6 Murder at the Art & Craft Fair

by Steve Demaree

  I cringed. From the numbers I’d heard about today’s divorce rate I assumed that some men and women pick their spouses that way, but I’ve never seen a cop so frustrated that he or she had used that method to zero in on a murderer. That meant that Lou and I had more work ahead of us. I wondered why it’s always so easy in a novel, and then I remembered that’s it’s not always that easy there, either.

  +++

  Lou and I sat in my living room, in a less comfortable manner than before. The only new thing either of us could think of to try was to contact the people on the list that Joan Arrington had given us, the people who had given her a check. It was a longshot, but it was too late to check with any other vendors, to see who had given them checks. They would have deposited those checks on Monday. If not, they certainly would have deposited them before Friday. We had eight chances to hit paydirt.

  While I constantly refer to Hilldale as a small town, there are only ten or twelve cities in Kentucky that are larger, and Hilldale is in no way a backward community. In some small towns in Kentucky, most people pay for most of their purchases by cash. There are a lot of people in Hilldale who put many of their purchases on a credit card, or pay for them by check, so it didn’t surprise me when I saw that eight people who purchased something from Joan Arrington paid by check. What I hadn’t allowed for is that some of those who purchased from her lived out of town. If Lou and I were to run down each of these people it meant that we would have to make another road trip, but since all three of those other people who paid by check live less than an hour from Hilldale, this road trip wouldn’t last as long as the previous one. Lou and I talked over our strategy and decided to visit those who live in Hilldale that day, and save the others for the next day. We could have been looking for a needle in a haystack, hoping that the same people who purchased from Joan Arrington and paid by check did the same with Kincaid. I quickly realized that we needed to visit only four of the five Hilldale residents, since Earl Clements was on Arrington’s list. I hoped that each of these seven people, particularly those who lived out of town, were staying home and welcoming us with open arms. For a brief second, I thought about calling those people, but then I remembered how that went with Delbert Cross. This time our questions dealt with someone’s bank account. I was sure that most of these people wanted to see an ID before answering any of our questions, particularly those who didn’t live in Hilldale, and didn’t know Lou or me from a hill of beans.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Lou and I hurried to Lightning, hoping to put an end to our case. I looked at our list and was thankful that each of the Hilldale residents lived in town. I wasn’t anxious to make another trip out into the country, even if the person I needed to see had no children, or no hammer.

  I headed over to Cropper Street to see a Mrs. Birdwhistle. She lived at 219 Cropper, apartment three. I found the place with no problem, and Lou and I got out and mounted the steps. The building had only four apartments and each of them had a porch and a banister. I suggested to Lou that he might relocate. He suggested to me that I might mind my own business. None of those apartments were accessible from the outside, so we opened the front door and climbed the stairs. I managed to pull myself up using the handrail, without pulling my arm out of the socket, and after we made the turn and reached the zenith, I found the apartment I wanted and knocked on the door.

  A woman fifteen to twenty years my senior answered my knock.

  “You want something?”

  “I do.”

  I took out my credentials and showed them to her. She didn’t seem to be impressed.

  “I’m sorry. We haven’t had any crime around here.”

  I could tell I had a winner.

  “I’m sorry you haven’t had any crime around here, either, but that’s not the reason we came. You were at the Hilldale Art & Craft Fair last Saturday.”

  “I was. And that wasn’t a crime.”

  “No, it was a pretty good fair. You bought something from a woman named Joan Arrington, paid her by check. I was wondering if you also bought from the man in the tent next to her, a Tom Kincaid. He made 3-D wooden puzzles.”

  “I’ll have you know that my check was good, young man, and I detest puzzles. They frustrate me, you know.”

  “I had a feeling that they might. Thank you for your time, Mrs. Birdwhistle.”

  “How did you know my name? How did you know I bought something from a vendor there? I’m telling you this place has turned into a police state.”

  I could still hear her as we regained the first floor and opened the front door to leave.

  “Yeah, Lou, I think this would be a good place for you.”

  “Cy, I think she was smitten with you.”

  The two of us laughed all the way back to Lightning. I wondered if things would improve from there. I noticed that my next-door neighbor’s name wasn’t on the list, so I figured things would soon get better. I doubted if they would go downhill. I made a mental note to send an anonymous note to Vernon Pitts telling him that Mrs. Birdwhistle does free babysitting.

  The second place we visited was a slight improvement. There was no one at home. The woman who lived there didn’t leave us a note telling us whether or not she had bought anything from Kincaid on Saturday. We would have to return after she did. I read off the next name, Charlie Borders. He lived a few streets over. It took ten minutes for us to get to his house, and I gave a sigh of relief when I spotted a car in the driveway. Again, we got out. Borders lived in a house. He must have been expecting us. He was sitting on a porch swing. He smiled as we approached.

  “Afternoon, Gentlemen. Since I don’t know you, I’d say you’re here on some kind of business.”

  “And I’d say you’d make a good detective, which is what I am, by the way.”

  I took out my ID and showed it to him. He seemed more impressed than Mrs. Birdwhistle.

  “What would the Hilldale Police Department want to see me about?”

  “Nothing bad, I can assure you, Mr. Borders. I just have a question about the Hilldale Art & Craft Fair.”

  “Well, I’m your man. The wife and I were there last weekend. Go every year. She enjoys it more than I do, but I can always find a seat and someone to talk to if I get tired of looking before she does. So, how can I help you?”

  “I was wondering if you happened to buy a puzzle from a man named Tom Kincaid. He had wooden puzzles, 3-D puzzles.”

  “I did. I’ve bought from him before. I’m a typical husband. I buy one of them things from time to time, work it for a while until I get frustrated, and then turn it over to the wife to do. She’s in there working on it now. Almost finished with it.”

  “How did you pay for the puzzle, Mr. Borders?”

  “Check. The wife insists we pay for things like that by check, in case we get home and something’s wrong with it. Of course, we’d bought from him before, so I didn’t expect anything to be wrong with it, but I gave him a check anyway, to keep peace in the family, you know.”

  “Do you have any idea if your check has been cashed?”

  “Yep. I checked our account online today. The check came through yesterday.”

  “Are you sure about this, Mr. Borders?”

  “Quite sure. When you give someone a check, most of the time they put it in the bank, Lieutenant. At least the people I know do.”

  “But, Mr. Borders, I bet most of the people you give checks to are still living the next day.”

  “Are you telling me that he was the guy who got murdered?”

  “So, you knew someone was murdered?”

  “Yep, heard about it at the barber shop the other day. Nobody there knew who it was, said it was some guy from out of town, but I didn’t figure it was somebody I’d met. So, how’d he cash my check?”

  “He didn’t, Mr. Borders. See, what you didn’t find out at the barber shop is that whoever killed him robbed him too.”

  “And the sorry so-and-so was dumb enough to deposit the checks he stole?”r />
  “Evidently, Mr. Borders. We’re hoping this will help us find out who did it. Now, we have something to work with. If you don’t mind, tell us where you bank, and we’ll go there and find out who signed the back of the check, and where they cashed it or deposited it.”

  “Sure, Lieutenant. We bank at People’s. Have for years. Tell Art Gobleman that I said it was okay to give you any information you want about my account.”

  “I think they’ll be cooperative, Mr. Borders. After all, this is a murder case. If that isn’t enough for the bank, the fact that someone illegally cashed or deposited someone else’s check should be, because the FBI can get involved with that.”

  “Oh, by the way, Lieutenant. I left the name blank on the front of the check too, so someone would have had to have filled that part in, too.”

  We thanked Borders for his time, and headed off to decide whether or not we wanted to follow up any other leads.

  +++

  It was getting close to supper time. Lou and I decided to shut it down for the day and planned to get up Saturday morning and see what, if anything, we planned to do.

  +++

  Lou and I felt that our case was coming to a close. We would either be able to identify the murderer when we found out who cashed one of Kincaid’s checks or when a certain cop returned from vacation and we could find out if he remembered the name of the person he stopped on Saturday night, near the scene of the murder. I wouldn’t be able to talk to the cop until sometime Sunday, and we wouldn’t find out anything at the bank until Monday. My guess was that both of these ventures would lead us to the same conclusion. It would be circumstantial evidence, but most people are convicted from circumstantial evidence. Not a lot of crimes are witnessed.

  +++

  I hoped it wasn’t premature, but Lou and I were ready to celebrate. We were headed to Burkman’s to celebrate with a big steak. Actually, we were going to celebrate with a smaller steak, and depending on what else we ate, there was a good chance some of that steak was going home and would be enjoyed the next night. I did order steak with a baked potato swimming in butter, but both Lou and I refrained from ordering our customary appetizer and dessert, and we didn’t eat any of the bread they brought us. As it turned out, we filled up on salad, which gave us the opportunity to take half of our steak home with us. I planned to cut up the rest of my steak and enjoy it in a salad on Saturday night.

  +++

  Both Lou and I got up when we felt like it on Saturday morning and checked our usual items off our lists before I gave him a call. Neither of us could see any reason to work on Saturday. We would be patient and see what Sunday and Monday would bring us. I had been running around for the last several days. Maybe I would go out back and play in my sandbox, work the 3-D puzzle I bought from a dead man, or lie back in my recliner and solve a simpler mystery. I might even work in a nap somewhere along the line.

  Saturday turned out to be a pleasant day. The temperature was a little on the warm side for October, but pleasant enough that I plucked a mystery novel from the stack next to my recliner, and headed for a cushiony chair in the back yard, under a shade tree. As long as my next-door neighbor didn’t step out in her backyard, I was content to enjoy the breeze. Several leaves had turned, expired, and floated to the ground, but there were enough still in the tree that I would prolong calling my yard boy a few more days.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Sunday morning arrived, and in many ways it was a typical Sunday morning. I picked Lou up and we headed to church. In days gone by we arrived early and partook of those delicious éclairs the church provided for all the people who skipped the fast food restaurants on their way to church and felt they needed something to help them stay obese.

  We refrained from talking about the case until after church, and even then, our first thoughts were of our pastor’s sermon, and what we got from it. Our pastor always delivered a message worth remembering. Sometimes we discussed other people at church, not in a gossiping way, but as they might relate to the two of us. Next, our thoughts navigated to lunch, and what we were going to do about it. In the olden days, before Lou and I began to watch our figures, we always ate out, but now we each return to our home and eat alone, and it was no different that Sunday. Well, I usually eat alone. Sometimes Lou picks up Thelma Lou and takes her somewhere. Neither of us had made plans for that Sunday afternoon, but still a little worn out from the case we’d been working on, both of us opted to eat at home, take a nap, and pick up the mystery that both of us had included in our repertoire the day before. But before we parted ways, I had to ask him a question.

  “Lou, did God give you a message today?”

  “The eagle has landed.”

  I thought about Lou’s four words for a moment. Nothing he said clued me in as to the identity of the murderer, and I knew better than to ask him what it meant.

  “I know that saying is a famous line delivered aboard a space shuttle, but I have no clue how it relates to our case. Maybe a good lunch and a better nap will enlighten me.”

  “And Cy, don’t forget to call Bill Hardy and see if he pulled anyone over on Saturday night. I know I’m going to be awfully disappointed if he didn’t.”

  “And I know that someone else will be awfully disappointed if he did.”

  Lou laughed at my remark.

  I dropped Lou off at his place, and went home and called Bill Hardy. Again, no answer. Where was he? I was a firm believer that anyone who had to return to work after a week’s vacation needed to get back and rest at least one day before returning to work. I remembered that Bill had to be back at work on Monday. Then, I remembered that Bill had kids. I wondered how he was able to keep his kids out of school for a week, but then I suspected that his kids wanted to do everything they could possibly do, which meant that Bill would get back to Hilldale much later than an impatient lieutenant wanted him to return. I put the phone back on the hook, and went to fix myself something to eat. After eating, I headed for a much-needed nap. I would try Bill again after I got up.

  +++

  I can’t figure why I always yawn when I wake up, but many times I do. That Sunday, I woke up, remembered where I was, and recalled that I didn’t have a lot on my plate that day. I had one phone call to make, but I might have to repeat that phone call several times before I reached my party. I also had a book to finish reading, one that I’d started the day before. I liked the life of a semi-retired policeman. I lay there and thought of the same things I thought of just a short time before. Did I want to retire and take it easy? Did I want to work part time as a private detective? Did I want to get married? Did I want to move away from Hilldale, maybe move to Lexington? I still wasn’t sure of the answers to any of those questions, so I guessed that meant that for the time being I was to carry on as usual. God would let me know what to do in good time.

  +++

  When I was good and ready, I pushed myself from my bed and ambled to the living room. I gave Bill Hardy a little more time to get home. I picked up the book I was reading and focused in on the clues that would help me solve that mystery. Nero Wolfe had it right. Why move around all over the place if you can solve a murder in the comfort of your own home? Did that mean I was to retire and read all the time? I wasn’t sure that I was to do that, but I had come to really enjoy reading a good mystery, and was constantly adding new authors to my favorites list.

  +++

  It was a little after 5:00 when I tried Bill again. This time he answered.

  “Bill, this is Cy Dekker.”

  “Hey, Cy, good timing. We just got back from vacation fifteen or twenty minutes ago. What can I do for you?”

  “A witness told me that one of Hilldale’s finest pulled over a motorist somewhere near Hilldale Park last Saturday night. I’ve hit a dead-end and was wondering if that officer might have been you.”

  “It was. Am I being accused of police brutality?”

  I could hardly control my excitement.

  “Nothing like that
. Did you know there was a murder in the park that night?”

  “No, Cy. We left on vacation early Sunday morning, didn’t even take time to read the paper before we left.”

  “Well, we didn’t discover the body until late Sunday anyway. From what we can deduce and what Frank has told us, we think the murder might have happened just prior to your police stop. There’s no record that you gave this person a ticket, but I was wondering if you can remember his or her name.”

  “I remember I made a note of it at the time, left it in the cruiser. Let me run out there and see if it’s still there.”

  I only had time to hum the Final Jeopardy theme one and a half times before Bill returned.

  “Cy, I’ve got it.”

  Bill gave me the name and address. His declaration surprised me. I was expecting to hear a different name, although I wasn’t sure which different name I was expecting to hear. I was pretty sure I had my murderer, but I needed to make another call. I dialed another number, asked one question, and found out the motive that I hadn’t figured out on my own. I hung up, and for some reason thought of our clue of the day. I might be able to tie that in, too, but I had to go to the computer to do so. Five minutes later, my suspicions confirmed, I was ready to wrap up the case. I felt certain that when Monday arrived I could prove the robbery as well as the murder.

  I took a couple of minutes to think about what we would do before I contacted Lou. I wanted to be there to arrest the murderer. I envisioned putting the murderer in Lightning’s back seat, and later getting hit over the head while I drove. I’ve been a homicide detective long enough that I knew Lightning wasn’t built for apprehending anyone. Lou and I needed back up. Since the two of us are the only two people in homicide, our back up would have to be someone outside of homicide. Immediately I thought of the perfect back up couple, Dan and Heather. Both of them drove cruisers, with protection between them and a suspect in the back seat, and rear doors that couldn’t be opened from the inside.