpeting that no one is to be in the second or third floor hallways from 10:15-4:00 except for the maids. That might sound like a lot of time, but it’s a large area. Anyway, after they finish, the area needs to dry for a few hours, so no one, staff person or resident, is allowed to walk on the carpet. Therefore, they cannot leave or enter their apartments, since each apartment has only one entrance. Both maids live on the second floor, but away from the residents. Just like those of us who live on the first floor, Margie and Ginny can go to their apartments, but not to the lounge area, or to the residential apartment area before the carpet is dry. All staff and residents have to stay in their apartments, stay in the lounge on the first floor or in the yard outside, or go somewhere for a few hours. Most of residents opt to spend the day out shopping, or eat lunch in their apartments, as Katherine did today.”

  “Who sent her tray up?”

  “That would be Martha. Martha takes care of all of that.”

  “And from what I can gather, Martha sent the tray up, Mrs. Higgins took it out of the dumbwaiter and sat it on her dining room table, and someone became concerned when she didn’t send the tray back down, and didn’t come down for dinner.”

  “That’s right. Since today was a pretty day, everyone except Kate and Russell went out. The funny thing is that neither tray came back. Russell said he sent his tray back down, but we never got it. Martha told me she pushed the button for Kate’s dumbwaiter, and when it came down it was empty.”

  “When was that?”

  “Shortly before I went up to check on Kate, and then called you, which was sometime between 6:00-6:30.”

  “And which of the residents came down for dinner tonight?”

  “Everyone except Russell. Russell had Martha send him up a tray again. Martha became concerned when Kate didn’t send her tray down, and notified me when she didn’t come down for dinner. I punched her number on my phone, but she didn’t answer. I gave her a few minutes, in case she was sleeping or happened to be in the bathroom. I figured something must be wrong and went up and knocked. When she didn’t answer my knock, I used my key, but the chain latch was on, so I couldn’t open the door all the way. I called out to her, but she didn’t reply. That’s when I figured something might have happened to her and I’d better call you. Poor Kate.”

  “Did you talk to anyone in the meantime?”

  “Not a soul. At least not about Kate. Well, no one except Martha. She was waiting when I got back downstairs, anxious to know how Kate was. She looked just as worried as I did.”

  “And did you or anyone else go into her apartment after the police arrived?”

  “No, I was the one who went up and showed the nice young officer which apartment it was. He asked me to wait downstairs, and to keep this to myself.”

  “So, you weren’t there when our officer opened the door to Mrs. Higgins’s apartment?”

  “No, the officer asked me to go to my office before he tried the key. Did he have to break the door down to get in?”

  “No, he merely inserted the key in the lock, turned the ke
y, and opened the door.”

  “The latch wasn’t on?”

  “No.”

  “But it was on when I tried it. The key worked. I opened the door as far as it would go, but the latch prohibited me from opening it all the way. How could that be?”

  “I don’t know, but we’ll find out. Let’s get back to earlier in the day. Now, as far as you know, Martha was the only person who touched the food before it arrived in Mrs. Higgins’ apartment?”

  “I would think so. You can ask her. There wasn’t anything wrong with the food, was there? I’m sure someone else must have eaten the same thing.”

  “We won’t know anything like that until after we do the autopsy. That’ll be a couple of days yet. In the meantime, everyone is to stay on the premises, and we’ll have someone here to see that they do. I’ll want to talk to each person on the staff as well as each of the residents. I’ll talk to each person individually, and as best I can, I’ll see to it that no one misses any more work than is absolutely necessary. So that things will be up and ready to go in the morning, we’ll have a crew here tonight going over the kitchen and all the food it contains. It won’t be necessary for the cook to be with them. As a matter of fact, I’d prefer that every staff person other than you remain in his or her apartment. You may stay in your office or your apartment, but I’ll need to know where to find you at all times. The same is true of the others. I don’t want you to talk to them about anything we’ve discussed. I’ll advise them, when I talk to each of them.”

  “You’re acting as if you think Kate was murdered.”

  “We’re merely taking precautions in case she was murdered. We won’t know whether or not she died of natural causes until after the autopsy is completed.”

  The woman didn’t look pleased with my comments.

  “Oh, one other thing. What can you tell me about Hazel Allnut?”

  “You mean other than that she was properly named?”

  I laughed at her remark. Evidently we had similar feelings about the woman.

  “Well, she lives in the house next-door, which on the surface looks far enough away, and actually it is, if she’d stay home. But she feels she must come over here and do her best to run things. Her pretense for coming is that she and Christine Hunt are friends, and they seem to be, but she’s over here far too often to suit me. Sometimes I try to give her a gentle nudge to let her know it’s time to go home. She’s not supposed to be here unless she’s visiting someone, and sometimes I see her all by herself. I have to remind her that she is not to use our facilities or make use of our amenities unless one of our residents has invited her to do so.”

  “I know she was over here today. Could she have seen Mrs. Higgins at any time today?”

  “It’s possible, but doubtful. See, we don’t open any of the outside doors until 9:00. Of course they stay open until we lock them at 9:00 each night. To get in at any other time, someone must use a key or buzz one of our residents. The resident cannot merely buzz someone in, like you can in some buildings, but must personally come down and open the door for someone. That discourages our residents from making it easy for anyone to get in. Kate went to her room right after breakfast, which was long before the doors opened. The maids started vacuuming just after opening the doors, so I doubt if Allnut saw Kate.”

  It was too bad that I had seen the nutcase. She gave me nightmares before I went to sleep. I thought about putting out bear traps between Parkway Arms and her house, but I knew that God would punish me if I did. So I did the next best thing. I tried to forget that I had met the woman.

  5

  I told Miss Draper that I had no further questions at that time and requested a list of all the employees and residents. She gave me better than that. She handed me a floor plan of Parkway Arms and marked the apartment where each employee and resident lived. I left her intending to interview Martha the cook, when I spotted George Michaelson talking to Officer Davis. George is the only other lieutenant on the Hilldale Police Department, and a good friend of Lou’s and mine. George has been with the department almost as long as I have, which means he’s been there long enough to retire, but he likes what he does and has no desire to retire at this time.

  George knows that Lou and I use humor from time to time to relieve the tension of a murder investigation. I know that George likes to get the best of me whenever he can. I should have known enough to avoid George that night, but I didn’t.

  “So, Cy, did you have time to finish your dinner before you got paged?”

  “Lou had finished. I’d just started eating my second dessert when I was paged. I managed to finish eating before we left. From what I can tell the body didn’t look any worse for wear because I took an extra few minutes.”

  “Oh, Cy, I had no doubt you managed to finish. So, what’ve you been up to lately?”

  “Well, right now we have a murder to solve.”

  “I meant before the murder. Anything new going on in your life?”

  I wasn’t sure where he was going, but I knew enough to know I didn’t want to go there with him. It sounded as if he thought I had started dating a new woman, but I hadn’t even met anyone new, at least not until I arrived at Parkway Arms. I had met three since I arrived, but I would describe those three as ugly, lifeless, and not my type. I tried to get away from George, but to no avail.

  “Listen, Cy, I know you’re not really up on modern technology, but do you know what this is?”

  I looked at the small object he held in his hand.

  “I’d say it’s one of those new phones.”

  “That and more. It does a lot more than your phone will do. Let me just show you one of its features.”

  “Listen, George, I know the department has kept you on, even though it doesn’t have enough work for you do to, but I’ve got suspects to grill. Maybe later.”

  “Oh, this’ll take only a minute, Cy, and I think it might interest you. Watch this!”

  My jaw dropped when George touched the screen a couple of times and I saw the fat guy who inhabits my body doing the hula hoop on that object George held in his hand.”

  It was a while before I could speak. No one would have been able to hear me anyway because of the laughter. George’s prank had attracted other members of the department.

  “Where did you manage to get that?”

  “The question, Cy, is not where I got it, but who I can share it with. There’s no telling how many people will flock to YouTube to see this. Yes, I think YouTube is the way to go. Of course there’ll be a lot of people wanting to see you doing other exercises. Oh, and I’ve got one of you sitting on the couch with your jaw dropped like it is now and your eyes bulging out watching a couple of young ladies doing the hula hoop exercise. Would you like to see that, too? It’ll just take a second. I just need to hit a couple of things.”

  I huffed a “no” and pulled Lou away from the others. I needed to recompose myself and interrogate a possible suspect. Also, I needed to ask Lou if he knows what YouTube is. If not, maybe the girls will know. At any rate, I needed to think of some way to get even with George, after we solved the murder. I wondered if Frank had seen it yet. And what about the Chief? Surely no one would show it to him.

  +++

  According to the map Mrs. Draper gave me, on the back side of the first floor there was the dining room, opposite where I was at that moment, next Mrs. Draper’s office, and then her apartment connected to that through a door behind her desk. Opposite her office and apartment on the front side of the building were the cook’s apartment and the one belonging to the building superintendent, which was next to the sitting area where I had spent too much time with George.

  I knocked on the door that was supposed to lead to the cook’s apartment. A white-haired woman answered my knock. She was pleasantly plump, but not as well-rounded as I am. From the looks of her hair, my guess was that she found time sometime during the week to go to the hairdresser. It looked like she had just had it done.

  “A
re you Martha Carpenter?”

  “Uh, yes. Are you with the police department? Margaret said she was going to call the police.”

  “I’m Lt. Dekker and this is Sgt. Murdock. May we come in?”

  “Is Katherine okay?” she asked as she admitted us to her apartment, one that was not quite as elegant as the one I was in upstairs.

  I noticed that one woman referred to the deceased as Kate, another as Katherine. Would the next one on my list call her Kathy? There’s not much you can do with Cy. Well, actually my real name is Cyrus, but only one person refers to me by that, and I would just as soon forget about that one person.

  I dismissed my wandering thoughts and answered the cook’s question.

  “No, I’m sorry, she’s not. Did you know her well?”

  “Fairly well. After all, I cooked for her since she came here, spoke with her when I had time. Is she dead?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

  “But she seemed so well. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with her. She was fine the last time I talked to her.”

  “I understand that you’re the cook here. Do you do all the cooking?”

  “All of the cooking, most of the serving. Of course all of us on the staff serve ourselves, so it’s not as bad as it seems. I don’t cook on Sunday, but a lot of our residents eat out then. Depending on how many eat here on Sunday, we either have the meals catered or send Wally out to pick up something.”

  “Don’t you have any help?”

  “Don’t need any with so few people. I manage. Been doing it for most of my life. Not here all of that time, but somewhere. It’s become old hat.”