Last Puzzle & Testament

by Parnell Hall

  Sherry Carter smiled. She could practically see his thought process. The media. How did Daniel Hurley want to relate to the media? Clearly, his anti-establishment rebel image, typified by the long hair and the motorcycle, practically demanded that he look down on TV crews with contempt.

  But for a young man as arrogant as Sherry Carter judged Daniel Hurley to be, it was hard to pass up a chance to be on television.

  “Is that so?” he said to Becky, playing it cool. “Well then, I guess it’s a good thing they’re talking to you instead of someone who will give them the wrong idea. If you will just excuse me a moment.”

  Daniel Hurley turned and walked across the room to Sherry, Cora, and Aaron’s table. “So,” ;So,he said. “Everybody’s having a late lunch?”

  “It’s a busy day,” Cora said.

  “That it is,” Daniel Hurley agreed. “And we’ll be moseying over to the lawyer’s soon, and you’ll be giving me another piece of Auntie’s puzzle. Or shouldn’t I be saying that in front of the newshound?”

  “You can say anything you like,” Aaron said agreeably.

  “Only it’ll wind up in print?”

  “I am hard-pressed for a story.”

  “Aaron, don’t,” Sherry said. “No, he’s not reporting this, Daniel. Why don’t you say what you have in mind?”

  Daniel Hurley grinned. “Oh, is that how it is?” he said to Aaron. “She tells you what to do?”

  “No,” Aaron said. He added, pointedly, “She’s not my lawyer.”

  Daniel Hurley frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Boys, boys,” Cora said. “If you’re going to fight, please, wait till they set up the cameras.”

  In spite of themselves, both Aaron and Daniel looked toward the camera crew. The men were still sipping coffee, but they were definitely watching the exchange. So were Rick Reed and Becky Baldwin. So was the waitress, for that matter.

  Daniel Hurley smiled, pushed the hair off his face. “I don’t want to start an argument, I just want to talk to the judge.”

  “Me?” Cora Felton said innocently. “What do you want now?”

  “I want a clarification. On the rules. That’s your job, isn’t it?”

  “My job is what I judge it to be,” Cora shot back. “You got a problem with the rules, you can bring it up. That doesn’t mean you’re going to get any satisfaction.”

  “No, but I should get an answer,” Daniel said. “A judge can’t simply say I don’t know.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Cora Felton said. “You should talk to Melvin.”

  “Who’s Melvin?”

  “My fifth husband. By the end of the marriage, anything he asked me, I said I don’t know.”

  “Yeah, yeah, fine.” Daniel Hurley was impatient. “Look, I got a question for you. After what you said this morning, about checking your answers, I went over to the library to look up the Tibetan town. You know the Applegates are practically living there? And they got this kid helping them. Is that allowed?”

  “A kid?”

  “Yeah. The boy who works there.”

  “Jimmy Potter?” Cora said. “He’s working on the puzzle?”

  “Well, he’s looking stuff up. Is he allowed to do that?”

  “It’s his job,” Cora said.

  Daniel Hurley scowled. “That’s no answer.”

  “I shall withhold a ruling. It’s early yet. You’ve only done half the puzzle.” Cora cocked her head. “Can I assume you’ve completed the second section?”

  “You mean have I been down to the post office like everybody else?”

  “Post office?” Aaron Grant said.

  “Aw, gee,” Daniel Hurley said. “Wasn’t I supposed to say that? Yeah, I had to mail a letter, I went down to the post office. Wouldn’t you know it, Philip and Ethel had already been there. That was a while ago, so I can’t speak for the others.”

  “I thought we agreed you weren’t going to do that,” Cora said.

  “Agreed?” Daniel’s smile was haughty. “I don’t recall agreeing to anything. I recall certain suggestions. It would appear no one’s taking them.”

  “Is that so?” Cora said. “You realize as the judge I have the right to disqualify anyone who doesn’t follow the rules?”

  Daniel Hurley grinned. “You’re gonna disqualify us all? Who gets the money then?”

  “I thought you didn’t care about the money,” Sherry put in.

  “Did I ever say that? I will admit in the beginning I thought the game was dumb, I thought I had no chance to win. But, to tell you the truth, it’s not so much I’d like to win the money as I’d like to keep any of them from winning it. That’s the thing about my family. There’s a real pleasure in rubbing it in.”

  A thought struck him. He smiled in satisfaction. “In fact, that’s an excellent idea. It will drive them crazy. I can taunt them on camera. They won’t be able to do a thing about it. It will drive them wild.”

  Much to Sherry Carter’s amusement, Daniel Hurley had hit on a way to justify appearing on TV. Sherry couldn’t help smiling as Daniel went back over to Rick Reed and Becky Baldwin to reluctantly agree to an interview.

  “I’m making a ruling,” Cora Felton said. She stood at the front of the table next to Arthur Kincaid, as if to allow the lawyer’s authority to lend weight to her pronouncement, and surveyed the assembled heirs. Philip and Ethel Hurley, Phyllis and Morton Applegate, and Daniel Hurley were present. Also on hand were Sherry Carter, Aaron Grant, and Becky Baldwin. Chester Hurley was conspicuous by his absence. So was Chief Harper. Cora was glad. It was a comfort, for once, to begin the meeting without an official police report.

  Particularly when she planned to get tough.

  Cora drew herself up, tucked in her chin. “It has come to my attention that a number of you showed up at the second location mentioned in the puzzle, in spite of my admonition this morning not to do so. It has been pointed out to me that that was a suggestion, not a ruling.” Cora pulled her glasses down on her nose, peered over them. “It is now a ruling. Please take note. In a few moments I will be handing out the third piece of Emma’s puzzle. In it is a clue for a ten-letter word. Any of you who show up at any location suggested by that clue are hereby disqualified from playing the game. You will not be given the last piece of the puzzle, and you will be ineligible to receive the bulk of Emma Hurley’s estate.”

  This statement was greeted by howls of protest.

  “Oh, now look here,” Phyllis Applegate sputtered. “You’ve got no right to do that.”

  “Actually, she does,” Arthur Kincaid said. “Emma Hurley gave her that right in her will. What she’s doing here is reasonable. And it’s for your own good. If it will not help you, you shouldn’t waste your time doing it. So don’t. Is that clear?”

  Phyllis set her jaw, sulked in silence.

  Cora Felton cast a glance at Daniel Hurley, who was seated in his usual sprawl, with one foot actually up on the table. “On another topic, some of you may have noticed there are news crews in town. On account of the murders. They will undoubtedly be interested in talking with you. If you wish to talk to them, that’s your business. However, if you reveal information about the puzzle, that’s mine. Anyone discussing the inheritance with the media may allude to the fact that there is a puzzle. You may even go so far as to state that it is a crossword puzzle. But if you reveal any of the solution to the puzzle, even one syllable of a clue, then it would be up to me as judge to determine whether or not that revelation constituted a violation of the rules for which action need be taken. Am I making myself clear?”

  “I didn’t reveal anything,” Daniel Hurley said.

  The others turned on him.

  “You talked to the TV people?” Philip Hurley demanded.

  Daniel Hurley shrugged. “Only in generalities.”

  “We’ll be the judge of that.” Philip Hurley was red-faced. “What did you tell them?”

  “I can’t remember,” Daniel answered mildly. “Why don’t you watch
the six o’clock news?”

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  “You talked to them on camera?” Phyllis Applegate shrilled. “Tell me you didn’t.”

  “Okay, I didn’t,” Daniel said.

  Phyllis Applegate’s face darkened. “Are you making fun of us, young man?”

  Cora Felton held up her hand. “Yes, he is, but so what? I, for one, don’t want to hear it. I have a piece of puzzle to hand out. I am going to give it out to anyone who qualifies. And then I am going home. I will be back here tomorrow morning at ten o’clock to give out the last piece of the puzzle. Between now and then, I don’t want to hear from you. I don’t want to hear about you. I don’t want it brought to my attention that several of you are violating the rules. I want to go home, have a good night’s sleep, come back here tomorrow morning, and find out nothing has happened other than crossword-puzzle solving. Now then, who here among you is ready for the next crossword-puzzle piece?”

  The heirs all pushed forward, with the exception of Daniel Hurley, who remained seated at the table, and regarded them with contempt. “That’s it, that’s it,” he said. “Hurry up and get your clues so you can get home in time to see me on TV. Elbow your way right in there as if an extra thirty seconds was going to make the slightest bit of difference. My, my, you’re a greedy lot.”

  The heirs ignored him, continued to crowd around Cora Felton. She held them at bay, managed to accept one puzzle at a time to compare against the computer printout Sherry’d provided her with. The Applegates and Hurleys were letter perfect.

  So was Daniel Hurley. When he finally submitted his puzzle Cora found he had corrected Longa and Gar. Cora handed him the new set of clues. He folded them up, jammed them in the pocket of his leather jacket, and strolled out the door without looking back at Becky Baldwin, who trailed along behind.

  “What an insolent boy,” Cora Felton said as she gunned the motor and pulled away from the curb, after watching Daniel Hurley take off on his motorcycle with Becky Baldwin clinging to his shoulders.

  “I kind of like him,” Sherry said.

  Cora Felton groaned. “No, no, Sherry. Don’t make a big mistake. Like you did with Dennis. You don’t really like him. You just think you like him. Because you see him dumping on Becky what’s-her-name. It a tough thing to learn. If a guy treats a woman like dirt, it doesn’t make him a nice guy just because the woman he’s treating like dirt isn’t you.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” Sherry said. “Where’s the puzzle? In your purse?”

  “Uh huh. Why?”

  “I’m a total moron,” Sherry said. “I thought I couldn’t do the puzzle till we got home because I didn’t have the grid. But we have the grid. We have the printout you just used to check the heirs’ puzzles.”

  “Yeah, but it’s only got the first two quadrants,” Cora objected.

  “That’s all right. I can probably fill in the third from memory. Plus, we got the clues.”

  Sherry dug in Cora’s purse, came out with the grid and the sets of clues. She took out a pen, leaned on the door to brace herself against the swaying of the car, and went to work.

  “The long clue is laundromat, which dictates the rest,” Sherry said, filling in the grid.

  Without even looking at the clues, Sherry re-created the lower-left quadrant of the puzzle.

  “There. Now for the new clues. The long one’s fifteen? I won’t get that till I get some going down. So, let’s see what I got.”

  ACROSS

  50. ____ a hatter

  53. Stove

  54. Friend (fr)

  58. Fifteen?

  62. Consumer

  63. Observing

  65. “Luck be a ____”

  66. Shortstop

  DOWN

  37. Fraught with incident

  42. Took off

  46. Thought

  47. Style

  51. “Bather by the Sea” artist

  54. Dead heat

  55. ____ room

  56. Playwright

  59. “Lady ____ tramp”

  60. Coloring

  Sherry bent over the paper. The pen began flashing in her hand. “Uh oh,” she said. “We gotta go back.”

  “What?” Cora said.

  “Stop the car, turn around. We gotta go back to town.”

  “How come?”

  “It’s five-and-ten.”

  “What?”

  “Fifteen. It’s five-and-ten.”

  “So? Any six-year-old knows that.”

  “The solution to fifty-eight across. The clue’s fifteen? The answer is five-and-ten. F-i-v-e-a-n-d-t-e-n. We gotta go back to town and see if there’s a Woolworth.”

  “There’s no Woolworth in Bakerhaven.”

  “There’s gotta be. The last answer’s five-and-ten. That’s a Woolworth.”

  “Didn’t they go bankrupt?” Cora said, but she turned the car around and headed back toward town. “So what’s the solution look like? What about the other clues?”

  “What about them?”

  “You’ve now completednow comp the puzzle?”

  “Yes I have.”

  “Every single word is filled in?”

  “Of course.”

  “Let me see.”

  “You can’t read it while you’re driving.”

  “I don’t want to read it. I just want to see it.”

  “What’s the point of seeing it if you’re not going to read it?”

  “Sherry. Humor me. Let me see the grid.”

  “Then stop the car.”

  “Control freak,” Cora muttered.

  Cora pulled off the side of the road, put the car in park, grabbed the paper out of Sherry’s hand.

  ACROSS

  50. ____ a hatter

  53. Stove

  54. Friend (fr)

  58. Fifteen?

  62. Consumer

  63. Observing

  65. “Luck be a ____”

  66. Shortstop

  DOWN

  37. Fraught with incident

  42. Took off

  46. Thought

  47. Style

  51. “Bather by the Sea” artist

  54. Dead heat

  55. ____ room

  56. Playwright

  59. “Lady ____ tramp”

  60. Coloring

  Cora read the completed puzzle. Frowned. “Is that all there is?”

  “Yes, of course,” Sherry said.

  “It doesn’t seem right.”

  “Oh, you see that, do you?” Sherry said.

  “Of course I do. I just figured there’d be some punch line or other. Unless it’s at the five-and-ten.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Sherry said.

  “Oh? What did you mean?”

  “The answer itself. Five-and-ten. It’s not a pun.”

  “So?”

  “All the others are. This is just a straightforward clue. Fifteen does equal five and ten.”

  “Are you saying you think five-and-ten’s wrong?”

  “No. It has to be right. It’s just not a very good answer. But then, this isn’t the best of puzzles.”

  gn="just“Maybe not,” Cora said. “But if that’s all there is—and there is no other hidden meaning that you can detect—then five-and-ten is the answer, and what we’re looking for must be at the five-and-ten.”

  “It would seem so,” Sherry mused.

  “So let’s go.” Cora slammed the car in gear, peeled out, headed back to Bakerhaven.

  A mile down the road she pulled into a gas station.

  “What are you doing?” Sherry said.

  “If you don’t know, ask,” Cora said mysteriously. She stopped the car and got out.

  The young man at the gas pumps smiled and said, “Can I help you, ladies?”

  Cora smiled back. “Well, maybe you could. Would you happen to know if there’s a five-and-ten in town?”

  “You mean a Woolworth?”

  “That’s right,” Cora said placidly. “Is there one around h
ere? Or did they go out of business?”

  He shook his head. “I wouldn’t know about that. ’Cause we never had one. It’s a rather small town.”

  “That’s for sure,” Cora agreed. “So then, tell me this. What’s the closest thing Bakerhaven’s got to a Woolworth?”

  The young man frowned, wiped the sweat off his brow. His hand was greasy, left a smudge on his forehead. “There’s a general store over the covered bridge, but that’s just a tourist trap. You’re talking old-fashioned dime store, right?”

  Cora smiled. The attendant didn’t seem old enough to have ever seen an old-fashioned dime store. “Right,” she said. “Anything like that?”

  “Not really. There’s one shop in town might qualify … But it’s a stretch.”

  “What shop is that?”

  “Little place on Main Street. Few doors down from the bakery. But it’s not really what you want.”

  “You know the name of this little shop?”

  He snuffled and pushed the hair off his forehead, smearing more grease.

  “Odds and Ends.”

  The woman behind the counter had her hair pulled back in a very severe-looking bun. When Cora and Sherry walked in she arched her eyebrows, said, “I hope you know what you want. We close promptly at five-thirty.”

  Cora shot Sherry a look, turned to the woman, and beamed. “I must say I approve. There’s some of these stores that are open all day long and half the night. And in the long run, they don’t sell any more merchandise than the stores that close at six.”

  “I close at five-thirty.”

  “Even better,” Cora said. “Get you home for dinner.”

  “Yes, but then people grumble that they can’t get here after work. I tell them that’s why I’m open Saturday.” The proprietor waggled her finger toward the shelves. “You want something, you better look around. I close in nine minutes.”

  “Sherry’s shopping,” Cora informed her. “I’m just along for the ride.” She frowned, shook her head. “Terrible thing about Annabel Hurley.”