One Big Bat Page 5

  Diane gasped and pointed to a spot by the end of the dresser. A large wedding picture of Paul and Diane was on the carpet. The picture frame was mangled, and the glass had shattered in pieces across the carpet. “Our wedding picture fell. How did that happen?”

  Paul moved as close as he could with bare feet to look. “The wire on the back must have snapped.”

  “What a mess,” I said.

  “It sure is, but I'm not going to do anything about it until morning,” Diane said. “Let's go back to bed. Though I'm not sure I can sleep after such a startling awakening.”

  As I followed Paul and Diane from the bedroom, it occurred to me the same odd odor had been very strong in the bedroom that I'd noticed in the hall.

  Chapter 6

  Friday morning while I jogged, the neighbor directly across the street, a man in his sixties with a beer belly and double chin, came out of his house and waved. I waved back and kept running. My mind was focused on what weird events had been happening after dark in my sister's house.

  Suddenly, it occurred to me retired neighbors tended to be nosy and made the best eye witnesses. I turned around and jogged back to his yard. He'd tucked the Wedgewood Daily newspaper under his arm and was opening the front door to go inside.

  “Pardon me, sir. I'm Renee Brown, Diane Logan's sister.”

  He turned around and smiled at me. “Nice to meet you. I'm Bob Swensen. I noticed the Logans had company. You visiting from out of town?”

  “No, I live here. My apartment is being painted, and I had to find a place to stay until the landlord gets done,” I told him.

  “I see,” he said.

  “The last few days since I've been staying with my sister, we've noticed some strange noises. We had the feeling someone is prowling around the house. Did you happen to see anyone close to the house at night lately?”

  “No, I haven't, but I'll surely be watching now that you told me this. If there is a peeking Tom about, we need to catch him. If some crazy guy is outside one house, he'll be sneaking around all our houses,” the guy said.

  “I'd sure appreciate it if you let the Logans or me know if you see anyone suspicious around their house after dark,” I said. “Well, I better finish my run. Been nice talking to you.” I waved and took off.

  I hadn't considered a peeking Tom. Diane has venetian blinds on the bedroom windows with the blinds shut. Anyone could see that from the road. No reason for a peeking Tom to make the effort to sneak a look.

  That didn't explain why I saw what looked like a shadowy figure in the hall. On the other hand, it might be a good idea to check for odd foot prints around the house foundation when I had time.

  I turned a corner and jogged back to the house just as Paul was pulling out of the driveway. He waved at me.

  Diane had me a cup of coffee on the table by the time I made it in the door. “Good morning.”

  “You must have seen me coming,” I said, nodding at the cup.

  “I knew it was about time for you to be back. I never did go back to sleep so I heard you leave this morning. I just looked out and saw you running this way,” Diane said.

  I plopped down and picked up my steaming cup. The air was brisk this morning so I was ready for coffee.

  Diane placed a saucer beside my cup with two chocolate chip cookies on it and a similar saucer at her place. “You seem quiet this morning. Anything wrong?”

  “I just keep thinking about last night. I guess I didn't notice. Is there an exit door that goes outside at the end of the hall?” I asked.

  “No. Why?” Diane took a bite of cookie and listened to me explain.

  “I must be going batty. Pardon the pun. Last night I thought I saw someone out in the hall again walking by my door. I actually got up and went down the hall. The bedroom was empty. I hadn't been back in bed very long before your wedding picture fell off the wall.”

  Diane laid her half eaten cookie down. “Oh, my! I wasn't going to say anything, but I found things missing this morning.”

  “Like what?”

  “A loaf of bread, a package of ham lunch meat and that new box of orange juice I just bought. This time the whole box is gone, and I looked to see if it was in the trash can before I accused Paul again. The box wasn't there.

  I thought maybe you had packed you a lunch for work before you went for the run. I didn't go check to see if you had a sack lunch on your bed,” Diane said.

  “That would be enough food to make my lunches for a week, but you would find no sack lunch on my bed. Just the cleaner bag with your phones in it.”

  “That wasn't all that was missing?” Diane said giving me a direct looked.

  “What else?”

  “I was going to take my car to the car wash this morning so I went to Paul's desk to get quarters from a cool whip bowl we keep there. The bowl is gone,” Diane said.

  “No kidding. Was Paul in bed all night? I've heard of people that sleep walk in the night and eat snacks without knowing it. Maybe he took your change, too,” I said.

  “I'm sure he stayed in bed all night. I had trouble sleeping because of some loud noises in the attic again,” Diane told me.

  “I heard those noises early on. The blurred shadow I thought I saw in the hall happened just before daylight.

  Mr. Swensen, in the blue house across the street, came out to get his newspaper this morning when I started my run. I asked him if he'd noticed any strangers lurking around your house. He said he hadn't, but he'd keep a closer watch from now on.”

  Diane looked nervous enough. I didn't want to bring up the neighbor's suggestion of a peeking Tom.

  When I got to work, I turned the phones over to Officer Briceson and told him to check them for prints. He brought back the results from APHIS our computerized fingerprint searching system.

  The living room phone had three sets of prints, and two sets were on the kitchen phone. I knew two sets belonged to Paul and Diane, but I ran all three sets through fingerprint recognition since I didn't have Paul and Diane's fingerprints.

  Briceson was standing behind me while I watched the machine scan.

  Bingo! Only one set was a match. The fingerprints belonged to a Jacob Lemar Longfellow. He was a fugitive wanted in, of all places, Waco, Texas for bad checks plus breaking and entering among other charges. I looked the name up and found, wouldn't you know, he has a brother living in Waco by the name of Henry Longfellow.

  “Briceson, I got a match. Now all I have to do is figure out how Jacob Longfellow's fingerprints got on my sister's phone. I'm going to fill out a breaking and entering report for the Logans. That way I can officially investigate.”

  “I'd say a B&E is how the guy got access to the phone all right,” Briceson agreed.

  “The access part for sure, but there wasn't a break in. So how did he manage to walk right in to the house and use the phone.” Right then I popped myself on the forehead. “A chicken house!”

  “Your sister lives in a chicken house?” Briceson asked.

  “No, that's what I've been smelling in my sister's bedroom and hallway,” I said.

  “Your sister has chickens?”

  “No, my sister doesn't have chickens,” I declared.

  “Well, isn't smelling chickens in her house a little weird? Must be something else like a sewer backup,” Briceson reasoned.

  “No, I'm sure it's the odor of chickens. When I was little, Mom used to let me stay with Dad's brother and his wife, Uncle Jim and Aunt Dotty Brown for a week at a time. They lived on a farm, and Aunt Dotty had chickens. She'd give me a bucket and tell me I could gather the eggs like I was doing her a big favor.

  Nothing smells worse than a chicken house. Trust me on that. My allergies would be in full force before I got out of there. I found out right away gathering eggs was never going to be my favorite thing.

  Sometimes, the hens didn't get off the nest right away. First time I tried to feel under a hen, I got pecked. Her beak left a hole in the back of my right hand and bled.

>   From then on, I just bypassed the nests with hens on them. Better Aunt Dotty get pecked than me. The chickens were hers.

  Do you know if there are any chicken fryer confinement or egg laying operations close to town?”

  “No, but I'll see what I can find out,” Briceson said.

  About mid morning, Briceson told me he checked for the address of the nearest poultry facility. There was a turkey confinement just three miles west of Wedgewood owned by a man named Joseph Rudd. His was a century old family farm.

  As bad as I hated driving in the country, maybe a talk with Mr. Rudd wouldn't be a bad idea. I asked Briceson to give me exact directions. None of the gravel roads in our area ran in straight miles. The roads curved and broke into two roads and came to T intersections.

  “Want me to drive you there in the squad car so you don't get lost?” Briceson asked.

  I shook my head. “Nah, as much as I'd like to have you come with me, you better not. You should stay in the city limits unless the chief tells you different. I'm the investigator in this department, and right now I'm not even sure what I'm investigating. If the chief got wind of this, he wouldn't want both of us wasting our time.”

  The country roads on the west side of town didn't disappoint me. I had debated programing Briceson's directions in on my GPS, but the gizmo doesn't work right. I must have picked the wrong brand. I don't know of anyone else that has as much trouble with their GPS as I do.

  On this trip in the country, I figured the woman's voice would only confuse me, and I didn't want to waste my time getting lost. If she isn't sure herself where I should turn, she always says turn right.

  One time, I'd have gone into a ditch, through a fence and ended up in a pasture if I had listened to her. Another time, I could have been in Iowa before she had me turn again.

  If that wasn't bad enough, the GPS woman has a worst attitude than Mrs. Pestkey. She doesn't like to repeat directions so when I don't turn right like she wants, she snappily tells me I should have turned right because she said so. That's when I turn the GPS off and wing it until she cools off.

  Believe it or not, I wound up at the driveway of two long, white buildings with fans on the ends. I didn't have time to be pleased with myself that I'd found the farm. Three sheriff deputy cars were lined up in the driveway. What the heck was going on here?

  I pulled over to the side of the road and got out. Right away, I recognized the three deputies that showed up when I was on stake out at the Hutson farm, Steve Dikes, Glenn Stokes and Jerry Cecak. They remembered me, too.

  From the corner of one of the buildings, Glenn Stokes and Jerry Cecak waved at me. I waved back as I walked toward the tall, lanky and former boyfriend Steve Dikes. “Good morning, Steve.”

  He was totally surprised. “Good morning, yourself. You feeling all right now?”

  “Oh yeah,” I said.

  “That's good. You sure had a close call. Scared me and the other men that night,” Dikes recalled. “What are you doing out here?”

  “I might ask you the same thing. I came to talk to the owner, Joseph Rudd about a case I'm working on,” I said.

  “Good luck with that. We got a call early this morning from Rudd's hired hand about a homicide out here. Turned out he found Joseph Rudd dead in the turkey building behind us.”

  “No kidding.” I couldn't help but be surprised and disappointed at my bad timing. “Any idea what happened to the guy?”

  “He was hit really hard in the back of the head. Mind telling me why you wanted to see him?”

  “I'm trying to track down a man that might have worked for Mr. Rudd or another turkey confinement farmer in the area, but you say he has a hired man.”

  “Yes, but the man hasn't been working here very long. Recently, Rudd fired the hired hand he had before this one. In fact, this hired hand thought that guy might be the suspect. Seems he came back and hassled Rudd for more money.”

  “Let me guess. Would it be Jacob Longfellow?”

  Dikes grunted. “That just happens to be our lead suspect. How do you know about him? Better yet, what do you know about him?”

  “The man made some phone calls on my sister's house phone to his brother in Waco, Texas. She doesn't know him, but his prints were on her phone. That means Longfellow had been in her house when she and her husband weren't home,” I said.

  Dikes shook his head. “Breaking and entering and now possible murder suspect. Keep your eyes peeled for this one.”

  “My guess is he has been hanging out around town quite a bit lately. I'll alert the patrolmen,” I said.

  “You want to take a look at the murder scene. The county coroner should be about finished now,” Dikes said.

  “Sure, I might as well hear what Doc Klink has to say,” I said.

  When I walked in the confinement building door, I found myself in a small office. A copious amount of loud chirping came from beyond the office. The next thing I noticed was turkeys smell just as bad as chickens. I had to fight the tickle in my nose to keep from sneezing.

  Doc was leaning over a man's body sprawled out on the floor. He eased around to the other side of the man, trying not to step in the pool of blood that congealed under the top half of the body.

  “How are you coming, Doc?” Deputy Dikes asked.

  Doc Klink glanced up and raised an eyebrow at me while he talked to Dikes. “Just about done all I can until we get the body to the morgue. Detective Brown, you here, too? Haven't you got enough police work to do in Wedgewood without coming out in the country?”

  “Well, yeah, but I just happened to stumble into this crime by accident,” I excused.

  “Can you tell when the man was killed?” Dikes asked.

  “I think maybe two or three in the morning,” Doc said.

  “That's an odd time to work in his office, isn't it?” I asked Dikes.

  “He wasn't working. His wife said Rudd woke up when he heard noises, and the confinement building alarm went off. He thought someone was breaking in,” Dikes said. “Which looks like he might be right? Rudd came in on someone and got hit hard in the back of the head with a shovel handle. That's the murder weapon over in the corner.”

  I looked where he pointed. “I'd say that was a hard blow the poor man got on his head. The wooden handle is broken. I better get back to the police station and make sure the patrolmen are looking for our suspect.”

  That evening, the minute I came through the door carrying the bag of phones, Diane wanted to know what I found out.

  I told her the calls to Waco, Texas were made on the living room phone. Somehow, a man named Jacob Longfellow had used their phone to call his brother when they weren't home.

  Diane paled. “I hate the thought of some strange man roaming around in my house when I'm gone.”

  I agreed with her, but I still had this strange notion the guy was roaming her halls when all of us were in bed and stealing her food. I wasn't quite ready to tell Diane I thought the man probably was a murderer which was even worse.

  “I filled out a breaking and entering report at work for you so I can investigate this. We need to figure out how the guy gets into the house and back out when all the doors are locked.”

  Chapter 7

  That evening, Paul grilled brats while Diane fixed a salad and green beans in the kitchen. So I braced myself to duck if a bat came my way and took my drink out to the deck.

  It occurred to me this might be a good time to walk around the house and check for footprints while Paul and Diane were busy. I set my wine glass down in a chair and started down the deck steps.

  “Where you going?” Paul asked.

  “I thought I'd walk around the house and look at the flowers while there is still some cool shade,” I excused.

  “It's going to be a hot one for a few days. We could turn the air on if you think you need it,” Paul suggested. “Or, we could open the bedroom windows. It cools up some after dark.”

  “I don't think I want to open my window,” I said much t
oo quickly.

  Paul laid his fork down and stared over the deck rail at me. “Anything wrong?”

  “Well, frankly, I'm a little nervous right now. The fact this Longfellow guy is sneaking around in your house, coming and going when he pleases is bad enough especially now that the sheriff department want to question him about a murder.

  Now there might be someone prowling around outside at night. I've heard too many strange noises lately that I don't think we can blame on bats. I talked to the neighbor across the street this morning. He wondered if we might have a peeking Tom in this neighborhood,” I said.

  “I highly doubt that,” Paul scoffed.

  “Just the same, I don't think I want to be sound asleep and have someone scratching on my window screen trying to get in,” I said.

  Paul grinned. “Trust me, that would be the bats bouncing off the screens.”

  “Oh, now that makes me feel so much better,” I quipped.

  “Bats do that, but usually a light is on in the room that draws them to the window. Well if you decide you need a fan let me know,” Paul said, concentrating on turning brats.

  On the look out for anything suspicious like footprints or torn screens, I started my walk. The shrubbery was so bushy along the end of the house anyone trying to get behind them would have a struggle. Rather than get all scratched up, I ruled them out since there wasn't any windows in that wall.

  On the front side of the house were flower beds Diane planted. Marigolds, zinnias, pansies, and black eyed susan were low to the ground. Nothing but some small footprints here and there where Diane had stepped in long enough to pull grass or a weed.

  At the end of the deck were old fashion snowball plants so thick I had to slide in among them to look behind them. My stomach did a quick turn over.

  Footprints were thick back there. A man had stood behind the bushes. The prints were large with a heel that sunk in the soft dirt and pointed toes like cowboy boots.

  The prints faced the deck as if someone was climbing up by the table and chairs. I walked back to the steps and made my way back to the chair I left my glass on. With the glass in hand, I went over to the table. Right above the table was the new door Paul built for the attic opening. If a man was tall enough, he just might be able to pull himself up into the attic.