Dead Man's Puzzle

by Parnell Hall

“I was.”

  “I mean I thought you were making it up.”

  “You find anything else?”

  “The sewer pipe’s broken.”

  “Relating to the crime.”

  “How do you know someone didn’t kill him for having a broken sewer pipe?”

  “Okay. Enough shenanigans. I got a murder to solve. And I can’t solve it if I’ve got to spend all my time chasing you around. In case I wasn’t clear before, let me be explicit. This cabin is off-limits. Don’t go in, don’t drive by it, don’t look in the window, don’t inventory anything that might happen to be there. And for God’s sake, don’t remove anything from the property under penalty of death. You haven’t removed anything from the property, have you?”

  “Absolutely not,” Cora said.

  “Or do you have anything on your person right now that you intend to take from the property?”

  “Gosh, you have a suspicious mind, Chief.”

  “You agreed just a little too readily.”

  “There’s no pleasing you, Chief. I agree with you, you’re unhappy. I don’t agree with you, you’re unhappy. What do you want us to do?”

  “What do I want you to do?” Chief Harper cocked his head. “I want you to avoid any TV interviews in which you give out information not already released by the police.”

  “Becky must have misunderstood you, Chief. I don’t know how that happened.”

  “Yeah. Well, this time let there be no mistake. I want you to get in your car, drive off, and don’t come back here for any reason whatsoever. Is that clear?”

  Cora patted him on the cheek. “Crystal.”

  Chapter 18

  As soon as Becky dropped her off, Cora hopped in her car and sped back to the cabin. The front door was locked, but the kitchen window was still open. Shimmying through was a pain. It also upped the chance Brooks would call the cops, but that couldn’t be helped.

  Cora went straight to the bedroom, stood up on the bed, lifted down the picture frame. Recalling lines from the Dylan song about looking like Robert Ford but feeling like Jesse James did not cheer her. She glanced over her shoulder for potential assassins. Finding none, she flopped the picture down on the bed, pulled off the folded piece of paper taped to the back of the dog art. She rehung the picture, pelted down the stairs, and was out of there faster than you could say elderly housebreaker.

  Cora felt bad about holding out on Becky. She wouldn’t have held out on Sherry, if her niece had been the one helping her search the cabin. To a certain extent, Cora realized that was why she’d done it. She felt guilty about using Becky in Sherry’s absence. It was as if Sherry had gotten married so Cora had gotten a surrogate niece. Not exactly, the pilfered paper said. Withholding the evidence kept Becky outside the pale.

  Cora raced into the house, locked the front door behind her, as if that would keep Chief Harper out. It kept Buddy in, and he wasn’t happy about it, yipping his displeasure until Cora threw him a dog biscuit to shut him up.

  Cora flopped her purse on the kitchen table, yanked out her precious find. It was a single sheet of paper folded into eighths. The Scotch Tape was still on. Four strips diagonally across the corners. Cora pulled them off with a reasonable amount of care for her level of excitement.

  She unfolded the paper.

  There was writing on it, which became evident only when it started to unfold. That was good because any writing on the outside would have been ripped off by the tape. But the writing was on an interior fold. It couldn’t be seen when the paper was folded in eighths or quarters, only when it was unfolded into halves.

  Cora spun the paper around.

  It wasn’t a message. It was merely numbers. Numbers and dots scrawled on the page in a haphazard fashion. To a woman whose husband had played the ponies—for the life of her, Cora couldn’t remember which husband—it looked like some bookie’s scratch sheet, a secret record of bets and races the cops could never figure out that made sense only to him.

  Or made no sense at all.

  Cora sighed.

  Was this what she’d risked Chief Harper’s wrath for?

  Of course not. The numbers weren’t the message. Overmeyer had scrawled his message on the back of an old piece of paper because he didn’t have a clean piece of paper. Probably hadn’t in years. The message was on the other side.

  Cora turned over the paper.

  Groaned.

  It was a crossword puzzle.

  ACROSS

  1 Pre-op wash

  5 “Zorba the Greek” setting

  10 Indian king

  14 Juno, to the Greeks

  15 Crude carrier

  16 Four Corners state

  17 Start of a message

  19 Old TV clown

  20 Kind of point

  21 Nervously excited

  23 Reactionaries of 1917

  26 Beach color

  27 Wheel rotator

  28 Large cask

  29 Is down with

  32 Hum or seethe

  35 Part 2 of message

  38 Blow one’s mind

  40 Big gobbler

  41 Impressive spread

  42 Part 3 of message

  45 Vegas calculation

  46 E. Lansing school

  47 Mensa high marks

  48 Sukiyaki ingredient

  50 Good name for a cook?

  51 “The Hustler” locale

  55 Executed First World War spy

  59 Pushover school course

  60 Snobbish attitude

  61 Part 4 of message

  64 Holiday season, for short

  65 Davy Jones’s locker

  66 Downwind, nautically

  67 Early Cosby series

  68 Wipe again

  69 Cassandra, for example

  DOWN

  1 Comic interjection

  2 Moves, in realtor lingo

  3 “Fear of Flying” author Jong

  4 Britney Spears photographers

  5 Miler Sebastian

  6 Ipanema’s city

  7 Graceland’s former resident

  8 Adolescent

  9 Galley goof

  10 Apply, as cream

  11 All-inclusive

  12 Charlie Parker’s music

  13 “Hi, sailor!”

  18 1,059 another way

  22 Tucker who sang “Strong Enough to Bend”

  24 School-zone sign

  25 Tithe amounts

  28 Ketchup ingredient

  29 Like some candy

  30 Part of U.S.N.A.

  31 “The ___ the limit!”

  32 Toto’s creator

  33 “Ball!” callers

  34 Early film actress Pitts

  36 Sock part

  37 Loud hubbubs

  39 Archie Bunker’s wife

  43 0 degrees latitude

  44 “Cock-a-doodle- ___”

  49 Went by plane

  50 In-your-face style

  51 Pierced

  52 “Oh, look ___” (shopper’s remark)

  53 Paris school

  54 West Coast NBA hoopster

  55 60’s–70’s dress

  56 Intentions

  57 Bend in a sink’s pipe

  58 Marathon, for one

  62 Hearing aid

  63 Whatever amount

  Chapter 19

  On her way to the police station, Cora bumped into Harvey Beerbaum.

  “Well, what do we do now?” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I solved the puzzle and a man is dead.”

  “I don’t think it’s cause and effect.”

  “Don’t be silly. Mr. Overmeyer was murdered. The puzzle is a valuable clue.”

  “You solved it.”

  “Yes, but I don’t know what it means.”

  “Join the club.”

  “How can you be so calm about this? We’re involved in a murder.”

  “Maybe you are, Harvey. I have an alibi.”

&nbs
p; He looked shocked. “You’re joking. Please tell me you’re joking.”

  “I’m joking.”

  “How can you joke about a thing like that?”

  “Make up your mind, Harvey. You just told me to say I was joking.”

  “Have you talked to Chief Harper?”

  “Yes, have you?”

  “What does he think?”

  “That’s what I want to know.”

  “I asked you first.”

  “He thinks it has something to do with the puzzle.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “Okay, he doesn’t think it has something to do with the puzzle.”

  “Cora.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say, Harvey. But you solved the puzzle. Surely you noticed all the references to computers in it.”

  “What?”

  “You didn’t notice? Well, take another look. I have no idea what it means, but if you think of anything, let me know.”

  “There was nothing in the puzzle.”

  “That’s what I would have said, too. But the man is dead.”

  “My goodness.”

  Harvey hurried off, no doubt to look at the puzzle.

  Cora felt bad for deceiving him. And for not trusting him. It was one thing to let him solve a puzzle when it didn’t mean anything. And before she knew it was a murder. It was something else to let him solve a puzzle she’d pilfered from a crime scene under the eyes of the cops. It simply wouldn’t do. He would have too many scruples. He would have a nervous breakdown. He would want to go to the police.

  He would make her life a living hell.

  No, there was no way Harvey was getting a look at the puzzle.

  Of course, she couldn’t show it to Chief Harper, either. She couldn’t admit she had it. And he’d just want her to solve it. Assuming he didn’t throw her in jail.

  Cora hurried down to the police station just in time to meet Overmeyer’s heir.

  Chapter 20

  Harmon Overmeyer was a sniveling little man with a nasal voice, a receding chin, a protruding stomach, and a habit of popping his knuckles that set Cora’s teeth on edge. He was, in fact, so unattractive a specimen of manhood that Cora had not the least inclination to marry him.

  “I came as soon as I could,” Harmon declared somewhat defensively. No one had asked him why he hadn’t come earlier. “My flight was canceled. Out of San Antonio. They couldn’t get me to Washington on time to make the connection. Even rerouting me through Chicago.”

  “You couldn’t get a direct flight?” Cora asked.

  Harmon, who had addressed his remark to Chief Harper, looked at her in annoyance. So did Chief Harper.

  “Horrible delays all over. It’s the terrorists, you know.”

  Cora didn’t really agree. In her opinion, terrorists were too easy a catchall excuse for everything.

  “Anyway, we’re glad you’re here,” Harper said. “You’ll want to take charge of the estate and arrange for the burial.”

  “When you spoke to me on the phone, you had not yet found the will.”

  “We still haven’t.”

  “Have you checked with the town attorney?”

  “Ms. Baldwin is the town attorney. Your uncle never consulted her.”

  “Would that be the young lady I supposedly hired to conserve my estate?”

  “Which young lady did you hire?” Cora asked.

  “I didn’t hire a young lady.”

  “You hired a man?”

  “I didn’t hire anyone. I didn’t know there was an estate until I got a phone call.”

  “That was from me,” Chief Harper said.

  “Yes. Telling me my great-uncle had been murdered. Which was a bit of a shock. I didn’t know I had a great-uncle. I didn’t know he was alive. I didn’t know he was dead. I certainly didn’t know he’d been murdered. And I don’t see why he’s my responsibility.”

  “You’re his closest living relative.”

  “Surely he had a closer living relative.”

  “Do you have any living relatives?”

  “Not anymore.”

  Harper frowned.

  “Then I’m summoned here to take charge of the estate. Before I even arrive, you call me again to tell me someone has taken charge of the estate. In my behalf.”

  Cora Felton bit the bullet, smiled, batted her eyes. “That was a misunderstanding.”

  Harmon was having none of it. “Just how could that be a misunderstanding?”

  “Ms. Baldwin is the only lawyer in town. When anyone dies, she’s the conservator of their estate, unless they’ve made other arrangements. Since Overmeyer had no living relatives—”

  “I’m his relative.”

  “Yes,” Cora conceded. “But you didn’t even know it. If the chief hadn’t dug you up through some good old-fashioned detective work, your great-uncle’s property would have wound up being sold at public auction. After being inventoried by the conservator. Who would be Ms. Baldwin.”

  “Oh, really? If everything was so aboveboard, why did the chief here call me to see if I had actually hired the attorney in question?”

  “I can’t speak for the chief,” Cora said, speaking for him, “but I would assume that was to ask if you wanted anything out of the ordinary done in light of the fact that your relative appeared to have been murdered.”

  Harmon turned on the chief. “Would that be the reason?”

  Cora put up her hands. “I think we are losing sight of the fact that we have a murder investigation. The point is not who authorized what. The point is who killed your great-uncle.”

  Harmon favored Cora with a superior smirk. “And just who are you?”

  “I’m sorry. This is Cora Felton,” Chief Harper said. “You might know her as the Puzzle Lady. She’s an amateur detective who’s often been invaluable in my investigations.”

  “Puzzle? What do you mean, puzzle?”

  “She has a crossword puzzle column.”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sakes! I thought you were a police matron, someone who searched female prisoners. I thought that was the rather tenuous excuse for your presence. Are you telling me you have none?”

  “Watch it, buster. Just because you’re rude doesn’t mean you’re not guilty.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Someone sent your great-uncle poison chocolates. It might have been you.”

  “The poison was in chocolates?”

  Harper put up his hand. “We’re not giving out any information.”

  “She just did. What’s this about chocolates?”

  “There’s nothing about chocolates,” Chief Harper said irritably. “Miss Felton was using that as an example. As a figure of speech. No one is saying the poison was administered in chocolates, and we would thank you not to venture such a theory.”

  “Now you’re trying to gag me?”

  “It’s a temptation,” Cora muttered.

  “What was that?”

  “Of course I’m not trying to gag you,” Chief Harper said. “You can tell the press anything you please. I’m just suggesting for your own good you might want to steer clear of irresponsible statements people might tend to pounce on, give you grief for. Just a friendly hint.”

  “I’m glad to see you’re friendly. I think I can take care of myself. Are you telling me you have no information on the crime?”

  “Not at the present, no.”

  “What about the assessment of the estate?”

  “I made no such assessment.”

  “You allowed a lawyer to.”

  Chief Harper was keeping his temper with difficulty. “I was not aware of an inventory being made. When it was brought to my attention, I immediately asked if you had authorized it.”

  “And put a stop to it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You stopped the lawyer in mid-inventory?”

  Chief Harper hesitated.

  “You didn’t stop her in mid-inventory?”

  “She had alread
y stopped.”

  “Had she completed her inventory?”

  “You’d have to ask her.”

  “You didn’t ask her if she’d completed her inventory?”

  “It wasn’t high on my list of questions.”

  “You sound facetious, Officer. Are you being facetious?”

  “It’s entirely possible. I’m just sitting here having stuff dumped in my lap from all directions. You come here from San Antonio to bawl me out for not keeping a closer eye on the effects of a distant dead relative you didn’t even know you had, I am not going to take that kindly. I hope you see my position.”

  “I hope you see mine. If I’m the principal heir, no matter how remote the relationship, I want what’s coming to me.”

  “Oh, you’ll get what’s coming to you all right,” Cora muttered.

  “What was that?”

  Harper stepped between them. “If you want your inheritance, then you’ll do everything you possibly can to help me clean up this unfortunate situation.”

  “That’s how you see it? As an unfortunate situation?”

  “Well, it’s hardly a fortunate one,” Cora said. “Now, unless you’d like to confess to this crime, why don’t you get the hell out of here so Chief Harper and I can solve it.”

  Chapter 21

  “Well, would you believe that,” Cora said when she’d finally succeeded in throwing Overmeyer’s heir out of the office.

  Chief Harper looked a little dazed. “Huh?”

  “The nerve of that man. I’m surprised you didn’t pin his ears back.”

  “That might have been easier to do if he weren’t right. Why were you and Becky Baldwin snooping around the cabin?”

  “Snooping is such an unpleasant word, Chief. Almost sexist, don’t you think?”

  “How is that sexist?”

  “It implies women.”

  “Women snoop?”

  “That’s what it implies.”

  “If it implies it because they do it, what’s wrong with that?”

  “Just because something’s true doesn’t mean it’s not sexist.”

  Chief Harper put up his hands. “Stop it. We’re not having this conversation. You’re not getting out of this so easily. What were you and Becky Baldwin doing in the cabin?”

  “Looking for evidence you missed.”

  “I knew you were going to say that.”