Author Theodore Homuth

The Case of the Riverside Widow - Part 26

by Theodore Homuth

“I told him that most poisons leave traces that show up in an autopsy.”

“Which Mr. Vickers did not have.”

“Correct.”

Holmes tapped one finger lightly on the desk.

“Did the son seem relieved by that information?”

Dr. Levinson frowned.

“Relieved isn’t the word I’d use.”

“What word would you use?”

“Interested.”

Holmes and I exchanged a glance.

The doctor leaned forward now.

“You think the son is doing this.”

“I think the son is thinking about poison,” Holmes said.

“And that concerns you.”

“It interests me.”

Dr. Levinson closed the folder.

“Well, if you’re looking for medical confirmation of foul play, you won’t get it here.”

“I’m not,” Holmes said.

“Then what are you looking for?”

Holmes stood.

“For the person who benefits when Judith Vickers begins to doubt her own innocence.”

He slid the bottle back into his satchel.

Dr. Levinson watched him carefully.

“If you’re wrong,” he said, “you’ll make a grieving woman’s life worse.”

Holmes met his gaze evenly.

“If I’m wrong, she’s already doing that herself.”

We left the office without another word.

Outside, the rain had stopped, leaving the parking lot shining in pale afternoon light.

Holmes stood beside the Chevette for a moment, looking thoughtful.

“Well?” I said.

“Well what?”

“You’ve been walking around like a man holding six puzzle pieces that almost fit.”

“They do almost fit.”

“Explain.”

Holmes leaned against the car door.

“Someone is planting the idea of poison in Judith’s mind.”

“Yes.”

“They’re doing it through small intrusions—notes, powder, objects moved inside the house.”

“Yes.”

“They’re also making sure other people hear the same suggestion.”

“The phone calls,” I said.

“Exactly.”

“And David asked a doctor whether poison could mimic a heart attack.”

Holmes nodded.

“That’s a remarkable coincidence.”

“I dislike coincidences,” he said.

“So do I.”

For a moment neither of us spoke.

Then Holmes opened the car door.

“We’re going to Hamilton.”

“To see David.”

“Yes.”

“You think he’s staging all of this?”

“I think he’s involved.”

“In what way?”

Holmes started the engine.

“That,” he said, “is what we’re about to find out.”

The Chevette rolled out of the lot and onto the road toward the highway.

Behind us, Dr. Levinson’s office shrank in the rearview mirror.

Ahead, the sky over Hamilton was clearing, though the air still held the metallic smell that comes after rain.

Holmes drove faster now.

“Something’s bothering you,” I said.

“Yes.”

“What?”

“The powder.”

“What about it?”

“It’s theatrical,” he said.

“And?”

“People who enjoy theatre rarely stop at one act.”

I watched the road stretching ahead toward Hamilton.

“And you think the next act is waiting for us there.”

Holmes smiled faintly.

“I hope so.”

since Facebook only allows me to schedule posts a small distance in advance this concludes the first 4 chapters of
The Case of the RIverside Widow
Sherlock Holmes Jr Case file #1

As determined by the comments, likes, and shares I will schedule the posting of the last 4 chapters April 21,2026 at approximately 12pm EST.

Thank you to those who have read and enjoyed these this far and I hope to continue Sherlock Holmes Jr journey in Welland, Ontario with you.

The Case of the Riverside Widow - Part 25

by Theodore Homuth

“Because there was no reason to.”

Holmes’s gaze held steady.

“A man with a history of alcohol use, sleep aids, and financial stress dies suddenly at home. His widow reports he had tea before bed. You did not consider the possibility of poisoning?”

Dr. Levinson’s mouth tightened.

“I considered the likelihood of a middle-aged man with poor habits dying of a heart attack in his own bed. Which happens every week.”

Holmes nodded.

“And the tea?”

“What about it?”

“Did anyone test it?”

“No.”

“Did anyone ask what was in it?”

The doctor sighed.

“Mr. Holmes—”

“Holmes,” he corrected.

“Holmes, if we investigated every death in this town as though it were a crime, the hospital would never close.”

Holmes leaned back slightly.

“That is an answer,” he said. “Though not quite the one I asked.”

The doctor studied him for a moment.

“You think the widow poisoned him.”

“No.”

“Then why are we discussing this?”

“Because someone else wants her to think she did.”

Dr. Levinson frowned.

“That makes no sense.”

“On the contrary,” Holmes said. “It makes excellent sense.”

The doctor rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“You’re telling me someone is planting evidence in her house?”

“Yes.”

“And you think it relates to her husband’s death.”

“I think someone wants it to appear that way.”

Dr. Levinson considered that in silence.

Finally he said, “There was one thing.”

Holmes leaned forward again.

“What thing?”

The doctor opened a drawer and removed an old file folder.

“After Peter Vickers died,” he said, “his son came to see me.”

“David?”

“Yes.”

“What did he want?”

Dr. Levinson flipped through the folder.

“He asked if his father had been prescribed any medications that might have interacted badly with alcohol.”

Holmes’s eyes flicked toward me, then back.

“And what did you tell him?”

“That nothing in the chart suggested such a combination.”

“Was he satisfied?”

“No.”

“In what way?”

“He asked the same question three different ways.”

Holmes smiled faintly.

“A common tactic.”

“Yes,” said the doctor. “Though usually in courtrooms, not exam rooms.”

“What did you make of it?”

“I assumed he was looking for someone to blame.”

Holmes nodded.

“Did he mention poison?”

The doctor paused.

“Not exactly.”

“What exactly?”

“He asked whether certain household substances could mimic a heart attack.”

The room went very still.

“And what did you say?” Holmes asked quietly.

come back for part 26

The Case of the Riverside Widow - Part 24

by Theodore Homuth

Dr. Levinson’s office was narrow and orderly. A framed diploma hung behind the desk, alongside a faded photograph of Niagara Falls in winter. The doctor himself was a man in his late fifties with careful grey hair and the look of someone who had spent decades learning not to show surprise.

He gestured to the chairs opposite him.

“You’re the gentleman with the theatrical name.”

“I am the gentleman with the questions,” Holmes said.

Dr. Levinson folded his hands on the desk.

“If this concerns a patient, I should warn you that confidentiality—”

Holmes placed Judith Vickers’s husband’s name on the desk between them like a chess piece.

“Peter Vickers.”

The doctor’s eyebrows lifted just slightly.

“He died eighteen months ago.”

“Indeed.”

“And you’re asking about him because?”

Holmes leaned forward, not aggressively but with enough focus that the room seemed to narrow around the desk.

“Because his widow is currently being persuaded that she may have poisoned him.”

The doctor sat back.

“That is… an unusual development.”

“Is it inaccurate?”

“Yes.”

Holmes tilted his head.

“You’re certain?”

“I signed the death certificate myself.”

“Cause?”

“Acute myocardial infarction.”

“A heart attack.”

“Yes.”

Holmes nodded thoughtfully, as though the statement were an interesting opening move rather than a conclusion.

“And how long had Mr. Vickers been your patient?”

“About three years.”

“What sort of patient was he?”

Dr. Levinson gave a short breath through his nose.

“Unreliable.”

“In what sense?”

“He came when something hurt badly enough to interrupt his day. Not before.”

“Did he drink?”

The doctor gave Holmes a look.

“Yes.”

“Did he take sedatives?”

“Occasionally.”

“What kind?”

“Standard sleep aids. Nothing exotic.”

Holmes reached into his satchel and placed the brown glass bottle on the desk.

“Have you seen this before?”

Dr. Levinson picked it up, unscrewed the cap, and sniffed.

“Chloral mixture,” he said. “Or something similar.”

“Did you prescribe it?”

“No.”

“Would you have?”

“Not often. It’s rather old-fashioned.”

Holmes watched him carefully.

“Did Peter Vickers ever request something like this?”

The doctor hesitated.

“Not directly.”

“What does that mean?”

“He once asked about medications that could ‘knock a man out’ after a long day.”

Holmes’s eyes sharpened.

“And what did you tell him?”

“That alcohol usually accomplished the same thing, though less safely.”

“Did you prescribe anything at that visit?”

“No.”

Holmes nodded again, as though the answer had confirmed a private suspicion.

“What about his heart?” he asked. “Did you consider him a cardiac risk?”

Dr. Levinson leaned back in his chair.

“He was overweight, drank too much, and disliked exercise. That alone puts half the men in this town in the risk category.”

“Did he complain of chest pain before his death?”

“Not to me.”

“Shortness of breath?”

“Occasionally.”

“Palpitations?”

“Once or twice.”

Holmes was quiet for a moment.

“Did you perform an autopsy?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

come back tomorrow for part 25

The Case of the Riverside Widow - part 23

by Theodore Homuth

“No.”

“Then how did you know I’d be useful for it?”

He glanced at me once, then back to the road.

“I didn’t know the case. I knew the shape of the work.”

That answer annoyed me because it was elegant and probably true.

He pulled into the lot beside a squat medical building with peeling paint and a sign listing three physicians in fading black letters.

“Dr. Levinson?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“You think he’ll talk to you?”

“No,” Holmes said. “But he may object in a revealing order.”

He killed the engine.

As we got out of the car, the clouds thinned just enough to let a weak band of light fall across the parking lot. Everything looked briefly exposed: puddles, cracked pavement, cigarette butts in the gutter, our reflections broken by water.

It occurred to me then that cases like this did not begin when the first note appeared or the first sister lied. They began much earlier, in marriages where fear became habit, in sons who learned anger before tenderness, in debts carefully hidden, in women like Darlene Mercer who knew more than was convenient and vanished from the respectable version of events. By the time Holmes and I arrived, we were never at the beginning. Only at the point where concealment had started to fail.

Holmes was already halfway to the entrance when he looked back.

“Coming?”

“Yes,” I said.

And followed him inside.

Dr. Levinson’s office had the tired smell of disinfectant and carpet cleaner that never quite managed to erase the older scent of illness beneath it. The waiting room held four vinyl chairs, a rack of curling magazines, and a ficus plant that had been dying in slow stages for several years.

A receptionist looked up as we entered. She wore the calm expression of someone accustomed to people arriving with discomfort they hoped would not be serious.

“Can I help you?”

Holmes handed over his card as if it were a library ticket rather than an explanation.

“We’d like a few minutes of Dr. Levinson’s time.”

The receptionist glanced at the card, then at Holmes, then at me.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No.”

“He’s with a patient.”

“We’ll wait.”

The woman hesitated. People often do when confronted with confidence that ignores the ordinary routes of permission. She picked up the card again and studied the name.

“Sherlock Holmes Jr.,” she read.

Holmes gave a slight bow of the head. “Yes.”

There was the faintest hint of amusement in her eyes now.

“That’s… quite a name.”

“So I’ve been told.”

She sighed and stood. “I’ll see if he has a moment.”

Holmes sat in one of the chairs and opened a magazine without reading it. I sat beside him and lowered my voice.

“You realize most doctors don’t enjoy surprise interrogations.”

“I am not interrogating him,” Holmes said quietly. “I’m asking him to recall facts he has already forgotten.”

“That sounds worse.”

“Only if he resists.”

The receptionist returned after a moment and motioned us down the hall.

“Doctor says five minutes.”

Holmes rose immediately.

“Five minutes,” he said, “is often plenty.”

come back tomorrow for part 24

The Case of the Riverside Widow - Part 22

by Theodore Homuth

“I’m rarely sure. But I think not.”

“Why?”

“She performs control too constantly. A person engineering this sort of harassment usually enjoys the reveal in private. She had no anticipation of the packet in the coffee canister. Also, she is vain enough to polish brass and poor enough to hide final notices beneath decorative mail. If she were staging a campaign to frighten Judith out of the house, she’d use means that ended in signatures and real estate forms, not theatrical yellow powder.”

I almost smiled. “That’s oddly specific.”

“It is the privilege of observation to be specific.”

We drove in silence for another block.

“So where does that leave us?” I asked.

“With a dead husband who drank, borrowed, lied, and slept beside sedatives he may or may not have taken. A son with money troubles and anger. A former mistress whose name still turns up in the desk. Two sisters receiving anonymous pressure calibrated to make each doubt the other. And a physical intruder with access to both houses.”

“And the mirror?”

“Yes,” he said. “The mirror is useful.”

“How?”

“Because it means our intruder’s confidence is increasing. People escalate when earlier methods succeed.”

“That doesn’t sound useful.”

“It is if they become careless before we do.”

He turned toward Thorold Road rather than back to Division.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“To see whether Peter Vickers truly died of his heart or whether everyone merely found that explanation convenient.”

“You think he was poisoned?”

“I think the idea of poison is being used. That is not the same thing.”

“But you’re not ruling it out.”

“I never rule out a thing simply because someone has chosen it as a story. Stories are often built around inconvenient facts.”

The rain eased as we passed the canal, where the water moved under its grey skin with more purpose than the town above it ever seemed to. Men in orange work gear stood smoking by a truck. A church sign announced a rummage sale in block letters already warping from damp. Somewhere a siren started, then stopped.

I thought of Judith in her careful kitchen, of Elaine in hers, both women now forced to inspect their own sugar tins and mirrors as though domestic life had become hostile territory. Fear had entered not through violence but through familiarity. That was what made it effective. A stranger at the window can be denounced. A note in your sugar bowl asks whether you put it there yourself.

“Holmes,” I said at last.

“Yes?”

“When you wrote that note and asked me to come to your office, had you already started on this case?”

come back tomorrow for part 23

The Case of the Riverside Widow - Part 21

by Theodore Homuth

“That remains under investigation.”

I could have kicked him.

Elaine laughed once, a hollow little sound. “That’s the nearest thing to reassurance I suppose I’ll get from you.”

“You may get better from Mary Jane,” he said. “I deal mainly in accuracy.”

Which was, annoyingly, true.

While Elaine steadied herself with a glass of water, Holmes asked a few final questions about neighbourhood traffic, spare keys, David’s recent visits, and Darlene Mercer’s last known address. He wrote down three names from Elaine’s memory: an old employer of Peter’s, a bartender in Chippewa who might remember Mercer, and David’s garage in Hamilton.

At the front door he paused.

“One more thing,” he said. “If Judith calls, tell her the truth about the phone calls.”

Elaine stiffened. “That will frighten her.”

“Yes,” said Holmes. “But less than discovering later that you concealed them.”

He left before she could argue. I followed, but Elaine touched my sleeve as I passed.

“Is he always right?” she asked in a low voice.

“No,” I said. “But he usually notices the right thing first.”

She gave a tired nod and let go.

Back in the car, I shut the door harder than necessary.

“You didn’t need to push her that hard,” I said.

“I did.”

“You enjoy acting as though compassion contaminates the evidence.”

“That is not what I think.”

“It’s how you behave.”

He started the engine and waited for the wipers to clear the glass before speaking.

“Compassion,” he said, “is useful when it steadies a witness. Dangerous when it invites you to protect them from the implications of what they’re saying.”

“And suspicion is your version of kindness?”

“Often.”

I turned to stare out at the rain-blurred houses. For several seconds there was only the sound of the wipers and the engine.

Then I said, “You don’t think Elaine planted the notes.”

“No.”

The answer came so quickly I looked back at him.

“You’re sure?”

come back tomorrow for part 22

The Case of the Riverside Widow - Part 20

by Theodore Homuth

The line went dead. She replaced the receiver with more force than was necessary.

“Who was it?” I asked.

She shrugged too quickly. “Wrong number.”

Holmes said nothing.

I knew by then what his silence meant. He was watching what the lie cost her.

“Did the caller ask for Judith?” he asked.

“No.”

“He did.”

Elaine folded her arms again. “You can’t know that.”

“No. But I can know that you lied before choosing the lie. Which means you were deciding what to conceal, not whether to conceal anything.”

For one long second I thought she might throw us out.

Instead she sat down at the kitchen table and looked older than she had in the front room.

“He asked if Judith had confessed yet,” she said.

My stomach turned cold.

“What exactly were his words?” Holmes asked.

Elaine rubbed at her temple. “He said, ‘Has Judith told the truth yet?’ I asked who it was. He laughed. That was all.”

“Man or woman?”

“Man.”

“Age?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“Accent?”

“Local enough.”

Holmes nodded. “And this is the first such call?”

She hesitated.

“No,” I said quietly. “It isn’t.”

She looked at me then, and because I had asked gently rather than pounced, she gave in.

“There was one on Tuesday night,” she said. “I didn’t tell Judith because I thought it would only make her worse.”

“What was said?”

“A man asked whether I planned to keep lying for her.”

Holmes’s eyes narrowed, not with surprise but with the pleasure of pattern clarifying.

“And did you?”

“What?”

“Plan to keep lying for her?”

Elaine’s hands flattened on the table. “I don’t know what that means.”

“It means someone wants both sisters uncertain of what the other knows. A common tactic. Divide first, then define the truth for them.”

I said, “Why didn’t you tell Judith about the calls?”

“Because she’s already halfway to breaking,” Elaine snapped. Then, with less force: “Because I thought if I ignored it, it might stop.”

“It won’t,” Holmes said.

He crossed to the kitchen counter where a canister set sat in a row beneath the cupboards. Sugar, flour, tea, coffee. He opened each in turn. In the tea canister there was nothing but loose orange pekoe. In the sugar, nothing unusual. In the coffee, a folded paper packet smaller than a matchbook.

Elaine went white.

“I didn’t put that there.”

“I know,” said Holmes.

He lifted it out and opened it over the sink. Another measure of yellow powder.

Elaine backed into the fridge and gripped the handle hard enough that I heard her nails click against the metal.

“This is impossible.”

“No,” Holmes said. “It is intrusion. Those are different things.”

I took a step closer to her. “When did you last make coffee?”

“This morning. Before seven.”

“Did you notice anything unusual?”

“No.”

“Did anyone come by the house yesterday?”

“My neighbour dropped off a casserole dish. That’s all.”

“Did she enter the kitchen?”

“Yes, but—”

“Anyone else?”

She shook her head.

Holmes folded the packet and slid it into another envelope.

“Your back door locks poorly,” he said.

She stared. “How do you know that?”

“Because the strike plate has shifted and there are fresh scrape marks under the latch. Also because someone wanted you to find that packet eventually, and front-door entries invite witnesses.”

For the first time since we arrived, her composure failed outright. She sat down again, one hand over her mouth, and I saw not the polished, controlled sister Judith had described, but a woman abruptly forced to admit that fear had reached her own kitchen too.

“Do you believe me now?” she said, though whether she meant Holmes or me I wasn’t sure.

“I believe,” Holmes said, “that either you are a very accomplished actress or you have just been admitted into the same play as your sister.”

“And which is it?”

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come back for part 21 (if everyone enjoys the story so far I will continue posting the entire novel as Facebook allows

The Case of the Riverside Widow - Part 19

by Theodore Homuth

I walked nearer under the pretense of studying a framed photograph on the wall. Elaine in younger years with a man I assumed was her ex-husband. Another photo of the two sisters at what looked like a church luncheon, smiling in a way that seemed already strained by comparison.

Holmes lifted only the top envelope. Hydro. The next, a department store bill. The third had a red stamp: FINAL NOTICE.

He put the stack down exactly as he had found it.

“Tight month?” he asked.

“That is none of your business.”

“It becomes my business when a relative under financial pressure starts urging a frightened widow to sell valuable property.”

Elaine stood fully now.

“I came by that house honestly, if that is what you’re suggesting. I’ve helped Judith for years. While Peter was drinking away money or chasing whatever woman would still listen, I was the one bringing groceries and driving her to appointments.”

“Did that make you resentful?” I asked.

She turned to me with surprising speed. “Wouldn’t it make you resentful?”

The honesty of the answer was worth more than denial.

“It might,” I said. “But resentment and terrorizing someone are not the same.”

“No,” she said. “They’re not.”

Something about the firmness of it gave me pause. If she was lying, she was lying with conviction deep enough to be built on something real.

Holmes had moved on.

“Who is D. Mercer?”

Elaine’s eyes narrowed. “Where did you hear that name?”

“From Peter’s desk.”

A visible recalculation passed through her.

“Darlene Mercer,” she said at last. “From Niagara Falls. At least that’s where she was living then. He saw her for a while.”

“You knew?”

“I found out. Judith never did.”

“Why not tell her?”

Elaine gave me the answer, not him. “Because some truths make weak people stronger, and some just break them.”

I was not sure whether that was wisdom or arrogance. Probably both.

Holmes said, “And this affair ended when?”

“I don’t know exactly. Sometime before he died.”

“Do you know where Miss Mercer is now?”

“No.”

“Would David know?”

Her expression tightened in a way that said perhaps.

Before Holmes could press further, the telephone in the kitchen rang.

Elaine hesitated.

“Don’t answer it,” said Holmes.

“Why on earth not?”

“Because if it is your sister, and you let us listen first, I’ll know whether you’ve been discussing our visit with anyone else.”

She glared at him, then went to the kitchen anyway. Holmes followed as far as the doorway but no farther. I stayed where I was and listened.

Elaine lifted the receiver. “Hello?”

A pause.

“No, she isn’t here.”

Another pause, shorter.

“I said she isn’t here. Who is this?”

Her face changed very slightly. Not fear. Irritation, sharpened by uncertainty.

“No, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She looked toward us, then away again.

“If this is some joke—”

come back for part 20

The Case of the Riverside Widow - Part 18

by Theodore Homuth

Holmes’s expression did not change. “Then you will no doubt welcome efforts to clarify the matter.”

She looked at me, not him. Women often do when deciding whether a man may be tolerated. I gave her no encouragement, and after a second’s calculation she stepped back.

The house smelled of coffee and lemon cleaner. The front room was immaculate, all muted upholstery and framed prints bought to harmonize with walls rather than to be loved. There was no clutter anywhere except a stack of mail on a side table, squared too carefully to be accidental. On the television, muted, a morning program was showing a woman in shoulder pads discussing exercise bands no one in Ontario had asked for.

Elaine gestured to the sofa but remained standing herself.

“If this is about Judith’s nerves,” she said, “I told her she should see a proper doctor. She doesn’t listen.”

“She came to us instead,” said Holmes.

“Yes, well. Judith has always preferred drama when discipline would do.”

I felt my spine tighten at that. Holmes noticed, because he notices everything, but gave no sign.

He moved no farther into the room than necessary, choosing instead to stand where he could see both the hall and the kitchen doorway.

“When did you last visit your sister’s house?” he asked.

“Sunday afternoon.”

“Did you enter the kitchen?”

“Probably. I don’t remember.”

“Did you place notes in her home?”

“Certainly not.”

“Did you handle any yellow powder in her presence or absence?”

She blinked once. “What yellow powder?”

“Interesting,” Holmes said.

“What is?”

“That you asked what colour it was before denying knowledge of any powder at all.”

Her mouth hardened. “You’re trying to trip me.”

“No. If I were trying to trip you, I would ask about the bottle in your bathroom cabinet before you’d had time to decide whether you own one.”

For the first time her poise shifted. Not much. A fractional stilling of the shoulders, a single beat too long before she answered.

“I beg your pardon?”

Holmes gave the smallest shrug. “Your medicine cabinet contains a brown glass bottle with no label. Sedative mixture, unless my nose has failed me. That is not in itself remarkable. The question is whether you are accustomed to using it alone.”

She had not expected the attack from that direction. I had not either, and realized only then that one of the calls he had made from Judith’s kitchen must have been placed here.

Elaine folded her arms.

“You had no right to look through my things.”

“I haven’t. Yet.”

The word hung there.

She turned to me. “Is he always like this?”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s tiring.”

To my surprise, that nearly made her smile.

Holmes accepted the shift without protest, which was clever of him. He knew by instinct when to let another person lean half an inch toward me if it meant they would keep speaking.

Elaine exhaled through her nose.

“I have trouble sleeping,” she said. “My doctor prescribed something last winter. If that’s what this is about, then fine, yes, there’s a bottle in the bathroom.”

“Dr. who?” asked Holmes.

“Dr. Kline.”

“And you have discussed Judith’s insomnia with him as well?”

“Of course not.”

“Have you ever given your sister sleeping pills?”

“No.”

“Have you ever told her she might be forgetting things?”

“She has been forgetting things.”

“Examples?”

“She repeats herself. Loses track of conversations. Leaves cupboards open.”

“Since when?”

Elaine hesitated. “A few months.”

“Before or after you began suggesting she sell her house and stay with you?”

That landed. Her chin lifted.

“She told you that?”

“She did.”

“I suggested it because she’s alone and frightened. Someone has to be practical.”

“Practical,” Holmes repeated. “An admirable word. Often used by people who mean advantageous.”

Her face cooled visibly.

“I won’t be spoken to as if I’m some kind of opportunist.”

“Then avoid sounding like one.”

I stepped in before the whole interview snapped shut.

come back for part 19