Murder in the Winter (2 page)

I was about to tell Miss Busybody that I worked every
day, then I remembered that Lou and I no longer worked when there were no
murders to solve.

“Did you see anyone in my driveway earlier today, Miss
Humphert?”

“As a matter of fact, I did, Cyrus. It was about 4:37
this morning. Twinkle Toes barked, and I got up to see what she was barking
about. I looked out and saw a hunchbacked old man sneaking away from your
house. I started to come over and alert you, but it was so late, and I wasn’t
sure whether to wake you, or not.”

“I’m sure glad you didn’t, Miss Humphert. My old
ticker isn’t what it used to be. I’m not sure if it would’ve held up seeing you
at my door in the middle of the night. By the way, I don’t guess you could
recognize the old man if you saw him again.”

“No, Cyrus. I’m sorry, but I can’t. I just know he was
old, hunchbacked, and not too tall, and he was bundled up to where I couldn’t
see his face.”

“That’s okay. I just thought you might have followed
him and invited him over for meatloaf. Well, I’d love to stay and chat, Miss
Humphert, but, as you can see, I have work to do. Maybe we can make a snowman
some other time.”

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 check-in 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.