52 Steps to Murder (4 page)

“That’s right.”

“Does that mean that you’ll inherit this house?”

“I don’t think so. I told my grandmother a while back that I wasn’t interested in the house or her money, but that I’d like all of her family photographs and a couple of keepsakes to remember her by. I’m sure that Mr. Hornwell can supply you with all the details.”

I consulted my list.

“Let’s see, that’s her attorney.”

“That’s right, Harry Hornwell. He’d know all about my grandmother’s estate.”

“Oh, yes, one more question, Miss Nelson. I noticed your grandmother had several bruises and broken bones. Can you tell me how and when this happened?”

The thought of her grandmother’s injuries made Angela Nelson’s eyes tear up again. In a few seconds, she recomposed herself and then answered my question.

“I don’t know, Lieutenant. I noticed them when I found her. I don’t know what happened to her, but it had to have happened in the last three weeks. She was fine when I left.”

“Thanks so much, Miss Nelson. I know this has been a rough day for you, so you go home and get some rest. I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

I turned to face Officer Davis. I wondered if he would make eye contact with me. He did, but the look in his eyes said it was difficult for him.

“And thanks to you, too, Officer Davis. I’ll let you know if we have any more questions for you.”

Officer Davis walked over from the corner where he had been standing, and Angela Nelson got up from her seat. Both of them nodded and said goodbye to Sgt. Murdock and me, then walked toward the front door.

As Angela Nelson stood and faced me, I noticed that the beautiful woman could almost look me straight in the eye, so I guessed her height at five foot nine. The handsome, light-brown-haired rookie officer was slightly taller than I, so I guessed him to be around six feet.

If my mother were still living and she could lean me up against a doorway and mark my growth spurt with a ruler, she’d find out I topped out at five feet ten and a half inches, give or take a fraction. Lou and I can look one another in the eye, so I’d say he topped out about the same place.

4

As soon as Officer Davis left with Angela Nelson, I called and reported in, asked for an SOC team and Frank Harris, our medical examiner. Then Lou and I trudged up the stairs to see what the crime scene could tell us, without either of us getting close enough to disturb any evidence.  

“Come on, Lou. Let’s go take another look at the old lady.”

I entered Mrs. Nelson’s sewing room on the right as we completed our climb. Lou followed me. We stayed a moment, and then found two more bedrooms down a hall toward the back of the house. We glanced quickly at each, then came back, passed a bathroom just past and opposite the stairs, and then a linen closet before we came to Mrs. Nelson’s bedroom. We entered the room, looked at the body.

“Well, what do you think, Lou?”

“You mean, do I think the old lady died of a heart attack?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“I’m not sure, but I can tell you’ve got a strong feeling. Was it murder, suicide, or natural causes?”

“Murder, Lou.”

Sgt. Murdock raised his eyebrows, not so much in disbelief, but because my comment piqued his interest.

“Go on, Cy.”

Before I continued, I reached into my pocket and withdrew a Hershey wrapper that now engulfed the minuscule remains of a once robust chocolate bar. I smiled as I saw that there were mounds of chocolate surrounding the next tasty almond. My next bite would be a large one. I didn’t have to use my fingers to break off a piece, so I wouldn’t need to lick them, just my lips. After I sampled my delicacy, I carefully rewrapped the chocolate bar before I continued. Being used to my meticulous nature, at least as far as eating candy was concerned, Sgt. Murdock waited patiently until I continued.

Look at the clues, Lou.”

Sgt. Murdock studied the room to see what I had seen. It was a large bedroom with an adjoining bathroom. The deceased lay on the bed. There was a bedside table with a brass lamp and a telephone, a chest, a dresser with a mirror, a bentwood rocker, and another chair beside a marble-top table with a floor lamp beside it. A couple of books lay on the table. Other than the deceased, bedcovers, and a bedpan on the bed, and the books on the marble-top table, there was nothing on any of the furniture, not even dust. The hardwood floor was spotless, except for a goblet that lay on its side.

“All I see is a little old lady lying on the bed and a glass on the floor. Those wraps covering her broken bones and bruises make her look like a mummy whose head has broken out of her cocoon.”

I chuckled. “Well, I’m not sure I’d call her encasement a cocoon, my friend, but those are the same clues I see.”

“I know I’m only a Dr. Watson to your Sherlock Holmes, but my guess is that you think she was poisoned, Cy.”

“That I do, Lou.”

Lou smiled, having correctly guessed my thoughts.

“Because of the glass on the floor?”

“Partly.”

“Is the other partly that you see no poison anywhere and the old lady was in too much pain to get up and get it?”

“That’s right, Lou. This old lady has taken a mighty tumble recently.  The presence of a bed pan tells me that the lady next door came over a few times a day and emptied it for her. Mrs. Nelson wasn’t going anywhere on her own.”

“But what’s to keep the next-door neighbor from assisting her in suicide?”

“Nothing, as long as the next-door neighbor put the glass on the floor, too, because this bed sits up too high for the glass to fall out of the old lady’s hand and not break. Plus, I’ll bet they won’t find a single fingerprint on the glass. No, she was murdered, Lou, and our murderer doesn’t mind us knowing that she was murdered. Otherwise, he or she would have done a better job of making it appear to be a suicide.”

“Unless the murderer had to make a quick getaway because someone was entering the house.”

“Come on, Lou. Even a murderer making a hasty retreat has enough time to grab a glass. Besides, it could serve as a weapon in case someone confronted the murderer on his or her way out of the house. He or she could have thrown it at someone to gain a few seconds, or broken it in order to cut someone. Now, let’s go outside and wait for Frank Harris and the SOC team to get here so we can see what else we can find out.”

The two of us had investigated many murders over the years. So had Frank Harris, the medical examiner. During those many years, the three of us had seen a lot of each other and had become good friends in the process.

No sooner had Lou and I walked outside until the SOC team pulled up. We wanted to stay out of their way. I noticed a swing and a metal chair with two arms and motioned for Lou to take his choice. He selected the swing. I should have picked first.

Before I sat down, I looked at Lightning, my canary yellow Volkswagen. It’s one of the few things I own that I have purchased new within the last year. I call her Lightning because she glows like a lightning bug. My jealous friends in the department, all of whom wish they had guts enough to drive such a fine automobile, call her Tweetie. Only peer pressure makes them drive their gas-guzzling tanks, which are painted deathly black, tombstone gray, or camouflage green.

If you haven’t already figured out that I’m not a typical cop, you soon will. I carry only the customary gun. I carry no communication devices on my person, whether I’m working or not. I don’t even own a pair of sunglasses, mirrored or otherwise. Neither do I require a method of transportation that goes one hundred sixty miles per hour and burns a gallon of gas for each mile it travels. Why do I need to hurry? Murderers never remain at the scene of the crime to make my job easier, and corpses never recover, even if I hurry.

I looked up and scanned the houses that hovered above the street. No trees blocked my view except those at each end of the street. All the houses were made of brick, most of them a shade of red, and all of them had front porches that ran from the left side of the house to the left side of the garage which sat below on the same plain as the street. Many of the porches had swings, and a few of them had other furniture, as if to encourage visitors, if someone was in good enough condition and so inclined to make the climb.

The SOC team had already gone inside. Someone else slammed a car door and interrupted my thoughts. Frank Harris had gotten out of his vehicle and stood there looking up at Lou and me and smiled.   

“So, Cy. How did you and Lou get here? Someone airlift you in?”

“No, Frank, Lou and I came up the same steps you’re working on right now. Actually, we made it in record time.”

“Oh? How many days did it take you, Cy?” 

“Oh, not many. If it’s any trouble Frank, we can slide the old lady down to where you are. I don’t think she’d complain.”

“I appreciate it, Cy, but I think I’ll carry on. What I might do, however, is get you to go back down to the wagon and pick up anything I might have forgotten.”

“I’d be glad to do that, Frank, as long as you’re willing to visit the neighbors to see if they saw anything out of the ordinary here today.”

Lou smiled as he watched the two of us volley repartees. He enjoyed our verbal tennis match. None of this was new to him.

“I had a feeling you’d ask, Cy, so I already checked. No one saw anything out of the ordinary except for two middle-aged men having coronaries on the way up these steps. Oh, by the way, Lt. Huff-and-Puff, do I need oxygen up where you are?”

“Not where we are, Frank, but up where the old lady is. As a matter of fact, I think your report might show that she died from lack of oxygen. Of course, if you don’t hurry up, the body will start to decompose before you get up here to check it.”

Only a medical examiner could listen to a comment like that and visualize it without his stomach doing flip-flops. Frank Harris leaned his head back, laughed, and then resumed his climb.

I watched my friend who wore glasses that darkened in the sunlight. I knew how much he wished he had seen us climb those same steps.

+++

A few hours later, after Frank examined the body and the others dusted for fingerprints, nothing out of the ordinary had been found. The medical examiner’s preliminary finding was that the victim was poisoned, but he wouldn’t know the details until further tests were done.

When an ambulance showed up to take the victim for an autopsy, I noticed two interested bystanders who were not police. A nerdy man, who appeared to be in his forties, stood across the street taking in the proceedings, not caring who did or didn’t see him. Lou got my attention and pointed out a young man, probably in his mid-twenties, hiding behind the only burr oak tree on the block. When the young man noticed that Lou had spotted him, he darted away in a nervous manner to the next tree away from the house.

5

Lou and I stood on the front porch, glad that the two men who carried the body out of the house didn’t drop it on the way down. After the ambulance left, I noticed the nerd from across the street approaching the house. Lou noticed him too, and the two of us headed down to intercept the man before he set foot upon the crime scene.

If I’m honest, I have to admit that it irritated me that this unbecoming man, who appeared to be only a few years my junior, had no trouble navigating the steps. His stride coming up the steps equaled our jaunt heading down them.

We encountered our visitor about half-way up the steps. I stood and eyed the stranger, Dodge City style. None of us spoke immediately. The man had thin light brown hair and a wimpy mustache. At least there was a wisp of hair on his lip. He wore glasses with ugly yellow-brown frames, a white sport shirt with geometrical figures on it, and an unbuttoned, tan cardigan sweater which allowed us to see all six, cheap, ball point pens that were stuffed into the protector that protruded from the shirt’s pocket. I could see nothing to distinguish our visitor from any other wimp. The new arrival appeared to be around five-foot-eight inches tall, and his light brown wingtips seemed to be a size eight or thereabouts. The fact that he stood two steps below me made him seem even shorter.

Finally, our unwelcome visitor broke the silence.

“Do you have any idea yet who killed her?”

“I beg your pardon,” I replied.

“I said, ‘Do you have any idea yet who killed her?’”

“Sgt. Murdock, did I say anything about someone being murdered here today?” I asked, as I turned to face Lou.

“Not that I recall,” my friend replied with a smile on his face.

“Make a note, Sergeant, we must let the medical examiner know Mrs. Nelson was murdered. It will save him lots of time.”

“Oh, come on, detective. A passel of police don’t show up when an elderly woman drops dead of old age,” our perceptive intruder interjected.

 I focused in on the little man who stood before me, a contrast if I ever saw one. His eyes twinkled, as if everything was a game to him. His nervous mannerisms told me this was a man who had something to hide. He stood with his left hand in his pocket, jingling keys and coins as he listened and talked.

“I think there was a period of many days between the time when Mrs. Nelson dropped and when she died,” I replied.

The nerd laughed at my statement.

“I assume you’re talking about when she fell down the stairs,” the stranger said.

“Is that what happened to her?” I asked.

“Don't you know, detective?”

“No, I wasn’t present when it happened. Were you here for the occasion? You weren’t by any chance standing behind her when she fell, were you?”

The man laughed again.

“Not guilty, your honor.”

“By the way, I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. I’m Lt. Dekker and this is Sgt. Murdock. And you are?”

“I’m Stanley Silverman. I live across the street,” the man answered as he turned and pointed to his house with his free hand.

Lou and I watched as our visitor quit jingling the coins and keys, removed a quarter from his pocket, and put it in his right hand. He slid it between his thumb and index finger and began to flip it under one finger and over the next without looking at his hand. The man is ambidextrous, I joked to myself. He jingles left-handed and flips with his right.