Ghost Sudoku (23 page)

As they came close to the courthouse, they discovered vans decorated with TV station logos blocking the road.

“I guess the district attorney must have called another press conference,” Liza said. Instead, they found the camera crews crowded outside the Sheriff’s Department.

Liza’s heart sank when she recognized several of the television reporters—they’d covered cases in Maiden’s Bay where she had gotten involved.

“If I walk in front of those cameras, I’m going to become the story,” she whispered to Mrs. H. “Would you mind going in to the front desk and picking up the envelope for me?”

Mrs. Halvorsen managed to get in and out just in time. No sooner did she rejoin Liza, the manila envelope clutched under her arm, than the glass doors swung open, and the Pauncecombes, father and son, walked out. A young guy with a cheap briefcase and an even cheaper suit that just about screamed “public defender” accompanied them.

The cameramen leaped into action, aiming their equipment at the young lawyer. “Ladies, gentlemen, I’m Randy Beale, representing Mr. John Jacob Pauncecombe and his son, John Jacob Junior. I’d like to make a brief statement. Both of my clients have faced accusations and innuendo regarding the death of Chad Redbourne. Today we offered the Sheriff’s Department irrefutable proof that neither of these gentlemen was even in Killamook at the estimated time of death. We hope this will end—”

“Could you tell us where they were?” a skinny blond woman with a microphone shouted. On screen she looked ten pounds heavier, but in real life, she came across as almost skeletal.

Randy Beale blinked, losing his train of thought. “Excuse me, but this is not a press conference. I’m only giving a statement—”

Now the bulldog-faced newsman called out, “Could you amplify that statement? Specifically, with regard to where this alibi actually put your clients?”

“N-No questions,” Randy stuttered even as he tried to enforce his ground rules.

“If you can’t tell us where they were, it’s not much of a statement,” a third newscaster challenged.

“The sheriff was willing to accept it,” Randy said.

“As long as he had enough facts to check it out,” Bulldog argued. “We’d like the same opportunity.”

“Where did they go?” another of the news reporters asked.

Others took up the cry. “Where? Where?”

John Jacob Pauncecombe took a step at them, his fists clenched. But the attack he launched was verbal. “You bunch of prying bleeps want to know where we were?” He hooked a thumb at J.J. “Genius here was shacked up with some bimbo at a motel in Glenwood.”

A town to the east of Killamook,
Liza thought.
We should have looked in that direction after all.

“Why he didn’t continue all the way to Portland and find a decent place for his bleeping, I don’t know.”

Pauncecombe glared at the cameras. “As for me, I was in bleeping Portland, at the bleeping ResusaGen clinic, getting treatment for E bleeping D. Because when you’ve got ED, you can’t bleeping bleep! You can check at the motel and at the clinic—that should be enough bleeping information for all you nosy bleeps!”

The old man hurled F-bombs, S-bombs, and others with both hands, ignoring the winces and stares of the newspeople.

At the rear of the crowd, Liza grinned. She was pretty sure that even the best editing crew wouldn’t be able to cobble that outburst into a coherent—or broadcast-worthy—sound bite.

At least he’s up-front about it
, she thought. What was it about political life? John Jacob, J.J., and even Chad were doing to whoever what the Killamook machine had been doing to the county for years.

Her grin faded as another thought sank in. If these alibis actually stood up, then the two strongest suspects in Chad’s death would be off the hook.

Maybe some of the same thoughts must have passed through Mrs. H.’s mind as well. She laid a hand on Liza’s elbow. “What will you do next?”

Liza shrugged. “Right now? I think we’re supposed to have some lunch.”

They escaped before the newspeople finished doing their taped wrap-ups and returned to Broad Street.

“Where shall we eat?” Liza frowned, looking up and down the unnatural perfection of the building façades. Across the street, a brave restaurant owner had tried for more of a café than an Early American ambience, opening his awning to shade a couple of tables on the street.

Liza and Mrs. Halvorsen crossed over and grabbed a table. Soon they sat discussing the merits of a sweet lettuce salad versus the cheese platter.

“Oh!” A deeper shadow fell over Liza’s menu, and she looked up to find Brandy D’Alessandro/Pauncecombe staring down at her. Brandy wore tight jeans and a tighter T-shirt, the winking scales on her gold snake belt creating a little light show as the sunlight hit them.

“Did you hear the news?” Brandy asked. “My skunk of a husband and his son told some BS story to the sheriff, and they’re out.”

“It would take more than BS to convince Sheriff Clements,” Liza told her, but Brandy shook her head.

“They’re in it up to their necks,” she said. “Maybe they didn’t do it themselves, but they could have it done.”

“The way I hear”—or rather, the way she’d heard it from Ted Everard—“the Killamook machine has depended more on controlling people through money and favors than strong-arm stuff. Where would they find someone they could depend on to kill Chad?”

“How about that big creep Oscar Smutz?” Brandy demanded. “He’s made a whole career out of cleaning up after J.J.—since high school. J.J. got in a fight with a college kid who threatened to have him up on assault charges. The deputy who answered the call was Smutz. He figured Big John Jacob would appreciate a little police initiative. So Smutz scared the other kid by saying he could just as easily have him up for assault with a deadly weapon—apparently, the college kid had picked up a pool cue. And that’s how Smutz got into politics.”

“Bending the rules, even leaning on someone, is a far cry from bumping someone off.” Liza had a hard time imagining Oscar Smutz as a killer for hire. More to the point, how desperate would someone have to be to put themselves in the hands of an opportunist like Smutz to the tune of conspiracy to murder?

“They did it, and they’re going to get away with it.” Brandy grew almost tearful in her insistence. “And now they’re starting on me. My lawyer called and told me to get out of the house. He might as well have told me to get out of town. I can’t find a place to stay—people are too afraid of John Jacob now that he’s out again. I saw him on TV—he was so angry, they were bleeping out everything he said.”

“So where are you going to stay, dear?” Mrs. H. asked.

Brandy gave a deep sigh, starting off all sorts of jiggles. “I dunno. If I can find someplace quiet—and safe—maybe I could sleep in my car.”

“Nonsense,” Liza’s neighbor said staunchly. “I’ve got a spare bedroom. You can stay with me.”

“You—what?” Liza had a bit of déjà vu to this morning’s dream—the runaway machine whirling faster and faster along. She just didn’t seem able to keep up with the latest developments.

“Sit down and have something to eat,” Mrs. H. insisted.

“I don’t have much in the way of cash,” Brandy said hesitantly.

“I’ll pay your freight,” the older woman told her.

Liza must have had something for lunch, but she really couldn’t have identified it with any certainty. Her food tasted like ashes in her mouth as she watched Brandy become Mrs. Halvorsen’s new best friend.

Brandy’s mention of financial troubles led to a discussion of money in general—and to Chad’s million and change in particular.

“John Jacob was going crazy over that,” Brandy reported. “Money is really the only thing he cares about.”

“What about you and Chad?” Liza delicately asked.

Brandy shrugged. “Oh, he’d have been PO’d about that. But Chad of all people stealing from those accounts—that really hit John Jacob where he lived.”

She started to sniffle again. “And maybe that will be the only punishment they’ll face for killing Chad—having that money just disappear.”

Leaning across the table, Brandy suddenly grabbed Liza’s hand. “You’re smart—I’ve heard how you solved murders and things. Why don’t you really make them pay—find that money and make sure they don’t get any of it back!”

Liza disengaged her hand, a little embarrassed by Brandy’s faith . . . and fervor. “I don’t know if that’s even possible. The sheriff has no idea where the money went.”

The others finished their meals, but Liza left half her food on her plate.

“Is your car nearby?” Mrs. H. asked Brandy.

“Just down the block.” Brandy pointed to a silver BMW.

Liza tried not to roll her eyes. Oh, poor Brandy, forced to rough it in a Beemer.

She drove home with the silver car in her rearview mirror. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” she asked Mrs. Halvorsen.

“I’m not going to let those two awful men bully that girl,” Mrs. H. replied stoutly. “Besides, she told me she’d just lie low for a few days while she decides what to do next.”

Liza left her neighbor with a silver Beemer in her driveway and a new houseguest bringing a single suitcase into the house. She noticed that the Oldsmobile was already parked, so it came as no surprise to find Michael on the couch. She thought he might be snoozing after rising so early, but instead he seemed to be sitting and waiting for her.

“I debated trying to catch you on your cell,” he said. “Sheriff Clements had kind of a busy time—”

“Did you catch any of it?” Liza asked.

He nodded. “Lots of coverage on KMUC. Unless they were kidding around with the bleeping, your pal John Jacob must have one hell of a vocabulary.”

She shrugged. “Sounded kind of repetitive to me.”

Michael leaned forward on the couch. “Anyway, all the publicity that case has gotten caused a clerk from the Killamook post office to come forward. Seems Chad Redbourne was there late on the afternoon of the day he died, sending off packages.”

“Packages?” Liza echoed.

“According to Clements, the postal clerk said they looked like little bricks, heavily wrapped.”

“Oh, dear Lord,” Liza muttered. “He was mailing off stacks of money? Isn’t that illegal? Or at least there’s some sort of limit . . .”

“Yeah.” Michael put on his tough gangster voice. “He’d be facing major time in the big house . . .” He reverted to his normal tones. “Oh, wait, he’s dead.”

“So can the postal authorities trace it?” Liza asked.

“In a word, no,” Michael replied. “He didn’t ask for tracking—or insurance for that matter.”

Liza could just see that one. “The value of the package? Oh, about fifty thousand dollars.”

“Chad just sent them parcel post, and the clerk didn’t pay any attention to the addresses.”

“Great,” Liza muttered. “You think it will end up in the dead-letter office?”

“I think we’d have a worse wait than that,” Michael told her. “The cash is in the mail.”

 

 

 

“Let’s try to be serious about this.” Liza pulled the sheaf of papers from the envelope she’d carried into the house. “We know that Chad was doing something with a collection of nine-digit numbers—”

“Each of them beginning with the number one,” Michael added.

“If we go with what the sheriff just told us, there may be a postal connection.” Liza’s voice faded off as she sank into thought.

“Zip plus four?” Michael suggested. “The original zip codes are five digits. Add four, and that makes nine.”

Liza was already headed for the computer. “Let’s see if we can get a national listing of codes.”

She found a USPS website that let her input zip codes and get the town names associated with them. But after several minutes of Michael reading off the first five digits from suspicious rows and columns, she stopped typing.

“A bunch of these aren’t even in the postal database,” Liza said. “And the ones that are cover a swath of territory through Pennsylvania and upper New York State. It’s like Allentown to Albany, with a whole lot of small towns in between. If he mailed off cash to all these places, was he planning a getaway or a road trip?”

Michael began whistling Johnny Cash’s “I’ve Been Everywhere, Man” through his teeth.

Liza shook her head. “It was a nice idea, but I don’t think it works.” She got up from her chair and began pacing the living room floor—not easy when she had to evade both her husband and her dog. Finally, with a sigh, she headed for the kitchen.

“If you’re going for a snack . . .” Michael began.

“I’m going for the car keys,” she called back. “Maybe if I clear my head . . .”

She didn’t finish the thought, swearing at the keys as they jingled out of her hand to the floor. Liza picked them up and headed back to the living room, where she took the sudoku copies from Michael’s hands and stuffed them back in their envelope.

He now lay on the couch. “Want some company?” Michael’s voice sounded drowsy, as if their abortive zip code search had drained his energy.

Well, he was up pretty early this morning to act as chauffeur,
Liza thought. “Why don’t you just take it easy?” she said aloud. “I don’t think I’m fit to be with right now.”

She debated telling him about Brandy Pauncecombe interrupting her lunch and moving in next door but decided her feelings were too complicated to discuss.

She went outside, climbed in behind the wheel, and used her key to start the car. Pulling out of the driveway, she clicked on the car radio. KMUC’s afternoon pundit was on the air, pontificating on the meaning of the Pauncecombes getting back into society again. Apparently, the Party line was that everything would be normal now.

Liza drove aimlessly around for a bit, then found herself merging onto the highway. She exited at Killamook but avoided the downtown, making her aimless way through residential areas until she cruised past the Redbourne place.