Steve Demaree - Dekker 09 - Murder on a Blind Date (20 page)

I didn't
get to sleep as long as I wanted. I woke the next morning to the ringtone on my
cell phone. It was the second time Eve's phone call woke me.

"Cy,
were you up?"

"I
am now."

"Sorry,
but I need to know how you knew that there had been more murders."

"What
would you think if I told you that God told us?"

"I'd
think you need to be a little more serious."

"But
it's true. At least I think it is. See, Lou and I worked homicide for over
thirty years. Early in those thirty years Lou started getting thoughts that
many times helped us solve our cases. He only received these thoughts when we
were working on a case. I started calling them Lou's messages from God. In
reality, I can't see anywhere else they could come from. And like I said, these
clues helped us solve our cases. Well, late yesterday afternoon, Lou received
another one. I remembered that it was Thursday, and figured that there had been
another murder, so I called you right away. Too bad Lou didn't get the message
prior to the murders. Maybe you could have been there to capture whoever it is
before they committed any more murders."

"And
what was this clue?"

"The
name rings a bell. The name rings a bell. I'm not sure, but this might be the
first time Lou's message has been repeated."

"And
have you figured out yet what it means?"

"No,
I was going to work on that today, see how it fits in with the others."

"Others?
Are you saying he's gotten other messages since you started working with us? How
many others?"

"Five
or six altogether."

"Well,
see what you can come up with. I'm ready to see what my house looks like again,
and I won't be able to do that until we've solved this thing."

We said
goodbye and I looked at my watch. It was
9:10
. Well at least she didn't call real early. I wasn't about to go back
to bed, so I headed off to take care of everything I needed to get out of the
way so I could give all of my attention to going over those clues.   

+++

I figured
I could think better in my recliner. I had written down all of the clues, so I
could lean back and try to tie them together and use them to find a murderer.

I looked
at the first clue. "Floyd Kramer." That was the one clue I
understood. One of Floyd Kramer's tunes was
Last Date.
Each of the
murder victims were on their last date before they were murdered. That tied all
of them together and all of them to the dating service. But it didn't tell me
who's responsible. It was time to move on to the second clue.
"Winter
Wonderland
and
Summer in the City."
Both are songs. Contrasts.
One talks about a time when it is cold. The other tells us about a time when it
is really hot. Was the clue telling me that the murderer is a person of
contrasts? If so, who could that be? The only contrasting person I could think
of was Lucy Marlowe. She was mousy on our "date" and belligerent when
I confronted her at her home. I would keep her in mind, and see if she fit in
with any of the other clues.

The next
clue Lou was given was "both live in the same neighborhood." Both of
whom? No two of the people considered a part of this case, living or dead,
lived in the same neighborhood as someone else.
Lexington
is a fairly large city. None of the people involved in
any way live within walking distance of each other. It was time to move on
again. I knew I would have to go over these clues a few times before something
hit me, if something did hit me. 

I moved
on to "Martha's husband." Well, Lucy Marlowe wasn't anyone's husband,
and as far as I knew, none of the other suspects were married. I talked to Phil
Pendleton and Charles Hacker. If either of them had a wife she was somewhere
else. And Arthur Comstock's wife wasn't named Martha. No one I'd talked to was
named Martha. And the only Martha I could think of who had a husband that was
known to me was Martha Washington. None of the guys on my list were named
George. And none of them reminded me of George Washington in any way. It had to
be a different Martha. And anyway, I doubted if the murderer was married to
some woman named Martha. 

Next on
my list was "Doc Hollywood." I'd seen the movie, but it had been a
while. I was trying to think of what takes place in that movie. I could
remember a little, but not a lot. I had only seen it once. Or could it be that
the clue is in the title, not the movie itself? None of our suspects was a
doctor. None of them had any
Hollywood
connection, either. While someone out there is a good actor, whoever that
person is doesn't act for a living. Could it mean that the murderer works in a
hospital or a doctor's office, or some other place that deals with the medical
profession? Three people associated with the case fall in this category, but I
wasn't sure if that was what I was to gather from the clue.

It didn't
take me long to get to the last clue. "The name rings a bell. The name
rings a bell." I didn't understand this clue, either. I assumed it meant
that whoever did it should be familiar to me. Of course they should be familiar
to me. I talked to all of them.

I hadn't
solved the case after the first time through the clues so I called Lou, told
him what I was doing, and asked him to study the clues, too. Maybe one of us
could come up with the idea that we needed. I told Lou I planned to eat lunch
at home, but I might not answer the phone if I was deep in thought. I asked him
not to call me unless it was really important. He told me he knew how important
my naps are to me. Later, I would try to fix him up with either Bambi Fontaine
or Lucy Marlowe, provided the two of them weren't in on the murders together.

I was
disappointed when I had run through the six clues one time, looked at my watch
and realized it wasn't lunchtime. I didn't expect that one time through them
would give me what I wanted to know, but it didn't keep me from hoping so. I
wondered what I should do next. I decided to get my mind off the case for a few
minutes and call Jennifer. She vaguely remembered who I was, and I reminded her
that I was through dating those other women, and I was doing the best I could
to get to where I could give her my undivided attention again. I also promised
her that I would take some time off before the weekend was over and take her
out somewhere.

It still
wasn't lunchtime when I hung up from talking to her, so I walked around the
house, looking for something to take my mind off of what I couldn't solve. I
plopped down in a comfortable chair and leafed through the newspaper. There was
the same negative news on the front page. I fumbled through that section,
passed over the sports section, and came to the one thing in the newspaper that
is worth reading everyday, the comics. I had decided a long time ago which
comics aren't funny, which ones don't interest me, and which ones to read each
day. That last group included a sampling of new and old. I missed some of the
ones from my childhood, no longer around, but loved the ones that had begun
before I was around, where someone was still cranking them out without a step
down in quality. It was while I was reading those comics that I came up with a
possible solution for one of my clues. There was another Martha, a Martha I
spent time with a few times each week, and this Martha had a husband, George
Wilson, Dennis the Menace's next-door neighbor. Good ole Mr. Wilson. Except
that he was cranky. And old. Was this the Martha God meant? His name was
George, just like the President. But he was old and had been old ever since the
strip first came about back on
March 12, 1951
.
Well, I wasn't around then, but I assume he was the same old man then. None of
our suspects was an old man. None of them were named George. Maybe this wasn't
the man married to a woman named Martha that I was looking for. But I wouldn't
dismiss it until I found something better.

I
finished looking over the newspaper without coming up with another solution to
any of my clues. I got up and paced. I went over to the window and looked out. Another
cloudy day. Nothing out there to help me. So where should I turn next?
Something made me head to my video collection. Well,
Doc Hollywood
was
one of the clues. I didn't own that movie, but I had a couple of Michael J.
Fox's movies. I shelved my movies alphabetically. I had over two hundred
titles, not counting the seasons of TV shows I had. I found it easier if I shelved
them in alphabetical order. I looked at the first one,
The Addams Family
.
None of my suspects looked like Uncle Fester so I moved on. Next was
Adventures in Babysitting.
I'm probably the only man who enjoys watching
that movie, but none of my suspects are teenagers, so I moved on to
Air
Force One.
None of the victims I was concerned about was murdered on a
plane, and none of my suspects look like Harrison Ford, now, or like he looked back
when he was doing the
Star Wars
series.

I felt
that some movie on those shelves would be vital to me solving the murders, so I
persisted, spending a few seconds on each movie. Taking time to do that made as
much sense as anything else I could do, and so I persisted. I made it most of
the way through my collection before the light in my head went on. I wondered
how I could have been so stupid that I didn't consider this sooner. I now had a
suspect. I felt that only one of four people had everything it took to be able
to kill every one of the victims. But I had to see if this suspect fit with
each of the clues.

I skipped
over the first clue, since it had nothing to do with the murderer's identity. I
checked to see if my suspect could fit clue number two, and I decided it was
possible. I moved on to number three, and now that I had a suspect to match
with the clue, I saw how my suspect fit "Martha's husband," even
though my suspect had no connection to any woman named Martha. At least as far
as I knew. So far so good. Next was "
Doc
Hollywood
."
As I suspected, the real clue had
nothing to do with that movie, but it still fit the clue. Only one more to go,
and I knew that one fit, too. Now, all I had to do was prove what I knew, or
strongly suspected.

It was
time to call Sam. I needed him to help me get the evidence I needed to prove
the murderer's identity. I called him up. I told him it was a rush order. I
thought I knew who murdered all those people. I told him certain things I
needed from him. And I needed them as soon as possible, like yesterday. He knew
how serious I was about this, so he refrained from the jokes the two of us
trade back and forth. I hung up the phone, continued to pace. There was nothing
else I could do until I heard back from Sam, and I wasn't ready to call Lou or
Eve Sanchez until I did. I wanted something else in my corner, because the
arrest wasn't mine to make.

Some of
what I asked Sam to find out wouldn't take him long. Some might take a while
longer. I almost burnt myself twice while fixing lunch. I told myself to calm
down. Imagine using something like a newspaper and a movie to tell me who
murdered all those people. But God works in mysterious ways.

+++

It was
late afternoon before Sam called me back. He provided the information I sought.
The suspect had both opportunity and motive. That was enough for me. I thanked
Sam, told him I would send him his check as soon as I received mine, and we
both shared the first laugh I'd mustered that day. I called Lou first, to share
what I surmised and what I knew and see if it seemed the same to him. It did,
so I went to my cell phone and punched in a number that I was beginning to
learn.

"Sanchez."

"Eve,
this is Cy. I think I know who murdered all of those people."

She must
have been skeptical when I started with the newspaper and an old movie, but I
felt her firmly on my side as I shared what Sam had learned.

"Kind
of makes us feel a little stupid," she said. after she heard that, Sam, a
man who hadn't gone over any of the evidence, was instrumental in solving the
case. "The only problem is that what little evidence we have is
circumstantial. I don't know if the captain is willing to risk what we
have."

"I
have an idea. Our murderer is predictable, at least up to this point. I don't
see any reason for a change. So, I doubt if there are any murders before
Thursday. Up to this point, if someone hasn't been murdered on the first
Thursday after their date, they haven't been murdered at all. There are new
green cards coming to that dating service each week. Too many for each of them
to be murdered. My guess is that the murderer tries to complete the mission in
the morning, but returns at night if they are unable to find their target at
home. So, all we have to do is whisk some of these people away, and be there
with a couple of them when the murderer shows up. Then we can step in, catch
the murderer in the act, and make an arrest."

"I
think that can work, but I'll have to get approval. And I'll have to see if the
captain is willing to put things on hold until Thursday. I'll remind him that
Thursday is the only time we can catch the murderer in the act, so to speak.
I'll pass on what you've told me, and I'll call you back as soon as I
know."

+++

An hour
and a half later she called me back.

"Cy,
I just wanted you to know that Operation Green Card is a go. We're on for
Thursday. Can you be here before daylight?"

"Of
course. We have to be in place, since we don't know what time the murderer will
strike. I assume you will take care of everything on that end."

"We'll
make sure that all but two of the people are out of the way. Then we'll be at
one of the two scenes and have another team at the other."

I hung
up. It was still Saturday. It was a long time until Thursday. Eve told me that
Lou could come with me, and since we had to be there before daylight, he and I
were going back to the Hilton Suites, and our last time for a while to eat at
The Cheesecake Factory. I was sure some people couldn't see someone eating
there that often. And I was sure none of those people had ever been there.

Two phone
calls told me it wasn't too late to arrange a double date. Lou and I were
taking the girls to The Feed Bucket.