A Puzzle in a Pear Tree

by Parnell Hall

  “I understand the concept.”

  “Do you? I don’t think so. If you did, you’d have called me last night. Before you called the police.”

  “Chief Harper doesn’t think I’m guilty.”

  “No, but he has to act on the evidence, and the evidence is bad. Even without you running around finding bodies.”

  Sherry took a breath. “Becky, this isn’t going to work. I’ve had about three hours’ sleep, and I don’t feel like being used as a punching bag. You have any practical advice, fine. If you just wanna get off on telling me what a bad girl I am, I think our relationship is over.”

  “Point taken,” Becky said. “Tell me how you found the body.”

  “Actually, Cora and I found it together.”

  “What made you look?”

  “Driving by the high school I noticed the lights were on.”

  “Were you with your aunt at the time?”

  “No, I was alone.”

  “Where were you going?”

  “Home.”

  “Where had you been?”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “The police will ask these questions, so I need to know your answers. Where were you coming from?”

  “I was over at Aaron’s.”

  “Oh.” Becky raised an eyebrow. “He still have his varsity letters on the wall?”

  Sherry bristled. “Don’t you know?”

  “No,” Becky said. After a pause she added, “I have my own place. I don’t live with my aunt.”

  “Gee, that’s grand. You can have that brainy TV reporter over any time you want.”

  Becky formed a Twith her hands. “Time out. I admit I needled you just now because you were coy about where you’d been. Let’s start over. You were coming back from Aaron’s, you saw the stage lights in the gym. What time was that?”

  Sherry hesitated a moment, then said rather defiantly, “One-thirty.”

  Becky smiled slightly.

  Sherry glared at her.

  Becky returned her gaze.

  They stared each other down.

  The corners of Sherry’s mouth twitched.

  Both women burst out laughing.

  “All right,” Becky said, when the laughter finally subsided. “Let’s try this again. You were driving home from Aaron’s at one-thirty A.M. and you saw lights in the theater. You went home and told your aunt. Did you wake her up to tell her?”

  “No. She was awake. She was worried and couldn’t sleep.”

  “Did you tell her first thing? ‘Hey, I think there’s something wrong in the theater’? ”

  “Let me think. Let’s see, I came in, Cora was up, I asked her why, she asked me where I’d been, yadda yadda, then we started talking about the crime.”

  Becky raised her eyebrows. “ ‘ Yadda yadda’?”

  “Don’t start. Cora told me about talking to Alfred Adams and how he seemed nervous, and I told her he was probably still up, because the stage lights were on.”

  “So you went over looking for Alfred and found the tech director hanging from a rope?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Over a pulley and tied to the pinrail?”

  “Yeah. Just like the sandbag. If you’d been out there singing, someone could have dropped him on you.”

  “Charming,” Becky muttered. “So, what’s the police theory of the case?”

  Sherry gave Becky a rundown of what Cora had told her.

  “Interesting,” Becky said. “So he was part of the Nativity?”

  “Yes. Not during the crucial time. But he might have seen something.”

  “Maybe that’s the wrong track.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I would say it’s far more likely he knew something about that sandbag.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like who dropped it. Only we get into moron territory. How could someone possibly know that much and not talk?”

  “True,” Sherry said. “But there are other possibilities.”

  “Such as?”

  “The puzzle poems. Maybe he saw someone leaving a puzzle poem. Or happened to know who had a bunch of red envelopes.”

  “Sure,” Becky said. “Or maybe he knew who was blowgun champ. We got so many bizarre elements to these crimes you can almost take your pick.”

  “So what are we going to do?” Sherry asked.

  “I can tell you what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna smile and say ‘No comment’ every time someone shoves a microphone in your face.”

  “That’s gonna make for great public opinion.”

  “Just tell ’em your lawyer’s making all statements for you.”

  “You must love that,” Sherry told her.

  “Don’t be silly,” Becky said. Her eyes were wide. “Believe me, I don’t like this at all.”

  Sherry didn’t believe her for one minute.

  36

  CORA FELTON DREAMED SHE WAS BEING ARRESTED. IT WAS A strange dream, because while Cora could think of many things she might be arrested for, it wasn’t for any of them. Instead, she was being arrested for shoplifting, something she had never done, and never would do. But that didn’t matter. The police were there, and they had a warrant, and the warrant was for shoplifting.

  Cora was charged with stealing a blowgun. Stealing it, and then hanging it from a sandbag onstage. A sandbag with lights focused on it. Pink- and blue-gelled lights, aimed in all directions, but somehow focused on the same place. The place where she was.

  Swiping a blowgun.

  Getting arrested.

  Cora opened her eyes to find Chief Harper standing over her. Good God, she was being arrested.

  Cora blinked. Her mouth fell open as it dawned on her where she was.

  “Excuse me!” she exclaimed. “What the devil are you doing in my bedroom?”

  “Sorry,” Chief Harper said. “It’s eleven o’clock. I thought you’d be up.”

  “You thought wrong. I was up all night. I’m sleeping now. And—” Cora broke off angrily. “What difference does that make? Get the hell out of my bedroom!”

  “Of course, of course. I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

  “I don’t want to meet you in the kitchen,” she retorted, but Chief Harper had clomped out.

  Cora snorted in disgust. She didn’t want to give Chief Harper the satisfaction of talking to him, but she was too wide awake now to go back to sleep, and she really wanted to hear what he had to say.

  Grousing mightily, Cora heaved herself out of bed and put on her clothes. As a gesture of defiance she pulled on her Wicked Witch of the West dress, a comfortable but tattered smock that sported cigarette burns and a liquor stain or two, and wasn’t meant for company. Which suited her just fine. Chief Harper wasn’t company.

  Cora freshened up in the bathroom and went in the kitchen to meet the chief. She found him pouring a cup of coffee.

  “You made coffee?” she said skeptically.

  “Your niece must have. It’s still warm. Want some?”

  Being offered coffee in her own kitchen after being rousted out of a nightmare seemed the ultimate insult. “No,” she said curtly. She marched to the refrigerator, took out tomato juice, mixed herself a Bloody Mary. She did not offer one to the chief. He would not have drunk on duty, and Cora knew that.

  Cora sat at the table, lit a cigarette, and said, “This better be good.”

  “It gets worse by the moment. I don’t know what to do.”

  “You think my niece committed murder?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You arrested her for it.”

  “You have to admit I had no choice.”

  “I have to admit nothing of the sort. I know she didn’t do it. You know she didn’t do it. What the hell is going on? Ever since this thing happened, you’ve been acting like a stranger. You let this refugee from a BBC crime show walk all over you. What gives?”

  Harper sipped his coffee, observed, “A little cold.”


  “Zap it fifteen seconds in the microwave, medium high. That should give you time to think of an answer.”

  Chief Harper put the coffee in the microwave, said, “How do you start this thing?”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sakes! Even I can use a microwave.” Cora elbowed him aside ruthlessly, punched in the code, and hit START. “Are you always so helpless?”

  Harper winced.

  Cora sat at the table, took a drag on her cigarette, picked up her drink, and pondered its scarlet depths glumly.

  The microwave bleeped.

  Chief Harper picked up the coffee, sat down again. “I’m in a bad position. Worse than usual. Usually, I’m just being pushed by the prosecutor. This time, it’s money.”

  Cora frowned. “Excuse me?”

  “The Taggarts have money. The Taggarts have clout. You know how many facilities in Bakerhaven have the Taggart name on them? The new rec hall. The visitors center. The elementary school playground. The high school science lab. Hell, even the town hall renovations.”

  “You’re telling me the Taggarts have enough dough to railroad Sherry into jail for killing Dorrie?”

  “They’ve got enough money to make life unpleasant. And the fact is, Taggart and Doddsworth were great buddies way back when. Played golf together. Hung out. Daughters were inseparable. Threw them together.”

  “So tell me something I don’t know.”

  “When Doddsworth went back to England, he wanted to take his wife and daughter with him. His wife wouldn’t come.”

  “Because they’d had a fight. I know that too.”

  “You know what they fought about?”

  “No, but don’t judge me too harshly. I got here ten years after the fact.”

  “Rumor has it they had an affair.”

  “They? Who’s they?”

  “Taggart and Doddsworth’s wife.”

  Cora’s eyes widened. “You don’t say.”

  “That was the rumor at the time. Now, I know you women are better at rumors than we are—better at details, I mean—but the way I understand it, when Doddsworth found out, he didn’t want to stay. It’s a small town, everybody knew, Taggart was his best friend. It was just too soap operaish for him, and he didn’t like the role he was playing. He felt he had to leave.”

  “And that’s why he dumped his wife?”

  “No. He wanted her to come. She wouldn’t.”

  “She wanted to stay with Taggart?”

  “No, she just wanted to stay. She wasn’t going to be pushed around.”

  Cora considered that. She recalled Pamela Doddsworth’s fury at her ex-husband invading her home, ordering her about.

  “So Doddsworth comes back to see his daughter after all those years. Walks into an atmosphere that’s supercharged to begin with, and bumps into a murder. And who does the victim turn out to be? The teenage daughter of the man who cuckolded him. And his own daughter’s best friend.” Harper spread his hands. “Who stole his daughter’s boyfriend. Duplicating the whole sorry situation. A Taggart stealing a Doddsworth’s lover away.”

  “Oh, good lord,” Cora murmured. There were cigarette ashes all over her dress.

  “Exactly. Doddsworth did nothing to strike back, but was his daughter made of sterner stuff? Did his daughter avenge herself on the Taggarts?”

  “Sterner stuff?”

  “Sorry. The situation lends itself to clichés.”

  “Glad to hear it. You’ve known all this from the start? Couldn’t you have let me in on it?”

  “At what juncture? The girl gets killed. Doddsworth’s daughter asks him to investigate. And when we start interrogating the witnesses, I get my marching orders before you even find the blowpipe.”

  “Orders from whom?”

  “From the county prosecutor. But he’s just preaching the gospel according to Taggart. And Mr. Taggart has requested Jonathon Doddsworth go along for the ride.”

  “Why?”

  “Claims he wants his daughter’s murder solved. And he doesn’t trust me to do it.”

  “Sorry I asked.”

  “That’s just what he said. Frankly, I don’t buy it. It may be perfectly true, but I don’t think it’s the reason. I think Taggart looked at the evidence and saw exactly what I saw. A motive for Maxine to kill Dorrie. Assigning Doddsworth is saying, ‘I think your daughter killed my daughter. Disprove it if you can. Otherwise I want to rub your nose in it by making you dig out the facts that convict her.”

  “You think Taggart’s that vindictive?”

  “He just lost his daughter. His only child. I can’t conceive how vindictive he might be.”

  “Granted.” Cora nodded. “But if you’ll pardon a real stupid question, if all the evidence points to Doddsworth’s daughter, why have you arrested my niece?”

  “Because more evidence points to her.” As Cora started to protest, Chief Harper said firmly, “Please. Don’t try to sell me on her innocence. The thing is, with all this public scrutiny, and outside pressure from Taggart via the selectmen and the prosecutor, I can’t fail to act on the evidence, even if it points in a direction I don’t like.”

  “Suppose it pointed at Maxine Doddsworth?”

  “I would have to arrest Maxine Doddsworth.”

  “Of course you would. Suppose someone was manipulating the evidence so it pointed away from Maxine Doddsworth?”

  Chief Harper scowled, did not answer.

  Cora sighed through a haze of cigarette smoke. “So, where do we stand?”

  “Nowhere. The second murder, rather than simplifying the situation, complicates it. Plus it’s the wrong victim again. By rights, the victim should have been Alfred Adams, the techie. But, no, it’s gotta be the guy who had nothing to do with anything.”

  “Did you find a letter saying ‘Wrong guy’?”

  “You know we didn’t. You were there when we didn’t find it.”

  “I mean since. You didn’t find a puzzle poem?”

  “If we had, I’d have asked you to solve it.”

  Cora thanked her lucky stars that hadn’t happened. “What does the techie say?”

  “Alfred finished plugging lights and went home just before midnight.”

  “Leaving the lights on?”

  “He says he turned ’em off.”

  “What about Jesse Virdon?”

  “He says Virdon wasn’t there. Alfred turned off the lights and locked up.”

  “How’d Virdon get in?”

  “He had keys.” Chief Harper snorted. “After all, he taught technical theater.”

  “Why do you say it like that?”

  “A background check on the late Mr. Virdon shows he drifted into town this fall, got a teaching job at the high school with glowing references. Ten minutes on the phone was enough to prove almost all of them were forged. The late Jesse Virdon may have had artistic talent, but he was actually a product of the Pennsylvania social services system, who spent most of his life in juvenile correctional facilities for offenses ranging from petty theft to attempted rape.”

  Cora’s mouth fell open. “Rape?”

  “Attempted rape. Hell of a nice guy to have hanging around the high school. With his record, he should be the killer, not the victim.”

  “Suppose he was the killer? And he hung himself in remorse.”

  Harper nodded. “Wouldn’t that solve all our problems? But no such luck. Barney Nathan says Virdon was hit over the head, most likely with a two-by-four, then strung up over the stage.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Yeah.” The chief sounded glum.

  “You got anything else?”

  “Not much. Guess where the blowpipe came from.”

  “Am I supposed to tell you and give myself away?”

  Chief Harper snapped his fingers in mock disgust. “Darn. Outsmarted me there. Blowgun came from an antiques shop. Larry Fishman’s place.”

  “Who bought it?”

  “He did.”

  “Huh?”

  Harper grinned.
“Sorry. Couldn’t resist. Larry died last spring. Shop’s been closed ever since.”

  “Then how’d you trace the blowgun?”

  “Dan Finley recalled seeing it in the window. So did I, after he mentioned it. Not part of a display. Just lying there, with a bunch of other items. Real hodgepodge. Right there in the window. Larry wasn’t much of an antiques dealer.”

  “How’d the killer get it?”

  “Wasn’t that hard. Jimmied a side window. Just the sort of stunt you’d pull.”

  “So now you think I’m the killer?”

  “No, but you did find the blowgun in the church. Doddsworth thinks you might have put it there to take the heat off your niece, make it look like someone else could have committed the murder from a distance.”

  “What about the dart?”

  Harper shrugged. “No one recalls seeing a dart in the window. With the blowgun, that is. So maybe it came from the antiques shop, maybe it didn’t. The theory that it didn’t ties in with the theory that you stole the blowgun. However, the dart fits the blowgun, and there’s every indication they go together.”

  “Thank goodness for small favors. How about the poison? Is it the arrow poison of the South American Indians?”

  “Would you expect anything less?”

  “I was joking.”

  “I could tell.”

  “So what’s the poison?”

  “Curare. The arrow poison of the South American Indians.”

  “Give me a break!”

  “It’s not that unusual. Curare is also used in surgery. Most likely it was stolen from a hospital.”

  “And the dart was dipped in it?”

  “There were traces on the dart.”

  “You got your murder weapon. Why don’t you look happy? What’s wrong with the evidence?”

  Harper grimaced, sipped his coffee, grimaced again. “The curare used in surgery is not for the purpose of killing the patient. The amount that would cling to a dart would hardly be a lethal dose.”