1 52 Steps to Murder

by Steve Demaree

  Instead, I looked around the street to see which houes had lights on. Of course, even that wouldn’t mean anything unless I saw someone standing in the window, and even then a person in the window could be someone who had just returned home from the underground. After much time and no success, I toyed with the idea of looking for Lou and was about to return to the Jarvis house when I heard someone jiggling the knob on the front door. I stepped back to avoid being seen and waited for my adversary to open the door. In a moment, the door opened and someone stepped out. I lunged, and before I could stop myself, two detectives landed with a thud on the front porch.

  Two groaning men remained on the porch, neither of us able to move. It was a few minutes before either of us could rise to a sitting position. Both of us were in a lot of pain. Finally, the two of us crawled to a different porch column, and we managed to struggle to our feet.

  Lou was the first to speak.

  “Thanks a lot, Cy.”

  “I’m sorry, Lou. I thought you were some guy in a raincoat.”

  “Does this look like a raincoat to you, Cy?” Lou asked, grabbing the edge of his trench coat.

  “In a way. Anyway, it was dark, Lou.”

  “It’s still dark, Cy. What was I supposed to do, holler out, ‘Ready or not, here I come?’”

  “Well, it might have saved us some embarrassment.”

  “Saved you some embarrassment, Cy, and saved me some pain. My back and right shoulder are killing me.”

  “Well, my ribs have had much better days, too, Lou. Lock the door and let’s get out of here.”

  “You’re the one with the key, Cy. You lock it.”

  “By the way, if it was locked, how did you get it open, anyway?”

  “It was simple, Cy. I just slid a bolt and twisted a knob. I think even you could do it.”

  I struggled as I made my way over to lock the door. After I locked it, Lou and I walked over and stepped down onto the first step. The grimace on both of our faces gave evidence that the pain of landing on each step was more than we could endure.

  “There’s got to be an easier way to get down, Cy.”

  Not thinking clearly, I crawled under the railing and lay down on the hill. Then, I started rolling. With no brake system in place, I wasn’t able to come to a stop until I was in the middle of the street below. By that time, I was able to add facial abrasions and lacerations to my list of injuries. The only good news was that, somehow, I had missed the stone marker with the house number on it.

  Sometimes it pays to go second. Lou learned from my effort. The sergeant slid down the hill feet first. While this method was some better, the sergeant groaned when his back and shoulder landed on the sidewalk below, and then the street. I groaned as well, when Lou planted two feet firmly in my ribs as he came to an abrupt stop.

  As both of us lay in the street, my thoughts returned to something I’d said earlier that evening. Thelma, I have it written in my contract. My casket will close before this place does.

  “Lou.”

  “What, Cy?”

  “Morton salt. I guess a yellow dress and an umbrella are pretty close to a yellow raincoat.”

  “I’m not in any position to argue with you now, Cy.”

  “By the way, Lou, if that guy in the yellow raincoat comes back, will you tell him we promise not to prosecute as long as he helps us back to the car?”

  “I was wondering if it’s too late to take the Blue Moon up on their offer of a wheelbarrow ride to the car.”

  “I’m not sure if I could stand it when my ribs hit against the metal wheelbarrow each time we hit another crack in the sidewalk. Besides, I moved the car. It’s in the driveway.”

  “That’s still too far to suit me. Do they make Nerf wheelbarrows, Cy?”

  “Maybe, but they can’t handle stout-waisted men.”

  Both of us laughed, but we tried to stop as soon as we could, because each laugh caused more pain. As I refocused on the problem at hand, I spotted someone hiding behind a tree. Whoever it was wasn’t wearing a yellow raincoat.

  “Lou, is there someone behind that tree, or is it a mirage?”

  “Why don’t you call the mirage and see if it comes to us?”

  When Jimmy Reynolds ran from one tree to the next, I realized the identity of my mirage.

  “Jimmy, come here. That’s an order!”

  Slowly, Jimmy sauntered over to where the two of us lay in the street. I hoped that Jimmy wasn’t our assailant in the yellow raincoat and that he wouldn’t think it was strange for two men to be lying in the street in the middle of the night. For a brief moment, I was thankful that Jimmy had mental problems.

  “We’ve been spying on the enemy, Jimmy. Quick, help us up. Our enemies have gone. We must follow them.”

  I hoped that no talk of what had happened got back to anyone we knew. I was sure George Michaelson or Frank Harris could manage a month’s worth of material from our misadventures.

  Jimmy Reynolds wasn’t sure what to make of the situation. He reached over and helped me to my feet. Luckily, Jimmy was a big, young man. I looked at Lou who heard my cries of pain. He knew he was next, but at least if he was standing he would be better equipped to leave the premises. Soon, both of us were standing. We dismissed Jimmy Reynolds to another mission, and two portly men were thankful that I’d moved the car. As we walked to the car, I turned to my partner.

  “Hey, Lou, from the rear, the two of us must resemble a couple of hippos with tender feet.”

  “What do you mean ‘feet?’ Every part of me hurts thanks to The Flying Dekker.”

  We had to take only a few steps to get to the car, but there were enough steps that both of us knew that our next stop needed to be the hospital.

  +++

  A nurse helped me peel off my coat and shirt. I reached inside my coat pocket and discovered a new form of candy, Hershey Almond Pieces. Even my candy bar didn’t survive the ordeal intact. Lou’s M&Ms faired much better during contact. If impact is imminent, it helps if you do not land on your candy.

  A doctor arrived to examine us. After x-rays were taken, he assured us that we had bruises, but no broken bones. Lou had a bruised back and right shoulder. I had badly bruised ribs and lacerations and abrasions on my face.

  We left the hospital and gingerly lowered ourselves into Lightning. I dropped Lou at his apartment and told him to get as much sleep as possible. If I woke up alive later that morning, I would phone him to see if he too was still among the living. Then, I would phone the department and tell them about our injuries. I promised to spare as many details as possible.

  28

  With each toss and turn in the middle of the night, I woke up, sure that someone had shot me. I wondered if I should invest in a hammock, an extra-sturdy hammock. I lay awake and envisioned the hammock supports ripping free of the wall as I fell to the floor and landed on my bruises. I thought that I might have been better off if I’d given in to the mysterious person in the yellow raincoat instead of encountering my friend. Why didn’t he call out?

  I would’ve gotten out of bed and taken something for the pain, but getting up was too painful. I wish I’d have been the one who chased the yellow raincoat. I would’ve called out before I came out, and then no one would’ve been hurt. Of course it would’ve been just my luck that the person in the raincoat would’ve been waiting outside instead of Lou and I’d have been bopped on the head. No, the only safe way would’ve been to wait at the bottom of the steps with a pair of binoculars. After all, Stanley Silverman used his binoculars proficiently, and he didn’t seem to be the worse for wear. I wonder what the department would say if I asked to solve the case from Silverman’s front window. I imagine someone would’ve shown me the door instead of the window.

  I groaned at the thought of facing the coming day. The thought of having to work with all my pain made me groan, again. I felt a chill, attempted to turn over and pull the covers around me. But each move brought on another pain.

  After lying awake h
alf the night, I woke up very tired on Thursday morning, but not so tired that I wasn’t well aware of my condition before my first movement. Every part of my body ached, even those parts I didn’t bruise the night before. I wondered if I should follow the path of other men in the department who were my age. Surely a desk job would be less painful. But no, there was no way Lou or I would be happy with a desk job. We were made to catch criminals, not to push papers. Besides, these days desk jobs include computers. I don’t own a computer, and I have no idea how to use one.

  After much deliberation and effort, I managed to crawl out of my bed and kneel beside it. My initial intent was to find some way to lift myself to a standing position, but the pain I continued to endure and the position in which I found myself caused me to pray first. Prayer was not new to me. I always pray when I remember to do it, and I attend church on those Sundays when Lou and I aren’t in the middle of a murder case.

  After I finished my prayer, I inched over to a nearby chair, tried to lift myself to a standing position. Each movement caused more pain. The nurse had told me that I’d be very sore for several days, and by experimenting, I’d find the best way to move with the least amount of pain. I hoped I soon made that discovery.

  With the help of a chair, a dresser, and a chest, I slowly stood up and gingerly walked to the bathroom. On the way to the bathroom I wondered if a shower would help or hurt. I walked into the bathroom and temporarily forgot all about the shower. As I looked at myself in the mirror, I tried to remember in what round I was knocked out. I had a black eye and scratches on my nose and forehead. There was a little swelling around my jaw and more scratches. Only Lou had any idea what I looked like at that moment, and I figured I probably looked some better the last time Lou saw me. Besides, Lou was also in pain, and it was dark when the fiasco happened. I wondered how I was going to keep away from everyone else until I healed. My thoughts about healing and years of reading the Bible made me wonder if I should wait until the waters stirred before I got into the shower.

  The shower wasn’t as painful as I expected, but getting dressed was both more painful and difficult to do. After surviving this struggle, I walked gingerly to the telephone to make the call I didn’t want to make. Like most things I own, my telephone is old and heavy, and the receiver is separate from the dialing mechanism. I laid down the receiver, dialed the number I knew from heart, and then attempted to pick up the receiver again. I dropped the receiver as I tried to lift it to my ear. As I reached to retrieve it, I heard someone on the other end of the line. I forced the phone to my ear and began to talk.

  “Sorry about that. I dropped the phone. This is Lt. Dekker. I’d like to report an altercation that happened last night. Sgt. Murdock and I were chasing an elusive burglar and both of us ended up having to go to the hospital for treatment.”

  The voice on the other end interrupted me.

  “If the burglar was elusive, how in the world were you and Sgt. Murdock hurt?”

  The voice on the other end of the phone sounded somewhat familiar, but I assumed it was because all voices at the department sound vaguely familiar, and I wasn’t thinking too clearly.

  “You weren’t shot were you, Lieutenant?” asked the voice on the other end of the phone.

  “No, but it feels like it.”

  “Any other weapons used?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I need to get some information, Lieutenant. Do you feel up to answering a few questions?”

  “If I say ‘no,’ does that mean I don’t have to answer them?”

  “We’ll need to do this sometime, Lieutenant. Would it be better if I sent someone by?”

  There was no way I wanted anyone to see me, so I thought quickly and then answered.

  “No, I think the phone’s much better. Go ahead if you must.”

  “How many attackers were there, Lieutenant?”

  “I think just one, but it seemed like more.”

  “But only one that you know of?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And that one person attacked both yourself and Sgt. Murdock?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I assume he used the element of surprise.”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t believe how surprised we both were.”

  “Did you or Sgt. Murdock know who your attacker was?”

  “Neither of us knew who or what hit us.”

  “So, tell me, Lt. Dekker, what happened?”

  “Well, uh, I was standing on a front porch, and Sgt. Murdock was coming out the door. Someone lunged for Sgt. Murdock and before we knew it, we were both lying on the porch. We tried to get up, but fell down the hill and landed in the street.”

  “I’m not sure I’m getting this, Lieutenant. Are you saying that someone pushed Sgt. Murdock out the door, and that Sgt. Murdock fell into you, and you both crashed to the porch?”

  “Well, Sgt. Murdock was attacked, but I think it was more I fell into him.”

  “I don’t understand, Lieutenant.”

  “Neither did we.”

  “Okay, let’s try to get this finished, Lieutenant. Tell me again how you got from the porch to the street. Did your attacker throw you into the street, or did a big burst of wind come along and deposit you there?”

  I thought of hanging up, but I knew I had to finish with as little embarrassment as possible.

  “No, it was more like we tried to get up, winced from the pain, and the next thing we knew we were lying in the street.”

  “Lieutenant, I need to ask you this. Were either you or Sgt. Murdock drinking last night?”

  “We were working on a case.”

  “It sounds like it. So, did you finish off the whole case?”

  “I’m talking about a murder case. We were on Hilltop Place, see. Those houses are high above the street. A person could fall out of his or her yard mowing the lawn.”

  “Okay, Lieutenant. By the way, what happened to your attacker?”

  “You mean the burglar?”

  “I don’t know, Lieutenant. It’s your story not mine, and it sounds like a whale of a story.”

  “Our burglar, who may or may not be a murderer, just disappeared, and neither Sgt. Murdock nor I felt like looking for him or her.”

  “You say this person may or may not be a murderer. Should we be looking for bodies on other porches? And you say that this person may or may not have been a woman. Are you saying that it is possible that a little, bitty woman may have overcome both you and Sgt. Murdock all by herself? Are you sure we’re not talking about a little girl with black patent leather shoes who carried a dolly? We’ve got one who answers that description on the ‘most-wanted list.”’

  “Just put down that we were tackled by a football team. All of them were carrying Uzis.”

  “That sounds more feasible. At least I don’t have to ask who the tackling dummies were.”

  After having been insulted repeatedly, I slammed down the phone, which caused me to wince in pain. While I contemplated what to do next, the phone rang. I picked it up and huffed out a “hello.”

  “I just need to ask you one more question, Lieutenant,” said the familiar voice I’d hung up on. “Did you or Sgt. Murdock suffer any brain damage as a result of your altercation?”

  Before I could hang up or come up with an answer, the person on the other end began to laugh.

  “Cy, I love your story. I’ll make sure everyone else gets to enjoy it, too,” said the voice on the other end, who changed in mid-sentence from the voice who had abused me to the voice of my good friend George Michaelson.

  “How long have you been on the phone?”

  “It was me all along, Cy. I just happened by the desk when the phone rang, and no one was here to answer it. When you identified yourself, I decided to have some fun with you.”

  “I’m not amused, George, but now that I’ve got you on the phone, I need some help. I’ve got bruised ribs, and Lou’s got a bruised back and shoulder. In other words, neither of us is get
ting around very well. Grab Frank Harris, the SOC team, and some uniformed officers. I want us to go over the Nelson and Jarvis houses and the underground area below them and see what we can find. Could be our guy in the yellow raincoat or our murderer, which could be one and the same, may have left some clues for us. After all, it was the person in the raincoat whom we were chasing last night.”

  “Why do you want Frank?”

  “Well, every time someone runs through the house we find another body. I want to be prepared.”

  “I’ll see what I can do, Cy. How long will it take the two of you to limp over there?”

  “I don’t know. We’ve got to grab some breakfast first. Let’s make it around 11:00.”

  “Never too sore to eat, huh, Cy.”

  “What can I say? We have to maintain our strength.”

  29

  I phoned Sam Schumann. I didn’t expect him to shed any new light on the case, but I had more questions that needed answers.

  “Cy, I was waiting for your call. I’ve got some more information for you.”

  “Really, what’ve you got?”

  “You know Bobby Cooper, the grocery boy? Well, one of the customers he delivered to called in. She caught him taking something of hers. Since it was something small, at first she didn’t plan to report it, but then she remembered small crimes sometimes lead to bigger ones. Anyway, we got a search warrant. It turns out the boy has a dresser drawer full of stuff he’s taken from customers. He admitted that one of them came from the dead woman, Mrs. Nelson.”

  “Did he by any chance admit to being in the house on the morning of the murder?”

  “Not that I know of, Cy. I’ll check and see. Of course, whether he was in the house or not, I doubt if he’d admit it.”

  “Listen, Sam, I’ve got someone else I want you to check on, Irene Penrod, the next-door neighbor. See what you can find out about her and where she might’ve gone. She left home in a taxi on Saturday morning. The driver dropped her off at the bus station, but she seems to have disappeared from there.”