Murder at the Book Fair (26 page)

"Lou, I think we have
something here. This isn't Portwood's garbage."

"How do you know, Cy? Is it
personalized?"

"In a way. I'm sure the
Thermos we are looking for is in here somewhere, because someone dumped coffee
grounds in here. Portwood didn't have a coffee maker."

I didn't want to reach down into
the bag until I found a Thermos, but I didn't mind as much feeling around the
outside of the bag until I found something round and hard. I started at the
bottom, because that was where I expected to find it. And find it I did. I
still wasn't going to put my hand all the way down in the garbage bag, so I had
a dilemma. I needed to take the whole bag with me. I was sure the bag would
leak. I needed to find something to put the bag in, because I didn't want to
get my brand new van dirty. I looked around for something to hold the bag.

"What are you doing,
Cy?"

"We need to take this garbage
with us, and I need to find something to put the garbage in so it won't get my
van dirty."

"I was afraid that's what you
were going to say."

"Well, you wouldn't want to
get your car dirty, either."

"That's not my point, Cy. My
point is why don't you put it back in the container where you found it and take
the container. Portwood won't need it while we're gone."

I hit my head for my mental lapse
and then had Lou help me carry the container out and put it in the back of the
van.

We went back inside and washed up.
I left the door unlocked in case we came back. A few seconds later I started to
back out of the drive. As I got to the road I heard a thump. I was pretty sure
what caused the thump. I pulled the van back into the driveway and got out to
access the damage. The trash receptacle had turned over, but luckily nothing
had oozed out in the process. I stood it up, and this time I wedged in it. I
went back into the house and washed my hands again. On my second try I managed
to back out of the driveway without incident.

I drove back to
Frankfort
as quickly and safely as I could.
We would have to pay for our rooms for a night we wouldn't be using them, but I
wanted to get home and have my people analyze the contents of the garbage bag.

It was
4:40
when we got back to Hilldale. I hurried to the police
department, where Lou and I used to work, and handed the garbage over to a
competent person that I knew well. I told them that I suspected there was a
Thermos bottle at the bottom of that bag, and I wanted it analyzed. Unless the
bottle had been sterilized I told my former co-worker I suspected there could
be traces of poison in it. I was told I would have my answer by
noon
the next day.

Then, tired as I was, I took a
drive, stopped in front of a house I barely recognized, and went up and knocked
on the door. I love it when women grin and jump up and down at the sight of me.
I'd only known one woman to do that recently, but it was the woman who stood in
front of me. Well, I vaguely remembered that Heather had done the same thing a
couple of times.

When the kiss had lasted more
minutes than Lou had patience he blew the horn, which told me he wanted to go
somewhere and do the same thing. But with Thelma Lou instead of Jennifer.
Jennifer joined us, and as soon as a surprised Thelma Lou planted her lips on
Lou's I sat on the horn. He refrained from doing anything our pastor would not
have approved of.

In a matter of days the other
couple in love joined us in the van and we planned our evening. The girls knew
that both Lou and I were tired, so they told us to go home and then come over
to Thelma Lou's at
7:00
to eat.

+++

At a little after
11:00
the next morning I received a call confirming what
I expected. There were two sets of fingerprints on the Thermos, other than the
ones belonging to the deceased, and there was enough coffee and poison in the
bottom to confirm what Cartwright had helped us learn. Someone had poisoned
Portwood's coffee.

I called Lou and told him what I
had learned and that more than likely we were to be on the road again. I called
Herb and told him the same things. He was disappointed.

"You know, Cy, this doesn't
necessarily mean that the two of them murdered Cyril."

"I know that. But I think
it's time we confronted them. I don't mind being the one to do it, but I'd like
for you to be there, too."

"I'm sure that's best. Let me
know what time you'll be here."

I told him we would call when we
got to Shelbyville, then called Lou back and told him to pack a bag again, that
I would be there as soon as I could.

+++

It was around
3:00
when we pulled up in front of the sheriff's office in
LaGrange. I had called Herb from Shelbyville and he was ready to go with us. He
said he would drive his car, and he would lead. The analysis showed that
Barney's prints were the last ones on the Thermos, so I wanted to get his take
first. After we talked to him, if we needed to, we would go across the road.

Barney saw us coming and met us at
the door.

"I knew when you found the
Thermos you would be back, but it's not the way it looks. Neither of us killed
him."

I took the lead.

"Mr. Barney, maybe you can
start by telling us your side of the story."

"Well, Saturday night, like I
said, I saw Cyril Portwood pull into his driveway, and I think he pulled on
into the garage. Sometime later, I'm not sure how much later, I was outside and
I saw Millie shutting his front door and run as quickly as she could to her
house. I thought that was odd, but I just figured that she had gone over and
welcomed Cyril home.

"Well, Sunday morning she
calls me and tells me that she is at Cyril's house and that he's dead. She
asked me to come over there. She didn't know what to do. Well, I got there and
saw that he was still in his van. I thought that strange, but I could smell the
carbon monoxide. At that point I thought Millie had killed him. I didn't know
why, because I'd heard they were planning to get married. Then she handed me a
Thermos and told me to do something with it. I set in on the kitchen table, but
later opened it and sniffed it. I thought there was some kind of poison in it,
and that Millie had poisoned Cyril when he got home. I didn't say anything
about the poison to Millie, but later I went back over to Cyril's house, got
out a new trash bag, dumped the Thermos in it, and then poured in some of my
garbage to hide the Thermos. I had planned to take the bag to the dump this
Friday when I take my garbage. See, I don't even think that Millie knows this,
but I've been in love with her for a while.

"Well, later I was talking to
Millie, told her I had seen her leaving Cyril's house on Saturday night, and
told her I would protect her if the police suspected something. That was when
she told me she hadn't done anything. She had merely gone over and found Cyril
dead and figured he must have committed suicide. That's the reason she waited
until Sunday morning to report it, hoping the authorities would rule it an
accidental death, which the coroner did. Anyway, that's my story, and it's the
truth."

I couldn't think of anything to
ask. He had answered my questions before I asked them. So I took Herb aside to
see what he thought. He said he would like to hear what Millie had to say,
which sounded like the thing to do. Lou agreed to stay behind and occupy Barney
until after Millie Longacre answered her door, so that Barney couldn't call her
and let her know that we were coming right over. We told Barney not to leave
the house and not to call anyone, and that he was a person of interest in a
murder investigation.

I had no idea if Barney was
telling the truth or not, but I was sure that he and Millie Longacre had
rehearsed their story if not. That lasted all the way up until she opened her
mouth.

"What are you doing back, and
why did you bring the sheriff? I didn't do anything."

"We found your fingerprints
on Cyril Portwood's Thermos."

"So? I admit I took it out of
the van and handed it to Bob. What's the harm in that?"

"The harm in it was that the Thermos
had poison in it, poison that killed Cyril Portwood."

"Bull."

I wasn't going to be caught
unaware twice, so I looked around to make sure Elmer wasn't bearing down on me.

"And you told me you didn't
find Portwood until Sunday morning."

"That's when I found
him."

"Bob Barney says you found
him Saturday night."

"Then Bob's lying. But I
think you're the one who's lying. I don't think anyone murdered Cyril. I think
he fell asleep just after the garage door shut."

"Miss Portwood, we have
enough evidence to take you in."

"And I've got enough money to
hire a good lawyer."

I didn't know what to do. I
decided to consult with Herb, and Lou, who had just walked up.

"I can check with the D.A.,
but it's just circumstantial. I don't know if he will be willing to prosecute,
or not. I'd rather talk to him before I take anyone in for questioning."

I wasn't sure if either one of
them did it or not, but I was sure at least one of them was lying. I just
wasn't sure which one. The sheriff told her not to leave, and that we might be
back with more questions.

+++

I needed to think things over, and
I felt I could do that better in Hilldale than in
Frankfort
. I asked Lou if he minded going
home, and he smiled and told me "no."

I wondered if I would be better
off if Lou and I hashed things out on the way home, or if we listened to music.
I figured I would be in a better frame of mind when I got home if we listened
to and gyrated to music. Well, maybe more listening than gyrating.  I knew I
would be tired when I got home. I didn't plan to do anything before the next
morning.

We weren't going back to
Frankfort
, and Hilldale wasn't the same
direction as
Frankfort
, so we took off on a new road. We
stopped on the way back to get something to eat, and to break up the drive. It
was a little over three hours after we left
Westport
until I pulled up in front of Lou's apartment building.

"Don't even think about the
case tonight, but get up in the morning and see if you can come up with
something that might help solve it. I'll give you a call around
noon
or so."

Lou nodded in agreement and got
out to go inside. I drove home and contemplated whether I wanted to take a nap,
a shower, a bath, or just call it a night and go on to bed. I ended up doing
the last one, so my brain would be fresh and ready to go the next morning.

Experts say we think better when
we are rested. I think that must be true, because not long after breakfast the
next morning, I figured out what "Who wrote it?" meant. I picked up a
book I had in my possession and took it to an expert to see if I could learn
anything that might help bring this case to a conclusion. While I waited on
that information, I went back home to think. I still had over an hour and a
half until
noon
. Maybe I would learn something
else by then.

I had gone over the clues. It was
time to go over the list of people I had talked to and try to recall everything
any of them had told me. I would take them in the order I talked to them. I
tried to think of everything each suspect and each of the other people we had
talked to had to say. I remembered a few things, but nothing that turned on a
light switch in my head. I looked over my list; Bert McHugh, Connie Crowe,
Jenny Luscher, Amy Smith, Diana Munson, Bill Noel, Archie and Hazel Portwood,
Arnold and Susie Hammond, Jake Cartwright, Jonnetta Jarvis, Lori Wildwood, Dan
Grimes, Bob Barney, and Millie Longacre. Was I forgetting anyone?

Then I thought back to reading the
journal. There wasn't anything in there that told me when it was put in
Portwood's van. We just assumed that he put it in and hid it under the seat
before he left home, but could someone else have written and put it under the
seat after he returned and was dead?

I was still full of more questions
than answers, but I hoped to have one more answer in a short time. Whether that
answer would help clear up matters or would turn out to be a dead end like most
everything so far, I didn't know. Only time would tell.

+++