by Parnell Hall
Cora said evenly, “Get in my car, Harvey.”
He gaped at her.
“You want to talk to me, get in the car.”
He gawked a moment, then moved to comply. He made his way around the back of her Toyota.
Cora took one last drag, and tossed her cigarette away. She eased the door open, slid into the front seat.
There. At least she could sit down, keep her balance. She hefted her drawstring purse into her lap, felt the weight of her gun in it. The incongruity of it overwhelmed her. Even without being a linguist, Cora knew the words gun and Harvey didn’t belong in the same sentence.
There came a knock on the window. Harvey’s door was locked. Cora reached for the master lock, clicked all buttons open. Harvey slid into the passenger seat, closed the door.
“All right,” he said. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
It was all Cora could do to keep from laughing. “Harvey, you’ve been trying to talk to me for days. Here’s your chance.”
“Oh.” Harvey began to fidget.
“Okay,” Cora said. “I’ll supply the topic of conversation. You’re trying to apologize to me. You wonder why no one’s wanted to talk to you. At the suggestion you didn’t do anything to Raymond, you nearly plotz. You wanna tell me what you did do?”
“Oh, my.”
“That’s a start.”
“You mean no one’s come forward at all?”
“Not to me. I can’t speak for Chief Harper.”
“Oh.”
“So what is it someone might tell Chief Harper about you?”
Harvey took a breath, then blurted, “I was there.”
“You were where, Harvey?”
“You mean no one’s told you?”
Cora gritted her teeth. “Harvey, I have a very low patience threshold right now. If you stall one more time, I’ll have to mutilate you. Now, assume no one’s told me squat. So you tell me. You were where?”
“At Raymond’s.”
“When?”
“Oh, God!”
“That bad, huh? Better tell me about it.”
“It’s embarrassing. . . .”
Cora snorted. “If embarrassing is your only problem, you’ve got it made.”
Harvey still couldn’t meet her eyes. “Well, you were all at the Country Kitchen. . . . Having some sort of celebration. Because of the nuptials. I guess it was an engagement celebration. Anyway, you were all laughing a lot and talking rather loud. And then this one woman said something about how she was glad you weren’t marrying me. Do you remember that?”
Cora did indeed. As she recalled, the something about included the phrase nerdy little puzzle guy. “Go on.”
“I was shocked. Humiliated. There was no call for such an insult, but she’d said it, and I’d heard it. And some of the women at the table could see that I’d heard. Which was even worse. I turned around and walked out.”
“Harvey, what did you do?”
“I drove out there. Where he was staying. Just as I was about to get out of my car, a kid came out the front door of Raymond’s house and hurried across the street.”
“When you say a kid—?”
“I don’t mean a kid. I mean the young man. The bridegroom. The one they arrested.”
“You saw Dennis Pride come out of Raymond’s house?”
“That’s right.”
“How did he look?”
“Furtive. Guilty. As if he’d done something egregiously wrong. He ran directly in front of my car.”
“Did he see you?”
“I don’t believe so. His mind was clearly elsewhere. He ran right into his B&B.”
“What did you do then, Harvey?”
“I exited my car, crossed the street, and rang the bell. There was no answer. Then I noticed the door was open. In his hurry to get out, the boy hadn’t closed it all the way. I pushed it open and went in.”
“What then?”
“I called out Raymond’s name and got no answer. I called again, louder. The foyer was small and there was a door leading to the adjoining room. I ventured in and there he was.”
Ventured, Cora thought. She said, “What do you mean, there he was?”
“Lying on the floor. Dead. With a knife in his heart.”
“What did you do?” Cora said it quietly, knowing he needed a prompt, but not wanting to frighten him.
“I was terrified. I don’t know why. Maybe because of the emotions I’d experienced just before I went there. Or perhaps because of the women mocking me in the restaurant. Or because I’d never seen anything like that before. Such a horrible thing. And I didn’t know what to do. I knew I shouldn’t touch anything. And I don’t have a cell phone. So I ran out, got in my car, and drove off. To find a phone. To call.”
Cora frowned. “But you didn’t call.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“As I drove away, I glimpsed that bizarre woman. There on the veranda. Sitting on the swing. Regarding me.”
“Daffodil Dirkson saw you go into Raymond’s house?” Cora translated.
“That’s correct.”
“It was just her? Her husband wasn’t there?”
“No, just her. Alone on the porch swing. Smoking a cigarette.”
“You’re sure she saw you?”
“How could she not? Consequently, I’ll confess, I panicked. I was convinced she’d identify me and the police would apprehend me. And the women in the restaurant would all say I had a motive. The bottom line is, I didn’t call.”
“So what did you do?”
“I drove back to Raymond’s house. To see if anyone had found the corpse and reported it. If they had, I could keep quiet. If they hadn’t, I didn’t know what I was going to do. My mind was awhirl. But I had to know. So I drove back. Before I got there a vehicle raced by me, going quite recklessly. I drove along behind, saw it come to a stop. You emerged from it, followed the boy and his young bride into the house. I figured the boy must have honored his civic responsibilities and summoned the police and that somehow you’d beaten them there. Anyway, there was clearly no longer any necessity for me to call the authorities.
“I was going to get out of the car, but Daffodil and her husband were on the porch next door, and I didn’t want her to see me. I don’t know why. She’d already seen me. I knew she’d tell the police. Or tell you. I don’t know why she didn’t.”
It occurred to Cora the woman might have tried.
Harvey wrung his hands. He looked absolutely miserable. “It’s been driving me mad. I don’t know what to do.” He peered at her with anxious eyes. “Should I tell the authorities?”
Cora patted him on the cheek.
“Not just yet.”
50
CORA GOT HOME TO FIND SHERRY CUTTING OUT STRIPS OF paper on the dining room table.
“What are you doing?” Cora asked.
“Breaking the code. What’s with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Nah, just Harvey Beerbaum.”
“Oh?”
Cora filled Sherry in on her talk with the amorous cruciverbalist.
Sherry was amazed. “Harvey found Raymond? And didn’t say anything?”
“He was going to. He was just too late.”
“And he was going to confront Raymond? I wouldn’t have thought the little guy had it in him.”
“Me neither.”
“Cora. You’re not getting gooey-eyed over Harvey now, are you?”
“Don’t be absurd. But it’s flattering to have a man fight for you. So what’s with the paper strips?”
“I wanna try something. There’s a hundred and fifteen letters in the cipher.”
“Go on!”
“Not different letters. I mean total. A hundred fifteen in all. Now, if there were five columns, then there would be twenty-three letters in each. See what I mean?”
“Sure. And Albert Einstein and I dreamed up E = Mc2 together.”
“Okay, look.
This is lined notebook paper. I cut it so there’s exactly twenty-three lines. Now I’m cutting it into five strips with twenty-three spaces in each. Now, if I lay them out next to each other, they would form a diagram-less crossword puzzle with five spaces across by twenty-three spaces down.”
Cora groaned. “Does it have to be a crossword puzzle?”
“It isn’t a crossword puzzle. It just looks like one. Now what we do is we take the strips and we copy the letters onto them.”
“Why? Oh, never mind. Just do it.”
“Okay,” Sherry said. “So we copy the cipher down the strips, like so.”
“Up and down?” Cora said. “Why are you writing it up and down?”
“If I’m right, doing it vertically is the way to solve this. Now, the next line.”
Sherry continued onto a second strip of paper.
“And so on,” Sherry said.
She continued to write out the rest of the message on the other three strips. When she was finished, she had five strips laid out on the table in front of her.
“Still gibberish,” Cora said.
“Yeah. Now we play with it.”
“How?”
“Easy,” Sherry said.
She began swapping the positions of the strips. Soon she had this configuration:
Cora’s mouth fell open. “It’s words!”
“Sure it is,” Sherry said. “See how it was done, Cora? The message was written in five columns, the columns were mixed, and the letters were written down in groups of five.”
“Never mind that. What does it say?”
“Let’s see: ‘Good news and bad news. Two to three day wait on the pound of Panamanian red. No problem on three oz of Peruvian flake. Sent this A.M. usual carrier.’ ”
Cora’s face was hard. “I know what you’re thinking.”
Sherry couldn’t meet her eyes. “Aunt Cora—”
“No. Raymond may have had the message, but Dennis had the drugs.”
“Dennis found the drugs. Raymond’s fingerprints were all over the bag they were in.”
“Dennis had the cryptograms, Sherry.”
“Not this one.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Oh? Was it in the packet the cops found? Funny no one mentioned it. Funny no one brought it to you to solve.”
“They may not have noticed. I didn’t notice.”
“It’s a completely different kind of code. Dennis couldn’t have done this.”
“He could if someone taught him. How hard is this, if you know the secret?”
“Oh, come on. Why would he use two codes?”
“Don’t be silly. He wants the other cryptograms solved. They’re warnings. But he doesn’t want anyone cracking his code about drugs.”
“It’s not his code. He didn’t have it on his laptop, Raymond did.”
“And wound up dead.”
“Oh, come on!”
“I’m sorry, Sherry. But if Dennis made up the other cryptograms, it’s a good bet he made up this one.”
“But there’s no proof that he made up the other ones. Aside from the fact he had them. And they could have been planted. You went over them yourself. You couldn’t find anything. Could you?”
“No.”
“Cora, I know you don’t want to think badly of Raymond. But Dennis didn’t send the cryptograms. And Dennis didn’t kill Raymond. I know it.”
“Oh, yeah?” Cora said. “Then who did?”
51
THE BAND WAS PLAYING WHEN CORA PULLED UP TO THE curb. She could imagine the bed-and-breakfast owner tearing out her hair. Actually, the Tune Freaks weren’t playing that loud, perhaps having the good sense to tone it down after dark. The sound seeping from the garage was relatively restrained. It was also relatively melodic. Compared to the noise she’d heard the other day, this music seemed to have a tune. In addition, the singer was not noticeably off pitch.
It was also intelligible. As Cora neared the garage, she found she could make out the words.
“He’s taking your heart And he’s tearing it apart If you stay with this man You must pay
“While there’s still time Turn around on a dime
Walk away, don’t look back Walk away.”
Not the most original lyrics in the world, and the tune was rather familiar, too, but at least it had a tune, a rather upbeat, bouncy tune, in contrast to the heartbreak theme of the lyrics. All in all, it was a vast improvement over what Cora had heard the other day. She wondered if just turning the amplifiers down could make that much difference.
Instead of knocking on the door, Cora walked around the garage. A window on the side wall led to a tool closet, but through the open closet door she could see the boys rehearsing. Actually, from that angle she could see the drums but not the drummer, the edge of the keyboard, the bass player, and the lead singer and lead guitar.
The lead guitar was Razor.
The lead singer was Dennis Pride.
Dennis stood at the microphone in short hair, white shirt, and tan slacks, a preppy in the midst of punk rockers, a Tune Freak who was not a freak and who could actually carry a tune.
Dennis, back with the band. After all his protestations. After all his good intentions. After all his promises.
Did Brenda know?
Of course not.
There he was, the lying, scheming weasel, showing his true colors again.
Cora couldn’t wait to hear what he’d say about this. And then it all fell into place. Dennis sneaking off all the time. Running out on Brenda. Ditching her parents. Disappearing for hours at a time. Not being able to tell where he’d been.
Of course he couldn’t. The son of a bitch was going back to his band. Just as soon as he married Brenda on the promise of working for her dad. How long would that last? A week? A month? Before he quit the job. Before Brenda’s loft became a rehearsal space. Before his wife became just one of the groupies he saw when he happened through town. Nothing more than a place to crash, a wealthy dad—and a tie to Sherry.
With a shock, Cora knew how long it would all last. Till the wedding. At the wedding. As soon as they were legally married.
Dennis was going to perform at his wedding.
The slime.
The incredible slime.
Cora couldn’t wait to tell him off.
As she reached for the handle of the garage door, Cora could hear Dennis singing inside to another girl of his dreams.
Walk away, don’t look back Walk away.”
Cora felt like she’d been punched in the stomach. She could barely catch her breath.
She heard the words again.
“Walk away, don’t look back Walk away.”
Cora did.
52
“YOU GOTTA BE THERE FOR SHERRY.”
Aaron looked exasperated. “I am there for Sherry. I don’t know what more you want me to do.”
“I’m here to tell you.”
“Well, you picked a bad time. We go to press in half an hour, and I’m not done with my story.”
“What’s your lead? Ace Reporter Conked on Head, Can’t Recall Crime?”
“That’s not funny.”
“No, it’s not. I assume someone else is writing that story.”
“The lead story, yes. I’ve been asked for a personal account.”
“Are you doing it?”
“I’m trying.”
“I wouldn’t. Not without a lawyer’s advice. Too bad Becky Baldwin’s got a big-time conflict of interest.”
“Yeah,” Aaron said curtly. He turned back to his computer.
“Look,” Cora persisted. “I don’t know what you think you saw, but if you wanna blame Sherry for the fact Dennis is harassing her, that’s probably the dumbest thing you ever did in your life.”
“Harassing?” Aaron spun his chair around. “They were having drinks. She was cooking him dinner.”
“Cooking me dinner, moron. The jerk barged in and helped himself to a drink. What do you ex
pect her to do? Throw him out physically? A guy who beat her up? There all alone. Playing with dynamite. Praying it won’t go off. Then you barge in, make things worse, storm out in a jealous snit, and leave her alone with him, and you’re mad at her? You’re lucky she didn’t wind up in the emergency room. You’d never be able to forgive yourself.”
His gaze faltered. “Damn it.”
“But that’s over now. We’ve moved on. The point is, Sherry’s gonna need a lot of help, sympathy, and understanding. And it can’t come from me. Not the way things are shaping up. That doesn’t leave many options. So you better wise up and be there for her.”
“Why? Why won’t you be there for her?”
“Because I’ll be busy catching Raymond’s killer.”
“Oh.” Aaron couldn’t keep the lack of enthusiasm from his voice.
“I know what you think of him,” Cora said. “And you’re wrong. You didn’t know Raymond like I did. I know what you heard about him. Just because a reporter tells you something doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“Yeah.”
“What does that mean?”
Aaron grimaced. “There’s more coming in all the time, and it just gets worse and worse. Raymond Harstein was busted three years ago for selling heroin. Never did time. Pled guilty, suspended sentence.”
Cora set her jaw. “So?”
“Only one way that happens. He rats. He rolls over on his friends. Names names. They go down, he walks. Goes right back to dealing.”
“You know that for a fact?”
“Come on, Cora. Dennis stole Raymond’s cocaine.
The bag had Raymond’s fingerprints all over it. Believe me, if Raymond hadn’t been killed and you’d married him, he’d have been busted before too long. You’d have been visiting him in a maximum security prison.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes, it is. According to my source in San Diego. The narcs don’t like it when a pusher gets busted, gets off by turning in his friends, then starts dealing again. You do that, they go out of their way to hunt you down.”
“Oh.” Cora sighed. It was a deep, heavy sigh that shook her from head to toe.
“Are you all right?” Aaron asked.