A Crossworder's Gift (14 page)

“It was a doozie,” Jean agreed. “One of his best. Maybe
the
best … And for such a Hitchcockian evening; it couldn't have been more perfect. I kept thinking of
North by Northwest
and Cary Grant on Mount Rushmore hanging from some presidential proboscis, with nothing but thin air between him and the rocks below.”

The twins appeared with Joe Conrad and Gwen Beckstein. Only Joe seemed unperturbed at the inclement weather. “Saves me from making a fool of myself doing wheelies around that pueblo watchtower out at Desert View.” He smiled at Jean. “Sleep well?”

“Like a log.”

Joe glanced up at one of the massive, hand-hewn logs crisscrossing the ceiling, “Sure hope those beams don't fall ‘asleep' on the job.”

“Well, who's for a little friendly puzzle competition?” Tommy Wolfe asked the group in general.

“Will's not here yet—” his sister began, but her words were curtailed by a sudden commotion in the lobby below. Park rangers and a rescue squad crowded into the reception area, and then hurried out while the guests watched in growing apprehension.

“Someone fell over the edge …” The murmur passed from person to person as it reached the second-floor sitting room and flowed down the halls of the old hotel and into every room.

“No body to be seen … just dislodged rocks …”

“Then how do they know …?”

“Boot marks in the snow … broken tree branches … traces of blood …”

Two park rangers returned in an attempt to allay the guests' fears, but their news caused only greater consternation. A person was “presumed” to have lost his or her footing on the canyon trail. Evidence indicated a last-minute “effort at survival,” but “attempts to verbally raise the victim had proven futile,” and “the fog was inhibiting rescue efforts.”

And then came the most worrisome disclosure: Did anyone know of a guest who was missing?

Tommy Wolfe looked at his sister. “I'll call Will's room,” she said. “I'm sure he simply overslept.”

G
WEN
Beckstein was weeping so copiously, the hotel's other residents cast sheepish, uneasy glances at the huddled group of puzzlers. Gwen didn't mind what they or anyone else thought of her behavior. “He must be dead,” she kept repeating between her sobs. “It's so cold out there, and he's so … so delicate. He couldn't survive even if—”

“Don't torture yourself, Gwen.” It was Joe whose soothing voice sought to comfort her.

“What do you care! You never liked him anyway!”

Joe Conrad regarded her, his face somber and sad. “You're not being reasonable, Gwen.”

Her tone, husky with tears, turned snappish. “Why should I be? Why should anyone be ‘reasonable' when an old friend dies? I was the one who always aided Will with this yearly shindig. Chose a charity to benefit from our largesse. Helped picked a fun and interesting locale so the twins could—” Sobs overwhelmed her again.

Ginger Wolfe took Gwen's hand. “We don't know Will's dead.”

Gwen's eyes hardened in irritation. “You've seen the signs posted all over this hideous place …
DANGER … BE WARE OF FALLING ROCKS
.
And DANGEROUS OVERLOOK DO NOT ENTER
right where he went off? Why would he go near there? The park rangers told us that hikers regularly—” The words broke off. “Oh, I wish we'd never come! Will was so excited about spending New Year's at the Grand Canyon … I wish I'd never listened to him, though. I wish none of us had!”

Ginger looked at her brother, who then turned to Hunter Evans, taking him aside to murmur a
sotto voce:
“Should we try to contact John, do you think? Gwen's taking this awfully hard. Business deal or no, maybe he should be here with her?”

“With this weather, the only way he could get here would be to drive; even in the best of conditions, Tucson is …” The statement went unfinished.

With Will Mawme's friends understandably preoccupied, Belle and Rosco remained at the periphery, neither part of the prevailing fear and sorrow, but also not wholly removed from the situation. “I'm wondering if we should just pack up and head home?” Rosco said when they'd sufficiently distanced themselves from the group. “I get the sense we're intruding on some very personal space.”

Belle shook her head. “I would feel as if I were deserting everyone.”

“But what can you do, Belle?”

“Hang tight, I guess. Wait and see?”

L
UNCH
came and went; the afternoon wore on, and the fog became an increasingly menacing presence. Every window was shrouded in evil grayish white; no one ventured out of doors, not even onto the normally welcoming porches. The puzzlers drifted together and apart; few spoke; the reality of death was becoming unavoidable.

In the midst of this gloom, Belle sat in a chair in the first-floor reception area. A fire was crackling in the large stone hearth; the hotel guests unacquainted with Will Mawme and his party were wandering in and out of the lobby gift shop, chatting, laughing, and enjoying themselves. Rosco was in the TV lounge with six other guests, glued to the tube, watching some beefy men in football pads throw themselves at a group of equally sizable specimens, and Belle was—working a crossword in front of one of the roaring fireplaces. It was the puzzle Mawme had constructed for the previous evening—the one everyone had been instructed to save until after midnight.

Her favorite red pen had just marked the final solution when the nib caught the paper and sent it spinning to the floor, where it landed face up and turned outward into the rest of the room. Belle bent to retrieve it, and suddenly noticed letters that seemed to contain a very recognizable word. The letters were on the diagonal running from lower left to upper right, not far from the puzzle's center.

Belle put the crossword in her lap, and looked across the room. Her eyes were bright and fixed. “HUNTER,” she murmured and stood. It never occurred to her to find Rosco and explain this strange discovery. Instead, she went in search of Mr. Evans himself.

“B
UT
your name is right here.” Belle pushed the crossword in Evans's direction. He stood in the doorway to his room, the oak frame dark against the corridor's floral paper, the transom above his head open. Steam and something that smelled like herbal bath salts scented the air. Belle pointed again. “And the message seems to indicate that you—”

“What? That I dragged Will Mawme out of bed, then spirited him through the hotel, took him a quarter of a mile down the trail, and tossed him into the ravine? All without raising a speck of suspicion from the other guests?”

“That's not what I'm suggesting, no.”

“Then what are you insinuating, Ms. Graham?” Evans's tone had turned more than frosty.

Belle should have been prepared for the query. She should have been better prepared for the interview on every front, but she'd never been a person fond of precautions or prior planning. “I'm simply stating what's obvious on this piece of paper: GOT YOU HUNTER—”

“And? I would have to have been a fool not to have noticed my own name on the diagonal, Miss Graham. But it means nothing; and I would suggest that it's only some sort of bizarre coincidence.”

“I have a hunch that Will Mawme was far too sophisticated a crossword constructor to have had your name appear in his puzzle by accident.”

“You want to play detective, do it somewhere else.” Evans moved to close the door, then reconsidered. “Will may have been a guy people loved to hate—or hated to love—but he was my friend.” The door shut with a firm bang, and Belle turned to find Jean O'Neal standing surprisingly near. Her room key was in her hand.

“Poor Hunter,” she said, “This is hitting everyone hard. We're simply responding in different ways.” Then Jean noticed the crossword Belle was holding. “One of Will's finest.” She teared up and released a mournful sigh. “Hard to believe …”

Belle glanced down at the puzzle and made a snap decision: Jean seemed a person she could trust. “Did you happen to notice this message running on the diagonal?” Belle pointed.

Jean removed her bifocals and replaced them with special reading glasses. “Why, no … I wonder what that could—?” The words died in her throat. She looked at Hunter Evans's door, then returned a troubled expression to Belle. “But … but that would suggest … Are you suggesting it was foul play? We're friends, after all …”

“Hunter told me that Mawme was a man everyone loved to hate or hated to love.”

“That's just talk … male bluster, if you will. Oh, yes, Will could be lordly; he could be dictatorial and supremely difficult at times, but no one hated him.” Jean tried to smile. “Not even Joe! Although those two large egos certainly enjoyed going head to head.” She sighed deeply again, and handed the crossword back to Belle. “I'm aware that you enjoy a bit of a reputation as a sleuth … and that your husband is a private investigator … but for the sake of some very jangled nerves, perhaps it's best if you keep any suspicions to yourself.” Her eyes shone with kindly concern, but Belle began to notice something tougher and more steely beneath the surface. “Poor, dear Gwen Beckstein's beside herself. The twins feel at fault for arranging our journey … even D.C. is an altered man.” Jean took Belle's hand. “Will met with a tragic accident. It's as simple as that. The park rangers and the rescue team say it's an all too common occurrence.”

I
N
typical fashion, Belle was beginning to doubt the “tragic accident” theory. Mawme had constructed a puzzle and insisted it be solved in private, meaning the guest for whom the message was intended—
if
it was indeed some form of message—had ample time to reflect on the fact that Mawme was playing a game with them. And
if
there was a secret, and
if
the situation was in any way criminal or unlawful—all very big
if
s, but nonetheless ample reason to suspect that foul play would be a logical follow-up.

She looked at the crossword again, wondered why no one else had recognized the importance of the diagonal line, then immediately recanted her own query. Who was to say each puzzler
hadn't
noticed it? Hunter Evans had, but Jean O'Neal had seemed surprised. On the other hand, that could have been merely an act. Besides, if Will Mawme had been murdered, someone—and it surely looked like Hunter Evans—knew precisely what Mawme meant by placing the name on the diagonal. Belle decided it was time for a consultation with her husband.

She found him in the TV lounge, where now ten or so viewers were hunched forward in their chairs, silently staring at the screen as a football spiraled in the air above the muddy field, and what looked like an army of bodies flung themselves atop one another. In the muck and mire, it was impossible to tell one team's uniforms from another's. Within the human wreckage, no one seemed remotely concerned with the whereabouts of the ball.

“Want to take a walk, Rosco?” Belle whispered.

No answer.

“Rosco?”

“Sure,” he mumbled back.

“Great. Let's peek inside the building Mary Colter designed … the one that resembles an ancient pueblo and has the shop selling the native crafts and rugs. We don't have to walk far, or near the canyon's edge—”

“What?”

Belle sighed. Maybe it was a Boston team playing, she reflected, which would account for Rosco's inability to concentrate on anything else under the sun. But then, she wondered if Boston even had a professional football team, and if it did, what its name was. Not the Boston Baked Beans, she decided. The Boston Beans and their half-baked fans … She smiled privately at her little joke, then told herself she might need to keep this jest to herself. Besides, it could very well be a college game—making the team The Eggheads with their parboiled cheering section. Belle smiled again. “It's just a few steps, really. We don't have to get close to the rim.”

“The rim?” During this exchange, Rosco had never looked at his wife. His focus had remained entirely on the television.

“In the fog … during our walk—”

“Walk?”

Belle didn't respond. If the timing wasn't right for a stroll of El Tovar's grounds, it probably wasn't the best moment to discuss a potential homicide, either. “I guess I'll go by myself … When does the game end?”

“Shhhh,” one of the other fans said with a good deal of annoyance in his voice, “we're trying to watch some football, lady, in case you hadn't noticed.”

Rosco was immediately attentive. He glowered at the man. “What did you say to my wife?”

The man turned, noticed the look on Rosco's face, and realized he'd crossed the line. “Ah … Sorry, pal. It's just that I'm a big UCLA fan.”

Rosco leveled a grim smile at him. “Then chances are you've got a long afternoon ahead of you … pal.” He stood and strode out of the room with Belle.

H
OPI
House stood on El Tovar's grounds. Designed by the architect Mary Colter in 1905, it was fashioned from rough reddish stone and other materials native to northern Arizona, and it had a forceful, solid appearance as though it had been part of the landscape for many long centuries—well before the advent of explorers, prospectors, miners, and crossword aficionados.

Belle and Rosco wandered through a series of compact and low-beamed rooms filled with antique Hopi and Navajo rugs, silver and turquoise jewelry burnished with age, new baskets woven in traditional geometric designs, Western hats, boots, and framed paintings of the Grand Canyon in its various guises: at sunset and sunrise, under snow, in the delicate greenery of spring. Nowhere was there a rendition of fog. As the couple moved through the tightly packed space, they became aware of a quiet but intense conversation in what was clearly an upstairs display area. It was Ginger Wolfe and D.C. Irving.