by Parnell Hall
“I’m wondering if that’s because you happened to be at the crime scene.”
“Why, Harvey Beerbaum, are you suggesting I arrived at this crime scene ahead of Chief Harper and removed a sudoku that could have shed light on the murder?”
“I’m not suggesting that. I’m asking if you did.”
“Hang on, Harvey. I would have to ask my lawyer here if there’s a difference between suggesting and asking.”
Becky smiled over her teacup. “If you think I’m getting in the middle of two cruciverbalists, you’ve got another think coming.”
“Just what the hell does that mean?” Cora said. “Another think coming? When do you hear that in conversation? ‘Hold on a minute, I have a think coming.’”
“It’s another way of saying think again,” Harvey said.
“You’re wrong, you moron,” Cora said.
Harvey’s mouth fell open. “What?”
“Oh, not you, Harvey,” Cora said. “You’re wrong, you moron. It’s another way of saying think again.”
“Yes.” Harvey cleared his throat. “We seem to have gotten off the subject. The sudoku at the crime scene?”
“Harvey,” Cora said. “Let me stop you right here. I did not remove a sudoku from the crime scene. Chief Harper showed me the puzzle, but since I have never removed a sudoku from the crime scene, I didn’t know what to tell him. And I don’t know what to tell you, either.”
“You think this new puzzle will shed some light on it.”
“Absolutely not,” Becky said adamantly.
Harvey looked at her in surprise. “Why do you say that?”
“Because it wasn’t found at the crime scene. It’s another matter entirely.”
“I’m thinking maybe I should tell Chief Harper about this.”
“Well, if it were connected to the crime, I could understand that. But it’s not. It’s totally unrelated, came from a different source.”
“Look, Harvey,” Cora said. “If you solve the puzzle and it says, ‘I killed the guy at the crime scene,’ then I’d have to concede the puzzles are related. But I bet you a nickel it doesn’t. So there’s no reason to spread it around.”
“That depends on what it says.”
“It certainly does, Harvey. Let’s see what that is.”
Cora shoved the puzzle in front of him.
Harvey picked up a pen, started on the puzzle.
“You do it in pen?” Cora said.
“Sure. Don’t you? Oh, that’s right.”
The puzzle was simple. Harvey was done in minutes, without, Cora noted, crossing anything out.
“The corners, I confess. Can yield the address.” Harvey frowned, shook his head. “Once again, this would appear to refer to a sudoku.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“But you don’t have one.”
“Sorry, Harvey.”
Cora stood up.
Harvey’s face fell. “Oh, stay. Have another cup of tea. Don’t you want to discuss the puzzle?”
“It’s pretty straightforward, Harvey.”
“But it doesn’t mean anything. Not without something else.”
“I quite agree. That’s why we have to go find it.”
“Where will you look?”
Cora smiled. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t have to look. Relax, Harvey.” She put her arm around Becky Baldwin. “Nancy Drew and I are going to go snooping. If we find another puzzle, we’ll be back.”
Chapter
21
Cora was in a good mood as Becky piloted the car away from Harvey Beerbaum’s. “Like the way I sidestepped the sudoku question?”
“Is that what you call it?”
“I told him I did not remove a sudoku from the crime scene, that I never removed a sudoku from the crime scene. All perfectly true, and yet utterly misleading. I thought as a lawyer you’d appreciate that. It was the absolute truth. I could have made that statement under oath, and there would be no way to get me for perjury.”
“I’m delighted for you,” Becky said dryly. “Your other statement, however…”
“What other statement?”
“That you didn’t have a sudoku to go with the second puzzle. That’s an out-and-out lie.”
Cora shook her head, pityingly. “Oh, Becky, if you’d ever been married you’d understand the use of an out-and-out lie. I didn’t, by the way. I just shook my head and said, ‘Sorry.’ Which could have meant, ‘Sorry, I don’t have it,’ ‘Sorry, you can’t see it,’ or, ‘Sorry, you’re a pompous prig who’s never going to get to second base.’”
“You let him get to first base?”
“Oh, good, you’re awake. I like that in a driver. Becky, you’ve had a shock, you had too much to drink, and you lost ten grand. You gotta calm down, keep quiet, and let me work.”
“Work on what?”
“Solve the sudoku, find out the location of the blackmail drop.”
“What good will that do? We don’t have the money.”
“We’ve gotta get the money.”
“Where? You happen to have ten grand lying around? It’s a nightmare. I’m on the hook for ten grand because someone stole the first ten.”
“Your client.”
“Huh?”
“Your client. Not you. You’re taking this personally. It’s your client’s money, not yours.”
“I’m responsible.”
“How can you be responsible? It was stolen from you.”
“That’s one way to look at it.”
“What’s another?”
“It was lost.”
“Huh?”
“I gave it to you and you lost it.”
“You gonna dangle me in front of your client? Say it’s my fault?”
“Don’t be silly. You’re my agent. It’s my fault for hiring you.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“You wanna solve the damn sudoku already?”
“Not in a moving car. You want me to shove a pencil though your leg?”
Becky pulled off the road and stopped.
“Where are we?”
“I don’t know, but we’re not in a gas station.”
They were on the soft shoulder of the road under a stand of oak trees. On the other side of the road was an open meadow. There was not a house in sight.
Cora whipped out the sudoku, went to work.
Becky was decidedly nervous. “What if a police car pulls up?”
“You’re trying to remember what you forgot.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re a woman and you don’t know that one? You really are a babe in the woods.”
“Shut up and solve the damn thing.”
“You’re the one who started talking.”
Becky held her tongue, and Cora whizzed through the puzzle.
“Got it!”
* * *
Becky leaned over and looked.
Cora pointed. “The four corners are seven, one, six, and five.”
“Which tells you what?”
“I haven’t a clue.”
“Come on. You’re been studying the crossword puzzle. I thought you got a hint.”
“You want a hint?”
“That’s what I’m paying you for.”
“Actually, you haven’t paid me yet.”
“I was generalizing.”
“Get specific. When were you thinking of paying me?”
“You ask that now? I gotta come up with ten grand.”
“Technically, your client does.”
“It doesn’t matter where it comes from. I gotta have it in hand by nine tonight.”
“Maybe a little before then, if you wanna have time to make the drop.”
“What time do you need it?”
“You expect me to do this?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why don’t you do it yourself?”
“I can’t afford to get caught with the money.”
“But I can?”
�
�If you get caught, you have a lawyer. If I get caught, I am a lawyer. Huge difference.”
“Fine. Say I’m going to do this. Where are you going to get the money?”
“That’s my business. Your business is to figure out the drop site.”
“What am I dropping off?”
“You’re dropping off ten grand. Just because my client can’t pay it doesn’t mean I can’t get it.”
“You’re getting it?”
“My client’s getting it.”
“Okay. You get the money, I’ll figure out where to take it.”
“Fine. I’ll drop you off. You can wait in my office.”
“The hell I will. My niece just had a baby. You drop me at the hospital.”
“You saw the baby.”
“There were complications. I wanna see it again.”
“You have to work on the puzzle.”
“I’ll work on the puzzle. I can work on the puzzle at the hospital as well as anywhere else.”
“Yeah, but—”
“This is nonnegotiable. You want me to do this, you drop me at the hospital.”
“Fine,” Becky said. “But you will work on the puzzle?”
“Promise.”
Chapter
22
Becky Baldwin watched Cora sail through the front door of the hospital. There wasn’t a prayer she was going to work on the puzzle. She’d go straight up to Sherry’s room to check on the baby. Never mind the fact she had a blackmail payment to make and she didn’t even know the drop site. She was racing upstairs to see a kid she’d already seen, who wouldn’t be doing anything different than the last time. She was taking time off in the middle of a blackmail complicated by a murder that Becky could ill afford to have her take.
Becky exhaled angrily, shook her head. Realized the person she was angriest at was herself. She wondered how much of her resentment was a knee-jerk reaction to the fact the baby in question had been fathered by her high school sweetheart, who had opted to marry Sherry Carter and not her, while her own matrimonial prospects had dwindled down to a precious none.
Becky skidded into a turn. She realized she was driving too fast, eased up on the gas. The change was negligible. The car continued to hurtle down the road.
Ten thousand dollars. The son of a bitch wanted another ten thousand dollars. After having presumably stolen the first ten. It just wasn’t fair. She’d worked so hard to get where she was. Rejected offers from large law firms, because she wanted to be her own boss. She’d come to Bakerhaven, started her own practice, and made a go of it, starting from scratch. True, the fact she was the only game in town helped. Even so, there wasn’t that much need for a lawyer in Bakerhaven. There wasn’t that much work. There wasn’t that much one could do without feeling one was padding it somehow, one was making things up, one was protecting clients from dangers that were not there.
The blackmail was there. It was real, it was immediate, it was happening. It was threatening to scuttle her practice. It wasn’t just about making an illegal payment. It was about making it twice. It was like being blackmailed for being blackmailed. Talk about unfair. It wasn’t like she’d lost the money. She’d just given it to Cora. However questionable that decision might seem now, it was a no-brainer then. She sure wasn’t bringing it herself.
Becky screeched into a turn, headed out toward the mall. A silly precaution, still she couldn’t help herself. The situation called for silly precautions.
The mall parking lot was crowded in front of Target and the Stop and Shop, less so in front of the other entrances. The one Becky wanted was around to the left. She circled the mall at way too great a speed, incurred the glare of a driver who would have been more forgiving had he been aware of the pulchritude of the person who cut him off. She pulled into a spot and was out the door while the car was still rocking.
Becky hurried to the mall entrance, wrenched the door open, slipped inside.
On the side was a pay phone, nearly an anachronism in Bakerhaven, a rare relic of days gone by.
Becky snatched up the receiver, dropped in a quarter, made the call.
One ring.
Two rings.
Three rings.
Finally the click of the phone being answered.
A voice said, “Yes?”
“I need more money.”
Chapter
23
Cora Felton scooted in the front door of the hospital, flattened herself against the wall, and peered out cautiously through the glass door. She half expected to see Becky Baldwin watching to make sure she went inside. But, no, Becky was driving off.
Cora wrenched the door open, slipped out, and ran crouching to the parking lot. Her trusty Toyota was right where she had left it. She zapped the door, leaped inside, started it up, gunned the engine. She backed out of the spot, slammed the car into gear, and peeled out, cutting off an ambulance.
Becky had turned left. Cora was sure of it. She swerved out, skidded into a turn.
The road was long and straight. There were no cars in sight, but a dot up ahead looked promising. The Toyota hurtled down the road. The dot grew, gradually took the shape of a car. Cora eased up on the gas, tagged along behind.
What a horrible situation. It was a sad state of affairs when you couldn’t trust your own lawyer. Even when you were doing illegal things for her. At least if you were committing a felony, you ought to be in on the game. But, oh, no. Lawyer client privilege. As if that were some sacred thing that couldn’t be violated. Hell, she was a client, too. Didn’t that count for anything?
And then when everything blew up in her face, when she stumbled over a corpse and the money went south, surely that would be the time to clue her in. But, oh, no, little Miss Lawyer-Pants gets up on her huffy high horse, and the facts aren’t good enough for the hired help.
That was the whole problem right there. Cora wasn’t being allowed to contribute her expertise, her knowledge, her logic, her deductive reasoning. No, she was being hired as a paid functionary carrying out a task. An illegal task, but that was somewhat incidental. In point of fact, it was a routine task being carried out for an unspecified reason. At least for a nonspecific reason.
Cora snorted. Even in her own thoughts she was editing her speech, from force of habit, to keep up the Puzzle Lady façade.
From her vantage point, two rows over, Cora watched Becky hop out of her car and head toward the mall. Could she be using the pay phone? Cora had done that on occasion, but then she didn’t have a cell phone. Becky did. If she were using the pay phone, that was interesting indeed.
Cora waited until Becky went in, then crept up to the entrance, and peered through the window.
Sure enough, Becky was on the phone.
Cora bit her lip. There was no way to get close enough to listen in, not without letting Becky see her. Cora stayed put. She couldn’t hear the conversation, but she could at least see where Becky went.
Becky came straight back at her.
Whoops.
Cora fell all over herself getting out of the way. She scrunched down, scurried back to her car, slipped into the driver’s seat, and peered out over the steering wheel.
Becky was climbing into her car. She clearly hadn’t seen her.
Cora followed Becky back to her office.
That told the story. Becky called the client, and the client had to scare up the money. Ten grand. That ought to take a while.
Cora turned around and drove back to the hospital.
Chapter
24
Becky looked up as Cora came in. “You got the address?”
“You got the money?” Cora countered.
“Yes, I got the money. You know where to take it?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Care to share that information?”
“I don’t know why. No one’s sharing anything with me.”
“Are you an attorney? Do you have a client? Is there some reason you shouldn’t tell me what you know? Particularly
since I hired you to do so.”
“Well, when you put it like that,” Cora said. “Who wouldn’t want to cooperate?” She took her cigarettes from her drawstring purse, tapped one out of the pack.
“Not in here,” Becky said.
“Really?” Cora whipped out a lighter, lit up. “You kind of lost your leverage, didn’t you? What with you telling me nothing and me having things you want to know.” She leaned back in her chair, put her feet up on the desk, and blew a smoke ring. “Wanna hear how I doped out the drop site?”
Becky took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. Then she smiled and said sweetly, “I’d love to.”
“Good. Give me the money.”
“What?”
“Let’s see the money.”
“You want me to show you the money?”
“I certainly do. There’s little point without the money.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll have the money.”
“You don’t have the money?”
“I have the money. It’s being delivered.”
“It’s coming by messenger?”
“That’s right.”
“Great. Let’s give the messenger boy the coordinates and let him make the drop.”
“Very funny. And what might those coordinates be?”
“Why do you need to know?”
“What?”
Cora shrugged. “If I’m making the drop, what’s it to you?”
Becky took a deep breath. Then she turned, grabbed Cora’s purse.
“Hey!” Cora said.
“If you’re going to act like a child, I will treat you like a child.” Becky plunked the purse down on her desk, sat behind it. “Now, I’m the teacher and you’re the bad student. You may have your purse back after class. Meanwhile, I’ll keep it, so you won’t light any more cigarettes. Or take out your gun and shoot me.”
“Fine,” Cora said. “Be that way.” She leaned back, took an insolent drag.
“Now then, class,” Becky said. “Who can tell me the site of the money drop?”
Cora put up her hand.
“Yes? Miss Felton?”
“Would you like me to go to the board?”
“The blackboard needs erasing,” Becky said. “Couldn’t you just recite from there?”
“The drop’s in the cemetery.”
