52 Steps to Murder Read Online Free PDF

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