Wilmington, NC 10 - Much Ado About Murder

find blood on any of the furniture?”
    Nick narrowed his eyes and stared at me. He is always surprised when I ask intelligent questions about police work.
    “No, actually, we did not find blood anywhere but at the front door where he had crawled when you found him.”
    “What I don’t get,” Jon interjected, “is why he didn’t turn the gas off.”
    Nick was getting impatient as evidenced by his fidgeting from one foot to the other. “As I said, we’ll question him when he wakes up.”
    “What about Simon LeBeck ? Are you sure he fell? Could he have been pushed? Were there any signs of a struggle?”
    Nick grimaced. “There were scuff marks on the floor of the upper porch but they could have been caused by furniture being moved, we just don’t know. We found nothing to suggest that LeBeck’s fall was not an accident. We believe he was on the second floor in his room when he smelled gas and in his haste to escape the fumes, he simply tripped over his own feet and plunged down the two flights of stairs. I ordered a tox screen but those take a while so we won’t know for a couple of weeks if he had drugs in his system.”
    “Is Dalton going to be all right?” I asked.
    “They aren’t saying. He’s in a coma and they’ll call me as soon as he comes out of it.”
    “Do us a favor, will you, Nick?” Jon asked. “Let us know when he wakes up. Ashley and Melanie are worried about him.”
    “Will do,” Nick said and moved quickly down the sidewalk toward his car.
    “Well, some of that was good news,” Jon said. “We don’t have a gas leak and now we can get into the house and start work.”
    I wrapped my arm around his slender waist and looked up at the large house. “We’re going to turn this into a fine home for us and the boys. We’ve got to remain positive about what we’re doing and not let this incident spoil our plans. But we’ve got to do something about that upstairs porch to make it safe for the boys.”
    “Already in the works. You know, I can’t help feeling a little sorry for old Nick. He doesn’t know what he’s missing.”
    Maybe he does, I thought. “Let’s go on home and give those rascals their lunch. Relieve poor Aunt Ruby. Tanya is coming early this afternoon so we can be back here in two hours.

12

    Dalton Montjoy

    Dalton Montjoy lay in a coma in the ICU at New Hanover Regional Medical Center. He was unresponsive to stimuli such as touch or sound. But in his mind Dalton was not desperately ill in a hospital bed, he was reliving his old life back in New York City.
    The year was 1988 and he had just locked up his laboratory at New York Hospital and was walking home in a pleasant fall evening. He always walked to and from work: rain, shine, sleet, or storm. The walk was good for him, mentally and physically. At the end of the work day, the thirty minute walk home allowed him to make the transition from his work life to his real life: the world of music and theater.
    Dalton may have majored in biology at Chapel Hill to please his parents, but he had minored in music to please himself. His job at the hospital as a senior technician in a research lab allowed him to support himself comfortably while at the same time his day job did not interfere with his music or his performances as a singer, dancer, and actor – that is, when he was lucky enough to be selected from the stiff competition that showed up at auditions.
    Dalton walked south on York Avenue until he was crossing under the noisy Queensboro Bridge. Then the cityscape changed dramatically as he strolled down elegant Sutton Place. One block west and he found himself on First Avenue. It was at this point that he began searching faces. He watched for Mr. Irving Berlin who often walked, on the arm of a female nurse, around the neighborhood at that hour. Both Dalton and Mr. Berlin lived one block east of First on a short, private street called Beekman Place.
    Mr. Berlin was a night owl. Five-thirty in the afternoon was morning to him. Dalton had learned all about Mr. Berlin’s personal habits because they had become friends. The very elderly composer was now one hundred years old. Dalton had been seeing Mr. Berlin around the neighborhood for years and although Dalton always greeted the man respectfully, Mr. Berlin never returned the greeting.
    And then Berlin’s beloved wife Ellin died in July. The word among the neighbors on Beekman Place was that Mr. Berlin was lonely, very lonely. And cut off from so many of his