With This Puzzle, I Thee Kill

by Parnell Hall

  Brenda’s musings brought her to the front window. She looked out, saw Dennis go in the front door of the house across the street. Oh, hell, she really did have to get ready. At least Raymond wasn’t ready either, or he’d have come out instead of asking Dennis in. So she had a few minutes, but not many, not with Dennis getting so worked up. Not a good idea, she decided, to leave the two men alone for long.

  She hurried back in the bathroom, attacked her eyes. The eyelid situation was out of control. The cover-up Dennis had scoffed at wasn’t working.

  Brenda grabbed cotton and cold cream, swiftly and expertly wiped the shadow off, then began applying the lighter shadow to the natural skin tone.

  Much better. And it hadn’t taken long. She was sure of it. A few quick touch-ups, and—

  The bedroom door burst open.

  Startled, Brenda smudged an eyelid. “Oh, hell.”

  She came out of the bathroom to find Dennis bent over his suitcase. “What are you doing?”

  He wheeled around with a guilty start. “Oh. I was just looking for— What difference does it make? Harstein wasn’t ready, so I came back.”

  “And you were rushing me,” Brenda teased. “How long’s he gonna be?”

  “A couple minutes, I guess. I’ll go get him. You hurry up.”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  Dennis dashed out the door.

  Brenda shrugged, shook her head. Smiled indulgently.

  She went back in the bathroom, fixed her eye shadow, and reapplied her mascara. She checked her face in the mirror, smiled a dazzling smile.

  She waltzed out the door and came tripping down the steps to meet Dennis. Of course he wasn’t there. Neither was Raymond. His next-door neighbors were both out on their porch, but aside from them the street was empty. That figured. After making her rush, the men were late.

  Brenda considered going inside and shooing the two bridegrooms out, then rejected the notion. Raymond didn’t need her around if he was trying to dress. She wished she had the key to the rental car. It wasn’t cold, but it was dark, and the bugs were coming out. She slapped a mosquito on her arm, and decided to go back inside. Why not? Let Dennis come and get her.

  Tires screeched around a corner, and headlights hurtled down the street. Brenda leaped for the sidewalk as a red Toyota fishtailed by and screeched to a stop in front of the house across the street.

  The car door flew open, and Cora Felton came rocketing out like the top of an exploding wedding cake, her lacy white veil and train trailing out behind her. She descended on Brenda, demanded, “Why aren’t you at the damn church?”

  Brenda, considerably taken aback, replied, “Raymond isn’t ready yet. Dennis went to get him.”

  “Oh, he did, did he?”

  Cora turned, stalked across the street.

  On their porch, the hippie couple were getting an eyeful. Cora glared at them as she pelted up the front steps and stomped inside.

  Brenda caught up with her in the foyer. She had no idea what was going on, but she wasn’t about to be left out. Cheek by jowl, the two brides-to-be turned the corner into the living room.

  Cora stopped dead.

  Brenda screamed.

  Raymond Harstein III lay faceup on the living room rug. His head lolled at an unnatural angle. His tongue hung out of his mouth. His eyes were wide, accusing, staring.

  He wore nothing but socks, boxer shorts, and a crisp white dress shirt. The front of the shirt was stained bright red from the blood that had pooled near the breast pocket.

  Dennis was kneeling beside the body. In his right hand he held a butcher knife, poised just over the victim’s heart.

  27

  DR. BARNEY NATHAN, DAPPER AS EVER IN HIS SCARLET BOW tie, followed the EMS crew as they bumped the gurney down the front steps, ducked under the crime-scene ribbon, and loaded the gurney into the van.

  Chief Harper caught up with the physician just as he was climbing into his Lincoln Town Car. “What you got for me, Barney?”

  “Well, you got a dead guy, for one thing.”

  Harper snorted in exasperation. “I knew that.”

  “Actually, you didn’t,” Dr. Nathan retorted complacently. “There was blood flowing out of the wound. Could have been a sign of life. Could have been postmortem.” The little doctor raised one finger, added pedantically, “Turns out it was postmortem.”

  “What does running blood do to your time of death?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re gonna give me a time of death. Is that gonna be when he was stabbed, or did he die later?”

  “Hard to say.”

  “Great.”

  “But from the look of the wound, it was a very short time.”

  “That’s more like it. How’s Miss Felton?”

  “Hysterical. I gave her a sedative.”

  “You calm her down?”

  “I knocked her out. She was in bad shape.”

  “When can I talk to her?”

  “Maybe tomorrow. I gave her a megadose.”

  The little doctor hopped into his big car, and sped off after the ambulance.

  Chief Harper surveyed the street, which was filling up with curious neighbors. He scowled, ducked under the crime-scene ribbon, went back inside.

  Dan Finley was processing the living room for prints. The eager young officer had already dusted all the obvious places, like the telephone, doorknobs, and light switches, and was now working on table surfaces.

  Sam Brogan, the cranky, gum-chewing officer, watched in amusement. “Lookin’ for fingerprints. Guy was holdin’ the knife, but he’s lookin’ for prints.”

  “You get any prints off the knife?” Harper asked Finley, ignoring Sam.

  “Got a whole bunch. At least three look clear enough to match.”

  Sam Brogan popped his gum. “Not real bright. Probably never killed anyone before.”

  “You read him his rights?”

  “Oh, sure.” Sam stroked his mustache, recited: “ ‘You got the right to go to court and hear a dozen people say you did it. You got the right to go to jail until some bleeding-heart parole board lets you out.’ ”

  “Very funny. Did you read him Miranda?”

  “ ’Course I did. Ask him anything you like.”

  “Gee, thanks, Sam,” Chief Harper said, sarcastically. “You got him in the lockup?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where’s the girl?”

  “There with him.”

  “You left them together?”

  “Not at all. Pride’s in the holding cell. Unless she’s got a set of keys, she can’t get back there.”

  “So where is she?”

  “In your office. Figured you wouldn’t mind. Her parents are there with her.”

  “Oh, hell.”

  Chief Harper hopped in his car, drove to the police station.

  Brenda and her parents met him at the front door. The bride-to-be was trying to hold herself together, but she was clearly distraught. The artfully applied eye shadow and mascara ran down her cheeks, evidence of the fact she’d been weeping.

  “He didn’t do it!” she cried. “You’ve gotta believe me! Dennis didn’t do it!”

  “I’m sure he didn’t, miss,” Chief Harper soothed. He took her by the hands. “Now, if you’d come back inside . . .”

  “If you know he didn’t do it, why did you arrest him?” Wendy Wallenstein managed to sound as if Chief Harper had just given Dennis a C− on an American History paper.

  “I didn’t arrest him.”

  “Oh, no? He’s back there in a cell.”

  “It’s a holding cell. I’m holding him as a material witness.”

  “The cop read him his rights,” Mrs. Wallenstein pointed out indignantly.

  “We have to do that,” Chief Harper told her. “To protect ourselves. In case anything should come out in our questioning. But that doesn’t mean we expect it to.”

  Brenda put her hands to her temples and wailed: “Stop, stop. I can’t tak
e this anymore. First this horrible thing happens, then you arrest Dennis, then you act as if it’s all just routine. It’s not routine. He’s back there in a cell.”

  “I know.”

  “So do something about it,” Mrs. Wallenstein insisted.

  “Okay. Come into my office, calm down, tell me what you want me to do.”

  “Want you to do?” Brenda cried. “I want you to let Dennis out.”

  Chief Harper guided them into his office, set Brenda in a chair. Her parents sat on either side. Her father put his arm around her and tried to console her, but her mother sat straight up glaring poisonously at the chief. He ignored her, said to Brenda, “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

  “My daughter is far too upset to answer questions,” Mrs. Wallenstein declared haughtily.

  Chief Harper shook his head. “That’s too bad. Then I guess Mr. Pride will have to remain locked up.”

  “Mo-om!” Brenda wailed, glaring at her mother. “I’m fine. Go ahead, Chief. I’m fine.”

  “So, what happened?”

  “You know what happened! Dennis and I walked in and found him dead.”

  “How did you get in?”

  “The front door was open.”

  “Standing open?”

  “No, I mean it was unlocked.”

  “Who opened the front door?”

  “Dennis.”

  “What happened then?”

  “We went in the living room and there he was.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I screamed.”

  “What did Dennis do?”

  “Dennis ran to help him.”

  “Help him how?”

  “There was a knife in his chest. Dennis pulled it out.”

  “You saw Dennis pull the knife out?”

  “Yes. But it was too late. Raymond was dead.”

  “There,” Wendy Wallenstein said impatiently. “There you have it. It’s perfectly clear. The boy didn’t do it. Now let him go.”

  “I’m afraid I have a few more questions.”

  “I fail to see why.”

  Chief Harper leaned back in his desk chair and waited.

  There was an uncomfortable silence.

  Brenda stared her mother down.

  “You knew Raymond?” Chief Harper asked Brenda.

  “Not well. We were supposed to give him a ride to the church.”

  “Had you ever been in his house before?”

  “No.”

  “Did you call his name? Did you call ‘Hey, Raymond’?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Did Dennis call his name?”

  Brenda hesitated.

  “Because the first time entering a strange house without being let in, that would be the normal thing to do. Call out, see if the occupant was home.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Why not?”

  At that, Wendy Wallenstein actually sprang out of her chair. “I think that’s enough, Officer. My daughter’s told you everything she knows and everything she remembers. When you start asking her why she doesn’t remember, you’ve crossed the line.”

  “I wasn’t aware there was a line, Mrs. Wallenstein,” Chief Harper said gently. “Anyway, I think I’m done.”

  “You’re going to let him go?” Brenda said.

  “Not just yet.”

  Chief Harper left the Wallensteins in his office and hurried down the hall. He unlocked the door to the holding cells and slipped through, locking it behind him, in case the women took a notion to try to follow.

  There were four tiny cells in the back of the police station. Only one was currently occupied. Dennis Pride stood with his hands gripping the bars. Pride looked like a caged animal. His eyes were haunted and frightened. But there was something else in his face too. A look of utter disbelief. How could this possibly have happened to him? Chief Harper had seen that look before, even on the most hardened of criminals. No matter how heinous their crime, they still could not believe they had been caught. Chief Harper wondered which one Dennis was: the trapped assassin, or the innocent man.

  “Hey, let me out of here!” Dennis cried. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Glad to hear it,” the chief said. “That will make my life a little harder, but I’m really glad, for your sake. You wanna talk this over?”

  “I wanna get out of this cell.”

  Chief Harper nodded. “Seems reasonable.” He jerked his thumb. “How about the two of us go in that room over there and have a little chat?”

  Dennis scowled, took a raspy breath, blew it out. “Yeah, sure.”

  “Fine,” Chief Harper said, as if Dennis had given in with complete good grace. He unlocked the cell, led the young man into the interrogation room. “This shouldn’t take long,” he said. He didn’t mention that when he was done Dennis was going right back into the cell. He gestured to Dennis to sit at the interrogation table, then sat down opposite. “Tell me how you found the body.”

  “I already told you. We were supposed to give the guy a ride to the church. He was late, so we went in. We found him dead.”

  “You were going to your wedding rehearsal, and had agreed to give him a ride?”

  “Yeah.” Dennis looked Chief Harper right in the eye. “Not that I wanted to, mind. Frankly, I didn’t care for the guy. But Cora asked me, and I couldn’t get out of it.”

  “You didn’t like the man?”

  “No, I didn’t. Geezer like that, always acting like he’s God’s gift to women. And like he’s so smart just ’cause he’s older than I am, big deal. Anyway, I didn’t like him, but I’m stuck driving him to church, so I came to pick him up, and there he was.”

  “When you came to pick him up, there was no one out front?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You knocked on the door?”

  Dennis hesitated a second before saying, “Yes.”

  “No one answered?”

  “Obviously. I tried the doorknob. It was unlocked. So I pushed it open, stuck my head inside.”

  “Then what?”

  “There was no one in the foyer. I went on into the living room, and there he was, lying on the floor in all that blood, with the knife in his rib cage. It was awful.”

  “Was he dead?”

  “He looked dead to me, but do I look like Dr. Kildare? I ran to him, tried to help him. I bent down, pulled out the knife.”

  “Then what?”

  “I guess it was the wrong thing to do. The blood started running again.”

  “Had it stopped running?”

  “I don’t know. There was blood all over his shirt.” Dennis looked at his own cuffs, which were spattered with blood. “A real mess. But it might have stopped, I can’t remember.”

  “This was the first time you’d been in his house?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “The fact you walked in and found the body.”

  “It wasn’t hard to find. Right there in the middle of the rug.”

  “That’s what Miss Wallenstein said too.”

  “Well, there you are. Can I get out of here now?”

  “We’ve got a few formalities to go through first,” Chief Harper said.

  Over Dennis’s protests, Chief Harper locked him back up in the holding cell.

  Harper tiptoed down the hall, peeked into his office. Brenda and her mother had their heads together and were whispering furiously. Her father was slumped in his chair watching them, expressionless, like a gray, slumbering bear.

  Harper snuck on by to the outer office, sat at Dan Finley’s desk, picked up the phone, and punched in a number.

  A voice said, “Hello?”

  “Hi, Judge Hobbs. Dale Harper.”

  “Aw, hell.”

  “Well, I like that,” Harper said. “What happened to, Hi, hello, how are ya?”

  “Calling me at home and using your first name instead of Chief. You want something.”

  “Now, don’t be like that.”

  �
�What do you want?”

  “Well, now that you mention it . . .”

  28

  CORA FELTON WAS STUCK IN A BOG. A DENSE, STICKY BOG SHE couldn’t get out of. A pea-soup bog, so thick she couldn’t see. No, that was fog. A pea-soup fog. She was slogging through the bog in the fog.

  With a dog.

  No. No dog. Alone. Alone and slogging.

  To the altar.

  No. Not the altar. The altar was altered. Like her ego. Her altar ego.

  No, not ego. Raymond’s not breathing. Raymond’s bloody. Not British bloody, American bloody. Blood bloody.

  Blood bloody. Blood buddy.

  Bloody hell.

  Cora reached out of the bog, but she couldn’t escape. The more she moved, the worse it got. Covering every inch, pooling over her head, sucking her down.

  “Nooo!” Cora moaned.

  Her eyes snapped open. She glanced around groggily. She was in unfamiliar surroundings. The lamp. The bookcase. The window. Where was she?

  And there was her niece, slipping through the doorway.

  “Cora, lie down. You’re not supposed to be awake.”

  Cora hadn’t realized she’d sat up. Now she looked, saw what she was sitting on.

  A bed.

  Her bed.

  Her room.

  Strange.

  With a rush, it all came back to her.

  “Oh.” Cora shivered, and her face twisted in pain.

  Sherry ran to her, put her arms around her, held her. “There, there. There, there,” she said. Perfectly meaningless words that couldn’t help. Because no words could help.

  “Sherry,” Cora moaned. “Raymond’s dead.”

  “Hush.”

  Cora rocked in Sherry’s arms, whimpering softly.

  “Shh,” Sherry whispered. “There, there.”

  The moaning stopped. Cora relaxed. Sherry thought she was asleep.

  “What about Dennis?” Cora asked.

  Startled, Sherry said, “Huh?”

  “Dennis. Where’s Dennis?”

  “Chief Harper took him in.”

  “Did he let him go?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose so.”

  Cora shook her head. “Not gonna happen. Police think he did it.”

  “I don’t know about that.”