You Have the Right to Remain Puzzled

by Parnell Hall

  “That’s not very promising.”

  “Yes it is. We’re way ahead of the police on this one. We know the chairs had nothing to do with it. I stole the chairs, and I didn’t kill him.”

  “What if he was killed for not having the chairs?”

  Cora whistled. “Whoa, Becky, you surprise me! What a great idea!”

  “You think it’s right?”

  “No, I think it’s dead wrong. But it’s a great idea.”

  “Thanks a heap. What’s all this about Chuck Dillinger?”

  “He filed a report with the police that his study was broken into. The person who broke in was probably Benny Southstreet.”

  “You got anything to back that up?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “Well, what do you expect me to do about it?” Becky said irritably.

  “Get me out of here.”

  Becky took a breath. “Cora, you’re not making any sense. You’re spewing out a lot of unrelated facts that don’t add up to anything. This isn’t like you. You may be a little nuts, but you’re generally smart as a whip. Now, is there anything you want to tell me? You haven’t fallen off the wagon, have you?”

  Cora’s face hardened. “Well, that’s a hell of a thing to say. No, I am not drunk, thank you very much. Do I smell like a brewery? Do I look like a lush?” She realized she was wearing her Wicked Witch of the West outfit, complete with cigarette burns and liquor stains. “Okay, scratch that. The point is, Miss Smarty Pants, I’ve never been arrested for murder before. There’s been men I’d like to murder—my fifth husband, for instance—but I’ve never actually done it. Or been suspected of it. I’m in jail charged with murder, and it isn’t very nice. And the facts are so jumbled and sketchy I don’t know how to explain it. What the hell am I going to tell Chief Harper?”

  “You’re not going to tell him anything,” Becky said. “You’re not talking. You’re not talking to the cops, you’re not talking to the prosecutor, you’re not talking to the media. The only things you’re saying are ‘No comment’ and ‘See my attorney.’ ”

  “Then how do I explain to the police—” “You don’t. You don’t go near the police. I’m not even sure you should tell Sherry. Because she’ll tell Aaron Grant, and he’s a reporter.”

  “Aaron wouldn’t do anything to hurt us.” “Probably not a great time to test that theory. What you tell your niece is your business. What you tell the cops is mine. You tell ’em nothing. Not a damn thing. When I get you out of here, you stay away from Chief Harper. He comes near you, you walk away. He calls you on the phone, you hang up. He asks you a question, you just smile. You don’t give him the time of day. Do you understand?”

  Cora nodded. “Perfectly.”

  CHIEF HARPER BANGED his coffee cup down on the counter. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Not at all,” Cora told him. “That’s the facts of the case as I know them.”

  “But it makes no sense.”

  “You think it makes more sense I killed the guy to get some chairs?”

  “And protect yourself from a plagiarism suit that could cost you your career.”

  “Then I’m not very bright,” Cora said, “trading a plagiarism suit for a murder rap.”

  “Well, you didn’t expect to get caught.”

  “Of course not. Not when I was clever enough to leave my fingerprints on the murder weapon. It was the perfect crime.”

  Chief Harper took a sip of his coffee, grimaced, and glanced around the grungy diner. It was your typical greasy spoon, with glare lighting and Formica table-tops. He and Cora were the only customers. They sat opposite each other at a booth in the back. Cora wore a conservative skirt and blouse she’d picked up at the mall. The Wicked Witch of the West getup in which she’d been arrested was in her drawstring purse on the seat next to her. Harper was in uniform. Otherwise, they could have passed for illicit lovers involved in a low-rent affair.

  “Why are we having coffee here?” Harper asked irritably.

  “We’re hiding from the media. So they won’t hear me confessing.”

  “You’re not confessing. You’re telling me you’re innocent.”

  “I’m glad to hear you take that attitude. Some policemen might quibble about the theft of the chairs. Which isn’t really a theft, it’s a retheft, stealing stolen property back. Is there a law that covers that?”

  “There must be a precedent somewhere. At the moment you’re not charged with that crime.”

  “That’s why I was careful to say ‘hypothetical’ when I told you about it. I did say ‘hypothetical,’ didn’t I?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Well, this whole conversation is hypothetical. Like, ‘Suppose we discuss the crime.’ ”

  “You mean, suppose I listen to your ideas? All right, I’ve listened. And I’m no wiser than when I started. In fact, I’m even more confused. Tell me again why you went to the motel.”

  “I hoped to find some evidence of Benny Southstreet breaking into Chuck Dillinger’s apartment.” Cora had adopted that version of the story, so she wouldn’t have to mention breaking into Wilbur’s Antiques. There was no reason to bog Chief Harper down with too many details.

  “Instead you found the chairs he had stolen from Harvey Beerbaum.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Which Harvey had advertised for sale on eBay.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Oh? I thought you said he did.”

  “No. Benny thought they were the chairs on eBay. They weren’t. They were simply Harvey’s dining room chairs.”

  “What made him think they were?”

  “What made him think I ripped off his puzzle? The man was simply weird.”

  Harper frowned. “Come on, Cora. You know better than that. You don’t dismiss a suspect’s actions on the grounds they must be crazy.”

  “Benny Southstreet’s a suspect in his own death? You’re telling me it’s a suicide?”

  Harper ignored that. “So you went out there while the chambermaid was making up his room and peeked in the door?”

  “Well, I didn’t have a key.”

  “You saw the chairs?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “We don’t even need that admission. We have photographic evidence.”

  “You say that as if it were a strike against me. How many murderers photograph the crime scene beforehand and drop the film off at Photomat?”

  “If you want to argue you couldn’t be that dumb, it would help if you started showing even the least bit of sense. Selling chairs on eBay, for God’s sake.”

  “Hey, who asked who to investigate Mr. Wilbur’s robbery?”

  “I said investigate, not set up some crazy Internet sting.”

  “What do you mean, crazy? It worked, didn’t it?”

  “Like a charm. You got Benny Southstreet to steal Harvey Beerbaum’s dining room chairs. What could be better?”

  “I also got Wilbur to bid on them.”

  “So? The guy’s been trying to find his stolen chairs for months. Of course he’s looking for someone to put ’em up for bids.”

  “Yeah, but Benny Southstreet wasn’t. What the hell was he doing in the picture?”

  “Getting killed, mainly. With your prints on the gun.”

  “Well, if you’re gonna make an issue of that.”

  “I’m not the one making the issue. It’s in Henry’s hands now.”

  “Henry Firth? That twerp?”

  Chief Harper choked on his coffee. “Hey! That’s the county prosecutor you’re talking about.”

  “He’s still a twerp.”

  “You shouldn’t take this personally, Cora.”

  “It isn’t personal. I thought he was a twerp before I got arrested. Can you talk him out of prosecuting me? For his own good. He’s gonna make a fool of himself.”

  “Not if you get convicted. It’ll be like busting Martha Stewart. He’ll be the prosecutor who put away the Puzzle Lady.”

 
“You’re not cheering me up, Chief.”

  “Well, I would strongly suggest you come up with some evidence in your favor. Right now, everything works against you. What time were you at the motel? Hypothetically, of course.”

  “Right around three o’clock.”

  “That when you saw the gun?”

  “The hypothetical gun? Yeah, it was right there on the nightstand.”

  “You picked it up?”

  “I wanted to see if it had been fired.”

  “You picked it up and sniffed it?”

  “So?”

  “Isn’t that the sort of thing they do in detective stories?”

  “That doesn’t make it wrong.”

  “In the detective stories do they usually leave their fingerprints on it?”

  Cora didn’t dignify that with an answer.

  “Had the gun been fired?”

  “No, it had not. The gun hadn’t been fired. Benny wasn’t in the motel room. I took the chairs and left. Sometime after that Benny Southstreet came back to the motel room, the killer came to the motel room, took the gun, and shot Benny in the head. By which time I was long gone.”

  “Not very long, according to the medical examiner. There’s a rather small window of opportunity for killing this guy. Autopsy report puts the time of death between noon and four. If you left around three, there’s only an hour this could have happened. And that’s pushing the edge of the time limit.”

  “I can’t help that. The facts are the facts.”

  Chief Harper eyed Cora as skeptically as he’d regarded the diner’s coffee. “Are they really? Why do I get the feeling you’re selling me snake oil?”

  “You’re a cop. You have a suspicious nature. It’s too bad. I’m giving you the straight goods.”

  “Then the straight goods don’t help you much. You’re in the soup, and everything you say just makes it worse.”

  “Okay. You got anything that makes it better?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Come on, Chief. I told you what I know. You got anything that helps me?”

  “Not really.”

  “Thanks a heap. Let me put it this way. What do you know that I don’t?”

  Harper scowled. “I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

  “You’re not. We’re talking hypothetically.”

  “There wasn’t a lot of blood. Which would indicate the shot was muffled by something that soaked it up.”

  “Was there a towel or pillow missing from the unit?”

  “No. And there were powder burns around the wound which there wouldn’t have been in that case.”

  “What if he was killed somewhere else and the body moved?”

  “With the gun you were playing with in his motel room after the time the medical examiner says he died? The gun you claim hadn’t been fired? He was killed somewhere else with that gun?”

  “Am I correct in assuming you don’t think much of that theory?”

  “You see the problem? I wish I could tell you something that helps. But nothing does. All the evidence we turn up indicates you killed the guy.”

  “Great. I’m so glad we had this little talk. So what do you advise me to do?”

  “Keep a low profile.”

  THERE WERE HALF a dozen news crews camped out at the foot of the driveway. Cora kept a low profile as she plowed through them, flooring the Toyota and sending camera, light, and sound technicians diving for safety. She zoomed up the drive, screeched to a stop, and was in the front door before anyone recovered in time to get a shot.

  Sherry sprang up from the couch to meet her. “Cora, are you all right?”

  “Fine. Where’s Aaron?”

  “On the computer.”

  “Oh?”

  “Filing his story.” At her aunt’s look, Sherry said, “Well, he has to cover it, Cora. I told him to go, but he won’t leave.”

  “True devotion.”

  “He’s just afraid Dennis is still around.”

  “Is he?”

  “How the hell should I know? He left with Brenda, so I assume she’s got him under control.”

  “This whole mating ritual used to be easier.” Cora flopped down on the couch, took her cigarettes out of her purse.

  “You’re not going to smoke in here.”

  Cora shrugged. “I need practice. Cigarettes will be like money in the pen.”

  Aaron came down the hallway. “So, you’re out. Did you make bail, or are you on the lam?”

  “That has a nice ring to it. I suppose I could try a combo, and skip bail.”

  “Pardon me for asking, but what happened?”

  “Off the record?”

  “Why does it have to be off the record?”

  “Well, Aaron, if you want a confession, it’s gotta be off the record. Otherwise, you’re an accessory, and you can go to jail.”

  “Confession?”

  “She’s just kidding you, Aaron.”

  “The hell I am. I didn’t kill Benny Southstreet, but I’m guilty of so many other things, I don’t know where to begin.”

  “Give it a shot.”

  “Aside from plagiarism, which Sherry did for me, I’m guilty of fraud, false advertising, using the Internet to defraud, conspiracy to commit fraud and false advertising, and all that, in addition to bidding on my own object to drive the price up, which I’m not sure of the name of, but it can’t be good. Then there’s breaking and entering, two counts, criminal trespass, two counts, burglary, larceny, and/or petty theft, depending on how much Harvey’s chairs are worth. When you add in the murder charge, which is the only thing I didn’t actually do, it hasn’t been a really great day.” Cora settled back on the couch and sighed. “You know what I’d like right now?”

  “A visit from Harvey Beerbaum?” Sherry said from the window.

  “Not even close.” Cora’s eyes widened. “What, you mean he’s here?”

  “Coming up the walk.” Sherry went and opened the door.

  “Come in, Harvey, join the defense team,” Cora said. “You wanna be a character witness or an alibi witness? To be an alibi witness you have to fib a little. To be a character witness you have to outright lie.”

  “It’s not funny,” Harvey said. “You know what the police did?”

  “You mean arrested me, Harvey? Yeah, I noticed.”

  “They took my chairs. My dining room chairs. How do you like that? First Benny takes my chairs. Then you get them back. Then the police take them.”

  “Why did they take the chairs?” Aaron asked.

  “They said they’re going to fingerprint them. It’s very unsettling. Suppose they find my fingerprints?”

  “So what if they find your fingerprints, Harvey, they’re your chairs,” Cora told him.

  “I know, I know.” Harvey slumped down on the end of the sofa. “I’m just upset because I feel bad.”

  “You feel bad about what?”

  “The puzzle they found with the body. The police wanted me to solve it. Ordinarily, they’d ask you. That’s what they always do. Not that I mind being second choice. Even so, under the circumstances, knowing they were only coming to me because you were the suspect. . .” Harvey shook his head.

  “You’re saying you solved the puzzle for them?”

  “I felt bad about it, but if I didn’t, someone else would.”

  “So you solved it. Do you remember what it said?”

  “I can do better than that. I made a copy.”

  “The police let you make a copy?”

  “No. I reconstructed it from memory.”

  “You can do that?” Cora said.

  Sherry coughed warningly.

  “Of course I can. I’m sure you could too. Not that I can remember every puzzle I ever solved, but when I needed to, it wasn’t any trouble.” Harvey took a folded piece of paper out of his jacket pocket, passed it over. “There you go.”

  “Let’s see the theme entries.” It was all Cora could do to keep from side-spying up at Sherry t
o see if her niece was giving her points for remembering the term theme entries.

  “It’s a ditty,” Harvey said.

  “A ditty?”

  “A rhyme, really. Have a look. See?” Harvey said. He recited:

  “I don’t mind if

  You thrill me

  Just try hard

  Not to kill me.”

  Cora offered a comment that could hardly be construed as constructive criticism.

  “Miss Felton!” Harvey said, astonished.

  “It couldn’t just be a simple nursery rhyme. No, there has to be a sinister element.”

  “Of course. Otherwise, what would be the point?”

  “What’s the point at all?” Cora demanded. “I mean, come on. Some moron’s littering the crime scene with cryptic crosswords hinting at a homicide? Give me a break!”

  “It’s not a cryptic,” Harvey corrected. “It’s a simple fifteen by fifteen.”

  “I’m going to hurt you, Harvey. You happen to tell the police when I brought you the chairs?”

  “Right around four-thirty.”

  “Four-thirty? Harvey, it was three -thirty.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. I’ve reconstructed my whole day.”

  “I haven’t, of course, but it seemed like four-thirty.”

  “ ‘Seemed like’ isn’t the same as ‘is.’ ”

  “Well, I could be mistaken.”

  “That’s the stuff, Harvey. How badly might you be mistaken?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, I do. You’ve got that clock on the wall. You know the one I mean.”

  “It’s a trophy. From a regional tournament.”

  “Right. The miniature grandfather. With the hands and the pendulum. It works, doesn’t it? It tells time?”

  “Of course.”

  “When you thought it was four-thirty, maybe the big hand was on the six. That’s where you got that impression. But the little hand, which is pretty little, who’s to say whether it was between the three and the four or the four and the five. You see what I mean?”

  “You think I made a mistake?”

  ACROSS

  1 Grounds for a suit