by Parnell Hall
Harper took an envelope out of the drawer, passed it over.
“You handled it?”
“Sure.”
“You didn’t process it for fingerprints?”
“Why should I? There hasn’t been a crime.”
“There will be in a minute. You get an anonymous letter with a crossword puzzle in it and you think it important enough to rush it over to Harvey Beerbaum.”
“You’d rather I waited for you?”
“God, no. All anonymous crossword puzzles should go straight to Harvey Beerbaum. It gives him something to do.”
There came the sound of a door in the outer office.
“Dan’s back,” Harper said. “You mind taking a look at the solved puzzle?”
“That I can handle,” Cora said. “Though if there’s anything to it, I’m sure Harvey found it.”
“The puzzle, yeah. He doesn’t always apply it to the situation.”
“There is no situation. It’s just a puzzle.”
Dan Finley came in the door. The young officer was a Puzzle Lady fan, had heard of Cora Felton even before he met her. For Chief Harper, on the other hand, it had been news that there even was a Puzzle Lady.
“Got it, Chief. Hi, Cora. You here to look at the puzzle?”
“No, but I guess that’s what I’m going to do. What’s it all about?”
Dan grinned. “You want me to tell you what this puzzle means?”
“Well, you have the advantage of having seen it.”
“Oh. There was a copy here. Didn’t you give her the copy, Chief?”
“He gave me the copy, but I didn’t want to solve it and steal Harvey Beerbaum’s thunder. What’d he come up with?”
“Here you go.”
Cora took the puzzle and read the theme entry:
Crime wave fools cops. Perps walk. Bust flops.
“Well, Chief, this is the type of taunting message a sadistic serial killer would use to make you feel small and helpless. Not that you are, of course. I’m just saying that would be the intent.”
“Small and helpless about what? Not knowing what the guy means? I think whoever sent this should feel small and useless for not having made the slightest impression.”
The phone on Chief Harper’s desk rang.
Dan Finley scooped it up. “Bakerhaven police.… Uh-huh.… Really?… Be right there.”
“What have we got?” Harper said.
“Ed James, out on Tyson’s Road. Liquor store robbery.”
Cora rubbed her hands together. “Well, that’s more like it.”
Chapter
5
It was quite a while since Cora had been in a liquor store, having quit drinking, but from what she recalled of Ed James Wine and Spirits what was surprising was not that it had been robbed, but that it had not been robbed more often. The store occupied its own mini-mall, fronted by a rectangular parking lot twice as wide as the storefront and boasting enough paint-lined parking spaces to give one the impression that all anyone ever did in Connecticut was drink. Having once fallen into that category, Cora was not one to point fingers; still the size of the lot seemed excessive. At the moment there were only four cars in it. Two were police cruisers, one was hers, and the other presumably belonged to the owner.
Ed James had a slender face, thinning gray hair, slightly long, a gray mustache, and suspicious eyes, as if from years of seriously doubting the ID card you had produced to show you were twenty-one was in fact genuine.
Chief Harper took the lead. “So, Ed, Dan says you’ve been robbed.”
Ed nodded. “That’s right. At gunpoint,” he added. He seemed somewhat pleased by the assertion.
“So, who did it?”
“Well now, that’s why I called you.”
“Yes, but I didn’t see the robber. I’m assuming you did.”
“I did, for all the good it’s going to do you. The guy wore a mask.”
“A mask,” Dan Finley said. “You mean like the Wild West?”
Harper gave him a look.
“No,” Ed said. “Not a bandana. Not a stocking, either. I mean a Halloween mask.”
“A plastic mask?” Harper said.
“It had plastic in it. But not the kind held on with an elastic band. This covered the whole head.”
“You mean a hood?” Cora said.
“That’s right, a hood. But the face was plastic.”
“And who was the face?” Harper said.
“Oh. Iron Man. You know, the superhero.”
Cora’s eyes twinkled. “You got robbed by one of the Avengers?”
Ed James fixed her with a baleful eye. “I don’t find it amusing. I was robbed.”
“What did the guy get?” Harper said.
“Cash. Cleaned out the register.”
“How much was that?”
“Not much. Not that many people use cash these days.”
“When you say ‘not much’?”
“Oh, five or six hundred dollars. Not chicken feed, but if it weren’t for credit cards it’d be much worse.”
“Dan said you couldn’t describe the car.”
“That’s right.”
“How come?”
“Didn’t see a car. Parking lot was empty.”
“There was no one in the store?”
“No. Just me and him. The only car in the parking lot was mine.”
“So he left on foot?”
“That’s right. Ran out the door, went into the woods.”
“Which way?”
“Back toward town.”
“So what did the guy look like?” Harper said. “Big, small?”
Cora knew the answer before Ed said it.
“Average size. In a blue overcoat. L.L. Bean, from the look of it. No hat, just the hood.”
“Gloves?”
“No.”
“He touch anything? The register?”
“No. He made me clean it out.”
“How long was he here?”
“Not long. It all happened fast. I had a customer. Customer left. He must have been waiting outside. As soon as the customer drove off, he came in. Mask on, gun out. Said, ‘Keep your hands where I can see ’em.’”
“What was his voice like?”
“Low and raspy, like he was disguising it.”
“He say anything else?”
“He said, ‘Empty the register.’ He took a paper bag out of his jacket pocket, opened it, set it on the counter.”
“He say anything then?”
“He didn’t have to. Just gestured with his gun. I put the money in the bag; he picked it up and went out.”
Chief Harper asked a few more questions, but Ed James wasn’t much help.
“Poor guy,” Dan Finley said as they walked back to their cars. “When you get robbed by Iron Man, that’s a pretty bad day.”
“Could have been worse,” Cora said.
“How’s that?”
“Could have been the Incredible Hulk.”
Chapter
6
The woman was ridiculously young. Becky Baldwin thought so, and most people considered Becky Baldwin ridiculously young. Most people in the legal profession, at any rate. Which wasn’t fair. Becky wasn’t that young anymore; she just looked young, mostly because she was so dazzlingly beautiful she would not have looked out of place on the cover of a Victoria’s Secret catalogue.
The woman in the client’s chair made her look like Whistler’s mother.
The girl—Becky couldn’t help thinking of her as a girl—was a baby-faced blonde with a look of wide-eyed innocence, her eyebrows slightly raised and her lips slightly parted as if in surprise to discover this newly voluptuous figure was in fact hers. It was a look men would find irresistible, women infuriating.
Becky couldn’t afford to be infuriated. Times were tough. This was a potential client. She smiled. “And what may I do for you?”
“I need your help.”
“I assumed you did. Otherwise, what wo
uld be the point?”
“Huh?”
“People who consult lawyers need help. What do you need help with?”
The young woman took a breath. Her sweater swelled dramatically. “It’s my husband.”
Becky blinked. The woman had a husband? She looked barely old enough to begin dating. “What’s his name? What’s yours, for that matter?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m just new at this. I’m Brittany Wells. My husband is Hank. Hank Wells.”
“How long have you been married?”
“We were married in June.”
That was good. If the woman had said “ten years,” Becky would have felt eligible for AARP.
“And you’re having trouble with your husband?”
“I’m not sure.”
Becky smiled, but it was all she could do to keep her teeth from grinding. There were limits to how long she was going to indulge this ditsy young woman. She wondered if she would be more tolerant if Brittany were scatterbrained and elderly.
“What makes you think you might have a problem with your husband?”
Brittany swallowed, blinked her eyes, blurted out, “I think he might be seeing someone else,” and dissolved into tears.
Becky couldn’t help a certain satisfaction. Golden Girl’s fairy-tale existence wasn’t all happily ever after. “Do you know who?”
“No.”
“Then what makes you think he is?”
Brittany snuffled, said, “He’s been staying late after work.”
“Do you think it’s his secretary?”
Brittany looked shocked. “What makes you say that?”
“It often is.”
“But…”
“But what?”
“Hank doesn’t have a secretary.”
Becky closed her eyes, opened them. Said dryly, “That would seem to rule that out. Do you have any idea who the woman is?”
“No.”
“Well, give me some help here. You say he stays late after work. How late?”
“Sometimes he doesn’t get home till ten.”
“Really? Where does he say he’s been?”
“Working.”
“What does he do?”
“He’s an insurance salesman.”
“In Bakerhaven?”
“No, in New York.”
“He commutes to the City?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
“Why do you say ‘oh’?”
“Well, it certainly changes the complexion. If he were working in Bakerhaven, ten o’clock would be outrageous. If he’s commuting from Manhattan, it’s different. What time does he get home usually?”
“Seven or eight.”
“That makes the whole thing reasonable. If he had extra work to do, eight o’clock could easily stretch to ten. I’m not sure you have a problem.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I’m trying to understand. You gotta give me something more to go on.”
“When we got married he was loving, sweet. Demanding, even. Now he’s not so … attentive.”
“You can’t expect him to be. The honeymoon is over. He’s had to go back to work.”
“Hey, whose side are you on?”
“Yours, of course. If you hire me. I’m not sure what you want me to do.”
“I can’t live with doubt.”
“Of course not. So you want to know if your husband’s having an affair.”
“Yes.”
“If he is, you want me to handle the divorce?”
Her lip trembled again. “I don’t want a divorce.”
“You want your husband.”
“Yes.”
“So the ideal outcome would be if you were mistaken. If he really was working late at the office.”
“I suppose.”
“Well, there’s one way to find out. Have someone follow him when he leaves work.”
“You mean like a private detective?”
“That’s right.”
“I don’t know any private detectives.”
“You didn’t know me, either.”
“Huh?”
“You want to hire me. What’s the difference?”
“You’re in the yellow pages. Under ‘Attorneys.’ There isn’t any listing for private detectives.”
“You looked up ‘Private Detectives’?”
“I didn’t know what to do. I looked up everything. Then I thought of attorneys.”
“Mrs. Wells,” Becky said. She almost stumbled over the word “Mrs.” “If your husband works in Manhattan, why not hire a private investigator from Manhattan?”
“I’m not going to hire him on the phone. That would be silly. How could I give him Hank’s picture?”
Becky frowned.
“Can’t you hire me a detective?”
“I could, but you’d have to hire me to do it. If your husband isn’t cheating—which we’re hoping to find—you’ll have hired both of us for no reason.”
“What do you mean, ‘no reason’? If it gives me peace of mind.”
“Yes, and a detective can do that. But you don’t need me. Hire a detective to make an investigation. If there’s nothing wrong, you’re done. If something is wrong, then you come to me. The way things stand, I wouldn’t feel right taking your money. And don’t let this small office over the pizza parlor fool you; I don’t come cheap. If you need me, I’m worth it. But right now there’s nothing for me to do.”
Brittany took a breath. “What about the insurance policy?”
“What insurance policy?”
“My husband took out an insurance policy. That’s what got me thinking in the first place. That there might be someone else.”
“Hold on a minute,” Becky said. “You mean a life insurance policy?”
“That’s right.”
“When did he do that?”
“A couple of months ago. And it was one of those policies that pay more for an accident.”
“Double indemnity?”
“That’s it.”
“How much was it for?”
“A million dollars. Two million for an accident.”
Becky smiled. “Maybe there is something I can do for you.”
Chapter
7
Cora stuck her head in the door. “You wanted to see me?”
“Yes, I do,” Becky said. “How’d you know?”
“You called the police station.”
“You don’t have a cell phone. The only way I can get you is call around.”
“I was busy. Chief Harper has a case.”
“Really? Anything in it for me?”
“Not unless he arrests someone. Which isn’t likely.”
“I’ll tell him you said that.”
“It’s armed robbery. The liquor store out on Tyson’s Road. The cops haven’t got a clue.”
“In an armed robbery? They didn’t get a description of the robber?”
“Actually, they did. The guy looked like Robert Downey Jr.”
“Well, what more do you need?”
“That’s Robert Downey Jr. in the Avengers movie.”
“I didn’t see it.”
“He was Iron Man.”
“Oh.”
“You should get out more. Anyway, the cops got nothing. And not for lack of trying. They’re canvassing every costume shop within a hundred miles.”
“Are there many?”
“More than you’d think. That includes Manhattan. And there’s party stores, and costume stores, and costume party stores, and Halloween costume party stores. You can also buy the damn things online. It’s doubtful a robber did that, ’cause he’d leave a paper trail, but they gotta check it. Dan’s going nuts tracing online purchases. Apparently, there’s all kinds of Iron Man costumes and the liquor store owner can’t identify the one the guy was wearing. Can you imagine that police lineup?” Cora chuckled at the thought.
“So what are you doing on the case?”
�
��Making helpful suggestions. That’s the joy of being an unpaid consultant. You can sit back and sharp shoot. I say, ‘Gee, I wonder if there’s been any similar armed robberies lately.’ And then Dan has to check on it.”
“I thought he was canvassing costume stores.”
“Dan’s a great multitasker. I admire his work ethic. I wouldn’t want it, but I admire it in others.”
“That’s hardly the sort of thing a prospective employer wants to hear.”
“You have a job for me?”
“Well, I did. But from what you say, I’d be better off hiring Dan Finley.”
“Don’t be a wiseass. What’s the job?”
Becky gave Cora a rundown of the Brittany Wells situation.
“Wow,” Cora said. “Married less than a year and he’s ready to dump her already?”
“Not dump her. Cash her in for the insurance.”
“What’s she like?”
Becky considered. “You know how you hated all Melvin’s girlfriends?”
Cora’s ex-husband Melvin was a thorn in her side. Since the divorce, he’d managed to drive her crazy with his parade of adolescent bimbos.
“I seem to remember them,” Cora said.
“Think younger.”
“A preschooler? I thought there were laws.”
“There should be. Anyway, this girl isn’t as bright as a preschooler, but she managed to figure out a double-indemnity life insurance policy plus her husband working late at the office all the time just might spell trouble.”
“You want to hire me to check it out?”
“You got it.”
“I assume you want me to tail the husband when he leaves work and see who he’s shacking up with.”
“That’s right.”
“Okay. Where’s he work?”
“That’s the icing on the cake.”
Cora frowned. “Oh?”
Becky grinned. “New York City.”
Chapter
8
Cora hit town at three thirty. For once she wished she had a cell phone. Instead she had to cruise around until she found a pay phone. Not to mention a parking spot. A working pay phone and a legal parking spot was a long-shot parlay. Cora couldn’t even tell what was a parking spot anymore, because there weren’t any parking meters; there was one Muni-Meter per block that sold slips of paper you placed on your windshield to tell the meter maid how much time you had in the hope that the place you were parked actually was legal. Cora hated the Muni-Meter. She was always afraid she would get a ticket while she was on her way to buy the parking slip. Not that she’d pay the fine, she’d fight it to her dying breath, but it would mean wasting a day in court.
