1 52 Steps to Murder

by Steve Demaree

  “Of course, Lieutenant. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “And what did you do after that, Miss Penrod?”

  “I emptied her bedpan, washed my hands, and asked her what she’d like for me to fix her to eat. She told me not to bother, that Angela would be there before long.”

  “Miss Penrod, when you visited Mrs. Nelson, did you ever fix her something to drink?”

  “Not usually. Prior to her fall, she was able to take care of herself, but I did fix her something to drink on the day she came home from the hospital.”

  “And what did you give Mrs. Nelson to drink?”

  “Grape juice. She asked me if I would be willing to pick up some purple grape juice for her, and so I did.”

  “As far as you know, was Mrs. Nelson in the habit of drinking grape juice?”

  “I have no idea. I don’t think I saw her drink it before, but usually I wasn’t around Mrs. Nelson when she was eating or drinking. Normally she dined alone unless Angela was there.”

  “But on the day she died, you fixed her a glass of grape juice.”

  Miss Penrod seemed visibly shaken. To keep her hands from shaking, she gripped the arms of her chair.

  “No, I said I fixed it the day she came home from the hospital. Why do you ask? Did someone poison her grape juice? It wasn’t me, Lieutenant. Remember, she died after I left on Saturday.”

  “She did die on Saturday, Miss Penrod. As to whether it was before or after you left, I have no idea. In any case, no one is accusing you of poisoning her. I’m not in a position to accuse anyone right now.”

  Miss Penrod seemed a little relieved, but not much. She took a moment to recompose herself and replied to my statement.

  “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. It’s just that this is difficult for me. I thought the world of Mrs. Nelson, and Mrs. Jarvis, too.”

  “Miss Penrod, did Mrs. Nelson appear to be sleepy on Saturday morning?”

  She looked puzzled. “No,” she answered.

  “Well, did you give her any medication or anything to help her sleep?”

  “No, did someone give her something?”

  I avoided the question and continued.

  “Miss Penrod, during the time you were at Mrs. Nelson’s, did you see anyone else other than Mrs. Nelson?”

  “Yes, Mr. Hartley stopped by with the mail, and I saw Mr. Silverman watching all that went on from across the street. Oh, and I saw that messed up young man down the street.”

  “Do you mean Jimmy Reynolds?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Where was he?”

  “He was hiding on Mrs. Overstreet’s porch when I went to see Mrs. Nelson. I know it’s not his fault that he has problems, but he still scares me. He came running down the steps when he saw me. I thought he was coming after me, but he went back to his own house.”

  I made a mental note, wondering why Mr. Silverman did not say anything about this. Then, I remembered that the Overstreet house is the only house where a tree blocks Mr. Silverman’s view of it.

  I looked back up at Irene Penrod. She looked nervous. I continued my questioning.

  “Back to Mr. Hartley. Did he stay long at Mrs. Nelson’s?”

  “A few minutes, but not long.”

  “So Mr. Hartley left before you did, Miss Penrod?”

  “I assume so.”

  “Did you actually see Mr. Hartley leave the house?”

  “No, I was still with Mrs. Nelson in her bedroom. I was telling her goodbye and told her I’d see her when I got back. She gave me a big hug. That seemed strange, because she wasn’t used to hugging me. Of course, she was not bedridden before, and I’d never gone away, so that might have had something to do with it.”

  “Miss Penrod, did you notice whether or not Mr. Hartley saw the envelopes?”

  “I couldn’t say.”

  I leaned forward and calmly asked my next question.

  “Think for a moment, Miss Penrod. Did Mr. Hartley by any chance set his mail down while he was there?”

  “You know, now that you mention it, it seems like he did, but I think he put it down on the bed, not on the table. Still, he might have put it on the table. Do you think he put the mail he was to deliver on top of those two envelopes and then picked them up without realizing it? Do you think he might have delivered them to someone else by mistake?”

  Miss Penrod looked at me and read my mind.

  “I know, Lieutenant. I’m the detective, but I’m more inclined to think of myself as a concerned neighbor.”

  This time Miss Penrod could not help but crack a little smile.

  “Anything else you might be able to think of that might be helpful to us?”

  “Well, just as I was about to leave, Mrs. Jarvis called. I answered the phone, so I knew who it was. I handed the phone to Mrs. Nelson, and evidently Mrs. Jarvis asked Mrs. Nelson if I gave her the envelope, because she said, ‘Yeah, she brought it.’ Mrs. Nelson hung up, I said goodbye to her and hurried home to call a taxi.”

  When Miss Penrod mentioned the taxi, it gave me another idea.

  “When the taxi picked you up, did you notice whether or not Mr. Silverman was sitting at his window?”

  Miss Penrod stopped and thought for a moment.

  “I don’t think he was.”

  “Well, Mr. Silverman said he saw you leave. Are you sure he wasn’t sitting at his window?”

  “To tell you the truth, I was more concerned about getting away than I was looking to see who knew I was leaving. Still, if Mr. Silverman was sitting there, I didn’t notice him.”

  “What about Mrs. Wilkens? Did you see her when you left?”

  “I was more concerned about making sure I didn’t fall down the steps with both hands full of luggage. I couldn’t tell you where Mrs. Wilkens was, or anyone else for that matter. I can tell you only that the taxi driver never bothered to get out until I got to the bottom of the steps.”

  I thanked Irene Penrod for her help, got up, and headed for the door. Lou followed. As Lou and I left, we stopped by Officer Davis’s cruiser to ask him a question. It was just as I thought. Officer Davis didn’t see any envelopes on the table beside the bed, but then that morning he was not in a frame of mind to notice anything.

  As Lou and I walked back to Lightning, I wondered whether or not it meant anything that Stanley Silverman said one thing and Irene Penrod said another. For some reason, I remembered the dirt I had seen on Silverman’s shoes that day. Now, that I think of it, the dirt did resemble the dirt in the tunnel. Was it because he had visited his mother’s grave? Or did Silverman give us a play-by-play of the day’s proceedings merely to give himself an alibi? Was he watching everything from inside Mrs. Nelson’s house, rather than his own? Or was Miss Penrod so preoccupied with getting away with murder that she paid attention to little else? I wondered which facts to discard, and which ones to use to find a murderer.

  41

  As Lou and I pulled away from Irene Penrod’s house, some of what Sam told me came back to me. Irene Penrod was known for lying, had once gotten even, and had been overheard saying that she wouldn’t have to take care of Mrs. Jarvis much longer. Were there two envelopes, and if there were, were these two women afraid something was going to happen to them? Or was this one of Miss Penrod’s lies in order to divert suspicion away from herself?

  If Irene Penrod was telling the truth, why would those two women give the envelopes to her? It seemed reasonable that Mrs. Nelson would give them to her granddaughter, or to her attorney. Could it be that she didn’t trust one or both of them? Did the latest development mean that all the other suspects had been eliminated? If there were two envelopes, had someone destroyed them? Or was it possible that someone is using those envelopes to blackmail someone else? If so, was the money we found in the rented house blackmail money? We found the money in the house Hartley had rented. Could he have seen someone murder one or both women? He did say something about becoming better off financially.

  Lou and I pulled away and headed
off to find Hartley. After driving up and down several streets, we finally located the post office’s version of Speedy Gonzales. Hartley said he didn’t see any envelopes on the table in Mrs. Nelson’s bedroom, but then I would’ve been surprised if he had said otherwise.

  Lou and I turned away from Hartley. I stood at the car door for a few moments before I opened it. Raincoats, magnets, envelopes. How many of these things were evidence, and how much was clutter?

  I opened the door, got in, and started the car before Lou’s curiosity got the best of him.

  “Do you have any idea what was in those envelopes, Cy, or do you even think there really were any envelopes?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “You’re not sure of what?”

  “I’m not sure whether there were any envelopes, and even if there were, I’m not sure what was in them.”

  “Let’s assume there were two envelopes. What would they contain? The logical explanation would be a will, but Hornwell has Mrs. Nelson’s will. It doesn’t make sense that there would be a second will, and if there were, it would supersede the other one, wouldn’t it?”

  “It depends upon when the wills are dated.”

  “That means that whoever took the will would have to be either Miss Penrod, which doesn’t make sense, Hartley, Miss Nelson, or whoever owned those footsteps Officer Davis and Miss Nelson heard running from the house. If the envelope contained a will, it would’ve made sense for Angela Nelson to have taken it if it had been a will that disinherited her, but the one that pretty much disinherits her is the one that was found. Besides, what she told us was in the will was what was in the will.”

  “None of this makes sense, Lou. If there were two envelopes, why would the old lady have given them to Miss Penrod? She knew her granddaughter would be there shortly. She should’ve given them to Angela, unless she was afraid Angela might try to kill her, or she wanted to disinherit Angela. However, like you said, the will we have pretty much disinherits Miss Nelson, so that doesn’t seem to be a reason. Besides, Miss Nelson has an alibi for the entire morning. First, she was on a plane. Next, she was in a cab. Then, Silverman saw her get out of a cab, and he continued to watch her until Officer Davis arrived. Even Mrs. Wilkens claims to have seen her. She might’ve wanted to kill her grandmother, but didn’t have an opportunity. And her attorney was two hours away at his cabin, and someone saw him there twice. That leaves us with Miss Penrod, but that doesn’t make sense, either. Hartley interrupted her visit. I don’t think she had time to give the old lady the medication and then give her the poison thirty minutes to an hour later.”

  “Maybe the two of them were in it together. Maybe Miss Penrod gave the old lady the medication, and Miss Nelson gave her the poison.”

  “And maybe Officer Davis held her hand while she did it.”

  “Oh, I forgot that part.”

  “This thing would be a lot simpler, Lou, if we could forget a few parts.”

  “Cy, I’m assuming that the poison was added to the glass of grape juice, and not the container.”

  Before Lou finished his comment, he could see a different look in my eye.

  “No, Lou, it was in the container. Mrs. Jarvis wheeled up to Mrs. Nelson’s, the two of them had a drink together, and then Mrs. Jarvis wheeled home so she could die in her own house.”

  Lou continued with my humorous fable.

  “How fast was Mrs. Jarvis going when she wheeled up the hill in her front yard?”

  “Fast enough that Officer Davis almost pulled her over before she could get in the house and lock the door.”

  Lou interrupted my vision of a cruiser chasing a speeding wheelchair with a question about our other favorite subject.

  “Got any plans tonight, Cy?”

  “I thought you and Thelma Lou had plans.”

  “No, I told her we might be able to do something tomorrow night. So, do you have any plans?”

  “Not for sure, but since you don’t, I have an idea. This is Saturday. How would you like to go out on the town tonight?”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “How about going over to The Feed Bucket? We need a break from the case. It’s Saturday, and we know what Saturday night at The Feed Bucket’s all about.”

  “Boy, do we know. Not only is it an all-you-can-eat buffet, but Saturday night means steak, shrimp, crab legs, and prime rib. Let me at it. What do you say you pick me up at a quarter till six?”

  42

  Sunday morning Lou and I attended church, sat in our pew on the back row. We learned years ago that we can hear the sermon just as well from that distance. After church, we stopped and ate lunch before each of us went to his home. The next thing on my agenda was to take a nap. Before I lay down, I unplugged my phone, so no one would interrupt my much-needed sleep.

  The middle of the afternoon I received a call from Officer Davis. He had been trying to get me since the night before. Harry Hornwell had been on the street on Saturday night. He delivered a package to Stanley Silverman’s house and left a few minutes later with two envelopes.

  When I hung up from talking to him, the questions began to flow. Did Silverman take the envelopes from Mrs. Nelson’s house? Could it be he watched everything that went on Saturday morning from inside Mrs. Nelson’s house instead of inside his own? If so, did that make him the murderer, or did he know who the murderer was? And was Silverman at home when Hornwell visited, or did Mr. Hornwell let himself in? Each new happening led to more questions. I hoped the phone records I planned to pick up the next day would help me gather some answers.

  +++

  Around 6:40 Sunday night, Lou pulled up in front of my house in his red and white 1957 Chevy. I dashed out the door, well I moved as fast as someone my age in my condition could move, and slid onto the front seat of Lou’s fine automobile. We were off to pick up the girls. Lou and I were lucky to have friends like Betty and Thelma Lou. Not every woman is willing to go out on short notice. Most of them fall into one of two categories. The category Betty and Thelma Lou are in, and the category Heloise Humphert is in. I’d choose the first category anytime.

  The four of us had a nice time. The food was good, and Lou and I enjoyed spending time with people who were not on the verge of rigor mortis or on our suspect list. If either Lou or I decided to settle down, Betty and Thelma Lou were women we would want to settle down with. The only problem was that I’d been by myself so long that I had resigned myself that I had done all the settling I planned to do. Besides, I was still in love with Eunice.

  +++

  Monday morning the phone rang. I stumbled from my bed and went to answer it.

  “Oh, hi, Frank. I assume you have identified the body you dug up the other day.”

  “That’s right, Cy, and I have nothing hair-raising to report. The body was Mrs. Olivia Silverman, and she died of natural causes. No poison this time. As best we can tell, she’s been dead about three months.”

  “Thanks, Frank. I’ll try to lighten your workload.”

  “You do that, Cy.”

  I hung up the phone and pondered the facts Frank had relayed to me. Evidently, Silverman didn’t kill his mother. Did this mean that that he didn’t murder Mrs. Nelson or Mrs. Jarvis, either? If so, how would he explain those two envelopes, or were they the same envelopes? Or did Irene Penrod ever have two envelopes? Could it be that she found out that Hornwell was going to Silverman’s to deliver a package and pick up two envelopes and wanted to cast suspicion away from herself? Or did Mrs. Nelson have a reason to suspect her granddaughter or Mr. Hornwell of wanting to do away with her?

  For the time being, I forgot about what might be true and thought about what I knew to be true. Actually, I knew nothing to be true, except the fact that two elderly women were murdered, but I decided to believe anything confirmed by two or more witnesses. Two witnesses, Silverman and Mrs. Wilkens, confirmed that no one entered the front door of the Nelson house from the time that Irene Penrod left until the time Angela Nelson entered with
Officer Davis. Did that mean that either Irene Penrod murdered Mrs. Nelson or the murderer entered the house through the underground passageway? I wish I knew.

  43

  After I talked to Frank I got ready to pick up Lou. I was on my way to dial his number when the phone rang.

  “You want to skip breakfast this morning?”

  “You want me to break in a new partner?”

  Lou laughed at my reply, and I joined in the laughter.

  “You must be feeling good this morning, Cy.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about going out and working on my golf game today.”

  “You’ve never played golf, Cy.”

  “Then I’d say my game could use some work.”

  “There are a lot of things about you that could use some work.”

  “You’re a piece of work yourself, Lou. I’d rather save all this for another time. Are we going to spend all morning on the phone whispering sweet nothings to each other, or are we going to get some breakfast?”

  “Boy, Cy, you sure are feisty this morning.”

  “What can I say? I’m just one of those people who’s grumpy until I’ve had my first pound of bacon.”

  “Birds of a feather.”

  “See you in fifteen minutes.”

  Lou was waiting out front of his apartment building when I pulled up. “You know something, don’t you, Cy?”

  “A little bit, but what I don’t know is God’s message for today.”

  “Alexander Graham 3:00 A.M.”

  “Aha! I know that one, Lou.”

  “You should. How many times did we see The Parent Trap when we were kids?”

  “At least a dozen. We had to. You were in love with Hayley Mills.”

  “And what was the name of that TV star you liked?”

  “Lori Martin. She played the daughter on National Velvet.”

  “Oh, yeah. Remember how we used to go up in our tree house and pretend those girls were in love with us.”

  “Yeah, I remember, but don’t let it get around the department. George and Frank would have a field day with that one.”