4 Murder at Breakfast Page 5

  “I don’t know who Ray Nitschke is, but that’s our clue for the day.”

  “And you got me all worked up. I thought we were going to have an easy case for a change. I was all ready to go home and settle down with one of Carolyn Hart’s wonderful mysteries, and now you tell me we haven’t solved the case yet.”

  I managed to forget about Ray Nitschke, my next-door neighbor, and all the rest of the world. Things didn’t take a turn for the worse until Lou and I arrived at the Blue Moon. I smiled as we walked in and saw Rosie. I knew Rosie for what she really was, the woman who saw that I got scrumptious food each day. She saw me as one of the two men who saw to it that she kept her job. Well, I used to be one of them. Lately I’ve been the only one.

  I hoisted myself up onto the stool. Two stools over, Lou did the same.

  “So, how’s Dick Tracy One-And-A-Half?” Rosie asked.

  Rosie used to call us Dick Tracy Squared, but then that was before Lou became anemic.

  “One of us is doing fine. The other could still use your prayers, and the food he used to eat,” I replied. Lou merely smiled at my remark.

  “I’ll order first. I wouldn’t want to hear his order and lose my appetite. I’ll take bacon, sausage patties, scrambled eggs with cheese, and pancakes with pecans and lots of syrup, and an extra large glass of orange juice, and some water to wash everything down.”

  “And you, my malnutritious one?”

  “I’ll take a veggie omelet made with egg whites, two slices of turkey bacon, and apple juice.”

  I made a note that when I checked at the hardware store to find fumigation chemicals to clean away any existence of my neighbor from my property I would also check to see if they had blinders for people. I was afraid I’d cast an eye in my partner’s direction and lose my breakfast.

  Our food arrived. I smacked my lips a few times, did the best I could to see that no particle of food remained on my plate, and then ordered dessert. The friend I used to have and I used to order dessert after breakfast, knowing that more than likely, except for the candy we kept on our person, we wouldn’t have anything else to eat before lunch, which was some three or four hours away.

  Both Lou and I ordered fruit for dessert. His was in a bowl, all by itself. Mine was in two pieces of pie, blueberry and peach. I believe in rotating my food groups, so even though my favorite types of pies are pecan, chocolate cream, and coconut cream, I sometimes step outside my comfort zone and order another kind.

  +++

  Before we exited the Blue Moon, I allowed a sufficient time for my food to settle and Lou’s to do whatever it does. I was ready to tackle our latest murder investigation. I drove back to the murder scene. Well, at least what we figured was a murder scene. I pulled into Parkway Arms parking lot and chose one of the spots reserved for visitors. Before I tackled any of our potential suspects, Lou and I walked the grounds. Well, I didn’t plan to do any more walking than absolutely necessary, but I did want to view the building and grounds from all directions. We were still trying to discern from which direction the murderer came, if he or she came at all.

  The parking area was located on the side of the building closest to the residential apartments. That was the left side of the building if you look from the street, so we began there, walked around back. I noticed an enormous oak tree with an iron bench wrapped completely around it. From there anyone could see quite a bit of the grounds. We walked back there. I took a seat. Lou followed. The lower branches were high enough off the ground that it gave us a view of the entire backside of the apartment building, even though the building spread out for quite a distance. I was amazed that only eight people paid to stay in that enormous building, which was as large as the high school Lou and I attended.

  The rear of the first floor jutted out and provided a relatively flat roof. This meant that anyone could open one of the second floor windows and step out onto the roof. One of those second floor windows was the unlocked window in the victim’s apartment. I spotted the ladder that Wally Gentry had told me about. It led from one of the windows of a third floor apartment to the roof below. Anyone who wasn’t feeble and didn’t have a fear of heights could navigate that ladder with no problem. If it became necessary for us to use it as an experiment I would let Lou give it a try. After all, by now he had lost enough weight that no weight limits would restrict him. Sitting there taking in the scope of things, my guess was that no one could come down the ladder and enter an apartment without someone sitting under the oak tree noticing him or her. Of course, I doubted if someone was posted under the oak at all times. Certainly no one was sitting there when Lou and I arrived. I also saw that it was quite a drop from the roof that jutted out from the second floor to the ground. I couldn’t see too many people attempting that leap. Besides, if they tried it at meal time they would be seen. The roof didn’t go all the way to the far end of the building, and there was nothing but windows there in the dining room. Anyone in the dining room could have seen a leaping lunatic.

  I heard a noise, looked up to see Martha the cook exiting a back door with a container of food. She looked up, saw us, acted like she forgot something, then turned and headed back inside. I guessed that she would check for visitors before exiting again.

  After we had taken in the large area that made up the backyard, I stumbled to my feet and plodded toward the far side, the right side of the building. As we drew closer, I spotted a slew of trees that prevented us from proceeding without a hatchet. We turned and walked around the building on the parking lot side. After circumnavigating the premises, I was surprised to find there were only two doors that led into and out of the building, one in the front and one in the back near the dining room.

  While we were making our rounds we encountered one of Hilldale’s finest, the daytime officer that George had assigned to guard the stockade. I asked him who Ray Nitschke is or was. He had no idea. Maybe God is the only one who knows this guy. We spoke to the officer who knew no more than I did, then walked to the front door, opened it, and encountered another of the department’s men. We knew both men, but not well. Lou and I avoid headquarters if at all possible, and we seldom see any of the other men, unless we need them to help in some way with a murder investigation.

  “Do you know who Ray Nitschke is or was?”

  “Of course. He was one of the greats.”

  “Was he a cop?”

  “No, middle linebacker for the Green Bay Packers. You never heard of Nitschke?”

  “Can’t say that I have?”

  “What about Dick Butkus?”

  “Did he play for the Packers, too?”

  “No, Bears.”

  “Don’t any of those football players have common names, like Bruce Smith?”

  “Bruce Smith played for the Bills, but he wasn’t a middle linebacker. You didn’t play football did you, Lieutenant?”

  “No, can’t say that I did.”

  “Too bad. You have the body for it. You could’ve been a good defensive lineman, but probably too short to make it in the pros.”

  I was glad that someone noticed my wonderful physique. I realized he didn’t make a similar comment about Lou. Poor Lou. He had a great body, and the Wii took it all away from him.

  I decided to end all this enlightenment and sent Lou to let Miss Draper know that we were back, and to secure a key to Mrs. Higgins’ apartment. I had a brief lapse of intelligence, and for some reason unbeknownst to myself, I opted to climb the stairs to the second floor. I don’t know why. I merely knew that they were closer to the victim’s apartment than the elevator was. As I had found out many times before, faulty reasoning often leads to consequences. Or should I chalk this too up to the unsavory thoughts I had of my next door neighbor. Maybe I should invite her to church one Sunday and find her a seat up near the front. That way I would have done something nice for her, and still she would be far enough away from where Lou and I sit that we wouldn’t see her. I still wasn’t convinced that God would bless me for this. He would exp
ect me to ask her to sit with Lou and me, and I knew if I did she would caress my hand as I passed the collection plate. And no telling what she would do during the pastor’s prayer. Did I trust God enough to believe He would ship her to Outer Slobovia if she ran her fingers through my hair during church?

  8

  Sometimes during the course of working on a case I make a blunder of tremendous proportions. The fact that the egregious error was unDekker-like made the consequences even harder to take. I shuddered as I wondered how I could have been so stupid. I found myself on the first floor of the apartment building and needing to go to the second floor. Only an Olympian would have considered the stairs as opposed to the elevator. If that is the case, I became an Olympian for a few seconds. I had never done anything so stupid. I must blame my experience on Lou’s Wii Fit for my desire for a brief moment of exercise. Could it be that whatever had taken over Lou’s brain was taking over mine?

  I climbed the stairs faster than a man of my circumference should attempt and used the inside banister to round the corner and hoist myself to the next level. I don’t know who was more surprised when I turned and encountered the second floor maid heading down the stairs. She lost her concentration, missed the next step, and then lunged forward as if that would help her regain her balance. It was the first time I saw the woman, but already I could tell that she would have been more at home as a middle linebacker on a football team than as a centerfold in a magazine. That became more obvious when her shoulder made contact with my chest and caused my posterior to hit the floor at the same time my head and back pushed the wall behind me back a couple of inches.

  The shaking of the building and the realization that we didn’t live in California alerted Lou and caused him to take those same steps, instead of the elevator. Luckily for him, no more maids descended the steps at that moment. I think I had regained consciousness by the time he arrived. All I know for sure is that I made eye contact with him at the same time the maid lifted her head from my chest. She put her hand to her mouth, panicked, and started moving her hand from side to side on my chest while lowering it in a way that resembled a blind woman using the Braille system to read my chest. I smacked her hand and pushed her away. She screamed something about “partial.” I couldn’t help it if she was suddenly attracted to me. I wasn’t partial to her. I wanted no part of the woman. She kept screaming, so I pulled out my badge and sent her on her way.

  The Jaws of Life arrived to hoist me back onto my feet. I saw no elevator between floors, so, after I made sure no more maids were ready to swoop down upon me, I pulled myself up to the second floor and used the key Lou handed me to enter the victim’s apartment. I wanted to hide from everyone other than Lou. I would have liked to have hidden from him too, but that wasn’t possible. If George had knocked on the door and handed me his phone that had a video play-by-play of the maid attacking me, I would have stomped on it until I had pulverized it. Luckily for both of us, that didn’t happen. I didn’t know what one of those devices he carried cost, but I was sure it was a few cents more than a Happy Meal.

  A few days later, after Lou’s sides hurt so much that he could laugh no more, I gathered enough strength to reach into my shirt pocket and grab a Hershey bar, which I hoped would help me overcome my pain and embarrassment. I was still paying for the errors of my ways. I extracted a couple of Hershey bars only to learn that they too didn’t escape unscathed. Not only did I encounter broken chocolate, but broken almonds. I wished that was all that I had encountered, but as I reached a second time into my pocket, my fingers encountered something slimy. I extracted the slimy thing from my pocket, looked at the repulsive article, and then motioned for Lou to return the teeth on the wire. I was sure they must have belonged to the middle linebacker masquerading as a maid. If on a subsequent trip to Parkway Arms I encountered a sign that says, “Elevator Out of Order,” I would wait until they fixed it before I mounted any steps.

  +++

  Once I was able to brush my embarrassment to the back of my mind I scanned the room to see what I could find. I had already received the lab report, at least as far as the fingerprints were concerned. The only discernable prints belonged to the deceased. I made a note to ask the maid when she last cleaned the apartment, then remembered who the maid was, and thought better of the idea.

  If Mrs. Higgins’ food was poisoned before it came up to her apartment, then it was possible that no one had entered her apartment. Maybe the cook or the manager made up their stories about no tray in the dumbwaiter and that the door was secured by a chain. Maybe one of them chained it after she murdered Mrs. Higgins. I didn’t know enough yet to know if that would help or hurt their case. I would simulate my information after we received the autopsy report. The lab boys were through with the apartment, so I locked the window. I didn’t want to touch it until they had dusted for prints. I continued my search of the apartment, noticed nothing out of order, but then why should anything be out of order? With my search completed, I decided I could put off the inevitable no longer.

  +++

  Lou arrived back at Mrs. Higgins’ apartment in a few minutes with the aforementioned linebacker in tow. He ushered the reluctant woman into the apartment. I apologized to her and made a comment that the building should have installed mirrors on the staircase to alert those who were ascending and descending the stairs. The linebacker grunted something indiscernible. I knew it was her fault. If she had been where she should have been, off cleaning someone’s apartment, our encounter wouldn’t have happened. I neglected to remember that she was the one keeping to the right. Could I help it if there was nothing on my right to catapult me to my destination? Then I remembered a railing. I had failed to use that one because it meant additional three or four steps to the top. I always round corners on the inside to save time. Well, I don’t when driving.

  “I have a few questions for you, Mrs. Washburn. It is Mrs. Washburn, isn’t it?”

  “That’s my name, Margie Washburn. I’m a widow.”

  “Your maiden name wasn’t Nitschke, was it?”

  “No. Elkins.”

  “Tell me, Mrs. Washburn, what are your duties here at Parkway Arms?”

  “You’re not trying to get me fired because of what happened on the stairs, just because you’re a cop?”

  “No, of course not. I’m talking with all the employees and all the residents.”

  “Okay, because I still think it was your fault.”

  “Let’s forget about whose fault it was. Just tell me what you do here.”

  “I’m the second floor maid. That means I clean whatever needs to be cleaned on the second floor. We have a schedule. Of course I also do a lot of cleaning on the first floor, but Ginny and I share that. She’s the third floor maid.”

  “And did you know Mrs. Higgins, who lived in this apartment?”

  “Of course I knew Mrs. Higgins. I cleaned her apartment every week.”

  “When was the last time you cleaned this apartment?”

  “Thursday. Are you saying I didn’t do a good job?”

  “No, I think you did a thorough job.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Tell me, Mrs. Washburn, what was Mrs. Higgins like?”

  “Kind of demanding. Always standing over you to make sure you did a good job. But she was okay. She didn’t complain too much. That was because I’m a good maid. She couldn’t find anything to complain about.”

  “When was the last time you saw Mrs. Higgins?”

  “Thursday, when I cleaned.”

  “You didn’t see her yesterday at all?”

  “Not that I can recall. Of course yesterday was a busy day. Yesterday we had to vacuum and shampoo all the carpeting on this floor. From one end to the other. That takes a lot of time. Boy was I tired when I finished.”

  “So, you didn’t see her at breakfast, and she didn’t open her door while you were vacuuming or shampooing?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did you happen to hear any noises in this apar
tment, while you were out in the hallway?”

  “Are you kidding? My machines make so much noise it’s a wonder I don’t go crazy.”

  “Do you have a key to this apartment?”

  “Of course. I’m expected to clean it each week. Of course I don’t use my key if a resident’s at home. We have to knock first. Then, knock again if no one answers, before we are allowed to use our keys. That is unless we’ve been told that a resident won’t be at home.”

  “Did you use your key to this apartment at any time yesterday?”

  “Not this apartment or any other. Like I told you, I was busy all day vacuuming and shampooing. I don’t think you realize how big a job that is. You should try it sometime. Then you’d know. Most folks wouldn’t be able to finish, let alone do it right.”

  “Okay, so you were busy all day. But you were on this floor. Did you see anyone else enter or leave this apartment yesterday?”

  “Nope, but then I was at the other end of the building part of the time. Are you saying someone came in here? Was something stolen? If so, it wasn’t me.”

  “No, I’m not saying someone came in here. I’m asking you if you saw anyone come in.”

  “Nope, and if anyone came in here, it had to be early or late. No one’s allowed to walk on the carpet after it’s shampooed until it’s had time to dry. And that means no one. Plus, I’d be able to tell if someone did.”

  “So, does that mean that no one other than you was even on this floor yesterday?”

  “Not while the carpet was wet. We still do things the old-fashioned way, and this stuff takes a while to dry. Of course, it’s not a big problem. We only have to do this once every three months, so everyone can live with it. If I can live with it, so can anyone else.”

  +++

  I finished with the second floor maid, thanked her for her time, and reminded her not to leave the premises. She gave me a look, but didn’t say anything. After she had gone, I sent Lou to find the third-floor maid. Might as well account for both maids. Lou came back a few minutes later with what I assumed was the other maid. If so, I got tackled by the wrong one. This one probably didn’t weigh half of what the other one did. Younger, too. I guessed the other maid to be somewhere around my age. This one was probably on the sunny side of forty. Maybe mid-thirties.