$10,000 in Small, Unmarked Puzzles

by Parnell Hall

  “Of course I can. What time?”

  “Two o’clock.”

  Damn.

  Cora never in a million years would let Sherry know, but she didn’t want to pick her up at two o’clock. She wanted to be at Melvin’s probable cause hearing. There wasn’t a prayer Becky would get him out, still she wanted to talk to him after bail was denied. Not that she expected it would make any difference in his story, but still. Would he insist on keeping up the pretense of the two bodyguards?

  Well, she could bring Sherry home, get her set up, and rush back to court.

  No, she couldn’t.

  Icy fear gripped her.

  If Bill French existed, if one iota of Melvin’s story was true, then the most evil, wicked son of a bitch that ever existed would strike at her in any way possible, and what better way than through her niece, the mother of a newborn, the most vulnerable target of all, just home from the hospital, weak, defenseless. She couldn’t leave her alone for a moment. Of course, Aaron would be there, and—

  Cora’s eyes widened.

  Good God, Aaron!

  His byline was on the story. He was as much a target as she was. Well, not as much, because she had the connection with Melvin, but if Bill French made the connection from her to Sherry to Aaron, and realized he was the one who wrote the story, well, that would be an added incentive. That would be enough to set him off.

  Was that a legitimate concern? Of course it was. Damn it, she couldn’t just stay home and guard the house.

  Cora fished the card out of her purse, picked up the phone, punched in the number.

  “Curtis Investigation Agency. This is David McDermott.”

  Cora recognized the name. “Good. You’re the one I want. This is Cora Felton.”

  “Yes. Clyde said you might be calling. You need a bodyguard?”

  “Yes. Well, not a personal bodyguard. I want you to guard the house.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My niece is coming home from the hospital with a premature baby. I’d like you to protect them.”

  “Any reason to think they might be in danger?”

  “Her husband wrote the newspaper story attacking Bill French.”

  “He’s the danger?”

  “That’s right. Can you do it?”

  “Clyde said to give you whatever you want.”

  “How soon can you be here?”

  “Where’s here?”

  “Bakerhaven, Connecticut.”

  “About an hour.”

  “You need directions?”

  “Just the address.”

  “Hurry.”

  Chapter

  52

  The nurse at the front desk was adamant. “The emergency room entrance is for emergencies.”

  “What about discharging patients?”

  “That would be the main entrance.”

  “It’s farther from the parking lot.”

  “Yes. Because discharging patients isn’t an emergency.”

  “Or efficient,” Cora muttered. It was already two twenty, and very little progress had been made. Sherry and Aaron were ready to go, but there appeared to be endless paperwork with regard to releasing little Jennifer.

  “I beg your pardon?” the desk nurse said.

  “Nothing,” Cora said.

  She stomped off to her car, drove it around directly in front of the main entrance, and went back inside.

  “Hey! You can’t park there,” the desk nurse said.

  “I’m not parking,” Cora said, without breaking stride. “I’m discharging a patient.”

  Cora marched across the lobby and up the stairs, so the desk nurse couldn’t harangue her while she waited for the elevator. Cora wasn’t moving her car for anyone, and it wasn’t just that she was fed up with stupid hospital rules. Melvin had gotten her really spooked, and she didn’t want to have to be looking for saboteurs while guiding Sherry to the parking lot.

  By the time Cora got upstairs, little Jennifer had been sprung from ICU. She looked absolutely adorable in a white knit cap with blue trim. It was too large for her, and kept sliding down over her eyes. Daddy kept adjusting it, but Mama kept batting his hands away.

  Sherry was sitting in a wheelchair holding the baby. Aaron was riding herd over her suitcase and a large cloth bag of baby type stuff. Diapers and swaddling clothes, no doubt. Cora wasn’t sure what swaddling was, let alone the type of clothes one wore to it.

  Cora took her place behind the wheelchair. Aaron picked up the bags.

  The baby started convulsing. Milk dribbled out of her mouth.

  Sherry screamed.

  Aaron dropped everything, ran for help. He came back dragging the ICU doctor, who took the baby out of Sherry’s arms with practiced care, and performed the examination right there on the bed.

  It was hiccups.

  Sherry’s heart stopped racing. When she calmed down enough, the doctor gave the baby back.

  Cora stood around jabbering nervously and made herself useless while Aaron loaded himself up again.

  They went out and rang for the elevator.

  Cora wound up pushing the wheelchair, a job she was delighted to be capable of doing. She wheeled Sherry out of the elevator to find the desk nurse and some sort of authority figure waiting to pounce.

  “I called security. You have to move your car.”

  The security guard looked embarrassed at being asked to usher a young mother out of the hospital. He came along and helped them load the car. Cora was thankful for his presence. Not that he would have been any help in case of danger. But his taking over the heavy lifting left her hands free to grip her gun and her eyes free to scan the parking lot. No assassins appeared, and in a matter of minutes Cora was pulling out of the hospital entrance at a greater speed than the situation called for.

  “Hey, we got a baby back here,” Sherry said.

  “I know, it’s wonderful,” Cora said, swerving onto the road.

  “I meant take it easy.”

  “I know what you meant. I’ll be fine.”

  The ride home didn’t take them by the courthouse, so Cora didn’t know if the hearing was still going on. It was one time she wished she had a cell phone. Aaron had one. Should she ask to borrow it? No, Sherry’d hit the roof at the thought of her driving and dialing. She could ask Aaron to call Becky Baldwin. Probably not the most tactful move while bringing home their baby. Cora bit her lip. This was one of the reasons she’d never had children. Not even home from the hospital yet, and already her grandniece was making her behave differently, making her change her lifestyle.

  Cora drove home faster than usual, but trying to take it easy on the curves so Sherry wouldn’t complain. As she neared the driveway she was on the lookout for any cars, but there were none. That was good in that no one was watching the house, bad in that the bodyguard hadn’t shown up.

  She got out of the car still on high alert. She credited Bill French with being fully capable of arriving by taxi, so there would be no car to warn her of his presence. But there was no one there. Besides, Cora figured, if there had been, Buddy would have told her. But he merely charged in circles and peed on a tree.

  Aaron helped Sherry inside. That left Cora to carry the baby. She did so with trepidation. Holding a small, living thing was not in her repertoire. And this one was smaller than usual. Cora walked very carefully to keep from tripping, and managed to get the baby through the door of the addition.

  The stairs were problematic. Cora and Aaron had to support Sherry on each side to make sure she didn’t pull her stitches out. They had a spirited debate over whether they should leave the baby downstairs while they got Sherry up, or bring the baby up first. The Sherry first side prevailed. This was accomplished while the baby resided in a bassinet.

  Sherry put up a brief fight about being moved into the master suite, but Cora was having none of it.

  “You need the baby in with you and that’s all there is to it. You can’t believe how happy I will be in the o
ther half of the house.”

  “You’re staying in your old room? You’re not moving into the addition?”

  “You’re a new mother. You have to get up when your baby cries. I don’t. I don’t have to hear your baby cry.”

  “You’re not moving at all?” Aaron said.

  “Maybe when she’s older. Like thirty.”

  Cora left the kids, as she had begun to think of them, upstairs, and went down to the kitchen to call Becky Baldwin. She lit a cigarette to calm her nerves and punched in the number. Wondered how long it would be before smoking was banned in this part of the house.

  Becky’s answering machine picked up.

  Good. They were still in court. Cora hadn’t missed it. She could go.

  The bodyguard hadn’t shown up, but he’d be there any minute. It was pretty far-fetched the killer would go after Sherry and Aaron when the one he really wanted was her. And he was nowhere in sight. Unless he were to materialize magically in the next fifteen minutes, what difference could it possibly make? Absolutely none. She could go.

  Cora stayed. Terrified, lest she should make one colossal blunder she would regret for the rest of her life. Even the slimmest chance that such a thing might come to pass, would be to all intents and purposes risking all.

  Cora was no coward. She never hesitated to take risks with her own life. But not with Sherry’s or Aaron’s or Jennifer’s—hard to believe something that little had a name. But that tiny thing had become the most precious commodity on earth.

  The bodyguard showed up fifteen minutes later, apologizing and blaming a traffic jam on Route 7. An older man, but of reassuringly stocky build, he flashed his shoulder holster and told her not to worry he’d take it from there.

  Cora was never so happy to see anyone in her life. She tore out the front door, rocketed down the road.

  Chapter

  53

  There was no one at the courthouse. That was disappointing. She’d missed the whole thing. Cora parked in front of the library and headed for the police station.

  Dan Finley came running out.

  “Dan. Where are you going?”

  “Crime scene.”

  “What?”

  “There’s been another one.”

  “Another what?”

  “Murder.”

  Dan hopped in the car, sped off.

  Cora was hopelessly torn. She wanted to talk to Melvin. But she could always talk to Melvin. He was locked up, he wasn’t going anywhere.

  Cora ran back to her car, pulled out, set off after Dan.

  She caught him on the outskirts of town. She fell back and tailed him another mile and a half to a little maple grove on the left.

  Three vehicles were parked on the side of the road. One was Chief Harper’s. One was Officer Sam Brogan’s. One was a black Chevy with New York plates. Sam was stringing a crime scene ribbon around it.

  Cora pulled up behind Dan’s car. She hopped out and followed Dan.

  Chief Harper was standing with his head in the driver’s side window of the black Chevy.

  “What you got, Chief?” Cora said.

  He started, bumped his head. “Damn it. Don’t sneak up on a person like that.”

  Cora stepped in front of him, peered in the window.

  A man was slumped over the steering wheel. He was bleeding from a bullet wound in the side of the head. He was a young man, maybe forty-five. Cora grimaced. Had she really started classifying forty-five-year-old men as young?

  “Who is it?”

  “No ID.”

  “Is there a puzzle?”

  “Don’t see one.”

  “Damn.”

  “Would you like a puzzle?”

  “It would be nice to conclusively tie this murder in with the other two.”

  “I don’t think there’s much doubt of that.”

  “Oh?”

  “Bullet wound to the head. Body stripped of ID. It’s got the killer’s MO all over it.”

  “I’m surprised to hear you admit that, Chief.”

  “Why?”

  “Are you kidding? It clears Melvin. If he didn’t do this one, he didn’t do the others.”

  “Yeah.”

  Harper was already striding away in the direction of Barney Nathan, who had just driven up.

  “Thanks for getting here so fast, Barney. I need a time of death, and I need it now.”

  “You want it to be now, or you want me to give it to you now?”

  “Very funny, Barney, but I need it bad.”

  “Who’s the corpse?”

  “No ID. Dan’s running the plates.”

  “Can he do that from his car?”

  “Huh?”

  “Dan’s here.”

  Dan was standing in the background on his cell phone.

  “Hell.” Harper raised his voice. “Hey, Dan. When you finish tipping off Rick Reed, could you run the damn plate?”

  Dan flushed, snapped the phone closed.

  Barney Nathan stuck his head through the window, felt the dead man’s forehead. “Warm. I can tell you right now, could have been any time in the last few hours.”

  “As recent as an hour ago?”

  “Hell, as recent as five minutes ago. Unless you were here. But the wound’s still seeping. Medically, he could have been just shot.”

  “I see.”

  The doctor went back to his work.

  Chief Harper turned away.

  Cora buttonholed him. “You gotta let Melvin go.”

  “What?”

  “If he didn’t do this one, he didn’t do any of them. You said it yourself. You gotta let him go.”

  “Is that how you figure?”

  “Come on. You gotta let him go.”

  Harper shook his head. “I can’t let him go.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “He’s not there. Becky Baldwin bailed him out two hours ago.”

  Chapter

  54

  Cora sped down the road as if the devil were at her heels. Everything was coming apart on her. Everything was upside down and nothing meant what it seemed. The killing that should have exonerated Melvin put him on the hook again. He was out of jail so he could have done it. The police would be picking him up as soon as they knew where he was.

  If he was with Becky there’d be nothing to be done, but at least she’d be there to protect him. If he wasn’t with Becky, where was he? Well, he’d been in jail for a stretch. When he got out, where was the first place he’d go? Considering there were no houses of ill repute in Bakerhaven, Cora thought wryly. Well, that being true, he’d probably settle for second best.

  Cora pulled into the Country Kitchen.

  Melvin was seated at the bar. He had a drink in front of him. It clearly was not his first.

  The bodyguards sat on either side of him. Neither were drinking. Neither looked happy. They stood up as she approached.

  “You’ll pardon me, Miss Felton,” Clyde said, “but Melvin doesn’t want to talk to you.”

  Melvin waved expansively. “Clyde, Clyde, how rude. You know who this is? This is my wife. Or one of them, anyway. You were my wife, weren’t you? This is not some drug-induced hallucination?”

  “We need to talk,” Cora said. She shot a glance at the bartender. “Not here. How about one of the booths?”

  “Sounds romantic. How about it, guys? Think we’ll be safe in a booth? You stay here, you can see us just fine, you can see anyone coming from any direction.”

  Melvin got up from his bar stool, hoisted his drink. “After you, my lady.” He bowed and grabbed for her fanny.

  “You are sitting on your own side of the table. This is not going to be a wrestling match.”

  “Killjoy.”

  Cora got Melvin installed in the booth, sat across from him. “Okay, Melvin. You gotta sober up and focus.”

  “Pick one.”

  “Huh?”

  “You want me to sober up, or you want me to focus?” He squinted at her. “Where’s
your bodyguard?”

  “I don’t have a bodyguard.”

  “Yes, you do. He called Clyde. Something McDermott. Said you hired him.”

  “I hired him for Sherry and Aaron.”

  “That’s stupid. You’re the one who needs protecting.”

  “Melvin, I need you to focus.”

  “I need a drink. How can I focus if I don’t have a drink? Clyde!”

  “Yeah?”

  “Get me a drink.”

  The bodyguard signaled the bartender. He brought Melvin a scotch on the rocks and withdrew.

  “Melvin. Becky got you out of jail.”

  “Yes, isn’t she wonderful? She’d be more wonderful if she’d come out for drinks, but she’s still pretty good.”

  “Get your hand off my knee.”

  “Did I have my hand on your knee?”

  “You know where your hand is.”

  “Maybe I do, and maybe I don’t.”

  “Melvin!” Cora grabbed his chin. “There’s been another murder.”

  “What?”

  “There’s been another murder. Just like the other two. It would have been a wonderful break for you if you’d been in jail.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “A man was found shot dead in his car by the side of the road just outside of town.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Did you kill Bill French?”

  “No.”

  “Did you kill anyone?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “The police think you did. They’re looking for you. I found you first, but they can’t be too far behind. Did you kill the man in the car?”

  “Don’t be silly.” He jerked his thumb toward the bar. “These guys have been with me all the time.”

  “Of course they’d say that. They’re in your employ.”

  “They wouldn’t lie to the cops. They got a license.”

  “If you’re paying them, the cops will take their story at less than face value. If the guy in the car turns out to be anyone you know—”

  “How could he?”

  “I don’t know. But the guy in the Dumpster and the girl in the cemetery did.”

  Melvin rubbed his forehead. “This can’t be happening.”