52 Steps to Murder (21 page)

“But only one that you know of?”

“That’s right.”

“And that one person attacked both yourself and Sgt. Murdock?”

“That’s right.”

“I assume he used the element of surprise.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t believe how surprised we both were.”

“Did you or Sgt. Murdock know who your attacker was?”

“Neither of us knew who or what hit us.”

“So, tell me, Lt. Dekker, what happened?”

“Well, uh, I was standing on a front porch, and Sgt. Murdock was coming out the door. Someone lunged for Sgt. Murdock and before we knew it, we were both lying on the porch. We tried to get up, but fell down the hill and landed in the street.”

“I’m not sure I’m getting this, Lieutenant. Are you saying that someone pushed Sgt. Murdock out the door, and that Sgt. Murdock fell into you, and you both crashed to the porch?”

“Well, Sgt. Murdock was attacked, but I think it was more I fell into him.”

“I don’t understand, Lieutenant.”

“Neither did we.”

“Okay, let’s try to get this finished, Lieutenant. Tell me again how you got from the porch to the street. Did your attacker throw you into the street, or did a big burst of wind come along and deposit you there?”

I thought of hanging up, but I knew I had to finish with as little embarrassment as possible.

“No, it was more like we tried to get up, winced from the pain, and the next thing we knew we were lying in the street.”

“Lieutenant, I need to ask you this. Were either you or Sgt. Murdock drinking last night?”

“We were working on a case.”

“It sounds like it. So, did you finish off the whole case?”

“I’m talking about a murder case. We were on Hilltop Place, see. Those houses are high above the street. A person could fall out of his or her yard mowing the lawn.”

“Okay, Lieutenant. By the way, what happened to your attacker?”

“You mean the burglar?”

“I don’t know, Lieutenant. It’s your story not mine, and it sounds like a whale of a story.”

“Our burglar, who may or may not be a murderer, just disappeared, and neither Sgt. Murdock nor I felt like looking for him or her.”

“You say this person may or may not be a murderer. Should we be looking for bodies on other porches? And you say that this person may or may not have been a woman. Are you saying that it is possible that a little, bitty woman may have overcome both you and Sgt. Murdock all by herself? Are you sure we’re not talking about a little girl with black patent leather shoes who carried a dolly? We’ve got one who answers that description on the ‘most-wanted list.”’

“Just put down that we were tackled by a football team. All of them were carrying Uzis.”

“That sounds more feasible. At least I don’t have to ask who the tackling dummies were.”

After having been insulted repeatedly, I slammed down the phone, which caused me to wince in pain. While I contemplated what to do next, the phone rang. I picked it up and huffed out a “hello.”

“I just need to ask you one more question, Lieutenant,” said the familiar voice I’d hung up on. “Did you or Sgt. Murdock suffer any brain damage as a result of your altercation?”

Before I could hang up or come up with an answer, the person on the other end began to laugh.

“Cy, I love your story. I’ll make sure everyone else gets to enjoy it, too,” said the voice on the other end, who changed in mid-sentence from the voice who had abused me to the voice of my good friend George Michaelson.

“How long have you been on the phone?”

“It was me all along, Cy. I just happened by the desk when the phone rang, and no one was here to answer it. When you identified yourself, I decided to have some fun with you.”

“I’m not amused, George, but now that I’ve got you on the phone, I need some help. I’ve got bruised ribs, and Lou’s got a bruised back and shoulder. In other words, neither of us is getting around very well. Grab Frank Harris, the SOC team, and some uniformed officers. I want us to go over the Nelson and Jarvis houses and the underground area below them and see what we can find. Could be our guy in the yellow raincoat or our murderer, which could be one and the same, may have left some clues for us. After all, it was the person in the raincoat whom we were chasing last night.”

“Why do you want Frank?”

“Well, every time someone runs through the house we find another body. I want to be prepared.”

“I’ll see what I can do, Cy. How long will it take the two of you to limp over there?”

“I don’t know. We’ve got to grab some breakfast first. Let’s make it around 11:00.”

“Never too sore to eat, huh, Cy.”

“What can I say? We have to maintain our strength.”

29

I phoned Sam Schumann. I didn’t expect him to shed any new light on the case, but I had more questions that needed answers.

“Cy, I was waiting for your call. I’ve got some more information for you.”

“Really, what’ve you got?”

“You know Bobby Cooper, the grocery boy? Well, one of the customers he delivered to called in. She caught him taking something of hers. Since it was something small, at first she didn’t plan to report it, but then she remembered small crimes sometimes lead to bigger ones. Anyway, we got a search warrant. It turns out the boy has a dresser drawer full of stuff he’s taken from customers. He admitted that one of them came from the dead woman, Mrs. Nelson.”

“Did he by any chance admit to being in the house on the morning of the murder?”

“Not that I know of, Cy. I’ll check and see. Of course, whether he was in the house or not, I doubt if he’d admit it.”

“Listen, Sam, I’ve got someone else I want you to check on, Irene Penrod, the next-door neighbor. See what you can find out about her and where she might’ve gone. She left home in a taxi on Saturday morning. The driver dropped her off at the bus station, but she seems to have disappeared from there.”

“I can already tell you one thing, Cy.”

“What’s that, Sam?”

“One of the neighbors overheard her saying that she wouldn’t have to take care of Mrs. Jarvis much longer.”

“Really? Anything else?”

“I just found out that an anonymous donor has paid for Mrs. Jarvis’s funeral expenses.”

“Really? Carte blanche?”

“No, the funeral home received ten thousand dollars in cash. That won’t pay for a high-priced casket, but it’s enough to pay for a decent burial.”

“And you don’t have any clues as to who sent it?”

“None yet, Cy, and if we don’t find any fingerprints, I doubt if we’ll ever find out. I’ll keep checking, though.”

“That all you have, Sam?”

“It is for now, but I’ll see what else I can have for you tomorrow.”

“Talk to you then, Sam.”

+++ 

I struggled to close my front door.

“Good morning, Cyrus,” said the screeching voice of my next-door neighbor.

I wondered if Heloise Humphert ever slept, or if she camped out in her front yard with her watchdog on duty. I slowly turned to face her.

“Oh, Cyrus. What happened? Did you fall down and hurt your little body?”

“No, I had a nightmare about you and fell out of bed.”

Heloise Humphert chuckled at my put-down.

“Well, Cyrus, I could give you a massage to help you feel better.”

I thought of my neighbor giving me a massage. Suddenly, the tumble down the hill didn’t seem so bad.

“That’s okay. I have some poison ivy that will give me the same result.”

“Oh, Cyrus. You’re so funny. Would you like for me to fix you some chicken soup?”

I shook my head until I realized how much it hurt to do it,  then made my way to the car as quickly as my aching body allowed.

+++

I watched Lou walk down the sidewalk toward Lightning. I was sure the sergeant wished Lightning could roll toward him. Not that the sergeant wanted to be struck by Lightning, but I knew the sergeant wanted to take as few steps as possible. At least, he was walking better. Lou arrived at the car and opened the door slightly.

“Cy, it’s me. Lou. You know, the guy who never wears a yellow raincoat. I just want to make sure that your seatbelt is strapped on good and tight, because I’m getting in now, and I wouldn’t want you to lunge at me.”

First George and then Lou. Could Frank be far behind? Surely, many years ago there must have been a comedian strike at the same time there was a shortage of policemen. Lou bent over to get in, grimaced as he did.

“You looked fine coming out of your apartment, Lou. Is this flash of pain for my benefit?”

“I wish it was, Cy. I’m doing okay walking. It’s those up and down movements and twisting and turning in the bed that cause me so much pain.”

“Want to trade injuries? Mine hurts only if I move or don’t move.”

“Yours should be worse, Cy. After all, you’re the one who caused all of this.”

“That reminds me, Lou. I need a favor from you. I called and reported last night’s fiasco. I told George that you and I were attacked last night. Play along with me on this.”

“In other words, it was our mysterious person in the raincoat that caused all my injuries?”

“Well, in a way it was.”

“How much is it worth to you, Cy?”

+++

My pain escalated with each turn of the steering wheel. In a few minutes, I managed to stop the car in front of the Blue Moon Diner, and the walking wounded exited the car and headed for nourishment.

“Well, what happened to you?” Rosie asked, seeing my decorated face. She knew me well enough to know that whatever answer I gave her would not be the truth.

“A cat got stuck in a tree,” I answered.

“I thought that was the fire department’s job.”

“They were all putting out fires at the time.”

“Why didn’t you send him up to get the cat?” Rosie asked as she pointed toward Lou.

“It was his job to catch the cat when I flushed him out of the tree.”

“So, did you catch the cat yet?”

“Not yet. Remember they have nine lives.”

“Hopefully, you do, too. It looks like you’ve used up one of yours.”

“It feels like more than one, but let’s cut the chitchat. We’re famished.”

Lou and I painfully mounted a couple of stools. Hoping that food would ease my pain, I ordered corned beef hash, three eggs over easy, and some biscuits with sausage gravy. Lou opted for the Pick Five Special. He chose pecan waffles, link sausage, bacon, eggs, and hash browns. Life went on, even for those in pain.

At 10:30, Lou and I waddled and limped from the restaurant like two ducks which had tried to cross the road while walking too close to a possum. We were not a pretty sight, and two snails passed us as we made our way to the car. I remembered how painful the short drive had been and offered Lou a turn at the wheel.

“Say, Cy, your roll down the hill didn’t cause you any memory loss, did it?”

“What do you mean, Lou?”

“Well, we’ve been together over an hour now, and you haven’t asked me about my message for the day.”

“He didn’t by any chance tell you that Job and Jonah had it worse, did He?”

“No, but from what I’ve read, they did have it worse.”

“Well, Jonah deserved it. Anyway, what tidbit did God give you this morning?”

“Can you dig it.”

“Can you dig it? What are we, beatniks? I can see it now. Today we have Cy Dekker on the bongos as he accompanies Cool Lou, the poetry machine. Cool, huh, man?”

Even though Lou had spent years around me, I never ceased to amaze him.

“Tell me, Cy, how fast were you going when your head hit the concrete?”

30

On the way to Hilltop Place, Lou and I discussed the person in the raincoat.

“Any idea who it was, Lou?”

“No, I never saw anyone after I entered the house. At least not until I looked up and saw you lying on me.”

Eager to change the subject, I offered a guess.

“Whoever it was either lives on Hilltop Place or he or she was still in one of the houses until after we left. Did you look through Mrs. Jarvis’s house?”

“No, I figured whoever it was headed for the underground. However, I did check out Mrs. Nelson’s house before you jumped me.”

Lou winced as he slowly maneuvered the car around the corner onto Hilltop Place and noticed that he and I were the first to arrive.

“No one’s here yet. Just pull down in front of Mrs. Nelson’s house. If the door is double-bolted, we can use George as a battering ram. With his head, it shouldn’t take us more than a couple of tries to get in.”

Lou and I talked while we waited. We were interrupted by a call from the dispatcher.

“Lieutenant, do you know a Mrs. Wilkens?”

“I sure do.”

“Well, she called in this morning. She wanted to talk to you about what she called ‘The Hilltop Murder Mystery.’ Sgt. Collins talked to her and told her you weren’t in. At first, she was reluctant to leave a message, but finally, when she decided she could trust Sgt. Collins, she told him that last night she saw Mr. Hartley coming out of the house next door to hers. Does that mean anything to you, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, thanks. I’ll check on it.”

Lou and I discussed this new bit of evidence until I looked in the side-view mirror and noticed Frank Harris’s tank pull up behind us. Frank got out of his car and approached the sitting wounded. The medical examiner bent over and looked in the car and was barely able to suppress a laugh.

“So, this time they brought the bodies out to me.”

“I would laugh, Frank, but it hurts too much.”

“It looks like I lost a bet, Cy.”

I knew it was coming.

“Go ahead. I’ll bite.”

“Well, I told George that I didn’t think you could look any worse than you did before. Looks like I was wrong.”

“I love you, too, Frank.”

“So, Cy, how many new bodies do you have lined up for me this morning?”

“I don’t know. Do the two of us count?”

“Funny you should mention it. Some of the guys in the department have been wondering if the two of you can count.”

“Very funny. Today, I’m counting on you, Frank. Somebody has to keep you busy. I know even you’d feel guilty drawing a paycheck without doing any work.”