I gave Mr. Winkley some cat food and water and I squatted down and patted him while he ate his breakfast, and then he went to the bathroom in his litter box. Then he went to the balcony door and I opened it and he went out and down his tree. I cleaned his litter box and lay down on my bed.
I figured Stanley put the letter under my door, because he was the only one who had seen Francine’s book and he knew I was looking for the statue. I didn’t see how Francine could put the statue in that little notebook like the letter said, and then I thought, Well maybe she put it in a different book. I didn’t think she killed Nancy, but maybe she took Nancy’s statue and put it in a book.
Stanley didn’t have any reason to try to help me find the statue, not that I could think of. I thought maybe he was setting me up. He might have planted the statue in Francine’s room inside a book, and then put the letter under my door to get me to search her room, and then he’d call the cops and they’d catch me in her room with the statue and say I was planting it to frame Francine. The cops would take me away and then Stanley would be Elsie’s little pet.
The Colonel had told me that if you had two answers, the easiest one was probably the right one; and so I thought maybe Stanley put the letter under my door just because he wanted to help me get the guy that killed Nancy. He felt the same about Nancy as I did. That time she found him in her room, he probably went in to ask her out and he might have had a letter in his pocket that said, Dear Nancy, will you go out with me? but he was too shy and didn’t give it to her. I wondered how he could even think about asking her out when he was twice her age, but then again, a girl like Nancy can make an old man think he’s young again. Stanley was in love with her just like I was, and when we were in the park and I asked him about the statue he tried to tell me, but I didn’t listen.
I didn’t think that Francine would have any books big enough to hide the statue in, and I thought even if Stanley was a dummy he knew something and was trying to tell me.
Francine wasn’t in her room because she was out walking around carrying a doll in a blanket. I went to her room to look for the statue.
She never locked her door and I went in and left the door part-way open so that I would hear if she came up the stairs. Another reason I didn’t close the door all the way was because she had about a hundred dolls in there and it felt they were all looking at me, and that was pretty creepy.
I didn’t see the statue, or any books big enough to hide it in. I pulled the box out from under her bed and looked inside. There was Elsie’s pin, Gladys’s earrings, the Colonel’s medal, Howie’s hearing aid, and my jack-knife. I picked up the Colonel’s medal by the string and it swung back and forth. I kept looking at it. I couldn’t think what it reminded me of and I grabbed it in my other hand to stop it from swinging because I couldn’t stop looking at it when it was swinging like that. I opened my fist and looked at the medal to make sure it wasn’t a fake, because if it was, then the Colonel was a fake too. It looked real to me. I thought it was gold, but now I think maybe it was bronze and the Colonel polished it. It was as big as a silver dollar. It had a lady in a robe, with wings and a sword and shield, and it said The Great War For Civilization, and had the names of different countries on the other side. It didn’t exactly say he was a Colonel, but it sure didn’t say he wasn’t.
There was a lot of money in the box too; thirty-seven dollars. Francine was rich because her uncle died, and so I didn’t think it was Nancy’s money.
I put everything back because I didn’t want to tamper with evidence, and slid the box back under the bed. I was going to look in her bureau when I heard Howie come out of his room and walk down the hall. I figured he was headed to the bathroom, and I thought probably if I stayed quiet he would just walk by and wouldn’t wonder about Francine’s door being part-way open.
Howie came in.
“I am disappointed in you, Willy,” he said. “I want to know what you’re doing in Francine’s room.”
“The door was open and I thought she might be sick or something, so I came in to make sure she was all right.”
“The door wasn’t open. I have permission to come in here, but you don’t. I was in here a few minutes ago and saw that something was missing. You were in here before, weren’t you?”
“No I wasn’t. You’re the one that was here before; you just said you were. What were you looking for, Howie?” I thought probably he was looking for his hearing aid.
“Don’t try to change the subject, Willy. You came in here, you took something, and then you came back to see what else you could steal.”
“I didn’t take anything. The Colonel and I are going to find out who killed Nancy.”
“Either the Colonel has filled your head with fantasies, or you have exploited his weakness for fantasy. Now I have been patient with you, Willy, but I will not tolerate a thief and a liar. You and the Colonel are playing a childish game, and you do not realize what you’re getting yourselves into. Nancy simply overdosed on drugs, and that is the plain and simple truth you have to face. I want you to go back to your room, and I’ll go back to my room. I will wait ten minutes, and then I will come back. If I see that the missing item has been returned to its proper place, I will forget any of this ever happened. Otherwise you will leave me no choice but to tell Elsie what you did, and you’ll have to go back to living under your bridge by the railroad tracks. You have ten minutes to think about that.”
I don’t know how he found about my secret place, but I didn’t think he ever found my ladder, and anyway he was too fat to climb it.
I went back to my room and waited until Howie went into his room. I knocked again on the Colonel’s door, but he was either out for a walk or he wasn’t answering.
I figured that Howie must have been looking for the statue too, but I couldn’t think why, unless he was trying to protect Roy. I decided to go knock on Roy’s door, but then I thought, No, I don’t like Roy and everybody says “Don’t bother him.” Besides, if I went to Roy without proof, that would just be tipping him off.
I decided to go out and try to find Francine and see what she had in the blanket, and that I’d better do it right away before Howie came out.
On my way out to look for Francine I was going by Nancy’s room, and I heard somebody moving around in there. I knew Elsie couldn’t make it up the stairs without help, and the Colonel was the only other person who had a key. I didn’t think it was the Colonel, though, because I hadn’t heard him walk by my room or come up the stairs. I thought it might be Gladys in there looking for a picture of Nancy or maybe for junk, but I didn’t think she had a key. The killer, whoever he was, probably knew how to get in without a key, and could be in the room hiding evidence or looking for money or junk or something. I hid around the corner by the bathroom and watched.
I was waiting for Nancy’s door to open and after a while I started to think that whoever I’d heard in her room had gone out the window and down the fire escape, and I wished the Colonel had been there so that I could have gone out back and watched the window while he covered the door.
The person in Nancy’s room didn’t go out the window, though; he came out the door. And he didn’t come out like you’d think he would. The door didn’t even open. It was one of those wooden doors with six panels, and the top of one of the lower panels pushed out, then sprang back in, and then out again. Then I could see something on top of the panel pushing on it. I squinted to see what it was. I said, “Now I’m going to find out who killed Nancy.”
The panel pushed out some more and something started coming through the opening. It wasn’t Roy, and it wasn’t Howie, or Francine, or the Colonel, or Stanley, or Elsie, or Gladys; it was Mr. Winkley! The top half of the panel was loose and he was inside the room pushing on it with his paw.
He stuck his front leg out and then his head, and he looked around to see if anybody was looking, but he didn’t see me because I was on his blind side.
How did he get in the room? I wondered. I didn’t think he could have pulled the panel open from the hallway, and anyway he’d been outside on the street. That’s when I remembered that I’d unlatched and opened Nancy’s window when the Colonel and I were searching her room, and I’d forgotten to close it. Mr. Winkley had been coming in through her window and then he’d go through her door!
The reason he’d never done it while Nancy was alive was either because he didn’t know how until he saw the killer do it, or the killer had loosened the panel.
He pushed his other front leg out and then he wiggled his body and waved his paws like he was swimming, until he could set his front paws on the floor. He rested for a bit, and then he wiggled and pulled his back legs out, and the panel sprang back on his tail, and he meowed and pulled his tail out. I picked him up and took him to my room and I made sure the balcony door was closed so he couldn’t go out.
I decided I’d better go looking for the Colonel because we had to close and latch Nancy’s window in case the police came back, and he had a key to her room. Also, I was pretty sure the killer had gone out through the loose panel, but I couldn’t see how, because it was too small for anybody but Mr. Winkley. I figured the Colonel would know.