The Devil's Puzzle

by Clare O'Donohue

“What?”

  “You know Jesse is going to propose.”

  “Eleanor told you that, I assume.”

  Maggie smiled. “He’s a wonderful man. Just perfect for you.”

  “He’s not going to propose.”

  “Well, he’s not nearly good enough for you anyway.”

  I laughed. There might be nearly fifty years between us, but Maggie was a true girlfriend, willing to spin 180 degrees at a moment’s notice just to back me up.

  “Oliver. He’s the one planning to propose,” I said.

  Maggie stared off into the distance, the shock evident on her face. Then she smiled slightly and nodded to herself before turning back to me. “How much time do we have to make them a wedding quilt? They probably won’t have a long engagement at their age, so it will need to be a simple pattern, but very, very special.”

  “There may not be an engagement. Eleanor thinks getting married again is ridiculous. She doesn’t know Oliver is planning anything. She’s just against the idea in theory. But if he asks, I think she’ll say no and . . .”

  “The poor man.” Maggie shook her head. “Did she give you a reason why she wouldn’t marry him?”

  “No. That’s why I’m here. I don’t want to interfere in her life, but I don’t want her to make a mistake she’ll regret.”

  “You want my permission?”

  “Maybe ‘advice’ is a better word.”

  “Well, if the situation were reversed, and you were against marrying Jesse but wouldn’t give a reason, what would she do?”

  I laughed. “She’d lecture me and nag me and bug me until I either married him or gave her a good reason why I wouldn’t.”

  “Then that’s your answer.”

  I felt a weight lift off me. “Okay, then, Maggie, you’ve known Eleanor longer than anyone . . .”

  “Since she was your age,” Maggie agreed.

  “So I thought you might know about her marriage to Joe.”

  “I didn’t meet Eleanor until after Joe died. She came to Archers Rest with her two little ones and got a job as Grace Roemer’s live-in assistant, I guess you would say.”

  “I know that part of the story. But how did she get that job? She never told me.”

  “I don’t actually know. Grace’s own children were grown and living far away, so she needed Eleanor as a companion and a kind of nursemaid, and Eleanor needed a home for her children. However Eleanor got it, it was just what she needed.”

  “Did Eleanor ever say anything about Joe?”

  “Of course. The memories were fresh then. The pain was front and center. But she had your mother and uncle to raise. She put aside her pain and got on with her life.”

  “Would there have been something in her marriage that would stop her now, after all these years, from getting married again?”

  “Meaning?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they were really happy and she felt he was her one true love.”

  “I can’t picture Eleanor uttering the words ‘one true love.’ ”

  “She thought I was nuts when I suggested it,” I admitted. “Was the marriage really unhappy and she doesn’t want to repeat a nightmare?”

  “I don’t think so. Eleanor loved your grandfather and she spoke of him fondly, as she still does. From what I learned about him, he was a well-liked man, but maybe he wanted more than he could afford. In those days folks like us didn’t have credit cards, but we could still get things on credit at stores. I gather he did that. Their car wasn’t paid for. Their house was behind on the mortgage. There were debts and nothing in the bank to pay them.”

  “Was he a gambler?” Suddenly the poker chip popped into my mind, and I tried to push away what I was thinking.

  Maggie shook her head. “I don’t think so. I think he was just a dreamer. He might have been able to achieve his dreams if, well,” she paused. “I understand the weather was very bad that night.”

  “It must have been heartbreaking,” I said.

  “It was, of course, but she got on with life and did whatever she had to for the sake of her children.”

  “Any romances after Joe?”

  Maggie lowered her eyes for a moment. “Your grandmother’s past is hers to tell.”

  “Which means yes.”

  Maggie poured me another cup of coffee. “Did I show you the picture my kids gave me for Mother’s Day? They had a professional portrait done. All the kids and grandkids.” She got up from the table and left the room, coming back with a large framed photo. “I don’t think you’ve met all of my kids.”

  “Only one or two of them.”

  I took the photo and looked at the dozens of smiling faces. Maggie had eleven children, thirty grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. As Maggie pointed to each of her children, I couldn’t help noticing that the people Maggie identified looked nothing alike, with a mix of races and ethnicities that would make the UN proud.

  “You never told me you adopted,” I said.

  She shrugged. “My kids are my kids, no matter where they come from. Hank and I took in Emilio when his parents died,” she said, pointing to a man of about fifty in the center of the photo. “He was our first child. Then, I gave birth to three kids: Thomas, Sheila, and my youngest, Brian. In between, we took in the others as they needed us.”

  “It looks like a nice family.”

  She nodded. “They’re good people. That’s what matters. They’re close to each other, and they help each other, and they help others. Two of the kids are teachers, one is a nurse, Emilio is a lawyer, working for Legal Aid, and Brian . . .”

  “He’s planning on running for Congress,” I said. “Eleanor told me.”

  “He’ll do good things for people. He’ll contribute. That’s all I ask of my kids and grandkids. And myself. We all make mistakes, have regrets, but we can’t be judged by our mistakes. If you look closely at a quilt, it’s full of mistakes, but if you step back and look . . .”

  “You only see the beauty of the entire quilt. Eleanor is fond of saying that.” I took a deep breath. “We sort of got off the subject, though, Maggie. I was asking about Eleanor’s life after Joe died.”

  “I don’t know that there’s anything your grandmother hasn’t already told you.”

  “Humor me.”

  She sighed. “Your grandmother and I became friends because our children played together. When Grace taught Eleanor how to quilt, I sat in on some of the lessons and picked it up myself. So we had that in common as well. No one quilted in the sixties,” she said with a laugh, “and the fabric was awful. We didn’t have the beautiful cottons we have today. We used bedsheets for the backs. We made templates for our quilt patterns using the cardboard from empty cereal boxes. It’s amazing we stuck with it.”

  “But you did.”

  “We did. And a few months after Grace died in ’75, I think it was, Eleanor opened the quilt shop. Perfect timing, too. That was right before the bicentennial. All the colonial-era crafts were making a comeback: quilting, candle making, iron work. Ironic really, because quilting wasn’t that popular during the colonial years. It’s one of the myths about quilting . . .” She smiled. “I’m getting off track again. The point is that Eleanor just hit at the right time. And of course, Eleanor has a knack for people, for helping them find their own creative voice.”

  “That shop has been her life,” I said.

  “And it’s been a good life.”

  “But you didn’t answer my question.”

  “I’ve answered several of your questions.”

  “About Eleanor’s love life after Joe.”

  “I actually did, Nell. You just didn’t like the answer. If you want to know about that, you can ask Eleanor.”

  “But she won’t tell me.”

  Maggie considered it for a moment, then sighed. “Then perhaps there isn’t anything you need to know.”

  CHAPTER 13

  After I left Maggie’s, I walked toward town trying to figure out what she had meant. She wasn’t s
aying there was nothing in Eleanor’s past, just that I didn’t need to know it. But at the same time she’d encouraged me to keep pursuing the matter, as Eleanor would have done if the situation were reversed. I would have stayed and pushed Maggie to explain the contradiction, but Maggie, like my grandmother, wasn’t easily pushed.

  Instead I headed toward Someday Quilts. I wasn’t on the schedule to work, but I hoped to pick out some fabrics for my devil’s puzzle quilt and make phone calls to some shop regulars to see if they would have quilts to contribute to the show. But when I passed the movie theater, I changed my mind and made a phone call.

  “Can you meet me at Bryant’s with the red poker chip?” I asked.

  I could hear Jesse laugh on the other end of the phone. “Is that code for something?”

  “No.” I knew what was coming next.

  “But the poker chip is tied to the skeleton we found,” he said, “and since you’re staying out of that investigation, you can’t possibly be asking me about that.”

  “If you want to mock me, you’ll never know what I was going to tell you.”

  “Five minutes.”

  True to his word, Jesse met me in front of the theater just a few minutes later. I told him what Maggie had said about Eleanor.

  Rather than the expected reminder that Eleanor’s love life was none of my business, Jesse asked, “What does that have to do with a poker chip?”

  “Maggie has a habit of casually slipping important information into a conversation. I felt like she told me something important about Eleanor this morning. I just have to figure out what it was.”

  I held up my hand to stop Jesse from asking the question about the poker chip a second time.

  “As I was thinking about it, I remembered how Maggie had mentioned that the theater used to give out poker chips as part of some promotion they had in the seventies. I thought maybe Ed would know something about it.”

  “That’s a great idea.” He smiled. “Nice to have you back on the case.”

  “I’m not on the case. I’m just passing along information.”

  “So you’re not going to stay while I talk to Ed?”

  I considered walking away, heading to the shop and working on my plans for the quilt show, but I just couldn’t do it. “I’ll just wait for you. Maybe we can get some coffee afterward and hang out.”

  He laughed. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to keep out of this.”

  I didn’t bother to protest, but I did promise myself I would just listen and not ask any questions. It had become a matter of honor. Everyone assumed I would butt into the investigation, that I didn’t have the willpower to leave it alone—and the one quality that usually trumped my curiosity was my stubbornness. If everyone was betting I would jump in, I was determined to stay out. Mostly.

  Ed met us at the front door with apologies. “We’re closed until this evening,” he said. “I had to have the plumber in to work on some leaks in the soda machines. I really should replace them, but I don’t have the funds right now.”

  “We’re not here for a movie, Ed,” Jesse told him. “We’re actually looking into an incident over at Eleanor Cassidy’s house.”

  “The skeleton?”

  Jesse smiled. “I guess you heard about it. We found something with the body that you may recognize.” He held up the poker chip, encased in a sealed plastic evidence bag. “Does this look familiar?”

  “Should it?”

  “I understand your father had a promotion at the theater in the early seventies. Something that involved poker chips?”

  Ed nodded. “Oh, I do know what you’re talking about. I didn’t own the theater then, my dad did. I was still teaching at the high school.”

  “When did you take it over?” I asked.

  “Only about ten years ago, after my father passed away. I couldn’t let the old girl be turned into a fast-food place or some such nonsense, so I took over. I was retiring from the school anyway. I needed something to keep me busy.”

  “The poker chip,” Jesse said, nudging us back to the topic.

  “Right. My dad used to have silly promotions all the time. He had as much trouble keeping the bills paid as I seem to. I guess I’m as crazy as he was, wanting to own a movie theater, but I love it, and he loved it.”

  “And the poker chips?” Jesse asked again.

  “It must have been in ’74 or ’75, he had these coded poker chips he handed out to patrons. You got one when you saw a movie and one if you bought a combo of popcorn and a soda. If you collected ten, you got into a movie for free.”

  “What stopped people from just buying a box of poker chips and handing those in?” I asked.

  “Dad had the chips specially made. There’s a code on the back of each one of them.” Ed pointed to the poker chip in the evidence bag. Engraved into the chip and painted a faded gold were two small letters : “‘B.C.’ It stands for ‘Bryant’s Cinema,’” Ed continued. “Each movie was a different color chip. Young Frankenstein was yellow; The Sting was green . . .”

  “What movie was red?” Jesse asked.

  “Towering Inferno.” Ed smiled. “I loved that movie. I must have watched it at least a dozen times.”

  “That would mean the chip is from 1974,” I said. “Do you know what month it played here?”

  “Not off the top of my head. I know it wouldn’t have played right when it was released. We got movies after they had played at the bigger theaters.” He thought for a moment. “It was the summer. I remember that because I was off school. If you give me a minute, I can look at the records. I have all my dad’s files in my office,” Ed said, and then frowned. “I’d offer you a Coke while you wait, but . . .” He pointed toward the broken soda machines.

  Jesse shook his head. “If you can tell me when that poker chip was handed out, it will be a big help.”

  “Anything for you, Chief.”

  Ed seemed like a nice man. He was almost completely bald and kept what hair he did have almost military short. He had a bit of weight around the middle, but he was quite tall so he carried it well. Most of all he was friendly, and Jesse seemed to like him, so that counted for a lot.

  Once Ed went to his office, Jesse turned to me. I could see he was about to speak, so I spoke first.

  “I know what you’re going to say,” I said, assuming he would kid me about asking Ed questions when I’d promised not to.

  “I was going to ask how you knew Towering Inferno came out in 1974.”

  “I like disasters.”

  “I know that,” he said. “And I know you. Which one did you have a crush on—Paul Newman or Steve McQueen?”

  “So I only could have liked the movie if I liked one of the actors?”

  “Enough to know when it was released? Yes.”

  I shrugged. No sense in pretending he was wrong. “Robert Wagner.”

  Jesse looked at me for a minute. “No kidding?”

  “No kidding. He’s very suave.”

  “Like me.” A wide grin spread across his face.

  I laughed. “Exactly like you.”

  A few minutes later, Ed returned. “We had the movie for two weeks in the summer of 1975. It opened here on the Fourth of July.”

  “And that’s the only time your dad would have given out this particular poker chip?”

  “I think so. He had lots of colors, maybe thirty different chips. He figured it would encourage people to buy popcorn and stuff, to get a free movie faster.”

  “Did it work?” I asked.

  “It did. In fact, that promotion did well enough to keep the doors open that summer. Dad was going to have to shut down if he didn’t fix some things in the building and get it up to code, but he did well enough that year to fix everything and take home a salary. But then things slid downhill and he was barely hanging on after that. He was like me. He even looked like me.” Ed ran his hand across his balding head. “Big guys with big hearts and no brains.” He laughed. “At least that’s what my mother used to say.”
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  “Do you know how many of these chips he would have given out?” Jesse asked.

  “No idea. Maybe a hundred or so.”

  “It’s a long shot, but he wouldn’t have kept a record of who got them?”

  “Heavens no,” Ed told him. “We just handed them out to whoever came through the door for a movie. I worked the ticket booth in the summers. I probably was the one who gave out that very poker chip.”

  I perked up at that. “Do you remember giving a chip out to a stranger?” I asked. “A tall man?”

  “Not that I recall, Nell. But if you find my fingerprints on the chip, I just want you to know how they got there.” He slapped Jesse on the back and laughed a loud, friendly laugh.

  CHAPTER 14

  “So, assuming that our friend went to the movies and collected a chip, he was in Archers Rest sometime between July 4th and July 18th of 1975,” Jesse said as we walked into Jitters for our usual cappuccinos and chocolate-dipped biscotti.

  He settled into the corner of the purple couch and I sat close enough for him to put his arm around me, while I rested my hand on his thigh.

  I sipped my coffee. “But you’ve already checked missing persons in the seventies, haven’t you?”

  “Yes. And got nothing. The thing to do now is ask about those years . . . you know, to find out what she remembers.”

  “You mean Eleanor?”

  “She was living there in 1975. She has to know something.” My head did an involuntary jerk as I pulled back from Jesse. He grabbed my arm to keep me from moving farther away. “I’m not saying Eleanor did it. Obviously she didn’t kill him. Eleanor wouldn’t harm anyone,” he said. “But even if I didn’t know Eleanor I’d still say it was pretty unlikely she killed a man in his prime, someone over six feet tall, all by herself. She wouldn’t have had the strength.”

  I relaxed back into his arms. “Just to play devil’s advocate, couldn’t she have shot him?”

  “Yes, but if she had, there would be bullet wounds. There aren’t. From what the medical examiner has been able to tell, he was hit over the head with something. Repeatedly. It would take someone pretty strong to do that.”