Murder in the Library (15 page)

It was time to line up
the M&Ms, and break out a new bar of Hershey chocolate. Any excuse would’ve
worked for Lou and me to turn to our candy, but to improve our thinking seemed
like a worthy candidate.

I would like to say that
the candy enlightened us enough that we solved the case before lunch, but if
that were to be true, we would’ve solved it the first day. Things were almost
so bad that Lou and I wished for another puzzle. Almost, but not quite.

Rosie chastised us for
eating lunch somewhere else the day before, but wiped our shovels and handed
them to us. We were back in her good graces. Of course we knew that we had the
upper hand. If we quit eating there, the Blue Moon would have to find forty men
to replace us, or close to forty. Rosie didn’t want either to happen.

By the time we’d left
the Blue Moon and returned to my place, we’d reaffirmed that meringue sticks to
lips and teeth, although neither of us knew the reason why. Nor were we
determined to find out. We had enough to worry about. If we found out some day
that some person died because meringue stuck to his or her teeth, we’d give the
issue more time. Until then, we’d stick to solving murders.

+++

“Well, Lou, we really
accomplished a lot this morning. What say we get back to the case at hand and
pin this murder on someone?”

“Does it have to be the
guilty person?”

“Either that or Belding.
He committed murder in his heart. He would’ve done it if he thought he could
get away with it, and it could’ve been him, but let’s wait on him. Let’s start
closer to home. Bob Downey. Maybe Downey didn’t see anyone, and sneaked over
when no one was home and committed the murder.”

“So, what’s his motive,
Cy?”

“There you go, Lou,
trying to complicate things. What do we know about this guy, anyway?”

“Well, he was a trucker,
and as far as we know, he had no ties to Hilldale until he moved here.”

“So, do we eliminate
him?”

“I don’t think we
eliminate anyone, Cy, but he doesn’t seem as likely a suspect as some of these
guys. And besides, we know that Downey was telling the truth. Two other guys
saw the long-haired man with the beard, and he was telling the truth when he
told us he was a trucker.”

“Still, what’s to keep
him from donning a disguise, sneaking over here and murdering the Colonel?”

“Nothing, but what’s his
motive? A dispute over the property line?”

“Okay, let’s move on.
Next we have Joe Guilfoyle. Supposedly he was a friend of the Colonel’s for a
long time. What could’ve made him snap and kill his friend? He could’ve been
slipping out of the house, instead of trying to get in, when Martha returned
home the day of the murder. But my gut feeling tells me he really was a friend
of the Colonel, and that we need to look elsewhere to find our killer.”

“I agree.”

“What about the maid and
handyman?”

“Supposedly, she has an
alibi. Maybe she’s the only one who does. Supposedly she was cleaning someone’s
house that day. Her husband left, but she didn’t. And what’s their motive?”

“Only one possibility that
I can think of. Maybe the Colonel found out something about one of them,
probably Earl, and confronted him, and threatened to tell everyone the
Hoskinses worked for.”

“It would’ve been hard
for them to find other families to replace the ones they lost. No one lets just
anyone into their homes these days, especially doesn’t hire them, without
references. People who fire you don’t provide references.”

“Next. Staying in town,
let’s tackle Michael Belding.”

“I’d love to, Cy.”

“He had a motive, and he
has no alibi. Home sick, so he says. No witnesses. But if he is our guy, and
he’s never left town, why did he wait so long to kill the Colonel?”

“To keep himself from
being suspected.”

“But it didn’t work.”

“But he wouldn’t know
that.”

“Okay, we’ll keep him in
the mix. Let’s go on. How about Tom Johnson? He was in the house. We don’t know
if he was there once, twice, three times, or more, but we know he was there.
That means he had a chance to steal a key, or make an imprint of one. Now what
reason he’d have for murdering the Colonel, I’ve no idea. He seems unlikely,
except for the fact that there is a discrepancy on how many times he was in the
house, and he’s disappeared.”

“Cy, have you thought
about why the pest control company says one thing, and Martha says another? Do
you think Dunleavy’s is trying cover up something, is Martha trying to divert
suspicion to someone else, or is it merely a fact of faulty memory?”

“All are possible, but
why would the company not admit to a third call, unless the third call was on
the day of the murder, which it wasn’t? And why does one person say there were
two calls made by the same man, and another says there were three calls, each
made by someone different? Not only could Martha be trying to divert suspicion
to the pest control company, but someone else, who actually murdered the
Colonel, could be doing so, too. It could be that Tom Johnson is off somewhere,
taking care of his mother, and that that is all there is to it.

“Before we move on to
someone else, there’s something else to consider. Neither Bob Downey, Michael
Belding, Carl Bauerman, or Michael Terloff could’ve had a key to the house.
None of them have ever been in the house. And two people saw someone enter the
house using a key. More than likely, that person was our murderer. Everyone who
lives there has a key. Anyone else who has visited the house could’ve stolen
one when they were there. According to Martha, no keys were ever kept
downstairs, so whoever stole a key, provided a key was stolen, had to have been
in the upstairs of the house at one time or another. More than likely, at some
point during their acquaintanceship, Joe Guilfoyle has been upstairs. The maid
and handyman have been upstairs. And one, two, or three men who worked for the
pest control company have been upstairs, but some of our suspects have never
been in the house. At least as far as we know, and Martha concurs.”

“So, who are we up to
now, Cy?”

I studied my sheet of
suspects. Otherwise I’d lose my place.

“I guess we’re up to
Terloff. You know, one of the guys who has a motive, but no key. He’s been seen
a couple of times. We know that he doesn’t have long hair and a beard, but I’m
pretty much convinced that the long hair and beard was a disguise. Still,
Terloff had no key.”

“So is Bauerman the only
one we have left?”

“As far as I know.”

“Well, let’s pin it on
him and get this over with.”

Lou’s remarks were
enough to tell me it was time for another candy break. I picked up a package of
Lou’s M&Ms, ripped it open with my teeth, and plopped one into my mouth. I
don’t even remember what color. I know that somewhere someone has come up with
a study which tells your personality based on which color of M&M is your
favorite, but I couldn’t care less about that.

I emptied the bag of
M&Ms on the table and then one at a time flicked them over to Lou. Lou
started flicking back. It wasn’t long before we had a collision in mid-table.
Lou and I began to imitate two drivers explaining to a police officer that it
was the other guy’s fault. After we cracked up a few times, I lifted myself 
from the table, went to the refrigerator, plucked a Hershey Almond bar from the
cold storage, returned to the living room, and handed it to Lou. He imitated me
as carefully he slid the bar from its wrapper, studied it, and pulled out his
knife from his pants pocket. I couldn’t understand why. There was a perfectly
good piece of chocolate and almond I could extract, if only Lou had handed me
my candy. Instead, he opened his knife, cut a hole in the middle of my
chocolate bar around the centermost almond. I keeled over, as if Lou had cut out
my heart. He bent over. I opened my mouth and accepted the piece of chocolate
Lou had chosen for me. A day or so later, both of us regained whatever sanity
we’d had before and returned to the case.

“Like you said, Lou, all
we have left is Bauerman. So, is he somewhere out in California, here in
Hilldale, or somewhere else unrelated to our case?”

“More than likely.”

“More than likely what?”

“More than likely one of
those three.”

“Lou, did your parents
have any other kids?”

“You know they didn’t,
Cy. Remember, when I was born my mother was put in quarantine one place, my
father another place, and me somewhere else.”

“Come to think of it,
you’re right, Lou. I remember now. They put you in a basinet with Heloise and
Hortense Humphert.”

We both enjoyed another
laugh necessary to endure the case that wasn’t going our way. Then our thoughts
returned to Bauerman.

“Let’s see what we know
about Bauerman. His daughter died in an accident. His wife died of cancer. He
left the state and moved to New York, took up acting. Stayed there a couple of
years, moved to California, continued to act.  He’s been seen in California as late as a year or so ago, but moved around during his seven or so years in California. Sam secured dates of several plays he acted in, and people in California have
confirmed that Bauerman did act in those plays. Some even saw pictures of the
man who lived an hour from here, and the man who acted in New York, and they
say that all three Carl Bauermans are the same man. So, even though we don’t
have any good pictures of Bauerman in California, we know that he’s acted there
a lot. What we don’t know is if he’s donned a disguise of long hair and a beard
and murdered in Hilldale.”

“Any way Bauerman and
Johnson are the same person?”

“It doesn’t seem likely
for two reasons. One, Bauerman, even last year, was described as a thin fellow.
Johnson is burly. Also, Bauerman was seen in California last year. Johnson was
in Indiana for two years and then here for a year; however, it is worth
considering. Everyone seems to have been moving around. Jennifer and Trish were
out of the country for years. Jennifer’s husband Scott has been in the area
only a short time. Tom Brockman, who rents a room at the Hardesty house, isn’t
from here. Bob Downey was an over-the-road trucker until he moved here two
years ago. And who knows where Daniel Terloff has been the last ten years? Only
Martha, Joe Guilfoyle, and Michael Belding have been here the whole time. What
that means, I don’t know. I just know that someone murdered the Colonel, and
the odds are it was a man. But even that isn’t one hundred percent.”

+++

Once again the day was
getting away from us with no solution at hand. Was this case taking longer than
usual, or did we merely think so because the victim was our friend? I
remembered the Chief’s and the Colonel’s advice to us, and Lou and I agreed to
put the case on hold until the next day. At that point, everything seemed at a
standstill. I hoped there would be new evidence the next day. Otherwise, I
didn’t know what direction we’d pursue.

+++

For some strange reason
I'll never understand, after we ate we decided to drive by the Colonel's house
before I dropped Lou at his apartment. It wasn't one of my better decisions. Naturally,
as we neared the Colonel's house Lightning slowed and two well-fed men turned
to look at the house where their friend and mentor used to live. It was dark
and cloudy, but that was no excuse for what was to happen.

“Look, Lou, see that?”

Someone was running up
the Colonel's driveway, but it was too dark to distinguish whom it might be. As
quickly as I could, I stopped the car, and forgot that I could no longer run,
or that I had never been able to overtake anyone in a race. Evidently, Lou too
forgot that I couldn’t run, for as I stumbled around to his side of the car, he
was on my heels. My wheezing should have alerted anyone within two miles, and
probably did, but I couldn’t help myself.

Trying to save ground, I
rounded the house, just missing the enclosed patio; however, I failed to miss
the planter of flowers that loomed in front of my feet. The corner dug into my
shins, and I became airborne. Well, not for long. The ground failed to give way
as my stomach plowed into it. I envisioned meatballs spewing from my mouth and
flying in every direction, but I was able to keep everything down. I was even
able to do so a second or so later when a defensive tackle landed on my
posterior. Actually, it was his knee that landed nearby, causing me to forget
all about the pain in my stomach, and the grass I had eaten against my will. My
partner overshot the runway, sliding over me and landing just beyond. His shoe
clipped my ear as it went by. More than likely this happened within a
millisecond of when my good friend started grazing, as well.

We both lay there until
an angel of the Lord hovered above us. The light was intense, but no one said,
“Fear not.”

I was having trouble
turning my body, so I waited until the angel came down to a more acceptable
position.

“Why, Cy, Lou, what are
you doing here?”

The angel sounded
vaguely like Trish, her light a flashlight.

“Just getting our yearly
exercise,” I sputtered, as soon as I could talk.

Within days, Trish
summoned Scott, who came and helped us to our feet.

Sometime late the next
afternoon, or as soon as I could breathe again, I brushed the grass from my
body, and gave them my explanation.