I had no intention of making anything with that woman, but if I saw her below me in a snowstorm, only my Christian upbringing would keep me from stomping my foot and starting an avalanche.
As I continued my evil thoughts about my neighbor, she turned and walked away, taking her white rat with her.
After she left my field of vision, my thoughts turned back to the case at hand, and I wondered how I would maneuver Lightning through such heavy snow. I had no intention of shoveling my driveway. I could think of other ways of bringing on a coronary. Work was not something I was accustomed to doing, especially hard work.
I was sure that whoever left the note wouldn’t wait until the snow melted before he or she committed murder, so I needed someone to plow my driveway. No sooner had the thought entered my mind than Mark, the boy who mows my yard, rakes my leaves, and shovels my snow, hollered at me from the top of the driveway.
“I assume you want me to shovel your walk, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, but could you do my driveway first? I need to get to work.”
“Sure thing, Lieutenant,” and he wasted no time digging the shovel into the snow.
I knew it would take him a while to complete his task. While I waited for him to clear a path for Lightning, I went in the house to call and make reservations for Lou and me at the Overlook Inn. Within minutes, I had reserved two rooms for us and called the good sergeant to let him know. A half an hour later, Mark rang the doorbell to let me know that the driveway was finished. I slipped him two twenties and left to pick up Lou and start the day with a good breakfast at the Blue Moon Diner. After all, we wouldn’t be able to check in at the Overlook Inn until sometime in the early afternoon, and a body needs to eat.
Lou and I eat most of our meals out, and our favorite place to dine is the Blue Moon Diner. We are there so often that two stools at the counter still have our impressions in place when we return for the next meal. Rosie, our waitress for breakfast and lunch, and Thelma, who brings us our supper, are always delighted to see our smiling faces, and that isn’t only because we are good tippers. Both Rosie and Thelma are widows. Rosie, a lifelong resident of Hilldale, and Tom never had children, while Thelma recently moved to Hilldale to be close to her grandson who attends college in the area. Both women love knowing that what they do each day is making someone else’s day better, and I don’t know what Lou and I would do without them.
2
On a typical day Lou and I arrive at the Blue Moon after all the regulars have left, so we mosey up to the counter, plop down on a couple of stools, and because we leave one stool between us, we have room to sprawl out, put our elbows on the counter, and eat to our heart’s content. Never quite sure how much food it takes to make our hearts content, we do our best not to come up a little short. Unless we are in the mood for something different, we order the usual; sausage, bacon, eggs, hash browns, biscuits, gravy, and pancakes loaded down with maple syrup. Sometimes we tell Rosie to throw a couple of handfuls of pecans on the pancakes. After all of that, we can make do until our stomachs tell us it’s time for a snack. A little before noon, Lou and I left the Blue Moon Diner with our stomachs full and smiles on our faces. Actually, our stomachs looked full before we arrived, but when we left they also felt it. I would be good for another hour or so. I checked to see if I had any remembrances of our scrumptious meal, but found none. Gravy stains disturb me. A little gravy on the shirt means less gravy on the inside.
+++
Lou and I lowered ourselves into the front seats of my car and put our game faces on. As we settled into our seats, I thought I heard Lightning gasp for breath. Maybe I was mistaken. At any rate, it was time to go to work. In Hilldale, the city and county are one, as far as government jobs are concerned. Lou and I handle any homicide in the county, and the Streets and Roads Division take care of anything to do with our streets, from fixing potholes to shoveling snow. As we left the metropolis of Hilldale behind, I was glad I wasn’t the only one to get the memo about a murder at Overlook Inn. Streets and Roads must have gotten one too, unless the policy of plowing the road to Precipice Point changed when the inn reopened. If I remembered correctly, it was eight miles from the edge of the city limits to Precipice Point. Eight miles that seemed like twenty.
I left behind the last house within the city limits, pleased that the snow plow didn’t stop there, but continued to make our drive a little more palatable. I say a little because the road to Precipice Point is not a wide road. Nor a level one. Nor a straight one. Only the lack of traffic makes the road somewhat safe, but that might change by spring now that the inn has reopened. If I was to believe the note I received on my car, the drive out would be safer for someone than what that person, or was it those people, would encounter once he, she, or they arrived.
Murder muddled my thoughts as I drove toward the inn. In a way, it would be hard to murder someone there. In a way, it would be easy. The inn sets on a couple of acres of land, and there is not much land to look at, because the inn takes up quite a bit of space. I’m not good at measurements, but I would guess that there is approximately five hundred feet of land in the front, a couple hundred feet in the back, and one hundred or so feet on each side, once you account for the garages. They call it Precipice Point for a reason. I’m not sure if Precipice Point is redundant, but it is a precipice. Or is it really a pinnacle? Who knows? Who cares? When you get to the end of the land, you can either fly or drop to get to the next piece of land. If you have wings, you might be able to fly across the expanse to the adjacent piece of land a few hundred feet across the divide. If you cannot fly, the drop will not kill you, but landing is not recommended.
While there’s only one way in or out from Precipice Point, there are a lot of places to play hide-and-seek inside the inn. Before that weekend was over, Lou and I would find many of them.
On the drive out to the inn, I noticed trees on both sides of the road. Lou called some evergreens, others deciduous. I called them green ones and brown ones. I have no idea what deciduous is, but it’s not a disease I would want to catch. While I know some big words, others escape me. Each morning I open the dictionary and poke my fat finger at some word. If it’s a word I already know, I keep poking until I learn a new word. It usually doesn’t take me long before I land on an unknown word. At least, one that’s unknown to me. When I returned home from our trip to the inn, I planned to look up the meaning of deciduous. On the surface, it sounds like erosion of the gums. When I shared that with Lou, he thought a moment, smiled, and told me that some gums are deciduous.
The trees continued to follow us on our journey. At times, there was a break between trees, but mainly they towered over the road and stood between ten and twenty feet back from where Lightning meandered down the well-worn blacktop path.
Being somewhat familiar with the road helped me to drive and think at the same time, and when the road started its dramatic descent I knew we were getting close to our destination. The road leads down to the bridge then up again to the inn.
Soon, I stopped the car and looked at the bridge that loomed ahead. The bridge. The only way between where I was and Overlook Inn. A long time ago someone built a bridge over an expanse, allowing people to arrive at Precipice Point without leaping. The snowplow that had made our journey easier stopped just before the bridge and turned around to go back to town? The bridge was made of wood and iron and so old there was no weight limit listed. I hoped the extra helpings we had at breakfast would have no bearing as to whether on not I could work this case until its conclusion and once again enjoy semi-retirement.
I gripped the steering wheel with both hands, looked over at a sweating sergeant, and hit the gas. Lightning plowed through the snow. I hoped I didn’t have to brake before arriving at my destination. I didn’t. The snow stopped us after only a few feet. Two policemen sat in a car on a bridge, hoping that the bridge that had lasted for many years lasted a little longer. We sat there wondering if there was enough room to open the doors and walk to the inn.
There was. I looked at the heavy snow in front of us. Not a track anywhere. Not even a bird or squirrel had disturbed its beauty. The thought of the uphill flight to the inn suddenly made the bridge seem safer. Besides, not only would we have to extract ourselves, but our luggage, too. If only we could have slid down a hill on our suitcases. As we contemplated our demise, I looked up as the door of the inn opened. A man stepped out onto the porch and waved to us. Was this our murderer welcoming us? After a quick wave, he walked down the steps and jumped up onto a snowplow that I hadn’t noticed, a snowplow somewhat smaller than the one the city owns. He made a roundabout path in our direction, jumped off, and trekked over to us. I rolled down the window, told him we were guests. He asked if we felt comfortable remaining where we were until he finished plowing the driveway. I lied, then rolled up the window, and the two of us remained in my little yellow bug until just after the sun had gone down.
Maybe it wasn’t that long, but it was long enough that my stomach let me know it had been an hour since we’d eaten. Although I was never a Boy Scout, I never went anywhere unprepared. I reached into my pocket and extracted a Hershey Almond candy bar, slightly colder than it was when I removed it from the refrigerator. I always forget that there’s no reason to refrigerate candy bars in the winter, but summer habits are hard to break. I meticulously removed the candy from its wrapper, smiled that I didn’t have to remove my pocketknife to perform surgery to separate two almonds that had bonded, and carefully ate the chocolate that surrounded my first almond of the day. I have to be greatly excited or enormously disturbed to eat more than one almond at a time. Of course, time passes quickly, so I predicted that a second almond would be crunched to death before we were rescued from our temporary home. I shuddered as I remembered where we were and tried not to think of anything or anyone being crunched to death.
While a Hershey Almond candy bar is my staple, Lou is an M&M’s kind of guy, so he followed suit, and mangled the brown package with his teeth. He gulped several colorful bits of candy at one time, and smiled as if being suspended on a bridge was not completely bad.
I’ve been a lover of Hershey Almond candy bars for as long as I can remember. I tear up as I think back to those easier-to-open packages with the white lining inside when all I had to do was slide the white covering from its brown encasement, open it and ogle the chocolate and nuts. On many a day, I carefully picked a sliver of chocolate from that white background or licked the paper when it was necessary. I reminisced about my favorite food group until Sir Plowalot gave me the high sign that it was okay to proceed, two candy bars and seven almonds surrounded by chocolate later. Luckily, I brought extra candy bars. I didn’t want to run out and have to depend on the St. Bernard to bound through the heavy snow to bring me more munchies.
I gave the snowplow time to clear out of my way. This allowed me to scan the inn in front of me. Not exactly what I’d call an inn. More like a fortress. The stone block structure hovered over the snow below. I suspected it has an ominous feel at night, when the vultures return to rest on the parapet. I didn’t want to be outside at night to find out. I hoped when we checked in there would be a note from the murderer telling us that he or she had postponed all murders until spring.
I put Lightning in reverse in order to get a running start up the hill to the inn. I would’ve done so earlier, but Lightning was snowbound until the man on the plow loosened the snow that held us in place. I stopped, shifted into drive, crossed the bridge, and bore right at the circular driveway. I didn’t stop until I arrived at the stone steps leading up to the front door. We opened Lightning’s doors and stepped out. There was no railing, but there were only five steps. Five wide steps. I thought we could make it that far, even carrying luggage.
Lou and I gathered our belongings and navigated the steps without incident. I opened the large oaken door and the sergeant and I entered. The lobby stood on the right. A counter for checking in faced it. The area behind it was enclosed, except for a doorway behind the counter. The area to my left was open. At the front was a large sitting area, with couches and upholstered chairs scattered about. Fifty feet or so beyond, with no wall beforehand, stood the dining room, an elegant room that did not fit in with the rustic nature of the inn’s walls. As I studied our surroundings, a distinguished gentleman, whose gray hair had long since parted from the top of his head, greeted us. Evidently he had come from the checkin area. I didn’t see him approach, but then I’d stepped over to look down the hallway past the dining room.
“Welcome, gentlemen! I am Sidney Longworth, the proprietor. You are the first of today’s guests to arrive.”
“So, we’re the only guests?”
“No, some of our guests arrived yesterday.”
We identified ourselves minus our titles. I noticed no glint of recognition from Mr. Longworth. Either he was a good actor, or he wasn’t the one who delivered the note. Of course he had no hump, but, then, I’ve seen Young Frankenstein enough to know that humps can be moved. Or removed.
“If you can wait a few minutes until Manfred puts the snowplow up, he can help you to your room. You may check in in the meantime, if you like?”
Not wanting to carry our own luggage, we waited for Manfred. In the meantime, I went back outside to park Lightning in the garage, even though Mr. Longworth told me Manfred could do that for me, too. I descended the shoveled steps, surprised that I remained on my feet, and chose a parking place in one of the two adjacent garages. I locked the car and looked around to familiarize myself with the outside layout. We had not been told whether or not the murder would take place inside or outside, or at what time of day or night. With my luck, it would be outside in a biting, howling wind at midnight. If so, I would signal the good sergeant any ideas I had while I sat by the window in the sitting room. I’d noticed a brown leather sofa just under that window on which I could recline with a pillow under my head while I instructed my partner. After all, rank has its privileges.
I noticed the scarcity of cars in either garage. There appeared to be room for around twenty to thirty cars. I had lots of choices as to the spot I selected. Evidently, there were few other guests at the inn. Unless business picked up, it would be easy to pick out the murderer. He or she would be the one left standing.
+++
Because I reserved rooms under the names Cy Dekker and Lou Murdock I doubted if anyone other than the murderer had any idea there were titles attached to our names. Without our police privileges, it might be harder to learn what we could prior to the murder, but if we could learn enough, maybe we might be able to prevent the victim’s demise, even though Mr., Mrs., or Miss Cut-and-Paste was not enamored with our successes.
I rejoined Lou and Longworth, and together Lou and I asked Longworth about the inn and our fellow travelers. He was guarded when discussing the other guests. He would tell us nothing except their names, and how many guests there were, but he was glib when it came to embellishing about the virtues of the inn. I only wished that he had cut down on the adjectives and supplied more nouns. I could judge for myself how many stars to bestow upon the vacation spot after I had experienced more of it. I merely wanted to know about its amenities, and its nooks and crannies. Eventually, he told us that all the rooms, except for the staff’s lodgings, were on the second floor, but that none of the rooms on the rear wing were being used, due to the fact that the inn recently reopened and the number of guests were few. The dining room, sitting room, indoor pool, exercise room, library, and auditorium occupied much of the first floor. When Longworth mentioned the auditorium, it brought back memories of the way the inn used to be. In its glory days, it was known for its distinguished actors and wonderful plays. I never was much into plays, so I had to take the word of others as to how good they were. In my book, plays are just above operas and the ballet on the food chain. I just don’t have the stomach for those kinds of things.
Longworth told us that the inn had thirty-two large rooms, with his emphasis on large. Rooms had either king-or queen-si
ze beds, end tables on each side of the bed, a desk and chair, a table, a couch, a refrigerator, and two or three upholstered chairs, one of which reclined. Each room had a fireplace, and a container of wood sat ready for each occupant. The entire grouping of rooms was in an E shape, looking from the front, only there were no rooms above the front desk where guests checked in and out. Thus, only part of the bottom of the E contained rooms.
Longwood piqued my interest when his diatribe turned to food. Three meals were included each day in the cost of the room. They served breakfast at 7:00 (which meant I would have to rise earlier than usual), a mid-morning snack at 10:00, and lunch at 12:30. Also, snacks would be provided each afternoon at three, and hors d’oeuvres served prior to the evening meal, which was at 7:00, and bedtime snacks would be set out at 10:00 for anyone who was interested. Lou and I would be interested.
Longworth finished his monologue as Manfred returned to carry our luggage. None of the other guests were anywhere to be found, so we checked in, picked up the keys to our rooms, and mounted the steps behind Manfred. Having seen no other guests, we agreed to rest for thirty minutes before tackling the layout. Could it be that Longworth had already disposed of the other guests, but the snowstorm prevented him from pushing their cars over the cliff? Somehow I figured our job would be tougher than that.
My room was the first room on the left after mounting the steps and turning right. Across from my room, I could lean over the railing and practice Romeo and Juliet in my falsetto voice. Only two things prevented me from doing so. I don’t know Shakespeare, and under no circumstances do I use a falsetto voice. If I did choose to look over the railing, I could look down upon the registration desk, out upon the lobby, or up to the ceiling much higher than where I stood. I chose to do none of those things.
2 Murder in the Winter Page 2