Murder in the Library (4 page)

As I thought about the
Colonel’s dilemma, I thought back over the last couple of months and what we
had been through. Much of my thoughts had to do with the change in Lou.

Evidently the winter
weather was worse on Lou than I thought. I had no forewarning of how bad he had
become until he slid into the car one morning, buckled up, looked over at me
and smiled.

“What’s wrong with you,
Cheshire cat?”

“I got a Wii.”

“Excuse me,” I replied.

“I said I got a Wii.”

“I thought that’s what
you said. Why didn’t you go before you came out of your apartment? It isn’t
like I was going to drive off and leave you.”

“No, no, no. A Wii. W I
I. I got a Wii Fit, too.”

“Well, what’s a Wii
without a Wii Fit.”

“You have no idea what
I’m talking about, do you, Cy?”

“I’d say that makes two
of us. If we’d been on a case, I’d say that you’ve been working too hard, but
obviously that’s not the case.”

“Cy, a Wii is a video
game system. Wii Fit is an exercise program you use with the Wii in order to
get in better shape, and lose weight if you need to.”

“Well, you don’t need
to.”

“But Doc says I need to
get in better shape.”

“Then change doctors.”

“I don’t want to. I
Wiied for over thirty minutes this morning and I feel great. It’s a wonderful
workout. I understand there’s over forty exercises altogether.”

“Do they have anything
for exercising your brain? I think yours has taken a hiatus.”

It was then I got a
dissertation on what a Wii and Wii Fit were. It was almost enough to make me
lose my appetite. Almost, but not quite.

+++

We arrived at the Blue
Moon, stepped out of the car and into the diner. My eyes seemed to deceive me.
It looked like Lou was a little sprier as he jumped up onto his stool.

After a little small
talk, Rosie took our order. I ordered the usual. Then it was Lou’s turn.

“I’ll have a veggie
omelet and a bowl of fruit. Maybe some berries, sliced banana, and a sliced
apple, if you have it.”

As soon as Rosie
realized that Lou was serious, she turned to me. I figured I was about to find
an ally, someone whose common sense hadn’t left her.

“What’s wrong with him
today?”

I made a mistake of
telling her.

“He Wiied for over
thirty minutes this morning.”

I wasn’t prepared for
her answer, or the conversation that ensued.

“You got a Wii?”

“Yeah, it came in
yesterday. Wii Fit, too.”

“I’ve had mine for two
weeks. I love it. I think the super hula hoop has taken a half an inch off my
waist.”

“I haven’t done that one
yet. What do you think of the basic step?”

“Oh, I’ve already
unlocked the advanced step.”

I had already decided
that someone had unlocked a door that should have remained locked.

“I’m just getting
started. What are some of your favorite exercises?”

As both sides of the
counter reverberated with names of the exercises I’d heard all the way to the
diner, I felt I was going to lose my food, until I realized that Rosie hadn’t
yet turned around to hang our order on the spindle. The last thing I heard was
two people agreeing on what fun it was to head soccer balls. I began to wonder
if two heads hadn’t taken too many cannonballs.

+++

By the grace of God I
managed to get through the rest of the day. I went home and prayed for Lou,
that he would come to his senses. If he continued to work out on that
contraption, he’d lose weight. Surely God would spare him if I continued to
pray in earnest. Otherwise, people might start calling me Jack, as in, “Here
comes Jack and the Beanstalk.” I couldn’t imagine Lou being skinny. He had
always had a healthy body, like mine.

+++

Everything was fine
until the next morning when a smiling sergeant slid into my car and asked me if
I thought he looked thinner.

“You know, Lou, now that
you mention it, I think you have lost weight, and all the weight you’ve lost is
above your neck and behind your eyebrows.”

Lou just looked at me
and smiled, as if he thought that some day he could convert me.

+++

Wasting Away Lou
dominated my thoughts. Even when I got home and picked up a good mystery, I
couldn’t concentrate on what I read. The next morning everything had gotten to
be too much for me. I did something irrational. I set the alarm for just before
daylight, sneaked out of the house and over to Lou’s apartment. I got to his
front window just as Lou was shutting off the TV.  The sweat on his body told
he had already Wiied. I slinked back to the car, went home, fell back into the
bed, and pulled the covers over my head. I had missed all that sleep for
nothing.

+++

The following morning I
arose even earlier. I figured that Lou Wiied at the same time each day, so I
missed even more sleep to see Lou in action. I parked a few doors from Lou’s
building and slipped down the street lurking in the shadows as much as
possible. By the time I got to Lou’s place, my ears were cold and red. I set up
shop in front of Lou’s window and watched a very overweight man twist his hips
as he emulated the cartoon character he had created on the Wii, the character
he was watching on the TV, a character who was spinning a hula hoop around his
cartoonish body. I must have laughed loud enough to be heard through a storm
window, because a few seconds later Lou stepped off his Wii Fit board and
hurried to the window. I wiped the slobber from my jacket and managed to get
away without being seen. As I shut the car door, started the car, and turned
the heater up high, I realized that I had experienced some of the most
hilarious free entertainment I had seen in some time.

+++

I went to bed extremely
early that night, so that I could go back for more entertainment before dawn
the next day. When I arrived at Lou’s place, I noticed a shrub I hadn’t seen
before. It was blocking Lou’s window. The night before I thought of Lou doing
his  imitation  hula  hoop  and trained myself not to laugh. If I was going to
get up long before God intended me to arise, I wanted to get the full show.

As I neared his window,
I could see Lou Wiiing while standing on one leg. The other leg was tucked up
against his thigh. I didn’t realize Lou was capable of such a move, but then I
noticed he was using the back of a chair for support. I stepped forward to get
right next to the window. I was glad that it was a cloudy night.  In a few
moments, I ceased to be glad it was a cloudy night. I heard a thud inside the
house. From what I gathered, Lou was no longer standing on one leg. He was
lying on his front, back, or one side or the other. From what I could tell, Lou
keeled over just after I screamed. I screamed just after I stepped into a bear
trap and it crushed my ankle. I lay in the snow writhing in pain.

It was several minutes
before I failed to notice the pain. The first thing to distract me from my pain
was a voice that said, “Hold it right there!” and then someone shined a light
in my eyes. I recognized Officer Davis’s voice before his light illuminated my
face.

“Well, Lt. Dekker, what
are you doing here? Did you get the call about a prowler, too? I thought you’d
pretty much retired except for murder cases.”

Murder. The way I felt
there was about to be another murder.

“Oh, hi, Officer Davis.
I just came over to watch Lou Wii.”

“Excuse me, Lieutenant.”

“Wii, you know that
exercise thing. Lou got one. You should see him working out on it. It’s
hilarious.”

“Oh, he’s got a Wii,
too. I’ve had mine about a month now. I don’t have the Fit yet, but I love to bowl
on it. And boxing and tennis are a good workout.”

I was freezing, but my
brain hadn’t yet been affected. I had just figured out that the whole world had
gone crazy, when something else distracted me. Something whisked by Officer
Davis and crawled up onto my body. I knew that tongue seemed familiar when I
heard a screech nearby.

“That’s it, Twinkle
Toes. Let Cyrus know how much you love him. Cyrus has been hurt.”

My next-door neighbor
was about to lean over and caress me, when I remembered the bear trap and
kicked with all my might. “Oops!” I exclaimed, as my next-door neighbor cried
out in pain. From the way she hobbled around for the next couple  of  minutes,
I think I caught her in the shin. My conscience kicked in and wiped the smile
from my face, so I refrained from doing the same to her varmint.

A day or two later, my
senses returned, and I engaged Officer Davis to help me extricate the bear trap
from my ankle. I decided to hold on to the instrument that caused me so much
pain. I was torn as to whether to leave it outside my next-door neighbor’s
front door, or the door of the man inside the apartment, the man who used to be
my best friend before he started having mental problems.

Officer Davis drove me
to the hospital to get my ankle checked. An hour later, I was home again,
soaking my ankle. It gave me time to think. There were only three ways that
Heloise Humphert could have known that I had been hurt. She could have followed
me, which I doubted, because she would have pounced on me much sooner if she
had, she could have purchased a police radio, which I was pretty sure she hadn’t
done, or she could have been alerted by an ex-friend of a sergeant. I didn’t
know how, but some day I was going to get even with Lou.

+++

I was concerned about
Lou. I wanted him to get help, so the next morning I placed a call to the
police psychiatrist. I let him know about Lou’s new fetish. He let me know what
the Wii Fit had done for him. I hung up and remembered that some people think
psychiatrists are the looniest of all people. I had only two other recourses,
Thelma Lou, Lou’s girlfriend, and Internal Affairs. I decided to wait before
contacting either. I was beginning to think like the one man whose body hadn’t
been taken over by the pod people in
Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
The
Wii fanatics were everywhere. Soon, there would be only skinny people. I
reminded myself not to buy stock in any fast food restaurant, and to eat an
extra helping of dessert, unless the Blue Moon Diner quit serving dessert.
After all, Rosie had been affected, too. What if the cook is next?

Lou and I made it
through March and the first half of April without too much trouble. Well, no
trouble except I had to listen to Lou expostulate about the Wii everyday and
received a weekly report on how much weight he had lost. I was concerned about
him. His pants were slipping down, and I noticed how Lou had to move his belt
over a notch. Also, I learned that I’d lost one of my allies. Lou had had
Thelma Lou over twice to Wii. He’d Wii for a half an hour and then she’d Wii
for thirty minutes. Then, they repeated their workouts until both had Wiied for
an hour. I wasn’t convinced. If God had meant for us to Wii, He’d have put
something in the Bible about it. I challenged Lou to show me where in the Bible
we were instructed to Wii, and the best I could get out of him was something
about the body being a temple.

Luckily, the Wii hadn’t
taken over Lou’s entire life, just one hour a day and most of his conversation.
And Rosie had convinced Lou that he didn’t need to give up any of those foods
he liked, just cut back on them. Well, if Lou wanted to starve himself to death
eating only a half of a meal at a time, so be it. Less food on his plate meant
the possibility of more on mine.

Other than Lou’s
workout, our routine each day was the same as it had been. We checked out the
weather before we left the house each day to see if sunshine or rain was
forecast and what the temperature was expected to be.  We’d also developed a
few friends at the Scene of the Crime, mostly old women, old men, stay-at-home
wives, and one guy who worked the night shift. A couple of days ago, Lou and
I’d finished reading John Dickson Carr’s
The Three Coffins
and were
about to start a work by a current mystery author. We were beginning to enjoy
our new life. At least until I received a phone call I never expected.

I was sitting at home,
lying back in my recliner, thinking about buying a computer. I couldn’t get Hershey, Pennsylvania out of my mind, so a few days earlier I asked one of the elderly
women in the reading group if she owned a computer. She responded by saying,
“Doesn’t everyone these days?” Reluctantly, I informed her that at least two
residents of Hilldale didn’t, although who knew what other changes Lou would make
in his life. This resulted in her sharing our faux-pas with the others in the
group, and immediately everyone gathered around Lou and me to encourage us to
take the plunge. For a minute it seemed like Lou and I had stepped into an A.A.
meeting by mistake. The last time I’d experienced such encouragement was when
one of the guys at the department bet on me in a pizza eating contest. When
someone asked why we wanted a computer, I told them I understood there was a
place we could go to look up information about various people and places. My
new friends told me that even a novice could learn how to do that in five
minutes, and immediately I wondered how much smarter a novice was than I.

+++

It was now a few days
after hearing the Colonel’s bad news, which was very much still on my mind
unless I made myself think of something else. One of the things I never think
about is setting an alarm. I make it a point to get up each morning just after
I hear the rooster crow. I will not change this habit until someone in my
neighborhood buys a rooster. I wouldn’t put it past my next-door neighbor to
buy a rooster, an ugly one, but then the term “ugly rooster” is an oxymoron,
which is slightly different than my neighbor. There is nothing “oxy” about her.

Like Lou, I began my day
as I usually did, doing my morning exercise, lifting myself to a sitting
position. I’ve learned how to accomplish such a feat in only three jerky moves,
with a grunt or two along the way. After sitting upright and still until I
remembered where I was, I stumbled to the bathroom, splashed some water on my
face, and looked in the mirror. Immediately I wanted to replace the sleep I
washed from my eyes and return to bed. Only visions of sugary and fatty foods
dancing in my head kept me from doing so.

My valet had failed to
lay out my clothes, so I rooted around in my dresser and closet until I located
something to wear in public. Then, I looked outside at the April showers that
were helping to grow the May flowers that I never plant, and selected something
different from my wardrobe. I detest getting wet, but there is nothing manly
about using an umbrella or a raincoat to protect oneself from the elements.

After taking time to
read my daily devotional and asking God to forgive me for the thoughts I had about
my next-door neighbor, I called Lou to let him know that the breakfast patrol
was on the clock.

I locked the door,
stepped out into pouring rain. I turned and saw something that caused my
stomach to turn as well. I grasped the railing to keep from falling. Standing
not fifteen feet from my door was my neighbor and her rat, both wearing pink
raincoats trimmed in silver studs. I hoisted a black umbrella I had stored by
the door, more to protect my eyes from this unsightly interruption than to keep
myself from getting wet. My eyes had never adjusted to seeing Heloise Humphert
so early in the morning. Nor had my stomach.

“Miss Humphert, what are
you doing in my yard?”

“Waiting for you, Cyrus.
Twinkle Toes and I wanted to wish you a good morning.”

“I would prefer that you
wish it to me from the top of Mt. Everest.”

“Oh, Cyrus, you’re so
funny. Are you hinting that you think the three of us should go away together?
You know how much Twinkle Toes and I like you.”

“And I like you, too.
I’d like you to be as far away as possible.”

“I understand, Cyrus.
You’re shy, and you don’t want other people to know about us, yet.”

“I wish I didn’t know
about you, yet. Maybe I can get amnesia. Or better yet, maybe you can get
amnesia and forget where you live.”

“Oh, Cyrus, you sly
devil. You want me to move in with you. We can turn your home into a love
nest.”

“Miss Humphert, I might
have neglected to tell you about a bad habit of mine. I wake up in the middle
of the night, ready to shoot my gun. As a matter of fact, I’ve been known to
shoot at the first moving thing I see after I leave my house each morning. You
might have heard the noise and thought it was a car backfiring.  My latest
victim was a rat, one that looks much like yours. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got
work to do, and I hate having nightmares on an empty stomach.”

“Oh, Cyrus, are you
inviting Twinkle Toes and me out to eat?”

“I sure am. It’s a
little place in Mexico. I’ll draw you a map. Be sure and wait if you get there
first, and don’t forget to drink plenty of water when you get there.”

With that, I used the
umbrella to keep her from touching me and whipped by her. Okay, maybe it was
more of a stumble than a whip. Still, I managed to distance myself from my
neighbor and her rat, if only for a little while. I hoped to recover my
appetite before Lou and I arrived at the Blue Moon.

+++

Lou and I sauntered into
the Blue Moon, hoisted ourselves up onto our stools, and perused the menu.
Rosie walked over.

“Well, hello Lieutenant,
Sergeant. I didn’t realize that you’d learned how to read.”

“We sure have,” I
replied. “This ‘all of the above’ sounds good. Why don’t you bring me one of
those?”

“You know that includes
the Fruit Loops with chocolate milk?”

“I understand fruit’s
good for you, but I’ll pass this time. I might reconsider at lunch. Just bring
me the Bonanza Extravaganza.”

“And you, Sergeant?”

“I’ll have what he’s
having, only bring me waffles with strawberries and whipped cream instead of
the pecan pancakes, and a half order of link sausage instead of bacon, and make
it two eggs instead of three, and bring them over easy, instead of scrambled
with cheese. Oh, just bring the bacon, too. Have I forgotten anything?”

“So, you’ve gone cold
turkey on the Wii?”

“No, I’ll just work out
a little longer when I get home. So, like I said, have I forgotten anything?”

“Just the pie, but you
never order that until you’re through with everything else.”

“Just make sure you have
enough pie for him,” Lou said as he pointed at me.

“We had two shifts work
overtime, just so he’d have enough.”

“Are you two lovebirds
through jabbering? I’m getting hungry.”

“Cy, I was just working
up to proposing to Rosie. I would too, if I didn’t think it would ruin a
beautiful relationship.”

Rosie smiled, shook her
head, then turned, put our order on the spindle, and spun it around to the
cook.

By the way Lou looked at
me I could tell that he knew something was bothering me. I’m sure he thought it
was just the Colonel. He didn’t know that I’d encountered the plague from next
door on my way out of the house. That reminded me. I would need to pray again,
and ask God’s forgiveness.

Our food came and I
looked down, dug in. Sparks flashed as knife met fork. I didn’t look up until I
heard Rosie laugh. I looked at her, then at Lou. Lou turned to me and smiled.
He had a dollop of whipped cream on his nose, and a link of sausage dangled
from the side of his mouth.

He opened his mouth
slightly, to talk. As he did, the sausage fell out, but Quick Hands Lou tackled
it before it hit the floor. Undaunted, he replaced the sausage, but held on to
it.

“Say the secret word,
Cy, and you win fifty dollars.”

I must say that Groucho
Marx never looked so bad, but I admit Lou’s shenanigans made me laugh. Well,
the Colonel did tell us to have fun. I was thankful that we arrived late enough
that we had the place to ourselves.

I reached over and ran a
finger through his whipped cream. He poked his finger into the top pancake on
my plate, then put his finger in his mouth and licked it.

Rosie stood shaking her
head. She saw nothing she hadn’t seen before.  As we continued, she spoke.

“Tell me again about how
you two were the only ones to apply for a job with the police department all
those many years ago.”

“I beg your pardon. We
were the top of our class.”

“Is that another way of
saying what I said?”

My stomach growled, so I
ignored Rosie and returned to my food. I savored each morsel, and then looked
at my watch to see how long we had to wait until lunch. But enough about lunch.
We hadn’t finished breakfast. Not all of it.

“Say Rosie, what kind of
pie do you have this morning?”

“So far, you can either
have peanut butter or chocolate cream.”

“That will be fine.”

She looked at Lou and he
concurred. A few seconds later she returned with a piece of peanut butter pie
and a piece of chocolate cream pie for me, and a sliver of each for Lou. Poor
Lou, he seemed to lose weight as I ate. I hoped his Wii broke before he wasted
away to nothing. If he kept it up, some day he would turn into a one hundred
and ninety-eight pound weakling.

+++

Once more ensconced in
Lightning where Lou’s seatbelt seemed to wrap around him twice, Lou and I
decided to leave our door-to-door canvassing until after lunch. Experience
proved that both Lou and I walked better if we had eaten two meals beforehand.
Instead, we stopped by the Scene of the Crime and reloaded. I wanted to see
what the top sleuths of today’s literature had to say. Able to walk better
because our billfolds were a little lighter, Lou sauntered and I stumbled from
the bookstore, and I drove him back to his apartment.

“See you at the first
growl of the stomach,” I said, as I delivered my parting words.

I walked into the house,
dumped my stash on the table next to the recliner, kicked my shoes off, slid my
slippers on, and plopped down. I looked over my selections;
Death On Demand
by
Carolyn Hart,
The Alpine Advocate
by Mary Daheim,
Innkeeping With
Murder
by Tim Myers,
A Clue For The Puzzle Lady
by Parnell Hall,
Wish
You Were Here
by Rita Mae Brown,
and The Cat Who Could Read Backwards
by
Lillian Jackson Braun. Each was the first book in a mystery series. I picked up
Carolyn Hart’s book
.
Her Lt. Dekker was a woman who owned a mystery
bookstore and lived on an island off the South Carolina coast. That caused me
to think. What fictional detective would I really like to be? I had heard of
many of them since Lou and I started hanging out at the Scene of the Crime.
Owning a bookstore that sells nothing but mysteries seemed cool. But then there
is something to be said about Nero Wolfe’s seldom leaving home. He even has a
cook, and a man to run his errands. Still, I’m not sure I want anyone else
living with me. And there’s that Qwill guy in
The Cat Who
series.
Imagine not knowing if you’re a millionaire or a billionaire. I think I’d like
that. And everyone would have to be nice to me, just in case I might give them
some money. Yes, rank has its privileges.

I lay back and mulled
over my possibilities. I mulled too long. My snoring didn’t awaken me. I had
grown used to it over the years. Some time later, the growl in my stomach woke
me. My new fictional friends would have to wait. It was once again time for my
favorite exercise. I called Lou to let him know.