Read 52 Steps to Murder for Free Online

us his phone had rung. As Mr. Silverman said this, he looked at his feet. I looked at them too and noticed the dirt on his shoes. From the looks of his shoes, the dirt had not been there long, and I doubt if he got his shoes dirty as he looked out his window or talked on the phone. But why would the man lie to us?
    Mr. Silverman told us he later returned to the window and saw Miss Penrod leave her own house in a taxi. Mr. Silverman chuckled as he related this to Lou and me.
    “What’s so funny, Mr. Silverman?”
    “Oh, it’s just that I noticed that the cab driver stared straight ahead so he wouldn’t have to help Miss Penrod with her luggage.”   
    “So, Miss Penrod left with luggage?”
    “She had a bag.”
    “So, I assume you went over and carried it down for her.”
    “No, I have a problem with my back,” Stanley Silverman said as he reached back and rubbed his lower back.
    “Yes, I noticed that, Mr. Silverman, when you ran up the steps to meet us,” I answered sarcastically. “Anyway, go on. So you returned to the window after finishing your phone call.”
    “That’s right.”
    “I don’t want to take up much more of your time, Mr. Silverman, but did you see anyone else at the house today?”
    Mr. Silverman told us about Miss Nelson’s arrival, and nothing he said varied from her version.
    “Oh, and there’s something else you might want to know about. As far as I can recollect, it happened about the same time that Miss Nelson arrived.”
    “And what is that, Mr. Silverman?”
    “I know it sounds creepy, but someone was peering out the blinds at Irene Penrod’s house.”
    “Are you sure it wasn’t Miss Penrod?”
    “No, this was after she left.”
    “Maybe she had company?”
    “And left them? I don’t think so.”
    “So, how long after Miss Penrod left did you see this person?”
    “Well, I never actually saw a person.”
    “Then, maybe it was a cat.”
    “Miss Penrod doesn’t have a cat. This is probably the only street in the county where no one has any pets.”
    “So, tell me what you saw, Mr. Silverman.”
    “Well, I noticed some movement in the blinds, so I zeroed in my binoculars to take a look. Couldn’t see anything except a parted blind and some fingertips. Then the person must’ve turned and seen me looking in that direction, because he or she moved away from the blinds. They came back, though.”
    “Could you tell what this person was doing?”
    “Not for sure, but my guess is watching Miss Nelson.”
    “And what do you base this on?”
    “On what part of the blind he or she looked through. See, it was the bay window,” Stanley indicated, as he pointed to the house next door, “not the other one. As you can see, it juts out a couple of feet from the rest of the house, so if someone wanted to look at Mrs. Nelson’s house, they would look out the left blind. If they wanted to see across the street where I live, they would look out the front blind, and if they wanted to look up the street, say to where Mrs. Wilkens lives, they would look out the right side.”
    I was thankful for his first grade explanation, and had another name to add to my list.
    “Mrs. Wilkens?”
    “Yeah, she lives in that house there,” he said, pointing to a house up the street on the same side of the street as the Nelson house. “And part of the time whoever it was did look up that way. It was as if he or she didn’t want to get caught.”
    “Let’s get back to the Nelson house. Other than Angela Nelson or the police officer, did anyone else enter or exit the house?”
    “I don’t know, Lieutenant.”
    “Another phone call?”
    “No, it was getting close to my lunch time. Other than glance out a couple of times, I didn’t look out again until just before they removed the body.”
    “Lunch! I knew that we were forgetting something, Sergeant.”
    My stomach growled, as if on cue. Just as if we had been conditioned by Pavlov, Lou and I removed our candy and took a bite.
    “Oh, one