+++
I needed to think things over, and I felt I could do that better in Hilldale than in Frankfort. I asked Lou if he minded going home, and he smiled and told me "no."
I wondered if I would be better off if Lou and I hashed things out on the way home, or if we listened to music. I figured I would be in a better frame of mind when I got home if we listened to and gyrated to music. Well, maybe more listening than gyrating. I knew I would be tired when I got home. I didn't plan to do anything before the next morning.
We weren't going back to Frankfort, and Hilldale wasn't the same direction as Frankfort, so we took off on a new road. We stopped on the way back to get something to eat, and to break up the drive. It was a little over three hours after we left Westport until I pulled up in front of Lou's apartment building.
"Don't even think about the case tonight, but get up in the morning and see if you can come up with something that might help solve it. I'll give you a call around noon or so."
Lou nodded in agreement and got out to go inside. I drove home and contemplated whether I wanted to take a nap, a shower, a bath, or just call it a night and go on to bed. I ended up doing the last one, so my brain would be fresh and ready to go the next morning.
45
Experts say we think better when we are rested. I think that must be true, because not long after breakfast the next morning, I figured out what "Who wrote it?" meant. I picked up a book I had in my possession and took it to an expert to see if I could learn anything that might help bring this case to a conclusion. While I waited on that information, I went back home to think. I still had over an hour and a half until noon. Maybe I would learn something else by then.
I had gone over the clues. It was time to go over the list of people I had talked to and try to recall everything any of them had told me. I would take them in the order I talked to them. I tried to think of everything each suspect and each of the other people we had talked to had to say. I remembered a few things, but nothing that turned on a light switch in my head. I looked over my list; Bert McHugh, Connie Crowe, Jenny Luscher, Amy Smith, Diana Munson, Bill Noel, Archie and Hazel Portwood, Arnold and Susie Hammond, Jake Cartwright, Jonnetta Jarvis, Lori Wildwood, Dan Grimes, Bob Barney, and Millie Longacre. Was I forgetting anyone?
Then I thought back to reading the journal. There wasn't anything in there that told me when it was put in Portwood's van. We just assumed that he put it in and hid it under the seat before he left home, but could someone else have written and put it under the seat after he returned and was dead?
I was still full of more questions than answers, but I hoped to have one more answer in a short time. Whether that answer would help clear up matters or would turn out to be a dead end like most everything so far, I didn't know. Only time would tell.
+++
A little after noon I called Lou. I could tell by the way he answered the phone that he hadn't solved the case, but then he would have called me if he had something that would burst it wide open.
"Well, I'm not completely empty-handed. I do have a clue of the day for us. It's you put the cart before the horse."
"So, all we have to do is figure out which thing happened differently than we have believed up to this point. We know he wasn't poisoned before Friday night, so that can't be it. Could it be that the journal wasn't placed in Portwood's van until after he arrived home?"
"Well, that's the neighborhood where our best suspects live, so I guess we can rule out the two of them."
"Not so fast, my friend. What else could it be that happened at a different time than we suspected? Or could it be that we assume something to have happened that didn't happen?"
+++
A few hours later I got a call from my friend in the department that I had left the journal with earlier. He had a definite match, although the person who wrote it had tried to disguise the handwriting. Cyril Portwood hadn't written in the journal, but then I had begun to think that whoever wrote it was someone other than Portwood. Someone who knew what Portwood usually did the week of each book fair. But was the person who wrote in the journal the person who murdered him? I wasn't sure. I needed one more piece of information. I already knew that no one on my suspect list had a second account in any of the towns near where they lived, but what about somewhere where we wouldn't expect someone to have an account. For the time being I would concentrate on the person who wrote in the journal. I picked up the phone and called Sam Schumann. I reminded him of the names I had given him earlier, which he told me he still had. And I asked him to search farther for a second bank account. I told him to begin with a certain person and all the banks in two towns. He told me he would get back to me as soon as possible.
+++
I knew it would take Sam a while, maybe a couple of days, to find someone with a second account. In the meantime I wanted to work my way through all the people I talked to and remember anything they said that might incriminate themselves or shed some light on another person of interest. I concentrated on anything someone might have told me that wasn't true, anyone who had more or less money than they should have had, or anything someone told me that he or she shouldn't have known. By the time I finished I had jotted down two people that had told me two things that were either lies or information they shouldn't have known. I thought I knew who murdered Portwood, but I would wait to hear back from Sam before I rested my case.
+++
I called Sam to give him my cell phone number. I didn't reach him. He was probably on the phone working. After I left a message I called Lou to see if he wanted to pick up something from Antonio's and bring it over. I was ready to discuss the case with him. A little over a half hour later he showed up with two of our staples from days gone by, two Stromboli steak sandwiches and two orders of French fries with gravy. We might not have gotten to the end, but we were far enough along that I was ready to celebrate.
+++
I didn't expect to hear from Sam that soon, so it didn't bother me when I hadn't heard from him by the time Lou and I called it a night. Besides, he would be contacting banks, and banks weren't open at night.
46
I got up the next morning feeling good. I spent my time with God, remembered that cleanliness is next to godliness, and hopped in the shower. Then I called Lou to see if he wanted to go out for breakfast.
'Have you heard from Sam yet?"
"No, but I gave him my cell phone number. He was surprised that you and I have entered the modern era."
Lou and I cut the chitchat short, and I left the house to pick him up. I was glad that I no longer had to avoid my next-door neighbor anytime I wanted to leave the house.
We ate, and for the first time in several days we acted like we were retired again. I hoped that I hadn't gotten my hopes up too high. I was sure that bulldog Sam would come through for me. It was mid-afternoon when Sam called.
"Well, Cy, could you use a little over $200,000?"
"You've finally decided to share with me?"
"No, I finally found out where the money is. It wasn't in either of the two towns you suggested, but I found it nearby."
Sam went on to tell me in whose account the money was, and that there had been one $50,000 deposit each of the last four years. And roughly the same time each year.
I thanked Sam for his time and hard work, hung up, and looked at my watch. It was 4:04. Since the murderer didn't live in Hilldale, I would wait until the next day, when I had back-up, to make the arrest. I called Lou and told him the good news, and that we would be listening to some more good music the next day, and then called Herb Wainscott to let him know. I told him I had three pieces of evidence, and at least two of them would stick in court.
+++
The next morning Lou and I were on the road by 9:00. I headed to meet my back-up and then drove to meet the murderer, who wouldn't be expecting us. We arrived just in time to interrupt someone's lunch.
"Oh, back again. You have more questions. And why do you have these p
olicemen with you?"
"Dan Grimes, you are under arrest for the murder of Cyril Portwood."
I stopped while one of the members of the homicide division of the Kentucky State Police read Grimes his rights. He was then given a paper to sign.
"This is ridiculous. If you remember, I was out of town when Cyril Portwood died. Remember, I was at a wedding."
"How convenient."
"I bet you were also out of town when you deposited $50,000 each year in a bank in Sevierville, Tennessee."
"Hey, I earned that money!"
"I thought you two parted ways two years ago. It was more like a few days ago. What did he do? Tell you he didn't need you anymore to promote his books?"
"I told you I was out of town when he died. And I haven't seen him in two years."
"And you were out of town when he died. But you were in town when you opened the door of his van on Thursday night. His van he never locked, so you dumped some poison in his Thermos bottle. Not only that, but we found the journal you put under his seat. Our handwriting expert identified you as the one who wrote it. And by the way, that was only one of the ways you messed up. You told me he drove a van."
"So. He did drive a van."
"But he didn't own the van until sometime earlier this year. I'm not all that familiar with vehicles, but I noticed his had only 7,000 miles on it. Most people drive farther than that in two years. So I took a picture of it, and checked it on the Internet. Then I found out where he bought it."
"Why did he decide to cut you off without any more $50,000 payments?"
"Okay, you've got me. He thought I was someone who was a good promoter whose luck had turned bad. So he started giving me money. He didn't know that my mother had left me very well off. In return for his nice gesture, I told him I would promote his books. What he didn't know until a couple of days before he died was that for years I was paying people to buy his books. He was appalled and said he could sell his books without my help."
"And it turned out he could."
"Yeah, he was right about that."
"Well, these two gentlemen are ready to take you away, and where you're going you won't need Portwood's money or your mother's money either."
+++
I waited until the police had taken Grimes away, before turning to Lou.
"Well, Lou, it looks like we're retired again."
"But there are still three things that I don't get. One, who was lying, Barney, Millie Longacre, or both? Two, who was that volunteer at the book fair that we could never identify? And three, who was the mysterious woman that Portwood was talking to near Gibby's on the night he died?"
"Well, obviously one of Portwood's two neighbors was lying, and I think it was Millie Longacre because the story Bob Barney told us the other day makes more sense. She had to be the one to cut off the ignition on Portwood's van. As for that volunteer, I don't have a clue, and I don't care. Same with the mysterious woman. Maybe it was a stranger. Remember, he was the kind of guy who was known to help people from time to time."
"Yeah, and one of those people ended up killing him."
"That's right, but I still plan to go on helping people when I have a chance."
"Like we've done for Herb Wainscott."
"Right! Now, we are back to where we were. We're retired again. Want to go play some indoor miniature golf?"
"Can I wait until tomorrow? I just want to grab some lunch and get on the road that leads back home."
"And I'll sing you some lullabies as we listen to the radio while I drive."
"Cy, I never thought I would miss Lightning so much."
"Which reminds me. I'll schedule a memorial service for a few days after we get home."
"Do you plan to name your new van?"
"I don't know yet, but it is something to think about, and I should have plenty of time to think."
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Murder at the Book Fair Page 18