A Crossword to Die For

by Nero Blanc

  Oclen’s point made a lot of sense. Rosco was about to try a different tack when Savante’s CEO opened his desk drawer, removed a baseball, and flipped it toward his guest. Rosco caught it instinctively. It was signed by Babe Ruth.

  “Is … this … real?” Rosco stammered.

  “See, that’s my point exactly, Chuck. That ball’s worth about twenty thousand dollars, maybe more. I should have it in a glass case somewhere, right? But I don’t because I can afford to hold it. I can afford to roll it in my hand and enjoy it. If I ruin it someday …? Well, hell, that’s my business, and nobody else’s. Once I buy something, it’s mine—I do with it as I please.”

  Rosco set the ball on the desk—reluctantly.

  “Now,” Oclen continued, “if you want to make a movie about someone smuggling drugs on an oil tanker, you have to look at the little guy. You can’t make your bad guy the CEO of a multinational petroleum company.” Oclen chuckled again. “It makes no sense. Hell, I make too much money off the damn oil to worry about a sideline as picayune as drug smuggling … No, you’ve got to make your smuggler one of the crew.”

  “Like the captain?”

  Oclen shook his head. “No … And the more I think about it, it’s too implausible. On a tanker, nothing’s loaded or unloaded like it is on a freighter. The cargo’s pumped; tankers don’t require cranes and they don’t even berth at loading facilities that use cranes … Oh, sure, one of the crew could bring on a small package; maybe ten or fifteen pounds, and no one would notice … but if you’re thinking a big-time smuggling operation … No, I’m sorry to say, Chuck, I think you have to stay with the fishing boat angle. They’re the only ones with the loading equipment. And they can off-load in smaller facilities.” Oclen shrugged slightly. “What did you say the title of this flick was again?”

  Rosco sidestepped the question with a facsimile of a long and frustrated sigh. “I see your point … Damn. I thought I was really on to something … Sort of a Top Gun meets Raiders of the Lost Ark… Well, you never know until you ask—”

  “What do you mean: ‘Top Gun meets Raiders of the Lost Ark’?”

  “Oh, sorry … that’s Hollywood talk. What it means is a combination of two films. You take strong elements from a couple of flicks … In this case, macho guys … huge boats … And you spell Adventure with a capital A, and profit with a capital P—”

  “Raiders of the Lost Ark didn’t have any boats in it.”

  Rosco stared. He’d never been good at remembering movie plots, and he’d pulled the title out of some long-retired memory bank assuming the ark meant—well, an ark. “Right …” he now said. “Of course not … I was just using it as an example of the way things work out on the Coast.” He picked up the baseball once more and turned it over in his hand. “You’re sharp, Mr. O. Real sharp. But I guess you don’t get to be CEO or a multinational without serious smarts … No ark in the Raiders movie … Boy, are you ever right about that!” Rosco’s eyes wandered back to the windows and the view of the Statue of Liberty sitting serenely in the wide, blue bay. “There’s one other little thing I wanted to ask you. I sent my screenwriter down to Princeton a few weeks ago to sit in on your speech … I was hoping he might get a few ideas by listening to you—”

  Oclen stiffened immediately. “That talk was closed to the public.”

  “I know that. The guy couldn’t get in. And man, was he steamed about going all the way down there and coming back empty-handed … It’s a boring drive from Boston to Princeton. Anyway, after your presentation ended, he heard that some old coot really laid into you, and that you two shared some pretty fiery words—”

  Oclen leaned across the table. “What’s that got to do with your movie?”

  Rosco grinned apologetically. “Oh, nothing … Just back-story … color, like I said. You know how these screenwriters are. Their imaginations go crazy. He came back saying he had a great concept for a new screenplay, but wouldn’t tell me what it was … I just wondered what the heck the blowup was all about?”

  Oclen gritted his teeth. His eyes were as unforgiving as granite. “What went on at that speech, and after it, is confidential information. You tell this writer of yours that if he’s considering using one particle of the information—or misinformation—he gleaned from not being present, he’s a dead duck. The Savante Group is a responsible organization. It’s important for us that the public understand that fact. I’m sure you get my drift. All of our operations remain well within the limit of the law.”

  Rosco nodded, his face wreathed in a bland smile. “Not to worry, Mr. O. I’ll pass along your … suggestion. Even screenwriters aren’t dumb enough to want to risk lawsuits. And like I said, he didn’t tell me anything … Except, well, one thing: He said the old guy who yelled at you turned up dead the next day. Weird, huh? And then his secretary turned up dead a couple days ago.”

  Oclen’s head jerked up. “You’re going to have to leave now. I have another appointment.”

  Rosco stood. “Hey, no problemo. And I really appreciate your time, Mr. O. Too bad this oil tanker thing didn’t fly … I mean that Crude pix … All I can say is: Wow.” He turned and walked toward the door, but Oclen stopped him.

  “Chuck?”

  “Yes?”

  “Leave the baseball here.”

  “Right.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Belle couldn’t sit still, couldn’t remain fixed in one place when she was standing, couldn’t keep her brain focused on a single issue for more than a few seconds. Rosco’s attempting to pry incriminating information about drug smuggling from the CEO of a multinational oil company, was one thought; Deborah Hurley died in a supposed hit-and-run in New Jersey, was another. My father visited the same state the day before he passed away. It was there that he decided to argue with the head honcho of the Savante Group. Is there a connection? And if there is, how on earth do I find it?

  To say that Belle felt like jumping out of her skin would be an understatement. And what about Woody? Where does he fit in? Or Franklin Mossback? And who has been “borrowing” my father’s identity? Here her intellectual skills took another swift leap. The constructor who sent the Words to the Wise puzzle needs to remain anonymous, because he—or she—is also in danger. And the reason that person’s in trouble is that whoever murdered my father—and may also have arranged Debbie’s death—is still at large. And still searching for a vital piece of dangerous information. Such as my father’s missing notebook.

  Without a second to pause and collect herself, she picked up the phone and punched in the number to Deborah Hurley’s aunt, Rachel Volsay.

  A youngish child answered, which was fortunate because the little girl’s need to “hunt down Great-Aunt Rach” gave Belle the moments necessary to formulate her speech.

  “Yes?” an adult voice finally said into the phone. The sound was empty with grief.

  “Is this Mrs. Volsay?”

  A long sigh served as response, then the tone became even more subdued. “Who is this?”

  “I’m Annabella Graham … Belle … My father was Professor Theodore Graham. Deborah was doing research for him.”

  The voice collected itself. “I’m sorry for your loss, Miss Graham. Deb was so shaken by it … She was very fond of your dad. He was ‘a great boss,’ she told me over and over. ‘A great man.’”

  “And my father was equally fond of Deborah, Mrs. Volsay.” Belle could think of nothing more to add. She had no specifics to substantiate the statement. Instead, she took a breath. How does someone suggest to a family member that a relative might have been murdered? “Mrs. Volsay, I’m sorry to intrude at a difficult time like this—”

  “Oh, it’s no intrusion …” Again, the sad, wispy voice. “Besides, with Deb gone, there’s so little for me to … to …” She stopped herself, and continued in a steadier tone. “Mike’s here now, and he’s contacted the friends they had who’d remained nearby …”

  Belle took another long gulp of air. “Mrs. Volsay, this may so
und unbelievable … but is it possible that Debbie’s death wasn’t accidental?”

  The silence of confusion and disbelief echoed through the phone. “You mean: Could someone have wanted to kill my little girl …? Whyever for?”

  “I don’t know, Mrs. Volsay.”

  A sob caught in Debbie’s aunt’s throat. “But that’s … that’s an abominable suggestion, Miss Graham … My Deborah wouldn’t have hurt a fly—”

  “I didn’t mean to imply—”

  “You ask any of her friends. Everyone loved that girl. Everyone!”

  Belle paused. The conversation was proving even more difficult than she’d imagined. “I realize that, Mrs. Volsay. Of course, I do … I didn’t mean to infer that an acquaintance might have wished Deborah dead … I was thinking of a stranger—”

  “You mean like a random act? By a crazed person?”

  “That’s not precisely what I meant, Mrs. Volsay …” Belle cleared her throat. “I … well, the police here in Newcastle have reason to suspect that my father did not die of natural causes—”

  Anger blazed through the receiver. “Oh, right! I remember now! Debbie told me about you … Married to some private investigator … and you’ve both tracked down criminals up in Massachusetts! Well, that’s not the way things work in a community like ours, Miss Graham. We don’t need private investigators and their ilk skulking around. We don’t tolerate unlawful behavior: gangs and kids who disrespect their elders. Thieves, and all that … We know each other down here. We respect each other. When someone dies, we gather around. We show our love … And we don’t invent evil where none exists!”

  Belle resisted pointing out the obvious: that the driver of the vehicle that struck down Deborah Hurley hadn’t played by those same cozy rules of small-town living. “But that’s precisely what I’m getting at, Mrs. Volsay. Maybe the driver of the car wasn’t from the environs of Kings Creek or even from New Jersey—”

  An abrupt and irritable sigh interrupted Belle’s speech. She decided to backtrack. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “Well, you did! And if I were you, Miss Graham, I wouldn’t be so quick to suspect that your father didn’t simply have a heart attack and drop off to sleep. Good people like your dad don’t get murdered. And it won’t do your brain any good searching for devils when none exist.”

  “I apologize again, Mrs. Volsay … I didn’t intend to suggest that Debbie had personal enemies—”

  “She certainly didn’t! Everyone around here adored her. When her mother passed on—my sister, that was—and then Deb’s own little sister, why, the whole town was just that upset …” Again, the aunt’s tone took on a muffled, exhausted sound. “Cancer’s a terrible thing,” she finally added.

  “Yes,” Belle managed to murmur. She felt like a criminal making this poor, bereft woman recall other times of loss.

  “Well,” Rachel Volsay at last concluded, “there’s none of us on this earth who hasn’t been touched by sorrow. It’s the way of the world … It always has been …” Then she seemed to shake herself back to the present. Belle’s thorny question seemed forgotten. “The funeral’s the day after tomorrow, Miss Graham … as I’m sure you know. I’d best be getting to my chores if I want the house to do honor to Deb’s memory … I’ll tell Mike you called, shall I? He’s been such a comfort, that young man—although, how he continues to bear up, I’ll never know.”

  Belle found herself gulping back tears of both sympathy and empathy. “Yes, please, Mrs. Volsay. Please tell him I called.”

  “He’s away down at the police station or I’d put him on for a moment.”

  Belle’s ears perked up, but Deborah’s aunt continued with a wistful: “Such good friends all those boys are … That’s what comes from living in a community like ours.”

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Volsay.”

  “Deb worshipped your father, you know?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do know.”

  With the phone replaced in its cradle, Belle could only stare disconsolately at it. Poor Mike, she thought. Poor Rachel Volsay … Poor Debbie. Shattered lives, and so much pain …Belle sighed. And Father, too… But even as she considered those intertwined existences, she realized she’d reached another impasse in her search. If Debbie Hurley’s “accident” had been staged to resemble a hit-and-run, there was obviously no one in the small New Jersey town who would believe it. And certainly no one who would even remotely consider an underworld connection. Drug lords and shipments of cocaine belonged to a different universe than the loving sphere of Kings Creek.

  And maybe that’s the better way, Belle thought. Because where’s the good in conjuring up paid assassins or international cartels harboring dirty secrets? Isn’t it easier to assume my father succumbed to heart failure? And Debbie to the injustice of picking the wrong moment to cross the street? Isn’t there enough sorrow in death without adding the element of human cruelty?

  Belle rose slowly from her chair. The fax was busy spitting out a message, and she glanced idly toward the machine, realizing she’d been so deep in contemplation she hadn’t even heard the phone ring.

  It took her less than a heartbeat to recognize the design on the flimsy paper, another second to detach what was obviously an additional clue to the mystery—in the form of another crossword puzzle. Her eyes raced over the Across and Down columns. “Skulls,” she gasped. “They’re all skulls.”

  She grabbed the phone, punched in the number to Rosco’s cell phone, and left a rapid message. “Don’t come home. Meet me in Princeton. I’m taking the train. I’ll phone again with my arrival time … That’s all I want to say for now …” She broke the connection and immediately called Sara, who answered on the second ring. Belle hardly waited for the old lady to speak.

  “Can you keep Kit at your house for the night? I think I’ve discovered who killed my father.”

  USE YOUR HEAD!

  Across

  1. Bit of info

  4. Neg. opp.

  7. ___Martin

  12. The___on drugs

  13. Like some tires

  15. ___Fulci, Italian horror director

  16. With 1-Down, a punch

  17. Some woodwinds

  18. Radio station sign

  19. Frenchman Flat overlook

  22. St. Francis’s birthplace

  24. Pretoria’s land; abbr.

  25. Yarmulke

  28. Soho’s locale

  32. “Je___Francois.”

  33. Argentine aunts

  35. Chemical suffix

  36. Obsession, suffix

  37. Computer scanner; abbr.

  38. On the briny

  39. To endure in China

  40. Museum on S. Michigan Ave.; abbr.

  41. Acquire

  42. Fringe

  45. Cushing and Lee classic

  47. Neither’s partner

  48. Debbie’s aunt

  49. Jolly Roger

  55. Guff, var.

  56. Erected

  57. Bull or bear ending

  60. Savante CEO

  61. From the beginning, Lat.

  62. Grampus

  63. Jacob’s twin’s

  64. Compass reading

  65. Skid or stick lead-in

  Down

  1. See 16-Across

  2. Writer Fleming

  3. Squeezing

  4. John Q.___

  5. Sixth of a drachma

  6. Appear

  7. Poet, Dámaso___

  8. Vacationer’s goal

  9. Tile worker’s org.

  10. Four for Caesar

  11. Scandinavian goddess of past, present, or future

  13. Dishevel

  14. Brit. Mil. award

  20. Eliminates

  21. Dot-com addresses; abbr.

  22. Seek

  23. Played hockey

  26. Yours on the Yon

  27. Lace loop

  29. Debate

  30. ___Beach, Oahu

 
; 31. Almost

  34. St. Louis sight

  38. Talus

  40. Taj Mahal site

  41. Knows

  43. Instead

  44. Like a pinhole camera?

  46. Grow

  49. “If the___fits”

  50. Some lodges; abbr.

  51. ___Road, Truk Island

  52. Celtic’s org.

  53. Voices over

  54. C.V.s

  58. Angel’s favorite letters

  59. Chemical symbol for prussic acid

  To download a PDF of this puzzle, please visit openroadmedia.com/nero-blanc-crosswords

  CHAPTER 28

  During the train ride south, Belle’s confidence in the crossword’s message began to waver. Use Your Head! She read the title over and over again, then returned to the answers that had propelled her onto an Amtrak car and a journey to Princeton. 19-Across: SKULL MOUNTAIN; 25-Across: SKULL CAP; 45-Across: THE SKULL; and the most lethal at 49-Across: SKULL AND BONES. But there the hints—if they were indeed hints—disappeared. And if anything, SKULL AND BONES was a secret Yale society and had nothing to do with a university in Princeton, New Jersey.

  She stared and stared at the page while the train hurtled through the green and varied scenery of Rhode Island’s farmland and oceanside, then down past New London, Connecticut, with its commanding sea view. Use Your Head! she thought, Use Your Head! The title obviously refers to the skull theme, but it probably also indicates that I’m supposed to make some sort of cerebral—and lexical—leap.

  She reexamined the clues. They were quirky and erudite—some almost overly so. After all, how many people could readily fill in the answer to 7-Down: Poet, Dámaso ALONSO; or NORN as the solution to 11-Down: Scandinavian goddess of past, present, or future? And there was the Chinese word REN at 39-Across; the Latin AB OVO at 61-Across or LUCIO Fulci at 15-Across: Italian horror director. Whoever had constructed the crossword possessed a wide-ranging body of knowledge.