1 52 Steps to Murder Page 6

  While Betty and I go out about once a month, Lou and Thelma Lou go out on a date every Friday and Saturday night unless we are in the middle of a case.

  I enjoy driving and Lou doesn’t, so Lou never drives when we’re working, but he keeps his red-and-white 1957 Chevy in immaculate condition for his weekend dates with Thelma Lou. Because Lou’s never married, his needs are few, so he doesn’t spend a lot of money on accommodations. He lives in the lower-right-hand apartment of a brick fourplex. All of the building’s other residents are elderly, so noise is never a problem. Lou has an outside entrance. Each morning he stands on his small front porch and waits until I pick him up, or, if it’s too cold, he watches for me from his living room window. His modest dwelling includes a large living room, a kitchen, one bedroom, and a bathroom. Unless Lou’s sleeping, he spends most of his time in the living room. It’s sparsely furnished with a well-used, but still usable, couch, a recliner that doesn’t match the couch, and a straight-backed chair, which stands in front of a card table that’s usually in use. Along one wall of the living room is a built-in bookcase, which includes more books than empty spaces.

  I live in a cul-de-sac in a middle-class neighborhood. I’ve lived there many years. My wife and I bought the house a couple of years before she died. After she died, I thought about moving, but decided not to. While my house isn’t large, my place is more spacious than Lou Murdock’s. My home includes a living room, dining room, kitchen, and two bedrooms, one of which I use for storage. I also have an unfinished basement, which I do not use at all.

  I like to do things my way, but some things I don’t like to do at all. I also pay someone to come in once a week to clean my house. See, dust comes in even if no one is home. Clutter needs someone to help it along. I interrogated seven cleaning women until I found one who would do it my way. Mrs. Watson is willing to do what I want done when I want it done. She comes after I’ve left and is finished before I return. She does only what I want done and does it the way I want it. After all, I’m the one who lives in my house. If Mrs. Watson wants to clean her house differently than she cleans mine, I have no problem with that. I’m easy to live with as long as I live by myself. Three months after Mrs. Watson began cleaning my house, I gave her the Dekker seal of approval. That satisfied Lou Murdock, and she’s been cleaning his apartment ever since. Ever since has been nineteen years.

  Cooking and cleaning are not the only things I don’t like to do. Since I’m seldom home, I pay someone to mow my lawn and shovel my snow, two things I detest doing. I’m not as picky about the outside of my house, as long as everything looks neat. If my yard boy wants to mow in circles or diagonally, that’s okay with me. Just as long as the grass is short enough that my eyes can tell if Muffy has left samples in my yard before my shoes discover it. Muffy isn’t really Muffy, but the name Muffy sounds almost as disgusting as the name my neighbor gave her, and both of them live too close to suit me.

  +++

  Because I know Lou well, I know his habits. I know what he’s going to do before he knows it. When I drove away from Lou’s apartment after our first day on the Nelson murder case, I could picture him unlocking his apartment door and dashing to the kitchen. After all, it had been a few hours since we had eaten. I pictured Lou reaching into the freezer and pulling out a supreme pizza. I envisioned him checking the back of the box and preheating the oven. Lou dislikes preheating the oven as much as I do, because it prolongs his eating conquest, but he always does it anyway in order to make his frozen pizza taste a little more palatable.

  As I thought about Lou and salivated over the thought of his snack, I drove home, pulled my aching body from the car, and made my way toward the house. As usual, I was hungry. I decided to fix the easiest and quickest thing I had on hand. I rummaged through the cabinets and pulled out a large can of spaghetti and meatballs, dumped it into a pan, and turned on the burner on the stove.

  Like any two people, Lou and I look forward to unwinding after a hectic day on a case, but we don’t share the same interests. I love classic comedy TV shows of the ’50s and ’60s, and own several videos and DVDs of my favorite shows, most of them birthday or Christmas presents from Lou. I Love Lucy is my all-time favorite TV show, but that night I was too tired to watch anything. Instead, I gulped down my spaghetti and meatballs, and opted for a soothing, hot bath and an early bedtime.

  While I’m a classic TV man, Lou unwinds with crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, or a good book, most received as presents from you know who. Lou and I started using his hobbies as a method of measuring our time between murders. As best I can recall, when we found the old lady’s body, it had been two jigsaw puzzles, four crossword puzzle books, and four novels since our last murder.

  I continued to think of Lou as I parked in my driveway, then stumbled into the house. As I tried to rid my mind of the Nelson murder, I pictured Lou, plopping a pizza in the oven, falling into his recliner and kicking back. My guess is he remained there a few minutes before easing over to the card table, which always contained a jigsaw puzzle in progress. I could see Lou looking over his newly-begun mountain cabin scene. So far, he had merely completed the border and most of the cabin. The fifteen hundred-piece puzzle, with a myriad of pine and brightly-colored trees, would take some time to complete, possibly even more time than solving the mysterious death of Mrs. Nelson. Lou is a man who enjoys his work, the time we spend together, his weekend dates with Thelma Lou, his love of food, and his hobbies. Few people enjoy what they do as much as Lou.

  +++

  After a few minutes in the tub, my head must have slid down the back of the tub and into the water. Either that or our murderer was trying to add another victim to his or her conquests. At least, I was underwater when I awakened. I woke up, grabbed for the sides of the tub, and pulled myself to a seated position as I spit water in every direction. The soapy water in my nose left an unpleasant taste in my throat. This middle-aged man got out of the tub, yanked on the towel until I’d pulled it from the bar, dried myself, and got dressed for bed. Even though I’d just eaten, I fixed a small snack and something to drink in order to remove the awful taste from my mouth and throat. I’d had enough struggles for one day. I went to bed.

  9

  I had no idea how long the phone had been ringing before it woke me. I turned over and glanced at the clock. Its hands pointed to 8:12. Sunday morning. I did not remember turning over being such a painful exercise. I reached for the phone, and finally, on my third try, I managed to lift the receiver.

  “Dekker, here,” I mumbled into the phone, proud that I could remember who I was after such a rigorous day the day before.

  “Cy, Frank here. I guess I woke you. Luck is with us. I have the results from the autopsy and figured you’d want them as soon as possible, but I knew you had a rough day yesterday, so I didn’t want to wake you too early.”

  “And I thank you for that. So, what’s the news? Were we right?”

  “Have you ever known us to be wrong, Cy? Okay, don’t answer that. Anyway, it was poison, all right. Codeine to be exact.”

  “Codeine. So the pharmacist did it?”

  “The who is your job, Cy. The how is mine.”

  “How was it administered?”

  “It was added to a glass of grape juice.”

  “Turn up any other evidence?”

  “Sure did. Somewhere between forty-five minutes and an hour before the poison was ingested, someone gave her a heavy dose of painkillers and sleeping pills. I’m not talking a whole bottle or anything like that, but it was double what she needed.”

  “Any idea why someone would do that?”

  “Not unless they didn’t want her to holler while she was being poisoned. I don’t understand why someone would give her a sleeping pill and then codeine. Codeine makes people drowsy, and then go into a coma before death. There’s no need for a sleeping pill.”

  “Would the sleeping pill make her begin to get sleepy a little at a time, or fall asleep all at once?”
<
br />   “She would probably start to yawn a few times after a few minutes. She would appear to be somewhat sleepy to anyone who saw her.”

  “What else do you have?”

  “The lab boys got a few prints, but I imagine after we find out who all of them belong to it won’t lead us anywhere. From what I can see, there were four sets of prints, but none of them were on the glass.”

  “What about outside the house?”

  “A few smudged fingerprints, which are quite normal. No footprints or ladder marks in the back yard.”

  “Any idea as to the time of the murder, Frank?”

  “Well, other than to say it was sometime yesterday morning, no.”

  “So, no one could have given it to her Friday night?”

  “Well, they could have, but only if they’d put gloves on her, told her to hold it in her hand until Saturday morning, and then came back and removed the gloves before we got there.”

  “So, Frank, what’s your best guess as to how long it took the poison to kill her?”

  “Fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  “Are you saying one minute is not enough?”

  “It would be if it was injected, but this time it was administered orally, so instant death is out of the question.”

  “Officer Davis told me that Angela Nelson arrived at her grandmother’s side thirty seconds to a minute before he did. You say that there was no way she could have killed her grandmother in that short of a time.”

  “Absolutely, no way, Cy. Codeine comes in both liquid and a white powder form. This time the powder was added to a glass of grape juice. Judging from the amount in her system, I’d say that she died fifteen or twenty minutes after it was ingested.”

  “White powder? Don’t you mean cocaine, Frank?”

  “No, and I don’t mean flour or powdered sugar. It was definitely codeine.”

  “Officer Davis also said that he and Miss Nelson had probably been in the house three to five minutes when they discovered the body. So, you’re saying that Miss Nelson could not have murdered her grandmother during that time?”

  “The murderer needed to be alone in the house for at least fifteen minutes, and probably a little longer. Actually, a lot longer if our murderer gave her the medications, too. My guess is the babysitter did it.”

  “She didn’t have a babysitter, Frank.”

  “Well, then, you’re on your own, Cy.”

  “No, I’ve still got Lou. Anyway, thanks, Frank. I appreciate you being so prompt about this. Let me know if anything else comes up.”

  “Sure thing, Cy. Oh, by the way, did the doctor tell you whether you’ll ever be able to walk again?”

  I laughed a painful laugh, hung up the phone, and turned over for a few more minutes of rest.

  +++

  “Lou, did I wake you?”

  “You know me. I’ve been up for hours.”

  “Well, I’m impressed. What kind of miracle cure did you come up with?”

  “Oh, didn’t you hear? They say that M&Ms have proved to be superior to a Hershey Almond bar in healing a person from excessive walkitis.”

  I chuckled into the phone before continuing.

  “I’m glad to hear that, Lou. You can carry me up those steps today.”

  “Please don’t mention those steps. I counted them all night long.”

  “Listen, Lou, Frank just called. It’s just like we thought. The old lady was poisoned. Codeine. Plus, someone gave her some medication to help it go down easier. I’m going to call her granddaughter and tell her and then take a shower. After that, I’ll do my devotional reading and reflection. So, I’ll probably be over to pick you up in an hour.”

  +++

  I hung up from talking to Sgt. Murdock and phoned Angela Nelson.

  “Hello.”

  “Miss Nelson, this is Lt. Dekker.”

  “Oh, hi, Lieutenant. What can I do for you?”

  “I was just calling to let you know that they’ve finished the autopsy on your grandmother. The department will be finished with her this afternoon, so you can call the mortuary and make funeral arrangements.”

  “Thanks for calling, Lieutenant.”

  “Well, don’t you want to know the results?”

  “Yeah, sure, but I just assumed she had a heart attack.”

  I hate to be the bearer of bad news, so I used my most comforting voice to tell the young woman what caused her grandmother’s death.

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Miss Nelson, but your grandmother was poisoned.”

  “Poisoned?”

  “That’s right, Miss Nelson.”

  “Are you sure? Well, could it have been an accident?”

  “No.”

  “But, I don’t understand. Everyone loved my grandmother.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Well, maybe everyone didn’t love her, but I can’t see anyone poisoning her.”

  “Not even Mrs. Reynolds.”

  “She’s mean, but not that mean.”

  “What about Mr. Silverman?”

  “He’s a snoop, but not a murderer.”

  “Didn’t his mother die suddenly?”

  “I’m not sure. But he was devoted to his mother. I don’t think he killed her.”

  “Who would be at the top of your list, Miss Nelson?”

  “I can’t see anyone who knew my grandmother doing this, and I can’t see how anyone else could have gotten into the house.”

  “Well, someone did, Miss Nelson. You didn’t happen to notice a glass on the floor when you found your grandmother, did you?”

  “No. You mean you found the murder weapon, so to speak?”

  “So to speak. By the way, is there anything you might have forgotten to tell me yesterday?”

  “Not that I can think of. Oh, when I got home there were three calls on my answering machine from Irene Penrod. The first time she called was a few days after I left, and she informed me that my grandmother had fallen, broken some bones, and was pretty bruised up. From what I can tell, she called the second time a couple of days later. She phoned to see if I got her message about my grandmother. The third call was Friday night. She said that when she didn’t hear from me she called my employer and my employer told her that I was out of town and that I would be back yesterday morning. Normally, my boss wouldn’t do that, but Miss Penrod explained that she was my grandmother’s next-door neighbor, and I had mentioned her name to my boss.

  “Anyway, on Friday, Miss Penrod called to ask me to look in on my grandmother, because she was leaving town Saturday for a week. I guess that’s why she wasn’t home when I knocked Saturday morning. She’d already left.”

  “Speaking of leaving town, Miss Nelson, will you be leaving on another buying trip anytime soon?”

  “Even if I was, I’d cancel it for my grandmother’s funeral, but as it turns out I won’t be leaving again for a least at week, and maybe two.”

  “Well, thanks for your time, Miss Nelson. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Call me if you need anything or if you think of anything else.”

  “I will, Lieutenant. By the way, do you have any idea when my grandmother was poisoned, or is that confidential information?”

  “We’re still working on that, Miss Nelson. I’ll call you if I have any questions or answers.”

  “Thanks, Lieutenant.”

  10

  Even though Lou and I attack each case like a hungry Doberman mauls a piece of raw steak, both of us spend some time with God before we begin each day. Each month, I pick up a devotional booklet from my church, and each morning I spend time reading a devotional and the comments that accompany it. I also take time to reflect upon it and spend a few moments in prayer before I head off to pick up Lou.

  Lou, who requires less sleep than I do, rises early and spends time in a more-involved Bible study, which includes a booklet with spaces to write answers to the questions that accompany what he reads. He too spends time in prayer before I pick him up each day. This helps
both of us get through the trying times that confront us.

  +++

  Before I left the house on Sunday morning, I reached into the refrigerator and selected three Hershey bars. As far as I’m concerned, nothing else removes stress as well. I took three because I didn’t want to run out. I secured the candy bars in my coat pocket and stepped out onto my front porch, which is much smaller and sets much closer to the street level than the porches on Hilltop Place. I noticed that the sun was a little higher in the sky than when I usually leave for work, and then turned to close and lock the door.

  “Good morning, Cyrus,” said the voice that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

  The all-too-familiar voice sounded like fingernails on a chalk board. I turned to face my next-door neighbor, Heloise Humphert, and her white toy poodle, Twinkle Toes. Surely no one else has a next-door neighbor they despise as much.

  “Miss Humphert, if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times. It’s not a good idea to sneak up on a cop with a gun. I can see the newspaper headline now. ‘Dog Resembles Owner. Miss Heloise Humphert and her mutt were found with bullet holes in their heads. A gangland slaying is suspected. It was ironic that the bodies were found in front of her police detective next-door neighbor’s house.’”

  “Oh, Cyrus. You say the funniest things. Are we on our way to church?”

  “I have no idea about we, but one of us is on his way to work.”

  “Oh, has someone else been murdered?”

  “I’m supposed to keep this quiet, see, but it was a nosy woman with a dog. We suspect the next-door neighbor did it. If so, we’re going to let him go free. Because you answer the description of the dead woman, my suggestion to you would be to become a part of the Witness Protection Program and relocate to Point Barrow, Alaska. You might be safer there.”