Puzzled to Death

by Parnell Hall

Sherry marched back to Aaron’s car, opened the passenger door, and got in.

  After a moment, Aaron followed.

  CORA FELTON COULD HARDLY BELIEVE HER GOOD FORTUNE. Being yanked out of the crossword-puzzle tournament to take part in a murder investigation. A double murder investigation. It was almost too good to be true. She sat in the front of Chief Harper’s police cruiser, trying hard not to look like the cat who swallowed the cream and the canary.

  “So, where are we going? To grill Billy Pickens?”

  “No. To check out the crime scene.”

  “Haven’t you already done that?”

  “Yeah, but you haven’t.”

  Cora blinked. “You want me to case the crime scene?”

  “I value your opinion.”

  “Is that so? I thought you wanted me to finger Billy Pickens. As the guy seen talking to Mrs. Roth.”

  “I do, and you will. But I’d like you to see the crime scene first, before they move the body.”

  Cora shivered slightly, and her skin tingled. The words were strangely exciting. She’d seen a corpse before, but she’d never been asked to see one.

  It was one of her finest moments.

  “So, who found the body?” she asked.

  “Ah,” Chief Harper said. “I was wondering how long before you asked who found the body.”

  “I’d have got there sooner, except you kept giving me the I-ask-the-questions-here routine.”

  “That was in front of the others. Now it’s just you and me.”

  “So who found it?”

  “Cleaning lady.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. She had a cleaning lady once a week, two hours, Saturday morning, ten till twelve.”

  “Big spender.”

  “Yeah. Basically just to do the floors. Mrs. Roth didn’t like mopping, couldn’t get the vacuum up and down stairs.”

  “And this cleaning woman walked right in?”

  “She had keys. That was the deal. Mrs. Roth didn’t like her underfoot, always arranged to be shopping when she was around. The cleaning lady, one Selma Howe, arrived this morning, was a little surprised to see Mrs. Roth’s car still in the driveway, walked in, and found her dead. Which is a bit of luck for Joey Vale. If it weren’t for Selma, it could be days before Mrs. Roth was found. The way things are now, Joey’s free and clear. He was arrested yesterday afternoon. Mrs. Roth was seen last night at Fun Night. After Joey Vale was arrested. She was alive when he went to jail, she’s dead and he’s still there.” The chief was silent a moment, then he asked, “You have any theory involving iceboxes, trunks of cars, or what have you, any theory whatsoever how Joey Vale could have done it?”

  “Two killers.”

  “Huh?”

  “Joey Vale snuffed his wife. Someone else croaked Mrs. Roth.”

  Chief Harper grimaced. “Huge stretch. It was bad enough with your cockamamie theories that he killed his wife when all we were looking at was killing his wife. Now you wanna throw in a copycat killer who happens to kill the chief witness to the first murder. Only he’s not the first murderer, he’s just eliminating a witness who could have been real detrimental to Joey Vale, in the event one of your first stupid theories was true.”

  “Hey, did you bring me along just to beat me up?”

  “Not at all. I brought you along to see the crime scene.”

  A car whizzed by them, going back the other way.

  “Becky Baldwin,” Chief Harper noted.

  “Yeah. Joyriding with some guy,” Cora observed. “She’s sure in a hurry for someone whose client’s just been cleared of murder. What’s the speed limit here?”

  “Forty-five. If I didn’t have this murder, I’d nab her.”

  “I wish you would. Some people have no respect for the law.” Cora punctuated her statement by nodding self-righteously just as Sherry and Aaron zoomed by, gaining on Becky Baldwin.

  Chief Harper’s eyes twinkled. “You were saying?”

  Cora stuck out her chin, maintained a dignified silence.

  Chief Harper bumped the cruiser over the railroad track and curved around toward Mrs. Roth’s house. He pulled up behind the Emergency Medical Service vehicle and he and Cora climbed out. The camera crew lined him instantly in their sights, but to his surprise and relief, no one thrust a microphone in his face.

  Sam Brogan, patrolling the crime-scene ribbon, said, “You bringin’ her in?” His tone betrayed just what he thought of that.

  Chief Harper gave Sam a look. He and Cora Felton ducked under the ribbon, went up on Mrs. Roth’s porch. The front door was propped open with a bright orange traffic cone.

  “Keep your hands at your sides, don’t touch a thing,” Harper warned Cora. “I’m gonna catch enough grief for letting you in here. And now those bozos got it on tape.”

  There were three emergency medical technicians in the tiny foyer, one of them holding up a folded gurney. Apparently they had been there for some time—despite the fact it was a murder, all looked bored.

  From the living room came the distinctive, prissy whine of Dr. Barney Nathan—“Are you about done?”—then the voice of young Dan Finley: “Just a few more shots.”

  Chief Harper cautioned once again, “Don’t touch.”

  Cora Felton tidily kept her hands glued to her sides, followed Chief Harper through the door.

  And stepped into the living room where she had interviewed Mrs. Roth three days before. The fifties living room, with its vinyl couch and the rabbit ears on the TV.

  Only now there was a dead woman on the floor.

  Which made the whole thing rather surreal. It was as if a Perry Mason scene had gotten spliced into the middle of an episode of Ozzie and Harriet.

  Officer Dan Finley bent over the corpse with his Polaroid, snapping another photo.

  Barney Nathan stood nearby, arms folded, tapping his foot. His expression on seeing Chief Harper was priceless. It was your-father’s-here-little-boy-now-you’re-really-going-to-get-whipped.

  “Dale,” Barney Nathan said. “Wanna speed this up for me? If you want an accurate time of death, I gotta get her to the lab.”

  “You can’t do that here?”

  “Not unless you wanna risk contaminating your crime scene. I take the body temperature from the liver, and that means blood.”

  “You about finished, Dan?” Chief Harper asked his young officer patiently.

  “Just one more shot.”

  Cora Felton got the impression that one more shot had more to do with Dan Finley not letting the doctor push him around than with any practical need for more photographs of the victim and the scene of the crime.

  Dan moved to the side to fire off another shot, and Cora got her first good look at the body. It was unsettling at best. Cora had seen other bodies before, but none of them had been strangled. Mrs. Roth’s eyes were bulged, and her tongue was bloated and lolling out of her mouth. Cora had to steel herself to keep from looking away.

  She overcame her revulsion, said to Chief Harper, “This is exactly how she was found?”

  “Yes, of course. Nothing’s been disturbed.”

  “Well, it’s about to be,” Barney Nathan said, still tapping his foot. “Can I get her out of here now?”

  “Yeah, take her,” Chief Harper told him. “And get going on the time of death. It’s gonna be important.”

  “I thought it would be,” the doctor rejoined, shooting daggers at Dan Finley. He waved in the EMTs, who opened the gurney and lifted Mrs. Roth onto it. The EMTs, still looking bored, wheeled her out the door within minutes.

  “Okay, Dan,” Chief Harper said. “Start dusting for fingerprints.”

  “I’ll get the kit,” Dan Finley said, and went out the door after the medical team.

  Cora Felton looked around the room. She walked over to the window. She rummaged in her purse, fished out a pen, used it to nudge aside the curtain.

  “What are you doing?” Chief Harper asked.

  “This is where she sat and watched. This
is probably why she’s dead. She was a busybody who spied on all her neighbors. From everything she told me and Aaron Grant, for all her spying she didn’t really know a damn thing. Obviously that wasn’t true.” Cora indicated the chalk outline Dan Finley had drawn on the floor.

  “Obviously,” Chief Harper said humorlessly. “It would appear she tried to blackmail Judy’s killer.”

  Cora Felton shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  Chief Harper frowned.

  “I don’t think money meant that much to her,” Cora said.

  “Then what did?”

  Cora sighed. “I think she just wanted to be important. I can’t imagine her blackmailing anyone. But I can see her bragging about what she knew. Gloating, almost. I think gloating’s what got her killed.”

  “That’s a theory,” Chief Harper pointed out sourly, “based on your superficial impression of the woman. Not on any physical evidence. Against my better judgment, I let you in to see the crime scene. So what does it tell you?”

  Cora Felton looked around the room in which Mrs. Roth had lived the final moments of her life. She shook her head.

  “Not a damn thing.”

  BILLY PICKENS LIVED IN A TWO-STORY PALE YELLOW frame house on a pleasant tree-lined street of similar structures three miles out of town. Chief Harper pulled into the driveway and parked behind a Ford station wagon. Cora and the chief got out, detoured around a pair of girls’ bicycles—one with training wheels—went up on the front porch, and rang the bell.

  The door was opened by the small woman Cora had seen the night before with Billy Pickens. The woman was clearly not prepared for visitors. She wore a baggy sweatshirt and old blue jeans, and her hair was tied up with a red kerchief. She looked exasperated.

  “Mrs. Pickens?” Chief Harper said.

  “I’m Sara Pickens. What do you want?”

  “Sorry to bother you, ma’am. It’s a police matter. If I could talk to you and your husband …”

  “We’re sort of busy. What’s this about?”

  “It’s rather urgent. If you wouldn’t mind getting your husband.”

  “Billy’s cleaning out the basement. I’m painting a bookshelf for the girls.”

  When she said it, Cora noticed the flecks of pink on her cheek and could smell turpentine. “We’re sorry to interrupt you,” Cora said. “We’ll try to be brief.”

  Sara Pickens frowned. “You’re the puzzle woman.”

  “Yes, I am. I saw you at Fun Night.”

  “Fun for crossword-puzzle people, maybe. No offense, but frankly, it’s not our thing.”

  “But you went.”

  “Yes, we did. And some of the desserts were quite nice. But once you pay the baby-sitter—”

  “I understand,” Chief Harper interposed. “If you wouldn’t mind getting your husband …”

  “What’s this all about?”

  “Someone got killed.”

  Mrs. Pickens clapped her hand to her mouth. A trace of pink paint adhered to her lip. She murmured, “Oh,” then said, “Come in.”

  Sara Pickens led them into her kitchen, waved them in the general direction of the table, opened a door behind the refrigerator, and hollered down the stairs, “Billy, come up here!”

  There came an indistinct rumble from the depths below. Sara tried one more Billy!, then gave up and clomped on down the stairs. She was back moments later, leading her husband, similarly dressed in sweatshirt and jeans. But while his wife sported paint, Billy Pickens was decked out in spiderwebs and grime. He was also sweating profusely. His face was flushed, and his dark hair was matted. Nonetheless, he looked young and handsome. Cora put his age at somewhere around thirty. But she was more intrigued by the fact that Billy Pickens appeared hostile. More hostile than the situation would seem to warrant. This young man definitely had a chip on his shoulder. He looked defiantly at Chief Harper and demanded, “What’s this about a murder?”

  “Hate to bother you,” Chief Harper said, “but the fact is there’s been another murder.”

  That instantly took the wind out of Billy’s sails. He opened his mouth, snapped it shut. “Another murder?”

  “Yes. I need to ask you and your wife a few questions. Relating to last night. At the Fun Night. This is Miss Cora Felton, who was in charge of the event. Perhaps if she could talk to your wife, you and I could talk together, and we could clear this up quickly.”

  Sara Pickens asserted herself. Though small of stature, she was not one to be pushed around. She thrust out her chin, pointed a paint-smeared finger at Chief Harper. “Now, just a minute. If you’re asking questions about last night, I was there, and I want to hear. No offense, but I don’t want to go off in the other room with her and talk about something else.”

  “I didn’t say something else. I meant we could divide the task.”

  “That won’t be necessary.” Sara Pickens shot her cuff, looked at her watch. “Billy’s taking the girls to the movies, that’s at two o’clock. We’ve got plenty of time, even with picking up Lucy on the way. Isn’t that right, Billy? No way you’re leaving before one-fifteen. Even with time to take a shower and change, we’ve got time for this. So park yourself at the kitchen table, Chief, or stand up if you prefer, and fire away. Now, who got killed and what’s the score?”

  Before Chief Harper could answer, the door flew open and two little girls exploded into the room. The younger wore pigtails, the older, bright red barrettes.

  “Daddy, Daddy,” cried the younger. “Wendy stole my doll!”

  “Did not,” Wendy said. “Ellie’s telling tales.”

  Ellie, cute as a button, folded her arms and stuck out her chin, looking uncannily like her mother as she did so. “Then where’s my doll?”

  Wendy played innocent. “How should I know?”

  “Wendy, give Ellie back her doll,” Sara Pickens said.

  Wendy, who couldn’t have been more than five, looked utterly betrayed. “How come you always take her side?” she wailed.

  “How come you always take her doll?” Billy Pickens said.

  Wendy gave him a harrumph look but couldn’t help smiling as she stalked off. Ellie trailed along triumphantly, saying, “See? I told you.”

  Sara Pickens closed the door behind her daughters. Then she turned and said, “Now then. You were saying?”

  Chief Harper weighed the possibilities of prying Billy Pickens away from his wife, didn’t figure them as good. “Okay,” he conceded. “The woman who got killed is a widow named Mrs. Roth.”

  “Mrs.?” Sara Pickens said. “No first name?”

  “Actually, the murdered woman’s name was Felicity Roth, though I can’t find anyone who ever used it.”

  “That’s sad,” Sara said, though whether she referred to Mrs. Roth’s demise or the fact that no one called her Felicity was unclear. “What’s it got to do with us?”

  “Probably nothing. It’s probably connected to the other murder. See, Mrs. Roth happened to live across the street from Judy Vale.”

  Chief Harper was looking at Billy Pickens when he said this. So was Cora Felton. It seemed to her the young man winced.

  If Sara Pickens noticed her husband’s reaction, she didn’t let on. “What’s that got to do with us?” she demanded.

  “Probably nothing,” Chief Harper repeated. “The fact is, Mrs. Roth was at Fun Night. And you and your husband were at Fun Night.”

  “Half of Bakerhaven was at Fun Night.”

  “Yes, they were. Mrs. Pickens, may I ask you if you noticed Mrs. Roth?”

  “I don’t even know who you’re talking about.”

  “An elderly woman at the event alone. You didn’t notice anyone of that type?”

  “No. I did not.”

  “How about you, Mr. Pickens? You notice anyone like that?”

  Billy Pickens looked increasingly uncomfortable. “I don’t see what this has to do with anything.”

  “Neither do I,” Chief Harper agreed amiably. “But the woman is dead, so we have to
trace her movements. Did anyone of that description talk to you?”

  “When you say that description …”

  “I’m talking loosely,” Chief Harper said. “But let there be no mistake. Did any woman identify herself to you, either by that name, or by describing herself as Judy Vale’s neighbor?”

  Billy Pickens squirmed.

  “See here,” Sara Pickens said. “This seems to me like an interrogation.”

  “It certainly shouldn’t be,” Chief Harper told her. “But Billy was observed talking to a woman of Mrs. Roth’s description by several witnesses. Including Miss Felton here. So I’m fairly sure of my ground.”

  Sara’s eyes narrowed. Then widened. “Billy. Is that the woman who was talking to you while I was getting a piece of cheesecake?”

  “I suppose so,” Billy mumbled. “Though what she wanted, I have no clue.”

  “What did she say?” Chief Harper asked.

  “Just what you said. That she was a neighbor of the woman who got killed. Vale. That’s what she was saying. That she was her neighbor. She was kinda boasting about it, like she was proud of the fact.”

  “Interesting,” Chief Harper said. “And why was she telling this to you?”

  “I have no idea.” As if inspired, Billy Pickens added, “I got the impression she was telling everyone.”

  “What gave you that impression?”

  “Her attitude. The fact she was bragging about it.”

  “And what else did she say? Aside from the fact that she was Judy Vale’s neighbor? What other information did she claim to have?”

  “She didn’t claim anything. She just acted as if she knew something. As if she knew more than she was telling.”

  “Like what?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “No hint that she knew the identity of Judy’s murderer?”

  “Good heavens, no,” Billy Pickens said, shocked. “I’d have remembered that!”

  “Yes, I’d have thought you would,” the chief agreed. “Was there anything else specific in what she told you?”

  “Not at all. In fact, I gathered this was a recitation she’d been trying on several people.” Having hit on that explanation, Billy Pickens clung to it.

  “Interesting,” Chief Harper repeated. “So, there was nothing specific involving you?”