Murder at Breakfast (25 page)

I
let Lou drive my car when we left. I needed him to buckle me in first, but
declined when he asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital to be checked. I
knew if I did it would get back to George and Frank. Besides, I didn’t think I
had broken anything, just rearranged things a bit.

It
was getting late. I directed Lou to Antonio’s and thought about my mishap as he
drove. Maybe I could talk Officer Davis into pretending to be a building
inspector and have him check the old biddy’s windows. After a few seconds of
thought, I decided against that, partly because I didn’t want to hurt Officer
Davis’ reputation, and partly because I figured that if the woman had stopped
screaming, and had realized why I was checking her windows, she would have done
something about them by now. At any rate, nothing about those windows would
have been conclusive evidence. Maybe Russell Cochran was fooling around with
two women.

My
thoughts changed to what might have been. What if when I had hit the roof it
had caved in? From what I can surmise from my less than brilliant state of mind
caused by my condition, if I had gone through the roof I would have landed
either on the dining room table or in the kitchen. Neither landing would have
been a pleasant experience. It would have given an all new meaning to, “Guess
who’s coming to dinner.”

I
was glad when Lightning eased into Antonio’s parking lot, and further pleased
when I saw that there were few patrons on that Thursday night.

For
once I was glad to be seated in a booth. I didn’t want any part of trying to
hoist myself up onto a stool. I was hopeful that I would feel better the next
morning, and that neither Lou nor Rosie had to help me get seated. That could
lead to questions, and I could see Lou explaining to Rosie that I fell down when
some woman caught me looking in her window.

Our
server came quickly, which is how a server should come, and I ordered something
I hadn’t tried in a while, the triple stuffed combo; ravioli stuffed with beef,
cannelloni filled with cheese, and for dessert, chocolate filled cannoli.
Naturally I needed a second dessert, so I opted for a tiramisu, even though I
had come to think of that as a feminine dessert. I’m not sure what the shell of
a man across from me ordered, but there was not much to it.

When
my food arrived, I was overcome by a fun idea, but refrained from following
through for a couple of reasons. One, I wanted be allowed inside Antonio’s
again, and two, I needed for Lou to drive me home. I shoved the idea over to
one side of my brain, in case one day I would have Antonio’s deliver to my
house, and I was in the mood for the same foods I ordered that night. But,
before I ate, I fantasized. I envisioned myself picking up a ravioli square,
putting all except a minute amount in mouth, and clomping my teeth down into
it. Then, I would take my fingers and pull the pasta from my mouth and savor
the meat stuffing still inside for a few moments before I chewed and swallowed
it. Then, I would quickly eat the pasta I grasped between my thumb and forefinger.

The
reason I would eat the ravioli first, is because I like to save the best for
last. That’s the reason I seldom eat dessert first. I envisioned the cannelloni
as a tube of toothpaste and myself as one-half of a married couple, the half
that squeezes the toothpaste from the middle. This is where Lou and the people
who run Antonio’s come in. If I squeezed the cannelloni in the middle, would
the part that did not squirt into my mouth find itself plastered somewhere near
Lou’s eye? I smiled as I thought of that possibility.

I
ate my food in a much less fun and more mannerly way than what I had envisioned
and looked up to see the anemic man across from me waiting patiently. I
wondered how much longer he would be able to feed himself and if that would
happen before or after I would have to check him into a nursing home. I was
sure he had lost two pounds sitting there while I ate. I thought again about
seeing that he got an IV regularly, but then I wondered if that alone would be
enough to help him regain his strength. They say we should be thankful in all
things, and the only thing I could think of to be thankful about at that moment
was that Lou didn’t have a tattoo. If Lou had had a tattoo, from the amount he
had shrunk there would be no way that anyone would have been able to tell what
that tattoo once was. I had to get out of that place. Surely it was my fall
that caused me to think about such strange things.

When
we left, I asked Lou if he minded dropping me off at my house and taking my car
back to his place. Of course that meant that he would have to pick me up the
next day, but he agreed.

We
didn’t linger when we got to my house. I didn’t want my next door neighbor to
catch me. I wasn’t sure if a woman with broken arms was faster than a man with
sore ribs, and I had no inclination to find out. I bade Lou a quick goodbye and
hobbled off around the house to the back door.

didn’t
feel like reading or watching any of my videos, so I went on to bed, even
though the sun was just going down. I hoped that an extra couple of hours in
bed might help me feel better the next morning. I made the necessary bathroom
trip just as someone called me on the phone. The phone had stopped ringing by
the time I got to it. I doubted if it was Lou, but called him anyway. He had
just unlocked the door when I called. I figured it might have been a wrong
number, so I stripped down to my boxers and undershirt, and eased myself into
bed. I had been there no more than five minutes when the doorbell rang. I
reached out and grabbed my pants and put them  back on a couple of pains at a
time. I plodded to the front door. I didn’t want to open the door to any crazy
women, so I eased over to look out to see who was there. I noticed a police car
and figured my neighbor hadn’t stolen one, so I hollered “just a minute” and
went to see which of my friends was calling at such a late hour.

I
opened the door to find an officer I had seen, but not one I knew well.

“Sorry,
to bother you, Lieutenant, but we received a call from one of your neighbors. She
said she saw someone steal your car. We tried to call you, but no one answered,
so we figured we’d better check it out in case it was true. When I didn’t see
your car in the driveway, I figured I’d knock to see if you were home.”

I
explained the situation to the officer, minus any information about my aches
and pains and how they occurred, but refrained from asking him to go next door
and shoot whoever answered the door. With my luck, the woman had convinced
Hospice to come and do for her until she got on her feet again. I didn’t want
anyone shot except Her Ugliness, and I knew better than to think that thought
for more than a nanosecond, however long that is.

I
had just gotten my pants off and gotten back in bed when I heard another knock
on the door. I stumbled from the bed, put on my pants once again, and went to
check and see if the Avon lady was running late. Whoever was there looked like
the remains of someone from Stratford on Avon during Shakespeare’s time, only
the two casts looked like something from the modern era. I stopped myself from
calling downtown and reporting a burglar. I stumbled back to bed, where I
remained for approximately two minutes, until the phone rang. To the best of my
knowledge, she who lives next door doesn’t have my phone number, so I inched
from the bed to the phone. Luck was with me. It was still ringing when I picked
it up, most likely because I didn’t have to don a pair of pants to answer the
phone. This time it was the shell of my former friend, asking me  if  I found out
who had called. After I explained everything to Lou and listened to him
chuckle, I hung up, located a pair of earplugs, and went to bed. Maybe if I
dreamed that I was soaking in a hot tub I would feel better when I woke up the
next morning. I even thought about sleeping in a tub of hot water, but
refrained from doing so because it would have meant I would have to take up my
bed and walk. Besides, I wasn’t certain that I wouldn’t drown sometime during
the night. Nor was I sure that I wouldn’t shrink to the size of my friend.
Instead, I turned over until I discovered a couple of pains, then did the best
I could to go to sleep.

I
had been awake only a couple of seconds on Friday morning when I remembered
that my ribs hurt. They didn’t hurt nearly as bad as when I had a previous fall
when I was working on another case, but they reminded me of my travails of the
day before. I lay in bed for a few minutes, hoping that doing so would mend my
wounds. When the rumbles in my stomach equaled the pain from my ribs, I used my
twelve step method for getting out of bed and a couple of days later I was on
my feet and somewhat coherent.

It
took me a bit longer than usual to get ready, and then I called Lou to tell him
I was on my way to pick him up. He chuckled.

“How
do you plan to get here, Cy?”

It
was then that I remembered that I had entrusted Lightning to his care for the
night.

“How
long do you think before you’ll be here?”

“I
think I heard Tweetie flying up and down the driveway anticipating my
appearance.”

“The
name is Lightning, not Tweetie.”

“Looks
like Tweetie to me.”

“Well,
anyway, since I have to wait on you, give me something to do. What did God give
you today?”

“Cy,
you’re the one who always says God gives them to me, but since they help, I
guess maybe He does. Anyway, today’s clue is ‘Sometimes what you think you have
is really missing.’”

“Do
what?”

“Sometimes
what you think you have is really missing.”

“I
was afraid it would sound the same the second time.”

“Try
to figure out what it means before I get there.”

“Watch
yourself. Sometimes brilliance takes time.”

“More
than fifty years in your case.”

“If
you didn’t have my pride and joy, I might forget all about you today.”

“That’s
sounds good. I think I’ll go out and tell Tweetie that we’ll skip breakfast
this morning.”

“My
next-door neighbor is about to get a love note from you.”

“I’ll
be right there, Cy.”

I
hung up the phone and wondered what the strange message meant. I wondered what
in the world I thought I had that I really don’t have. Or could it be something
someone else thought he or she had?

I
knew about how long it would take Lou to get to my house, so I sat down in a
chair until a couple of minutes before I expected him, then got up and went to
the window to watch for him. Lightning was already setting in the driveway. I
hoped Lou hadn’t pushed her. Maybe she was anxious to see me, and she had
revved up as soon as she saw where she was headed.

I
stumbled out the front door and to the car. Lou motioned, as if to ask me if I
wanted to drive or wanted him to drive. I decided to test my ribs.

As
soon as I was sure I had escaped my neighbor’s clutches I turned to Lou.

“Well,
Lou, got any idea what the clue means?”

“I
thought you were going to be working on it while I drove over. I thought that
was the reason you kept me waiting for five minutes.”

I
was sure Lou hadn’t been sitting in my driveway for five minutes, so I didn’t
nibble at his bait.

“Actually,
I’ve already figured it out. I think this was one of the easiest clues we’ve
ever had.”

“Oh!
So what does it mean, Cy?”

“Well,
the clue is about you. What you think you have that is missing is a brain. That
must mean that you’re the murderer, Lou.”

“Well,
I’m not guilty of this one, but if you don’t watch yourself I’ll be guilty of
the next one.”

We
continued our repartee all the way to the Blue Moon. We arrived and Lightning
slid into our customary place right in front of the Blue Moon. I had often
wondered if, some day, someone might put a plaque there in Lightning’s honor,
and bronze the stools inside to remember what Lou and I meant to the place.

I
pretended to be enjoying the nice almost-summer-like day that was already summer
in my book. I didn’t have to wait until the twenty-first. The first of June was
summer in my book. Lou’s too, when he was still thinking right.

In
a matter of minutes my face was adorned with maple syrup and whipped cream. As
a part of my breakfast, I had ordered buckwheat pancakes with whipped cream,
bananas, and pecans drowned in maple syrup. I even poured a little more and
dipped my bacon and sausage in it, but my eggs had to make do with the cheese
mixed in, and my biscuits were quite comfortable hidden under all that sausage
gravy. Surely some of these major food groups would be enough to entice those
leetle gray cells that made Hercule Poroit so popular. If I was not his equal,
I was close to it. Of course, I would mix some chocolate in for good measure. I
bet if I had eaten my normal amount of chocolate the day before, my ribs
wouldn’t hurt. Maybe then I would have realized that the vulture returned to
her nest before making it all the way downstairs to supper.       

In
a matter of days, I had rested up from my feast and clutched whatever was
necessary to navigate my way back to Lightning. I think Lou left the restaurant
after I did, but he was standing next to Lightning’s passenger door when I
managed to pull myself around to the other side.

+++

On
the way to Parkway Arms Lou suggested that I might question Elaine Jewell and
Christine Hunt when we arrived. This caused me to beat myself up because I
neglected to have an ejector seat installed. I often wondered how high Lou
could fly if propelled properly.

I
managed to gain entrance to the apartment without encountering anyone except
the officer on duty. Other than the incident where an officer caught Hilda
Winters climbing down the rope ladder, I had heard of nothing that revealed
that someone was trying to escape, and I didn’t believe she was leaving the
premises, either, so maybe after the weekend we would release the two officers
to other duties.

I
ambled into the apartment and hurried to a comfortable chair. Not only was the
chair a good location to ponder or mull, but I was certain the two pieces of
chocolate pie that had topped off my breakfast at the Blue Moon had not yet
found their final resting place. I wanted to give them that opportunity.

I
waited over thirty minutes before I picked up my Hershey kisses. Somewhere
during the celebration of the sucking on the chocolate Lou reached into his
pocket and plucked out his M & M for the day. It looked yellow. So did Lou.
Maybe a combination of this case and a starvation diet were too much for him. It
had been at least twelve hours since he’d mentioned his Wii. Had he grown tired
of it? Or could it be that he no longer exhibited the energy to Wii every day?
I wasn’t going to ask him. I was thankful that he had refrained from using the
“W” word.

+++

After
sitting for an hour, I got up and did something that was against my
disposition. I walked around the apartment, hoping that a stirring creature
might find something to break the case.  After  a few moments, I felt hot
breath on the back of my neck. Surely my next door neighbor hadn’t sneaked into
the apartment. I glanced over my shoulder and found a formerly robust-looking
sergeant. When I walked, he walked. When I stopped to peruse, he stopped to
peruse. I thought about bending over to see if he tripped over me, but I didn’t
want to go there. After toying with him for a few minutes, I shook my head and
returned my thoughts to the case at hand, finding a murderer in a haystack.

I
stumbled to the bedroom, sat down on the bed, and looked around. I was thankful
that Lou didn’t sit on the bed with me. I sent him on an errand, told him to
count his M & Ms while I rechecked the clues in the bedroom. Nothing in the
chest or dresser turned on any lights. I had been through the room a couple of
times. I had almost memorized what the room contained. I opened the closet
doors and one of the photo albums fell and hit me on the arm. I opened it and
carefully looked through. No one in the building claimed to have known Mrs.
Higgins prior to her moving to Parkway Arms. I studied each face, found no one
who looked familiar. Dejectedly, I returned the album to the closet shelf. I
had hoped to thumb through it and find someone smiling, holding a bottle of
poison.

I
left the bedroom, stopped off in the bathroom. I stood in the doorway looking
for anything that should have been there that wasn’t. The soap and shampoo were
still in the shower. I thought of having Lou drink a little of the shampoo to
see if he keeled over, but refrained from doing so. In his condition, even if
there were poison in the bottle I doubt if he would have drunk enough to kill
himself. I turned to the sink. The bar of soap was still there. The toothpaste
and toothbrush were missing, but then the lab boys had checked them out, found
nothing wrong.      I turned off the bathroom light, returned to the living
room, the room that housed the small refrigerator. I looked inside. The small
appliance reminded me of Lou’s refrigerator. There was nothing inside. But then
there shouldn’t have been. Mrs. Higgins ate her meals downstairs, and the lab
boys removed the piece of cheesecake that Lover Boy had left. It wasn’t
poisoned, either. Was there something else that should’ve been in the
refrigerator that wasn’t there? Or did the clues the murderer left us draw our
attention away from the dining room where the woman was actually murdered? Was
there something that should’ve been in the dining room that wasn’t?     I
decided to sit down, mull things over. I visualized the layout of the
apartment, the dining room, the dumbwaiter that allowed things to move from one
place to the other. I tried to put myself in the victim’s shoes, visualize what
she had done on the day of the murder, and the night before. What was missing?
What was I missing?

After
sitting there for some time, it hit me. There wasn’t just one thing missing.
There were two things missing, and they were missing from different places. I
thought of a way that someone could’ve murdered Mrs. Higgins. I shared it with
Lou. He agreed it could’ve happened that way, and if it had, that would allow
for our clue of the day. I had questions for two people before I went any
further. I sent Lou to ask a couple of questions of someone while I got on the
phone and called Frank. In a few minutes Lou returned with the answers I had
hoped for. That, along with Frank’s answer to the question I asked him, meant
that I wouldn’t be wasting my time if I proceeded with that rationale.     

My
stomach growled, interrupting my thoughts. I knew that figuring everything out
would take some time, so I posed a plan to Lou, and he agreed that we could
drop by Antonio’s, pick up something to eat, then go to my house and chow down
while we thought things through.

Before
I called in the order in to Antonio’s, I needed to know what the weakling was
willing to eat. We ordered two Strombolis and two orders of fries with gravy.
While it was easy to divide two by two, we both knew that each of us would not
eat the same amount. Lou would cut off half of his sandwich  and  give  it to
me, and I would get some of his fries, too. At least he was willing to eat real
food, even if it was for only one meal.

+++

Thirty
minutes later, we were firmly ensconced at my dining room table. I wolfed and
gobbled down my food while Lou picked at his. Once I determined that there were
no strays, I plopped down in one chair, Lou in another. Both of us had a legal
pad and a pen. It was time to go over everything we knew for sure. If I could
line up everything the way I wanted, it wouldn’t be long before the two of us
were once again retired.

We
concentrated on four areas. Who was with the victim at breakfast? Where was
everyone from 7:30-9:00? How accessible was the victim’s apartment? And what
did her apartment look like when she was found? The two of us worked
separately, and silently. That way, one of us might come up with an idea that
the other one had not. I jotted down what answers I had for each of the four
questions. Lou did the same. 

After
about an hour, we took a break. I asked Lou if he was willing to run an errand.
He looked at me skeptically. Thirty minutes later, while I lay resting on the
couch, regaining my strength from my rigorous day, Lou returned with a care
package from the Blue Moon. He handed me the sack, and I looked inside and
smiled. By the time, I had opened all my Christmas presents I had discovered
homemade creamy banana pudding, chocolate pie, and pecan pie. There was enough
stuff in there for the two of us to hole up for a couple of hours. I sampled
some of each, and once again had enough strength to write down all the answers
that came into my head.

By
the time our dessert stash had diminished to just enough to feed Lou for a
month, I felt it was time to compare notes.

“Okay,
Lou. Let’s see where we are. Who do you have down as the people who were with
the victim at breakfast?”

“Well,
Cy, as far as the staff is concerned, she saw only the cook and the apartment
manager. The handyman and the two maids weren’t in the dining room during the
time she was there for breakfast. As far as the residents are concerned,
Christine Hunt, Joanne Moberly, and Hilda Winters were there. Russell Cochran
and Elaine Jewell were not. As far as we know, all those who weren’t in the
dining room were in their apartments. Do you have anything to add, Cy?”