Lilliput Bar Mystery

by Curry, Edna

  “Good idea,” Cassie said. “I’d sure like a cup of coffee, too.”

  Chance wrinkled his nose. “The coffee at my office is probably very stale by this time of night. Though I did pour it into my thermos rather than leave it on the burner.”

  Cassie grinned at him. “I’ll make a fresh pot.”

  The Wisconsin officers had already checked Cassie’s van for the woman’s fingerprints, so Cassie was free to take it. She and Chance waited in their vehicles, warming up, while Ben went inside to talk to the Wisconsin officers.

  When Ben came back out, he huddled into his coat and told them, “They’ve already put out an APB on her vehicle and got some decent tire tracks from back there, too.”

  “Yeah, that’s where I saw the blue car parked.” Cassie waved a hand toward the area beside the house. “At first I thought another person was waiting in the car for her, but I didn’t see anyone else.”

  “Why do you think another person must be involved?” Ben asked.

  “She said ‘we’ a couple of times. And she kidnapped me at my house, and drove me here in my van. I didn’t see another vehicle at my house before she hit me. Maybe someone dropped her off there?”

  “Or she could have just parked her car farther away,” Chance suggested.

  “True. But someone had to help her stash the car at Cal’s house, too, didn’t they?”

  “Yeah. We’ll talk to your neighbors in the morning and see if anyone noticed a strange car parked near your house tonight.”

  Back at Chance’s office, Cassie tasted the brew in his thermos, and made a face at the bitter taste. “I’ll make a fresh pot of coffee.”

  “Great,” Chance grinned. He and Ben spread out the papers and pictures from the sodden box on the table and worked the hair dryer on them. The singed, damp papers smelled of smoke and soon tiny particles of soot floated in the air.

  “Why do you keep a hair dryer at your office?” Cassie asked.

  Chance grinned. “Not because I dry my hair with it. Though I have done that a couple of times when I got caught in the rain. Mostly, we use it for other things, like drying something as we’re doing now, or thawing out something frozen, like water pipes or a snow-packed engine in a storm.”

  “Oh.” Cassie picked up some of the less damaged pictures. “What are we looking for, exactly?”

  “Something that ties Cal to Mildred or somebody else in town,” Chance said. “The woman who kidnapped you to get these pictures must have thought getting rid of them was important. So, the pictures must be evidence of some kind. Otherwise, why risk so much to destroy them?”

  “True,” Cassie agreed. “And I wonder why she carried off that bag of bird seed? Or was it something else in a bird seed bag?”

  Ben and Chance looked at each other, consternation on their faces.

  “Did we all miss something when we searched that house?” Ben asked.

  “If it looked like a new, sealed bag, it’s entirely possible,” Chance admitted. “Cal’s death looked like a drug related killing, so if we missed something, it might have been a stash of drugs.”

  “I suppose,” Ben agreed.

  “It’s odd that the killer didn’t know where the drugs were, though, and that this woman knew,” Cassie said. “She must have been involved with Cal, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah,” Chance agreed. “Does anyone recognize any of the people in these pictures?”

  “Not yet,” Cassie admitted, passing the ones she’d looked at to Ben and picking up another. “And I’d like to know who the woman was who kidnapped me and who helped her?”

  “I’m sure they’ll track her down soon. Since you had her license number, they probably know who she is by now.”

  A half hour passed as they worked. “Some of these bills are for an apartment near a college in Chicago,” Chance said. “Here’s one for college textbooks from the campus bookstore.”

  Finally one picture caught Cassie’s eye. “This looks like a younger Cal, and the young man with him looks very familiar.”

  Ben and Chance moved closer to peer at it over her shoulder.

  Chance stared at it, trying to put a face to the picture. Then it came to him. “It’s a younger Bob Weeks, isn’t it? He has longer hair, and different glasses, but still…”

  He dug through more old bills and pictures, discovering that Cal and Bob had been college roommates for at least a year. “Bingo. A connection.”

  “Yeah,” Ben agreed. “But it doesn’t prove Bob’s connected to Mildred’s murder. Only that he once knew the man who killed her. It could be a coincidence.”

  “True,” Chance said. “But you know I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  “Let’s get some sleep and hit Bob with this in the morning.

  “Okay,” Cassie said. “But I still don’t understand what these pictures had to do with the woman who kidnapped me. Why did she want to destroy them?”

  “I know,” Chance agreed. “We still have to figure out how Cal did this, too.”

  “What do you mean, how he did it?” Ben asked. “We know he was there behind the bar and we found the gun he used. What more do you want?”

  Chance rubbed his hand through his hair. “But how did Cal know the alarm code? Remember, Reggie swears Mildred always set the alarm when she was there alone. If so, then Cal had to already be inside when she did that. He probably hid somewhere, maybe in a bathroom. So then he killed her and left the bar? How did he leave without setting off the alarm? He had to have had the code to disarm it.”

  Ben rubbed the side of his crooked nose. “Yeah. And Brad, the bakery driver, says the alarm was on when he arrived. So, if Cal shot Mildred and disarmed it to leave, he must also have known how to reset it.”

  “Exactly,” Chance agreed. “So who gave him the code?”

  ***

  Jody glanced back at Cal’s house as she drove off. She supposed she should have offed Cassie, but she just couldn’t. She wanted out of this damn hick town, yes, but she didn’t have the stomach for killing. Someone would see Cassie’s van and find her soon enough. And by then, I’ll be long gone overseas.

  She phoned Cal’s contact and told him she had a package for him. He said to meet at Cal’s apartment in Minneapolis. She’d been there a couple of times already, so knew the way.

  When she stopped at the curb, a tall skinny guy appeared from the apartment house doorway and came out to her car. He wore the thrift store clothes of a homeless man.

  At first Jody was leery and almost drove off, but he quickly said the usual password. So, she got out, opened her trunk and showed him the bag of sunflower seeds. He nodded, handed her the duffle bag in exchange, then lifted the bag out and walked back to the apartment house where a buddy waited.

  Relieved, she drove to a hamburger place for a sandwich. She’d leave the car in the parking lot and take a cab to the airport. The Caribbean, here I come!

  Behind her, the man spoke into his cell phone. “Got it, boss. What next?”

  “Take care of her. And don’t leave any loose ends.”

  “Sure, boss. What about the duffle bag?”

  “It should take care of you while you stay out of sight for awhile. I’ll contact you when it’s safe.”

  “Thanks, boss.”

  Chapter 11

  The next morning, refreshed after a good night’s sleep, Chance and the sheriff again questioned Bob.

  He looked haggard and worried. “I thought I answered every question under the sun yesterday,” he said with a snarl. “So what more do you want to know?”

  “We found some pictures at Cal’s house,” Chance said. He handed a copy of them to Bob. “Do you recognize these?”

  Bob blanched, and then shrugged. “Yeah, they’re just some old college pictures.”

  “Who’s that in the picture with you?”

  “You know very well. Cal Downs.” Bob sent Chance a nasty look.

  “How did you know him?”

  “We roomed together in
college.”

  “Did you know him before that?” Chance asked.

  “No, the college just put us together,” Bob said. “If you didn’t have a roommate, they assigned you one.”

  “Have you kept in touch since?”

  “Not on a regular basis.”

  “But you knew he was staying in the house in Wisconsin?”

  Bob shifted in his chair. “Yeah. Ran into him in Vegas a while back.”

  “And hired him to off your mother?”

  Bob’s head snapped up. “No! Why do you say that?”

  “Because we have proof he did kill your mother.”

  “Oh, man, really? Cal did it? But…he’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah, he is,” Sheriff Ben agreed.

  “But I don’t get it. If he killed Ma, who killed him?”

  Chance raised an eyebrow. “You, maybe?”

  Bob jumped to his feet and both the other men did, too. “I didn’t kill him,” Bob insisted. He eyed Ben and Chance who looked ready for a fight, then sank back into his chair. The others resumed their seats, too.

  Ben said, “But you know who did?”

  Bob shook his head. “No. I have no idea. Well, I do know he was dealing drugs in Minneapolis. So maybe that had something to do with it.”

  “Huh,” Chance said. “Now you’re only guessing. Let’s get back to your mother. Why would he kill Mildred?”

  Bob shrugged. “Money?”

  “Did you offer him money?”

  Bob flushed. “Not really. I mean, we kidded around about it, late one night in Vegas when we were drinking. He said he would do it for ten thousand dollars. I said I didn’t have that kind of dough. So we just dropped it, you know? I never thought he’d actually do it.”

  “Didn’t it cross your mind when you heard she was killed?”

  Bob flushed and shrugged. “I guess. But when Cal didn’t ask me for the money, I was pretty sure he didn’t do it. I mean, we left it as just a joke, not a done deal, you know?”

  Ben and Chance exchanged glances. Ben eyed Bob and said, “Maybe Cal did demand the cash from you. But you didn’t have it, so you killed him instead, to keep him quiet.”

  “No!” Bob flushed again, his eyes wide with panic. “I never saw him again after that party in Vegas. I didn’t even know he was back in Minnesota until I heard he was dead.”

  “So we won’t find your fingerprints at his house?”

  “No,” Bob said, looking relieved now. “I’ve never been to his place, either in Minneapolis or in Wisconsin.”

  “You weren’t helping him repackage and sell drugs?”

  “Hell, no. I want nothing to do with that stuff. That’s a scary business. Those guys play rough.”

  “Obviously,” Chance said. “Who else knew about this joking around? Who else was at the party where you talked about it?”

  Bob frowned. “Nobody heard us. We were sitting off by ourselves.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, that’s all for now.” Ben nodded to the guard who came forward to escort Bob back to his cell.

  Ben and Chance looked at each other.

  “Do you believe him?” Chance asked.

  “Well,” Ben said. “Cal could have gone back to his house in Wisconsin to wait for Bob to arrive. I mean, he’d know someone would tell Bob and he’d come to Minnesota.”

  “Right. Maybe he didn’t believe Bob was broke and couldn’t pay him. But it still doesn’t explain how Cal got the bar’s alarm code,” Chance said.

  “Well, Bob’s not going anywhere while we figure it out,” Ben said.

  “True,” Chance said. “Any word on that APB on the woman’s car?”

  “Yeah,” Ben said morosely. “Another dead end. Stolen plates again.”

  “Well, we still have fingerprints and tire tracks.”

  “Yeah.”

  ***

  The next morning, Chance spent more time going through the boxes of pictures, but didn’t find anything else of interest.

  Frustrated, he stopped in at Sheriff Ben’s office. Ben was eating a donut, with his feet up on his desk and waved Chance to a chair.

  Helping himself to coffee and a glazed donut fresh from the bakery down the street, Chance asked, “Anything new?”

  “Yeah. Ballistics report confirms Cal’s gun as the murder weapon.”

  “Good.” Chance sat and sipped his coffee. “Anything on Cassie’s kidnapping or the break-in at Cal’s house in Wisconsin?”

  “Yeah. Got a match for the fingerprints we got at the house.”

  “The one’s off the kitchen chair Cassie was tied to?”

  “Yeah. Those.”

  “So, whose are they?”

  “Jody Wilkens.”

  Chance snapped to attention. “Jack’s girlfriend?”

  Ben nodded. “Apparently also Cal’s girlfriend. And Mildred’s lawyer’s daughter.”

  “Busy gal. So how does she figure into this? Did she kill Cal?”

  Ben shook his head. “I doubt it. Doesn’t seem the type.”

  “Anyway, if she’d shot Cal, she’d have gotten what she wanted then instead of having to come back for it.”

  “True,” Ben said.

  Chance set down his cup and stood. “Well, let’s go pick her up and see what she has to say. She has an apartment in Landers on River Street, doesn’t she?”

  “Yeah, but we can’t do that.” Ben finished off his donut and lit a cigarette.

  “Why the hell not? If this is about your upcoming election and her dad being a lawyer…” Chance scowled at him.

  “Nope,” Ben said. “Nothing like that. It’s about her being dead.”

  “And anyway…what did you say?”

  “We can’t talk to her because she’s dead.”

  Chance sank back into his chair. “How? When?”

  “She was hit by a car crossing the street in Minneapolis last night. The car didn’t stop.”

  Chance stared at Ben. “A deliberate hit and run?”

  “Sounds like it to me.”

  “What the hell is going on in this town?”

  Ben snorted. “I’d say she sold whatever was in that sunflower seed bag and got more for it than she bargained for.”

  “Yeah.” Chance shuddered. “I think I’ll go back to looking for connections. This time between her and Cal instead of Cal and Bob.”

  “Good idea. Oh, and I already talked to Jack to see what he knew.”

  “Yeah? What did he have to say?”

  “Only that they’d broken up. Seems she thought life would be better in a big city rather than here. He said she called it our little hick town.”

  “Huh. I wasn’t all that enamored of big city life, myself.”

  “I know,” Ben said. “Oh, and you might want to check out Jody’s cell phone. They’re sending it out by courier. Should be here in an hour or so.”

  Chance eyed Ben, who was looking a bit smug. “They find something interesting on it?”

  Ben laughed. “I’ll let you look first, see if you see what they did.”

  Is this a test? Chance frowned at Ben, then picked up his cup and refilled it. Stale or not, he was going to need more caffeine. He strode back to his office and began sorting pictures again.

  He hadn’t found anything new when the courier dropped off the cell phone. He signed for it, then ran through Jody’s contacts. One just said ‘Buddy,’ but the phone number was Cal Downs’. Paydirt. And even better, there were a couple of texts from him. One dated the day of the murder, only said, ”Code?”

  And she’d replied with some numbers. And a short message. “I only know disarm, not reset.”

  He took it back to Ben, showing him what he’d found. “That what you wanted me to find?”

  “Yeah,” Ben said. “Guess that tells us how Cal got out of the bar without setting off the alarm.”

  “Yeah,” Chance said. “But it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Why not?” />
  “Cause Brad, the bakery driver, claims he disarmed and reset the alarm as usual.”

  “Oh, oh. Better talk to him again.”

  “I’ll go with you, Ben said, tossing his ever present Styrofoam coffee cup in the wastebasket and easing his long body upright.”

  ***

  This time, Brad’s wife opened the door when Chance rang their bell. She blanched at the sight of Chance and Ben in his uniform.

  “Oh, my God, you’re the Sheriff. What’s wrong?”

  “Morning, Lois. Could we talk to Brad for a few minutes?”

  “Uh, sure. He’s reading the paper in here.” She led the way to the living room. “Company, Brad.” She perched on a chair and waited, her eyes watchful, like a mother hen, guarding her chick from the fox.

  Brad got to his feet and paled. “Sheriff, Detective,” he acknowledged, then sat back down and waved them to a seat on the sofa. “What’s up?”

  “Just need to clarify things a bit,” Chance said.

  “Oh, yeah? What things?”

  “The Lilliput Bar alarm.”

  Brad sank deeper into the upholstered chair and muttered, “Yeah, I figured you’d know I lied about that.”

  “The alarm was off when you entered?”

  Brad nodded.

  “Why did you lie?”

  “I guess I panicked. I figured something must be wrong, but I was too scared to do anything about it.”

  “You thought you’d be blamed?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  Brad shrugged, but Lois put in quietly, “Brad has a gambling problem. He’s trying to break it.”

  “I see,” Chance said. “So, when you found the alarm off, what did you do?”

  Brad looked up. “I panicked. I just dropped the trays of buns on the table, and got the heck out of there.”

  “You didn’t reset the alarm, like you told me the first time?” Chance asked.

  Brad shook his head, refusing to look at Chance. “No. I told you, I panicked. I didn’t want to touch anything, leave my fingerprints, you know?”

  Chance nodded. “Why not call 9-1-1?”

  “Cause I knew I’d be blamed for whatever had happened. And now I will be, anyway.” He sighed dejectedly.

  “He didn’t kill Mildred, Sheriff,” Lois put in, desperation in her voice. “I know Brad. He couldn’t kill anyone. He might drink a bit and gamble too much, but he doesn’t have any meanness in him.”