Last Puzzle & Testament

by Parnell Hall

  ACROSS

  10. Pod dweller

  15. Going, going, gone

  18. Norway capital

  21. Idle talk

  24. “I shot ____” (“Standup Comic”)

  28. Swallow up

  31. Side order

  32. Enjoyment

  38odieidwe. Exact

  43. High pair

  46. Sticks in

  DOWN

  10. Place to go after leaving skating rink?

  11. They (fr)

  12. Love

  15. Desert succulent

  22. Entertain

  29. Bites

  33. Secondhand

  34. Loch ____ monster

  39. Hansoms

  Together, they peered at the screen.

  “Nice job,” Cora said, approvingly. “You seem to have filled in all the clues. I would be inclined to let you move on.”

  “You mean if the post office weren’t closed?”

  “Exactly.” Cora smiled. “At least, we’ve accomplished one thing. By not giving out these clues, we can be assured no one will be breaking into the post office tonight to try to get the next set.”

  “Unless we do?” Sherry said.

  Cora Felton looked at her. “You wanna?”

  “I was joking.”

  “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  “I know where yours is,” Sherry said, indicating the gin and tonic.

  “Don’t snipe. I hate it when you snipe. It only makes things worse.”

  “Sorry. I just wanted to make this very clear. I am not breaking into the post office.”

  “Fine. You wanna break into the Hurley house?”

  Sherry’s eyes widened. “Aunt Cora!”

  “Just a thought. Anyway, it would probably be easier than the post office.”

  “And just why would you want to break into the Hurley house?” Sherry asked suspiciously.

  “I thought we might find a clue.”

  “A clue to what?”

  “Sherry, just because everyone says Emma Hurley wasn’t murdered doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”

  “Oh, for goodness sakes. Emma Hurley was dying. Everybody knows that.”

  “Is a dying woman immune to poison? I read this Agatha Christie where—”

  “I can’t believe we’re having this discussion. You’re getting paid fifty thousand dollars to referee a crossword-puzzle treasure hunt. But that’s not exciting enough for you. You have to invent a murder.”

  “Invent? What do you mean, invent? Jeff Beasley was killed, wasn’t he? If someone killed him, why not her?”

  “Cora—”

  “After all, Beasley was found in her bed.”

  “Exactly,” Sherry said. “And that’s what put the idea in your head in the first place.”

  “That doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

  “No, Cora. Common sense means it’s wrong. Anyway, I’m not breaking into the Hurley house.”

  “Oh, all right,” Cora pouted. “Point well taken. Now, if we could return to my point. About food. Since you’ve been cracking puzzles instead of cooking, we don’t have any. Food that is. You wanna go out and eat?”

  “Where? To the Country Kitchen?”

  “I was thinking of something more downtown. You know. Near the post office.”

  “Aunt Cora.”

  “It doesn’t hurt to go by the post office. It’s not like I was going in the post office. But it doesn’t hurt to look.”

  “The only place I know downtown is the Wicker Basket.”

  “So?”

  “I was there yesterday for lunch. If I show up again, people will think I can’t cook.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with people who can’t cook.”

  “I didn’t say there was. I just don’t happen to be one of them.”

  “So, you wanna go eat, or not?”

  “I guess I am hungry,” Sherry admitted. “You wanna call Arthur Kincaid, tell him you solved the puzzle?”

  “Nope, let him sweat,” Cora replied. “We’re gonna see him tomorrow morning, ten o’clock, that’s soon enough.”

  “Fine,” Sherry said. “Whaddaya say let’s go?”

  “You wanna change?” Cora said.

  Sherry was wearing jeans and a cotton shirt. She grinned. “To go out with you? I think not. Of course, if you’d like to change, in case you should run into that judge …”

  “Why, Sherry Carter. The very idea.” Cora considered the dress she was wearing, frowned, shrugged, then headed for the bedroom. “I’ll only be a minute.”

  Cora Felton looked quite fetching indeed in a littlet="t ="cent red number that had been one of her former husbands’ favorites, and while she’d been embarrassed to discover she could no longer remember which former husband had been partial to the dress, she had been pleased enough at how she looked in it not to mind Sherry’s ribbing about how it would appeal to Judge Hobbs.

  Or that it was about as unobtrusive as a fire engine.

  As Cora Felton walked around the post office, she had to admit she certainly stood out.

  “It’s all right,” she told Sherry. “It’s not like I was going in.”

  “I never thought you were,” Sherry said.

  “Well, I’m not.” Cora frowned. “Do you suppose there’s a back door?”

  There was a back door to the post office. It was locked. Nor was there any suitable back window. Cora Felton reluctantly completed another circuit of the building, returning to the sidewalk in front.

  Cora shrugged her shoulders. “Well, when you’re right, you’re right,” she said. “Whaddaya say we go eat?”

  “I favor it over breaking and entering,” Sherry said pleasantly. She gestured to the front door, where a sign proclaimed the post office hours. “It opens at eight o’clock. We’ll be here first thing in the morning.”

  “I hate getting up,” Cora said.

  “I can always come without you.”

  “Over my dead body. Okay, where’s the restaurant?”

  “Right around the corner,” Sherry said. “Come on. I’m starved.”

  They walked around the corner to the Wicker Basket. The dining room was half full. Cora Felton, cynical after her many marriages, half expected to find Becky Baldwin dining with Aaron Grant, but the only one she recognized in the restaurant was Daniel Hurley, who was dining alone at a table in the corner.

  A young waitress, most likely home from college for the summer, guided them to a table on the other side of the room.

  Cora Felton sat down opposite Sherry, picked up the menu. “What do you recommend?”

  “Avoid the gazpacho. Aside from that, you’re on your own.”

  The young waitress returned with her notepad. “Do you need a moment?”

  “We could order drinks,” Cora Felton said decisively. “Do you have a liquor license?”

  “We have wine by the glass.”

  “What’s good?”

  “The house cabernet’s quite popular.”

  “Let me try a glass.”

  “And for you?” the waitress asked Sherry.

  “I’ll have a Diet Coke.”

  “Have you always been a teetotaler?” Cora Felton said as the waitress left. “Or is it just since we’ve been living together?”

  “Aunt Cora. I was married to an abusive drunk.”

  “I know.”

  “I know you know.” Sherry picked up her menu. “So what you gonna order to go with that wine?”

  “Oh, I’m no good at this. That’s the trouble. A martini goes with everything.”

  “What a charming philosophy.”

  “So help me out. What’s the cuisine?”

  “It’s American eclectic.”

  “What the heck does that mean?”

  “Basically, don’t expect much.” Sherry giggled, glanced around to make sure she hadn’t been overheard. “Will you listen to that, I’m a snobby New Yorker.”

  “The salmon filet sounds good,” Cora said, “w
ith green salad and rice pilaf. Or do I have to have white wine with fish?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” Sherry said. “Otherwise you’ll wind up on the front page of the Bakerhaven Gazette. PUZZLE LADY FLOUTS CONVENTIONS, CHOOSES WRONG WINE.”

  “Well, excuse me for asking,” Cora said, “but you’re so finicky about my image.”

  “It’s the quantity, not the etiquette.”

  “Ever the wordsmith,” Cora said, ironically.

  Sherry raised her eyebrows. “Uh oh. Look who’s here.”

  Daniel Hurley walked up to their table. In his boots and motorcycle jacket, he looked extremely out of place in the Wicker Basket, as if he were not there to eat dinner, but had merely stopped to ask directions. Although asking directions would have seemed uncharacteristic also.

  “Hi there,” Daniel Hurley said.

  “Good evening,” Sherry replied. “How’s your dinner?”

  “I’ve had better.”

  Sherry noticed he didn’t bother to lower his voice or look around to see whether anyone overheard. “Oh? What did you have?”

  “Veal piccata. I should have realized it was risky.” Daniel smiled at Cora Felton. “Well, you seem to have sobered up.”

  Cora Felton bristled. “I beg your pardon?”

  Daniel Hurley took no notice, went on as if perfectly sure of his welcome. “Listen, can I ask you something?”

  “Not if it has to do with the puzzle,” Cora said curtly. “I’m off duty till tomorrow morning.”

  “Yeah, I got your message,” Daniel said. “The lawyer called my bed-and-breakfast. Funny. The woman who runs the place—she’s been treating me like I crawled out from under a rock—and then the lawyer calls, suddenly she realizes I’m a Hurley heir, and now butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.”

  “I take it you didn’t disillusion her,” Cora said.

  “What’s to disillusion? I am a Hurley heir.”

  Cora Felton waggled a finger. “Technically, you’re a potential Hurley heir. The outcome of the will is yet to be determined.”

  Daniel waved this away. “Yes, of course. That wasn’t what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Oh? And what was?” Cora wondered when her wine would come.

  Without asking permission, Daniel pulled up a chair and sat down at their table. He leaned in conspiratorially. “All right, look. You know this cop. You’ve worked with him before.”

  “Chief Harper?” Cora Felton asked innocently.

  “Yeah, him. Harper. What’s his story?”

  Cora shrugged. “No story. Just a small-town cop doing his job.”

  “Does he know his job?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “He hassled me this afternoon. Came to see me at the bed-and-breakfast, asked me a whole bunch of questions about this guy who croaked.”

  “Jeff Beasley?”

  “Right. And we went through all that this morning. As I pointed out. But now Harper’s got all these new questions, like did I see him in the parking lot—which I already told him, yes, I did—but here he is asking again like it’s a new idea. He’s basically asking me for an alibi, and how can I have one when I live in a bed-and-breakfast and no one sees me come in?”

  “What happened in the parking lot?” Cora asked innocently.

  Daniel Hurley turned to her. “You too? You’re asking that too?”

  Cora Felton smiled. “It ?s a relevant question. You’re the last person to see the victim alive. Of course I’m curious. What did he want?”

  Daniel Hurley held his hands apart, gestured with them. “That’s the whole thing. I don’t know. Here’s this incoherent drunk latching on to me as I’m trying to leave. If I had a car, I’d climb in, lock the doors, and that would be the end of it. But, wouldn’t you know it, the bike doesn’t start the first time and hangs me out to dry.”

  “And what did Beasley do then?”

  “He laughed. He said, ‘You’re never gonna get the money, are you?’ ”

  Cora blinked. “You mean the inheritance?”

  Daniel shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is that’s what he said.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “Yeah, the cop seemed to think so too. As if I’m responsible for what some old drunk says. Anyway, he goes on and on about where I live, what I do—the cop, not the drunk—as if that had anything to do with it.”

  “I wouldn’t let it worry you,” Sherry said. “Cops ask everything. It’s what they do. And if they don’t know what they’re after, their questions can be way off the point.”

  “I’ll say,” Daniel said. “But I have to tell you, it doesn’t feel good when it’s a murder they’re asking about. Which I understand this now is. And, guess what? The cop doesn’t tell me that straight off. He asks all his questions. Then he springs it on me. And, by the way, this is a homicide. Which, the way I understand, would make anything I told him inadmissible in court.”

  “You spoke to a lawyer?” Sherry said.

  Daniel Hurley grimaced. “Actually, I did. That Baldwin chick. I asked her the score. Granted, she’s new at it, she’s not going to know everything. But she’s pretty sharp. I’d be inclined to believe what she says.”

  Sherry Carter looked at him narrowly. “Chief Harper upset you enough that you consulted a lawyer?”

  Daniel Hurley grinned. “You’re pretty sharp too. No, of course not. I was talking to Becky about the other thing. You know, Auntie’s will. No offense meant, but, frankly, puzzles aren’t my bag. It occurred to me there might be some way around this whole competition.”

  “You asked Becky Baldwin to break the will?” Sherry said.

  “I asked her to look into it. Which certainly couldn’t hurt. In the meantime, nobody’s running away with it. Not with only part of the puzzle given out. So why not take my shot?”

  Sherry frowned. “I thought Becky Baldwin was just passing through town.”

  “She is. But she’s gotta stick around until the Beasley thing gets straightened out. Why shouldn’t she pick up some cash on the side?”

  “Why, indeed?” Cora Felton said sweetly. “So how come you’re not dining with her?”

  “She’s out working on my case.”

  “Oh?”

  “She went to pump that newspaper reporter, see if she can dig up any dirt.”

  Cora Felton carefully refrained from looking at Sherry. “How very interesting. You mean about the will contest?”

  “No. About the murder. I called Becky after the cop left the bed-and-breakfast, said he’s treating me like suspect numero uno. Becky said she’d dig around, see what she could get.”

  “I’ll bet she did,” Cora Felton muttered.

  Daniel Hurley scowled. “You think I’m in trouble?”

  “How could you be?” Cora Felton said pleasantly. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Well,” Daniel Hurley said. “I guess I read too many murder mysteries. The cops always seem to pick the wrong man.”

  The waitress arrived with Cora’s wine and Sherry’s Diet Coke. “Will there be something else?” she asked Daniel Hurley.

  “No, I’m just on my way out,” Daniel told her.

  He got up from their table, went over to the cashier, paid his check. Then he went back to his table and left the tip. He flashed the waitress a dazzling smile as he went out the door.

  “Wanna order?” Cora asked Sherry. “Or have you lost your appetite?”

  “Of course I wanna order,” Sherry snapped.

  “I thought maybe we should pop by the paper, get the latest dope.”

  “Becky Baldwin’s doing that.”

  “Yes. You think she’ll share the info with us?”

  “Aaron will.”

  “Then we’re going over there?”

  “Not at all. When I talk to him, he’ll tell me.”

  “You’re just going to ignore the fact Becky Baldwin’s over there right now?”

  “Yes, I am. It’s none of my business where Bec
ky Baldwin is right now.”

  Sherry called the waitress over waibusand ordered dinner. She ordered the penne with dried tomatoes and mushrooms; Cora ordered the salmon filet.

  “There,” Sherry said, as the waitress scurried off to the kitchen. “I’m going to put it out of my head, sit here and enjoy my dinner.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Cora Felton said darkly.

  Sherry frowned. “What?”

  Cora Felton raised her eyebrows, gestured with a look over Sherry’s left shoulder.

  Sherry turned and looked.

  Bearing down on the table was one of the heirs.

  “I’m sorry to bother you at dinner,” the flat-faced woman said, “but I was walking by the restaurant and I saw you in the window.”

  Cora Felton’s smile matched the one in her TV ad. “Is that so? And just what is it that you want?”

  “May I sit down? I don’t want to impose, but I find I get so tired these days.” Without waiting to be invited, the woman slumped into the chair Daniel Hurley had just vacated. “Oh, that’s better. Have you eaten yet? I don’t want to interrupt.”

  Cora Felton started to say they’d just ordered, but was pretty certain the woman would take that as an invitation to join them for dinner. Instead, she repeated, “What is it that you want?”

  “It’s about the will.”

  “I’m not discussing the will,” Cora told her. “I’m not discussing the puzzle. I can’t give you any help. I can’t answer any questions or make any rulings. Anything you wanna know, ask me ten A.M. tomorrow in the lawyer’s office.”

  The woman seemed flustered. “No, no, you misunderstand. I don’t mean about the puzzle.”

  “What do you mean, then?”

  “Do you know who I am? You’re new in town, the two of you, so maybe you don’t know who I am. Or who Emma Hurley was, for that matter.”

  Both Cora and Sherry looked perplexed.

  “I’m Annabel Hurley. Alicia Hurley was my mother. Emma Hurley’s sister.” After a pause, she added, “Emma Hurley’s older sister.”

  Cora Felton frowned. “So?”

  Annabel Hurley paused. “Do you know any of the background?”

  “Assume I don’t,” Cora Felton told her. “waibuf the back;Spit it out.”

  “I’m talking about the will. The old will. Evan Hurley’s will.”