Corpus de Crossword

by Nero Blanc

  “What library? There’s a library in L.A.?”

  “Doesn’t matter. The point is, the concept is based on a true story. A true crime.”

  “I’m all ears, Chick.” Lee almost sounded as if he meant it.

  “Okay, last winter in Vermont … That’s in New England. Snow, pretty scenery, and dynamite product placement for the automotive industry … Four-wheel-drive heaven, if you get my drift … Anyway, four couples get themselves snowed in at a country inn … They’re stuck. The phone lines are out. Plows can’t get through for an entire weekend, and guess what? This really happened. You’re gonna love this—”

  “I’ve got another call. Hold on.”

  While Lee attended to a more important client, Chick retrieved Uncle Bart’s work, then studied the answers to the crossword. “Ahh, Uncle Bart. What the heck is this?” He shook his head. “You can’t do this—”

  “Can’t do what?” Lee was back on the line.

  “Nothing. Nothing. Just talking to myself.”

  “So what happened in Vermont?”

  “One of the eight snowbound people turned up dead in the middle of the night.”

  “We’re back to dead again?”

  “This is solid stuff, Lee,” Chick pleaded.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll bite, murder or accident?”

  “Murder, of course. The straight skinny, too. I’ve got newspaper clippings to prove it—”

  “You stole newspapers from the library?”

  Lie number four: “Ahh, no. They’re photocopies.”

  On the other end of the line, Chick could hear Lee light a cigarette—a good sign. He was interested. “So, where’s this crossword fit in?”

  “It seems one of the guests at the inn was a puzzle editor from a Massachusetts newspaper; a babe by the name of Annabella Graham. She was there with her husband, who just happens to be a private eye. His name is Rosco—is that great or what? Who names their kid Rosco? Anyway, the rest of the couples were foodies—you know, amateur chefs … They worked together as well as socialized together. Taking a yearly trip to the inn was a tradition, but—and here’s the kicker—one of the original couples was a no-show. Instead, the wife sent a special dessert recipe, a sort of ‘sorry, we’re missing the fun,’ and hid it in a crossword puzzle—”

  “I’m fuzzy on this, Chick. Where’s the connection between death and a puzzle …? Oh, and before you go any further, who was killed: a male or a female?”

  “Male.”

  “Good. No one’s buying dead dames right now.”

  Chick made mental note of the fact. “It was a he … The victim was one of the husbands. At first, no one knew how he died. Was it poison? Strangulation? Ordinary heart attack? Suffocation?”

  “Nobody had a cell phone?”

  “Sure. But what difference would it make? No one could come in or go out.”

  “So who did it?”

  “That’s where the crossword comes in. It seems there was a secret message in the puzzle, and this Anna Graham babe figured it out, and then fingered the guilty party.”

  “So who did it?”

  “Who cares. Don’t you see, Lee, that’s the pitch.”

  “To be honest, no, I don’t see. What pitch?”

  Chick took a deep breath. “Okay, follow closely.” Lie number five: “I’ve worked out a fictionalized treatment based on the research I’ve done. What we have is a mystery story with everything hanging on the puzzle … And here’s the kicker—we cobroker a deal with a network and a magazine publisher, so the show’s crossword appears on airdate. That way the viewer gets to solve the crime right alongside Miss Annabella Graham!”

  “I thought you said she was married?”

  “Mrs., Miss, what difference does it make?”

  “According to my divorce lawyer, quite a bit.”

  “Okay, Lee, fine. But can’t you see this? We publish the puzzle in TV Guide or something—”

  “They already have a crossword.”

  “Okay … okay … We put it in a magazine that needs a circulation boost. They’ll love it. The show sells the mag—the mag sells the show! I think Playboy’s circulation has been down lately.”

  “Playboy?”

  “Okay, maybe not Playboy. But I’m telling you, anyone would jump at this. It’s a great hook. It’s a money hook.” Chick looked at a note Bart had scrawled in the margin of his treatment. “Did you know that forty million Americans do crossword puzzles every single day?”

  “Where’d you get that?”

  Lie number six: “I’m a professional, Lee. I do my homework. You check the numbers if you don’t believe me.”

  “Humm.” Lee was thinking it over. “Maybe you have something.”

  “Have something? Have something? Call Stan McKenet. He produces Down & Across. He’ll eat this up.”

  “It’s a game show, Chick. Stan doesn’t produce nighttime drama.”

  “Call him. Call him right now. I’ll stay on hold. Dollars to doughnuts he eats this up in a second—game show or no game show.”

  “You got a title?”

  “You’re going to love this.” Lie number seven: “I was up all last night working on it. Anatomy of a Crossword.”

  “I like it.”

  “I told you. I told you. Call Stan. I’ll hold.”

  While Chick was on hold, he once again glanced over Uncle Bart’s treatment and puzzle. It was all there. All he had to do was create the working script. However, there was one slight problem; Uncle Bart’s puzzle contained the true identities of the people involved in the true crime. He knew full well that any network legal department would balk on using real names. Chick needed to get a new puzzle for his pitch to fly.

  Lee came back on the line and said one word. “Pass.”

  “What?”

  “Stan McKenet passed.”

  “Get out of here. No way. You didn’t pitch it right.”

  “I told you, Stan doesn’t do nighttime. He’s strictly game show.” Lee lit a second cigarette—he was still thinking. A good sign. “You’ve got a puzzle you can serve up with the treatment, right?”

  “Ahh … Yeah. But here’s the thing …” Lie number eight: “I created it, and I’m not real happy with some of the clues. It needs a little tweaking here and there. We’re marketing to a savvy audience, a clever audience—”

  “I’m going to call Lew Groslir, in Culver City, for you. He’s looking for something. This may be it.”

  Lie number nine: “Lew Groslir. Right. Tell Lew I’ve contacted Anna Graham to make an original crossword for the show—if he bites. She’s got a solid following among puzzle fanatics—a built-in audience. How’s that for a hook?”

  “You spoke to her? You have this all set up?”

  Lie number ten: “Would I lie to you? We talked last night. I phoned all the way to … Ahh … Ahh …” Chick shuffled through Bart’s news clippings. “All the way to … Newcastle, Massachusetts. That’s where she lives. It’s back East. She’s on board. Can’t wait for the go-ahead. And I can tell you, she’ll be thrilled to work with Lew.”

  “Obviously she’s never met him … Okay, hold on, let me see if I can get him on the line.”

  “Lee?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve got one word: Forty million people.”

  A brief sigh emanated from the receiver. “Right.”

  For Chick, it felt like an eternity before he heard his agent’s voice again; it was quite obvious Lee was already on his third cigarette. “You’re in,” he said, dispensing with a more traditional greeting. “Tomorrow morning at eleven. It’s 10411 Culver, third floor … And, Chick?”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t blow this one.”

  All that was back in August.

  CHAPTER 2

  Gray enveloped the windows of Belle Graham’s home office: leaden gray intermingled with spurts of sleet and frozen rain that spattered hard and dismally against the panes. Simply trying to peer through the murky glas
s into the small garden made her feel cold and miserable. This spirit of hopelessness seemed to extend outward. The three yew bushes she could see had lost their usual buoyant elan, while the lack of bird life normally clustered around the squirrel-proof feeder was the coup de grâce, turning the frigid and sodden day even more woebegone and cheerless. Welcome to late January in coastal Massachusetts, she thought. Welcome to ice-covered roads, grizzled, somber skies, snow and more snow—and more snow after that. Spring seemed a long, long way away.

  Belle put down her pencil, shoved aside the sheet of graph paper upon which she’d begun constructing a new crossword for Newcastle’s Evening Crier, shivered, and gazed at her dog Kit. The lanky, multicolored mutt lay curled in happy, puppy dreamland near the base of an overworked space heater. The electronic device was struggling in vain to keep the house’s converted rear porch at a temperature that could be deemed remotely habitable and pleasant. Studying both the dog and the heater, Belle momentarily considered stretching out on the floor beside Kit and borrowing a little of her furry warmth. Instead, Belle sighed, pulled the long cuffs of her bulky cable-knit sweater over her hands, hunched her shoulders, and wondered whether she should search for her down vest—and then whether the interminable dark days of winter were ever going to depart.

  The phone rang, interrupting her gloomy reverie. She reached for it, forgetting to peel back her sweater-mitten. The combination of clenched fingers and wool sent the receiver spinning to the floor, where it clattered sharply against the painted wood floorboards. The sharp noise woke Kit, who immediately sprang to her feet and began barking at the garden door.

  “It’s okay, Kitty. It’s just the phone,” Belle said as she bent to rescue the receiver. “Nobody’s outside … Nobody would want to be outside … Shhh …”

  “… I can’t believe Legal didn’t set this up! They should be shot!” a male voice bellowed when she finally lifted the chilly plastic receiver to her ear. “I mean, I can’t do everything, can I? And if you consider how fast they got contracts out to the others … They’d never pull a stunt like this with a cast member, I’ll tell you that much. In a word, the show’s technical consultant should at least be awarded the same courtesy as the actors!”

  Belle squinted in confusion while her eyes drifted back to the crossword on her desk. “Pardon me? Who’s calling?”

  “Chick Darlessen, of course.” The voice on the other end of the line sounded outraged—more than outraged. Belle couldn’t detect whether it was a result of her query or his own personal problem. She was about to inform her irate caller that he’d gotten the wrong number when he blurted out an aggrieved, “This is Annabella Graham, isn’t it? The crossword editor? The crossword sleuth, I should say?”

  Belle took a moment to answer. To say, “You have the wrong number,” seemed a tempting response, but she realized he would only call her back. So she reluctantly admitted, “Yes …”

  “Well, my idiot secretary got something right! Glory be! She assured me she had you holding on the line, Ms. Graham …”

  Belle looked at the spot on the floor where the phone had fallen, as if it might yield some vital piece of omitted information: words on paper, or perhaps individual letters scattered across the wood forming the missing link in this peculiar conversation.

  “… As I was saying, I can’t believe Legal made such a heinous blunder. I’ll take it upon myself to apologize for them. Yours should have been one of the first contracts issued, instead of waiting for the word from me—the creator.” It was said as if he had a direct line to the real Creator.

  Belle ran a hand through her blonde hair; it was a habitual gesture when she was perplexed. Her frown of incomprehension increased. “I’m afraid I really don’t know what you’re talking about Mr.—”

  “The M.O.W., of course”

  “M.O.W.?”

  “Movie of the week …? Anatomy of a Crossword! The TV movie.” He sighed audibly and ferociously. “Okay, here it is—the M.O.W. I’m the screenwriter … more significantly, the creator of the show … And you’re going to be our technical consultant? Yes? No? Yes? Right? At least, you’re supposed to be—if Legal hadn’t totally screwed up and failed to contact you two months ago … And, please, please, please don’t tell me you’re unavailable. I’ll just shoot myself in that case … I mean, we need you on the set, like yesterday. Look, Anna—”

  “It’s, Belle … My name is, Belle. Not Anna.”

  Belle’s eyes returned to the streaked, frosty window panes. A number of thoughts raced through her brain: first, April Fool’s Day was a long way off; second, although this Darlessen person was obviously upset, he didn’t sound completely irrational or necessarily dangerous, that is, he didn’t seem typical of one of the prank callers she had become accustomed to; and third, “Legal.” That was always a potent word as far as she was concerned. As a constructor and an editor of a newspaper’s daily crossword, as well as the creator of a number of puzzle collections, she knew about deadlines and what was or was not binding—contractwise.

  “I’m going to have to ask you to step back a moment, Mr. Darlessen. Whoever was supposed to contact me from Legal, didn’t, and in reality, I haven’t a clue as to what you’re talking about. Sorry.”

  Another aggravated sigh greeted Belle’s response. “I’m going to personally murder those morons at the studio. I am! I swear I am … This is the last time I sign on to do anything with Groslir, I swear … Look, we’ve got Shay Henlee, Dan Millray, Andy Hofren—”

  “To do what?” Belle asked. She recognized the names: all famous actors whose monikers had appeared numerous times in Bartholomew Kerr’s Evening Crier gossip column.

  “To do what?! Why, to film your story, of course!” Darlessen groaned.

  “My—?” Looking at Kit, who was now circling around as though creating a nest in a bed of leaves before lying down, Belle realized she was as out of sync as her dog. There was Kit, acting out some stone-age memory of caves and campfires, while her human companion, ensconced in a chilly rear porch of an eighteenth-century New England town house, was coping with impossibly glamorous names—movie stars’ names—and the disembodied voice of a man who claimed he’d written a TV show about—Her?

  “You know! The one where you solved the crime at that snowbound country inn … remember, the suspicious recipe … and the crossword …? And the husband who woke up dead the next morning …?”

  Belle didn’t answer for a long minute. She couldn’t, although she vividly recalled the situation to which Chick Darlessen was referring: the secret and unsettling alliances and animosities of the couples involved, as well as the startling amount of media attention the murder had received. The wealth and notoriety of the victim and his erstwhile friends had insured that. But to imagine anyone wanting to make a television movie … Belle shook her head while her glance drifted across her office—a puzzle motif run rampant. There were black and white captains chairs, the wood floor was painted to resemble a crossword grid, curtains were hand-blocked with a similar scheme, and a lamp whose rectangular shade held four of her most clever word games. There was nothing remotely glamorous in sight.

  “Are you still there, Ms. Graham?”

  “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  “So, when can you get out here? I assure you I’ll make … Look, Legal can scramble up all the necessary—”

  “Out where, Mr. Darlessen?”

  “To Hollywood! Well, Culver City, really. That’s where the studio is. We’ll have a limo pick you up at LAX …”

  Belle took another breath. “Mr. Darlessen, you’re going to have to bear with me because I’m not really sure what you need, or want, from me.”

  There was another groan on the other end of the phone as well as a sound like a yelp of despair before Chick Darlessen painstakingly began to explain the situation to Belle. His pitch had been “gobbled up” by heavyweight producer Lew Groslir; Shay Henlee and the other actors had jumped at the chance to do something innovative, something breakaway an
d interactive; Groslir had wooed megabuck director, Dean Dilva, from another project in order to work on Anatomy …

  He concluded in a suddenly honeyed tone. “… Look, with all the screw-ups here, I can certainly understand your hesitation, Anna, Ms. Graham, Belle … Consultant’s get paid, of course … hotel, first-class airfare, you name it. But if you want to negotiate for a higher salary, or perhaps a buy-out, my agent, Lee Rennegor, is your man. Blood from a stone, that’s the type of guy he is—”

  “Well, Mr.—”

  “Chick, sweetheart. Call me Chick, please.”

  “Chick … This is all so new. I’m going to have to talk to my husband—”

  “Rosco Polycrates, right. I got a bio worked up: ex-cop, now a P.I.… But I couldn’t get a pix on him. What is he, camera-shy? The invisible man? How would you describe him? From a Greek-American family, right? Maybe a Magnum type?”

  “Magnum?”

  “We’ve had a little problem with that part, too … Lance diRusa’s going to be testing—”

  “Lance diRusa?!”

  “You disagree with the choice? We can talk. I like your thinking—he’s never been one of my favorites, and nothing’s inked yet—you want someone beefier? I hope we’re not talking a guy with a gut? A Raymond Burr-type … You know what I mean … You remember him? Perry Mason? Nah, you’re probably too young for that.”

  “No, it’s not that—”

  “Lance is a buff chunk of male, no doubt about it. He turns on the fern viewers big time, but it’s all smoke and mirrors with him. I’ve been thinking Quinton Hanny. Major audience, there … Maybe the biggest. The demos—that’s demographics—are positioning the show to be a hit with the gals … Twenty-five to forty-six, that’s our money market … Of course, Shay’s a total fox, so the Annabella Graham part’s gonna have its sexy side … You know, bod and brains. That’s why we can’t go too … eh, large … with Rosco.”

  Belle stared at the phone. Shay Henlee, she thought, the Annabella Graham part, paid consultant, limos, Hollywood agent … It was all too much to consider. “I’m going to have to call you back, Mr.—”