NYPD Puzzle (22 page)

Cora shrugged. “Looks like a crossword puzzle to me.”

“Right. You have no idea. Want to take it to Harvey?”

“As long as we don’t run into Chief Harper. He doesn’t know I can’t solve crosswords.”

“You must have trouble keeping straight who knows what.”

“You have no idea.”

They took the puzzle over to Harvey Beerbaum’s.

Cora didn’t waste time on amenities. “Here, Harvey. Do your thing. It’s all right. Becky knows I can’t solve puzzles.”

The portly cruciverbalist was somewhat taken aback. “Oh. Oh, I see. Would you like some tea?”

“No, Harvey. Just solve the damn puzzle before Chief Harper pops up and sees you doing it. He
doesn’t
know I can’t solve puzzles.”

Harvey ushered them in and sat them at his dining room table. Cora could see the invisible pull being issued by the teakettle on the stove. He resisted manfully, sat down with the puzzle. “This was sent to you?”

“No. It was sent to Sergeant Crowley of the NYPD.”

“Wasn’t he the one who arrested you?”

“The very same,” Cora said impatiently. “You wanna solve the puzzle?”

Harvey got to work.

Cora watched the pencil flying over the puzzle, frowned. “Your handwriting doesn’t look anything like mine.”

“What’s that?” Harvey said without looking up. His pencil never stopped moving.

“If the chief saw it, it doesn’t look like mine. Well, actually, it doesn’t look like
Sherry’s.
That’s what the chief thinks is mine. So it wouldn’t do any good for me to copy it over. And we don’t have another unsolved puzzle for me to use, anyway.”

Harvey never actually complained, but his nose crinkled slightly, and he managed to give the impression he was being buffeted by a swarm of bees. Nonetheless, he sped through the puzzle. “There,” he said.

Cora snatched it out of his hand. At his expression, she said, “Sorry. I have a vested interest in this puzzle.”

Cora read:

Have a care

Any friend

Of my enemy

May offend.

“Well, that’s pretty clear. I’m the killer’s enemy. If Crowley is my friend,
he’s
the killer’s enemy.”

Harvey frowned. “Sergeant Crowley is your friend?”

Cora realized she’d misspoken. She didn’t want to get into
that
with Harvey. “In a manner of speaking. We’re both on the side of truth, justice, and the American way. Aside from the fact he arrested me. But that’s a mistake anyone could make. Come on, Becky. We gotta tell the chief.”

Cora herded Becky out to the car. “You taking this to the chief?”

“No, but we had to get out of there. You wanna discuss this in front of Harvey?”

“Not on your life. You gonna call Crowley?”

“Not right now. He’s getting the puzzle solved at his end.”

“He’d probably appreciate the heads-up.”

“I would have appreciated it, too.”

“You can’t stay mad forever. This is a serious situation. We have a killer making threats.”

“Veiled threats.”

“That’s the worst kind. You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

“Aw, hell,” Cora said.

“What?”

“You’re playing me again. That’s how I know I’ve lost it. When I’m thinking irrationally, and you’re making the deductions I usually make.”

“So get a grip. This happened. What do you want to do?” At the look on Cora’s face, Becky added quickly, “That would be helpful in terms of the legal aspects of the situation.”

Cora took a breath, controlled herself. “I don’t know what I want to do. The case just took a whole new direction. The killer had been taunting me by threatening the people close to me. Now the killer’s threatening people close to Crowley.”

“She’s his ex-wife. She isn’t close.”

“The killer doesn’t know that.”

“And it wasn’t necessarily for her. The house is in his name. The message could be for him.”

Cora shook her head. “That doesn’t fly. The killer broke into Crowley’s apartment. He knows where he lives. He’d know that was a house where he
used
to live.”

“If you say so.”

“Well, what’s wrong with that reasoning?”

“Nothing. But it’s not a fact, it’s a theory. There are other theories.”

“Such as?”

“I have no idea. We’re dealing with not enough information. Which appears to be how the killer likes it. Keeping us in the dark. Playing these little games. He’s got to love the problems we’re having.”

“That’s for sure,” Cora said. “All right. It’s Twisted Sister time.”

“What?”

“We’re not gonna take it. No more rolling over and playing dead. It’s time to find out what’s going on.”

“How?”

“Well, not by asking Crowley. He’s been a little too skimpy with the information. This time I wanna see for myself.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“And I know exactly where to start.”

Chapter

40

Mrs. Crowley lived
in a small, two-story frame house with barely enough room for a driveway, but she had no reason to be jealous of her neighbors, none of whom had more land, and most of whom lived in even more modest structures. The house was still in Crowley’s name, so Cora and Becky had no problem looking up the address. They went up the path, rang the bell.

The woman was dumpy. That was the first thing Cora noticed. She tried to see the attractive woman behind the plump exterior and failed. Crowley’s ex-wife was an ordinary-looking middle-age woman with the sex appeal of a slug. Cora wondered what had ever attracted him to her. Of course, Crowley himself was no movie star. But the woman presented as a drab housewife, out of her depth and totally confused by the current goings-on.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

It was not the first time she’d said it. There were a lot of things that Crowley’s ex-wife, whose name was Susan, didn’t understand.

Cora trod gently, not wanting to turn the woman off and have her close down. “As I understand it, someone broke into your house and left a crossword puzzle on your refrigerator.”

“Yes. It was frightening.”

“As I said, I’m the Puzzle Lady. I have a reputation for dealing in crossword puzzles.”

“Did you solve it?”

It was one of those questions Cora always tried to avoid. Though quite prepared to lie, when it came to crosswords, Cora always preferred to skirt the boundaries of the truth to create a false impression without ever actually saying something that wasn’t so. Usually, she found, a simple deflection worked.

“I have it here,” she said. “Would you like to see it?”

Susan reached out her hand eagerly. “Oh, yes. I’m very curious.” She took the puzzle, looked it over. Her brow furrowed. “What’s it mean?”

“You see the theme answer?”

“Theme answer?”

“The long answers. To the clues that say ‘Start of message’ and stuff like that.”

Susan found them, read them off.

“I don’t understand.”

“Join the club.”

“No. I don’t understand any of this. Not just the crossword puzzle. I mean everything that’s going on.” She paused, then blurted. “He said you’d been arrested.”

Cora looked at the woman and smiled. Of course. That was how Crowley would introduce her. A murder suspect who had something to do with crossword puzzles. Providing a reason for the crossword puzzle in the house. Well, not really a reason, just an association. An attempt to ground the whole thing in some semblance of reality. As bizarre as that reality might be. And to cast her in any role other than that of lover.

Cora nodded. “That is originally how I got involved in the case. A devious and resourceful man was attempting to link me to crimes with crossword puzzles. This young woman, Becky Baldwin, is my attorney, who kept me out of jail and will eventually clear me of the charge. In the meantime, the police have realized their mistake. Witness the fact they now share the evidence with me, hoping I can interpret it.”

Becky smiled. “I’m sure they would drop the charges if they could, but it is now in the hands of the district attorney’s office. Meanwhile, we’re doing everything we can to solve this crime before it comes to court.”

“But what’s this about friends?”

“Some of the clues were sent directly to the sergeant. Some of the crossword puzzles seem to refer to him. This would be one of them. Particularly since it was attached to your refrigerator door.”

Cora could see the woman’s mind going, trying to follow all that. “And the friend he’s talking about would be a friend of my husband’s?”

Susan said
husband,
not
ex-husband.
Cora shot Becky a glance, but made no comment.

“That’s right,” Cora said. “There’s no reason to be upset. Despite the fact the puzzle was found here. The house is still in your husband’s name, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes.”

“So a person looking it up could think he lived here.”

“I suppose.”

“And you’re not his friend, you’re his wife. At least his ex-wife.”

“Oh, we’re still married. But that’s just a matter of convenience. Health insurance. Taxes. Things like that. He pays alimony, but it’s not really alimony, because we’re not divorced. It’s a voluntary payment, per agreement. I must say, whatever other problems that man might have, he was a good provider. Never missed a payment.”

“That’s encouraging,” Cora said. “Does he pay you in person?”

She smiled. “No, of course not. It’s an automatic payment, directly into my checking account.”

“Of course,” Cora said. It seemed typical of Crowley’s strange allure for women, that he would get credit for not missing an automatic payment. “So how often do you actually see him?”

“Before now? Oh, my goodness, it must be years. I can’t even remember the last time I saw him.”

Cora was feeling considerably better. Maybe Crowley wasn’t such a cad after all. Maybe she should let him off the hook.

“So,” Cora said. “When whoever left this puzzle talks about the friend of my enemy being no friend, it’s very unlikely he’d be talking about you.”

“Oh, I quite agree,” Susan said. “It doesn’t sound like me at all. I’m not a friend, I’m his wife. That sounds awful, but you know what I mean.”

“Yes, of course.”

Susan nodded in agreement with herself. “No, that sounds more like Stephanie.”

“Stephanie?” Cora frowned. “Who’s Stephanie?”

“His girlfriend.”

Chapter

41

“Anything else you
forgot to mention?”

Crowley looked up from his desk to find Cora looming over him. “I beg your pardon?”

“You have a wife
and
a girlfriend.”

“Oh, hell.”

“Is that all you have to say?”

Crowley glanced out the open door of his office. Cora was talking rather loud. “Could we discuss this somewhere else?”

“Where? In your bed? Not likely!”

“Could you keep your voice down?”

“Oh, I certainly wouldn’t want to do anything to upset you.”

“What brought this on?”

“You didn’t mention you had a girlfriend.”

“Who told you I had a girlfriend?”

“Your wife.”

Crowley frowned. “You spoke to my wife?”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t give away any of your secrets.
She
did, though. It seems this girl Stephanie’s played a major part in your life.”

“You asked my wife about other women?”

“She only mentioned Stephanie. You mean there’s more than one?”

Crowley looked like a man drowning. “You called on my wife and asked her about my love life?”

“Of course not. She volunteered the information. It seems to have been on her mind.”

“Why did you go there at all?”

“I wanted to compare notes.” At Crowley’s reaction, she added, “About the break-in. Isn’t that why you went to see her?”

“I sent you the crossword puzzle.”

“Yeah. It says friends of mine are in trouble. If I had any, I’d warn them to watch it.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sakes,” Crowley said. “You want to calm down, I’ll tell you about Stephanie.”

“I can’t wait.”

“Stephanie’s an old friend. I’ve known her since high school. We used to date. After graduation we drifted apart. Got together a few years later. Broke it off again. When I got separated from Susan, we got together again. It didn’t last.”

“That’s not the way your wife tells it.”

Crowley sighed. “I’m sure it isn’t. In Susan’s version, Stephanie has claws and breathes fire.”

“I was referring to the timeline more than the physical description. According to your wife, Stephanie showed up
before
you got separated. It was, in fact, one of the
causes
of the separation.”

“Naturally there would be resentment.”

“I’m glad you think it’s natural,” Cora said.

“What
isn’t
natural is blaming me for something that didn’t happen.”

“What didn’t happen?”

“Whatever it is you think did.” Crowley took a breath. “Look, I have other cases besides yours. A double homicide just came in. I can’t ignore it just because my ex-wife mentioned my ex-girlfriend. Where did you see her, by the way?”