52 Steps to Murder (25 page)

“Enough of this nonsense. Are you ready to go?”

“I believe I have made things right with God.”

“I mean to work, Lunkhead.”

“No, but I’m ready for breakfast.”

“Be right there, and oh, by the way, speaking of God, have you been up long enough that He told you His word for the day?”

“Funny you should phrase it that way. Today’s message is just one word. Patience.”

“Patience. Is that with a ‘ts’ or a ‘ce?’”

“My messages are not written down, nor are they spelled out. All I know is today’s message is patience. You figure it out.”

“As you know, I do my best figuring on a full stomach. See you in a few minutes.”

+++

Although it meant I had to walk a greater distance to get to my smiley-faced Lightning, I had parked behind the house when I got home on Thursday night. It was my latest attempt to get away from my overbearing neighbor without being spotted.

I closed the back door of the house as quietly as possible and tiptoed down the back steps. Eventually, I reached the car without catching sight of, or hearing the grating voice of my next-door neighbor. I unlocked the door and slid onto the seat as quickly as my pains allowed.

I started the car and turned on the radio, something I seldom did, because it kept me from hearing any calls I might receive from the dispatcher. But for the next few seconds I hoped it would keep me from hearing my next-door neighbor’s irritating voice. Once I’d put some distance between myself and my next-door neighbor, I would turn the radio off.

I backed the car toward the street. As I neared the street I noticed my neighbor with the built-in radar approaching my car. I smiled and continued backing into the street. As I pulled away to pick Lou up, I continued to smile. I looked in the rear-view mirror and watched the diminishing figure of my next-door neighbor. Then, I adjusted the mirror for a moment, looked at myself, and noticed I was smiling. I couldn’t remember ever smiling when I saw my next-door neighbor, but then there was something about her figure growing smaller while the distance between us grew larger that was enough to put a smile on my face.

36

After feasting on our culinary choices, Lou and I searched for Hartley. We drove down Hilltop Place. Hartley had already delivered the mail.

“Boy, he sure gets an early start. Do you reckon he does without breakfast?”

“That could be why he’s so anemic looking, but I bet he has one of those breakfast shakes or some yogurt.”

“Yeah, but he’d still need to eat breakfast, wouldn’t he?”

I turned the car around and drove down Elm Street. Elm Street crossed most of the other streets in the area and gave us a better chance of finding Hartley. As we crossed each street, I looked left while Lou looked right. We’d gone only two or three streets before we spotted a mail truck. I turned the car onto the street, pulled in front of the mail truck. Two eagle-eyed detectives spotted the blur of a man delivering mail and soon found out that our blur was Hartley.

Upon seeing us waiting for him, Hartley called out.

“Oh, hello, detectives. Have you Mounties found your man yet?”

“Sergeant Preston and Yukon King are on the trail.”

“Which one of you is Yukon King?”

Lou answered before I had a chance.

“Well, since I’m the sergeant, this must be King.”

“I’m not yet a king, but give me time,” I interjected.

Hartley drew close enough to see our battle scars.

“Boy, it looks like the two of you caught something. You haven’t been working out with the Green Bay Packers without a helmet, have you?”

I looked Hartley in the eye. I wondered if he was responsible for our injuries.

“It was supposed to be a secret. How did you find out?”

The mailman laughed, then continued.

“Well, I hope this is as a result of making progress on the case.”

“We’re continuing to make progress, Mr. Hartley. Tell me, have you seen anyone on Hilltop Place in the last couple of days?”

“Now that you mention it, I haven’t. Do you believe everyone’s left town or fallen over dead?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Hartley. Has anyone stopped their mail?”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever had anyone stop their mail before they died, although Mrs. Nelson stopped hers while she was in the hospital.”

“What about leaving town? Did Miss Penrod stop her mail?”

“You know, now that you mention it, she didn’t.”

“Did you notice any mail in her box?”

“I really haven’t paid attention, what with my mind being on Mrs. Nelson and Mrs. Jarvis.”

“What about Mr. Silverman? Have you seen him, or did he stop his mail?”

“No to both questions.”

“Do you remember putting anything in his box this morning?”

“I believe I did, but I’m not sure.”

“Mr. Hartley, have you by any chance been on Hilltop Place at night any time in the last few days.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Just curious.”

“Now, why would I be over there at night? You know I carry the mail only in the daytime.”

“Why don’t you tell us why you’ve been over there?”

“Did someone say I was on Hilltop Place at night?”

“Let’s just cut the chitchat, Mr. Hartley. Why didn’t you tell us that you rented a house from Mr. Hornwell?”

Hartley almost dropped his mail.

“How did you find that out?”

“One of our men spotted you on the street the other night. What were you doing on Hilltop Place after dark?”

“Just checking on my house.”

“And checking on your digging equipment?”

Hartley appeared stunned and took a moment to answer.

“I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Maybe not. Just see that you don’t. We’ll keep in touch.”

Hartley didn’t respond. He stood there sweating. I was sure that he was wondering how much the police department knew about his activities. I could tell that up to a few seconds ago he thought his movements had gone unnoticed. I wondered if the money we had found was his.

Lou and I left Hartley and went back to Hilltop Place. We saw Officer Davis parked in front of Mrs. Nelson’s house and pulled up to talk to him.

“Good morning, Officer Davis. Any activity on the street this morning?”

“Nothing but the mailman.”

“And have you seen anyone open his or her door and collect the mail?”

“Not anyone at this end of the street. I assume those are the ones you’re interested in.”

I walked over and looked up at the Reynolds house. There was mail in the mailbox. Then I walked around and saw mail in Silverman’s box, but saw no one sitting in the window holding a pair of binoculars. I returned to Lou and Officer Davis.

“Officer Davis, am I correct when I say that you haven’t seen anyone at the Jarvis, Penrod, Nelson, Reynolds, or Silverman houses since you’ve been on detail here?”

Before he responded, Officer Davis took a minute to think about the five houses I had mentioned.

“That’s right, Lieutenant. No one. Do you want me to continue to stay here?”

“Yes. At least through the weekend. I want you on the job as much as possible, and make sure you find someone to relieve you anytime you need to leave. I want to know if anyone enters or leaves any of these houses, at least until we get some new evidence or an autopsy report.”

“No problem, Lieutenant.”

“A couple of other things. Now that you’ve had time to think about it, do you think you can identify the person who was in Mrs. Nelson’s house when you and Angela Nelson were upstairs?”

“Sorry, Lieutenant. I didn’t see whoever it was.”

“Think for a minute. From the sound of the footsteps, do you think they were made by a man or a woman?”

“My guess is a man, but I can’t say for sure. At least it wasn’t someone wearing high heels.”

“Also, is there any way that Angela Nelson could have gotten up those steps and poisoned her grandmother while the two of you were in the house.”

“How long did it take her to die, Lieutenant?”

“Approximately fifteen to twenty minutes.”

“Then there’s no way, Lieutenant. Miss Nelson never went up those steps until about a minute or so before we found her grandmother dead. I’m sure of that. We hadn’t even been in the house anywhere near fifteen minutes. I’d say we’d been there less than five minutes.”

“Officer Davis, think carefully. Did you hear anyone in the house prior to the two of you entering the house, or did you hear any noises in the house prior to hearing someone running from the house?”

“Sorry, Lieutenant. I didn’t hear anything.”

“Then we don’t know if the intruder followed you or was already hiding in the house when the two of you entered,” I said, as I turned away.

I thought of something else and turned back to Officer Davis.

“One other thing, the man you phoned me about the other night, the one you saw on the street after dark, do you have any idea if it was the same person you saw running from the Nelson house the morning of the murder?”

“Since I didn’t see the first person, I really can’t say.”

“I didn’t think you could, but I thought I’d ask. Could it have been Mr. Hartley?”

“I guess so.”

“Thanks for everything, Officer Davis. I’ll be in touch.”

As I turned away, I pulled a candy bar from my pocket, carefully opened it, and ate one almond and the chocolate that surrounded it. This move so motivated Lou that he took out his bag of M&Ms and downed a few.

As I chewed and savored my delicacy, I turned to my partner.

“Well, Lou, I think I’ve discovered something.”

“What’s that, Cy?”

“Something none of us likes to discover. I think our word for today is patience with a ‘ce.’”

“Does that mean that we’re to lie low until someone confesses?”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen, but it might mean that we’re supposed to cool our heels until the next clue presents itself.”

“Where do you think we are, anyway, Cy?”

“I’m not sure, Lou. From what we have on the table it looks like our murderer would have to be either Hartley, the postman, or Miss Penrod, the next-door neighbor. That is unless it was our mysterious intruder, who could be Hartley, but not Miss Penrod, or someone who came up through the underground, which could have been the person Silverman saw in Miss Penrod’s house, provided there was such a person. And if it was someone from the underground, he or she would have had to have timed his or her murder sometime between when Miss Penrod and Hartley left and before Officer Davis and Miss Nelson arrived on the scene. Still, something tells me that things will begin to clear up soon.”

“Yeah, maybe as soon as we locate the Reynoldses. At least, I hope so.”

“Does that mean that we won’t have to navigate all those steps again?”

“I don’t know. If so, we’ll have to think of a new way to work up an appetite.”

“We never seemed to have any trouble before we started spending so much time on this street.”

“You’ve got a point there, Cy.”

37

I drove toward McAdams department store to call on Angela Nelson. I hoped that calmer surroundings and a few days distance from her traumatic experience might enable her to think of something she had forgotten the day she found her grandmother. I parked the car. Lou and I entered the store and asked a clerk where we might find Miss Nelson. She directed us to the proper department.

“Well, good morning, Lieutenant. What brings you here today?” Angela Nelson asked, surprised to see us. “And what happened to the two of you? You look like you’ve been in a fight.”

“The rigors of being a police detective, Miss Nelson.”

“You haven’t found out more about my grandmother’s death, have you?”

“Nothing that I’m ready to reveal at this time. I just had something I wanted to ask you. Other than Officer Davis, did you see anyone near your grandmother’s house prior to your finding your grandmother?”

“Well, I think I might have seen Mr. Silverman in his window.”

“Did you see anyone else or did you see any activity as the cab driver drove down the street?”

“No. Why, do you think I might have just missed whoever murdered my grandmother?”

“There’s a good possibility of that, Miss Nelson. You didn’t by any chance see whoever else was in the house, did you?”

“No. Sorry, Lieutenant.”

“What about when they were running out the door? Did you catch a glimpse of anyone?”

“I’m afraid not. Officer Davis and I were just beginning to come down the stairs when we heard whoever it was. Then, we ended up tumbling down the steps.”

The thought of tumbling down the steps stopped me for a moment.

“You didn’t happen to look out the window after Officer Davis ran out to his cruiser, did you?”

“No. Sorry, Lieutenant. I guess I’m no help.”

“What did you do while Officer Davis was outside reporting your grandmother’s death?”

“I’m not sure. I was so upset. I guess I sat on the couch, but I couldn’t say for sure.”

“You didn’t by any chance go back up to see your grandmother, did you?”

“I might have. I don’t remember. Like I said, I was so upset to find out my grandmother was dead.”

“I don’t guess you have any idea what Officer Davis did when he left the house.”

“You mean to report my grandmother’s death, or afterwards? In either case, I don’t know.”

“You haven’t by any chance been back to the house since your grandmother’s death, have you?”

“I thought about it. I thought spending an hour or so reliving some of the memories my grandmother and I had might help bring closure, but then I realized that I wouldn’t be able to get in. Besides, I wasn’t sure if I was allowed, or if you’re still treating it like a crime scene.”

“Well, it would be best if you stayed away a few more days. I’ll let you know when it’s okay to go back.”

“Thanks, Lieutenant. I appreciate everything you’re doing.”

“You’re welcome, Miss Nelson. I’ll let you know if anything comes up. Oh, one other thing. Do you know who owns the two empty houses up the street?”

“I’ve never really thought about it, Lieutenant. I’m sure there’s some place where you can check. I have no idea if they’re owned by the estates of the people who used to live there, or not. Sorry, I can’t help you.”