Murder at the Book Fair (23 page)

"Here in LaGrange, but if
you're calling for the reason I think you are I can save you a trip. I checked
both bank accounts. Both Bob Barney and Millie Longacre are stable, but neither
of them is stable enough that he or she made a $50,000 deposit at any time this
year. Is that what you want?"

"Well, you could go to both
houses, check the ground for recently dug holes and if you don't find any tear
up the floorboards and see if you find any cash."

"By any I assume you mean a
suitable amount to get you or me excited."

"It depends on what it takes 
to get you excited. I get excited when someone else pays for dinner. But in
this case I'm talking something in at least the several thousand dollar
range."

"Then I'm afraid you will
have to find your happy recipient elsewhere."

"I've looked elsewhere, have
only one more elsewhere to go. Let me ask you another question. Did you spend
much time around Portwood?"

"Not really. From what I know
if he was in the county, he was at home. I wasn't there until he died. To be
honest with you, if the guy hadn't written so many books and been suspected of
having a pretty good sum of money, I'm not sure I'd even know him, even though
we did live in the same county, and I'm the sheriff."

"Then I don't guess you'd
have any idea if he drank coffee."

"No, but you can check with
those two neighbors of his. One of them might know. I'll tell you what I'll do.
If you want me to I'll check with both of his neighbors and check at the eating
places around here and call you back. How does that sound?"

"It sounds pretty good to me.
I have something else to work on first."

I ended the call and turned to
Lou.

"Maybe before the day is over
we'll see if we've run into another dead end."

As soon as I ended my call the
radio came back on. I had switched it back to 60s on 6 and was trying hard not
to gyrate in my seat. Lou was sitting in the passenger seat, asking God to get
him to our next place safely.

Between songs I learned that the
program was in the middle of a countdown of the top songs of 1965. Since I'd
heard that 1965 was one of the best years for songs, I listened intently. I
soon found out that the countdown had made its way all the way to number ten.

Number ten was
My Girl
by
The Temptations. I sang along and thought of Jennifer. I switched to my Elvis
impersonation when I found out that number nine was
Crying in the Chapel.
Being
a great impersonator, I sang like Peter Noone when it was time for number eight
and it was Herman's Hermits singing
Can't Your Hear My Heartbeat.
By
that time Lou was checking to see if anyone saw me making a fool of myself. I
let Lou sing the next one, as The Beatles sang
Help!
He wasn't as good
as I was, and didn't know all the words, but he would blare out when it came
time for "Help, I need somebody." We were approaching the city limits
of Lawrenceburg when Petula Clark belted out
Downtown.
I didn't think
Lawrenceburg was the downtown she was singing about.

There were people milling about,
so Lou turned to caution me. I made it a point to turn and sing to him when I
discovered that number five was The Righteous Brothers singing
You've Lost
That Lovin' Feelin'.
Lou was thankful that the windows on the van were up,
but that didn't keep one middle-aged woman from noticing me and breaking into a
grin. Maybe Lou was the only one who didn't like my karaoke.

I continued my singing to Lou when
song number four turned out to be We Five singing
You Were On My Mind.
It
finished just as we came to a stop near the bank, but I was too curious about
the top three to cut the van off and get out. I thought of our case when number
three turned out to be (
I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
by The Rolling
Stones. Lou tried to sink down into his seat when I bellowed out with The Four
Tops on number two,
I Can't Help Myself.
I'm sure Lou thought about
getting out of the van, but didn't want to with the radio blaring. I assume he
figured there was only one more song to endure. All along I tried to think what
might have been number one that year, and I finally found out it was Sam the
Sham and the Pharaohs singing
Wooly Bully.
I wanted to cut the van off
and sing that song as Lou and I entered the bank, but I was afraid the bank
guard wouldn't know who I was and might shoot first and ask questions later. I
was afraid he was a better shot than Barney Fife.

+++

I was excited, but I wasn't sure
if it was because of the music or we were about to check on another one of our
suspects. I was sure Cartwright's account wasn't littered with $50,000
deposits. I wasn't sure about his barn. I walked into the bank and asked for
the manager who had been told someone might call on him. He took me into his
office, where he had all of Jake Cartwright's information.

"Now you understand, Lt.
Dekker, that we want to keep this as hush-hush as possible. I wouldn't want
Jake Cartwright to find out about it."

"Same here. He will never
find out we were here unless we find something incriminating."

I looked over everything the
manager put before me and let Lou check it out too, just in case I missed
something. I didn't expect anything to get by me. I'm so unused to big numbers
that if I saw any they would definitely jump out at me. The only large
denominations I know anything about are Baptists and Methodists. When I
finished looking and didn't find anything enlightening, I asked the bank
manager the same question I had asked the other two bank managers.

"Is there anyone else you can
think of who has made a yearly deposit of $50,000 in one lump sum?"

"Well, we have several
clients who make large deposits, but I can't think of anyone who made one of
that size where the amount seemed out of the ordinary."

I thanked him for his time and got
up to leave. I wished we had come and gone earlier, because we had just stepped
from the bank and headed to my new ride when I saw Jack Cartwright heading for
the bank. It was as if someone had called him to say that I was there checking
up on him.

"So, Lt. Dekker, what brings
you over my way again, and to my bank?"

"Well, I've come into some
money recently and I'm trying to spread it around, not put all of it in any one
bank. I was checking your bank to see if it was robbery proof."

He laughed.

"Well, I don't think there's
any such bank. You'll just have to take your chances."

"I think I've come to that
conclusion myself. But now that you're here, I have a question for you. Are you
a coffee drinker?"

"Oh, yeah. I have to have my
morning cup of coffee. I don't drink much late in the day, though."

"What about Cyril
Portwood?"

"No, Cereal didn't drink much
coffee. I can only remember him drinking coffee for one reason."

"Oh, why is that?"

"He tells me that place where
he lives is way out in the middle of nowhere. And the road to his house is
really narrow. I told him it sounds just like my place. But anyway, he told me
once that any time he has to drive at night, which he doesn't like to do, he
gets some coffee so he doesn't fall asleep at the wheel."

"Wasn't it dark the night of
the book fair, when you two parted ways?"

"It was, and when we left
Gibby's he asked for a large coffee to go."

"And did he go ahead and
drink it?"

"No, it was too hot. I walked
to his van with him and he took out a Thermos and carefully poured the coffee
into it, then sealed it up, and put it in the holder. That's the way he was
with his vehicles. He kept them immaculate. He told me he had recently gone
over 7,000 miles on that van, and from what I could tell in that low light, it
was clean as a whistle. I'm thinking about getting a van and I asked him how he
liked his. See, this was his first van. Before that all he drove was an SUV and
a truck. I think he still has that truck somewhere on his place, in case he
needs to haul something. Anyway, I wished him a safe trip home and he wished me
the same, and then I turned away to walk back to my Sequoia. See, Cereal didn't
want anyone to hit his van, so he didn't park in Gibby's lot. Instead he parked
on the street, away from any other cars. I took his empty Styrofoam cup from
him, because there was a trash receptacle on the way to my vehicle. I tossed it
in and turned to look back at Cereal to see if he had pulled off yet. There was
some woman by his van and they were talking. They were too far away for me to
tell anything about her. It was dark except for a few downtown lights. But I
didn't figure he was in any danger, so I got in my SUV and left."

"And you don't have any idea
if the woman was anyone you had seen before?"

"I don't. Well, is there
anything else you need, Lieutenant. I've come to town to run a few
errands."

I told him no and turned away.

Just as soon as Lou and I were
back in the van the phone rang. It was Herb calling me back.

"Well, Cy, I did some
checking for you. Millie Longacre said that Cyril didn't even own a coffee
maker, and Bob Barney said he had never known him to drink coffee, but
volunteered that he wasn't around Cyril enough to be a good judge. I checked
the diners around here to see if any of them knew. There were only a couple of
places that knew him and neither of them had known him to drink coffee."

I thanked Herb for his time and
hit the End Call button.

"Well, Lou, this certainly
gives us something to think about."

"Yeah, everyone says that
Portwood didn't drink coffee, but his good friend said that he had some the
night he died, provided he died at night."

"And we have a couple of
dilemmas here. Was he drinking coffee that night, or did Cartwright tell us
that to muddy the waters? There have been some things that only his lawyer or
Cartwright told us about, and yet we have accepted them as gospel. Should we
continue to assume they're true, or do we question them?"

"At this point I have no
idea. Of course he could have had some coffee that night, but maybe the poison
wasn't in the coffee. Maybe it was in something he had at breakfast or lunch,
or something he snacked on at the book fair. And we seem to have forgotten
about the reception, where someone might have had more of an opportunity to
slip something in his drink without anyone seeing it."

"I don't even want to think
about that reception. It would take us the rest of our lives to question all
those authors."

"Maybe we should go ahead and
pin it on someone and make them come up with an alibi for the thirty or so
hours in which Portwood might have been poisoned."

"The way our case has been
going so far maybe we will have to go that route. But let's look at a couple of
other scenarios. Let's assume that Portwood did leave with a to-go cup of
coffee and someone put poison in it. Who could have done it? Of course it could
have been Cartwright, who told us about it knowing that we wouldn't be able to
prove he did it. It could have been this mystery woman Portwood was talking to
when Cartwright left, provided there really was such a person. Or it could have
been one of Portwood's neighbors, when he got home, provided he hadn't already
drank all of the coffee."

"And with a mysterious woman
being involved, that means it could be anyone on our list, or someone we
haven't thought of yet."

"Since no one had access to
Portwood's vehicle before he left Gibby's it sounds like our murderer has to be
either Cartwright, Portwood's sister, or the mysterious woman, provided she
wasn't Portwood's sister. Or maybe Portwood's brother and sister were involved
together. Maybe his sister occupied him on the passenger side of the van, while
her brother sneaked around to the driver's side, where the door was already
open, and dumped poison into the coffee. But remember when we talked to them
they said they were at a cookout at the next-door neighbor's house at that
time."

"But who cooks out in
November?"

"Maybe we should run by the
next-door neighbor's house and see if anyone's at home. We're not that far from
there."

I sat there, silent for a minute,
mulling over what both of us had said, and Lou knew that meant I was thinking
and he needed to be quiet. After a few seconds I slapped the palm of my hand
against my forehead, which to Lou meant that I had either discovered something
or I needed mental help. He waited a moment to see which.

"Lou, let's assume that
Portwood did get a to-go cup of coffee and poured it in his Thermos. Where's
the Thermos? A dead man doesn't dispose of his Thermos after he is finished
with it. That means that either there was no Thermos and no coffee, or someone
took the Thermos."

"Maybe it was whoever turned
off the ignition."

"Which, more than likely,
would narrow it down to one of his two neighbors."