by Parnell Hall
“There was something under the body?” Cora said.
“No, there wasn’t.”
“What about on the body? I trust you made an inventory.”
“We did, and if there’s anything interesting, we haven’t found it yet. But we searched the sauna, and look what we found in the stove.”
“What?”
Chief Harper passed over a plastic evidence bag. In it was a sheet of paper.
It was a crossword puzzle.
Chapter
26
Cora found Sherry and Jennifer out by the pool. Jennifer was splashing in the water. No dead gossip columnist was going to spoil her fun.
“Where’s Aaron?” Cora said.
“Trying to get a story.”
“As if he didn’t have a story.”
“He’s trying to get an angle no one else has.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, I made a deal with the chief. We’re outta here, if you can get the Little Mermaid to go.”
Sherry looked over at Jennifer, who was spinning in a circle in the pool. “That may not be easy.”
“They found a crossword puzzle. I said I’d solve it if they’d let us go home.”
“You said you’d solve it?”
“Don’t be unkind. I worded it so as not to out-and-out lie. The point is you and Jennifer can skip the questioning if we cooperate later when Dan Finley drops a copy of the puzzle off at our house.”
“Chief Harper didn’t want it solved on the spot?”
“It’s in a plastic evidence bag, for which I am eternally grateful. Anyway, we can go. Aaron can come, too, if you can get him away.”
“I doubt it. He’s trying to scoop TV.”
As if on cue, Rick Reed and a Channel 8 camera crew spotted Cora and descended on her.
“This is Rick Reed, Channel 8 News, at the home of Yankee phenom Matt Greystone, the scene of a grisly crime. I am talking to Cora Felton, the Puzzle Lady, who has just come from an interview with Chief Harper and prosecutor Henry Firth. Miss Felton, are there any leads?”
“I believe there are.”
“Really? What can you tell us?”
“Oh, I can’t tell you anything.”
“I thought you said there were leads.”
“Yes, but they’re not substantiated. What we have are merely unfounded assumptions. And unfounded assumptions can be actionable if stated as unsubstantiated accusations.”
Rick blinked, trying to wrap his head around the verbiage. “You’re saying you know who did this?”
“Absolutely not, Rick. And you can quote me on that. I have no knowledge whatsoever as to the perpetrator of this heinous crime. But I can tell you unequivocally that he or she is still at large.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because no one’s been caught.”
Cora patted Rick Reed on the cheek, grabbed Sherry by the arm, and whispered, “Come on, let’s get out of here before that genius thinks of a follow-up.”
Chapter
27
“You’re really leaving the scene of the crime?” Sherry said.
“Scene of the crime!” Jennifer said brightly. She’d graduated from echoing the last word of sentences to echoing as many words as she pleased. This was embarrassing for Mommy and Daddy more often than not, almost as if she planned it.
“I’m getting out while the getting’s good,” Cora said.
“I assume you’re planning something devious.”
“Devious aunt!”
“Hey, that’s not fair,” Cora said.
“What?”
“You didn’t say ‘aunt.’”
“So?”
“Now she’s making things up.”
“She’s a smart kid.”
“She’s calling me devious.”
“I rest my case.”
“Case resting!”
“I’m sure she’ll repeat that to Chief Harper,” Sherry said.
“Chief Harper!”
“Or Henry Firth.”
“Ratface!”
Cora’s eyes widened. “You taught her that?”
“You taught her that. I told you to watch your mouth. So why’d you want to leave?”
“I can’t tell you. Not in front of her. It’s like talking to Rick Reed.”
“You’re comparing my daughter to Rick Reed?”
“Not at all. He’s not even in her class.”
“Miss Finsterwald’s!”
“What?” Cora said.
Sherry burst out laughing. “That’s the class Rick Reed’s not in. Miss Finsterwald’s. Jennifer’s in it and Rick’s not.”
“Mommy said ‘snot’!”
“Way too bright,” Cora said.
“Seriously, why are we leaving?”
“I’m not saying in front of the kid.”
“Suppose we use circumlocution?” Sherry said.
Cora gave her the evil eye. “If you start using words I don’t understand, it’s not going to help.”
“No tough words. Just vague referents.”
“You lost me already.”
“Cora.”
“Without alerting the local constabulary, I was hoping to solicit official cooperation in urban venues.”
Sherry smiled. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”
Chapter
28
Sergeant Crowley looked up from his desk. “Uh oh.”
Cora put her hands on her hips. “Well, there’s a greeting. And uh oh to you, too, sir. I would think I deserved a little better than to be greeted as bad news.”
Cora and Sergeant Crowley had been an item once until the strain of a long-distance relationship coupled with Cora meeting Crowley’s on-again, off-again girlfriend, Stephanie, had changed the tenor of the relationship. Particularly upsetting to Cora was the fact she liked Stephanie, and didn’t even have the satisfaction of wishing her slow and painful deaths. A refugee from the sixties, Stephanie sported flaxen hair, madras shifts, and ran a tapestry shop in the Village.
“So you’re here to make trouble in my life?”
“Have I ever done that?”
“Have you ever done anything else? You’re either trying to mess me up with Stephanie or get me to break the law.”
“Which would you prefer?” Cora said.
“I got a homicide of my own to deal with, so I’m a little busy. You want to give me a hint?”
“Did you hear about the murder at Matt Greystone’s estate?”
“The what?”
“You haven’t. I’m surprised. Of course the gossip columnist who would be spreading the story is the victim, so I suppose it’s understandable. But this poor communication between police departments indicates a degree of sloppiness that could come back to haunt you during an investigation.
“Here’s the scoop. With the murder happening in Bakerhaven the police are concentrating all their efforts at the scene of the crime. But the victim happened to live in the City.”
“You want to search his apartment?”
“Is that an offer?”
“Bite your tongue. If that’s the reason you came here you’re out of luck.”
“It occurs to me if you don’t want me searching his apartment, you probably don’t want anybody else searching it, either. It would behoove you to sew the apartment up.”
“Behoove me?”
“Did I use it incorrectly? I’m not very good with words, you know.” Sergeant Crowley was one of the select inner circle who knew that Cora was absolutely hopeless with crossword puzzles. “Anyway, I thought I’d do my civic duty and alert you to the situation.”
“So you hopped in your car and broke the speed laws just to warn me.”
“We’ve meant a lot to each other. I couldn’t let you go wrong.”
“What’s the real reason?”
“That’s unkind.”
“Sorry, but I do have this homicide of my own.”
“Does it have a star Yankees baseball player involved? I’d adjust my p
riorities, Sergeant.”
“Consider them adjusted. Well, it was nice of you to drop in.”
Cora held up her hands. “Hey, hey, hey. Let’s not be hasty. Telling you about the victim’s apartment wasn’t the only reason I’m here.”
“I told you Stephanie’s back.”
“You have a dirty mind, Sergeant. I like that in a police officer.”
“Cora.”
“Okay, okay. Leon Bratz was a gossip columnist, wrote for a second-rate scandal sheet. He also had a radio show, five minutes a day on one of the AM stations. Of course he didn’t do it live. Not the sort of guy you’d trust on live radio, even with a seven-second delay.”
“So?”
“I’m thinking he probably had a little office slash recording studio to prepare his tapes and columns.”
“Oh, you’re thinking that, are you?”
“I’m thinking it largely because I Googled the guy and came up with an address on Seventh Avenue.”
Crowley sighed. “Will nothing ever make you straightforward?”
“Getting what I wanted by being straightforward might, but that never seems to happen.”
“So you’d like me to lock up his office, too?”
“Well, let’s not be hasty here, Sergeant. You don’t know if there’s anything to lock up. And you don’t know if he shares that office space with anyone else you’d be locking out. This is one of those situations where a knee-jerk reaction is likely to get you in trouble. Clearly this needs to be checked out. If you’re so busy, maybe your boy Perkins could run me over there with a set of passkeys. No reason to make a fuss if there’s no fuss to be made.”
Crowley scowled and snatched up the phone. “Perkins.”
“Yes, Sergeant,” Crowley’s young officer said.
“Cora’s here with a murder case. The victim had an office on Seventh Avenue. She wants us to take a look.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hold down the fort here while I check it out.”
Chapter
29
“Nicely done,” Cora said, as Crowley drove his police car up the West Side Highway.
“What’s that?” Crowley said.
“The switch. Acting like you were sending Perkins with me to check out the office and then going yourself. It’s a classic reversal. The staple of many a mystery plot.”
“You know why I did it?”
“Because you’re interested and you want to see for yourself.”
“No, because I’d never forgive myself if I got Perkins kicked off the force telling him to listen to you.”
“That’s less than flattering.” Cora considered. “Accurate, maybe.”
Leon Bratz’s office was on Seventh Avenue just below 18th Street. Crowley left his car next to a fire hydrant and went up to the door. The building was a simple brownstone with no doorman and no lobby, just a row of buttons; 3C was labeled “BRATZ.” Crowley pushed it and got no answer. He whipped out a ring of passkeys.
“Wow, that’s impressive,” Cora said. “How do you know which one to try?”
“You try the easy way first,” Crowley said.
He twisted the doorknob. The downstairs door wasn’t locked. They pushed their way in and went upstairs.
Leon Bratz’s office had a frosted glass door. Crowley knocked, got no answer, tried keys until the lock clicked open.
The decedent’s office was slightly larger than a broom closet.
“Wow,” Cora said. “What do you suppose this went for, fifteen hundred a month? Hard to believe it’s an office and a recording studio.”
The office had room for just one desk. On it was a computer. Attached to the computer was a microphone on a stand.
“Are these walls soundproof?” Cora said.
As if in answer, there came the sound of someone walking overhead.
“You really think he made tapes here?” Crowley said.
“Why not? It’s the crudest of setups, but with a directional mike and a computer program he could record something good enough to pass.”
“How would he get them to the radio station?”
“It looks like he’s equipped to burn CDs,” Cora said. “But I doubt if he’d have to. He’d just record the show and send it as an attached file or stick it in Dropbox.”
“Uh huh,” Crowley said. Cora sat down and clicked the computer on. The screen sprang to life.
“I thought you weren’t going to touch anything.”
“I’m not. That’s why we’re wearing gloves.”
There was a battered file cabinet in one corner. Cora stood up, reached for one of the drawers.
Crowley stopped her. “What are you doing?”
“There might be a clue in his files.”
“There might,” Crowley said. He took out a roll of crime scene ribbon and began wrapping it around the cabinet. “And we’re going to keep it that way.”
“Spoilsport,” Cora said. She flopped down in the desk chair. While Crowley was occupied with the file cabinet, she clicked on the email icon.
Leon Bratz’s in-box filled the screen. The program automatically checked for mail and downloaded a cure for erectile disfunction.
Cora resisted placing an order. She clicked on Sent Mail. A number of the emails had been sent to the same place. Cora clicked on the latest one. It was his daily column. She skimmed it, but it had nothing to do with Matt Greystone.
Cora searched for his recording program. She couldn’t find it. The man had so many icons on his desktop that searching for a program was sort of like playing Minesweeper. You clicked on one and hoped the whole screen didn’t explode.
Cora had just spotted a particularly likely suspect, an icon in the shape of a tiny microphone, when something else caught her eye.
Sticking out of a slot in the top of the computer’s tower was a tiny memory card.
Cora’s pulse raced not unlike it once had when an irresistible heartthrob’s wayward wife had come home unexpectedly. It was the wicked thrill of doing something wrong with the strong possibility of getting caught.
Cora sucked in her breath, and slid the memory card out of the slot.
“What are you doing?” Crowley said.
Cora hadn’t realized her discovery had been audible. Smoothly she clicked on the tiny microphone icon. “I think I found his recording program. Yup, I did. Look at this.”
“We have no right to listen to those,” Sergeant Crowley said.
“I won’t tell if you won’t.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” Crowley said. “Knowing you, you set that damn thing on record.”
“Would I do that to you?”
Cora clicked on the most recent audio file. The voice of the decedent filled the air.
“I said no. Turn it off, shut it down, we’re out of here.”
Crowley herded Cora out and locked up the office.
Cora followed him meekly down the stairs, the memory card burning a hole in her purse.
Chapter
30
Cora roared up the driveway to find Sherry and Jennifer out on the front lawn.
“Hasn’t she had enough sun?” Cora said.
“Tell her that.”
“You think you could lure her inside for a minute? I need your help.”
“Oh? You have the puzzle?”
“No, I don’t have the puzzle. Why?”
“Dan Finley hasn’t dropped it off yet. I thought maybe you picked it up.”
“No, I need your help with the memory card.”
Sherry’s eyes widened. “You found the memory card?”
“Not that memory card.”
“Whose memory card did you find?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to make you an accessory.”
“Oh, give me a break.”
“What’s wrong?”
“You already told me about breaking into the witch’s house. You weren’t worried about making me an acc
essory to that.”
“The witch isn’t dead.”
“Ah. You found the victim’s memory card.”
“I didn’t tell you that.”
“No, you skirted the fine line between out-and-out admission and non-implicating prevarication. I would say the odds of me actually going to jail are considerably reduced.”
“Fine,” Cora said. “If you’re not interested in finding out what’s on this guy’s computer, I’ll do it without you.”
“Jennifer! Time to go inside!”
* * *
Sherry loaded the files from the memory card into Cora’s computer. “All right, let’s see what we have here. Well, we have a Word program with probably everything in it the gentleman ever wrote.”
“It’s a backup of his computer?”
“Not exactly. It’s a backup of anything he’s sent to it from his computer. Take, for instance, this file labeled ‘Bratz Chatz #362.’ This is a file from the computer, however, suppose he opened that file on his computer and made some corrections or added another paragraph. If he wanted the card to save his corrections, he’d have to tell it to. And then it would tell him there’s another file with the same name and ask him if he wanted to replace it or if he wanted to save it as a new file under a different name.”
“A simple yes would have sufficed,” Cora said.
“And been inaccurate,” Sherry said.
“Accuracy is a small price to pay for not having a computer lesson.”
“Well, if you don’t want help.”
“I want help. I want help in the form of what’s on the disk, not what conceivably might not be on the disk. I want something related to Matt Greystone.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Sherry said. She opened a window on the computer, typed in Matt Greystone, and hit Search. “There you go. Ten separate entries about Matt Greystone. Would you like to read them over, or would you like to complain about how you’re not learning anything worthwhile?”
Cora skimmed through the entries. They were, as Don had suggested, vague insinuations that weren’t necessarily true. Matt’s name was never mentioned. In all the columns, the name Matt Greystone only appeared in the titles of the files.