by Parnell Hall
“Shame? Are you saying he was involved with Dorrie Taggart? That was what those late rehearsals were all about? Rupert was the secret father? That’s why he killed her? That’s what he was trying to cover up?”
“Not at all.”
Aaron groaned. “Then why? Why did he kill her?”
“Because she couldn’t act.”
Aaron blinked. “What?”
“She was a rotten actress. She was ruining his play. The Seagull. She had the juvenile lead. The part of Nina. It’s a key role. She had to start off young and naive, then come back world-weary after having had an affair and giving birth to a child who died. She had the heart-wrenching lines, ‘I’m a seagull. No, that’s not it. I’m an actress.’ And the poor girl couldn’t act worth a damn.”
“How do you know?”
Cora grimaced. “Everyone told me. And I didn’t listen. What finally clued me in was when Alfred Adams said she was terrible.”
Aaron frowned. “The techie? He doesn’t strike me as a particularly astute drama critic.”
“Yeah, that’s what made the penny drop. It occurred to me if Alfred thought Dorrie was really bad, she must really stink.
“Then there was Rupert himself. He kept going on about what a blow it was to lose Dorrie. How it crippled his beloved play. Why? Because the exact opposite was true.”
“He killed Dorrie over her acting?”
“In his mind he had no choice. He was brought in to take over the drama department. And he comes with the baggage of a Broadway background. People expect a lot of him because he’s a pro.
“So, he’s absolutely obsessed with his first impression. You saw how he was with the pageant. Well, the school play was a thousand times worse. He needs The Seagull to be the high school production to end all high school productions. And here’s this klutzy young actress playing the romantic lead.”
“Why didn’t he replace her?”
“Dorrie’s parents contribute huge amounts to Bakerhaven High. You don’t go bouncin’ their brat out of the school play.”
“And Rupert really killed himself?”
“Yep. Better than going to jail, and having people know he was so vain, self-centered, and insecure that he would kill rather than put on a bad show.”
“But no one knows that now.”
“Yes.” Cora smiled. “But he didn’t know what Doddsworth was going to say at Dorrie’s funeral.”
“How did Doddsworth ever come up with such an outlandish story?”
“I made it up.”
“What?!”
“I told him what to say. He said it.”
“But it’s a lie.”
“So what? It’s Christmas. We’re used to holiday lies. What’s the first thing we teach our kids? Santa Claus. Flying reindeer. Elves.”
“It’s a little different.”
“Not much. Santa Claus is a harmless pleasantry that lets kids get presents. Figure this story is my Christmas present to Bakerhaven. It’s what people needed to hear, and what they needed to do. Jonathon Doddsworth needs to be a hero in his daughter’s eyes. And his ex-wife’s. The Taggarts need to grieve for Dorrie and build a theater in her honor. They can’t do that if people know why she really died.”
“But the truth—”
“The truth is there’s no such thing as Santa Claus. You wanna drop by some nursery school and tell the kids the truth? It’s what a responsible journalist would do.” Cora sighed. “In a perfect world, Dorrie wouldn’t have been in the play. Or Rupert Winston wouldn’t have been hired to direct her. But we don’t live in a perfect world. We’ve got to work with what we’ve got.”
Aaron got to his feet. “Well, thanks a bunch. What the hell do I do now? Anything true I can’t use. Anything I can use is a lie.”
“Would you rather she hadn’t told you?” Sherry asked.
“And you get to say things like that.” Aaron shook his head. “I’m gonna go talk to people who don’t know anything. Maybe I can get a story out of them.”
Aaron jumped down from the stable and hurried off toward the church, where Doddsworth was still being interviewed.
“See?” Cora said to Sherry. “Men just don’t like honest women.”
“Yeah,” Sherry said. “I notice, Miss Honest Woman, that you didn’t happen to mention the little matter of Dorrie’s paternity.”
“Aaron had a lot to take in. No need to bog him down with too many details.”
“You don’t intend to tell him, do you? And you don’t want me to tell him, either.”
“Trust me, Sherry, keeping secrets from a man is a very important marital skill. You could use the practice.”
“Aunt Cora—”
Sherry broke off at the sight of Harvey Beerbaum trudging through the snow. “Cora!” Harvey called. “Cora! Come on. We need you.”
“Me? What for?”
“We’re going caroling. The lords a-leaping, the maids a-milking, and anyone else we can get.”
“Now?”
“Sure, now. We need to put these things behind us. Like it was any other Christmas. Caroling is just the ticket.”
“Harvey, I can’t sing.”
“It doesn’t matter. Just mouth the words. Even if you don’t sing a note, we can use your moral support.”
“I see.” Cora looked over to the road, where the carolers were assembling, bundled in bright coats and scarves and mittens. Several of the Bakerhaven selectmen were among them. “I don’t suppose this Christmas fervor has anything to do with the fact the TV people are still filming interviews?”
“Well,” Harvey said. “The selectmen felt it would be nice if any news report painted a picture of a plucky town carrying on in the face of adversity. And our carolers are more apt to rate coverage if you’re one of them.”
“Doddsworth seems to have the news crews pretty well occupied.”
“Well, sure. He’s a hero. He cracked the case. And he’s a human-interest story to boot, reuniting with his wife and daughter. They were even talking like they might go back to England with him.”
“You don’t say? Well, it’s gonna be mighty tough competing with that.”
Harvey, missing the irony, said, “Yes, it is. Will you come?”
“Duty calls.” Cora smiled at Sherry, hopped down from the stable, and set off across the village green, chatting with Harvey Beerbaum. They reached the road and joined the carolers, a hardy, ragtag band led by Mr. Hodges, the music teacher, who was busy instructing them on what to sing. Cora, who had no intention of singing a note, immediately tuned out and looked over at the church, where Jonathon Doddsworth was still holding forth. Pamela and Maxine were looking on, as were Aaron Grant, Becky Baldwin, Chief Harper, Rick Reed and the Channel 8 News team, and about half of Bakerhaven.
The Taggarts were long gone, but not, according to Harvey, before Horace Taggart had made a brief statement, thanking Doddsworth for finding Dorrie’s killer.
Cora smiled at the thought.
A nudge in the ribs from Harvey finally brought her back to the present. Mr. Hodges was holding up his hands and humming a starting note. The note meant nothing to her, but Cora snapped to attention just as the carolers launched into “Away in a Manger.” It occurred to her the title was the only part of the song she actually knew. It also occurred to her that “Away in a Manger” was a somewhat insensitive choice of song, under the circumstances.
Cora looked over at the crèche.
Sherry sat in the stable, all alone, the last surviving Virgin Mary. Cleared of a murder charge. Freed from her legal representation. Worrying, no doubt, about keeping the truth from her boyfriend. More than likely, Cora figured, she’d tell Aaron. And he’d wind up keeping the secret. Just for her.
Ah, young love. Cora remembered it well.
She remembered all of them well.
The carolers swung around, headed for the church. As the selectmen had hoped, they seemed to be attracting the attention of the TV people.
Cora joined in w
ith great gusto, bluffing the song, just as she always bluffed her puzzle-making expertise. As the cameras rolled, she smiled her trademark Puzzle Lady smile and marched along in the snow, heartily mouthing the words.
If you enjoyed Parnell Hall’s A PUZZLE IN A PEAR TREE, you won’t want to miss any of the mysteries in this series beloved by readers and acclaimed by reviewers everywhere! Look for them at your favorite bookseller’s.
And turn the page for a tantilizing preview
of the next Puzzle Lady mystery,
WITH THIS PUZZLE, I THEE KILL,
coming in hardcover from Bantam Books
in December 2003.
WITH THIS PUZZLE, I THEE KILL
by
PARNELL HALL
On Sale in December 2003
Prologue
“ARE YOU GOING TO WEAR WHITE?” SHERRY CARTER ASKED.
Cora Felton flailed her way through the profusion of material the seamstress had managed to drape about her body, then shot her niece a reproving look. “Of course I’m going to wear white. I always wear white when I get married. Except what’s-his-name, who wanted me to wear the frou-frou thing.” She grimaced at the memory. “That really should have given me the hint.”
“It certainly should have,” Sherry agreed, a little too quickly. In Sherry’s opinion, all of Cora’s husbands had been undesirable, and she marveled at the fact it had taken marrying them to get Cora to see that.
Cora Felton, though quite aware of her niece’s views, was not at all sympathetic to them. After all, Sherry’s marriage had been an absolute disaster.
“Is that right?” Cora said. “I bet you don’t even know which one I’m talking about.”
“Do you?” Sherry shot back.
Cora frowned: Which damn husband was it who had wanted the unorthodox ceremony? Unorthodox. Was it the Jewish one? No, he’d gone along with the church wedding.
“Could you keep your arms up?” the seamstress asked, a trifle too sweetly. Cora had been squirming like an octopus ever since the fitting began, and the woman’s nerves were getting frayed.
“Not if you’re gonna poke me,” Cora grumbled defensively. “If you’re gonna poke me, I’m gonna move.”
“I’m not going to poke you,” the seamstress said, edgily. She was a lean woman in work shirt and jeans, with her hair cut in bangs, and a kerchief around her neck. To Cora, the scissors stuck in the woman’s belt began to look like a weapon.
The bridal shop where Cora was being fitted for a wedding gown was in New York City. Had it been in her hometown of Bakerhaven, Connecticut, Cora would undoubtedly have been recognized instantly as the Puzzle Lady, famous for both her crossword puzzle column and her TV commercials, but the seamstress here in the big city didn’t seem to have a clue. Not that Cora expected special treatment. Still, it would have been nice not to merit contempt.
“I didn’t think you could remember,” Sherry told Cora.
“A lot of them tend to blend together,” Cora admitted. “You’ve only been married once. Any memories you have are apt to be right.”
“You make that sound like a bad thing.”
“Well, your marriage was.”
“I was talking about quantity, not quality.”
“Please,” Cora protested. “No wordplay, or I’ll go nuts.”
The seamstress gasped. “Oh, my God, you’re the Puzzle Lady! Here I am working on you, and you’re the Puzzle Lady! Goodness, how extraordinary!”
Cora didn’t feel obliged to point out just how ordinary it was for her to get married. Nevertheless, some self-deprecating gesture was indicated. Cora resented that. The woman abuses her for an hour, then makes her apologize.
“It’s really nothing,” Cora told her. “But this wedding is important to me. Even if it’s not important to my niece.”
The seamstress, not five minutes from flinging Cora around like a rag doll, now sprang to her defense. “How can you say that?” she demanded of Sherry. “Of course the wedding must be just right.”
Sherry groaned. Here she was, getting the worst of it on all fronts. And maddeningly so. The accusations were unfair, unjust, and dead wrong. In point of fact, Sherry Carter wrote the crossword puzzle column her aunt took credit for. If the truth be known, Cora Felton couldn’t construct a puzzle if her life depended on it. Not that she wanted to. Cora Felton didn’t even like crossword puzzles. She liked solving crimes, and was unusually adept at it. Puzzles, on the other hand, left her cold.
The seamstress, writhing in the death throes of the terminally star-struck, simpered, “You’re going to need some more lace. The grander the wedding, the grander the lace, that’s what I always say. You would not believe the way I can streamline a gown.” She flushed. “Not that you need streamlining, mind. But the lines do make a difference, dear.”
Cora was beginning to miss the acerbic seamstress who thought she was a pain. “Just don’t squeeze me into it like a sausage. If I gotta wear the damn thing all day, I gotta be comfortable.”
The seamstress raised both eyebrows at the word damn. Could this really be the same woman who sold breakfast cereal to children on TV? “I promise you’ll be comfortable. Of course, many brides drop five to ten pounds just before walking down the aisle. We have to take that into consideration.”
“If you do, you’ll bleed from the nose,” Cora informed her. “If I lose weight, you can take the dress in. If I gain weight, you can let it out. Make it fit me now.”
“Yes, of course, dear.”
The seamstress, much chastened, looped some more fabric.
Cora fingered the silk. “Oh, this is nice! You think he’ll like it?”
“He hasn’t even proposed yet,” Sherry pointed out.
Cora waved it away. “That’s a mere formality. Trust me, I’ve been married often enough to know. When it happens, you’ve gotta be ready. I mean, what if the guy proposed, and before you could get the dress made he changed his mind?”
“I would think you’d count yourself lucky you didn’t marry such a fickle man.”
“Oh, yeah? I’ll have you know just such a fickle man paid for my apartment. Men agree to anything when they want to be free.”
The seamstress could not have looked more shocked had Cora just revealed herself to be a phone-sex operator. Cora stuck one finger under the woman’s chin, closed her mouth.
“I don’t care what you say, this is tight. Let’s go one size larger. If you need to, you can take it in. Dear.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You do have it in a larger size, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course. Just let me go look.”
“Good. When you find it, bring it to me. I’m getting out of this straitjacket.”
Cora thrust the veil at Sherry, and stomped off in the direction of the changing rooms.
“Oh, dear,” the seamstress said. “Is she . . . I mean . . . is she really going to buy a dress?”
Sherry smiled. “I don’t think there’s anything I could say that would stop her. Yes, she’s worth waiting on. You can count on the sale.”
The seamstress flushed again. She hurried off to the back of the store to look for a larger wedding gown.
Sherry sat, turning the veil over in her hands. She smiled wistfully. Her own wedding had been an elopement. No gown, no veil, no church service, no guests.
If only that had been the worst of it.
She shrugged off the thought. This was about Cora, not her. This was Cora’s chance for happiness. Just because she couldn’t remember how many chances she’d had shouldn’t diminish its importance. And, assuming it took place, this would be the first of Cora’s weddings Sherry had attended. Cora had asked her to be the maid of honor. Sherry couldn’t disappoint her. She needed to get in the spirit.
Out on the sidewalk, a scraggly young man in black jeans and a sleeveless black T-shirt stood peering in the window of the bridal shop. Razor, as the lead guitarist for the rock band Tune Freaks liked to be called, pushed the matted hair of
f his forehead, rubbed his bleary eyes. To a casual observer, Razor might have appeared stoned out of his mind, but that was just the way Razor always looked. In point of fact, the guitarist could seldom afford drugs, and had long since run out of young women willing to give them to him.
Of late, Razor had been in a particularly foul mood due to the fact the Tune Freaks’ lead singer, Dennis Pride, had quit the band, leaving the singing chores up for grabs. Razor didn’t want to sing, but he didn’t want anyone else in the band to sing, and possibly rival him. So Razor was singing and playing lead guitar. His voice was adequate at best, his guitar playing suffered, and no one in the band was happy.
At the moment, however, Razor appeared to be having either an epiphany or an acid flashback. He stood mesmerized, gazing in the window at the beautiful young woman sitting alone in the Fifth Avenue bridal shop, a beautiful young woman who smiled wistfully and held a bridal veil.
1
CORA FELTON WAS RADIANT. CORA ALWAYS LOOKED GOOD, which was one of the reasons Sherry had chosen Cora’s picture to grace the Puzzle Lady column. But tonight, in the presence of Raymond Harstein III, Cora was positively glowing. She blossomed in his notice, she basked in his gaze.
Sherry Carter was amazed. She had met some of Cora’s husbands, but always after Cora had married them. This was the first time she’d witnessed a courtship, and it was an eye-opening experience. Cora was totally gaga. Seeing her aunt in love helped Sherry understand how Cora had fallen for some of the despicable men she’d managed to wed. The woman was giddy as a schoolgirl.
And on her finger was a ring with a diamond as big as the Ritz.
Cora and Raymond had just gotten engaged.
Much to Sherry’s dismay.
“You are the most gorgeous girl in the world,” Raymond assured Cora.
Sherry Carter shuddered. Her aunt was all decked out in a red satin number that was just a little too young on the one hand, and a little two narrow in the waist on the other. Cora looked perfectly respectable. But the most gorgeous girl in the world? Really.