Murder in the Library (14 page)

As we left, I looked at
my watch, wondered if Earl and Myra Hoskins would be home from cleaning and
maintaining houses. I took a chance, drove by their house. We were just getting
out of Lightning when the Hoskinses pulled into their driveway. Earl eyed me
warily.

“Something else we can
do for you, Lieutenant?”

“You mind if we step
inside a minute?”

“We’re tired. We’ve had
a busy day today.”

“This will just take a
minute.”

With his wife’s
prodding, Hoskins agreed to give us a few minutes of his time. He had nothing
new to enlighten us with on his whereabouts on the afternoon of the murder, so
I turned to something else.

“I’d like for both of
you to look over these pictures and tell me if you’ve seen any of these
people.”

“This one,” said Myra, pointing at Robert Collins. “But then we know Robert. Earl was the one who
recommended A-1 Plumbing when the Hardestys needed a plumber. You don’t mean to
say he’s a suspect.”

“I don’t think so. I’m
just having people look over pictures of people who’ve been in the Hardesty
house or have been seen in the neighborhood.”

“Well, Robert’s not the
kind of man who’d do something like this.”

“Who is the kind of
person, Mrs. Hoskins?”

“That’s just it. I don’t
know anyone who’d have done it, but someone did. Must’ve been a stranger.”

I thanked the Hoskins
for their time, and Lou and I turned to leave.

+++

It was a little after 4:30 when we pulled up in front of the Hardesty house. I hoped everyone was home, and that
someone would recognize at least one of the people whose picture I had. Someone
did, but I wasn’t sure what it meant.

Martha was relieved when
she learned that we were there only to show pictures of some possible suspects,
to see if anyone in the household recognized any of them. No one recognized
Bauerman or Terloff. Martha thought Belding looked vaguely familiar, and she said
that Johnson was there to spray for ants. Both Trish and Jennifer said they saw
him when he was leaving one afternoon.

I was about to turn and
leave when Martha made a comment that surprised me.

“This guy was here the
first time, but it was a different guy each of the other times.”

I was pretty sure that
the man at Dunleavy’s had told me that there had been only two calls to the
Colonel’s house and they were made by the same man.

“Are you sure there were
three calls made, and each by a different man?”

“Yes, and Buck made sure
I was here each time to receive them, since he couldn’t hear the doorbell when
he was in the library.”

“Did each one follow the
same routine?”

“As far as I know. I
didn’t watch any of them that closely, but I did make up some excuse to walk
through the house every few minutes. All three men concentrated on the first
floor of the house, but they did go upstairs and spray, too. They said it was
just in case someone had taken some food upstairs and attracted the ants. I
don’t know how we got them in the first place. We’d never had ants before. It’s
as if someone dumped an ant farm in the house.”

I don’t guess any of
them was the long-haired guy I showed you a picture of?”

“If so, he might’ve
scared me. No, it wasn’t him. I haven’t seen him before or since.”

I made a mental note
that Lou and I would make a second trip to Dunleavy’s. I looked at my watch.
Our second trip would have to wait until the next day. In the meantime, we’d
check with Downey, next door. He’d been helpful the first time. Maybe he could
identify one of these other guys.

+++

I rang Downey’s
doorbell. He opened the door, and I got the feeling that I was losing my
welcome.

“Back so soon,
Lieutenant.”

“Yes, Mr. Downey. You’ve been our best help so far identifying visitors to the house next door, and
I was wondering if you’d mind looking at a few more pictures to see if you
recognize any of them.”

“I can probably save you
time, Lieutenant. The long-haired man is the only person I’ve seen going to or
from the house next door, except for the people who live there, and that older
man who visits on occasion.”

“Well, maybe you’ve seen
some of these other people around town.”

He motioned for me to
hand him the pictures. He wanted to get our discussion over with and get back
to whatever he was doing. Downey looked through the pictures, seemed a little
stunned by one. Maybe it was the long-haired man again. I’d forgotten to take
that one out.

“Just the one I picked
out before. Some of these others may be well-known members of the community,
but I don’t get out much, except when I leave town on a trip.”

“Oh, do you travel much,
Mr. Downey.”

He laughed.

“Lieutenant, I traveled
so much when my daddy and I were in the hauling business that I’m plum tuckered
out. I take a short vacation once or twice a year, but I’ve had enough driving.
Now, I fly when I go.”

“Where have you been?”

“Oh, I went once to
visit one of the women I told you about, and I took a vacation to the Keys
once. Rented a car in Miami and went all the way to Key West. That was nice. I
wanted to see it because it was one of the few places in the U.S. that I’d never seen.”

I thought about all the
places in the U.S. I’d never seen, and wondered if I’d see any of them before I
died. Maybe I was happier just lying around. I may never know.

+++

We’d accomplished more
than I expected that day. Well, more in the way of people talked to. I couldn’t
see where we were any closer to solving the murder, but then murders have a way
of getting solved quickly, after you’ve spent enough time.

+++

“So, Lou, any ideas?”

“Well, I was thinking
about taking the books I’ve bought at Scene of the Crime and finding myself a 
big hammock tied to two palm trees on a deserted beach.”

“Do you mean I’ve to
solve this case by myself?”

“No, every now and then
I'll take a break from reading, lie there and think of you, back here in
Hilldale, stomping through the snow, showing these pictures to everyone.”

“So, you think it will
take me that long to solve this case by myself?”

“Well, it might. If I'm
not here to give you your clue each day.”

“Enough of this
chitchat. Any ideas about the case?”

“Just that I think it
was someone in disguise. Enough people saw this guy. We have a picture of him.
And if we keep leaning on everyone, maybe the right guy will fall over.”

“I just wish I knew how
much of this stuff to pay attention to and what to discard. The fact that the
guy probably had a key and wore a disguise makes me think it was someone who
lives in the house, except that I can't see anyone who lives there murdering
anyone. At least not Martha or any of the girls, but disguise or not, I think
we are looking for some guy. The only other woman in the picture is the
cleaning lady, and she is one of the few people who has an alibi for the day of
the murder.”

“It is definitely a
curious case, Cy. I can't see where anyone had a motive that would make him or
her murder the Colonel, even though some of our suspects did threaten the
Colonel years ago. Of course, one of them is dead, and one's moved away. That
belligerent Belding seems the most likely to have done it, but then the ones
who seem most likely seldom are guilty.”

“When you throw in those
who are hard to find and those who were in the house but don't seem to have
even known the Colonel, that makes it even tougher. Maybe a good night's sleep
will open our eyes to new possibilities in the morning.”

“I guess that's my cue
to get out, Cy.”

Lou reached into the
back and grabbed his bag of books he’d bought at the Scene of the Crime oh so
many hours ago that morning. I’d planned to go home and look over the books I’d
bought. I knew Lou would exercise first.

+++

I eased Lightning into
the driveway, tiptoed from the car much like Wile E. Coyote does as he sneaks
up on the Road Runner to no avail. I turned the back door key and stepped into
my sanctuary before the vulture or her rat discovered I was home. I noticed
that there was another car at her house. Maybe she’d given up on me and had
found a deaf and blind man who coveted her advances. I could only hope.

+++

I was like a little kid
at Christmas as I opened the shopping bag that held my new treasures.
Carefully, I removed the books one at a time, separated them into stacks of
current and classic authors, then, one at a time, flipped the books over to
read the back cover. When time permitted, I planned to select one, and begin to
read. Of course, I’ve a few other treasures ahead of them, ones I had purchased
on an earlier trip to the bookstore.

Sometime before long,
I’d have to go shopping for a bookcase. Lou didn’t have that problem. Even
though Lou’s apartment was smaller than my house, it came with a built-in
bookcase that could hold hundreds of books. I needed to upgrade. At least
modern technology hadn’t found a replacement for a bookcase. Well, some people
say they have, and while I might try books on tape if I ever take a vacation, I
am not about to buy a computer so I can read a book. I am perfectly happy
holding a book in my hands, while leaning back in my recliner. Some things are
better left alone.

I awoke Wednesday
morning and immediately knew that I wasn’t paralyzed. The pains I gained from
walking and standing on my feet were still with me. As I lay there, I decided
to gamble. If I could make it out of bed, I’d lie in a tub of warm water for a
while, and see if that helped any of my aches and pains. Maybe a bookcase wasn’t
all that I needed. Maybe I needed a hot tub, too. But the more I thought of it,
the more I grew afraid that I’d come home some day and find my next-door
neighbor in my hot tub, and that she was alive. I’d have to burn the hot tub in
order to remove all the poisons from it. Maybe I could burn my next-door
neighbor before I bought a hot tub. As I thought of that, I smiled, which
caused the pains in my legs increased. I think God was telling me I was
breaking at least one of the Ten Commandments.

A day or so later, I
emerged from the bathtub a man-sized prune. I used six towels to dry my body,
then got dressed, asked God for forgiveness one more time, and set my day in motion.

Sam had gotten off the
hook long enough. It was time to see if he’d circumvented the globe and
captured all of our suspects.

“Well, Sam, do you have
everyone ready for the lineup?”

“Oh, who’s playing?”

“I don’t mean some
ballgame. I mean have you rounded up the usual suspects.”

“Cy, do you know how
many people there are in the world?”

“I don’t want everybody.
Right now I’d settle for Daniel Terloff, Carl Bauerman, and Tom Johnson.”

“Well, Cy, it looks like
I managed to round up all but three of them.”

“You haven’t found any
of them?”

“Well, in a manner of
speaking, I found one of them, but we aren’t exactly hanging out together.”

“What you’re saying is
you found someone who’s seen one of them?”

“Bingo.”

“Well, I’ve haven’t got
all day, Sam. Which one?”

“Terloff. I talked to
some of the guys he hung out with when he was here at college, and a couple of
them said he’d been back in town recently, although neither guy could give me
the date they saw Terloff. Oh, and he doesn’t have long hair and a beard. At
least he didn’t when he was here.”

“And you have no idea if
he was seen before or after the murder?”

“I tried to pin them
down, but neither could be sure. At least it was around that time.”

“If it was after, he
still could’ve been our long-haired murderer who trimmed his locks after the
murder to avoid suspicion.”

“If so, it didn’t work,
Cy. You still suspect him.”

“I suspect everyone.”

“Well, I didn’t do it,
Cy. I’ve a corned beef on rye who’ll testify as to my whereabouts.”

“You mean you still have
it.”

“No, but I’ve pictures
of us together.”

“Go take your
medication, Sam.”

“Wait, Cy. I almost
forgot. I do have something for you.”

“Well, at least you’re
doing a little bit of work. What do you have?”

“I located that guy that
Downey, the next-door neighbor, said he drove for. The reason I couldn’t find
him sooner is that he retired last year and he and his wife have started
spending their winters in Arizona, and just got back. Anyway, he said that Downey made several trips for him over the last few years and was one of the best haulers
he ever had. Said he was wondering if Downey managed to stay retired, or took
to the road again. He was glad to know that Downey seemed to be enjoying
retirement.”

+++

I was about to step out
my back door when a woman lunged for me. I narrowly escaped, and dashed for the
front door. How could she be that fast? She was at the front door, too. I was
about to slam the door, and call for backup, when I heard the words I never
wanted to hear.

“You might as well come
out, Cyrus. We’ve got you surrounded.”

“We?”

“Yes, we. My sister
Hortense has come to visit. I remembered that you have a friend, and that you
didn’t want your friend to be without a woman, so I called Hortense and invited
her to visit. Thanks for suggesting it, Cyrus.”

“I didn’t suggest any
such thing. Why don’t you and Horrible go to her place instead? What zoo does
she live in, anyway?”

“Cyrus. Oh, how sweet.
You’re already kidding Hortense and you haven’t even met her yet. Hortense!
Come here! Come and meet my little huggy bunny.”

I saw my chance, slammed
the door, locked it, and stumbled toward the back door that I hoped Hortense
had abandoned. She had. I managed to get out and lock the door, and Lightning
got up a full head of steam before Ugly and Uglier rounded the corner and
almost got clipped by a runaway Volkswagen.

+++

Lou saw the painful
expression on my face.

“So, your next-door
neighbor finally picked your lock.”

“Not quite, but almost.
In a way, it's worse.”

“She made you sign some
note that the three of you will live together?”

“Something like that,
only it's the four of us. Or should I say five?”

“I didn't sign anything,
Cy, so keep me out of it. And what do you mean by five. Did she find another
animal?”

“In a way, but this
one's yours.”

“The way you're talking,
Cy, she has a twin sister.”

“Bingo.”

“You mean she really has
a twin sister?”

“Surely I told you that
before.”

“If so, I managed to
forget. Are they identical?”

“Well, I didn't hang
around long enough to find out, but to a guy running for his life, they looked
equally ugly. Now, let's change the subject. I don't want to think about my
next-door neighbor this close to breakfast.”

“Okay. The Road Not
Taken.”

“I’m not much on poetry,
Lou, but I know Frost wrote that one. Has to do with choosing one of two ways
to go in life. Don’t see what that has to do with our murder, but maybe time
will enlighten us. Do you think it means that Tom Johnson hasn’t left town? He
quit his job before the murder, and if he’s our murderer, you’d think he’d
hightail it out of town, so I doubt if it has anything to do with him.”

“If you’re through
rambling, Cy, I’d like some breakfast.”

I couldn’t argue with
that. Lightning lurched into action and before Lou and I could think of
everything we wanted for breakfast, Lightning had slid into a spot right in
front of the door of the Blue Moon.

+++

Properly nourished, Lou
and I listened to our food sloshing around in our stomachs as we slid off our
stools at the Blue Moon and navigated the few steps to Lightning. The two of us
hoped that loose ends might allow us to solve the case, and the only loose ends
we could see were how many pest control men made how many calls to the
Colonel’s house, and did those calls have anything to do with the murder, or
was it merely something else that was keeping us from solving the case.

I recognized the man
behind the counter at Dunleavy’s, and he recognized us.

“Something else,
Lieutenant?”

“I want you to go
through your records to make sure of the number of times you did work at the
Hardesty home, the dates the calls were made, and who made the calls.”

“I thought I gave that
to you before, Lieutenant.”

“You did, but what Mrs.
Hardesty said doesn’t match what I remembered you to say. I want to double
check to make sure.”

A couple of minutes later,
the man turned back from the computer to give me the information. His records
showed two calls, not three, and one man, Tom Johnson, made both calls. He
showed me where Johnson signed an electronic form after completing both calls.
I wasn’t about to challenge that, because I didn’t know what he was talking
about.

+++

“Lou, I think we need to
take some time, sit down, and see if we can make sense of what we have.”

“And we thought those
word clues the Colonel left us were hard.”

Lightning breathed hard
as he dashed for my house. He  slowed considerably when he saw an intruder in
our yard. I saw no ugly women, but a mangy mutt stood on my front porch,
guarding the entrance. When she saw us, she perked up, jumped up and down, and
began to bark. I feared for my safety, reached into my pocket, pulled out a
Hershey bar and tossed it into the yard. The white rat darted toward the candy,
just as two ugly women sprang from the front door of the house next door. As
the dog dashed to the Hershey bar, Lou and I lumbered toward the front door of
my house.

“Cyrus, you don’t give a
dog chocolate,” I heard my neighbor screech as she lunged to intercept the
chocolate before the dog grabbed it.

“Acne problems?”

“No, it could kill
Twinkle Toes.”

“Any chance it might do
the same to you?”

“No, Cyrus, I’m fit as a
fiddle.”

I could see that she and
I had different opinions of a fiddle. Regardless, she needed to be restrung,
and it would’ve been worth a chance to see what a good strong sandpapering
might do to her.

I almost thought about
my next-door fiddle too long, because she’d captured the candy wrapper from the
dog’s teeth and was looking to sink her fangs into my hide. If the two women
hadn’t tripped over each other, each trying to be the first one to my front
porch, Lou and I would’ve been goners. One woman’s shoulder collided with the
other one’s jaw. I was curious to see if the collision improved either woman’s
looks, but not curious enough to put myself on the endangered species list.

+++

“Okay, Lou. Let’s take a
look at what we have and see if we can make any sense out of all this. We have
our friend, the Colonel, dead. We know that he was killed by a poisoned dart
from a blowgun, and that the person who killed him stood in the passageway and
blew the deadly object through a hole in the bookcase, then retrieved it by a
string that was attached to the dart. But why would someone retrieve the
object?”

“Maybe because they can
tell so much by DNA these days. Of course, it could’ve been that the murderer
was hoping that Frank would diagnose that the Colonel’s death was due to a
heart attack. There are a lot of similarities between the two types of deaths,
at least as far as they might be perceived.”

“Still, whatever the
case, I don’t think any of that will lead us to one person over another. So,
let’s look at all our suspects, and whatever motives each one might have. We’ll
begin at home, and work our way to a distance. First, we have Martha. Martha
could’ve wanted the Colonel’s money, and she could’ve sneaked back home, murdered
our friend, and left before his friend Joe was due to arrive. But I can’t buy
that. I think the Colonel would’ve given Martha anything she wanted. I think
the same is true for each of his granddaughters, although either of them
could’ve committed the murder, because one of them had skipped her last class
and the other one was out of class in time to come home, commit the murder, and
leave. And if it was Jennifer, did that mean that she and her husband did it
together? They both said they were together at the time of the murder. Yet
neither has a witness that they actually saw that house that Scott wants them
to move into. Was the Colonel so against that, and Scott so much in favor of
that, that he was willing to murder the Colonel to get what he wanted? On the
surface, I’d say ‘no,’ but stranger things have happened.”

“I can’t see the family
doing it, either, Cy. Nor do I think the boarder, Tom Brockman, did it. What
was his motive?”

“I can’t see any motive
for him, either, but he did say he was in his office, and others said he
wasn’t.”

We continued to mull
over the possibility that someone who lived in the house murdered the Colonel,
but we could come up with no likely suspect. I doubted if we’d fare better when
we got to the more likely suspects who lived somewhere else, but someone had to
have done it.

We changed focus for a
few minutes and tried to make sense  of  the  day’s  clue.  “
The  Road Not
Taken.”
Did it mean that someone didn’t go somewhere they were supposed to
have gone, or that someone chose one thing instead of another. We focused on
the first. Could it mean that Martha never left the house that day until after
she murdered her husband? The autopsy did show that the Colonel hadn’t eaten
any lunch. Was it because he was too busy doing something else, or because
someone kept him from eating. He wasn’t tied up. And he had been out that day,
even if his wife hadn’t. He had been out, hadn’t he? Wasn’t the day he died,
the day he set up his second camera? Or was it merely the day he provided the
clues for us? Everything was becoming jumbled in my mind, but then those things
happen sometimes when the case doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Too bad the
Colonel hadn’t installed cameras on the front and back doors. Come to think of
it, that wouldn't have done us much good, unless someone in the house did it
and he or she donned the disguise while inside the house. But that doesn't make
any sense, either, and three witnesses saw the long-haired, bearded character
outside the house. I'd been at this case so long it was hard to keep each thing
straight.