NYPD Puzzle (10 page)

“Want me to get you a gun?”

“No.”

“So just take normal precautions. Don’t go out alone after dark.”

“Wonderful.”

“Hey. I’m not worried.” Cora considered, frowned. “Sherry’s not going to be happy.”

Chapter

17

“This is creepy,”
Sherry said.

“Don’t worry. I’m sure you and Jennifer are safe,” Cora said, and bit her lip. She knew it was a stupid thing to say the minute the words were out of her mouth.

Sherry immediately picked up the baby. Jennifer, who’d been playing happily on the living room floor, burst into tears at this rude interruption of her fun.

“Now see what you’ve done,” Sherry said.

Cora felt betrayed.
She
hadn’t done anything. These young mothers. So wrapped up in their children, they lose all sense of reality. Hell, they lose all sense. Just because a psycho killer was stalking them. Which wasn’t even happening, and wasn’t likely to happen, which is all she’d been saying, and while she might have worded it better, there was really no call for such a flagrant overreaction.

Which, Cora knew, wasn’t really fair to Sherry. Jennifer had already had an experience with such a person, and though she’d been too young to realize it, it had to be uppermost in Sherry’s mind.

“For goodness’ sakes,” Cora said. “I didn’t mean to panic you. I was telling you there
wasn’t
any danger. It didn’t occur to me that would make you think there
was.
”

“You think I’m overreacting?”

“I didn’t say that either. The crossword puzzle and the sudoku indicate that someone’s playing a game with me. Me, not you. I’m the Puzzle Lady. No one outside the immediate family knows you have anything to do with it. Hell, I haven’t even told Jennifer.”

“Don’t try to humor me.”

Cora took a last bite of salmon, put her plate on the floor for Buddy. She’d gotten home to find Sherry had food waiting. She also had food waiting for Aaron, but he was working late at the paper. This was unfortunate. Cora figured Sherry was more anxious than normal because Aaron wasn’t there.

Not that the news wasn’t alarming anyway. The fact that the killer had targeted Cora in advance was weird. Worse, it seemed next to impossible.

“I don’t know how you can be so calm,” Sherry said.

“I have a gun.”

“Cora.”

“Crowley doesn’t think I’m in danger.”

“Who?”

“The sergeant in charge of the case.”

“Oh? It’s Crowley, is it?”

“Well, ‘the sergeant in charge of the case’ is a mouthful.” Cora shook her head. “There’s no pleasing you.”

Sherry got up, went to the window. She pushed the curtain aside and peered out. “There’s lights down on the road.”

“It’s a road. People use it.”

“Not so often. We’re in the country. There’s lights at the foot of the driveway.”

Cora blinked. “Are cars
stopping
at the foot of the driveway?”

“No.”

“They’re just driving by?”

“Slowly.”

“How slowly? Like not wanting to miss a turn slowly? Like not wanting to slide off the road slowly? Or like trying to creep you out slowly?”

“Like looking up the driveway slowly.”

“Oh? You can see the car?”

“I can tell how fast it’s going.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sakes.” Cora got up, went to the window. “Where? Where’s this slow car?”

“It went by.”

“It drove off. How suspicious. It must have known I was getting up from the couch and wanted to frustrate me.”

“It was there. It drove off, and— Jennifer! No!”

The baby had joined Buddy in cleaning up Cora’s plate. Buddy was licking it, and Jennifer was mopping it up with her hand.

Sherry rushed over and picked her up. Buddy barked and Jennifer burst into tears.

“I thought you were watching her,” Sherry accused.

Cora opened her mouth to protest, realized her niece wasn’t rational at the moment. She picked up the plate, which Buddy had pretty well licked clean, and escaped to the kitchen. She put her plate in the sink, tossed Buddy a puppy biscuit, and went back in the living room.

Sherry was jouncing Jennifer on her shoulder and looking out the window. “Here he comes again.”

“The same guy? You recognize the headlights?”

The car slowed at the foot of the driveway and turned in.

“Oh, my God!” Sherry said.

“It’s just Aaron,” Cora said.

“Not from that direction.”

“Oh, pooh,” Cora said. Still, she grabbed her purse off the coffee table, fumbled for her gun.

Headlights came up the drive.

Cora stepped out on the front stoop, brandishing the gun.

The car pulled into the light. It was a police cruiser.

Dan Finley got out. “You gonna shoot me, Cora?”

“That depends. Why are you here?”

“Chief asked me to check on you.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Didn’t you find a body, or something?”

“Yeah. In New York City. What’s that got to do with you?”

Dan put up his hand. “Hey. Don’t shoot the messenger. Chief asked me to drop by, make sure everything’s okay.”

“Everything’s okay.”

Sherry pushed out the door with Jennifer on her hip. “What made him think it wasn’t?”

“See?” Cora said. “Now you’ve upset the young mother.”

“Does the chief think we’re in any danger?” Sherry persisted.

“No, of course not. He just said to do a drive-by. I’m not sure why. I think he got a call from some cop in New York.”

“Who thinks we’re in danger,” Sherry said.

“He didn’t say that. He just said keep an eye out, make sure no one’s taking an undue interest in you.”

“See?” Sherry said.

Dan opened his mouth, closed it again. Looked totally frustrated.

“It’s not your fault,” Cora said. “I told her there’s no danger, she immediately wanted to know what danger there
wasn’t.
”

“Apparently there isn’t any at all,” Dan said. “The only one taking any interest in your house is me.”

“You drove by more than once?” Sherry said.

“I sure did. And there is absolutely nothing happening.”

“Of course not,” Cora said. “The fact is, I was picked up on suspicion of murder. The cops had to let me go, but they’re not happy about it, and they’d like to keep an eye on me.”

“Are you kidding?”

“I was caught with a smoking gun. The only reason I’m not in jail is I’ve got a hell of a lawyer.”

“Is that true?”

“Of course it is. You wanna call the chief, tell him you did your drive-bys and I seem to be behaving, feel free. Just try not to look like a stalker when you do.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“I don’t know. Put your lights on, or something.”

“That’ll just scare them away.”

“There’s no one to scare. Except Sherry. And you’re doing a very good job.”

Dan shrugged, got back in his car, and drove out the driveway.

“Okay,” Cora said. “Can we go back inside, sit down, relax, maybe watch some TV?”

Sherry blew out a breath. “Sure.”

Cora went back in the living room and put on the Yankees game, knowing it would drive Sherry away. It was two–two in the top of the sixth, and some Cleveland batter Cora had never heard of kept fouling off pitches.

Cora leaned back on the couch, tried to relax. Despite what she told Sherry, she was pretty wound up. She picked up the remote, flicked through the channels. Couldn’t find anything she wanted to watch. Came back to the ball game. The same batter was still up.

Cora went in the kitchen, made herself a cup of coffee. Not that she needed caffeine at the moment, but she needed something comforting. What was it Becky said? An Ativan? Cora’d never had much to do with drugs. At least not since the ’60s. She wondered if Barney Nathan would write her a prescription. Least he could do, damn it to hell.

Cora took her coffee back in the living room, was delighted to see the Yankees were now batting and Derek Jeter was up.

Sherry came back. “Okay. I got Jennifer to sleep. What’s the story?”

“Two–two, bottom of the sixth, Jeter’s up.”

“Don’t be dumb. Dan Finley. Chief Harper. The New York cop. They all think something’s up.”

“That’s good. They’ll keep an eye on us. Not that we need it. It’s like carrying an umbrella so it doesn’t rain.”

Sherry went to the window.

“Are you going to do that all night?” Cora said.

“There’s a car again.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

“Going slow.”

“You gotta stop,” Cora said. Still, she got up, went to the window.

The car had slowed down at the foot of the drive.

The flashing lights on the top went on.

“How about that,” Cora said. “Dan Finley did it.”

The cruiser drove on by the driveway. A couple of hundred yards down the road, it turned around and came back. Dan left the lights on until it was out of sight.

Sherry seemed on the verge of saying something. Fortunately, she turned on her heel and stalked off.

Cora went back to the ball game. A commercial was on, so the Yankees hadn’t scored.

Cora blamed it on Sherry.

The Yankees were up four–two when Sherry came back. Cora cringed. The Indians had the bases loaded with only one out. Sherry seemed like a bad omen.

“The car’s back,” Sherry said.

“So what?”

“This time it doesn’t have the lights on.”

“It didn’t last time. Dan didn’t switch ’em on until he went by.”

“It’s been there awhile.”

Cora sighed, heaved herself to her feet, went to the window.

The lights drove very slowly by the foot of the driveway, continued on toward town.

“It’s Dan Finley. He finished his drive-by, he’s headed back to town.”

“Without his lights on?”

“He forgot. Or he figured we wouldn’t still be looking out the window.”

Cora heard the crack of a bat, and the excited voice of the announcer. She turned, looked. The Indians had scored two runs, tying the score, and now had runners on first and third.

Cora took a deep breath, held it for a five-count, blew it out slowly. She turned back to Sherry, said with measured calm, “Relax. Go back to bed. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Cora believed it. Still, she slept with her gun under her pillow.

She needn’t have bothered.

The killer wasn’t stalking her that night.

The killer was somewhere else.

Chapter

18

Cora pulled up
in front of the two-story frame house on East Hampton Street to find Sam Brogan sitting on the stoop. It was two in the morning, and the officer looked unhappy. Of course in Sam’s case, that didn’t necessarily have anything to do with the hour. Unhappy was Sam’s default position.

Sam grunted. “So. They disturbed your sleep, too.”

“Yeah,” Cora said. “And I’m not even on duty.”

“You think I am? I’m on emergency standby. Call comes in, report of a disturbance, sound of breaking glass. Which means I gotta check it out. Guess what? No disturbance, no broken glass.”

“There was a dead body,” Cora pointed out.

“So? No one reported
that.
I don’t get the phone call, I’m still asleep.”

“How’d you find it?”

“Front door was open. I’m searching for signs of forced entry. It wasn’t forced, but it was open. Gotta check it out.”

“How was she killed?”

“What, I’m a medical examiner? She looked dead to me, I called it in. I’m hoping it was natural causes and I can go home.”

“Chief said she was murdered.”

“I’m not saying she wasn’t. Just no reason to say she was. Chief can speak for himself.”

“He in there?”

“Yeah.”

Cora went in, found Chief Harper standing in the middle of a starkly furnished living room. Though, Cora realized, perhaps
stark
wasn’t the right word. It was severe, regimented. It wasn’t sparsely furnished, but everything was in its place. The mahogany coffee table boasted two cork coasters in square wooden frames, perfectly lined up against each other in the dead center of the table. The end tables boasted identical lamps on identical doilies. The TV and DVD player on the opposite wall were perfectly centered on the couch, their zappers lined up next to them, instead of conveniently located on the coffee table or end tables.

A woman’s body lay facedown in the middle of the rug. She was slightly off-center, which would have bothered her, though probably not so much as the fact she was twisted to the left with her right arm flung out over her head and her left arm crushed underneath her. Her light blue housecoat was scrunched up in back with what appeared to be a pink nightgown poking out beneath it. Cora couldn’t see the woman’s face, but she had curly red hair.

“Is that who I think it is?”

“I told you on the phone,” Harper said. “Mae Hendricks.”

“The town clerk?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Give me a break. I thought the name was familiar. Like two in the morning I should remember?”

“It’s nice to see how seriously you were taking my break-in.”

“I talked to a clerk with red hair. She didn’t seem a high priority.”

“She does now.”

“It’s a murder?”

“I should think so. Report of an altercation. Occupant found dead.”

“But no break-in.”

“No report of a break-in.”

“Report of broken glass.”

“You’re right. She shouldn’t be dead. What can I tell you?”

“How she was killed would be a start.”

“No sign of blood. I’d say she was strangled, smothered, or bludgeoned. There could be a bump under all that red hair.”

“Maybe,” Cora said.

She went over, knelt by the body, reached out, pushed some of the red curls aside.

“You mind letting me do that?”

Cora looked up.

Dr. Barney Nathan stood in the doorway.

It was a slap in the face. And not just his tone of voice. It was two in the morning, and he was fully dressed in his red bow tie. Just like in the old days, when he was still with his wife and his marriage wasn’t in trouble, at least if it was no one knew it, and he never appeared at a crime scene unless fully dressed in his red bow tie.