by Nero Blanc
IN the dark and oily-smelling basement, the five women stood in a semicircle staring at a furnace that no longer pulsed with heat and ruddy light. The emergency generator “gizmo” had apparently shut down as well; and all dials and gauges now pointed to a discouraging and chilly “zero.” Weezie swung a hurricane lamp nearer for a closer inspection of the controls. “Yep, it’s given up the ghost all right … and chose quite a night, too. Lucky it’s not one of those subzero cold snaps we get. The water pipes would be in serious trouble.”
“Well, we can bunk together in the sitting room,” Sara decided. “Keep the fire well banked … Carry down twin mattresses and eiderdowns from the guest rooms. One of us can camp out on the sofa.”
As they turned back to the stairs, Kate murmured a pensive: “Given up the ghost … Wouldn’t it be amazing if this entire event, the storm and everything, were being arranged by Prudence Pierce’s ghost? Because I feel … I feel we were supposed to spend this time together … becoming real friends … not just women who like to sew together. And it does seem to me as if someone could be orchestrating the whole thing.”
“Poor Prudence,” Sara said after a moment. “I don’t imagine she had any true friendships.”
“Aren’t we the lucky ones, then?” Martha offered as they passed through the dark and rapidly cooling house.
KATE awakened during the night, sat up, drew her quilt over her shoulders, and stared at the flickering fire. Around her the others were sleeping peaceably: Sara, snoring ever so softly, an old lady’s genteel and guttural wheeze; Martha mumbling something that sounded like a rote recitation of Lawson’s breakfast menu.
Kate’s eyes began to roam the room and the nestled forms stretched out at the bases of Chippendale tables and tallboys. It was an incongruous sight: snoozing bodies littering White Caps’ formal sitting room. Kate smiled to herself, then realized suddenly what made the picture so special. Moonlight raked the floor, spilling across torsos and heads. Moonlight! Which meant that the snow had stopped. Quietly, she extricated herself from sheets and eiderdown, and tiptoed to the cold windows.
Outside, the world glittered. Reflecting the sky, the lawn and gardens spiraled headily past trees and bushes, creating eddies of coal-black shadow against a white so glaring it almost hurt the eyes. It was a magical landscape, and it conjured up for Kate her favorite childhood poem, The Night Before Christmas. She smiled, thinking of how her eldest tried to recite it, changing: “gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below” to “obich deblow.” Then the happy expression turned downward in worry and confusion. She leaned closer to the icy glass, her breath creating crystals on the pane.
DiAnne stood beside her with an arm firmly around her shoulders before Kate realized anyone from the group was awake. “You love Andrew, don’t you, Kate?”
“Oh, yes!”
“And he loves you.” DiAnne’s words were half-question, half-statement, but Kate’s response was merely to hang her head further.
“Okay, let’s step back a bit. Why wouldn’t he love you?”
“Well … I’m not a terrific housekeeper … and suppers with the kids can get pretty chaotic—”
“Is Andrew a neatnik?”
Kate smiled. “Not by a long shot.”
“Okay … What makes you think he values tidiness?”
“His mom’s house—”
“You’re his wife, not his mother.”
Kate thought. DiAnne continued. “And what about those ‘chaotic suppers’? Do you enjoy them?”
“Sure!”
“Really?”
“Well … most of the time … but sometimes … well, there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Kids are kids.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Kate. Kids are kids, but you and Andrew are adults; and adults and children can have very different ways of enjoying themselves … Now, I’ve got a suggestion. You can take it or leave it, but here goes: Why don’t you and Andrew organize a once-a-week outing; call it a date—”
“But we’re married, not—”
“A date to see a movie, maybe grab a bite to afterward … a time that will be yours as a couple, not solely as parents.”
“But what if Andy doesn’t want to? What if he keeps leaving because he truly doesn’t want to be bogged down with a family?”
“My hunch is that he doesn’t know how to talk about what’s bugging him. Maybe he’s feeling overwhelmed but doesn’t want to burden you. I’m not saying he’s right by pulling a disappearing act—not by a long shot. I know how much his behavior troubles you but, well, what can I say? Men aren’t as comfortable as women with expressing their emotions—even if they can identify them. And that’s a big if.”
Kate pondered DiAnne’s words while the older woman continued. “You and Andy are both young; you’ve got a lot on your plates. You’re going to have a good deal more soon. If I’m wrong about his motives … well, let’s cross that bridge if we come to it. And I don’t believe we will.” She gave Kate’s shoulder a squeeze.
“How did you become so smart, DiAnne?”
“Trial and error, and a lot of mistakes—including the biggie I mentioned earlier.”
“But you make everything seem so easy … No, that’s not exactly what I mean … You—and Sara—you both appear so self-assured, so capable, so steady. No one on the outside would ever guess you were hurting.”
“Generations of Waspy New Englanders … It’s how we were raised: demure manners, carefully modulated voices, ready smiles—which is a crock, really, ’cause no one ever realizes you’re in need or in pain.”
Kate nodded. “And you and Frank?”
“What I did was a long time ago. Strange to say, but I feel it made me a better wife. It certainly made me appreciate my husband a heck of a lot more … I guess that’s the basis of any good marriage: valuing—and honoring—your spouse. Giving one hundred percent on both sides.”
“I’m glad Prudence Pierce brought us together.”
“And I’m glad you love your family, and that you show it, Kate. Because at the end of the day—or of a life—that’s what counts. It may be the only thing that does.”
Kate hugged DiAnne, who hugged her back. “I’m sorry our needlework is almost finished, DiAnne. We won’t have a reason to be together—”
“We’ll just have to find a new excuse.”
MORNING found Sara’s sitting room cold, but awash in the ebullient sunlight that follows a snowstorm, that follows any storm.
“Brrr …” Weezie said, rising slowly. Still wrapped in her quilt, she placed another log on the fire’s fading embers, then broke up kindling, rolled newspapers, and proceeded to build the blaze.
“Coffee? Coffee, please; someone find coffee …” Martha muttered. Her entire head was under her covers.
“Don’t tell me you’re not a morning person,” Weezie wisecracked. “What time do you get into Lawson’s each morning? Five-thirty—six A.M.?”
“When I’m working,” Martha parried. “When I’m not, I can be a total slug … And anyway, I don’t go on duty until I’m well fortified with major doses of caffeine.”
“I’m afraid breakfast means braving the elements,” Sara announced, pulling herself erect in her habitually straight-backed pose. “The kitchen’s going to be frigid. Ditto: the foyer and butler’s pantry. But the gas is on—I hope.”
Kate and DiAnne volunteered to fetch food for all while Weezie and Martha began picking up pillows and stacking mattresses. When they came to the needlework kneelers that had been discarded the previous evening, they held them up to Sara.
“Return them to the chest, don’t you think?” she advised. “Our fingers are too cold to work properly. We’ll be a mess of pinpricks.”
Weezie and Martha rolled the five kneelers together, and opened the chest’s wood lid.
“Oh, the smell is so comforting,” Weezie sighed. “So old-fashioned …”
“I never thought I’d hear you taking comfort in the past, Louise,” S
ara jested. “What next?”
Weezie merely raised her eyebrows, bent her body closer to the woolly needlework, and reached for a handful of finished kneelers. “A rose … a daffodil … snowdrops … oh, this is nice: love-in-a-mist. No poisonous leaves or petals here.” She unrolled four more. “Clematis … marigold … a petunia … stock … Oh, how I adore the scent of stock … It reminds me of my mother …” Weezie pulled out additional kneelers, oohing and aahing over them in a manner quite unlike her “bad girl” image, then sat back upon her heels. “There’s a puzzle stuffed into one …”
“They’re all a puzzle, if you ask me,” Martha said. “Canvases dotted with holes that don’t become real pictures until you finish stitching them.”
“No, I mean a real puzzle. A crossword thing …” Weezie chuckled as she lifted paper gone yellow and brittle with age. “Here, Sara, you’re good at these, aren’t you?” Weezie laughed again. “It probably contains a message detailing Mrs. Pierce’s instructions on the care and cleaning of textiles. Maybe the old—maybe our ‘benefactress’ had a playful side after all … No, no, wait, better yet; maybe it reveals where she stuffed the body of her ‘disappearing’ husband!”
“Well, if our crosswording friend, Belle Graham, were here,” Sara said with a kindly smile, “she’d certainly jump to that most outrageous of conclusions.”
Kate and DiAnne returned with a tray brimming with coffee and fresh-made muffins to find Sara, Weezie, and Martha huddled together on the sofa, filling in the crossword.
“Ah, Weezie’s found herself another game,” DiAnne observed with a smile. “Let’s hope it doesn’t produce any more embarrassing moments … I suggest you three put that aside and have a pick-me-up first.”
Martha was the first to rise, her nose drawing her toward the steaming coffee. “Manna from the gods. You two have certainly come up with a feast. Homemade muffins, too?”
“From scratch. Credit Kate on that.”
Weezie dropped the puzzle on the side table, as DiAnne approached her and Sara with two cups of hot coffee. Before they could take a sip, a pounding sound echoed from the brass knocker on White Caps’ front door.
“My goodness,” Sara said with a start. “Who on earth could that be?”
“There’s only one way to find out.” DiAnne set the coffee down and walked into the foyer. She returned a moment later, followed by Kate’s husband, Andrew.
“I figured you ladies must have gotten yourselves snowed in,” he said. “I borrowed Ricky’s four-by-four, so I was able to make it up the hill. That drive’s a sheet of ice, though. We’re going to need to get a plow and a snowblower in here if you have any hope of getting your cars out before April Fools’ Day.”
Kate walked over to him; she didn’t say a word, just gazed at her husband in love, relief, admiration, and joy.
“I missed you …” Andy said, then turned and faced the other women. “Umm … I’d be glad to offer you all a ride home, but, ah, there’s really only room for two in the truck.”
“We understand completely,” Weezie announced. “Don’t you worry, Andy, we’ll work something out.” She pulled her cell phone from her purse. “We’ll call in the Marines.”
“Thanks.”
Kate grabbed her coat from the entry hall closet, and the two of them nearly ran out the front door.
“Well, well, well,” Weezie said, “who would have guessed? The loving husband cometh with the snowman!”
Martha took another thoughtful sip of coffee, then added a quiet: “Oh, please, if Andy Stamp was having an affair, I would have heard about it months ago.” Then she slowly turned her gaze on DiAnne, whose mouth fell open:
“You knew about—me? Back when?”
“Might have.”
“Oh, Martha! And you never …! And I was so …! Oh, I’m so sorry!” There weren’t enough words to sufficiently express DiAnne’s chagrin.
Martha held up a hand. “No apologies necessary.” She smiled at DiAnne and then Weezie, and finally looked toward Sara, who was resolutely completing Prudence Pierce’s crossword.
Finished, Sara passed the puzzle to the others, who read it in silence.
“Poor woman,” Weezie finally said. “And to think that all this time—”
“No,” DiAnne and Martha countered, almost in unison; and DiAnne followed it with, “There’s nothing poor, or even remotely sad or tragic, about these words. In fact—”
“In fact, it’s a most ‘prudent’ of messages,” Sara added. “And timely …”
“Aren’t we lucky to be the ones who found it?” DiAnne concluded. “Rather than someone else.”
A Stitch in Time
ACROSS
1. Tie
7. With 7-Down, what & when partner
10. Smoke’s end
14. Run out
15. Owned
16. A woodwind
17. Thought; part 1
19. 23-Across output
20. Irate
21. MFA studies
22. Georgia or Virginia
23. It sounds just like you
24. Thought; part 2
27. Golf item
28. Consumed
29. Thought; part 3
35. Offer
38. Author Haley
39. Morning moisture
40. Study; with up
41. Gents
42. Source of thought
46. Sup
47. Army bed
48. Thought; part 4
53. Arrest
56. Assert
57. Log or sode lead-in
58. Large book
59. Thailand neighbor
60. Thought; part 5
63. Rifle rounds
64. Summer drink
65. Less ornate
66. Kill off
67. Bro’s sib
68. Kitchen gadgets
DOWN
1. Taunt
2. Yoke attachment
3. Steeple
4. Following in or out
5. Mrs. Custer portrayer
6. Adored one
7. With 7-Across, what & when partner
8. Waste maker
9. Lyric poem
10. Tuxedo neckwear
11. Sub
12. Molar
13. Phone or vision lead-in
18. Laugh sound
22. Fill
24. Constant Comment
25. Layer
26. “The bestest”; abbr.
27. 48-Down locale; abbr.
29. Emoter
30. Corida cheer
31. Inker
32. Germany for short
33. 35-Down, in Hawaii
34. Possess
35. Feather stole
36. Roadhouse
37. ___Moines
40. Iota
42. Relaxed
43. Siouan
44. Scolding sound
45. Garden tool
46. Microphone inventor
48. Historic mission
49. Ruth’s mother-in-law
50. Music-man Giuseppe
51. Duelers
52. Spanish aunt
53. ___Dame
54. Brown stone
55. Miller & Reingold
56. Adorned
58. Despot
60. Auto fuel
61. Cooking meas.
62. Gov. watchdog grp.
To download a PDF of this puzzle, please visit openroadmedia.com/nero-blanc-crosswords
The Answers
To download a PDF of the answers, please visit openroadmedia.com/nero-blanc-crosswords/answers
Digger’s Challenge
Poetic Justice
Still, Man Wasted Talent
There’s a Hitch!
A Stitch in Time
About the Author
Nero Blanc is the pseudonym of Steve Zettler and Cordelia Frances Biddle, who are husband and wife and serious crossword buffs. Biddle is also the author of the Martha Beale historic
al mystery series, which is set in Philadelphia, Zettler and Biddle’s hometown. Their website is www.crosswordmysteries.com.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2003 by Cordelia Francis Biddle and Steve Zettler
Cover design by Tammy Seidick
ISBN: 978-1-4976-7177-5
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
CROSSWORD MYSTERIES
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