4 Murder at Breakfast

by Steve Demaree

  “I think that’s all the questions I have for you right now, Mrs. Hunt, but please don’t leave the premises in case we have any more questions.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. Here, let me give you my number. Call me when you’re free.”

  I got out of that apartment as quickly as possible. I didn’t look back until I realized that Lou had paused at the door. Before he left, he said something to Mrs. Hunt.

  “He’s really shy around women, but I can tell he likes you,” Lou said.

  “Shy? Are you kidding me? Maybe you didn’t see him reaching out to those two women to give him CPR.”

  “That was on there, too?” I asked, before I could shut my mouth and rush away. George is really in for it now, or was Lou responsible for this? No, it had to be George. Lou wouldn’t know any more about how to do something like that than I would. I hoped I didn’t encounter anyone else who has seen my three minutes of shame. Or was it an hour?

  +++

  That incident so unnerved me that I ate a whole Hershey Almond bar instead of the one bite at a time that I usually do. I spit out the paper before I swallowed.

  After doing so, I turned and faced the Cheshire Cat. I would get even with him, too. Some day. Somehow.

  The other two third-floor residents were out of town, visiting their children, who were no longer children. The next person on my list was only a few feet down the stairs, or a lot more feet if we took the elevator. I thought about taking the stairs, letting Lou go first, tripping him. But I knew if I did, God would punish me. I brushed past Lou and hurried to the elevator. Maybe I would question the next person alone and send Lou over to talk to my next-door neighbor to see if she knew Mrs. Higgins. As we rode down in the elevator I wondered how long Wiis work before they break down. Hopefully, Lou’s Wii will break down before I do.

  +++

  It was Saturday, so Lou and I decided to question each of the other three residents who were in town and wrap things up for the weekend.

  Over the next hour, I talked to Hilda Winters, Joanne Moberly, and Elaine Jewell and found out nothing of consequence from any of them. All of them had chosen to go out the day before. All of them went out somewhere around 10:00, and each one returned just after 4:00. All of them admitted to knowing about Mrs. Higgins’s death, but none of them appeared to know about it until breakfast. I had no idea if all of them were telling the truth. I didn’t even have any idea yet if anyone murdered the woman. Miss Winters seemed to be the most broken up about Mrs. Higgins’s death, but then supposedly Miss Winters was a close friend of Mrs. Higgins.

  +++

  Lou and I sat in Lightning for a few minutes before we pulled away from the Parkway Arms parking lot. Most of the time, we do our reflecting upon the case at night, but since this was Saturday and we planned to do no more work that day, we took time to reflect while the case was still fresh in our minds. The two of us sat there silently, mulling over everything we had learned so far, which was not much.

  “Well, Lou, what do you think?”

  “I think it was Mrs. White in the kitchen with the lead pipe.”

  “You actually think she kept the lead pipe in the kitchen?”

  “Not really. But it’s the best I can come up with on so few clues.”

  “Okay, let’s say we have a murder here. If not, we get to do more reading on Monday, but humor me here, and let’s say that someone did the old lady in. Who might it have been?”

  “Well, Cy, If she was actually killed at noon, that sure cuts our suspect list down to a respectable number.”

  “Well, I’m not sure how respectable it is, being that the old lady was murdered. But tell me, who’s on your list?”

  “Well, all the residents but the boyfriend are out, because they were out at lunch. And if the door was latched, no one could have gotten to her at that time. So, I can see only two people who might have done it; the boyfriend or the cook.”

  “That settles it, then.”

  “That doesn’t settle it, Cy. It only narrows it down to two suspects.”

  “No, it settles it. We’ve never had it this easy, so obviously, when Frank finishes his autopsy we’ll learn that she’s been dead for three days and she was shot through the temple.”

  “And what about all of those who saw her during those last three days?”

  “Obviously it was an actress hired by the murderer.”

  “Or the murderer disguised as Mrs. Higgins.”

  “Looks like we’ve solved the case. Now all we have to do is check out all the actresses in town.”

  The two of us had lost it. Well, Lou had definitely lost his. I was trying to maintain mine.

  11

  I needed to turn Lou’s mind to something that the two of us still felt the same about, so I asked him if he felt up to a trip to the Scene of the Crime Mystery Bookstore.

  He said something like, “Sure. Never felt better.”

  I knew he was in denial. I believe God still performs miracles today, so I’m still praying for my friend. I wondered how long before people will start to ask me how long Lou has had cancer.

  I pulled up in front of the Scene of the Crime, got out, rushed past the crime scene tape and up the steps into the bookstore. I recognized a few people in the store. Many smiled, including the owner, Myrtle Evans, who must be able to afford a whole lot more now that Lou and I frequent her place. At least we will continue to do so as long as Lou feels up to it, and doesn’t feel that he needs to spend the rest of his days on top of his precious Wii Fit board. When Lou met Thelma Lou I wondered if I would some day lose my friend to a woman, but, until recently, I never felt I would lose him to something you lay on the floor, something that looks like an elongated version of bathroom scales. But when they take over your brain, in no way do you resemble the person you used to be. I know. I’ve seen the 1956 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers many times. Recently, I had begun to know what the Kevin McCarthy character felt like. How long will be it before I can trust no one? Is it possible that one day there will be someone who looks just like me, only skinnier? I shook my head to dismiss the thought.

  Unlike many people today, I read a fair amount of both classic and contemporary mysteries. I prefer ones that aren’t graphic and provide me with a list of suspects and allow me to solve the murder, just like I do in real life. I’d come to love our visits to the mystery bookstore. I wasn’t in a hurry to leave. Neither was Lou, as far as I knew. We perused the shelves, sought out suggestions from those who had tastes similar to ours. Lou and I still read the same books at the same time, so we looked for two copies of each book. The store has an extensive collection. It’s located in a two-story white-frame house, and the entire house is devoted to mysteries. Each room houses a different type of mystery, and Lou and I spend most of our time in the room with the sign above the door that reads, “Traditional and Cozy Mysteries.” There’s nothing wrong with psychological thrillers, police procedurals, hard-boiled mysteries, historical mysteries, or any other type, but Lou and I prefer a puzzle to solve, not blood and guts all over the place and a psycho wielding a chainsaw.

  We made our selections and headed to the register. We chose The Christie Caper and Sandal In Fair Haven from two of Carolyn Hart’s series, The Alpine Christmas by Mary Daheim, The Man With A Load Of Mischief by Martha Grimes, Puzzled To Death by Parnell Hall, The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie, Danger In The Dark by Mignon Eberhart, and The Case of the Lucky Legs by Erle Stanley Gardner. Lou and I had found that many authors write more than one series, but Agatha Christie and Carolyn Hart are the only two authors we’ve found so far who write two series that we enjoy almost equally. I love most anything Christie wrote, especially those featuring Hercule Poirot, and I like both Hart’s Death on Demand series and her Henrie O. series. While the differences between Lou and me are increasing, we still feel the same about almost every author and almost every book. I hope the similarity continues, although it would be good sometime to sit down with someone who likes
a different type of mystery than we do, just to see how the other half live.

  +++

  We left Scene of the Crime and I dropped Lou at his place. After deciding which book we would read first, we talked about asking the girls to dinner for that night or the next. We planned to eat together, whether the girls joined us for dinner, or not. Other than eat, and attend church together the next day, both of us would spend the rest of our weekend reading. If all went well, I wouldn’t read about a Wii in any of the books I’d purchased. I felt certain that Christie, Gardner, and Eberhart didn’t write about them, because they were safely in their graves before some man with too much time on his hands invented the Wii, and I hoped that none of the current authors wrote about that three-letter word, either.

  +++

  When I picked up Lou for dinner on Saturday night, he informed me that he had spent an hour and a half Wiiing. I spent the same hour and a half exercising. I exercised my eyes, my fingers, and my brain as I looked through the books I had purchased. Then, to make sure that I’d not overdone it, I walked to the bed, lay down, and closed my eyes. This time, when Lou used the “W” word, it didn’t hurt me as much as it usually did, because I knew why Lou did a longer workout. We were going to Antonio’s for their all-you-can-eat buffet. While I discovered that all that Lou could eat was now down to one plateful and one dessert, at least he ate real food, for a change. I wondered if I should consider that a breakthrough.

  +++

  After I dropped Lou off after dinner, I came home and decided to have some fun with the computer. I clicked in several similar searches, like fiction, best novels, and mystery novels. Somewhere during the search, I happened upon a wonderful website. I doubt if I will ever find another website that will tell me as much about what I want to know about my reading interests. Before I lost it forever, I added www.fantasticfiction.co.uk to my favorites list. My favorites list had grown to two websites.

  The website contained a listing for almost every fiction author I had heard of, and thousands of names that were unfamiliar to me. True, it didn’t list Bill Noel and his Folly mystery series that takes place on Folly Island, SC, or Tim Callahan, who writes the Kentucky Summers series about a young boy who visits his grandparents in Kentucky every summer during the late 1950s and early 1960s, but it includes most fiction authors who are known from Anaheim to Augusta and Seattle to Sarasota, and it lists all the books they have written. It even lists the books they have written that are to come out soon. That way, if I want to collect every book written by a certain author, all I have to do is wait until it’s released and then pick it up at the Scene of the Crime.

  +++

  From time to time, when I am in the midst of a case and working too hard, I have nightmares. All the criteria were in place, which might have something to do with the nightmare I had that night. It started out okay. I arrived at the Parkway Arms. Lou went to check with one of the other officers while I walked over to take the elevator to the second floor. I stepped into the elevator, pushed the number “2”, and stepped back to wait. As soon as the elevator door closed, someone lunged for me. I was unprepared and ended up on the floor, with Heloise Humphert on top of me and her mutt doing the best she could to tie my shoelaces together. If that wasn’t bad enough, the elevator came to a halt, between floors. The lights went out, but I knew my latest misfortune had caused the battleaxe to smile. She started running her fingers through my hair, and I felt her hot breath zeroing in on me. Her breath would have melted candle wax and would have sent a skunk scurrying for cover. I was saved from having to have rabies shots when suddenly the elevator door opened a few inches. Someone was trying to save me. I looked up and saw the linebacker maid push the door open as if there were nothing to it. She looked down at me, called me a two-timer, and started kicking me in the ribs. From the way my ribs felt, I deduced that she was also the punter and place kicker on the Parkway Arms football team. Quickly the hot breath upon my body retreated, and Miss Humphert sprang toward the maid. A forearm shiver sent the ugly woman toward the back wall of the elevator. As she hit, she made a noise similar to the one I made when I was kicked in the ribs, and then she bounced off the back wall toward the linebacker maid. Next, the varmint entered the foray. Before I could move, the mutt jumped up on top of me and landed upon my chest. I should have been pleased that the dog didn’t weigh as much as the linebacker maid, but that thought never crossed my mind. A varmint licking my nose prevented me from seeing how the wrestling match was going. I guessed that I would need the rabies shots after all. The fur ball yelped and flew off me when her owner landed upon my chest, after having been thrown from the ring by the professional. Suddenly, I no longer trusted the manager, since she was the one who first told me that the maids needed to call the handyman if they wanted to move anything.

  I continued lying there in pain, praying that the linebacker maid would take the ugly woman and her mutt away, so that I could lie there until I recovered or died. A few moments later, my forehead began to hurt, as if someone was beating me in the head. I woke up and realized who that someone was. Me. A few minutes later, I had managed to pull myself out from under my bed. That wasn’t the first time I vowed to get a bed that wouldn’t enable me to slide underneath it in my sleep. Two or three days later, when I was able to walk again, I helped myself to my feet and stumbled to the bathroom to access the damage. I found no evidence that anything had kicked or licked me, but there were dust bunnies in my hair. I vowed never to tell Lou about my latest nightmare, but planned to let my own maid know that I don’t tolerate dust bunnies. Should I let her start cleaning my house twice a week, instead of once? I planned to check with Betty McElroy to see what she thought.

  A few minutes later, I stumbled back to the bed, but it was forever before I managed to get back to sleep. I have no idea how they do it, but I was sure my nightmare would soon be found on YouTube. I promised myself that if I saw George coming toward me with a phone in his hand I would shoot the phone from his hand and buy him a new one. One like mine, that plugs into the wall, has a rotary dial, and no way to take pictures or take anyone on a journey to the Internet. George Orwell was right. It is just that Big Brother was a little late. Of course I wouldn’t shoot my friend in the hand. But I might confiscate his phone.

  +++

  I awoke Sunday morning, grateful for the opportunity to trade the murder investigation for one of my pastor’s sermons. Church was a little harder on Lou since he had become a new person. It wasn’t that Lou didn’t want to attend church anymore. It was that he didn’t match me éclair for éclair before church. He still fed the kitty when we went downstairs before church, but he refrained from the chocolate-covered éclairs filled with custard, and the pecan-covered éclairs with caramel inside. I guess Lou preferred reading instead of working out two hours on his Wii Fit board to get rid of the delicious pastries God had provided. Lou’s version of the Bible might have told him he could eat from any table in the church except for the pastry table. I, on the other hand, remembered Noah’s ark, and decided that the éclairs should enter my mouth two by two. While I wanted to eat all those delicacies that Lou refused, I ate only one additional éclair that morning. I figured I could work it off the next day walking from the Parkway Arms elevator to wherever I had to go.

  +++

  I enjoyed a good lunch with Lou, which means that I stuck my fingers in my ears while he ordered and never bothered to look at his food after it arrived. That allowed me to enjoy mine, including my two desserts.

  I took Lou back to his place then headed to mine to take a nap. There’s something about a Sunday afternoon after church that requires any normal human being to take a nap instead of discombobulating God’s peaceful creation.

  I woke from my nap refreshed, smiled when I realized that I didn’t have anything I had to do. I was beginning to enjoy early retirement, even though I would be retired only that one day. I got up from the bed, plucked a book from my rapidly growing collection, and ambled over to the r
ecliner to enjoy myself. Unless my next-door neighbor had stolen my keys, I had the rest of the afternoon to read. I hoped to navigate one hundred pages or so before the dinner bell rang. More than likely, I would be alerted to another murder, this time one of fiction, and I would form my list of suspects and alibis. Reading while I was working on a case was something new to me. In the past, neither Lou nor I took time for reading while we worked on a case. We never knew when a case would require long hours and cause us to forget what we had read.

  +++

  As is customary whenever we take the girls somewhere, Lou drove on Sunday night. That meant we got to ride in Lou’s 1957 red-and-white Chevy, and the four of us were the envy of anyone we passed. I call our lady friends “the girls” because I was born before political correctness. Besides, they always refer to us as “the boys.” I also prefer first names, but for some reason I’d never gotten past calling Dan Davis Officer Davis, yet I call Lieutenant Michaelson George. More than likely, it’s because George and I have been friends for a long time.

  As usual, we planned ahead. We chose Burkman’s, known for some of the best steaks anywhere. I chose a fourteen ounce filet mignon, Oscar style. I have no idea why I chose Oscar style. Crabmeat is not my favorite, and I sure don’t like asparagus, but I like the sauce. Lou selected a six-ounce filet bland style. The girls ordered similar to what Lou ordered. I shared my asparagus with the others, but wasn’t about to give away any of the biggest loaded baked potato known to mankind. I felt sorry for the others nibbling on green stalks and salad bar greenery while I feasted on what real men eat. I skipped the salad bar. There was nothing there that I wanted. Besides, a fourteen ounce steak, a baked potato almost that large, weighed down with real bacon, cheese, and swimming in butter and a dollop of sour cream, plus a couple of desserts that the menu suggested might be shared by two people were enough for me. I didn’t want to overdo it, not while the girls were there with us. I ate slower than usual, and did my best to keep the conversation going. My goal was to spend so much time at Burkman’s that no one would suggest that we go to Lou’s afterward to Wii. As it turned out, God was with me.