A Crossworder's Delight

by Nero Blanc

  “Maybe, maybe not. He was pretty young when this was all set up, right? It depends on what the old man said—and what Mitchell remembers.”

  The man drummed his fingernails on the desktop in front of him, not speaking for a long moment. Eventually he said, “I say we cut our losses and take a chance that no one remembers anything. At this point, it’s the only way out.”

  “What’re you talking about?” she demanded; but she did so cautiously, sensing she wouldn’t like what was she was about to hear.

  “I’m thinking we should settle for a smaller piece of the pie.” He snickered to himself. “What do you say?”

  “You mean bring someone else in on the deal? But there’s already—”

  “Relax. I didn’t say anything about additional people, did I?”

  “No, but—”

  “It means a smaller payday, but we need to make some adjustments. There’s still a lot of money to be made on the back end, remember? And I figure what Mitch doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” He then explained his new plan to her, finishing by saying, “Get some sleep. We’ll make our move at four A.M. And don’t turn turtle on me; I can’t do this without your help.”

  Thirteen

  AT 8:29 the following morning, a yelp erupted from the inn’s front parlor. The cry was followed by the crash and clatter of a cup and saucer falling to the floor, and the hurried footsteps of Morgan Marz running to the scene. In his hands were a stack of Sunday newspapers, which had arrived later than usual since there was now well over a foot of snow outside.

  “It’s back!” Mrs. Towbler burbled in her “Ox-Bridge” accent. “Or … well, I assume that’s your famous poem hanging there.”

  Morgan only stared at the wall above the desk, while Mitchell entered the room followed immediately by Joy Allman, who was carrying a basket of freshly baked muffins.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Morgan asked her. “You know how concerned we’ve been.”

  “Tell you about what?” Joy serenely placed the hot muffins on a heating tray on the sideboard and then bent to pick up broken pieces of china. “Butterfingers, the lot of them,” she grumbled, but softly enough so that Mrs. Towbler didn’t hear.

  “That the Longfellow was back!”

  Joy straightened up slowly. She wasn’t young, but neither was she old enough to have as stiff and sore a body as she now made a show of unbending. “Well, so it is,” she announced when she’d achieved her full height. “What do you know about that!” Despite the enthusiastic words, she sounded more jaded than surprised.

  “And decorated for the hols,” Mrs. Towbler continued to babble brightly as she walked across the room to examine the framed poem, which was indeed now hung with tinsel and twinkling lights. “You clever, clever boys! This was a ruse to keep us snowbound folk entertained, wasn’t it? Like one of those mystery weekends one reads about: a charming old inn, an unsolved crime, sinister shenanigans, creepy creaks on the staircase, and so forth.… I assume your Mr. Polycrates and that rather oafish policeman were actors hired to help move the plot along. They certainly did provide the necessary probing queries and clandestine, lowering of brows.… Is the little boy an actor, too … the one with the alien name? He should go far, that child … with all the kiddie movies Hollywood produces nowadays. He has a rather nice, if precocious, appeal.”

  At that moment, E.T. appeared, the earflaps on his hat flipped upward, lending him the appearance of a curious and determined puppy. He cast a quick, suspicious glance toward Joy Allman, and a more covert but equally leery one at Morgan, then walked purposefully toward the poem, staring at it long and hard.

  “Oh, this is too marvelous!” Mrs. Towbler’s tinkling voice gushed. “I must fetch my husband—and the others, of course. What fun! A genuine whodunit … but instead of Monsieur Poirot, we have Mr. Polycrates. Oh, my! I should have noticed the similarity yesterday—the P, the O, the R in the name of Christie’s clever sleuth being reproduced in the Greek Polycrates.… Oh, you Americans, such an inventive race!” Then she turned to greet another arriving guest. “Ah, Miss Cadburrie. Do look at the fun gift we’ve been given! The inn’s famous treasure has been miraculously reinstalled.”

  “What’s all the hullabaloo?” the Yorkes asked in unison as they also walked into the parlor.

  It was Miss Cadburrie who replied. Her tone was testy. “The Longfellow’s back.” She joined E.T., and began studying the poem with gimlet eyes—although not before she’d shot “the Brit” a superlatively nasty glance.

  “But I d-d-don’t understand,” Mitchell Marz stuttered. “Who would have d-d-done this …?”

  “Done what?” It was the Reaseys turn to arrive on the scene, and they also looked at the returned artwork with genuine surprise. “Well, my goodness, Ruthie baby …”

  “The Marz twins have played a most entertaining hoax upon us,” Mrs. Towbler told them.

  “But I didn’t—” Mitchell began as Miss Cadburrie quickly interrupted him.

  “How do you know it was a hoax?” she demanded.

  Mrs. Towbler gave the ill-tempered woman her sweetest and most condescending smile. “Whatever else could it have been, my dear lady, except a divertisement intended to enliven our visit? Something that’s stolen doesn’t magically reappear, does it? At least, at home that’s not how cases of larceny work; a family heirloom is purloined, and that’s the last one sees of it. Clearly, we were intended to solve “The Mystery of the Missing Manuscript” over dinner last night, and we all failed the test miserably.” She laughed. “I must fetch my husband … and Mr. Heath, as well. Poor man, he was such a nervous wreck, yesterday—”

  “Barry Heath told us he never gets up before ten,” was Miss Cadburrie’s chilly response, although Mrs. Towbler had already sailed from the room.

  Fourteen

  SO that’s it? The missing poem was nothing but a prank?” Belle asked Rosco as she took careful aim, tossing a stick for Kit and Gabby to chase across the snowy grounds of the “dog park”—what had once been the spacious seaside lawns of the long-defunct Dew Drop Inn and that now served as a dog-run, toboggan-slalom, kite-flying arena, and all-around good-time gathering spot.

  Rosco automatically ducked as the gnarled piece of wood took to the skies. If their years together had taught him only one thing about his wife, it was that she couldn’t throw worth a darn. The stick was liable to go backward, straight up in the air, veer heavily to the right while she was facing left, or plop down a mere six feet in front of her. “Tricks” only a dog could love; anyone else would be best advised to wear protective head gear.

  “Longfellow makes a surprise reappearance,” Belle continued, “the guests disperse with smiles on their faces and a charming tale to tell to their neighbors. Ditto the decorators. Kind of a tempest in a teapot—or in this case, an antique Paul Revere tankard. If I hadn’t seen for myself how concerned Mitchell Marz was, I’d wonder whether the entire scenario had been part of a publicity stunt.…” She gave Rosco a wry smile. “You don’t have to duck, you know.”

  “I do if I don’t want to be beaned in the noggin.”

  “Has one of my throws ever bopped you in the head?” she demanded in shocked surprise.

  “You want me to answer that leading question for you, Poly-crates?” Al asked as he ambled through the snow to join the couple. With Al was Skippy, the butterscotch-colored labrador-shepherd-and-who-knew-what-else former stray who was the canine light of the homicide detective’s life.

  “Be my guest, Al.”

  Lever looked at Belle, and, as always, chickened out from voicing anything remotely resembling criticism. In his opinion, marrying the crossword editor was the best thing his former partner had ever done. “You see, Belle, we’re all good at something.… Your skill happens to be with words, whereas your hubby and I … well, let’s just say we’re more adept with the old sticks and stones.”

  Belle gave him a sardonic glance. “‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me’? Is
that your inference?”

  “I was thinking, ‘The pen is mightier than the sword’ kind of thing,” was Al’s quick retort.

  “Flatterer,” Belle laughed while Rosco shook his head.

  “Talk softly and toss a big stick?” Rosco said. “Who knew this set-in-his-ways curmudgeon had it in him to go all sensitive and gooey?”

  Al’s response to this comment was a sheepish shrug. Then he picked up another ice-coated stick and threw it for Skippy to chase. “So, no more criminal investigation out at the inn, huh?” he asked, his eyes dotingly following the dog as he bounded away, kicking up foamy clouds of snow. Added to this backdrop of frolicking canines, friendly humans, sleds, plastic saucers, and a blur of kids’ faces as they roared down the hill was a picture-perfect afternoon: the sky a cloudless cobalt blue, a lemon-colored sun, evergreens dense with white, and the wonderful stillness that follows any storm.

  “Looks that way,” Rosco answered, although he frowned as he spoke. “But there’s still something weird about this. Morgan called me to tell me all was resolved—a ‘prank,’ bla, bla, bla … ‘terribly sorry for wasting your time, but you know how easily Mitchell jumps to conclusions,’ etc., etc…. Belle just mentioned that the whole thing could be a PR gimmick.”

  Lever nodded and again tossed the stick for the excited and now anxiously barking Skippy. “Could be … although publicity involving a supposed theft could backfire in a major way.… On the other hand—I’m sure it’s entered your mind, Poly—Crates—the so-called crime might be no more than an escalating spat between the inn’s two owners. Someone teaching someone else a lesson?”

  Rosco paused a moment before speaking. “Yes, it has. The scenario goes something like this—and Belle can corroborate because she heard them having a similar argument just before the poem disappeared: Morgan’s been increasingly concerned about protecting and insuring the inn’s collection of antiques; he wants to dispense with the originals and replace them with reproductions. Mitch says ixnay—it’s the real deal or nothing—which leads Morgan to pilfer the piece, albeit briefly, just to show his twin how easy it is for valuable antiques to ‘walk.’ Lesson learned: there’s no point in keeping all those pricey collectibles around.”

  “I can’t believe Morgan would play such a nasty trick on Mitchell,” Belle said. “On the other hand, there was real tension between them the other day.” As she spoke she pulled a well-worn tennis ball from Kit’s mouth and drew her right arm back in preparation for a mighty throw. This time, both Rosco and Al flinched and ducked to the side. “Cowards,” she chortled. “What’s the point of tossing a ball if you know in advance where it’s going to land?”

  “There’s a new concept for major league baseball,” was Al’s amused reply. “Instead of one guy at bat, you’ve got the whole team, and a pitcher firing off random curveballs.”

  “Which might help some of the pitiful underdogs get a run or two when they go up against the Sox,” Rosco added.

  Belle shook her head. “I hope you two realize how unbearably smug you’ve become since Boston finally won a World Series.”

  Their reaction to this accusation was to look even more self-satisfied, but Belle’s expression grew suddenly serious, and her arm dropped to her side, much to Kit’s disappointment. “The police department in Boston would keep homicide records dating from the 1940s, wouldn’t it, Al?”

  Lever looked at Belle. “What is it about your tone of voice that tells me I don’t want to get involved in this?” was his cagey answer.

  “But it would, wouldn’t it?” she persisted.

  Al turned to Rosco. “You’ve been hired to solve a very cold case up in Beantown? Is that it …? Happy holidays. Find a murderer who whacked an innocent victim sixty-plus years ago.… My math makes that an octogenarian executioner, Poly-crates—if the perps’s still walking around.”

  “It’s not Rosco, it’s me,” Belle said. “And it’s not a murder, per se … although, it might be.…” She squinted in thought. “You see, I was visiting Legendary, and old Mr. Liebig told me about a woman who died after falling into an enormous vat of chocolate—”

  “This came up in ordinary conversation?” Al interrupted. “Doesn’t sound like the kind of story most confectioners like to bandy about.”

  “Well, I was trying to discover the constructor of a mystery crossword cookbook I found at the Revere Inn.”

  “Hooo boy …,” Al half-cackled and half-groaned. “You didn’t tell me your wife was on her puzzle-sleuth kick again, Poly-crates. This calls for a cigarette.”

  But as Al reached for the pack that was always close at hand, the arrival of Stanley Hatch’s minivan made his fingers pause in midair while his jaw dropped. Belle and Rosco turned to see what Lever found so startling, and both had similar reactions. Because with Stan was not just his aging collie, Ace, but Martha Leonetti, who was now being carefully helped from the passenger seat by her solicitous driver. In Martha’s arms was her Pekingese, Princess, who began licking Stanley’s face as if he were her favorite human male on earth.

  “Don’t stare, you two,” Belle whispered through teeth clenched into a bright and hopefully noncommittal smile.

  “She never brings Princess to the park in snow this deep,” Al murmured back. “No matter what kind of outfit the dog’s dolled up in.”

  “And I’ve never seen Stan looking so sappy—or so happy,” Rosco added.

  “Well, don’t say a word,” Belle continued to advise. “We’ll act as though this were perfectly natural, and they always rode out here together.… Besides, remember what Stan confided to us yesterday, Rosco?”

  Al gave Belle a questioning glance, but she pretended not to notice, and so the three friends merely watched Stanley and Martha walk toward them—with Ace parading regally beside the couple, and Princess, decked out in a quilted pink coat with white faux-fur trim, still held aloft in Martha’s arms. Only the Peke looked uncomfortable with the arrangement, but her alarm seemed to focus on the expanse of chilly white. You don’t expect me to step in that icy stuff! her bulging eyes seemed to demand.

  “Great news about the poem,” Stan said with a huge grin that didn’t seem generated by Mr. Longfellow’s works.

  “Isn’t it!” Martha’s tone was so close to a simper that for a moment Belle and Rosco and Al couldn’t speak. Salty-tongued Martha, cooing like a lovelorn teenager?

  It simply wasn’t possible. “All’s well that ends well, I guess,” she added in the same sweet and breathless voice.

  “My motto exactly,” Stan said, looking down on her with such a rapt expression that the other three felt they’d turned invisible.

  “So true, Stanley,” was Martha’s soft response.

  All this billing and cooing was beginning to make Al very restless; despite Belle’s injunction to pretend nothing unusual was happening, he was about to make a pithy remark about two card-carrying AARP members people behaving like loopy kids when Rosco’s cell phone rang.

  The noise was a jarring note in the greeting-card scene, and Rosco’s succinct “Polycrates” was equally abrupt and startling.

  “It’s E.T.,” came the hasty reply. “I’m at the inn. You better come quick. I just figured it out. Somebody’s tampered with the poem. Big time. I’ll keep the info under my hat until you get here.”

  Fifteen

  MOST adults would have listened politely to E.T.’s dramatic pronouncement that the Longfellow poem had been “altered” and written it off to a child’s overly active imagination; clearly, if such had been the case, Mitchell and Morgan would have noticed the modification, too. But Rosco, who in his own youth had been accused on more than one occasion of inventing the same kind of wild theories, was inclined to pay attention. Besides, he found some plausibility in the boy’s assertions—as well as a good deal of logic. What better explanation could there be than that the original poem had been replaced with a quality fake?

  So after holstering his cell phone, Rosco trotted off to his Jeep, leaving Be
lle to enjoy the afternoon with her human and canine pals and a promise from Al to deliver her and “the girls” home safe and sound. As Rosco drove away he could see his former partner in the rearview mirror shaking his head and chuckling over Rosco’s willingness to drop everything to pursue an off-the-wall “tip” from a “geeky kid.”

  Twenty-three minutes later Rosco was face-to-face with the same excited boy, a look of dark concentration in his eyes as he gazed at the framed poem. Standing to E.T.’s left was a bewildered Mitchell; to his right was a dour but equally confused Morgan. The holiday trappings with which Sisters in Stitches had festooned nearly every spare inch of the inn’s front parlor seemed far too exuberant for the gravity of the occasion—and that included Sara’s antique ornaments, which bobbed about beneath the pewter chandelier, set in motion by the creaking of the ancient ceiling beams and the equally aged floorboards. Rosco eyed the pointed silvery things, making a mental note not to try walking under the light fixture.

  “See,” E.T. insisted as he pointed to the seventh stanza. “See, right there, right after the line, Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride, there’s a semicolon.”

  “And your point is?” Morgan asked in a tight voice. He made no attempt to disguise the fact that he had better things to do than to spend time with a boy he’d hired to do the most menial of chores.

  “So, that’s wrong, Mr. Morgan,” E.T. argued in a manner that was both polite and self-righteous. “There should be a comma there, not a semicolon. That’s so the reader doesn’t take a big pause before going on to the next line, because it’s the one describing what Paul Revere was doing—”

  “I understand the difference between a semicolon and a comma, son,” was Morgan’s starchy reply.

  Rosco interrupted before E.T. could make his own stubborn retort. “You’re certain about the change?”