A Clue for the Puzzle Lady

by Parnell Hall

  “No problem,” Cora Felton mumbled. “Can walk. Why you all think I can’t walk?”

  “Of course you can,” Sherry agreed. “It’s all right. It’s all over, and we’re going home.”

  “Gotta talk to the cop,” Cora said. She had not yet spoken to Chief Harper.

  “We’ll talk to him,” Aaron Grant said.

  “You don’t know.”

  “Fill us in.”

  Cora Felton shook her head. “Tell him myself.”

  They reached the front gate, where Chief Harper was working out the logistics of getting Stuart Tanner over the fence. He couldn’t let Stuart go over first—on the other hand, he didn’t want to go over first and leave Stuart alone inside.

  Fortunately, at that moment a police car pulled into the driveway and Dan Finley got out. He spotted Chief Harper framed in his headlights, waved his arms. “Hey, Chief. What’s up?”

  “Got your handcuffs?”

  “Sure do.”

  “Good. I got a prisoner for you.”

  Chief Harper boosted Stuart Tanner over the fence to Dan Finley, who quickly and efficiently handcuffed him and stuck him in the back of his police car.

  Chief Harper helped his daughter over the fence, then helped the others with Cora Felton.

  “Can do it myself,” Cora said, but it was clear that she couldn’t, and they all lent a hand getting her over.

  Another car pulled up to the gate, screeched to a stop. This time it was Ellen Harper. She rushed from the car nearly hysterical at the flashing police lights and all the activity.

  “Dale! Dale!” she yelled to her husband. “Where is she? What happened?” Then she saw her daughter. “Clara! Oh, my God, Clara!”

  “Mom!” Clara yelled. She rushed to her, fell into her arms.

  Chief Harper watched and sighed deeply. After holding himself together for so long, he could feel the tension drain out of him.

  Someone grabbed him by the arm. He turned to find Cora Felton peering up at him.

  “Miss Felton,” he said. “Are you all right?”

  She waved her hands at Sherry Carter and Aaron Grant, who stood on either side of her. “All anybody asks is if I’m all right.”

  “I’m sure you are,” Chief Harper said. “Well, congratulations. You solved the case.”

  Cora Felton waggled her finger at him. “No, no, no. You solved the case. Arrested the killer at the scene of his crimes.”

  “Uh huh,” Chief Harper said dryly. “And just how did he happen to be here?”

  “Called him. Told him to come.” She shrugged. “You gotta explain the puzzle clues. Why you withheld them, what they really mean.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Nothing. Tanner made ’em up to invent a Graveyard Killer. When you found out the first clue was phony you knew what he’d done.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Sure you did. That’s why you had me call him and ask him to meet me here. It was a setup. And you wanna know the payoff?” Cora Felton raised her finger and almost lost her balance. But she was so into what she was saying she didn’t even notice. “Asked him to meet me where we found the murder weapon. Which proves he did it. Only the murderer knew where that was.”

  “Right,” Chief Harper said. “Why would he ever agree to meet you there?”

  “Don’t be silly. It’s not like I let him argue it. I told him where to meet me and hung up.”

  “But showing up was an admission of guilt.”

  “So what? He wasn’t going to let me leave alive. And calling him showed him I already knew.” Cora Felton looked around. “His car’s not here, is it?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t think so. Be on a side road somewhere. Same place he parked when he dumped the two bodies. And planted the murder weapon.”

  “What about the letters? They weren’t typed on his machine.”

  “ ’Course not. Typed them in New York. Probably in a store. Went in, used the demonstration model. Except for the last one. Typed that somewhere else.”

  “In the library,” Chief Harper said.

  “Is that right?” Cora Felton nodded. “That fits. Some typewriter everyone had access to. Went in there in broad daylight, typed it up bold as brass. You can ask the librarian. She’ll remember him, comin’ in with his wife newly dead. Good. All the more reason you figured it out.”

  Chief Harper scratched his head. “Look, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but there’s no way I can tell this story and leave you out.”

  She waved her hand. “No big deal. Matter of emphasis.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s all right, Chief,” Aaron Grant said. “I can handle it. It’s all in how I write it up. Yes, she’s part of the story. But the story is you solved the case. And the Barbara Burnside accident.”

  Chief Harper stared at him. “What?”

  “Kevin Roth. Vehicular homicide. He was driving Barbara Burnside’s car at the time of the crash.”

  “Roth was driving?”

  “That’s right. Apparently, Kevin Roth wrote that letter to me warning us off, then freaked out when Dan Finley tried to serve a warrant. Sam Brogan has him in custody.”

  “For the Barbara Burnside accident?” Chief Harper shook his head. “I’m afraid the statute of limitations may have run out on that.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t worry about it.” Aaron jerked his thumb at Sherry Carter. “He also tried to assault her.”

  “He what?”

  “That’s right. He was after her aunt, of course, but she wasn’t home. He came at her with a gun. Actually fired it once. You’ll have a lot of things to charge him with.”

  “I’ll be damned.”

  “At any rate,” Aaron Grant said, “that arrest is a direct result of a police investigation you authorized, culminating in securing a warrant. Which is how I’ll be writing it up.”

  “Uh huh,” Chief Harper said. “Is there anything else I should know?”

  “Plenty. Miss Felton can fill you in. Right now I gotta make a phone call.” Aaron Grant jerked the cellular phone from his jacket pocket, punched in the number of the paper. It rang six times before Bill Dodsworth came on the line.

  “Make it fast. I’m goin’ home,” the editor growled.

  “No, you’re not,” Aaron Grant said calmly. “I got your lead story. They caught the Graveyard Killer.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “I’m not. Hold the front page, I’ll be right there.”

  “Well, don’t kill yourself. We already went to press.”

  “Then stop the presses.”

  “Are you kidding me? The paper’s bein’ run. Now look, you did a good job, this is a big story, you take your time, you write it up for tomorrow.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I write it now. And you go down and stop the presses and retool the front page with the headline GRAVEYARD KILLER CAUGHT. Subheadline, CHIEF HARPER NABS KILLER, CRACKS BARBARA BURNSIDE CASE.”

  “Barbara Burnside? Are you nuts? You can’t mention Barbara Burnside. Her father’s on the warpath. He’ll sue the pants off of us.”

  “Well, he’ll love you for this.”

  “No, he won’t. The paper’s goin’ to bed and I’m goin’ home.”

  “Suit yourself. I’ll be in in fifteen minutes with the story. You can either stop the presses and put it on page one, or you can go home, turn on the TV, and watch Channel 8.”

  “Channel 8?”

  “Yeah. Rick Reed’s doing a feature on the eleven o’clock news on how the Puzzle Lady’s a lush and Chief Harper should be taken off the case.”

  “So?”

  “So now you got your choice. You let Rick Reed run his feature while you’re busy going back to press, then you make him look like a moron tomorrow morning when you undercut him with my story of how Chief Harper and Cora Felton duped everyone including him when they played an act to set a trap for the killer.

/>   “Or you can go home, turn on the eleven o’clock news, and watch Rick Reed interview me. ’Cause I’m breaking this story one way or another.”

  Aaron Grant slipped the phone back in his pocket, looked around.

  At the foot of the driveway, Clara Harper was talking animatedly to her mother, undoubtedly telling her about Jimmy Potter’s heroics.

  Cora Felton and Chief Harper were huddled together getting their stories straight.

  Sherry Carter stood off to one side.

  Aaron went up to her. “I gotta get to the paper. I know you need a ride home, but I gotta write this up.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll be fine.”

  There was something in her tone. He hesitated, then said, “You wanna come with me?”

  She looked up. “What?”

  “You wanna come with me to the paper? Help me go over this? See if there’s anything I missed?”

  Sherry Carter looked at him. She squinted her eyes. Opened her mouth. Shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she told him.

  Aaron Grant frowned. “What’s the matter?”

  Sherry lowered her eyes for a moment, then looked up at him. “I called you tonight. You weren’t at the paper, so I called you at home.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah,” Sherry said. “Oh.”

  “So that was you. I kind of figured it was.”

  “Yeah, that was me. You never mentioned your living arrangements.”

  “Yeah, I know. I guess I was embarrassed.”

  “Embarrassed?”

  “Well, sort of. Particularly with you being from New York.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I know you’re all sophisticated and all that. If you lived here, it wouldn’t seem so bad.”

  “Oh, is that right?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. You know what houses go for in this town. Maybe I’m a little old to live with my parents, but in Bakerhaven that is not so unusual.”

  Sherry gaped at him. “You live with your parents?”

  “I’m gonna get my own place, but I’m just starting out. I’ve only been out of college a year, and—Hey, what’s the matter?”

  Sherry had gasped and turned away. And everything she’d been holding on to for so long—Dennis, the media, and her aunt—all that tension had suddenly been released in the wave of emotion she felt, the rush of joy in hearing he lived with his parents.

  She turned back to him and her eyes glistened. “I’d be glad to come with you to the paper. If you wouldn’t mind taking me somewhere when you’re done.”

  “Sure thing. Where do you want to go?”

  Sherry glanced across the road where Chief Harper had joined his wife and daughter, was hugging them both in relief.

  She looked at Aaron and her smile was wistful. “You happen to know where the Burnsides live?”

  Solution

  About the Author

  PARNELL HALL is the author of the acclaimed Stanley Hastings mystery novels and the Steve Winslow courtroom dramas, as well as five other Puzzle Lady mysteries, A Clue for the Puzzle Lady, Last Puzzle & Testament, Puzzled to Death, A Puzzle in a Pear Tree, and With This Puzzle I Thee Kill. Nominated for the Edgar, the Shamus, and the Lefty awards, he lives in New York City, where he is working on his sixth Puzzle Lady mystery, And a Puzzle to Die On.