by Parnell Hall
“What did I do, Chief?”
“Turned off your phone. Have you figured it out yet? Every time you turn off your phone, everything goes to hell.”
“What happened?”
“It’s what hasn’t happened. Charlotte Guilford hasn’t come home. I went out there this afternoon, tried to calm her sister down. It wasn’t working. Then her nephew showed up, God bless him. I sure hope I don’t have to charge him with murder.”
“Well, you’ve gotta charge someone.”
“What?”
“Come on, Chief, I’d prefer if he didn’t do it, too, but someone killed those people.”
“You really think he did it?”
“I have no idea. But I wouldn’t wanna rule anyone out.”
Harper noticed her robe. “You’re in bed early.”
“People keep waking me up in the middle of the night. I have to sleep when I can.”
“Then I hate to ask you.”
“Ask me what?”
“Edith’s hysterical. I’m no good with hysterical women. If you could calm her down.”
“What about her nephew?”
“I think he’s fed up. He did the afternoon shift. Now he’s nowhere to be found.”
“Did you look in the window seat?”
Chief Harper’s eyes widened. “Do you mean…?”
“Well, that’s where the other body was. You better look in the window seat.”
“I can’t do that. Edith’s hysterical as it is. I start looking in window seats, she’s going to think something happened to Charlotte.”
“If she’s been gone this long, something probably did happen to her.”
“Come on, Cora. I need your help.”
Cora heaved a sigh. “Fine. Go out there and hold her off.”
“Aren’t you coming?”
“Mind if I get dressed first?”
Cora watched Harper go down the walk. She took her time collecting the poodle to make sure the chief actually left, then hurried back to the bedroom.
Barney was gone.
“Barney?”
The toy poodle was sniffing under the bed.
Barney poked his head out. “Is he gone?”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“You said get under the bed.”
“I was joking.”
“Oh.”
Barney crawled out from under the bed.
Cora threw off her robe, began pulling on clothes.
“What are you doing?” Barney said.
“I gotta go out to the Guilford house. Stay there. I’ll be right back.”
“But—”
“Don’t worry. Buddy will keep you company. Right, Buddy?”
Cora pulled on a sweater and slacks, hopped in her car, and tore out to the Guilford house. The front door was open. Cora went in, found Chief Harper in the kitchen trying to comfort Edith. His face lit up like a man who’s been thrown a lifeline.
“See,” Harper said. “Cora’s come to help. It’s going to be all right. I’m sure nothing’s happened to your sister.”
“Nonsense,” Cora said. “If she’s been gone that long, something probably has happened to her.”
Edith stopped wailing, looked at Cora in astonishment.
“So, let’s find her. Did you look in the window seat?”
Edith gasped.
“She’s not in the window seat,” Harper said icily.
“Well, let’s rule it out. That’s the first place I’d look. The second would be the grave in the cellar. The third would be the attic. You do have an attic, don’t you?”
Edith blinked. Nodded.
“Well, first things first.” Cora headed for the living room with Edith and the chief trailing along behind.
Cora marched up to the window seat, flung it open, took a look, and scowled.
The body of Charlotte Guilford lay in the window seat.
There was a crossword puzzle on her chest.
Across
1 Credits listing
5 Dubious sighting
8 Jai alai basket
13 First name in scat
14 “Stat!”
15 Summertime allergen
16 Start of a message
18 Buckeye Stater
19 Metallic marble
20 Time to revel
21 __-med
22 Pin count
23 Predicate part
25 Left over
29 More of the message
34 Chair fixer
35 Hobby farm dweller
36 Plantation gear
37 Same-old-same-olds
38 Not well thought-out
40 Swarm member
41 Nobelist Wiesel
42 Prado display
43 Move like a 51-Down
44 Still more of the message
47 Patches up
48 Many August births
49 “__ nuts?”
51 IRS hiree
54 Circus Maximus greeting
55 Ill-bred
60 Do poetry, say
62 End of the message
63 Letter signoff
64 Mrs. McKinley
65 Heidi’s milieu
66 Portended
67 “Roll __ bones!”
68 Hall fare
Down
1 Disney collectibles
2 Oceans
3 Purplish fruit
4 Heist haul
5 Set free, in a way
6 Stir up, as a revolt
7 Be in the hole
8 Hold together
9 Samuel’s mentor
10 Zero-star fare
11 Hotfoot it
12 First name among diarists
15 Destitution
17 Take in, say
20 Long jump, e.g.
24 VIP
25 Cheat out of money
26 Abdul with six #1 hits
27 Thumbs-down group
28 Freezer bag verb
30 Can’t avoid
31 Yorba __
32 Taken as a whole
33 Running mate of Adlai
38 Home to Dartmouth College
39 Cropped up
43 Capital-letter producer
45 Had room for
46 Hero’s welcome
50 Bawdyhouse figure
51 Critter with eyestalks
52 Cozumel cash
53 Didn’t merely pass
56 Brewski topper
57 Twiddling one’s thumbs
58 Takes a sample of
59 Infamous Spandau inmate
61 “__ been had!”
62 Kept under wraps
Chapter
39
“How many letters?” Sherry said. “Oh, there’s a good baby girl.”
“What?” Cora said.
“I’m talking to Jennifer.”
“Could you concentrate? I’m in rather deep doo-doo.”
“Sorry to hear it. We just had a diaper change, and we feel fine. Don’t we, Jennifer?”
“I’m thrilled. It’s five letters. Third letter n.”
“What was the clue again?”
“Are you paying any attention? It’s ‘Chair fixer.’”
Finding Charlotte Guilford’s body had shredded Chief Harper’s last vestige of civility. He had bagged the puzzle, and ordered Cora to solve it on the spot. In desperation, she had holed herself up in the Guilford study, and she and Sherry were attempting to solve it on the phone. Which might have been easier had Jennifer been napping.
“It’s caner,” Sherry said.
Cora copied the answer onto the rough sketch of the puzzle grid she had drawn on a piece of paper. Since the puzzle was in a plastic evidence bag, she couldn’t write on it. She had offered to run out and Xerox the puzzle, which would have given her a chance to rush home and let Sherry solve it, but Chief Harper was having none of it.
“Okay, then. 15 across. ‘Summertime allergen.’”
“How many letters?�
�
“Six.”
Chief Harper burst into the room, saw Cora on the phone. “What the hell are you doing? I told you to solve the puzzle.”
“Sorry, Chief,” Cora said, tap-dancing nimbly. “I had to call Sherry to tip off Aaron there’d been a murder. I gotta live in your town, but I gotta live in their house.”
“Hang up, I got problems.”
“Call you back,” Cora said, and slammed down the phone. “What’s the matter now?”
“I can’t find Barney. His wife says he’s not home, and he’s not answering his pager.”
That was not surprising. Barney had turned the ring off on his cell phone when they got into bed.
Cora exhaled in exasperation. Everything was coming down on her head. “What’s that got to do with me?”
“I’m desperate. I need your advice.” Harper lowered his voice. “Should I look for him at Becky’s?”
“Not unless you want your head taken off. And like being sued for slander.”
“How is that slander? Just asking if someone’s there?”
“You’re splitting hairs with a lawyer? Don’t do it, Chief.” Cora heaved herself out of the chair. “I’ve got this.”
“What?”
“Becky’s my friend. Let me handle it. Then you’re not the bad guy.”
Harper exhaled in relief. “Thanks, Cora.” He ducked back out.
Cora grabbed the puzzle, shoved it into her purse. She hurried out, hopped in her car, sped back to her house. On the way a car that looked very much like Aaron’s flew by in the other direction. Cora kept going, rocketed up the driveway, ran inside, flung open the bedroom door.
Barney Nathan was lying in bed with the dog on his lap. Both jumped up. Buddy fell to the floor, yelped indignantly.
“My God, you scared me to death!” Barney said.
“Get used to it,” Cora snapped. “Get up, get dressed, sneak out to my car, get in the backseat, and keep your head down.”
“What?”
“Charlotte Guilford’s dead, Harper’s trying to find you. I gotta get you to the Country Kitchen to pick up your car. Hop to it. I’ll keep Sherry busy.”
“Oh, my God!”
“And don’t let the dog out!”
Cora raced through the breezeway that connected the old house to the new extension, raced through the living room, pounded up the stairs. Why did they put them at the end of the house? It would have been more convenient if they had been near the middle. But then they would have been closer to her. Better where they were.
Cora clattered down the hall into the bedroom.
Sherry was sitting up in bed. She put her finger to her lips. “Shhh!”
“Can’t you put her down?” Cora said.
“What the hell is going on?”
“Chief Harper caught us playing phone tag. I tap-danced my way out of it, told him I was calling you to tip off Aaron.”
“I did. He just left.”
“I think I passed him on the road. I was going too fast to tell.”
“How did you get away?”
“I snuck out. That was easy. I gotta get back before he misses me. Can you do the damn puzzle?”
“It’s not easy one-handed.”
“Sherry.”
“Give me a magazine.”
There was a copy of People on the bedside table. Cora handed it over.
“People. People who read People,” Cora began.
“Don’t sing,” Sherry said. She balanced the magazine on her thigh.
Cora slapped the grid she’d drawn down on it, and handed her the puzzle and a pencil.
“This is a drag,” Sherry said. “Can’t we just run off a copy?”
“Then Harper would know I left. Here, I’ll hold the puzzle for you.”
Sherry looked at the crossword. “Oh, that’s what you were trying to tell me.” She held the grid to the magazine with her wrist, scribbled in the answers.
“Can I help?” Cora said.
“Yeah. Hold the grid on the magazine.”
“Can I do anything else?”
“Yeah. Shut up.”
“Jennifer, I hope you didn’t hear your mother say that.”
Sherry whizzed through the puzzle.
Cora grabbed it, headed for the door.
“Aren’t you going to look at it?”
“Yeah, I guess I should.”
She held it up, read, “Look at me. There I lie. Was a snoop. Had to die.”
“What does that mean?” Sherry said.
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
Cora plunged the puzzle into her drawstring purse, ran out the door. She thundered down the stairs, went out the door at the far end of the house, and raced across the lawn and hopped into the car.
“Barney. Are you there?”
From the floor of the backseat, a small voice said, “Yes.”
“Keep your head down until we’re out of the driveway.”
Cora started the car, tore down the driveway.
As she turned on the road Barney said, “Can I get up now?”
“Yeah. Just duck down if you see headlights.”
Barney got up, sat on the backseat. “What the hell is going on?”
“I’m taking you to the Country Kitchen. Go in, have a drink, turn on your cell phone. You’ll have a missed call from Chief Harper, telling you to get out to the Guilford house. Or just telling you to call him. Whatever he says, do it.”
“Why do I order a drink?”
“Because that’s where you were, drinking at the Country Kitchen.”
“Do I have to say that?”
“You don’t have to say that, just in case someone asks. Come on, Barney, use your head. If he happens to ask, you were at the Country Kitchen, you turned on your phone, you got the message.”
Cora screeched into the Country Kitchen parking lot, skidded to a stop in the shadows at the far end away from the restaurant.
“What if there’s no message?”
“It’s an emergency, meathead! You’re a nice man, now get out of my car.”
Barney went out the back door.
Cora gunned the motor and peeled out. She left enough rubber to make a spare tire, and took off down the road.
Chapter
40
Dan Finley was snapping pictures of the crime scene. Chief Harper tore himself away and met Cora at the door.
“Well? Was he there?”
“Was who where, Chief?”
Harper kept his voice down, difficult considering his mounting anger. “Barney Nathan. Was he at Becky’s?”
“That’s the wrong question to ask, Chief. I’m not going to answer that question. All you really want to know is, was I able to contact the doctor?”
“Were you able to contact the doctor?” Chief Harper said it through clenched teeth. His jaw never moved.
“He should be calling in any minute now, Chief. In the meantime, take a look at this.”
Cora whipped out the crossword, shoved it in front of his face.
“Wait a minute. You solved the puzzle? I thought you went to get Barney.”
“I’m an amazing multitasker, Chief. It would appear we have an actual message from the killer.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Take a look.”
“Look at me. There I lie. Was a snoop. Had to die.” Harper snorted. “That’s not from the killer. That’s from the victim.”
“Somehow I doubt that, Chief. The killer may have written it from the victim’s point of view, but it’s surely from the killer.”
“It doesn’t tell us a damn thing.”
“Actually, it does. Charlotte was a snoop who got killed for poking her head in the murder.”
“Maybe. I don’t know what it does for us.”
“Where’s Edith?”
“Having hysterics in the drawing room. Her nephew and his girlfriend are taking care of her.”
“You think that’s a good idea, Chief? Letting h
er alone with the suspects?”
“Now they’re suspects?”
“Well, you already suspect Alan. The girl gets credit just for proximity. Where were they when we found the body?”
“Over at her place. They heard Edith screaming and came over to see what happened.”
“See? Proximity.”
Barney Nathan came bustling in. The poor man was terribly self-conscious. He had tied his bow tie, as if to give every appearance of respectability. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Cora.
“Barney,” Chief Harper said. “Where the hell were you?”
“I was out having a drink. Didn’t notice my cell phone. What have we got here?”
“Body in the window seat.”
“Again?”
“This time it’s one of the sisters.”
“Poisoned?”
“You tell me.”
“Right.”
An agonized wail from the other room reminded him. “Before you do, you wanna give Edith something to damp her down? The woman’s getting on my nerves.”
“Good idea.”
Barney went out to see to Edith.
“All right,” Harper said. “You found him for me. That’s on the credit side of the ledger. On the debit side of the ledger, you found Charlotte Guilford dead.”
“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger. She was dead, no matter who found her.”
“Yeah, but it happened to be you. And you suggested the possibility before you even got here.”
“Not a big leap of logic, Chief. I’m sorry you didn’t make it. Though I’m sure you did make it, you were just trying to wish it away.”
“Ain’t that the truth. But the fact is, you walked in here and within minutes you were pointing at Charlotte’s body.”
“Once again, not that hard to do.”
“It makes me wonder if you knew it was there.”
Cora referred to the chief as an ignoramus with an amazingly wide variety of sexual practices, only some of which could be considered consensual.
“Cora!”
“I did not know Charlotte was dead. I did not know she was in the window seat. I had never seen her in there before. I did not plant the puzzle on the body or even see a puzzle on the body. I did not add to, subtract from, or in any other way contaminate the crime scene. I am innocent as the driven snow. Though I’m not entirely sure what that means. Does anyone actually drive snow?”
Barney Nathan came back from the study toting his doctor’s bag. “That should hold her for a while,” he said. He still didn’t look at Cora. He knelt down by the window seat, leaned over, and examined the corpse. “Well, no smell of almonds. Probably not cyanide.”