by Nero Blanc
“Well, let’s say my boss doesn’t like writing checks for five million dollars without having me poke around.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa . . . come again?” Lever blurted out.
“Genevieve Pepper. Shore Line carried a life-insurance policy on her. Five million smacks.”
Lever lit another cigarette and spoke through the smoke. “Kinda shoots a hole through your ‘kidnapping’ theory, there, Polly—Crates.”
Rosco was as shocked as Lever and Jones; he was left stammering slightly. “What? I mean . . . who’s the beneficiary? I’m working for her husband, Clint. He didn’t mention anything about a policy.”
“Maybe he didn’t know . . . Our records show that she paid the premiums, not him.”
“And Pepper picks up five mil?” Lever said, shaking his head. “That’s the kind of wife I need.”
Mize held up his hands and said, “Not so fast, Al . . . Pepper isn’t the beneficiary.”
“Who is?”
“A guy by the name of William Vauriens. Genie’s half brother. He lives up in Boston. Rumor has it that Old Man Pepper sends him sizable bucks every month just so he keeps his distance. I guess there’s no love lost in that family.” Mize chuckled slightly as if pleased at his witticism.
“You’re saying Pepper knew nothing about this life-insurance policy?” Rosco asked.
“I can’t say one way or another . . . I tried to get him on the line, but he’s not taking my calls. Hell, he’s your client . . . Why don’t you ask him?”
Rosco’s thought process had finally assimilated Clint Mize’s news. “What else do you know about Vauriens?”
“Not much . . . Can’t seem to hold a regular job for any length of time. Has an on-again-off-again relationship with a woman in Back Bay. She’s been picked up twice for kiting checks. Never served any time—”
“Have you spoken to Vauriens?” Rosco said while he jotted down the name.
“Not in person. I drove up to Boston . . . poked around a little . . . talked to his lady friend. She says she hasn’t seen ‘Billy’ in well over a week. Same with his boss. Vauriens was working construction—part of a pickup crew . . . Hey, but for five mil, the guy’ll turn up sooner or later. They always do.” Mize said this almost regretfully.
“I don’t suppose you’d like to share the lady’s name and number?” Rosco said as he offered Mize his pad and pen. “I might take a run up to Boston tomorrow morning myself.”
“Hey, it’s no skin off my teeth. The sooner I catch up with ‘Billy’ Vauriens the better.” As he scribbled into Rosco’s pad, Mize cocked an eye in Abe Jones’s direction. “What’s your guesstimate on this fire, Abe?”
“Torch job, Clint. Torch job, all the way.”
19
BARTHOLOMEW KERR’S “BIZ-Y BUZZ”:
CRYPTIC NEWS FROM QUEEN B
The hive was positively humming when our paradigm of puzzlers shared a none-too-cross word yesterday. Seems Queen B received an encoded letter game apparently referring to the disappearance of the Lady Nevisson. Don’t tell the drones, but Begum Belle is a busy biscuit—and I don’t mean Graham flour, sweeties . . .
“It’s me.” The male voice on the phone slurred the words drunkenly, but they didn’t lose their tension or their fear.
“Where are you?” the woman demanded.
“Where I’m supposed to be,” he answered. She could hear a dangerous measure of defeat enter his tone. She was tempted to carry the phone to the window, yank wide the curtains, throw open the sash, and bring a breath of welcome fresh air into the claustrophobic room, but she remained where she was: frozen in inactivity beside the rumpled double bed.
“You saw the newspaper?” she asked. “The gossip column?”
The response was a bitter: “Oh, I’ve seen more than that . . . There’s a crossword puzzle in the same edition . . . a snotty-nosed, incriminating word game only an idiot could ignore . . . This Graham chick’s a wild card I never bargained for.”
“What are we going to do?”
Again, his reply was bitter. “It’s your call, babe . . . I’ve been dancing on live coals over here . . . I’m about played out.” He laughed; the sound was hollow and mean.
“You creep,” she hissed, then thought, but didn’t say: You can’t fall apart on me now! The pause while her brain examined and reexamined the facts was deadening; at the far end of the receiver, the hiatus seemed endless. “How much does this Graham broad know?” she finally asked.
“No telling, toots . . .”
Rage exploded from her. “Don’t you care about this situation at all?”
His response was equally infuriated. “You know damn well I do!”
“Well, don’t give up on me, then!” Again, the woman thought for several long moments. “We’ve got to scare off little Miss Annabella Graham. Make her retract whatever comments she supplied . . . make her vanish. She’s a loose cannon.”
“And how do you propose doing that?”
“Leave it to me,” she answered. “Cherchez la femme . . . , that’s French, in case you didn’t know.”
“Hey, you’re a surprise a minute.”
Belle’s phone rang at the grotesque hour of three A.M. She fumbled for it in her sleep, first upbraiding herself for oversleeping—she imagined it was daytime, then glanced with half-closed eyes at the alarm clock’s illuminated face. Her next sensation was worry—something terrible must have happened to Rosco! Her third was irritation—this was clearly a misdialed number. When she answered the phone, it was with a cross “yes?”
“Belle Graham?”
“Speaking.”
“I didn’t wake you, did I?”
Belle almost said no—such is the conditioning of the human spirit; no one is supposed to be too sleepy or unconscious to make a full and intelligent response. Instead, she answered a disbelieving, “It’s three in the morning!”
“I did wake you, then . . .”
Belle sat up straighter in bed, punching her pillow into a cushion behind her back. She realized she had no idea who her caller was, nor could she identify whether the person were male or female. The accent was equally impossible to place. It could have been South African; it could have been northern English; it could have been German or Dutch with a British education. Or it could have been plain, old American pretending it was something more exotic. “Who is this?”
“Let’s just say someone concerned with your well-being.”
“Then perhaps you should have let me sleep.”
The person laughed, a malevolent sound that caused Belle to reach for the lamp on the nightstand. But when the room was bathed in light, she felt no more secure.
“Good try, Belle, but not, I’m afraid, appropriate under the circumstances. Strong-willed women like you can be your own worst enemies. Do you understand my meaning?”
“Who is this?” Belle repeated.
“That’s for me to know and you to find out.” Again, the malign laugh. “Now, let’s have a little chat about the Pepper case.”
Belle was tempted to lie, and protest ignorance, but suddenly realized a phone call like this was precisely what she’d hoped to instigate. Her tone changed; she became conciliatory and chatty. “Are you calling about the anonymous crossword puzzle I published?” she asked.
“That—and the gossip column.”
“Are you the constructor?”
“What?”
“Are you the—” A warning whistle rang in Belle’s brain. The caller didn’t know the term for a crossword creator was “constructor.” “Who is this?” she demanded for the third time.
“Let’s say that I am not your friend . . . Let’s say, we are not your friends.”
In the golden lamplight, Belle’s gray eyes grew huge and agate-colored. She didn’t speak.
“And let’s further add that we want you to walk away from this Pepper business . . . that we strongly advise you to forget every detail . . . make like it didn’t happen. Get it, Belle?”
Belle nodded to her empty bedroom.
“Because otherwise you might vanish like those two dumb broads. Understand?”
“Where are they?” Belle asked. “Do you know? . . . You do, don’t you?”
“Cut the chat, sweetie. Those babes are no concern of yours.”
Belle realized that the caller’s vocal quality had taken on an obviously masculine tone. “I could help you, sir . . . if you’d let me . . . take a message to Mr. Pepper perhaps—”
The laugh at the other end of the receiver was piercing. “Bodyguard city!” the voice scoffed. “And then, you and who else would be in on this gig? . . . No, I’m telling you to butt out, honey. And I mean now!”
Belle was silent, playing for time. “You won’t harm them, will you? . . . Genie and Jamaica, I mean?” she finally asked.
“That depends on you, little lady. You walk away, those dames may see the light of day . . . You keep sticking your nose in this mess, you’re gonna find yourself stuck in one big tragedy!” Then the phone went dead; the caller had gone.
“Tragedy,” Belle repeated. “Tragedy.” Comedy. . . tragedy . . . Shakespeare . . . Was it possible the caller was connected to the puzzles, after all? But if not, who was he? And why did he call? She fell asleep pondering the questions.
The bedside lamp burned through the rest of her fitful night. When she awoke, she stared up into its hot, incriminating bulb. “Oh, darn,” she muttered, reaching automatically to turn off the switch, then suddenly recalling why she’d lit it. She swung her feet from the bed in a trice, threw on her robe, and dashed down the stairs. She had an overwhelming urge for the soothing comfort of a deviled egg—or maybe two.
Hideously, the refrigerator was empty. Belle stared woefully at the stark shelves, then straightened her shoulders and decided to walk to the mom-and-pop store at the bottom of the lane. Mayo, capers, and eggs were only a couple of minutes away. Relief was at hand.
She walked resolutely to the front door, opening it to assess her wardrobe choices on this autumnal Saturday morning. But her gaze was arrested by an envelope tucked halfway beneath the mat. She opened it with trembling hands. Inside was another crossword puzzle.
PUZZLE 4
20
Finished with the newest cryptic, Belle sat hunched at her desk as if expecting it to speak. In a blue terry robe that had seen happier days, her body shivered with cold, but she didn’t seem to notice. One slipper had fallen off, leaving her toes exposed and icy; again, she appeared unaware of physical discomfort. Her total concentration was dedicated to the crossword puzzle and the message it relayed. With clues indicating Who?, What?, Where?, When?, Why?, and How?, the constructor’s intent had become plain as day.
COME ALONE. Belle stared at the answer to 10-Down, then moved to 32-Across: TELL NO ONE. She remembered the threatening phone call she’d received just four short hours earlier. Someone obviously hadn’t wanted her involved in the Pepper case, but she now held in her hand proof that another person definitely needed her help. There was her name spelled out at 30-Down; the location was found at 55-Across: DEW DROP INN, a derelict resort spread across one hundred wild and scenic acres on the promontory known as Allyn’s Point an hour south of Newcastle.
Or, could it be, she wondered, that the puzzle was a means of luring her into danger? Invented by the very same person who had just phoned her the night before? The old inn’s grounds would be particularly empty of hikers or picnickers at this time of year. She’d make an easy target. Belle almost wished she owned a weapon, but then reminded herself that she didn’t know the first thing about guns. If she faced some hideous adversary, she’d probably discover she’d left the pistol’s safety on—and then her defenses would be reduced to throwing a two-pound piece of metal. She couldn’t throw any better than she could shoot.
Belle scanned the clues and answers again. When? was at 17-Across. The answer: AT ELEVEN AM. 33-Down spelled out ORION; 44-Down: FIRE; PERIL was the answer to 21-Across; SAVE at 13-Across. Genie and Jamaica were among the clues. Ensnare; Liar; Criminal; Revenge. Her attention returned to 32-Across: TELL NO ONE. The intent was plain; Rosco was not to be included in the excursion.
Belle stood and realized her slipper was missing and her foot asleep. She sagged toward the floor, grabbed her wayward scuff, then limped across the office while her toes revived. All the while her brain kept jumping to possible scenarios, solutions, and a raft of unanswered questions. One fact remained abundantly clear, however; she had been designated as liaison. If Genie and Jamaica were indeed alive, and if they were to be rescued, Belle would have to follow the crossword’s instructions implicitly.
She hurried out of her office, taking the stairs’ bare treads two at a time. She then rushed into her bedroom, threw on a pair of jeans, an Irish fisherman’s sweater she’d owned since her senior year in college, and white canvas Keds that had turned a permanent gray beige. In case she encountered a birder or late-season beachcomber, the costume was appropriately outdoorsy and nondescript.
Belle drove her car down the remaining loop of Captain’s Walk, turned right on Thirteenth Street, then left on Congress heading for the interstate south, the bridge crossing the river, and the long stretch of sparsely inhabited blacktop that led to Allyn’s Point. It was, she suddenly realized, a beautiful fall day.
The Dew Drop Inn had been built in the early twenties. Despite its pixielike name, it was a mammoth place and wholly incongruous with its primitive surroundings. For one thing, it was stuccoed with as much panache and abandon as a villa on the Riviera; for another thing, it was pink. Overwhelmingly so. The cupolaed, porticoed, mansarded, gabled, and multiwindowed fantasy-by-the-sea looked as if it had been carved out of spun cotton candy, and seventy-plus years of salt spray, snow, ice, summer sun, hurricanes, and winter windstorms had not diminished one note of this eccentric tonal palette.
Belle stepped from her car and approached the place. The wide porch was more desolate than she’d remembered it; it was also showing serious signs of neglect. Every ten years or so, some developer would purchase the building with the intention of restoring and refurbishing it to “its original glory” sometimes these incarnations lasted a couple of years; mostly they did not, and the Dew Drop Inn would then slide back into its woeful state. The property was an acknowledged white elephant, a valuable tract of land with an unusable building no one had the courage—or the zoning approval—to raze. Local realtors had now dubbed it “The Pink Elephant.”
Beyond the inn proper, the salt waves of Buzzards Bay surged around the rocky promontory, spilling into numerous small inlets the sea had rubbed from the stone. Where an incoming wave met one receding, the friction produced huge plumes of spray that erupted in the air, dousing the craggy boulders until they were as black and slick as oil.
To the left of the promontory, a pebble-strewn beach stretched toward what had once been the inn’s cabanas and oceanside restaurant—also vivid pink. To the right was a wide green cliff grown wild and woolly with tangled brush, bittersweet, and desiccated honeysuckle vines. Belle gazed at the scene. She was totally alone.
She circumnavigated the main building, looking at it, and then away. She wasn’t certain what she’d expected, but decided the spot was a rendezvous. COME ALONE; the implication was that someone else would arrive.
Finished with one pass of the inn, Belle began a second loop. She slowed her pace, walking methodically as if her body language could transmit an appropriate solitude to a distant observer. She had the definite sensation of being watched.
With her second tour of the building finished, she began a third, this time walking in the opposite direction, as if the choice might send another signal. No one appeared; the only sound was that of the surf crashing against the promontory, and of seagulls wheeling boisterously in the sky. Belle noticed that the sun was almost directly overhead. Eleven A.M. had come and gone.
Perhaps she’d been mistaken about human contact, she decided; maybe a message had been attached to the
building. She approached the porch; leaves and brush flung there by countless storms lay in deep eddies beside the doors and under the windows. More than a few floorboards had rotted away. She carefully kicked aside the refuse to continue her inspection. What a sad place, she thought; the utter abandonment of the building made her suddenly want to cry.
It was the slamming of a car door that made Belle snap to attention. She spun toward the sound. A woman dressed in jogging tights, a gray sweatshirt, white socks bunched at her ankles, and black running shoes was walking to the rear of an obscenely large sport utility vehicle. Her hair was blond—or wanted to be blond; long, dark roots spiked through an unruly mop that was tied in an elasticized terry band as if she’d just finished an arduous aerobics class. She glanced apprehensively at the figure on the porch through the lenses of large dark glasses.
Belle nodded encouragement and gestured toward the inn’s facade as if she were no more than a curious hiker. But the woman only scowled, opened the rear gate of her car, and allowed a shaggy black dog to amble down. “Come on, boy,” she ordered. The dog paid little heed; instead, his fur bristled and he loped toward Belle. “Come on, boy!” The woman shouted again. This time the tone was more urgent, even angry. “Come on! Come here, dammit!”
Belle detected fear in the voice. Apprehensively, she backed into a protective corner, but the dog suddenly stopped, arrested by some compelling scent in the unkempt lawn. When it finally looked up, it turned its head from Belle toward its frustrated owner, then slowly sauntered back to her side. Belle peered at the cracked and grimy window behind her head. In the dim reflection, she saw the muzzy outline of the rebellious dog and its owner running toward the beach.
