I skipped over the first clue, since it had nothing to do with the murderer's identity. I checked to see if my suspect could fit clue number two, and I decided it was possible. I moved on to number three, and now that I had a suspect to match with the clue, I saw how my suspect fit "Martha's husband," even though my suspect had no connection to any woman named Martha. At least as far as I knew. So far so good. Next was "Doc Hollywood." As I suspected, the real clue had nothing to do with that movie, but it still fit the clue. Only one more to go, and I knew that one fit, too. Now, all I had to do was prove what I knew, or strongly suspected.
It was time to call Sam. I needed him to help me get the evidence I needed to prove the murderer's identity. I called him up. I told him it was a rush order. I thought I knew who murdered all those people. I told him certain things I needed from him. And I needed them as soon as possible, like yesterday. He knew how serious I was about this, so he refrained from the jokes the two of us trade back and forth. I hung up the phone, continued to pace. There was nothing else I could do until I heard back from Sam, and I wasn't ready to call Lou or Eve Sanchez until I did. I wanted something else in my corner, because the arrest wasn't mine to make.
Some of what I asked Sam to find out wouldn't take him long. Some might take a while longer. I almost burnt myself twice while fixing lunch. I told myself to calm down. Imagine using something like a newspaper and a movie to tell me who murdered all those people. But God works in mysterious ways.
+++
It was late afternoon before Sam called me back. He provided the information I sought. The suspect had both opportunity and motive. That was enough for me. I thanked Sam, told him I would send him his check as soon as I received mine, and we both shared the first laugh I'd mustered that day. I called Lou first, to share what I surmised and what I knew and see if it seemed the same to him. It did, so I went to my cell phone and punched in a number that I was beginning to learn.
"Sanchez."
"Eve, this is Cy. I think I know who murdered all of those people."
She must have been skeptical when I started with the newspaper and an old movie, but I felt her firmly on my side as I shared what Sam had learned.
"Kind of makes us feel a little stupid," she said. after she heard that, Sam, a man who hadn't gone over any of the evidence, was instrumental in solving the case. "The only problem is that what little evidence we have is circumstantial. I don't know if the captain is willing to risk what we have."
"I have an idea. Our murderer is predictable, at least up to this point. I don't see any reason for a change. So, I doubt if there are any murders before Thursday. Up to this point, if someone hasn't been murdered on the first Thursday after their date, they haven't been murdered at all. There are new green cards coming to that dating service each week. Too many for each of them to be murdered. My guess is that the murderer tries to complete the mission in the morning, but returns at night if they are unable to find their target at home. So, all we have to do is whisk some of these people away, and be there with a couple of them when the murderer shows up. Then we can step in, catch the murderer in the act, and make an arrest."
"I think that can work, but I'll have to get approval. And I'll have to see if the captain is willing to put things on hold until Thursday. I'll remind him that Thursday is the only time we can catch the murderer in the act, so to speak. I'll pass on what you've told me, and I'll call you back as soon as I know."
+++
An hour and a half later she called me back.
"Cy, I just wanted you to know that Operation Green Card is a go. We're on for Thursday. Can you be here before daylight?"
"Of course. We have to be in place, since we don't know what time the murderer will strike. I assume you will take care of everything on that end."
"We'll make sure that all but two of the people are out of the way. Then we'll be at one of the two scenes and have another team at the other."
I hung up. It was still Saturday. It was a long time until Thursday. Eve told me that Lou could come with me, and since we had to be there before daylight, he and I were going back to the Hilton Suites, and our last time for a while to eat at The Cheesecake Factory. I was sure some people couldn't see someone eating there that often. And I was sure none of those people had ever been there.
Two phone calls told me it wasn't too late to arrange a double date. Lou and I were taking the girls to The Feed Bucket.
38
Lou and I went to church and out to eat on Sunday, before I took him home and came home to hibernate. Lou and I selected another mystery to read, since we had solved our never-ending murder case. Both of us finished reading that book and discussed it on Monday. We both felt we needed some mischief, so I invited Lou over for some indoor cornhole. Neither of us broke a window.
+++
Early Wednesday afternoon Lou and I kissed the girls goodbye and headed to Lexington. Lou promised Jennifer that he would make sure I got home early from my dates while I was there. I told Thelma Lou to make funeral arrangements for Lou. Nothing eventful happened on the way to Lexington, unless you count Lou changing the radio station on me a couple of times during the trip eventful. I found out that Lou was equally bad singing songs from the 40s, 50s, and 60s. None too soon we arrived in Lexington, checked in at the hotel, and had an early dinner. It was early to bed for us. We had a 4:30 wakeup call.
+++
Lou and I were in place with Eve Sanchez and three other officers before 7:00. Detective Gruber had a team together at another location. All the rest of the possible victims had been whisked away from their homes to a secure location.
I was starting to feel uneasy when no one had approached the house by 9:30, but a little before 10:00 a man in an upstairs window whispered down to us that someone had stopped a car out front, and that whoever it was was getting out. A few seconds later there was a knock at the front door. We had instructed the young woman who lived there how to respond.
"Yes. Who is it?"
"I have a special delivery package for a Karen Doolittle."
"Can you just leave it?"
"I'm sorry, but you have to sign for it."
"Just a minute."
Eve Sanchez eased Karen Doolittle out of the way and opened the door a little. She saw a man standing there holding a large envelope. She took her time unlocking the front door. While the man didn't know who she was, she knew who he was, so the element of surprise was on her side, not his. Little did he know that the woman who was about to open the door to him wasn't Karen Doolittle, but a police officer, and two other officers were coming up each side of the house.
The murderer held the package back away from the door, one hand on the package, the other on a syringe hidden underneath. Eve hit him in the nose before he could fill her arm with poison. Just after Eve hit him the two officers outside shot him with their stun guns. He fell and jabbed the syringe into his leg as he fell. He wouldn't be murdering anyone else. We tried to get a confession out of him before he died, but a minute later he was dead, silent to the end.
While we waited on an ambulance to cart him away a call was made to Detective Gruber. He wanted to thank me personally and asked if I would accompany Sanchez when she came in to give her report.
+++
"So, Lt. Dekker, we finally meet."
"Yes, Detective Gruber. We finally meet. Maybe now I can get back to retirement, and you can get back to an easier schedule."
"We're in Lexington, not Hilldale. I doubt if our schedule ever gets easy. But I'm curious as to how you solved this. Tell me about these clues."
"Well, the first clue I happened upon was "Martha's husband." It took me a while to realize that we weren't talking about George Washington, but George Wilson, Dennis the Menace's next-door neighbor. But even that didn't mean anything to me until I started looking at my movie collection. See, one of my favorite old movies is The Postman Always Rings Twice, and one of our clues was "The name rings a bell. The name rings a bell." At fi
rst we thought the fact it was repeated was because there were two murderers or two victims. Well, there were two victims on the day Lou received the clue, but when I saw the movie on my shelf, I put two and two together, and came up with the postman, the only one other than the people who owned the business who had access to all the information needed about everyone. He opened each of their correspondences about the dating service, so he knew who sent back green cards, and where they lived.
"So, it was on to the other clues. The first one, "They both live in the same neighborhood," was the toughest for me to figure out. But then I remembered when we received that clue and I was able to figure out who "both" were. See, Lou was kidnapped and taken to a house in the Smokies, a house that belonged to a couple who were vacationing in Europe. Well, their home in Lexington was on the same mail route as the Comstocks, and the mailman had a key to that house, in order to leave any packages inside while they were gone. Well, inside that house was the key to the house in the Smokies, which the couple had talked to their mailman about many times. It was a fitting location to leave a body of someone he had murdered, as well as my friend and former partner on the force, who is lucky to be alive today.
"The songs Winter Wonderland and Summer in the City reminded us that the mailman is out in all kinds of weather, like the old saying says. And George Wilson, Martha's husband, was a mailman before retired to be terrorized by Dennis the Menace full time. Now Doc Hollywood wouldn't have meant anything to me two weeks before, but the movie was a Michael J. Fox movie, and a few days earlier my mailman had delivered two Michael J. Fox movies to me. Everything fit in place, so I called my man, Sam Schumann, who did all of my investigative work for many years, and I asked him for his help.
"He found out the mailman's name was Earl Potts, that his day off was Thursday, and that he had a daughter who was killed on a blind date many years ago. That caused his wife, a nurse, to commit suicide by injection, and for him to become bitter, so when the Comstocks moved in and started a dating service, it brought back memories that made him come unglued."
"Well. I'm impressed. And I will certainly keep you in mind the next time we have something come up that seems to be too much for us."
As Lou and I walked out, Eve took me aside and told me that she had a case right now where she could use some help with nighttime surveillance. I promised her I would check with my girlfriend to see if it was okay with her. She laughed, then caught me off-guard and gave me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek.
Lou and I walked out to my van, Lou laughing all the way.
"Cy, I'm not in any hurry. Do you want to drop by and see Sarah Jane before we leave town?"
I told him that she was at work, and that I didn't want to be around any more needles for a while, including any coming from his direction.
We walked out to the van, got in and buckled up. I started the van. Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind was playing. Lou and I shared a big laugh and then I stomped on the gas and took off.
+++
It wasn't until later that day, after the Lexington police entered the murderer's home, that we found out why Lou was kidnapped. Potts left a confession, which verified what I had deduced, but some more information about why Lou was kidnapped. As it turned out, Potts had learned that Heather had contacted me to find the missing man in Morehead. He knew all about my reputation and how I had been able to solve a large number of murders. He wanted to throw me off, so he found a stranded young woman and agreed to pay her to take a sample of a new drink product to the people who lived in an apartment building. When she completed her mission and returned to him to be paid without knowing that each of the people who drank it were inside of his or her apartment unconscious, he injected her with poison and put her inside a commercial van advertising a fake business. He laid her next to his most recent victim. Then, when he figured the coast was clear with everyone knocked out, he broke into Lou's apartment, and added him to his collection. He refrained from murdering Lou, because Lou was a retired cop. But he took all three people and dumped them in the isolated home in the Smokies. What he didn't say was whether he planned to go back and release Lou or see if he too died there. I just knew that I was glad and lucky to have my friend back, even though he has a lot more flaws than I do. I never found out why the murderer quit hiding the bodies and left each one where he or she fell, and it doesn't matter to me that I didn't. The case was solved. My perfect record was still intact. And Lou and I could ease back into retirement. I was ready for spring. Who knows? Maybe in a weak moment I would take up another hobby. Lou suggested I try skydiving or scuba diving. I suggested he go first.
Steve Demaree - Dekker 09 - Murder on a Blind Date Page 18