Murder in the Winter
Steve Demaree
Copyright © 2013
Steve Demaree
All Rights Reserved
This book is dedicated to the two people I love the most and whose love I deserve the least, my wife Nell and my daughter Kelly. May God continue to bless me with their presence in my life.
This book is also dedicated to Paula Messer, who bought extra copies of The Hilltop Murder Mystery for her family members, so that they would not take her copy away from her.
This book is also dedicated to nine-year-old Amy Shepherd, who has read The Hilltop Murder Mystery four times and told her teacher it is her favorite book.
May each of them and each of you enjoy this book.
Books by Steve Demaree
Dekker Cozy Mystery Series
52 Steps to Murder
Murder in the Winter
Murder In The Library
Murder at Breakfast?
Murder at the High School Reunion
Murder at the Art & Craft Fair
Santangelo PG-Rated Mystery/Thriller Series
Murder in the Dark
Picture Them Dead
Body Count
Aylesford Place Humorous Christian Romance Series
Pink Flamingoed
Neighborhood Hi Jinx
Croquet Anyone?
Non-Fiction
Lexington & Me
Reflecting Upon God’s Word
Cast of Characters
Lt. Cy Dekker - The lead homicide detective of the Hilldale Police Department
Sgt. Lou Murdock - Lt. Dekker’s partner
Sidney Longworth – The owner of Overlook Inn and a well-known director of plays.
Estelle Longworth – Sidney Longworth’s wife
Antoine Le Blanc – The chef at Overlook Inn
Michael – The sous chef at Overlook Inn
Justin – The server at Overlook Inn
Manfred Mitchuson – The handyman at Overlook Inn
Mrs. Mitchuson – Mr. Mitchuson’s wife and the maid at Overlook Inn
Myles Mycroft - One of the registered guests at the inn
Arthur Plankton – Another guest at the inn
Mrs. Isabel Dukenfield – Another registered guest at the inn
Claude Williams – A late arrival at the inn
Tony McArthur - A guest at the inn and an actor who lives at Oppenheimer Arms Apartments. He says he was out of town when the murders took place.
Lena Crouch - The manager of Oppenheimer Arms Apartments
Arthur Rothschild – A resident of Oppenheimer Arms who is confined to a wheelchair.
Martin Mulroney – A resident of Oppenheimer Arms who visited the inn in disguise.
Carter Thornton – A resident of Oppenheimer Arms who was considered the best of the actors. He visited the inn in disguise.
Matthew Simon – Another resident of Oppenheimer Arms who visited the inn in disguise.
Virgil Profit – A resident of Oppenheimer Arms who claims to know none of his neighbors nor anyone at the inn.
Bob Gravitt – A resident of Oppenheimer Arms who made reservations at the inn and then did not show up.
Ray Phelps – A plumber with Burris Plumbing who drifted into town and later disappeared mysteriously.
Yolanda Lovely – A young blonde who made a pass at Lt. Dekker and Ray Phelps.
Lt. George Michaelson - A friend of Lt. Dekker and a fellow member of the Hilldale Police Department
Frank Harris - The medical examiner
Sam Schumann-A policeman who does much of Lt. Dekker’s investigative work
Louie Palona - The man at headquarters who Lt. Dekker turns to for computer help.
Officer Dan Davis - A young policeman who helps Lt. Dekker and Sgt. Murdock from time to time.
Heloise Humphert - Lt. Dekker’s irritating next-door neighbor
Twinkle Toes - Heloise Humphert’s dog
Rosie - The daytime waitress at the Blue Moon Diner
Thelma - The nighttime waitress at the Blue Moon Diner
Betty McElroy - A friend of Lt. Dekker’s whom he sometimes takes out to dinner
Thelma Lou Spencer - Sgt. Murdock’s girlfriend
Mark – The boy who mows Lt. Dekker’s yard, rakes his leaves, and shovels his snow.
1
One mid-January day I lay in bed fighting the urge to kick the covers off, roll over, and spring from the bed. I had almost convinced myself to attempt such a dastardly deed when I remembered that too much exercise so early in the morning is not good, especially for someone of my girth and experience. But then no one of my girth and experience could possibly spring from anything unless he sat on Old Faithful.
As I lay there, I pondered hypnotizing myself, hoping to make myself snore. In the midst of my pondering the phone rang. I rolled over and lunged for the obtrusive instrument. On my third try my hand connected with the heavy receiver. I lifted it, mumbled something, and realized that someone was talking into the mouthpiece. I flipped the receiver and mumbled again.
“Are you up yet?” came the question from the phone.
The stupid question sounded like something that would come from the mouth of a small child at some pre-dawn hour on Christmas morning, but even half awake I recognized the voice of the man who asked the stupid question as that of my friend and partner in solving crime.
Before I get too far into the conversation we had that day, let me introduce myself and my telephoning friend. I’m Lt. Cy Dekker of the Hilldale Police Department. My partner is Sgt. Lou Murdock. Together we make up the entire homicide division. Lou and I grew up in Hilldale, went to school together, and have been friends since before I can remember. We built tree houses and snow forts together, and double-dated whenever we could find two girls who would go out with the two of us. Lou was the best man at my wedding, and he, along with other members of the Hilldale Police Department, was there for me when I lost my beloved Eunice to cancer after only five years of marriage. Lou’s been there for me ever since, and I hope I’ve been there for him.
Two weeks prior to that morning’s phone call, with the department’s blessing, the two of us entered into semi-retirement. In our case this meant we will continue to solve all the murder cases within Hilldale’s jurisdiction, but once a case is solved we are free to lean back in our recliners and get to know Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Philo Vance, Ellery Queen, Nero Wolfe, Sam Spade, and Phillip Marlowe, courtesy of Myrtle Evans, owner of Hilldale’s Scene of the Crime Bookstore, a used bookstore housed in a wood framed structure, and littered with yellow crime scene tape hanging from its bushes. Actually, I wouldn’t exactly say our new reading material was courtesy of Mrs. Evans. While she did recommend seven books to both of us, she picked our pockets to the tune of $148.23 each before we walked out of her store with the books.
Now that I have introduced the two of us, let me repeat the question Lou repeated to me that morning.
“Are you up yet?”
“What constitutes up?” I asked my esteemed colleague.
The good sergeant laughed.
“Well, do you want to know why I called, Cy?”
Somehow the truth didn’t sound like the appropriate response.
“Go ahead. Spill it,” I said instead.
“I got a message.”
“You mean a message message?”
“Uh-huh.”
“God spoke to you?”
“You’re the one who says He speaks to me. I only know that I got a message.”
“Well, you might as well tell me now. What was the message?”
“Ford Theater and the Bates Motel.”
“So, you’re saying that if someone invites me to a pla
y and to go somewhere afterward to spend the night, I shouldn’t go?”
“I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“I don’t think there’s any danger of anyone asking me out.”
“You mean your next-door neighbor moved?”
“No, but if she asked me out, I would shoot first and ask questions later.”
I heard chuckling on the other end of the line.
His chuckle gave me time to think of what Lou’s call meant. In due time Lou and I would discern the meaning of his message. If it was like each of the other messages Lou had received over the years, it meant that another murder had been committed, and Lou and I would go to work solving the case. Retirement, as we had come to embrace it, would end, at least for a few days.
I continued to think until my colleague broke the silence.
“I assume you haven’t gotten a call yet.”
“No, and my beeper hasn’t gone off. Besides, no one murders anyone this early.”
“It could’ve happened last night. Sometimes they don’t find the body until the next day.”
“I suppose so.”
“And do you realize the bad news? We got eight inches of snow last night. Talk about timing. I’d rather curl up with a good book and have the Blue Moon bring me my meals.”
“Are you saying you don’t want to be around me?”
“No, feel free to stop by the Blue Moon and pick up enough food for both of us. You know where I live. I just dread getting out in this kind of weather.”
“Not any more than I do. I’ve become adjusted to retirement. Maybe God just gave you this message to see how we’d react.”
“Maybe so, but if He did, I don’t think we passed the test.”
Yesterday morning’s forecast had called for mostly cloudy skies with a possible flurry or two. Must’ve been a couple of big flurries, because if my partner says eight inches, he means eight inches. Someone gave Lou a rain gauge for Christmas one year, and he actually put it together and hung it outside his apartment window. I too have a device for measuring snow. In the days of my youth, sometimes a teacher would use a similar gauge to whack my knuckles. Today, I occasionally plop my device down into the snow, but on most days I leave it in the house and use it periodically if I need to draw a straight line.
I forgot about measuring precipitation and returned to the matter at hand.
“Well, I guess I’d better get off here in case the department calls.”
No one who still owns a heavy, black phone with a rotary dial has call waiting. The phone still worked and was only a chore when I tried to pick it up. Since my number was unlisted and people seldom called my house, I didn’t waste a lot of exercise lifting my phone. Besides, the department told me they would use our beepers to get in touch with us if anything happened.
I sat up and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. I needed a shower. Then, I’d take time for my daily devotional reading and a short prayer. After taking care of one and two, I would leave to pick Lou up. I tried to keep my priorities right. After all, God was around on the first day. Murders didn’t happen until after He had made a few imperfect people. I needed to put Him first.
+++
I opened the back door and stared at the whiteness. It was one of the few times when I was sorry I didn’t own a pair of sunglasses. Briefly blinded, I stood there until my eyes adjusted to the brightness that only snow can produce, then turned and looked at what used to be Lightning, my Volkswagen bug. Normally Lightning shone bright yellow, but on that morning it more closely resembled what I might look like if I had fallen on my back just prior to an avalanche. A white blob in the middle with occasional yellow spots on the side. Okay, maybe I don’t have any yellow spots. At least not yet.
I dragged my feet through the snow as I shuffled toward my vehicle. I intended to start it and let it warm up while I brushed away the snow from the windshield and the windows. At least that was my plan until I arrived at my vehicle and spotted an envelope stuck to the snow where my windshield used to be. Actually my windshield was still there, eight inches under the envelope. Was my next-door neighbor sending me love letters? I shuddered at the thought.
I took to the envelope the way Lou approaches a new bag of M&Ms. I tore open the envelope with my teeth, spat paper into the snow, and extracted a folded piece of paper. I opened it and read a message that had been cut from a magazine.
BE AT OVERLOOK INN AT PRECIPICE POINT THIS WEEKEND. I HAVE MURDERED, AND YOU CAN BE THERE TO WATCH THE BODIES FALL. NEITHER YOU, ROTUND DOOFUS LT. DEKKER, NOR YOUR STOOGE, SGT. MURDOCK, WILL BE ABLE TO STOP ME.
I scanned the note. All the words were spelled right, and the commas were in the right place. At least I think so. But the message didn’t make sense. If he or she had already murdered someone, how could I possibly arrive before the bodies fell? Could it be that someone leaned them against a door? After getting nowhere with the grammar or the method of murder, I changed focus. I remembered that Overlook Inn had reopened after sitting empty for several years. It sat at the far end of the county, somewhere between ten and fifteen miles from my house. I had not been out that way in years, but then there was no reason to go that way unless you were going to Overlook Inn. The road goes no farther, and once you pass the city limits there’s not much to see except trees. The more I thought of it, the more I wondered why teenagers never took their dates to such a secluded place. Or maybe, they did. I’m out of the loop about such things, so there’s no way I’d find out about something like that unless one or both of the young people were murdered. Speaking of murder, evidently someone thought the Overlook Inn would be a good place to commit one. While it might be a good place to murder someone, it would be a bad place from which to make a getaway. Only one road in or out. But then that road was seldom traveled. At least there wouldn’t be any neighbors to see him make his hasty retreat. His only other way out would be over the cliff where he’d end up making a splat on the rocks well below, right next to the lemmings. Was that what the murderer meant by “watch the bodies fall?” I pictured someone lining up people at Precipice Point and pushing the last person in line causing a domino effect where screaming victims were knocked over the cliff. I shuddered at the thought and then regained my senses. Well, whatever senses I had maintained in the frigid weather. Like most of my body parts, my senses were growing numb from the cold.
I reread the message and then looked down and discovered the footprints that led to and from Lightning. At least the ones I had not obliterated as I clomped around in the mound of heavy snow. I followed the footprints to the street, hoping that whoever left the note had had second thoughts and was waiting for me. As I walked, I noticed that the footprints heading away from my car were more defined than the ones heading toward it. What that meant I had no idea. As I neared the street, it looked like whoever left the note had stumbled a couple of times and fell once as he or she got out of a vehicle and headed down my driveway. I found the street deserted, carefully examined the markings. Experience taught me that you cannot make plaster casts of footprints in snow or sand, so I ambled to the house to get my camera to take some photos. I would have scurried, but I knew that the prints wouldn’t melt before I returned. Besides, it had been many years since I had been able to scurry. A man my age and size can only scurry downhill, and a robust man proceeding downhill will not stop scurrying until the downhill element ceases to exist. I learned that lesson on a previous case. It’s called experience, which is what happens to you that you wish had happened to someone else.
I reasoned that pictures of the footprints might be of some help. The markings on the snow were distinct, and the wear of the boot could provide a match, if I just knew where to look for the boot. Should I hightail it to Precipice Point and check everyone’s boots?
+++
I had just finished taking some pictures when I heard a screech similar to the sound a vulture makes before descending upon its prey. Okay, I don’t know if most vultures screech or not, but one does. She lives next door
to me.
“Yoo-hoo, oh Cyrus, dear. Would you like to make a snowman with me?”
My next-door neighbor, Heloise Humphert, was making new tracks down my driveway. In her arms she held her fur ball Twinkle Toes, a white, toy poodle she might have lost if she had put her down in the snow.
“I’m game,” I replied. “Let’s put Muffy down and pack snow around her.”
“Oh, Cyrus, you know her name is Twinkle Toes, and little Twinkle Toes doesn’t like to set her toesies down in the snow.”
If I had already eaten breakfast, her response might have been enough to make me lose it. She caught me off guard and arrived at my side before I could hide my visitor’s note.
“Oh, has Cyrus written little ol’ me a love letter?”
“There are many things I would love to write to you in a letter, Miss Humphert, but I doubt if you would do any of them.”
“Oh, Cyrus, you’d be surprised what I would be willing to do with you.”
Before I could stop her, my neighbor grabbed the note from my hand and read it.
“Oh, my. It looks like my Cyrus will be going back to work. You be careful now, Honey Bun.”
I was about to tell Miss Busybody that I worked every day, then I remembered that Lou and I no longer worked when there were no murders to solve.
“Did you see anyone in my driveway earlier today, Miss Humphert?”
“As a matter of fact, I did, Cyrus. It was about 4:37 this morning. Twinkle Toes barked, and I got up to see what she was barking about. I looked out and saw a hunchbacked old man sneaking away from your house. I started to come over and alert you, but it was so late, and I wasn’t sure whether to wake you, or not.”
“I’m sure glad you didn’t, Miss Humphert. My old ticker isn’t what it used to be. I’m not sure if it would’ve held up seeing you at my door in the middle of the night. By the way, I don’t guess you could recognize the old man if you saw him again.”
“No, Cyrus. I’m sorry, but I can’t. I just know he was old, hunchbacked, and not too tall, and he was bundled up to where I couldn’t see his face.”
“That’s okay. I just thought you might have followed him and invited him over for meatloaf. Well, I’d love to stay and chat, Miss Humphert, but, as you can see, I have work to do. Maybe we can make a snowman some other time.”
2 Murder in the Winter Page 1