4 Murder at Breakfast

by Steve Demaree

  “What do you want, Lieutenant? Want to see if my desserts tonight are worth staying for?”

  “Oh, I’m sure they are, but we won’t be able to stay. I know everyone will be heartbroken that we’ll be leaving soon.”

  “I’m sure, but none as heartbroken as Christine Hunt and me. So, what is it you want with me? I assume I’m the one you came to see.”

  “You’re the only one worth coming to see.”

  “Pardon me a moment, Lieutenant, while I lift my feet.”

  We both laughed. The woman had changed. I sure hoped she wasn’t the one who did it. Not that I was attracted to her. She was a good many years older than I. Well, maybe a few years. Anyway, a man like myself didn’t want to burn too many bridges between himself and a good cook. What if Rosie up and left? What would I do?

  “You were saying, Lieutenant?”

  “Oh, I merely wanted to check with you to see what time each of the residents left the dining room table on Friday morning.”

  “I thought we covered this already.”

  “Well, I was wondering if you might have an exact time for each one.”

  “Well, I didn’t look at the clock, but I have given this some thought. I think Katherine and Hilda left the table around 7:25. Christine and Joanne were next, and they left not more than two or three minutes later.”

  “So, all four of them left the table before 7:30?”

  “At least by sometime around that time. But I can’t be sure fo the exact time.”

  “Was there anything different about the time everyone left the table and when each one normally left the table?”

  “I think everyone left a little sooner than normal. All of them were going out, well all of them except Katherine, so that might’ve had something to do with it.”

  “Well, thanks for your help.”

  “Oh, Lieutenant, before you leave, we had a couple of extra pieces of German chocolate cake left over from lunch. Would you like one?”

  “I think you could twist my arm.”

  “And what about one for the sergeant?”

  “He doesn’t… I mean sure.”

  “Just a second, and I’ll get them for you. And by the way, Lieutenant, if you like, you can step outside the back door and eat yours and the sergeant’s piece, and that way you won’t get crumbs all over the place.”

  “I think you’re right. I’m not much good at cleaning up after myself, and I wouldn’t want to trouble the maids.”

  “Yeah, one of them told me how you troubled her before. I didn’t realize that she wore a partial.”

  I grinned, a sheepish grin, like a boy whose mother caught him with his hand in the cookie jar.

  +++

  I scarfed down the cake and hurried to the elevator. My questions had taken a little longer than I expected. I opened the door to the apartment. Lou was sitting in a chair. I had no idea if he had Wiied.

  “Where have you been?”

  The tone of Lou’s question was one of curiosity, not of a parent upset with a tardy teenager.

  “Oh, I had some questions for some of the people here.”

  “Looks like you’ve still got some of those questions on the side of your mouth, Cy.”

  “Well, I didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

  “So, what did you find out?”

  I filled Lou in on what I’d asked; we sat to discuss it.

  “So, Lou, what does any of this tell you?”

  “Nothing for sure. I doubt if anyone used Elaine Jewell’s window, unless she was the one who used it. I still don’t think that Russell Cochran scurried down that ladder. And you?”

  “I’m inclined to agree with you.”

  “One other thing we have to remember. No one was on the floor from 7:30 until after 9:00, when the maids started cleaning. All the staff were downstairs eating. If enough TVs were on, someone could have knocked lightly on Mrs. Higgins door and gotten in and out undetected.”

  “You have a point there. Let’s mull.”

  I sat down on the couch. No way I was going to lie down. I needed to think. We still had the same suspects. Nothing anyone told us pointed toward any one person or eliminated anyone. The ways the old woman could have died fluctuated, depending upon how she might have been murdered. The marks on the window in the storage area told us that someone had used the rope ladder at some point, but when? Maybe whoever used it used it on some day other than the day of the murder. But then other than to get to one of the second floor apartments, why would someone use the rope ladder to get to the second floor. What’s wrong with using the elevator and knocking on someone’s door? Russell Cochran was the only one who had a reason to be secretive. Wasn’t he? I had gotten nowhere, so it was time to move on. Later, after the residents had gone, someone could have used Elaine Jewell’s apartment and the roof to get to the apartment next door, but then if someone did, wouldn’t Wally have seen him or her? Unless that someone was Wally. If someone other than Miss Jewell had used her window, but didn’t return through her apartment, it meant that they would have had to have left the window unlocked. If Miss Jewell used it, she could have relocked the window on her return. Did anyone use Elaine Jewell’s apartment to get to the one the murdered woman lived in? And if so, why? The woman was already dead.

  I had an idea. I looked at my watch. It was only a few minutes until the residents would be going down to supper. While I didn’t want to go back to Miss Jewell and ask her if I could see her windows, I could wait until she went down for supper, then sneak out onto the flat roof and see if her windows were locked. At 5:20, I opened the door into the hallway. I didn’t care about anyone other than Miss Jewell. No one else could see me out on the roof, but just in case Miss Jewell’s blinds were open, or she heard me walking on the roof, I wanted to wait until she was gone.

  I stood in the open doorway, looking down at the carpet. I would have bent over, but then I didn’t want Lou to know how much easier he could get up than I could, even if I clutched the door facing. A couple of minutes later, Miss Winters came out of her apartment and rounded the corner. Shortly after Miss Winters rounded the corner, headed to the elevator, Miss Jewell opened her door. Miss Winters smiled when I smiled at her. Miss Jewell did not. I gave Miss Jewell a couple of minutes before I stepped back into the apartment and shut the door. I walked across the floor, opened a window, and stepped out onto the flat roof. I looked down upon the backyard. I saw no one. Slowly I walked across the roof toward Miss Jewell’s apartment. I could barely hear my footsteps. I hoped no one else could hear them at all. I had arrived at the first of Miss Jewell’s windows. I stepped right next to the window and looked down to see if it was locked. I’m not sure which happened next, but either I saw Miss Jewell standing there, or I heard her scream. Whichever one it was, it would have been hard to measure the time between when the woman screamed and when the thud of my body landed upon the flat roof.

  I was thankful that the roof was flat. Had it not have been, a week or so later, after my funeral and a decent mourning period, Lou would have been talking to Heather, explaining to her everything he knew about the case. All of this ran through my mind as I lay there, listening to the repeated screams of an old biddy inside, an old biddy who would have been better off if she hadn’t returned to her apartment before dinner.

  As far as I could tell, the throbbing ribs weren’t the same ones the linebacker maid dissected a few days earlier. Those had started to heal. My next thought, after the one I had about drawing my gun and silencing the woman inside, was to realize that rising up from ones knees while holding on to a door facing is much easier that pushing oneself up from a roof while gritting your teeth in case it helped the pain. It’s possible that I hit my head as I fell, judging from my next move. No, I didn’t roll off the roof and land on the ground below. Instead, I rolled across the roof, hoping if I made it to Mrs. Higgins’ apartment I could lift myself far enough that I could clutch onto the window sill and slither back into the apartment.
Once inside, as I lay on the couch, hoping that doing so would eliminate my pain, I thought about asking God if He would fix it so that Hazel Allnut and Elaine Jewell committed the murder together. If only I had done this outside of Christine Hunt’s apartment, at least I would be lying on her floor with lipstick smears all over my face. Any screams from her would have been screams of joy.

  A couple of days later, after my broken bones had healed enough that I could get up off the couch with Lou’s help, my hunger pangs were so severe that I stumbled to the door, ready to leave. I asked Lou to go first, with his gun drawn, and told him if anyone opened the door of the next apartment, that he should shoot first and clean up the mess afterward.

  34

  I let Lou drive my car when we left. I needed him to buckle me in first, but declined when he asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital to be checked. I knew if I did it would get back to George and Frank. Besides, I didn’t think I had broken anything, just rearranged things a bit.

  It was getting late. I directed Lou to Antonio’s and thought about my mishap as he drove. Maybe I could talk Officer Davis into pretending to be a building inspector and have him check the old biddy’s windows. After a few seconds of thought, I decided against that, partly because I didn’t want to hurt Officer Davis’ reputation, and partly because I figured that if the woman had stopped screaming, and had realized why I was checking her windows, she would have done something about them by now. At any rate, nothing about those windows would have been conclusive evidence. Maybe Russell Cochran was fooling around with two women.

  My thoughts changed to what might have been. What if when I had hit the roof it had caved in? From what I can surmise from my less than brilliant state of mind caused by my condition, if I had gone through the roof I would have landed either on the dining room table or in the kitchen. Neither landing would have been a pleasant experience. It would have given an all new meaning to, “Guess who’s coming to dinner.”

  I was glad when Lightning eased into Antonio’s parking lot, and further pleased when I saw that there were few patrons on that Thursday night.

  For once I was glad to be seated in a booth. I didn’t want any part of trying to hoist myself up onto a stool. I was hopeful that I would feel better the next morning, and that neither Lou nor Rosie had to help me get seated. That could lead to questions, and I could see Lou explaining to Rosie that I fell down when some woman caught me looking in her window.

  Our server came quickly, which is how a server should come, and I ordered something I hadn’t tried in a while, the triple stuffed combo; ravioli stuffed with beef, cannelloni filled with cheese, and for dessert, chocolate filled cannoli. Naturally I needed a second dessert, so I opted for a tiramisu, even though I had come to think of that as a feminine dessert. I’m not sure what the shell of a man across from me ordered, but there was not much to it.

  When my food arrived, I was overcome by a fun idea, but refrained from following through for a couple of reasons. One, I wanted be allowed inside Antonio’s again, and two, I needed for Lou to drive me home. I shoved the idea over to one side of my brain, in case one day I would have Antonio’s deliver to my house, and I was in the mood for the same foods I ordered that night. But, before I ate, I fantasized. I envisioned myself picking up a ravioli square, putting all except a minute amount in mouth, and clomping my teeth down into it. Then, I would take my fingers and pull the pasta from my mouth and savor the meat stuffing still inside for a few moments before I chewed and swallowed it. Then, I would quickly eat the pasta I grasped between my thumb and forefinger.

  The reason I would eat the ravioli first, is because I like to save the best for last. That’s the reason I seldom eat dessert first. I envisioned the cannelloni as a tube of toothpaste and myself as one-half of a married couple, the half that squeezes the toothpaste from the middle. This is where Lou and the people who run Antonio’s come in. If I squeezed the cannelloni in the middle, would the part that did not squirt into my mouth find itself plastered somewhere near Lou’s eye? I smiled as I thought of that possibility.

  I ate my food in a much less fun and more mannerly way than what I had envisioned and looked up to see the anemic man across from me waiting patiently. I wondered how much longer he would be able to feed himself and if that would happen before or after I would have to check him into a nursing home. I was sure he had lost two pounds sitting there while I ate. I thought again about seeing that he got an IV regularly, but then I wondered if that alone would be enough to help him regain his strength. They say we should be thankful in all things, and the only thing I could think of to be thankful about at that moment was that Lou didn’t have a tattoo. If Lou had had a tattoo, from the amount he had shrunk there would be no way that anyone would have been able to tell what that tattoo once was. I had to get out of that place. Surely it was my fall that caused me to think about such strange things.

  When we left, I asked Lou if he minded dropping me off at my house and taking my car back to his place. Of course that meant that he would have to pick me up the next day, but he agreed.

  We didn’t linger when we got to my house. I didn’t want my next door neighbor to catch me. I wasn’t sure if a woman with broken arms was faster than a man with sore ribs, and I had no inclination to find out. I bade Lou a quick goodbye and hobbled off around the house to the back door.

  didn’t feel like reading or watching any of my videos, so I went on to bed, even though the sun was just going down. I hoped that an extra couple of hours in bed might help me feel better the next morning. I made the necessary bathroom trip just as someone called me on the phone. The phone had stopped ringing by the time I got to it. I doubted if it was Lou, but called him anyway. He had just unlocked the door when I called. I figured it might have been a wrong number, so I stripped down to my boxers and undershirt, and eased myself into bed. I had been there no more than five minutes when the doorbell rang. I reached out and grabbed my pants and put them back on a couple of pains at a time. I plodded to the front door. I didn’t want to open the door to any crazy women, so I eased over to look out to see who was there. I noticed a police car and figured my neighbor hadn’t stolen one, so I hollered “just a minute” and went to see which of my friends was calling at such a late hour.

  I opened the door to find an officer I had seen, but not one I knew well.

  “Sorry, to bother you, Lieutenant, but we received a call from one of your neighbors. She said she saw someone steal your car. We tried to call you, but no one answered, so we figured we’d better check it out in case it was true. When I didn’t see your car in the driveway, I figured I’d knock to see if you were home.”

  I explained the situation to the officer, minus any information about my aches and pains and how they occurred, but refrained from asking him to go next door and shoot whoever answered the door. With my luck, the woman had convinced Hospice to come and do for her until she got on her feet again. I didn’t want anyone shot except Her Ugliness, and I knew better than to think that thought for more than a nanosecond, however long that is.

  I had just gotten my pants off and gotten back in bed when I heard another knock on the door. I stumbled from the bed, put on my pants once again, and went to check and see if the Avon lady was running late. Whoever was there looked like the remains of someone from Stratford on Avon during Shakespeare’s time, only the two casts looked like something from the modern era. I stopped myself from calling downtown and reporting a burglar. I stumbled back to bed, where I remained for approximately two minutes, until the phone rang. To the best of my knowledge, she who lives next door doesn’t have my phone number, so I inched from the bed to the phone. Luck was with me. It was still ringing when I picked it up, most likely because I didn’t have to don a pair of pants to answer the phone. This time it was the shell of my former friend, asking me if I found out who had called. After I explained everything to Lou and listened to him chuckle, I hung up, located a pair of earplugs, and went to bed. Maybe if I dreamed that
I was soaking in a hot tub I would feel better when I woke up the next morning. I even thought about sleeping in a tub of hot water, but refrained from doing so because it would have meant I would have to take up my bed and walk. Besides, I wasn’t certain that I wouldn’t drown sometime during the night. Nor was I sure that I wouldn’t shrink to the size of my friend. Instead, I turned over until I discovered a couple of pains, then did the best I could to go to sleep.

  35

  I had been awake only a couple of seconds on Friday morning when I remembered that my ribs hurt. They didn’t hurt nearly as bad as when I had a previous fall when I was working on another case, but they reminded me of my travails of the day before. I lay in bed for a few minutes, hoping that doing so would mend my wounds. When the rumbles in my stomach equaled the pain from my ribs, I used my twelve step method for getting out of bed and a couple of days later I was on my feet and somewhat coherent.

  It took me a bit longer than usual to get ready, and then I called Lou to tell him I was on my way to pick him up. He chuckled.

  “How do you plan to get here, Cy?”

  It was then that I remembered that I had entrusted Lightning to his care for the night.

  “How long do you think before you’ll be here?”

  “I think I heard Tweetie flying up and down the driveway anticipating my appearance.”

  “The name is Lightning, not Tweetie.”

  “Looks like Tweetie to me.”

  “Well, anyway, since I have to wait on you, give me something to do. What did God give you today?”

  “Cy, you’re the one who always says God gives them to me, but since they help, I guess maybe He does. Anyway, today’s clue is ‘Sometimes what you think you have is really missing.’”

  “Do what?”