Murder at Breakfast by Steve Demaree Page B

Don’t stop until you get to the Atlantic Ocean. No, make
that the Pacific. It’s farther. Run to the Ocean, put the board down on the
water, and hop on. Start doing the hula, and when you start to go ‘glug, glug,
glug,’ it means your time is up.”
    “Oh,
Cyrus, is this your way of telling me that you want to go away to a deserted
island together?”
    “Miss
Humphert, I have work to do now. Another murder, you know. Why don’t you go
away somewhere, far away somewhere, and take your Wii and your Wii rat, and
then send me a postcard when you get there. I’ll send someone to Wii with you
as soon as I can.”
    “Cyrus,
you know that Twinkle Toes and I don’t want anyone but you. I want us to stand
on the Wii board and exercise together.”
    When
she said that, I smiled. Not because I wanted to get anywhere near her, but if
I could get any two people on Lou’s board at one time, there was a good chance
it would break. The board holds up to 330 pounds. Could it be that my two ways
of ending any more Wii experiences for myself would be find two people heavy
enough to break Lou’s board, or gain enough weight so that I would be over the
limit all by myself? Do I see eating three desserts at each meal in my future?
    My
next-door neighbor misinterpreted my smile and lunged toward me. I maneuvered
to get away from her, but tripped over the shoelace that the mutt had untied,
banged my knee on Lightning’s door, and began to hop on one foot.
    “That’s
great, Cyrus. Is that one of the Wii exercises?”
    Without
answering, I grabbed the door and yanked it open. At the least it would offer
me an obstacle between myself and that woman . At the worst it would make
contact with her knee and cause her to hop as I had done. Maybe it would conk
the dog on the head at the same time. I dove into my car, shut and locked the
door as quickly as possible. Only then did I smile at my neighbor. I started
the car and shifted into reverse. My neighbor and her varmint jumped out of the
way. I would ask for God’s forgiveness, but I would do so with my eyes open and
as I drove down the street and away from my neighbor.
     
    +++
     
    I
stopped by to give Lou a ride to the restaurant where he no longer eats. Well,
no longer eats man-size portions of good food. God intended for us to eat
everything except what hung from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and
since I have never seen that tree, I can eat everything. Of course everything
doesn’t mean things man dreamed up, like tofu, and yogurt, and those other
things found in an unhealthy food store.
    When
I got over my tirade that was not really a tirade, Lou informed me that God’s
message for the day was “John Dickson Carr.” A few months ago that name would
have meant nothing to me. After reading some of the great classic mysteries, I
learned that John Dickson Carr was the originator of the “locked room
mysteries.” Could it be that someone had entered the victim’s locked apartment
to murder her?
    On
the way to the Blue Moon, partly to update Lou on what had transpired and
partly as a diversion to rid my brain of thoughts of Lou the Non-Eater, I
filled in my partner in crime solving about what Frank had told me. I mulled
over our possibilities over breakfast and decided our best avenue was to go
back to the murder scene, see if it enlightened us about the murder, and, if
not, sit down with Lou and think of questions to ask each of our suspects.
     
    +++
     
    I
plopped up onto my stool at the Blue Moon and turned to look for Rosie. She
grinned and winked at me. I had never known the woman to be drunk, so I
couldn’t imagine why she was acting in this manner. She sashayed over to me,
looked down at me and said, “Hi, ya, Handsome. How about some hugs and kisses?”
    I
turned to Lou and could tell from his look that he wasn’t in on whatever game
Rosie was playing. A few women had made me uncomfortable before, but never
Rosie. I wanted the Rosie I had come to know, not this