Murder at Breakfast (20 page)

I
awoke the next morning and lumbered from my bed. Normally, when I get up in the
morning, my first stop is the bathroom, but a recurring nightmare reminded me
to check my back porch first. I stumbled through the kitchen, thankful that I
didn’t get up prior to daylight, and pulled a couple of blinds apart to see if
the creature spent the night there. I saw no one. I saw nothing of significance
either, but something told me that the stench still permeated the air. I didn’t
want to step outside, only to return to take a second shower. If the coast was
clear when it was time to leave, or if I felt I could outrun that woman and her
mutt, I would use the front door. For years, I had practiced getting away from
her, opening Lightning’s door, getting in and locking myself safely inside. It
was almost as if Lightning understood my dilemma and made it easier for me to
scoot safely inside without having to draw my weapon to do so.

Over
the years, I had conditioned myself to wake up by the time I needed to get up,
and do all that I had to do prior to leaving to pick up Lou for breakfast. When
we ate at the Blue Moon, we arrived later than most, in order that our stools
wouldn’t be occupied by riffraff. God had blessed us most of the time. If
anyone else had sat on our stools, Rosie had removed all evidence prior to our
arrival.

I
had appraised my situation the night before, knew that I didn’t need to call
Sam or Frank before leaving the house. Today, neither would be of any help to
me. Frank had no more bodies,  Sam no more information. I had no problem with
Sam. If I wasn’t dealing with a lifelong criminal, Sam couldn’t make out
someone to be one.

Because
my only phone call would be to Lou, and the only things I had to do before
leaving was make myself presentable and spend a few minutes with God, I took
advantage of those few extra minutes of sleep. I took care of the things I
needed to do, and then slipped to the door as quietly as possible.

I
opened the door a crack. No creature lunged for me. I was off to a good start.
When nothing happened, I opened the door far enough to step outside, which is
the same as saying I opened it all the way. Still, no attacker. Maybe the woman
was still in traction. I didn’t care. I wanted to take advantage of an
opportunity to escape while I could.

+++

A
few minutes later, I pulled up in front of Lou’s place. He scampered out the
door as soon as he saw me. I wondered why he hadn’t broken any arms. I knew he
did that same dumb exercise my next-door neighbor did. I had a pained look on
my face. It was the first time I’d seen my friend scamper. Was he merely
showing off for me? He opened the door, slid into his seat, and asked me why
the pained look. I told him about my next-door neighbor. He laughed. Then I
told him how she broke her arms. He stopped laughing. Could it be that my
next-door neighbor’s mishap would be enough to stop Lou’s Wiiing?

Once
things settled down, he turned to me and said, “Chutes and Ladders.”

“I
never did like that game. I always found more chutes than ladders. So, are you
telling me that you’re trading your Wii for a board game, something much
safer?” Something that would allow him to put his weight back on.

“No,
I’m telling you our clue for the day.”

“What
is this? Is this the week for board games? Yesterday Clue, today Chutes and
Ladders. Can Monopoly be in my future?”

“No,
Cy, I’d say that Twister might be in your future instead. Maybe you can go
ahead and buy one, and then when your next-door neighbor recovers you can
invite her over.”

Luckily
Lightning saw the Blue Moon in the distance and covered the few thousand feet
in record time. My blonde bombshell pulled up in front, and I leapt from the
car ready to be home again. Okay, maybe I didn’t leap, but I got out quicker
than normal. Just as I stepped up onto the sidewalk, a hand reached out the
front door and plastered a sign on the door. “Closing due to lack of business”
it read. I slapped my thighs as I laughed. I refrained from slapping them a
second time, partly because of how the slap hurt my thighs, and partly because
I think I pulled a muscle as I tried to stand again.

I
hobbled to the door and ripped down the sign. I looked inside, noticed we were
the only customers, and asked, “Is this the place that is open under new
management?”

Rosie
popped up from behind the counter and laughed. Then she lit into me.

“What
is it with you? I give you kisses, and what do you do. Desert me.”

“I’m
sorry, Rosie. It was his fault. He wanted to try one of those organic places.
I’ll make it up to you. This morning, I’ll let you dessert me twice.”

“Oh,
didn’t I tell you? We ran out of dessert just before the early crowd left.”

“Come
on, Lou. I guess you’re right. Let’s go back to that organic place.”

I
looked down and saw something bounce off my circumference, had Lou pick it up
and hand it to me, so I could throw it back at Rosie. Then, I pulled myself up
onto my stool. I didn’t look in Lou’s direction. I didn’t want to know how
easily he mounted the stool. In a few minutes I was in hog heaven. Bacon,
sausage, ham, eggs, biscuits, gravy, pancakes and syrup. It took three plates
to hold it all. But it took only one body to do the same.

After
I had finished eating my breakfast and was giving it time to take up residence
somewhere, Rosie came over grinning from ear to ear.

“Okay,
what is it this time?”

“Just
want to make sure you come back for lunch. I want you to know that I’m fixing
something special just for you.”

“The
world’s largest pie, all mine.”

“I’m
not telling what it is. Just make sure you’re back for lunch.”

There
was no way I was going to miss lunch. Rosie had piqued my interest. I had to
come back.

I
allowed a sufficient amount of time for my food to settle into whatever cavity
of my body it felt comfortable in, then turned to Lou to let him know that I
had finished, an hour and two minutes after he finished. Or did he ever begin?

I
had no idea what the day held for us, but I looked forward to getting
comfortable in Mrs. Higgins’ apartment and seeing where we went from there.

I
drove into the Parkway Arms parking lot, parked, then opened the door and heard
the commotion. Actually, I knew something was up when I spotted an officer
standing in the middle of the driveway, hollering and waving frantically to a
woman at a window above him. I looked up and recognized Hilda Winters, but not
the rope ladder hanging from her window.

“What’s
the problem, Officer?”

“I
caught this woman trying to escape. Not more than a minute ago she threw this
rope ladder out the window, then threw one foot out, trying to make contact
with the rope ladder.”

Other
than two somewhat-out-of-control people, the day was calm. I silenced both of
them enough that I heard birds in the backyard trees. Then I hollered at the
woman at the window.

“Miss
Winters, go back inside. I’m on my way up.”

Then
I whispered to the officer to remain there until he saw Lou or me at the
window.

I
hurried around the house more quickly than my breakfast preferred and mounted a
slight incline toward the front door. Once inside, I said “hello” to the
officer inside, but told him we were in a hurry. For once, the elevator wasn’t
on the first floor. I pushed the button, waited a day or two for the door to
open. As I waited, I hoped that Hilda Winters hadn’t thrown herself from the
window and into the officer’s arms. If so, the chances were that two people
wouldn’t live through that endeavor.

A
couple of days later I rounded the corner to the apartments. I was thankful
that Hilda Winters had left her door open, but I could hear the frightened
officer below, afraid that he had lost his quarry, but obediently he stuck to
his post. Quickly, I passed her and hurried to the window to let him know that
all was well, or at least it wasn’t any worse.

I
soon noticed that Miss Winters’ apartment wasn’t a carbon copy of the one next
to it. I hadn’t noticed that on my first visit, because I was never in the
woman’s bedroom. Because her bedroom was on the extreme left-hand side of the
building, looking from the street, there were windows in her bedroom. Mrs.
Higgins’ bedroom was closer to the middle of the building, thus no windows on
the side, or end, depending upon how you looked at the apartment.

“Miss
Winters, what in the world were you trying to do?”

Somehow
I didn’t think she was a murderer escaping from capture. She could have escaped
either of the previous two nights without being seen. Of course, it would have
been hard to navigate a rope ladder in the dark.

“I
was testing my rope ladder, seeing how much of a help it would be in case of a
fire.”

“And
why didn’t you test it before now?”

“I
just received it last night, after supper.”

“And
where did you get it?”

“If
I tell you, can you keep it a secret?”

“And
why should I do that?”

“I
can’t tell you unless you keep my secret.”

“Okay,
as long as this rope ladder has nothing to do with Mrs. Higgins’ murder.”

“Well,
if it did, you can’t blame me. Like I said, I just received it last night.”

“I
guess someone merely knocked on your door and asked you if you’d like a rope
ladder.”

“Something
like that.”

“I
think you need to be a little more specific.”

“Okay,
last night, just after
Jeopardy
went off, I heard a knock at the door. I
went to the door and Wally was there. He motioned for me to be quiet and asked
if he could come in. Well, since I knew Wally, and he’s never caused any
problems for anyone before, I let him in. I noticed at the time he had a large
bag, but I didn’t know what was in it.”

“And
it was this ladder?”

“That’s
right.”

“And
what reason did he give you for giving you the ladder?”

“He
said that because the building didn’t have suitable exits on the second floor
in case there was a fire, that all the residents would be getting a rope
ladder. He went on to say that the order got messed up and not all of the
ladders came in, so he couldn’t hand out all of them. He told me he knew how
scared I was of a potential fire, so he let me have one of the first ones.  He
told me someone might get jealous of me or mad at him if they learned that I
got one and they didn’t, so he asked me to keep it a secret for the time being.
I asked him how long the time being was, and he said he didn’t know. He wasn’t
sure when the rest of the shipment would come in. Anyway, I wanted to make sure
it would reach all the way to the ground, so I was trying it out when that
officer ran around the building and started hollering at me. He almost made me
fall.”

“Well,
let me apologize. I asked him to keep an eye on the place while we were gone,
and I guess he got a little carried away.”

“Well,
I think he ought to come up here and apologize.”

“Just
let me apologize for him. Miss Winters, I have a favor I need to ask of you.”

“What’s
that, Lieutenant?”

“I’d
like to borrow your rope ladder, just for a while. I’ll make sure I return it
today or tomorrow.”

“I
think I understand, Lieutenant. You’re a little afraid of fires, too. You want
to know if it’s strong enough to hold someone as big as you.”

“And
you must promise to keep my secret.”

The
elderly woman held up her hand and said “I do.”

“Have
you still got the sack? Naturally, I don’t want anyone to see me carrying it
out of here.”

Hilda
Winters hurried to the closet and pulled out a large plastic bag.

“I
believe this is the one, Lieutenant.”

“Oh,
one other thing, Miss Winters. Someone told me that you have a key to Mrs.
Higgins’ apartment.”

“Who
told you that? Well, it doesn’t matter. A lot of us have keys to each other’s
apartments. That way, if one of us gets locked out we don’t have to go all the
way downstairs to get back in.”

“Are
you saying that you weren’t the only one who had a key to her apartment?”

“No,
I know Elaine Jewell has one, too, and keep this quiet, but Katherine told me a
while back she’d given one to Russell, just in case he needed it sometime.”

“Anyone
else that you know of?”

“Well,
some of the ones who work here, but I’m not sure who all has one or if Margaret
Draper holds on to the keys unless someone needs one. Oh, I know that Margie
Washburn, our maid, has a key to each of the apartments on this floor, but I’m
not sure who else does.”

I
retrieved the ladder from the window sill. I noticed that the ladder had left
scratch marks on the sill.

“I
see you see the mark, Lieutenant. That’s one thing bad about one of these, but
if the building’s on fire, who cares about leaving a mark.”