A Crossworder's Gift (12 page)

“And it sure as heck ain't in the piano, is it?” Hollister tossed in.

“But how could he hide it?” Rosco asked. “That kind of cash has to take up a fair amount of space.”

Belle walked over to the smashed picture frame, bent down, and picked up one of the cards. “Why is the piano named Gabby?”

The two men looked at one another, but said nothing as Belle continued, almost to herself:

“It's an anagram … Gabby—Baby G. Baby grand …”

“And?” Hollister said.

“Can I see that piece of paper Narone left, Lieutenant?”

Hollister pulled the note from his pocket and handed it to Belle, who studied it for several long and silent minutes. “It's all anagrams … even his name, Dave Narone—Reno Nevada … And
Still, Man Wasted Talent
—Last will and testament … And his instructions—they indicate that: ‘A puzzle grid must be created by one Anna Graham.' I don't know how we missed that clue … If he knew my work—and he obviously did—he must have realized I'm called Belle, not Anna. Second: ‘there is good reason to—fear of it, however cute.' ‘Fear of it, however cute …' I thought it was an odd warning, but the sentence is also an anagram, and it tells us exactly the form these mysterious ‘liquid assets' take. ‘Fear of it, however cute'—Ace, two, three, four, five. ‘Gabby's' straight flush. That's it! It's in the cards!” Belle was so excited by her discovery that the inadvertent pun didn't even make her wince.

Rosco glanced at the card in his hand and said, “Diamonds … Of course … You could stick four million dollars' worth of diamonds in a catsup bottle if you wanted. They'd have to be flawless, and the right cut, to be worth that much, but you could do it.”

Hollister began walking around the room. “Kinda' like finding a needle in a haystack. Four mil in stones could be anywhere—sewn into his clothes, under the carpet, in the couch cushions …”

“I don't think so,” was Belle's immediate response. “This list of words I was given; SHOE is an anagram for HOSE, and FLOG is an anagram for GOLF, RETAILS is an anagram for REALIST, and so forth, meaning I created a puzzle using
anagrams
rather than the correct solutions.” As Hollister continued to look perplexed, Belle added, “I used the wrong words, Lieutenant … but I'm betting the correct ones will reveal the dead man's final wishes in a message we can actually decipher.”

“Except you're not a gambling person,” Rosco observed.

“Wasn't
a gambling person.” Belle smiled and raised her eyebrows while Hollister asked a still unconvinced:

“How long will it take to make a new crossword?”

“An hour or two. The length of the words will remain consistent, so I'll be able to use my same puzzle grid.”

Hollister picked up the phone, punched in a few numbers, and ordered coffee from room service. “Anything to eat with it?” he asked Belle and Rosco.

Belle chuckled. “How about whatever comes ‘on a roll?'”

Still, Man Wasted Talent

ACROSS

1.  Clear tables

4.  TV network

7.  Ruth & Rose wood?

10.  Santa helper

13.  St. John's island

15.  Not the up-and-up

16.  New; comb. form

17.  Message, part 1

19.  Cookie pot

20.  Links sport

21.  Eke out

22.  Show girl's need

23.  Blow up; abbr.

24.  Bristle

25.  Cable; e.g.

26.  Message, part 3

29.  Old gas sign

31.  Cut glass

32.  Casino watering hole

33.  Phoenix to Flagstaff dir.

34.  Casino dance room

36.  Pampering; abbr.

37.  Japanese crater or park

38.  Give the boot

39.  Mr. Bishop

40.  Message, part 4

44.  Mr. Big-bucks

45.  N.C. School

46.  Moon vehicle

49.  Tromped

50.  Famous fountain

52.  Phone or bucks lead-in

53.  Crew member; abbr.

54.  Message, part 6

56.  Scrap

57.  And so on; abbr.

58.  Paint by numbers guy?

59.  Ship's letters

60.  Owed

61.  Draft org.

62.  Pig quarters

DOWN

1.  Sheriff's shield

2.  On the Blue side?

3.  Put off

4.  Past

5.  Jumper's prop

6.  West Pointers

7.  Fink out

8.  Breezy

9.  20-Across gadget

10.  Fun

11.  Rated G

12.  Message, part 2

14.  World financial org.

18.  Many a main drag

22.  Holds

24.  25-Across listing

25.  Hebrew letter

26.  Literary monogram

27.  Stock sale: abbr.

28.  Sgt. or cpl.

29.  Trappers

30.  Winter footwear

34.  Idiot's reply

35.  Practitioner; suffix

36.  Rocky peak

37.  Message, part 5

38.  Betting parlor; abbr.

39.  Mr. Bon Jovi

41.  Sailing class; abbr.

42.  Young eels

43.  Orates

46.  Some jeans

47.  Discharge

48.  Mr. Robbins

50.  Ballet skirt

51.  Wedding chapel prop

52.  One of the Blancs

54.  Up and coming; abbr.

55.  ___Vegas

To download a PDF of this puzzle, please visit
openroadmedia.com/nero-blanc-crosswords

The Eraser's Edge

G
ARROTE
, burke, throttle, asphyxiate … How many letters might you need for a synonym for ‘strangle' …? Or you could make the puzzle clue ‘strangler' and widen the field to include other types of murder … a Thug or Thugee—the ancient Hindu sect of assassins … a ‘Jack Ketch,' which is, of course, British slang for an executioner—who could also be a hangman, topsman, or topping cove … Or perhaps you might consider adjusting the grid slightly …” The remarks came from a large man sitting beside a roaring fire on the second-floor parlor of the handsome old El Tovar Hotel, the famed stone and wood-beamed “lodge” perched on the edge of the Grand Canyon's south rim. The fact that the man was confined to a wheelchair seemed to have no effect on his broad and magisterial presence; quite the opposite. To Joe Conrad, his mobile chair was a roving throne—a
howdah
, as he liked to jest with his deep and lordly laugh. “An Americanized
howdah
for an ex-cattle rancher who hooked up with a bum steer … And how's that for a fine how-do-you-do …”

The reply to Conrad's minimonologue came from Jean O'Neal. She was seated at a nearby desk, and bent over a sheet of graph paper, penciling in the initial design for a new crossword puzzle. “I'm not sure, Joe … Maybe I should change the solution to plain old KILL—”

“With the clue being either ‘slay,' ‘erase,' ‘veto,' ‘defeat,' ‘suppress,' ‘huggermugger'—”

“‘Huggermugger'?” Jean's hazel eyes crinkled in a smile as she turned to reply. Like Joe, she was comfortably ensconced in later middle age; her gray hair was tinted an exuberant lilac hue that matched the vibrant blues and mauves and purples she favored in her dress. Also like Joe, she dearly loved to laugh—which she did with happy abandon.

“Origin unknown. Noun, adjective, verb: transitive and intransitive denoting secrecy, confusion, something jumbled or disorderly … an act conferred in a stealthy manner.”

“KILL is a touch oversimplistic, don't you think, Jean?” It was Will Mawme who had joined the conversation. Where Joe was solid and hearty—despite his inability to work his legs properly—Will was bony and slight of build, so fragile-looking it seemed as if only his abundant nervous energy kept him in motion, or even alive and breathing. A half-smoked cheroot dangled eternally from his lips, never appearing to grow shorter or longer, as if in a perpetual state of suspended animation. Mawme was also a puzzler without par, and the prime organizer of the group's annual crossword competition, celebration, and charity fund-raiser for the Phoenix Literacy Programme. It was Will Mawme who had originally decreed the yearly gala be held on New Year's Eve; it was he who traditionally constructed a “surprise first-night lexical conundrum”; it was he who dictated how the New Year's Day competition should be judged, and who the event's guest of honor would be.

Mawme now turned his thin, intense face to that guest of honor—none other than famed crossword editor Belle Graham, who was curled up on a sofa thumbing through one of her favorite books—a volume of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica
: this one copyright 1929. The El Tovar Hotel had a library almost as venerable as its many gabled building. “Don't you agree that KILL is overly simplistic as a solution. Or, I daresay, even as a clue.” Mawme shifted his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other as he spoke.

Arriving with her husband, Rosco, just prior to a luncheon in the hotel's well-appointed dining room, Belle had had several hours to observe the gathering's eight attendees. It hadn't taken long to intuit their relationships. Mawme, she'd discerned, held sway simply because no one would openly challenge his autocratic and often cutting manner—skills he'd honed in Arizona's courtrooms while serving as one of the state's most cutthroat prosecutors. But finding fault with Jean O'Neal's word choice, Belle realized, was bound to bring a swift counterattack from Joe. It was clear he considered Jean more than a friend.

As Belle had surmised, Joe immediately came to Jean's defense. “What would you employ, Mawme? EXECUTION?”

Will turned a tight, tense face toward the bigger man. “Execution—
if
it were to fit into the crossword Jean is constructing—would enable her clue to be more ambiguous, and thus more entertaining … anything from ‘capital punishment' to ‘completion' to a musical reference … But then we, and our words, are always slaves to the grid we have created.”

“Precisely why I like KILL better,” Joe all but growled. “Killjoy … Killing time, killdeer; the options seem endless—and let us not forget Jean-Claude Killy!”

“Kill the fatted calf,” put in Belle. She'd meant to ease the friction, but then winced remembering how the disabled man had met his fate—a tumble from a quarter-horse while roping a young steer.

“Or the goose that lays the golden egg,” Jean added quickly. She smiled beatifically upon the group, but it was Joe who received the full force of this tender expression.

“The twins,” Ginger and Tommy Wolfe, looked up from a jigsaw puzzle they were assembling on a tabletop at the room's center. “Fables,” they said almost in unison. Ginger and her brother were travel agents. They owned their own business, and it was they who arranged the crossworders' yearly excursions. True to her name, Ginger was a redhead, as was Tommy although his once wavy locks were now thinning and his hairline receding. Brother and sister had the pink complexion of ripe peaches, but their bodies were shaped like two matching pears. They had not spent more than a few days apart in their forty-eight years on earth.

“‘Fabulous' quotations …” Ginger Wolfe enthused, putting aside the unfinished depiction of the Grand Canyon at sunset. “Let's test our communal knowledge. After all, a crossword is only as good as the quotes and quips within the solutions. In this case, let's rely on old Aesop—”

Tommy took up his sibling's challenge. “Okay, here goes … from
The Hare and the Tortoise:
‘Slow and steady wins the race.'”

“The Lion and the Mouse,
” put in Jean. “‘No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.'”

“‘Familiarity breeds contempt':
The Fox and the Lion,
” interjected Mawme with his patronizing smile; while Joe Conrad, still smarting over Jean's perceived snub, countered with an austere and basso:

“‘Any excuse will serve a tyrant':
The Wolf and the Lamb.
”

“If you're on the subject of wolves,” shot back Will, “don't forget
The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
—”

“The one about appearances being deceiving?” interrupted Ginger. “Our mother loved to quote that when we were little, and were still able to fool the neighbors as to which of us was which … the ‘Twin Wolves' we were called.”

The remainder of the group: Hunter Evans, D.C. Irving, and Gwen Beckstein entered the room at that moment, stamping the remaining tufts of snow from their hiking boots. Their afternoon walk had taken them to the Bright Angel Trailhead, but with a winter's early sunset impending, they'd turned back without beginning to descend the switchback trail that led toward the distant Colorado River.

“Are we on lists of animals?” D.C. asked as he rubbed his hands by the fire. He had a deft smile and a wide-open manner acquired from a life spent out of doors. He was an Arizonan born and bred, a man whose eyes reflected the solitude of cactus and scrub, and roads traversing mile upon mile of uninhabited land. Despite his cowboy appearance and laconic manner, D.C. was a successful golf pro, an institution at a high-end Scottsdale resort.