Last Puzzle & Testament

by Parnell Hall

  “They’ll find out the next piece of the puzzle.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Daniel Hurley said. “I would say there’s a good chance someone solving the first piece would result in a general announcement. In which case, I’ll learn the same thing they do. Without lifting a finger.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “No, I don’t. But I do know I’m no good at puzzle solving.”

  “You want help?”

  “I thought you were just passing through.”

  “I was. But I got roped into taking a case, and now my client’s dead. I guess I gotta stick around till that gets straightened out.”

  Daniel grinned. “And in the meantime, you’d like to help me solve the puzzle?”

  “Not really. I was thinking of something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “The whole setup. I’m not sure it’s legally binding.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “An elderly woman writes a holographic will without benefit of legal advice, and bequeaths an enormous fortune to the winner of a foolish game. If one wanted to, there would seem to be lots of grounds to contest such a will. Would that interest you?”

  Daniel Hurley pushed his coffee cup aside, put his elbows on the table, leaned his chin in his hand.

  “Tell me more,” he said.

  Cora Felton nearly sloshed her cup of coffee. “You solved it already?”

  “Sure, I did. It wasn’t hard. It’s a simple, straightforward crossword puzzle. There are no tricks. It can be solved by anyone who’s used to doing daily puzzles.”

  “By one of the heirs?”

  “I don’t know,” Sherry said. “Frankly, none of them strike me as the type. But that doesn’t mean they couldn’t do it. Anyway, take a look at the puzzle.”

  “Sherry, I have a headache.”

  “I can’t help that.”

  “And I’m no good at puzzles.”

  “That’s why I’m going to explain it to you.”

  “I’m not great at explanations, either. This puzzle stuff leaves me cold.”

  “I know that. But you’ve got to know enough to fake it. You’re the one who has to explain it to the heirs.”

  “Yes, I know. But—”

  “Fifty. Thousand. Dollars.”

  Cora sighed. “Keep reminding me of that, will you?”

  “Never fear,” Sherry said. “Okay, take a look at this.”

  Cora Felton leaned in and looked at the computer. Sherry had typed in the answers to the clues in the grid.

  ACROSS

  1. Italian village

  6.____ fall

  13. WWII vessel

  14. Sharpen

  16. Place to woo?

  19. Affirmative

  20. Ages

  23. Useful quality

  DOWN

  1. Ricardo

  2. Woodwind

  3. Entre ____ (fr)

  4. Tibetan town

  5. Swear

  6. Call

  7. Deckhand

  8. R.S.V.P.

  9. Youth

  17. Stockings

  “Okay,” Sherry told Cora. “Here’s the solution to the first quarter of the puzzle. Or, what we have been referring to as the first quarter of the puzzle. Actually, it’s somewhat less.”

  “How is that?” Cora said.

  “Well, take a look. To begin with, let me explain something about the grid. There are four long clues in the puzzle, ten letters each. There’s sixteen across, ten down, twenty-seven down, and fifty-eight across.”

  “And you got one. Courthouse.”

  “Right.” Sherry nodded. “Sixteen across is courthouse. It’s a pun. A rather bad pun, by the way. I mean, come on, Place to woo means courthouse? Really. Anyway, it starts in the upper-left-hand corner of the grid. Ten down starts in the upper-right-hand corner of the grid. Twenty-seven down ends in the lower-left-hand corner of the grid. Fifty-eight across ends in the lower-right-hand corner of the grid. While they’re not exactly quadrants, the four long clues occupy four separate sections of the grid.

  “Which is the point. All of the clues that we were given were for words that affect the long clue, sixteen across. Note that we are given clues seventeen down and twenty-three across. Note that we are not given clue twenty-five across, even though it is in the upper-left-hand quadrant. Why? Because the third letter of twenty-five across is also the first letter of twenty-seven down, which is the long answer for the lower-left-hand quadrant. See what I mean?”

  “You lost me after courthouse.”

  “Aunt Cora. Try to concentrate.”

  “It’s all Greek to me.”

  “Fifty thousand dollars.”

  Cora Felton grimaced. Sighed. “Run it by me again.”

  Fifteen minutes later, after Sherry Carter had delivered an impromptu lecture on crossword puzzles in general and this puzzle in particular, and Cora Felton had drunk three and a half cups of coffee, Cora said, “Okay, I call up the lawyer, I tell him I solved the puzzle and the solution is courthouse, the long solution for the quarter of the clues we have.”

  Cora pushed her glasses down on her nose, peered over them at Sherry. “It is my belief, world-famous cruci-whatchamacallit expert that I am, that the next set of clues will all relate to one of the other long answers. As to what it all means, I have no clue, but the word courthouse is certainly suggestive.” Cora pushed her glasses back up again. “How’m I doin’ so far?”

  “Excellent,” Sherry replied. “lie. *s long as you don’t try to pronounce cruciverbalist, he’ll never suspect you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Thank you so much,” Cora said happily. “And since the clue is courthouse, I suggest he meet us at the courthouse, so we can put our heads together and try to come up with the other clues.”

  “Fine, but lay off the us,” Sherry said.

  “You’re not going?”

  “I’ll go, but stop referring to me. You’re the big-deal Puzzle Lady. I’m just the helpful, secretarial person. It’s not we did this, we think that. It’s I solved the puzzle. I have a theory. Look at my solution.”

  “I can’t play humble?”

  “Humble is tough when you have so much to be humble about.”

  “Hey, don’t get nasty,” Cora said.

  “And don’t you be silly,” Sherry said. “Your credibility is not high at the moment. I don’t know how much you remember about our trip to the Hurley house, but you happened to accuse the heirs of murdering their aunt. That and the fact you almost did a header into the four-poster bed puts you on rather shaky grounds.”

  “Murdering their aunt?”

  “Instead of looking at the crossword puzzle, you announced to the world in general that Emma Hurley had been killed. Not the brightest move you could have made.”

  Cora Felton pursed her lips. “But not that off-the-wall either, with fifteen million dollars involved.”

  Sherry snorted in exasperation. “Aunt Cora. Please. Emma Hurley was a very old lady who died of natural causes. So get murder out of your head and concentrate on the crossword puzzle.”

  “But I like murders,” Cora grumbled. “I don’t like crossword puzzles.”

  “Do you like money?” Sherry asked.

  “Yes, I do.” Cora nodded. “Point well taken. I like this crossword puzzle. Come on. Let’s go call the shyster.”

  Harvey Beerbaum seemed nervous. Chief Harper sensed it immediately. Not that he’d had that many murder investigations—he certainly hadn’t—but Chief Harper had been a policeman for years. He had investigated robberies, assaults, traffic accidents, enough to know when witnesses were cooperating fully, and when they were holding something back.

  Not that there was anything to withhold. Still it was a homicide. Medical examiner Barney Na

  someone had killed him. Someone was guilty.

  Could that someone possibly be Harvey Beerbaum?

  Chief Harper didn’t think so. Harvey Beerbaum loo
ked more like a computer nerd than a killer. True, some killers were that way. Quiet, loners, kept to themselves. In Harvey Beerbaum’s case, however, Chief Harper just couldn’t see it. Sneaking up behind someone, bashing him on the head … The image of a weapon in the hands of Harvey Beerbaum was laughable.

  And yet there was something.

  “You saw him in the parking lot?” Chief Harper asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Harvey Beerbaum answered. “Quite drunk, and quite obnoxious. I’m sorry Mr. Beasley’s dead, but that’s a fact.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Hassled the kid on the motorcycle.”

  “Daniel Hurley?”

  “If that’s his name. The boy with the beard and long hair.”

  “Why did he hassle him?”

  “I don’t know. Is it really important? I mean, I’d like to help, but I am quite busy, and—”

  “Just a few more questions,” Chief Harper said, and once again sensed something wasn’t right. He’d really just begun, and as for busy, how busy could Beerbaum be? The man was at home in the middle of a workday, so he didn’t have a nine-to-five job. And while he’d just moved into Bakerhaven, his house was in no way unsettled. In fact, the living room in which they now sat was immaculately furnished, down to the least little knickknacks adorning the bookshelves and the walls. It was so well put together, Chief Harper would have suspected Harvey Beerbaum had rented it furnished, had it not been for such personal touches as a framed crossword puzzle over the bookcase, and a trophy on the mantelpiece on which Chief Harper could see the name Beerbaum inscribed.

  “Where are you employed, Mr. Beerbaum?”

  Harvey Beerbaum blinked. “That’s your question?”

  “No, I’m just curious. You mentioned you were busy.”

  “Well, I am. Perhaps not in a way you recognize. I’m self-employed. I’m a writer and a constructor.”

  “Constructor?”

  “I construct crossword puzzles. And write books about them.”

  “You do this for a living?”

  “I do not,” Harvey Beerbaum said. “I do it for fun. It provides me a living, but that’s ahatp height=" bonus. I happen to relish my work.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Chief Harper said. Relish. “And that’s what you’re so busy at?”

  “Did you ever attempt to construct a crossword puzzle, Chief?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “Well, trust me, it’s hard work. Enjoyable, but hard. One gets a train of thought going. And when it’s interrupted …”

  “It’s hard to get back to,” Chief Harper finished pleasantly. “But since I’ve already interrupted, you might as well just go with the flow. You’ll get back to your puzzle soon enough.”

  Harvey Beerbaum took a breath, exhaled in exasperation. “So what do you want to know?”

  “When Jeff Beasley accosted Daniel Hurley in the parking lot, what went on?”

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t hear. I saw him stagger over, toward the boy. I saw him put his hand on the motorcycle.”

  “Jeff Beasley put his hand on the motorcycle?”

  “He grabbed the handlebar, yes. Possibly to keep from falling, but he did grab it.”

  “What did the boy do?”

  “Pushed him away.”

  “Pushed him?”

  Harvey Beerbaum held up his hands. “Oh, now, look. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

  “They’re your words,” Chief Harper pointed out. “You said, pushed him.”

  “Maybe shooed him would be better. Or brushed him off. I wouldn’t want to give the impression the boy did anything violent.”

  “But he did push Beasley away?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “I see. What did Beasley do then?”

  “He went back to him. Which shows it wasn’t a violent encounter. If it had been violent, he would have gone away. Or fallen to the ground. A man that drunk would have trouble keeping his feet.”

  “Okay,” Chief Harper said. “Jeff Beasley grabbed the handlebars, Daniel Hurley pushed him away, Jeff Beasley came back. What happened then?”

  “Beasley said something to him—I don’t know what—and then stood there, gesturing. Not grabbing the motorcycle. At least he’d learned that lesson. And the boy didn’t push him again.”

  “Did he drive off?”

  “Who? The boy?”

  “Yes. Daniel Hurley. Did he drive off on the motorcycle?”

  “Not while I was watching.”

  “So you drove off and left the two of them in the parking lot?”

  “I drove off. Whether that left the two of them in the parking lot, I can’t say. I didn’t pay the slightest attention to either of them once I started my car.”

  “And earlier in the bar, did you overhear Jeff Beasley talking to anyone?”

  Harvey Beerbaum hesitated.

  “Yes?” the Chief prompted.

  Harvey Beerbaum waved his hand. “No, no, it’s nothing. It’s just I don’t want you getting the wrong idea.”

  “About what?”

  “Well, it’s the boy again.”

  “Daniel Hurley?”

  “Yes, but it was nothing.”

  “What was nothing?”

  “What he said.”

  “Which was?”

  “Beasley was amused by him. He thought it was funny the boy was there.”

  “Yes, but what did Beasley say?”

  “Prodigal son.”

  “Huh?”

  “That’s what he said. Prodigal son.”

  “I see,” Chief Harper said. Actually, he didn’t. He had no idea what prodigal son meant, but he was damned if he was going to let Harvey Beerbaum know that. “And what do you think he meant?”

  “He was drunk and rambling, and reacting to the boy’s appearance. I would attach no importance to it whatsoever.”

  “Uh huh,” Chief Harper said. He tried a few more questions, which got him absolutely nothing, and left him fairly dissatisfied with the interview. For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what it was Harvey Beerbaum was hiding.

  Chief Harper got in his car and drove off.

  Harvey Beerbaum watched the patrol car leave from his dining room window. He waited until Chief Harper reached the end of the block, turned left on Main, and drove out of sight. Beerbaum let the blinds fall back into place, went to the study, opened the door, and let the Hurleys out.

  “It’s about time,” Philip Hurley complained.

  “Yes,” Ethel Hurley whined. “I thought he’d never leave.”

  “Did you hear?” Harvey Beerbaum asked.

  “Every word,” Philip said. “What’s this about him and Daniel had a fight?”

  “Not a fight. A discussion.”

  “Hey,” Philip said. “Let’s not mince words. A discussion could be an argument could be a fight. The fact is, those two were mixing it up. And if this drunk is dead and there’s anything suspicious about it, it’s Daniel the police should be suspicious of.”

  “Maybe so, but that’s not what I said.”

  “I never said it was,” Philip snapped. “Ethel and I are certainly not suggesting that you say anything that isn’t true. But what you did say is dead right. The only one the drunk really talked to was Daniel.”

  “Enough about Daniel.” Ethel was getting impatient. “Come on, come on. I’ve gotta know. Can you solve this thing or not?”

  “Before the policeman arrived,” Harvey Beerbaum reminded her, “I was explaining my position.”

  “And I was explaining mine,” Philip Hurley countered. “I stand to inherit a bunch of money. You stand to be cut in on it. Now, all the will says is whichever of us heirs solves the puzzle first gets the money. It doesn’t say anything about how we solve it, it doesn’t care anything about that. And I think the smartest way to solve a puzzle is to hire an expert. It occurs to me that’s what the smartest heir would do, and the smartest heir ought to inherit. And, since there’s nothing in the
will that precludes that possibility, it seems to me the smartest heir, the one who ought to inherit, should be me.”

  Philip Hurley smiled at Harvey Beerbaum. “Now, can you point out any flaw in that logic?”

  Arthur Kincaid stood waiting on the courthouse steps. Sherry Carter pulled by, parked in the lot, and she and Cora walked back to meet him.

  “You solved it already?” Arthur asked Cora, skeptically. His manner implied he was surprised to find she was even upright, let alone lucid.

  Cora Felton bristled. “Yes, I did,” she snapped.

  “The solution is courthouse?”

  “Yes, it is.” Cora took a breath, plunged ahead. “And it’s either a dead-end solution, or it happens to be the next clue. If the next clue is courthouse, now what could that mean?”

  ind-end height="0em" width="1em" align="justify">“I have no idea,” Arthur Kincaid said. “But this is the only courthouse in the district.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Cora said. “Tell me, did Emma Hurley have any dealings in the courthouse in the later part of her life? Anything at all that would have brought her in this vicinity?”

  “The answer is no. For the last six months Emma Hurley was confined to her home. Trust me, she went nowhere. Certainly not near the courthouse. As to the last time she was here, I really couldn’t say. She might have had jury duty, but that would have been years ago.”

  “That doesn’t sound promising,” Cora said. “All right, let’s try the courtroom.”

  “Court might be in session,” Arthur Kincaid pointed out.

  It wasn’t. The courtroom was empty. They entered from the back, made their way down the aisle to the rail.

  In spite of her best intentions, Cora Felton was not entirely sober, and at the sight of the empty courtroom she just couldn’t help herself. “I’ve always wanted to do this,” she said. She came through the rail, walked up to the judge’s bench, and smiled. “Your Honor. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. This witness has told a very interesting story, but he happens to have testified to several things that are not true. I intend to cross-examine him on them now.” She turned to Arthur Kincaid. “How is that?”