52 Steps to Murder (9 page)

“No down the chimney. Of course through the front door. How else was someone to get in?”

“Well, they could always pry away the plywood. When did this happen?”

“Last night.”

“And you’re just now letting the police know?”

“Sorry, Lieutenant, I didn’t have your phone number, and I find a person always saves time when he starts at the top and works down.”

“Well, I’m not exactly the top of department, Mr. Silverman. But enough about that. How did you happen to notice this person?”

“Well, I just happened to be walking by the window when I saw someone wearing a raincoat walking down the street. It surprised me, because it wasn’t raining, so I decided to look and see which way they went.”

I had to keep from smiling when Stanley Silverman told me that he just happened to be walking by the window. I was sure that Stanley Silverman happened to walk by the window any time he thought there was something to see outside that window. I brushed away my thoughts about the nosy neighbor and continued my questioning.

“Did the intruder immediately turn at the Nelson house and climb the steps?”

“That’s right.”

“Did this person seem to labor as they climbed the steps, or did this person climb them like they were used to the ordeal?”

“Whoever it was had no trouble climbing the steps. They hurried up the steps.”

The thought that anyone could hurry up those steps reminded me of my sore legs. Immediately I deduced that neither Lou nor I had been walking in our sleep. Besides, sleepwalking takes far more energy than dreaming.

“And what did you do after you saw this person?”

Mr. Silverman smiled sheepishly before he replied.

“I sat down in my chair and watched through my night-vision binoculars.”

I couldn’t suppress a smile.

“And I assume that eventually someone came out of the house.”

“About thirty minutes later, but that was the strange part.”

“Do you mean it didn’t look like the same person?”

“No, it definitely looked like the same person, but they didn’t come out of the same house. Whoever it was came out of Mabel Jarvis’s house.”

“You mean the woman in the wheelchair?”

“That’s the one.”

“Well, maybe you were gone for a moment when this person left one house and went over to the other one.”

“I swear, Lieutenant. I never left my chair. I saw everything,” Stanley Silverman replied, holding up his fingers as if taking an oath of a Boy Scout. I doubted if Stanley Silverman was ever a Boy Scout.

“Well, could it be that we’re looking for two people, Mr. Silverman?”

“You tell me, Lieutenant. All I know is the outfit looked the same and both people looked to be the same size.”

“And what size was that, Mr. Silverman?”

“Average.”

“Average for a man or a woman?”

“I don’t know. They weren’t real tall and they weren’t real short. They were average.”

“You said that you were looking through your night-vision binoculars, but since you cannot identify the intruder I assume you didn’t get a look at his or her face?”

“Whoever it was had on a ski mask. I couldn’t tell a thing.”

“Well, could you tell anything or eliminate anyone you know from the size of the person?”

“I guess you’re talking about people I know. The only one I might be able to eliminate is Jimmy Reynolds. He’s too big. Or at least, that’s the way it looked to me. Anyway, while this person seemed strange, they didn’t seem as strange as Jimmy. They walked normal like, only kind of fast.”

“Mr. Silverman, think of the walk. Is there anyone you know who walks like that person did?”

Mr. Silverman paused, rested his chin in his hand, and pondered my question.

“Well, come to think of it, the person in the raincoat did walk something like our mailman, Mr. Hartley, but what would Mr. Hartley be doing on our street on a Saturday night? And anyway, Mr. Hartley doesn’t wear a yellow raincoat. I believe his raincoat is clear.”

“What about Miss Penrod’s house? Have you seen any more activity there?”

“You mean someone peeking through the blinds?”

“That’s right, unless you’ve seen anyone coming or going at her house.”

“Nothing. Only at the two houses I told you about.”

“Well, thanks for letting us know, Mr. Silverman. We might get you that detective job yet.”

+++

Lou and I turned away wondering if we were looking for one person or two, and if it was only one person, how that person could have gotten from one house to the other without being seen. Or could it be no one at all? Maybe the mysterious person was a figment of Mr. Silverman’s imagination, or someone he created to draw suspicion away from himself. Lou and I crossed the street and began our climb up the Nelson steps, only to be confronted by a second surprise.

11

I reached in my pocket and pulled out the key I’d removed from Mrs. Nelson’s handbag, inserted the key into the lock, and turned the key. When I pushed on the door, I found the door still securely locked. Either Mr. Silverman was right, or Mr. Silverman was playing games with us. The sliding bolt was in place. Someone had been in the house since we left it. Neither Lou nor I wanted to make another trip up and down the steps. The two of us went over to the window to see if we could pry the plywood far enough away from the house to open the window. It wouldn’t budge, so we flipped a coin to see who went to the car to get a crowbar.

What seemed like a day or so later, I returned and passed the crowbar to Lou before I collapsed on the porch. It was as if I was handing off the baton and it was Lou’s turn to run the next lap. A few minutes later we’d accomplished our mission, although we had to remove all but two nails in order to admit two stout men.

We stepped over the window sill and entered the house. We took a moment to look around to make sure we were alone. If anyone was nearby, he or she had taken on the look of a piece of furniture. Neither of us heard anyone, so Lou slipped on a pair of gloves and walked over, slid the bolt, and opened the front door, while I called the department to let them know about the newest developments. Before long, the house was crawling with a cornucopia of cops which closely resembled the passel of police who were there the day before. One man checked the front door for fingerprints, while Lou and I went through the house to see if anything looked different from the previous day. All we found was a pair of men’s size eleven galoshes. They were in the pantry just off the kitchen. The bottoms of the boots were dusty.

Other men headed to the back yard to see if it looked like anyone had gone over the wall. Once again, there were no footprints or ladder marks. Another man was sent to call on Mrs. Jarvis, but like the day before, no one answered the door. All the work went for naught. We found no new clues other than the galoshes, so we reattached the plywood and everyone left, except Lou and me.

+++

Lou and I stepped out the back door. The thick grass cushioned each step as we walked around the well-manicured lawn. I made a note of how flat the backyard was. If only we could find a way into the house via the backyard, but the door was locked on the inside. I noticed that the patio had been enclosed to form a sun porch. I imagined the many days Mrs. Nelson must have spent sitting on her sun porch watching the birds splash in the multi-level, fountain-like birdbath and eating the seeds in the bird feeders. I didn’t know much about birds, but Mrs. Nelson had several bird feeders, so they must have contained different types of food for many species. I twisted my head and looked at the large wall that enclosed the backyard and the large trees that towered above it on the other side. Was it possible that this wall played some significance in the mystery, and if so, would it make our job easier or harder? Was it possible that someone climbed one of the trees on the other side of the wall and dropped down into Mrs. Nelson’s yard? It was possible, but the drop would have been far enough that someone could have sprained an ankle in the process.

In case someone had leaped, he or she would have encountered another problem. Flowers grew all along the wall inside Mrs. Nelson’s backyard. What kind of flowers I did not know. Some were red. Others were yellow. Still others were pink, blue, and lavender. Other than roses and tulips, I learned to identify only two types of flowers. Funeral home flowers and clothing flowers. Years ago I learned to tell the difference between mums and gladiolas. As far as clothing was concerned, people usually wore carnations or orchids. I know that men sometimes wear carnations, if the occasion is fancy enough, like a wedding or prom. I think someone bought one for me to wear when I got married. Orchids are what guys buy their prom dates, if they want to impress them. Used to, there was only one kind of orchid corsage. A woman wore it on her dress. Then, women started wearing dresses that started at the bottom and ran out of material before they got to the top. Then, someone invented a corsage they could wear on their wrists. I had no idea what a man is supposed to do if the woman wears a dress that does not come up to the neck, and she wears a wristwatch. It’s a good thing I’m no longer dating.

I saw that no one had tramped any of the flowers that I couldn’t identify, then turned to my partner.

“Well, Lou, what do you think?”

“I’d say they’re some kind of annuals.”

“What are?”

“These flowers you’re looking at.”

“Which ones?”

“All of them. Of course there might be some perennials mixed in.”

“But there are several kinds of flowers here. How could they all be the annuals or perennials? Anyway, I wasn’t asking you about the flowers. I was talking about the case.”

Before Lou answered, he looked at me like I was the one who was stupid.

“I’m not sure what to think, Cy. If Mr. Silverman was telling the truth, and the presence of a pair of boots say he is, evidently someone entered the house last night, but who and why? And was it the same person Mr. Silverman saw coming out of Mrs. Jarvis’s place, or does someone want us to assume that?”

“Let’s look at what we know so far. Mrs. Nelson was poisoned, and it doesn’t look like she poisoned herself. Therefore, we can assume someone murdered the old lady. But who did it, and why? Also, there was someone in the house at the same time as Miss Nelson and Officer Davis. Did he or she get here first, and if so, did this person commit the murder or discover the already-murdered woman? It could be the reason the mysterious person was hiding was because Miss Nelson arrived as he or she was about to leave, and the victim’s granddaughter cut off his or her only means of escape. Also, what can we assume about this latest intruder? Did the murderer return to the scene of the crime, and if so, why? Did he or she leave something that we failed to find? Is someone else trying to solve the murder? Or is someone playing games with us?

“We have lots of people to check on, but the only ones who could conceivably have a motive are Angela Nelson, who probably inherits the place despite what she told us, and her grandmother’s attorney, who could be crooked. Still, all of Miss Nelson’s time seems to be accounted for, and no one saw Mr. Hornwell on this street on the morning of the murder.”

“Well, Cy, maybe the old lady caught the mailman stealing her social security checks or the next-door neighbor taking something from the premises? Or, while I doubt if Jimmy Reynolds is capable of poisoning Mrs. Nelson, he could’ve been the one who pushed her down the steps and sent her to the hospital, and his mother might have poisoned her if she felt Mrs. Nelson was going to call the authorities and have her son taken away.”

“Who knows? You may be right, Lou. At any rate, it’s too early to eliminate anyone, especially since we haven’t talked to all of them yet.”

“What about last night’s intruder, Cy? Do you think it was the murderer returning to the scene of the crime or someone trying to solve it?”

“Maybe someone had left something that they didn’t want us to find.”

“Or, maybe they brought something they wanted us to find.”

“You mean the galoshes?”

“Possibly. Why didn’t we look in the pantry when we were here yesterday?”

“I did. If these galoshes were there then, I sure didn’t see them, but then I guess my mind was elsewhere.”

“Like checking with the other neighbors to see if any of them could tell us something.”

“And none of them did. Well, none except Mr. Silverman, who told us a lot, and Mrs. Reynolds, who thinks that everyone but Jimmy did the old lady in.”

“Don’t forget Mrs. Wilkens. She told me a lot, but will any of it help us? So, Lou, do you have any suggestions as to what we do next?”

“It’s been only an hour since breakfast, so it’s too early to eat lunch.”

“It’s never too soon to eat, but I mean do you have any ideas about the case?”

“I don’t know. It’s almost as if someone is trying to help us find something in this house. I just don’t know what. Also, I’d like to talk to Mrs. Jarvis, if we can ever get her to come to the door.”

“And let’s not forget Miss Penrod, who seems to have left town.”

“So, what’s next, Cy?”

“I say we go through this place again. Then, let’s try one more time to raise Mrs. Jarvis. It bothers me that Mr. Silverman  said  he saw someone coming out of her house last night. If that’s true, and the person Mr. Silverman saw was the murderer, then something might have happened to Mrs. Jarvis, too. If she doesn’t answer the door, then I’m calling to get an okay to break in and check out her place.”

+++

Another look around Mrs. Nelson’s house proved fruitless. The two of us scoured the main floor. Like the houses of many elderly people, Mrs. Nelson’s house was crowded with furniture. The house was clean, but who moved all the furniture and swept? Surely not Mrs. Nelson. Maybe Mrs. Murphy did it. I expected to learn more after we spoke to her.

Lou and I traipsed upstairs again, mainly to give the bedroom another going over and to look on and around the four-poster bed where the woman was found dead. We checked the basement too, but found nothing unusual. Once again, I locked the front door, and Lou and I headed down the steps and up the street to Mrs. Jarvis’s house. As we walked two doors up the street, Lou noticed that we were being watched. As far as he could tell, no one was hiding behind any of the trees, but someone across the street was sitting by a window studying us through a pair of high-powered binoculars.