Murder in the Winter (23 page)

While I was working on munchies, Lou took out the
sheet of paper containing his notes, turned the panel on, and familiarized
himself with which knobs to turn and buttons to push. By the time I’d filled up
two plates with food and poured soft drinks in two ample-sized, plastic,
ice-filled glasses, Lou had maneuvered the camera to where he had a good view
of the parking lot next door. We ate and talked until 10:00, at which time we
flipped a coin to see who had the first watch. I took the first two hour watch,
while Lou got comfy on the bed in the back.

At 4:00 a.m., as I woke Lou for his second watch, I
had sat through two watches and Lou one without any hint that anyone else was
alive. I settled down for my second nap of the night, a nap that would be
shorter than the first.

+++

I felt Lou shake me.

“Cy, we’ve got a nibble.”

I rubbed my eyes, tried to wake up.

“What’s that, Lou?”

“Some guy just pulled in behind the apartment building
next door. I watched him a minute, but he’s just sitting there. Hasn’t gotten
out. Just sits there. I don’t know if he spotted me, or not.”

“Good work, Lou. Let’s watch him. See if he gets out.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

“Let’s just be patient and see.”

The two of us sat there watching the SUV that pulled
in. We couldn’t really see the guy, but he hadn’t gotten out yet. He just sat
there. I decided to give him ten minutes, and then if he didn’t move, I’d start
the RV, move out slowly, block the driveway to Oppenheimer Arms, then walk down
the drive and corral the guy. There had to be some reason why he chose to go to
that particular apartment building in the middle of the night. My guess was he
was the same guy who had been there before. I looked at my watch. It was 5:12.
Too early for any decent person to come calling on any of the neighbors. None
of the apartments in the back had their lights on, so if anyone expected this
guy, it had to be someone in front. Or could it be that no one was tipping his
hand until the guy went inside? Or maybe the darkness inside meant that all was
not clear? Had someone spotted us? 

After seven minutes, the guy next door got out of his
vehicle, went inside. He was carrying something, but from where we sat I
couldn’t tell what it was. Neither could Lou. As soon as our suspect went
inside, I made a move.

“Lou, I’m going to pull around front and block the
drive. If he doesn’t come out within a couple of minutes, we’ll go in after
him.”

I backed up to turn around, so I could pull out of the
driveway. Once I accomplished that, I pulled out onto the street and positioned
the RV so the guy couldn’t get out of the driveway, then went back to join Lou
with surveillance. We would give him a couple of minutes, watch him on the
monitor if he came toward us. Just a few minutes after I joined Lou in the back,
I saw headlights flashing across the back of the building. The guy was leaving.
Boy would he be in for a surprise as soon as he turned up the driveway and saw
us blocking his exit. Halfway up the driveway, the guy must’ve spotted us. He
hit  the  brakes  slightly,  flashed  his lights  off  and  on,  and  then cut
them off. I looked at Lou, wondered what our visitor’s next move would be.
Would he just sit there? Would he ram us? Would he back down the driveway, or
get out and start running? He sat there for a few minutes, contemplating his
move. In our excitement, I hit the joystick, and knocked the camera off course.
Because of an overhanging limb that hung down from a tree near the street, we
hadn’t gotten a good look at the SUV up to that point. We knew that it was an
SUV, nothing more. Lou frantically tried to reposition the camera by moving the
joystick, but the camera must’ve gotten stuck in a tree limb. Our mishap
prevented us from knowing that our visitor had crept forward edging closer to
us. I lunged forward toward the passenger side window, hoping to slide the
window open a few inches, and stick my hand out to free the camera from the
tree limb. Before I could accomplish this, our unknown visitor hit the gas, cut
hard left at the sidewalk, barreled down the walkway in the opposite direction
from the way we were headed, and turned left at the first street. I managed to
get to the door just as he turned onto the connecting street. As quickly as I
could, I freed the camera, stumbled over to the driver’s seat, turned the
vehicle around, and pursued our fleeing nocturnal visitor.

We turned onto the street our pursuant took.
Naturally, he was already out of sight. I spent fifteen minutes looking for the
guy, but to no avail. Maybe Louie, our department expert, could tell something
from the pictures, although I expected little help from those pictures. Maybe a
black-and-white spotted the guy driving like a madman and pulled him over. I
called the department, ran a check on the guy, but no one in the traffic
division had encountered any suspicious drivers. Maybe our guy had pulled into
a nearby driveway and hid until we passed. Then he drove off the other way like
nothing had happened.

Frustrated, I drove back to Oppenheimer Arms, and
parked around the corner. Lou and I got out, noticed no lights coming from any
of the apartments, and walked to the rear of the apartment building. The MO was
the same. I was sure whoever our visitor was, he was the same person who had
done this before. But why? Was he engaged in illegal activities with someone at
Oppenheimer Arms? If so, who? No one gave himself away by turning on the lights
when our visitor arrived. And when I pulled around to the front, all of the
windows were still dark. There was nothing for us to do but go home and crawl
into bed.

30

I hate stakeouts. No homicide detective should have to
do them. I threw off the covers at 10:07 Saturday morning, still tired. A few
hours earlier, on the way to take Lou to his place, we contemplated doing
another stakeout the next night, but we figured our visitor wouldn’t return so
soon. If he had a rendezvous with someone at Oppenheimer Arms, my guess is they
would either hold off for a few days, or look for a new location. Lou and I
decided to get some sleep, then head downtown to see what evidence our camera
might have for us. Our worst case scenario was to check with DMV and identify
all the people in Hilldale who owned SUVs. Surely, there weren’t that many. I
didn’t want to consider that our visitor was someone from out of town. Besides,
he’d been around too many times lately to be someone from a distance. If the
pictures or DMV checks didn’t shed some light on the case, Lou and I would consider
talking to SUV owners in surrounding counties.

After stumbling around the house for a few minutes, I
remembered what a fool idea Lou and I had tried the night before. Everything
came back to me. Everything that I knew up to that point. We had our puzzle
together except one small part. The identity of our murderer. In time, we would
accomplish that, and put this case to bed.

As I showered, I relived the night before. At least
the parts when I was awake.  I questioned whether or not to mention to Thelma
Lou that Lou snores. I also wondered about embellishing the story.  When  I 
tell  the story, I wondered if I should I mention that I pushed the RV out of
the way of the oncoming freight train, thus saving Lou’s life? And should Lou
and I be up for raises after saving the department tons of money by saving all
that equipment? I must’ve spent too much time thinking about it. I was shocked
back into the present when I noticed freezing water causing chills to spread
over my entire body. A big area for chills, I must say.

I called Lou, who had been up for over an hour, and
told him that I would pick him up in a few minutes, and that we would make a
dash for the Blue Moon in order to get our brains working well enough to solve
the case. Lou agreed with my strategy.

+++

After we added a few pounds of food to our insides,
two reinvigorated policemen hastened to headquarters, hoping to find out the
identity of our almost assailant.

I hate to work on weekends, particularly when I need
assistance, because most of the top people aren’t on duty. It took a little
longer than it would’ve taken us during the week, but we were able to come up
with all the information we would’ve gathered had we waited until Monday. There
were no pictures. The only information we had were the few visuals we saw from
within the RV. Both Lou and I guessed that the SUV was either light gray or
some shade of tan. We didn’t see enough of the vehicle to guess the make or
model. The darkness of the night and the bright headlights shining at us prevented
that. That made our job harder. Luckily, someone on duty knew more about
computers than Lou or I did. A young man we didn’t know fed information into
the computer and the computer spit out printed pages for the two of us to
peruse. We decided to peruse them at my house after picking up some food at Antonio’s
on the way.

+++

I spread out our computer printouts on the dining room
table, and Lou and I went to work. I couldn’t believe a small, old-fashioned
town like ours had so many people driving SUVs. We soon learned that Hilldale
residents owned 257 SUVs. We chopped that number considerably when we eliminated
dark blue, brown, dark gray, and black SUVs. Still, ninety-four people were
more than I wanted to call on. True, the number of people who owned mid-sized
cars was a lot higher, but if Lou and I were going to call on each of these
people, it would take us a while. We would have to do it alone. No one else saw
the vehicle we were looking for. While it was dark and we weren’t able to
identify the person, we could rule out some people based on size. Too bad the
person we were looking for was not our size. There weren’t too many men our
size, though I expected that more of the corpulent ones drove SUVs than yellow
bugs.

It took us over an hour to pare the field. We studied
our list, including addresses and occupations. No one stood out over the
others. We decided to ride together, even though it would take longer. Besides,
neither of us wanted to be the guy working hours after his partner had found
the man we were looking for, and since neither of us owned a cell phone, neither
of us would’ve been able to alert the other one that our mission had been
accomplished.

I was amazed when I found out that one of the programs
on the computer routed out our stops for us. All I had to do was drive. Well,
drive and walk. Up to one door. Back from that door. On to the next one.

Our first two SUV owners were at home, but we quickly
eliminated them from our list. The third name on the list wasn’t at home. It
dawned on me that it might mean a second trip to see this person. Maybe our
murderer would die and leave a confession before we finished our list.

Lou and I adopted a plan to use if no one was at home.
We would check the driveway, and garage if possible, for an SUV, to see if we
could rule out said vehicle. If that didn’t work, we’d check with the neighbors
to see what we could learn about the SUV owner who lived nearby. It helped at
one early stop. The owners of the SUV were in Florida for the winter. So was
the SUV.

A little after 4:30, with no success except the
ability to eliminate a few people, I pulled up in front of a duplex. The two of
us got out. I glanced at our list. We were looking for the occupant on the
left. As we neared the door, an elderly woman opened the door of the right-hand
unit.

“May I help you?” she asked.

I flashed her my credentials, and spoke.

“We’re looking for Jon Edwards.”

“That’s my grandson.”

“Is he in?”

“No, Jon went home for the weekend.”

“Could you tell me when he left and when he’s expected
back?”

“Is he in some kind of trouble, Lieutenant?”

“No, I just want to talk to him. He hasn’t done anything
wrong that I’m aware of.”

“I knew that boy wouldn’t do anything wrong. He
doesn’t do anything but study. He’s a graduate student.”

“And when did he leave and when is he expected back?”

“Sorry, Lieutenant. I’m not used to being interrogated
by a policeman. Jon left Thursday afternoon. He should be back some time
tomorrow night.”

“Well, thank you for your time.”

+++

At 5:30, dead tired, Lou and I decided to call it a
day. We were still worn out from the night before, and were tired of freezing
and watching our breaths go before us. Both of us were tempted to wait until
Monday before contacting any more people, but we knew we’d have a better chance
of finding people home on a wintry Sunday afternoon in January than we would on
Monday morning. We would rest for the night, go to church on Sunday morning,
grab a quick bite to eat afterward, and work through as much of our list as we
could. Somewhere, there was someone who could help us solve this case. We
merely needed to find out who this person was and talk to him or her.

Lou and I left for dinner, then both of us retired
early. Sunday would be almost as busy as the previous two days.

+++

I awoke Sunday morning more refreshed. A good night’s
sleep had definitely helped. Also, it stirred my heart to be able to look
forward to church, instead of immediately heading to work. I showered, spent
time reading my devotionals and in prayer, then left the house to pick Lou up.
Two hours later, we were nourished by the magnificent éclairs the church offers
each Sunday, and blessed by the pastor’s message. We lingered a few minutes to
visit, then hurried out the door and ate much too fast. Lou and I wolfed down
two half-pound burgers with everything, two large orders of fries without the
much-needed gravy that makes them worth eating, and two super-sized drinks.
There was no time to waste. We were about to take off some of the pounds we had
put on so far that day.

We worked until a little after 7:00, satisfied that
we’d made it through all but twelve people on the list, but dissatisfied that
we hadn’t found our man. Frustrated, I drove to Antonio’s for some good Italian
food to help me rest easier. The sour looks left our faces as soon as our
server plopped down a large order of Italian nachos. We finished seconds before
she returned with veal parmesan for me, and spaghetti and meatballs for Lou. By
the time we finished, our spirits had almost been lifted to the mountaintop. A
couple of desserts would take us the rest of the way.