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Presumed Puzzled

A Puzzle Lady Mystery

St. Martin's Press

"I need a client."

"Of course you need a client," Cora said. "You're a lawyer. Lawyers need clients."

Becky Baldwin shook her head. Her long blond hair fell in her face. That was the problem with looking like a supermodel. It sometimes got in the way of her practice. People assumed that anyone who looked like she'd be at home on a catwalk couldn't know anything about the law. They would be wrong. Becky had a keen legal mind and a particularly adept courtroom manner. In choosing a lawyer, they could hardly do better. "No. I said, 'client.' Not 'clients.' 'Client.' Singular. As in one. As in any client at all."

"You don't have a client?"

"I haven't had a client in weeks. I come into the office, I sit and stare at the wall."

"You want me to find you a client?"

"Exactly."

"Where do you expect me to find one?"

"Well, I wouldn't try staring at the wall." Becky tipped back in her desk chair. "You got it easy. You sit in your cozy office at home and make up a crossword puzzle for your daily column, which probably takes you a good forty-five minutes, then lay around all day counting your royalties from your book deals and watching the residuals from your TV ads roll in."

Becky had that half right. Cora Felton was the Puzzle Lady, whose smiling face graced the nationally syndicated crossword column and who pitched Granville Grains breakfast cereal to schoolchildren in a series of TV commercials, but she didn't spend forty-five minutes a day creating crossword puzzles. She actually didn't spend any. Cora couldn't construct a crossword puzzle if her life depended on it. Her niece, Sherry Carter, was the true Puzzle Lady and wrote Cora's daily column. Of course, Becky didn't know that. She was one of the few people who knew Cora couldn't solve crossword puzzles but still thought she created them.

"I don't know what I can do," Cora said.

"Can't you go out and kill someone? Then I can defend you from a murder rap."

"I don't think I'm gonna do that."

"Why not? You've done it before."

"No, I haven't."

"I've defended you on a couple of murder raps."

"Yeah, but I didn't do them."

"Right, and I got you off anyway. Which proves I can do it."

"You got me off because I uncovered the guilty party."

"Well, you had to. You were innocent."

"Exactly."

"No, not exactly. It would be a lot easier if you actually did it. We'll know what all the facts are. Nothing will surprise us."

"But I'll be guilty."

"So what? You're presumed innocent. That's the law. You can come into court in a blood-drenched pantsuit holding the severed head of the victim and the jurors have to presume that you're innocent or they're unacceptable and can't sit on the jury."

"I don't have a pantsuit," Cora said.

"Well, so much for that idea."

"Becky, I don't think you quite understand how this works. The lawyer gets a client. The client hires the attorney. Then the attorney hires the private investigator to go out and do the investigating. The attorney doesn't hire the investigator to go out and bring her a client."

"I don't want to hire you to bring me a client. I can't pay you. I can barely pay my rent, and the dump I live in is dirt cheap."

"Becky, I sympathize, but I'm not going to kill anyone just because you need the work."

"Spoilsport. All right, then, why don't you get divorced?"

"I'm not married."

"I'm broad-minded. I won't hold that against you."

"You're really desperate?"

"You have no idea."

Cora sighed. "I'll see what I can do."

Bakerhaven Police Chief Dale Harper was amused. "You want me to shill for Becky Baldwin?"

"Of course not, Chief."

"That's what it sounds like. Throw some business her way. Like you want me to go out and arrest someone so she can defend him."

"That's nothing," Cora said. "She wants me to go out and shoot someone so she can defend me."

"That's a better idea. And it keeps me out of trouble."

"Oh, yeah? You don't wanna know the kind of trouble you're gonna have if you try to arrest me."

"You'll never take me alive, copper!" Harper said, in his best Jimmy Cagney voice. "Isn't that a line from one of those old movies you're always quoting?"

In Cora's opinion the chief's best Jimmy Cagney voice was none too good. "And now you're quoting them, Chief."

"Damned if I'm not," Harper said. "Look, it's not that I don't like Becky Baldwin. But I can't solicit business for her. It's not ethical. I pick up a guy for speeding, say, 'Here's how it works. You can go in front of the judge, pay a fine, get points on your license. But if you wanna play it smart, I know this lawyer can get it knocked down to a simple fine, no points. And you don't want points on your license, because you get too many and you lose your license and then good luck trying to get it back.' See what I mean? Not entirely kosher."

"Well, when you put it like that."

"The best I can do is advise 'em of their rights. Tell 'em they have the right to an attorney. If they ask me are there any attorneys in town, I can say, 'Yeah, Becky Baldwin.' That's not hyping, shilling, or pimping for her. It's not even a recommendation. It's just answering the damn question."

"Well, can you tell me?"

"Huh?"

"We're friends. If I call you up, 'Hi, Chief, how's it goin', arrest anyone today?'"

"Maybe."

"What do you mean, maybe?"

"There's a question of privacy."

"Privacy? It's not a privacy issue. When someone gets booked it's a matter of record."

"You don't get booked for a speeding ticket."

"Forget the speeding ticket! You wanna recommend Becky defend a speeder, fine. I'm talkin' robbery, rape, and murder."

"We don't get so many of those."

"You get your share."

"It's no secret. I don't have to tip you off. If something like that happens, the whole town knows."

"Are you trying to be annoying, Chief? You're always calling me up with stuff that doesn't make the papers. Break-ins, burglaries, car thefts, stuff like that."

"Those are crimes, not perpetrators. They're not something I've arrested someone for. They're open cases where I value your input. You're really good at getting to the bottom of things."

It was true. As bad as Cora was at crossword puzzles, she was good at crime. In the past she had helped Chief Harper with several homicides. Not to mention several lesser offenses.

"Chief —"

Harper put up his hand. "Cora. We're friends. I'll help you if I can. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. That's what friends do. You want me to do you a favor, I certainly will. Just like I know you'd do a favor for me."

Uh oh.

Cora suddenly had severe misgivings. Something bad was about to happen. She could sense it.

"That's really nice of you, Chief. Becky will appreciate it."

"Yes. And I'm sure she'd do me a favor if she could. But that really wouldn't be ethical. It's not the same as friends helping friends."

"I'm glad to hear it, Chief," Cora said. She hastily got up to go. "Glad I stopped in."

"I'm glad you did, too," Chief Harper said. "There's something I wanted to ask you. The selectmen are organizing a benefit to help the local police department. I was wondering if —"

Kill me now, Cora thought.

Jennifer raced across the front lawn and hurled herself headfirst onto the monkey bars.

"She's going to knock her teeth out," Cora said.

Sherry Carter laughed. "Well, aren't you the nervous Nellie. I thought it was the mother who was supposed to be overprotective, not the great-aunt."

"Well, you don't have to bend over backwards in the opposite direction," Cora said. "It's a wonder the kid got to be as old as she is. How old is she?"

"She's three."

"Three going on sixteen. I tell you, that kid's ready to start dating, and, trust me, she'll choose the most undesirable boys."

"Now, now, Cora. Just because you did doesn't mean she will."

"I chose wonderful boys. It's husbands where I had a problem. So did you, as I recall."

Sherry's first husband, Dennis, had been a disaster. He was the reason for the whole Puzzle Lady facade. Cora had never forgiven him for it.

"I'm batting five hundred," Sherry said. "A damn sight better than your average."

"Yeah. I'm below the Mendoza line. You don't have to rub it in."

"The Mendoza line?"

"He had a lifetime two hundred batting average. How can you create puzzles and not know that?" Cora pointed. "Look what she's doing now!"

Jennifer was hanging upside down by her knees from a high bar.

"Relax. She's fine."

"What are you going to tell Aaron when he gets home and finds out she fell on her head?"

"I'll tell him you weren't watching her."

"Sherry Carter, what did I ever do to you?"

"You know what you did to me. You come out here, you want me to construct a crossword puzzle."

"I don't want you to construct a crossword puzzle. Chief Harper wants you to construct a crossword puzzle."

"Maybe I'm wrong, but doesn't Chief Harper want you to construct a crossword puzzle?"

"I can't do it."

"My point exactly."

"You knew I couldn't do it when you got me into this mess. You knew you were always going to have to construct the crossword puzzles for me. Now, do you want to keep doing that, or do you want to tell people I'm a big fake, it's a hollow charade, and let the whole Puzzle Lady franchise crash and burn, along with the sizable income that allows us to pay for this nice Connecticut property, including the comfortable two-story addition? Or do you think we can make it on Aaron's salary alone?"

Sherry's husband was a reporter for the Bakerhaven Gazette.

"Aaron works hard."

"So do you. Oh, no, you don't. You retired from teaching preschool to handle the less demanding but far more lucrative job of writing crossword puzzles. Every now and then you'll be called upon to create an extra one to keep up the facade, but that seems a small price to pay for the cash cow that is the Puzzle Lady franchise."

Jennifer had untangled herself from her upside-down position and was traversing the upper rungs of the monkey bars like a spider.

"You should have a video camera," Cora said.

"We do. I just have so much footage of her climbing the monkey bars already. Now, what is it Chief Harper wants, exactly?"

"A crossword puzzle extolling the virtues of the police department."

"You've got to be kidding."

"That's what he wants."

"Can it be funny?"

"How can it possibly be funny?"

"You don't write my column. Anything can be funny. I just need a short poem about the police."

"'Our cops are tops.'"

"Not that short."

"'Bakerhaven's finest —'"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Sherry said. "I'm not doing a Sunday puzzle here. We're talking fifteen by fifteen. 'Bakerhaven's finest' is more than fifteen letters itself. I need lines nine or ten letters long."

"Now I have to write the poem for you?"

"Unless you trust me to do it."

"Now why does that sound like a threat?"

"It's not a threat. I'm just warning you what you're going to get."

"There's a poem. 'Ain't no threat, it's what you're gonna get.'"

"Never mind. I'll do it myself."

"That's probably wise," Cora said.

"You couldn't just make him a Sudoku?"

"I made him a Sudoku." Cora reached in her floppy drawstring purse, pulled it out, and held it up for Sherry.

"You expect me to solve this?" Sherry said.

"No. I know you're not able to. Which is why I don't taunt you with it and make fun of you. Because I'm a nice person who appreciates the congenial working relationship that is the basis of the Puzzle Lady franchise."

Sherry said something that could hardly be considered congenial.

"My, my," Cora said. "It's a good thing Jennifer's way over there on the monkey bars."

"So? You gonna solve this or not?"

Cora dug in her purse for the solution. "Here you go."

Sherry scanned the solution grid. "So what's it mean?"

Cora shrugged. "Nothing. It's just numbers. Which is why Chief Harper wasn't thrilled. Which is why I need a puzzle."

Sherry looked up from the Sudoku. "You showed this to me just to point out I couldn't do it?"

"No. To point out I tried to save you. I don't bring you puzzles just to torture you. Only when I can't get out of it."

"You couldn't have sicced the chief on Harvey Beerbaum?"

Harvey was Bakerhaven's other resident cruciverbalist. He, like Becky, knew Cora couldn't solve puzzles. When the police wanted help with one, she often passed the honor on to him.

"I tried. It's for charity. It's not so much the puzzle they want as the Puzzle Lady name."

"Wonderful."

Cora stuck the Sudoku in her purse, looked back at the monkey bars.

Jennifer was climbing down headfirst. Somehow she made it seem logical.

"Anything else I can do for you?" Sherry said sarcastically.

Cora cocked her head. "You wouldn't have a client for Becky Baldwin, would you?"

"You seeing someone?"

Stephanie's eyes widened in outrage. "You can't ask her that. This is a woman in your life. You have feelings for her. You know it, she knows it, I know it. Asking her if she's seeing someone is like saying you don't have feelings for her. And we all know that isn't true."

"Just making conversation," Crowley said.

Stephanie rolled her eyes. "Men!"

"I'm not seeing anyone I'm in imminent danger of marrying, if that's what you mean," Cora said.

"That should cover a lot of territory, with your track record," Crowley said.

Stephanie hit him with a couch cushion. "You get worse and worse. Cora will be sorry she came."

"I'm glad you invited me," Cora said. "Sherry's a good cook, but her daughter's three, and she's all over the place. There's only so much I can take."

"Stephanie's a good cook," Crowley said.

"She must be, if she's cooking right now and she's in here."

"In here" was the living room of Crowley's Greenwich Village apartment. The Jimi Hendrix poster on the wall might have seemed out of place for a beefy NYPD homicide sergeant but made sense after Cora met Stephanie. A thin woman in a madras smock with long flaxen hair and no makeup, Crowley's girlfriend was a refugee from the sixties whose Bleecker Street tapestry shop had evolved into its present incarnation as a fabric store.

"It's all in the timing," Stephanie said. "And the preparation. You get everything ready to go and it cooks itself. Didn't you ever cook?"

"Not if I could help it. I used to make macaroni. Of course, it comes in a box and takes seven minutes."

"So you know how to boil water."

"Absolutely," Cora said. "It's what attracted Frank."

"Frank?"

"My third husband. I think he was third. There's a gray area, what with the annulments."

Crowley got up and poured himself a bourbon. "It doesn't bother you that I'm drinking?"

"Not a bit. I like a man who drinks. Not that I have to get 'em drunk, usually. Maybe a few shy types."

"It doesn't bother you that you're not drinking?"

"No, the one thing has nothing to do with the other."

"Are you in AA?" Stephanie said.

Cora shook her head. "Not my style. If I don't drink, it's because I don't want to drink, not because a bunch of people I don't know pressured me into feeling guilty about it."

"That's not what AA does," Stephanie said.

"Are you in it?"

"No, but I know enough people who are."

"I thought it was anonymous."

"It is. That doesn't mean people can't tell you they're in it."

"Yeah, well, I quit drinking on my own. I quit smoking on my own. And when I quit dating, it will be entirely on my own, and not because someone asked me in a supportive way if I was seeing someone."

"Oho!" Stephanie said. "What a way to turn the conversation around with a devastating zinger. Well done!"

"Sounds like you don't need any help," Crowley said.

"Unless you know someone who needs the services of a Bakerhaven lawyer."

"Becky Baldwin needs work? I don't know why. That girl is damn good."

"There's not a lot of business in Bakerhaven."

"She should move to New York."

"Hey!" Cora said. "Don't deprive me of my one source of entertainment. Doing Becky's legwork is what keeps me sane."

"I thought there is no legwork," Crowley said.

"I rest my case."

Aaron Grant flew Jennifer around the living room like an airplane, with Buddy the toy poodle nipping at his heels, while Sherry showed Cora the crossword puzzle.

"Okay, here it is," Sherry said. "I just couldn't do a long support-our-hardworking-police-department-to-whom-we-owe-an-enormous-debt-of-gratitude message."

"Right," Cora said. "It doesn't fit in the grid."

"It's not the length of the answer I'm talking about, it's the tone," Sherry said. "I can't do a sickly sweet appreciation. I'm not cut out for it, and neither is the Puzzle Lady. Puzzle Lady puzzles have a little edge to them, a little barb, a little playful quality. That's what makes them Puzzle Lady puzzles and not the puzzles of anybody else."

"What are you buttering me up for?"

"What do you mean?"

"There's something about this puzzle I'm not going to like that you're trying to prepare me for."

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Excerpted from Presumed Puzzled by Parnell Hall. Copyright © 2015 Parnell Hall. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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