Steve Demaree - Dekker 09 - Murder on a Blind Date (18 page)

I love
listening to 60s on 6 in the morning. Not only do I get to listen to the songs
I didn't get to listen to growing up, but Phlash Phelps makes the show more
interesting with his City of the Day and talking to callers who call in from
every burg in the country. Phlash seems to know every large and small town in
America
and to have been there on his
many vacations. Anytime I think of him I think of the song
I've Been
Everywhere.
He has callers guess the City of the Day from a clue he gives
them, and each day he chooses something that fits in with current events. I
felt good as I drove and he talked to a caller who was knee-deep in snow, but
not so good when another person called in and told Phlash the temperature where
he lived was seventy-two degrees.

+++

It was a
little after
10:00
when I pulled the van up in front
of the Blue Moon. Lou and I sat there, studied the building for a few seconds,
thinking of all the good memories we'd made there. Overeating. Playing Mountains
and Roads with our mashed potatoes. Seeing which one of us could flip the most
peas into the other guy's volcano. And just knowing that we were welcome every
time we darkened the doors of the place. Finally, we got out of my van and
walked in. There was a woman sitting in a chair at one of the tables. It took
me a minute to realize that it was Rosie. A little grayer, but still Rosie. She
didn't realize who we were at first either, but as soon as she did she jumped
up and down and starting screaming. She hurried over and looked at us.

"Is
it really you?"

When we
both grinned and nodded, she asked, "What is it? Cancer? How long do they
give you? You've already wasted away to nothing."

"Rosie,
as far as we know there's nothing wrong with us. We've both just lost a lot of
weight. We feel better and can move around better now. Now, do we get hugs, or
not?"

She
lunged at both of us and managed to get her arms halfway around us.

"What's
it been? Two years?"

"I
don't think it's quite that long. I just know it's been too long. So, what's
new?"

"Well,
I own the place now. Old man Cooper practically gave it to me. My house is paid
for. I'm drawing Social Security now. So, I only have to clear $400 a month
from this place. Some months even that is tough, without those thousands you
two used to drop here. So, can I fix you some breakfast?"

"You
can. But just two eggs and three pieces of bacon."

"So
you're still dieting?"

"If
you call bacon and eggs dieting."

"Oh
by the way, we stopped baking pies after you two left us high and dry. But if
you want to drop by sometime, just call me ahead of time and tell me what you
want and  I can fix it for you."

We agreed
to do that, then shushed her so she could go fix breakfast. Not only did she
own the place, but she seemed to be the only one there.

She read
my mind and said, "I have a cook that comes in on busy days. We have some
retired guys that meet here twice a week for breakfast. There are enough of
them to fill the place. Well, almost fill it."

Lou and I
walked over, hoisted ourselves up, and plopped down on the same two stools
where we always sat, with one vacant stool between us, while Rosie went to the
kitchen and fixed our bacon and eggs. We spun around on our stools until we
started to get dizzy. When we stopped I could see Rosie laughing at us from the
kitchen. We could see her through the opening, so the three of us talked while
she cooked. It was good to be home again and getting up on the stool was less
of a struggle considering I didn't have as much weight to hoist up. Ten minutes
after Rosie left to cook our breakfast she brought us our food, and  both of us
played with it and joked with Rosie, who told us to behave or she would tell
the owner. We filled her in on how our lives had changed since we had seen her,
minus the details of our current case. We were there over an hour. When a woman
with two small children came in for an early lunch, we knew it was time for
Rosie to go to work and Lou and I to go to my place and do the same.

+++

We drove
to my place and walked into the house. I headed to my recliner, Lou to my
couch. He kicked off his shoes, put a pillow behind his head, and lay down. Both
of us reclined for a few minutes while we thought about what all we had to
tackle. I had worked a lot of murder cases in my life, but my thoughts on the
current case were that never had I known so little about so many people. I
wondered where to start. I chose the wrong question to ask Lou.

"Where 
do I begin?"

"Where
do I begin, to tell the story of how great a love can be."

When Lou
started singing the theme to the movie
Love Story
I turned my head to
keep Lou from seeing my tears. The song reminded me of my Eunice, who died of
cancer much too young.

After I
dried my tears, I tried to lighten the moment. I looked around for something
heavy to throw at Lou. I saw a few things, but nothing that I wanted damaged. I
got up in mid-song and headed to my dining room table. Lou quit singing and
followed suit. Lou knew I was all business as soon as I took out a Hershey
Almond candy bar and laid it on the table. He reached into his pocket and
thrust down a package of M&Ms to let me know he was in, too.

I
carefully unwrapped my Hershey bar and took a bite, careful not to bite off
more than one almond. Lou, whose brain still hadn't recovered from his
kidnapping, put an M&M on his thumb and shot it toward me. I was quick with
the wrapper still holding most of my candy bar and deflected the M&M before
it could hit me in the eye. It bounced off the table and slid down onto an
unoccupied chair. Lou picked up the M&M, blew on it, and popped it into his
mouth.

"Is
playtime over?"

"You're
just jealous because your candy is harder to flick."

I felt
like I'd been called out. I went to the kitchen to retrieve a knife and came
back to cut a square section of chocolate. I laid it flat on my hand, and
projected it end over end until it came down squarely on Lou's nose.

With
Lou's manhood deflated, all he could muster was, "even a blind hog finds
an acorn every now and then."

"It's
not an acorn. It's an almond. Now are you ready to get started?"

When he
didn't answer, I began.

"Okay,
here's what we are going to do. Let's start by listing the names of every one
of our suspects, and putting them into a category of likely or unlikely
suspect."

Lou,
familiar with my house, got up and grabbed a piece of paper, came back to the
table and wrote a
L
on one side at the top, and a
U
on the other
side. Then he wrote my name under the
L
.

"If
you're talking about a murder that might happen today in my house, you're off
to a good start."

Undeterred,
Lou moved over to the other side of the paper and wrote the names of each of
the victims.

"Could
you hold on a minute while I get my gun, Lou? I don't have a syringe."

Lou quit
playing games and was ready to play detective.

"Okay,
let's talk about each person in the order they came into the picture. Let's
begin with Arthur and Edna Comstock and her mother, Irma Childers. What
category would you put them in, Lou?"

"Business
owners."

"I
mean likely or unlikely to have committed the murders."

"So,
we're going to lump them together, Cy?"

"Not
necessarily. If you think one of them looks more guilty than the other two,
then split them up. The courts will do the same if one of them is guilty."

"In
that case, Cy, I don't know. I see one reason to put each of them in either
category."

"Okay,
out with it. You're probably thinking the same thing I'm thinking."

"Well,
the fact that they own the business, and murder would certainly hurt that
business, means that each of them would be among the least likely suspects."

"But
the only connection the victims have is that dating service."

"Which
means that it must be someone who used the service."

"But,
Lou, those who used the service aren't privileged to all the information about
each of the victims."

"But,
as someone said later, it would have been easy for someone to follow the victims
home."

"Except
for one thing. Two victims from the same date were murdered. It would have been
impossible for someone to follow both of the victims home."

"Well,
what about Irma Childers? She doesn't own the business. Maybe she's trying to
get her daughter and son-in-law out of the picture and take over herself with a
clean slate."

"Then
put her in one category and the Comstocks in the other."

"I
don't know, Cy. Let's say we think of them together. Do we put the Comstocks
and Miss Childers in the Likely or Unlikely category?"

"I
don't know. Any of them could have easily left home on a Thursday and gone out
and murdered someone. Remember, some of these people were murdered in the
daytime, others at night. Someone didn't have to be gone all day to commit
murder."

"But
we tend to forget those early victims. There was the young woman, whom I think
just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and she had nothing
to do with the dating service, either as an owner or a customer. One of the
others lived in Morehead. Another was taken to
Tennessee
, probably late on a Saturday, with me and that young
woman. It would take at least two and a half hours for someone to get to
Morehead, murder someone, toss him in the woods behind his house, and return to
Lexington
. And I was kidnapped sometime in
the early evening on a Saturday and transported to Gatlinburg, probably in a
trunk with that other guy and the young woman. The other guy may have been put
in there before or after me. My guess is that the young woman and I were loaded
up around the same time, since she came to my apartment.  That makes me think
that whoever it was wasted close to eight hours to take care of that job. Maybe
longer than that. It could be that whoever it was stayed there with us a while,
and waited until Sunday morning to come back."

"How
could one of those three have gotten away with being gone for so long of a
time?"

"That
is assuming that the other two didn't know what the one was up to. And
Comstock's mother-in-law could have said she was going home, walked next door
to her house, and sneaked off a little while later with her daughter and
son-in-law knowing nothing about it. She had no reason to be at their house on
Sunday morning. Or mother and daughter or husband and wife could have been
operating together. And of course any of them could have fed the other two a
story about having something come up that would take them away."

I was
thankful when Lou didn't say, "Calgon, take me away." I couldn't
picture Lou taking a bubble bath anyway, and I was thankful for that.

"So,
which category do we put them in, Lou?"

"I
don't know. Maybe we can move on to the others and come back to them."

And so we
did just that. Nothing accomplished, just time spent.

"Okay,
let's move on to our next category, my three dates."

Lou
looked at me and smiled.

"Let's
start with Bambi Fontaine. What do you think, Lou?"

"I
think you learned your lesson, Cy. It's best not to lie on an
application."

"Okay,
I'll start. She could have been upset enough that she didn't find a man on any
of her three dates that she could have become unhinged and gone on a murderous
rampage. She could have left that trailer park anytime without arousing
suspicion. We know she went back to The Cheesecake Factory more than once.
What's to keep her from following someone home? And people are more likely to
open their door to a stranger if that stranger is a woman. And it would have
been easy enough for her to get away anytime she wanted."

"But
the murders started before you met her. Are you saying she had three dates
before she got to you?"

"Who
knows? She could have been inspired to do away with others after one
date."

"So,
do we go ahead and convict her, or have a trial first?"

"Oh,
we might as well have a trial."

"But
do we think a woman is capable of murdering all these people?"

"Of
course a woman is capable. All she has to do is jab a needle in someone's arm.
It's not like she had to win the best two out of three falls."

"But,
you've seen her. Is she capable of dragging me out to the street and tossing me
in the trunk of her car?"

"I
think so. She might have banged your head tossing you in, but your head was
damaged years ago, so no one would be able to tell the difference. What about
the other guy? What was his size compared to yours?"

"He
was taller than I am, but he weighed less. He was a thin guy. But I'm still not
sure she could have done it."

"So,
are you voting 'no' for her?"

"No,
let's keep her in the mix."

"Okay,
so we have one definite 'yes' from me and one qualified 'yes' from you. Let's
move on."

I said
that a little too soon. It took me a minute to realize who was next on our
list.

"Yes,
Cy. Let's move on."

I didn't
need to look at Lou to know he was smiling at me.

"Well,
I can't see how Sarah Jane could possibly have murdered anyone."

"How
did the victims die again, Cy?"

"Okay,
I realize she's a nurse, and a nurse knows how to use a syringe, but she's a
nurse who loves babies."

"And
says she loves you."

"Well,
she didn't actually come out and say she loves me. But she was at least a
little bit smitten."

"As
were you. But don't worry. I'll keep your secret. Jennifer will never know
unless Sarah Jane shows up on her front porch with a syringe."

"Lou,
you're forgetting that Emily French, that woman Hacker dated, is a receptionist
in a doctor's office, and that Phil Pendleton calls on doctor's offices."

"I'm
not forgetting anyone. We just haven't come to them yet."

"So,
Lou, do we need to discuss her anymore, or are you ready to vote?"

"I'll
put her with the Comstocks. We'll come back to her later."

"And
I'll put her in the Unlikely category."

"And
you'll decide later whether or not to go back to her."

I
deflected Lou's comment and moved on.

"Okay,
Lou. How about spinster number three, Lucy Marlowe?"

"Cy,
you're forgetting that I never met your last two dates, so I'm forming my
opinion based on hearsay evidence."

"No,
you're voting based on what I told you."

"Isn't
that the same?"

"Moving
right along, this woman, who seemed quite mousy on the date, grew very agitated
when I showed up at her house and wanted to question her about the
murders."

"But
then she didn't know you were there to talk to her about the murders."

"Not
unless she's the murderer. Then she might have had an inkling."                     

"All
I can say is that the woman I didn't think could do this, when I had dinner
with her, I now feel is very capable of murdering someone. I wonder if she has
Thursdays off from work."

"I'll
go along with you on this one, Cy, since I have no reason to put her in either
category."

All we
were doing was forming opinions. We had no evidence that cleared or convicted
any of them. I was hoping that a phone call from Sam would nail someone to the
wall, or at least eliminate some of the suspects. But it would probably be a
while before that happened, if at all.