3 Murder In The Library

by Steve Demaree

  “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.

  “Maybe you saw me,” Scott said. “I just took out the trash a few minutes ago.”

  “Maybe so, but if you did, the trash took off around the back of the garage and through the yard behind just before Lou and I fell.”

  I couldn’t recognize anyone, and there was the possibility that our marathoner wasn’t our murderer, but someone had run up the drive and taken a shortcut through to the next street.

  Lou and I thanked them for their trouble, then limped back to see if Lightning had waited for us.

  When we were firmly ensconced in the car, Lou turned to me and said, “Cy, next time you see someone and forget that everyone in the world is faster than you, let me know. I’ll drive around to the next street and cut them off.”

  “And what if they don’t cut through to the next street?”

  “Then I’ll drive around and take a nap until someone helps you up and lets you resume your meanderings.”
>
  “Lou, I didn’t realize that you were so close to me. How come you weren’t wheezing?”

  Lou waited until I made eye contact with him. As he started to open his mouth, I held up my hand to silence him. Lou was going to credit his Wii for that, too.

  +++

  I was ready to lean back in my recliner and read a good book. One good thing about a mystery novel, as opposed to a real murder, is that within two or three days, I’d know who committed the crime. I liked it better that way. The people we’d met at the Scene of the Crime enlightened us about cozy mysteries. Many authors wrote two series, and most of the time the reader prefers one series to the other. I’d already read the first book in Carolyn Hart’s Death On Demand series, aptly titled Death On Demand, and I was about to tackle the first book in her Henrie O. series, Dead Man’s Island.

  +++

  Sometime before I awoke, I began to dream. I dreamed of my next-door neighbor, but it was a dream, not a nightmare. As I left to pick Lou up one morning, I jangled my keys, wanting to make all the noise I could. It worked. My next-door neighbor opened her door and dashed outside. She found herself wrapped in barbed wire from head to toe. My good friend Wile E. Coyote had sneaked over to her place the night before and wrapped the front of the house in barbed wire, prohibiting my neighbor from catching me as I left for work or returned home.

  Impatient, and wanting to catch me before I left, she ripped her rags away from the wire, darted back into the house, and cut through to the back door. She was halfway down the slide before she realized that her back porch and steps had been replaced by a long slide that led down a hill. My neighbor didn’t stop until the slide ended at the muck and mire at the bottom. From muck and mire my neighbor came, and to muck and mire she returned.

  The next nightmare I had about her, I ran around the back of my house, tripped over her rat, and landed on her. She reached up and grabbed me, began CPR. I think that is the worst nightmare I’ve ever had.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I awoke Thursday morning, turned and looked at the clock. I figured that if I slept another three hours, I’d be okay. Well, okay in the sense that I’d once again be Cy Dekker at his best. That wouldn’t have worked. If I’d done so, my good friend the sergeant would’ve driven over to my house, hopped out of his classic Chevy, rang my next-door neighbor’s doorbell, and presented her with the spare key he had to my front door. I didn’t want to wake up with someone licking my face, and realize that my face was being licked by the lesser of two evils, Muffy, my next-door neighbor’s dog. I wasn’t sure if I started calling the old vulture’s dog Muffy because I forgot her name, because it aggravated my neighbor, or because I refused to call any dog Twinkle Toes. I’m not even sure why I call her dog a rat. After all, it is a toy French poodle, not a Chihuahua, but a rat sounds more like something my next-door neighbor would own.

  It had been an unusual April, more sunny days than rainy ones. Maybe that means the rain is waiting for May. I glanced out the window, saw the new day was another sunny one, then dashed off to the shower and hopped in. Okay, stumbled in while holding on to something was closer to the truth, but hopped in sounds better. It takes longer to clean a beached whale that a submerged one, but eventually the water temperature began to cool, and, once again, I repeated the pattern that allowed me to step over the side of the tub a few hours before.

  I brushed my teeth, combed my hair, dressed, learned God’s message to me for the day by reading my daily devotional book and saying a quick prayer, and then threw a bear trap out the door to make sure the coast was clear. Evidently my neighbor was too busy visiting with her sister to molest me. That suited me fine. I wasn’t going to press my luck. I was leaving that joint.

  +++

  Lou opened the door, leaned in.

  “The fatted calf.”

  “Really, I’ve always thought of you as more mature than a calf.”

  “I’ve always thought of you as some kind of bull, Cy.”

  “Watch yourself. So, have you just enlightened me with God’s words for us today?”

  “To use your terminology, yes.”

  “I hope this means that someone is going to prepare a grandiose meal for us today.”

  “You mean like usual.”

  I grinned.

  “Yes,” I said, spraying saliva everywhere.

  +++

  As Lou and I devoured our breakfasts, the pay phone in the Blue Moon rang. Rosie turned from what she was doing and rushed over to answer it. She came back to where Lou and I were eating, leaned over, and said to me, “Someone asked for His Excellency. I assume that’s you.”

  I laughed and ambled over to the phone.

  “Dekker.”

  “You on course number five yet?”

  “Sam, you know I chew my food.”

  “Oh, I forgot you bought a set of teeth to replace the ones you lost.”

  “Very funny. Listen, I know you didn’t call me here just to see how much Lou and I are enjoying our breakfasts. Give.”

  “I just thought I’d bring you up to date on what I’ve learned about some of your new friends.”

  “And how are the Hilton sisters?”

  “You’re familiar with the Hiltons?”

  “Well, I stayed in their hotel once.”

  “Cy, you’ve never been out of town. How did you learn about the Hiltons?”

  “Okay. Lou and I were in the barber shop the other day. There was something on the TV about them, and one of the younger guys got to talking.”

  “Well, I hate to disappoint you, but my information is about some men you’ve been trying to locate.”

  “You’ve found them?”

  “Yes and no. I can tell you this much. I located someone in California who saw Bauerman five months ago, but he appeared to be traveling through that particular town, not residing there. I’ve checked all the playhouses I could find, and believe me, there are a lot of them in California. Anyway, I can’t find a play he’s acted in in over three years, other than a couple of weekends where he stood in for someone. In New York, he was in a play every chance he got. Not true of his time in California. He’s been there for seven years, and each year he seems to disappear for longer periods of time. And I’ve found no record of him anywhere else. Definitely no evidence that he’s been back in our area.”

  “Okay, what else do you have for me?”

  “Well, I was just talking to someone at the department, and they’ve been trying to get ahold of you. Tom Johnson’s next-door neighbor called, the guy in the house next door, not the woman who lives on the other side of the duplex. Anyway, Johnson came back. The neighbor saw him last night and called the department this morning. However, from what I can ascertain, Johnson left again.”

  “Don’t you have anything better for me?”

  “Ask and ye shall receive. Guess who’s taken an apartment in our little burg. Daniel Terloff. Moved in a week or so ago.”

  “So one of our prodigal sons has returned.”

  “That’s right. Let me give you the address”

  I jotted Terloff’s address down in my notebook, thanked Sam for getting in touch, then hung up and returned to Lou. I saw that Rosie was in the back, and there was no one else around.

  “Well, Lou, I’ve got bad news.”

  “What’s that, Your Majesty?”

  “You weren’t listening. It’s Your Excellency. Anyway, it looks like someone is about to kill the fatted calf for us.”

  “One of our prodigal sons returned?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Oh, didn’t I tell you, Cy? I read the Bible now. I know the story of the prodigal son and the fatted calf.”

  “Yes, Your Arrogance. Do you mind if I finish my breakfast?”

  “Oh were you still eating that? I didn’t know. I dumped an ashtray on it.”

  “This place doesn’t have ashtrays. Just finish your food. And don’t play in it like you usually do.”

  There had been some debat
e among the mentally gifted, of which Lou and I were two, whether or not pancakes for breakfast count as a dessert. Both Lou and I are from the old school. We believe that pancakes are a part of the main course, and thus shouldn’t be considered a dessert. However, both of us believe that a man should limit his fruit intake, so we ordered two slices of cream pie each. I ordered coconut cream and chocolate pie. Lou selected banana cream and butterscotch. Between us, we’d ordered most of the cream pie food groups, of which someone should have at least four servings a day.

  +++

  Lou and I opened Lightning’s doors, climbed inside, fluffed our pillows, and buckled up. It appeared that the seatbelts had shrunk while we were having breakfast. After we had secured ourselves and were ready for wherever our mission would take us, I gave Lou the details Sam had told me. We dismissed the idea of traveling the entire state of California looking for Bauerman, and decided on which of the other two to tackle first. If our information was correct, Johnson had returned but skedaddled again, so Johnson’s neighbor could wait. I wanted to get a look at the elusive Daniel Terloff. Nothing in Hilldale is too far from anything else, so in a matter of minutes, I turned on to Terloff’s street.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I eased Lightning over to the curb. Before us stood a moderately priced apartment building of eight apartments, each with its own outside entrance. Each apartment was marked with a number, so it wasn’t hard to find number three. We got out, walked up to the door, and knocked. A man of around thirty years of age answered our knock.