Sinister Sudoku (7 page)

“After I got to bed, I felt a hand under the covers—under
all
the covers. I had to yank off all the bedclothes and pull the damned bed apart to find Chris Dalen buried under—or between—the mattresses.” Liza took a deep breath.

“I was at the inn because Kevin Shepard had invited me to dinner—in fact, he drove me over. But then he was called away on business. While I was waiting, I bumped into Chris Dalen, who intended to spend the evening here.”

She went over what Dalen had told her. “I don’t know if he actually saw Tarleton—I don’t know if anything he told me was true. He could have been amusing himself, yanking my chain. But he suggested he might be in danger because of his hidden painting, and now he’s dead.”

Everard scowled. “And you didn’t think it appropriate to inform the local police about this supposed meeting?”

“As I said, I didn’t know if it might be true.” Liza gave him a sweet smile. “Then, too, what would the professional investigators do, hearing such a story from a mere amateur sleuth?” Much less flippantly, she added, “Besides, if Sheriff Clements had been involved in a big stakeout here, he may not have found Howard Frost until he’d frozen stiff out on the road.”

Everard’s blue eyes just about threw sparks, and he clamped his lips so tightly, his slightly lantern jaw quivered. When he recovered himself, he said, “The sheriff may have allowed you some latitude in his investigations. But this case involves the state police.”

“I guess so,” Clements said amiably, “since a killing and a multimillion-dollar art theft probably shoot our local crime stats even further to hell.”

The detective pretended not to hear. “Your attitude and actions create a reasonable suspicion.”

“Hey,” Liza spoke up, “I didn’t have a suspicion I’d be staying here tonight—or that I’d be in cabin one. This isn’t exactly the busy season at the Killamook Inn. Whoever stuffed the body in there might have had weeks, even months pass before it was discovered.”

“You could have lured Dalen out there,” Everard insisted.

“No way to prove that by footprints,” the sheriff pointed out. “That wind out there erases everything in seconds.” He shifted to a more comfortable position in the desk chair. “Guess we’ll have to wait till your crime scene people finally make it here.”

“You might do a little more in the way of investigation.” Everard’s voice was still sharp.

“I’ve got people to do that,” Clements replied blandly. “They’re getting prints and information from everybody else in the inn while you occupy yourself with Liza here.” Ted Everard finally simmered down, and Liza finally got to bed—in a smaller room in the inn proper.

A knock on the door roused her. Belting her trusty bathrobe tightly closed, Liza went to answer. She blinked to find Sheriff Clements in the hallway—then blinked again. The electric lights were back on!

Clements nodded as he followed her gaze. “Yep, the juice is back, which means the computers are getting back up, too. Thought you’d like to know what we found out so far. A guest from California—a V. Tanner—paid for a night’s lodging with a credit card that isn’t exactly his. The card was from a company called Nostro Enterprises—even a hick cop like me knows it’s a front company for organized crime.”

The sheriff looked even more affable. “The prints came back under a different name. Turns out V. Tanner is actually one Vincent Tanino, aka ‘Vinnie Tanlines’—a known associate of Fat Frankie Basso.”

This is another basic technique picked up almost intuitively by newcomers to Sudoku Nation. It rests on the rule that each nine-space subgrid in a puzzle can only hold one example of the magic numbers 1-9. Thus, discovering 1s in the subgrids located horizontally or vertically from a given box can prohibit a 1 from being placed in the three-space columns or rows within that box. Depending on where these forbidden zones fall around existing clues, a solver may find that there’s only one available space that will take a 1. That number may stand hidden among a bunch of other candidates, but the logic is inescapable—there’s only one true answer for that space.

I check for hidden singles first thing when I pick up a puzzle. And if I don’t find any, I’ll suspect this is a sudoku that requires heavy-duty solving techniques.

—Excerpt from
Sudo-cues
by Liza K

Liza decided on a room-service breakfast. For one thing, she didn’t have the wardrobe to eat in the dining room. For another, she didn’t want to try eating while looking at that damned annoying Ted Everard’s face.

On the other hand, looking at my face might give
him
indigestion,
she thought. Then she brushed the idea away. Considering the way he kept sneaking behind her last night, his area of personal interest lay in a whole other quadrant.

She rose at the knock on her door, tightening her robe yet again. Kevin stood in the corridor outside, a room service cart beside him. “I thought maybe we could have breakfast together up here.”

“Why, no,” Liza huffed, “I had my heart set on doing a Lady Godiva in your dining room.”

Seeing Kevin’s appalled expression, she switched gears, softening her humor. “Actually, you read my mind. In fact, you did better. I didn’t want to go down there, but I didn’t want to eat all alone, either.” Liza grabbed his arm, pulling Kevin and the cart into her room. “Let’s see how well you did at reading my mind and the menu.”

“Actually,” Kevin confessed as he set up a little table, “our regular morning cook didn’t make it out here today. But Steve the bartender is pretty handy around a stove— and I helped.” He took the cover off one plate. “Fried eggs, sunny-side up, with the yolks still runny enough to dip toast in them.”

“Just the way I like ’em,” Liza admitted.

Next Kevin uncovered a small tray. “Whole wheat toast for dipping—or if you prefer, English muffins.”

“Mphmhm.” Liza had already snagged half a slice and taken a bite.

Kevin continued, removing the cover from yet another plate. “Bacon, and Rocco’s special sage sausage.”

“How are we going to end this—with blood pressure and cholesterol pills?” Liza quipped. But she also took a deep appreciative breath, savoring the fresh-cooked scents.

“Oooh!” That breath came out as Kevin unveiled another platter with a smile. “Buckwheat cakes.” Then he produced a small pitcher of purplish liquid. “With Rocco’s personal blueberry syrup.”

“Excellent!” Liza seized a knife and fork and began serving herself. “What are you having?”

“I—uh—thought we’d share.” Kevin’s voice sounded a bit plaintive as he watched her load her plate.

Liza frowned in thought. “Well . . . I did have a pretty good dinner last night, so I guess that’s okay—just this once.”

Grinning, Kevin tucked in as well. For a little bit, they ate in companionable silence. Finally, though, Kevin put down his fork with a sigh. “I know we said we’d never talk about last night—”

Liza shrugged. “Yeah, well, maybe I should have worn more going to bed. But then, I didn’t expect a fire drill.” She colored. “Or show-and-tell.”

“I just wanted to say—” Kevin cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t see why you should apologize,” Liza said. “It’s not your fault that Chris Dalen showed up here, or that Fritz Tarleton made an appearance—or that it snowed like hell and I had to stay overnight.” She gave him a rueful smile. “There’s still plenty of winter ahead. With luck, we might have a romantic snowbound weekend sometime.”

Kevin’s eyes skittered around until he looked down at the table. “I just meant that I was sorry that you had to find another body. You’re turning out like that old TV show about the rich couple that traveled around the world. Wherever they went, their friends either wound up dead or in jail.”

“Oh, you mean
Hart to Hart
?” Liza chuckled. “Well, Chris Dalen was no friend of mine—even if he was an up-front, honest crook. And so far, the only one who looks likely to end up in jail is me, if Detective Ted Broom-Up-His-Butt Everard of the state police CID has his way.”

“I don’t think Bert Clements will go along with that,” Kevin said. “He had his deputies take Vincent Tanino to the jail in Killamook for questioning as soon as the roads were cleared. And they brought Howard Frost to County Hospital after they got him a bit thawed out.”

“Two less guests for you to worry about,” Liza said.

“The state police forensics team arrived just after that, so they more than made up our head count.” Kevin’s eyes started roaming around the room again. “The cabin is still a crime scene—”

“And my clothes are part of the evidence,” Liza said heavily.

“Um, yes,” Kevin finally agreed. “So I’ve been poking around for some stuff that you could wear home.”

“So what have you got, a maid’s uniform? Painter’s overalls?”

He looked up, a little shamefaced. “We have some clothes that wound up in lost and found—” Kevin held up his hands at her expression. “At least they’re clean. We ran them through the laundry.”

Do not bite his head off,
Liza reminded herself.
He’s trying to help you
.

She finally spoke up. “I’ve got another expansion idea for you—call it The Shops at Killamook Inn. We need a lingerie store, maybe a nice sportswear boutique—men’s and women’s . . .”

Kevin laughed. Then he stopped, a faraway look in his eyes. “You know,” he said, “that’s not such a bad idea, when you think about it . . .”

Liza sat uncomfortably in the passenger seat of Kevin’s SUV, pulling the yellow slicker around herself.
I leave my house in my nicest outfit,
she fumed silently.
And I come home—well, look at me
.

Kevin had turned up another pair of galoshes, and she was wearing four pairs of socks to bulk up her feet so the damned things would fit. She had a pair of sweatpants that were too big, and a mismatched sweatshirt that was too small. As for lingerie, she was wearing a pair of boy’s Jockey shorts that felt kind of peculiar.

When they turned onto Hackleberry Avenue, she gave a sigh of relief. Soon she’d be home, free to take another shower and get into her own clothes . . . They crunched their way through the snowdrift blocking the end of Liza’s driveway, and Liza suddenly yelled, “Stop!”

Kevin braked heavily, jolting them to a halt. “What’s the matter?”

“I just saw Mrs. H. at her door. She had a shovel.” Liza pointed to her next-door neighbor’s house, where Mrs. Halvorsen was already starting work on the pathway to the sidewalk.

“Kevin,” Liza said, “she’s not a young woman.”

“We’re not exactly kids ourselves,” Kevin told her. “And from the way you were talking the other day, I bet she probably can’t even afford the ten dollars she used to give me for the job when I was seventeen.” Still, he sighed, went to the back of his big behemoth, and dug out a shovel.

Liza followed him, moving more clumsily in her improvised footwear. “Mrs. H.!” she called. “Let us give you a hand with that! Are you okay?”

“Oh, we had no trouble around here. We had electricity and everything.” The older woman glanced at Kevin and then at Liza’s outfit. “I hear that power was off at the inn.”

“A lot of things were off at the inn,” Liza told her.

“I was just going to dig my way over to see how Rusty was doing,” Mrs. H. said.

“Oh, that would be far too much,” Liza replied. They were already at the sidewalk now, and Kevin had begun to wield his shovel.

“Speaking of too much,” he muttered, “do you know how many middle-aged men die of heart attacks from shoveling snow?”

“You’re not middle-aged,” Liza told him.

“I guess that will have to sustain me,” he puffed as he worked. “Of course, if I’d known I’d be doing this, I might not have had eggs, bacon, and sausage for breakfast.”

Liza made her way across the virgin snow to Mrs. H. Taking the woman’s shovel, she set to work, soon meeting Kevin halfway. Then they started scraping their way over to Liza’s house.

Rusty reacted to their arrival in much the same way that settlers in circled wagons greeted the cavalry riding in during an Indian attack. Happy barks echoed around the house, and his circles turned into arabesques when he saw Kevin and Mrs. H.—two of his favorite humans.

Checking in the kitchen, Liza saw that the dog hadn’t gorged himself on the supplies she’d left, had done his business on the newspapers, and that a red-furred shadow had appeared beside her, expectantly looking up at the jar of doggie treats. “Here you go, you fraud.” Liza opened the jar and gave him a treat.

“Really, you spoil that dog, dear,” Mrs. H. reproved as she sneaked another treat to Rusty. He circled both of them and then went to Kevin, hoping for a trifecta.

“Hey, guy, I bet you need to go out, don’t you?”

Kevin’s words momentarily erased the thought of treats from Rusty’s mind. Rusty practically danced to the door while Kevin got his leash.

Mrs. H. stepped closer to Liza. “I heard there was more trouble at the inn than a power failure last night,” she said. Her usually cheerful, round face looked strained, even nervous as she spoke.

“I don’t know if it’s something you’d like to hear about, Mrs. H.” Liza shook her head. “It started as a pleasant evening, but it came to a bad end.” Before she got any farther, the telephone rang. Liza sighed. She’d already noticed the insistent beeping from her answering machine. Excusing herself, she picked up the phone. Mrs. H. went to join Kevin and Rusty in the snow outside.

“Don’t you ever turn on your damn cell phone?” Ava Barnes demanded. “I’ve been trying to get you since we had news about what happened at the Killamook Inn.”

“The local cell tower was out, so there didn’t seem much use in wasting my battery.”

“But you are the one who found this art thief—Dalen?” Ava plowed on. “And there’s a missing million-dollar painting? Is that why he was killed? Have you got any theories yet?”