3 Murder In The Library

by Steve Demaree

  I was curious to see how our college student was behaving, so Lou and I started our run near campus. Someone had opened the door twice, sighed, and reluctantly closed the apartment door. Someone had even looked out the back window. I hated to nix Blakeman’s date, but sometimes love has to take a back seat to justice.

  All was proceeding well until we arrived at Belding’s house. Lou pointed and I looked at a scuffle taking place on the front lawn. Neighbors stood in their doors, looking on in awe. As I pulled Lightning up to the curb of the house next door three officers pulled Belding to his feet.

  “Well, Mr. Belding, how nice of you to take us up on our offer of accommodations for the evening.”

  Belding mumbled something I couldn’t understand.

  Mrs. Belding stood in the door, downcast.

  Two officers escorted Belding over to a squad car and into the back seat. He yelped as they bent his head to allow him to get in. After Belding was firmly ensconced in the car, a couple of the officers came over to fill us in. Despite his wife’s protestations, Belding came stomping out of the house ordering the officers to leave. They stood there and took his spew of expletives, but when he took a swing at one of them, they drew the line. He was so irrational that it took two of them to hold him down so the third one could put the cuffs on him. I would’ve loved to have forgotten about Belding for a couple of weeks, but we needed him for the lineup, just in case he had been coherent enough to have committed the murder. I’d begun to doubt his guilt, but sometimes the most likely and most irrational acting one committed the murder.

  I encouraged the officers to eat before they left, giving Belding an opportunity to calm down, and to allow as many of his neighbors as possible to see how what his temper had brought upon him.

  +++

  We saved the Hardesty and Downey houses for last, knowing that two of the men who volunteered for duty were our good friends Lt. George Michaelson, and Frank Harris, the medical examiner.

  “Well, Frank, so you finally are willing to admit that you have little work to do.”

  “No, Cy, I just know that wherever you are a body is soon to wind up there, so I wanted to save you a phone call.”

  “Well, Frank, I’m sorry to disappoint you. The only dead meat I’ve got for you at present is in the form of Strombolis, hoagies, ham and cheese, and turkey with bacon.”

  “Are you serious? You actually showed up with food. And to think that George had offered me ten-to-one odds that you wouldn’t. I could’ve made a bundle. What happened, guys? Go on a diet?”

  Evidently Frank hadn’t noticed Lou’s diminishing waistline. I wasn’t about to point it out. The way things were going Frank had already suggested getting a Wii to everyone he met who wasn’t on a slab.

  “How dare you use the “d” word in our presence? I’ll have you know that I always take care of my friends.”

  “And what would you have done if you looked in the back seat and realized that there weren’t enough sandwiches for everyone?”

  “I told you that I always take care of my friends. I would’ve gone home and called and ordered you a couple of pizzas as soon as I’d finished eating.”

  Frank laughed.

  “I’m sure you would’ve, Cy.”

  Just as Frank finished his comment, George waved and walked up.

  “Everything’s secure here, Cy. So, what brings you here? Don’t tell me you’re making good on your promise of dinner. Late,” he said, looking at his watch, “but at least you’re here. What happened, they give you some fancy food that you don’t know what it is? You know that Frank offered me five-to-one that you wouldn’t bring us any food, don’t you? I should’ve taken him up on it.”

  “The way Frank tells it, it was ten-to-one, and you offered it to him.”

  “Yeah, but that was after he offered me five-to-one.”

  “Well at least both of you were able to hold on to your money. Now, do you want something to eat, or not?”

  “Yeah, but we’ve got some young guys with us, not as tough as Frank and I. We’ll let them go first. You did bring enough for everyone, didn’t you?”

  “It depends on how much everyone eats. We’ve got only twelve sandwiches left.”

  “See, Frank, we were right. They only brought enough for themselves.”

  I looked at my watch. It was a little after 8:00. I was hungry and tired, but we didn’t get a lot of opportunities to spend time with our friends, so we plopped down on the hood of George’s car and ate with them. We could see two sides of both houses from where we were. The younger guys took their food to the back of the houses and watched what we couldn’t see.

  +++

  It was after 9:00 when Lightning coasted to a stop in front of Lou’s place. Everywhere we went the officers told us they were okay, and encouraged us to go home, get some sleep, that the next day would be a busy one for us. All three of the officers assigned to Belding’s house agreed to split up after they delivered him to jail, and each one went to reinforce another team of officers.

  “Well, Lou, this is almost it. At least I hope it is. With what we have and the possibilities we have for tomorrow, I think we can bring the perp to justice.”

  “I sure hope so, Cy. I’m ready to get this one behind us. So, do you have any more of an idea than you did?”

  “Not really, Lou. I mean I’ve a couple of ideas, but, as you know, sometimes it turns out to be someone you don’t suspect. I know I’m going to be very disappointed if tomorrow comes and we don’t have someone behind bars.”

  “Well, then quit being disappointed, Cy. We already have someone behind bars. Remember Belding?”

  “Yeah, and I hope that some of those drunks in with him throw up all over him, maybe even knock him around a few times. I hope he starts something with one of the violent types.”

  “Cy, correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem to be taking a liking to Belding just like you have your next-door neighbor.”

  “I think you’re right, Lou. Maybe we can send them away together. Don’t know where we can find a leaky raft, do you?”

  “We won’t need a leaky raft. Both of them would try to throw the other one overboard before they were out of sight of land.”

  “You really think Heloise would throw a man overboard?”

  “You’ve got me there, Cy.”

  “Okay, we’ll see what we can do about a leaky raft.”

  The two of us shared a laugh.

  “Or, I could identify my neighbor and you can name Belding as her accomplice.”

  Lou got out, walked up to his apartment door and waved. I nodded and patted Lightning on the backside to let him know it was time to go home.

  All the way home I thought of all of our possibilities. Did our witnesses actually see someone enter the Colonel’s home, or did one of our witnesses commit murder? Did everyone in the house love the Colonel as much as he or she pretended? Actually, I didn’t think that Tom Brockman loved the old man, and I didn’t know if the Colonel’s grandson-in-law did or not, but they acted like they were on good terms with him. Was it possible that our murderer was closer to home than we suspected? Was there really a stolen key? Or was an outside suspect created to take our suspicions away from those who lived there? And was his good friend Joe really his good friend Joe? Was he unable to raise the Colonel that day as he said, or did he get caught just after leaving, and have to make up an excuse that the Colonel didn’t answer the door? I remembered that his wife thought he left the house early.

  So where does that leave us? What about Earl and Myra Hoskins, the handyman and the maid? I thought she was okay, and her alibi checked out, but what about his? He could’ve sneaked over and murdered the Colonel, but did he? And what reason would he have had?

  That brought me to Michael Belding. On the surface he seemed too crazy to be our murderer, but was his craziness an act? Did he force us to arrest him tonight, hoping that he’d be in jail tomorrow and wouldn’t have to take part in the lineup? Supposedly, he was s
ane enough to teach a high school class. Did that mean he was sane enough to plan a murder in advance, because I was pretty sure that the Colonel’s murder was premeditated. Everything pointed to that. The threat. Everything.

  So, where did that leave us. Well, it left us a plumber we’d never considered, Robert Collins. He seemed the most unlikely of all our suspects. Did that mean that he is our murderer? I didn’t think so, but then, over the years I’ve seen murderers who were just as unlikely.

  All who were left were Daniel Terloff and two guys who were hard to find. What about Terloff? The guy seemed like he’s having the time of his life. Is this all a ruse? Did he really change how he felt about the Colonel after spending several years in the wilderness, or was he trying to make us think that he had changed?

  Who else did we have? A guy who drives around and sprays for bugs who wouldn’t have seemed like a suspect at all, if he hadn’t disappeared. Or did he? He had been back to the duplex he rented. How many times I didn’t know, but he did return.

  And then there was our most likely suspect who was the hardest to find, Carl Bauerman, actor extraordinaire. All we had of these last two were pictures and fingerprints, but was that enough to find them?

  I arrived at my house, hoping that the next day revealed more than that night had done. I was hopeful. I was confident.

  +++

  Nights where I’ve a particularly satisfying meal are not the only nights I have nightmares. It is also true on nights when I go to bed extremely tired. That night was one of those nights.

  I went to sleep, found myself dreaming. There were officers outside my next-door neighbor’s house. She went outside to make sure none of them got away. One at a time she invited them in, but got nowhere. She was hoping that either she or one of the cops would try on the handcuffs. Reluctantly, she went inside, smiling, saying “Cyrus is the one for me.” A first nightmare led to a second. The second one was worse. I sat in my car in the pouring down rain. Lightning flashed. No, I don’t mean my car opened its doors. I mean the kind of lightning that goes with thunder. It, the lightning, and a screen a distance in front of me, revealed that I was in a drive-in movie theater. I felt steam on my neck, a burning in my flesh. I turned to my right and screamed. There, braced against my body, I found my next-door neighbor, the ugly one herself. Her breath had burnt a hole in my shirt collar. Her drool had caused my skin to blister. I screamed again. It was worse than I thought. Muffy was eating all the popcorn. I lunged for the door, but found that someone had removed the knob. I reached out for the keys, to lower the window, and hoped it was wider than my girth, but the keys were not there. I heard a jingling, and pushed my neighbor away long enough to see a rat carrying a tub of popcorn and a ring of keys jump over the seat into the back seat.

  I was about to give up hope when I awakened. Even awake, I found something against me and something in my mouth. Not something as terrifying as my neighbor, but something. I spat out my keys and they fell to the floor. Once again I reached for a knob, only this time I found one. I turned it and lunged from my enclosure. Simultaneously, I heard and felt a thud. It was almost as painful as the sight of my next-door neighbor. In a matter of days, I regained my senses and found myself on my bedroom floor. I looked up from whence I had come. I had never walked in my sleep before, nor did I’ve any idea that my bedroom closet was larger than my girth. I reached out and up for the top of my mattress. In more attempts than I could count, I was able to reach up, grasp my mattress, and pull myself to my knees. Sometime before dawn, I lifted myself to my bed, and, once again, drifted off to sleep. My nightmares were over. Well, at least I didn’t have any more nightmares that night. I still had an unsolved case, and I didn’t see a “For Sale” sign in my next-door neighbor’s yard. Someday I would have to check into what it takes to have a house condemned.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  I awoke Saturday morning to a strange noise. It sounded like my next-door neighbor might sound on her best day. I don’t know how I could say that. My next-door neighbor has never had a best day. I slapped the alarm clock a few times, and finally it shut up. When you set one as little as I do, you forget what allows them make that awful racket and what makes them stop it. I contemplated lying there for a fortnight, but realized that it would defeat my purpose of setting the alarm. It was time to get up and get things in motion.

  It seemed like months since the Colonel called and invited us to his house.

  Over the twenty plus years I’d spent in homicide only a few cases had taken longer to solve than this one. I hoped that this one would come to a rapid conclusion in a matter of hours, and my choices on what to do on Monday would include coming home to read after breakfast, or giving the Scene of the Crime some more of my money.

  I initiated the twelve step method to remove myself from my bed and stood looking at my clock, my old-fashioned clock. The hands pointed to 6:03. Yes, it has hands. I did say it was old-fashioned. I made it a point to consult the Guinness Book of World’s Records to see if someone of my girth rising from a bed in only three minutes was a record. If not, I wasn’t going to set the alarm again the next day in order to achieve that status.

  I tried my best to wipe the sleep from my eyes as I stumbled to the bathroom. If I hadn’t tried both at once, it is possible that I wouldn’t have banged my elbow on the door casing. Naturally, it would have to be my right arm, my shaving arm. But I’d tough it out. Cops are known for toughing it out. Otherwise, I would’ve moved a long time ago. I remembered the time I dreamed that Lou and I showed up late enough for church that someone snatched the last donut just before we arrived. To miss out on a donut at the only place where my candy doesn’t accompany me is toughing it to the nth degree. However, I’m not sure if toughing it out in dreams is quite the same.

  Somewhere around 7:00, I surprised my next-door neighbor with my early departure, and left tread marks in the street as she opened her front door. She sicced the dog on me, but that wimp was no match for Lightning.

  +++

  Lou opened Lightning’s door, sat down, shut the door. He buckled and looked at me.

  “Lou, do you think God’s message for the day will help us solve the case?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t know. God’s message is ‘I don’t know.’ Well if God doesn’t know, who does? What you do mean, ‘I don’t know.’ Doesn’t the Bible tell us that God knows everything? There’s even a word for it. What’s that word, Lou?”

  “Omniscient.”

  “That’s it, Lou. Omni…whatever you said. All those words for God start with ‘omni.” All this. All that. God’s all everything. There’s even a building in Atlanta named the Omni. Is it still there, Lou?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Right, and who’s on first. Anyway, I’ll ask someone who has a computer. They’ll know where to look to see if the building has been razed. If God doesn’t know anything anymore, the building’s probably gone.”

  “You could ask someone who’s been to Atlanta.”

  “And I could call up the Omni in Atlanta, and if anyone answers, the building’s still there.”

  “Cy, I think you’re too charged up. Take a bite of candy.”

  “Good idea, Lou.”

  I reached into my pocket, yanked my candy out, took a bite.

  “How’s that, Lou?”

  “I’d say you’re still too charged up.”

  “Why’s that, Lou? Because I didn’t check to see if I’d eaten more than one almond?”

  “Partly.”

  “And what’s the other partly?”

  “Well, in all the years I’ve watched you eat your candy, Cy, this is the first time I saw you take a bite, paper and all.”

  “I thought it tasted funny.”

  I pulled over and practiced some Lamaze breathing. It didn’t work. My stomach was still there. And God still didn’t know.

  “Lou, why do you think God told you to say ‘I don’t know,’ and don’t say ‘I don’t
know?’”

  “God didn’t say, ‘I don’t know.’”

  “I know you say you don’t say that God gives you the idea each day, but why did your thoughts tell you that?”

  “They didn’t, Cy. You asked me, ‘Lou, do you think God’s message for the day will help us solve the case?’ and I said, ‘I don’t know.’”

  “Right. So why did you say that?”

  “Cy, get a grip. I said I don’t know if you will use the clue to solve the case, not that ‘I don’t know’ was the message.”

  “So, God still knows. Of course He does. But what I don’t know is today’s clue. Enlighten me.”

  “Joanne Woodward.”

  “The actress?”

  “No, the rugby player. What other Joanne Woodward is there?”

  “Well, there’s the rugby player.”

  Only the fact that Lou and I had pulled up in front of the Blue Moon kept Lou from choking me. We stepped out of the car, opened the door. I couldn’t move.

  “Now, Cy. Get ahold of yourself. We’re not eating here today.”

  Somewhere faraway I heard Lou’s words, but up close I saw some old guy sitting on my stool. My stool. I thought surely our stools were like retired jerseys from sports teams. No one other than Lou or I would use them.

  “Cy, stay calm.”

  “That’s easy enough for you to say, Lou. No one’s sitting on your stool.”

  “Would you like for me to ask the elderly gentleman if he’d be just as comfortable on my stool. Remember, Cy, we’re not using our stools today. We’re eating at the station with the others. You don’t want this old man and Rosie to pick you out of a lineup, do you?”

  “You mean Rosie would do that?”

  “I don’t know, Cy, but an old man’s declaration carries a lot of weight.”

  “I carry a lot of weight, too, Lou.”

  “Just don’t end up in the slammer with Belding.”

  “That’s a thought, Lou. I’ll throw this old man off my stool. They’ll throw me in the slammer, and while I’m waiting for the lineup, I can beat Belding to a pulp. I wouldn’t be acting as a police officer then, would I?”