Authors: Parnell Hall

Tags: #Fiction

A Puzzle in a Pear Tree (12 page)

“WHERE’D YOU GET THAT?” CORA BLUSTERED. SHE WASN’T exactly sure what she was going to do about another puzzle, but she managed to put up a brave front.

Doddsworth seemed reluctant to tell her. After a pause he said, “I found it in a costume.”

“Pinned to it?”

“No. Propped up.”

“Becky Baldwin’s costume?”

“I wouldn’t know. Which one would be Miss Baldwin’s costume?”

“I’m not sure it’s even here. These are just the finished costumes. The ones the wardrobe lady is still working on are in the costume shop. That’s where mine is. I saw it when I peeked in just now,” Cora blathered. Would Doddsworth notice she was prattling on nervously, desperately trying to figure out what she was going to do when he opened the envelope? “Let’s see, this is a ladies dancing. That’s a ladies dancing. That’s a maid a-milking, but it’s not mine. Ah, here we are.” She stabbed a finger at a pale pink dress with an attractive embroidered lace trim. “That’s Becky’s dress.”

Doddsworth nodded. “That’s the one. The envelope was wedged in the neck hole.”

“Interesting,” Cora said. “The first one was pinned.”

“Well, this one was not.” Doddsworth held the envelope up. “Not a puncture in it, now, is there?”

“I can see that.”

Doddsworth was holding the envelope by the corner with his handkerchief. He whipped a crumpled plastic bag from his coat pocket, shook it out, stuck the letter in. “Not that I expect any prints. The first three envelopes were clean. But as to the contents . . .”

Cora’s eyes flicked. “Yes. The contents.”

“If this should be another puzzle, your presence is fortuitous.”

Cora was trying to think of a comeback when from above there came a bellow as thunderous as a foghorn. “WHERE THE HELL IS MY MAID A-MILKING?”

The unmistakable bellow of Rupert Winston rattled the rafters. Luckily, no more sandbags fell.

“Oh, my God, I missed my cue!” Cora grabbed Doddsworth by his coat sleeve. “Come on! Come on! You gotta show them what we found—all right,
you
found— but I need a diversion or I’m gonna be hung out to dry!”

“I’m not sure everyone should see this—”

“Fine. Take it away with you,” Cora suggested, desperately dragging him toward the stairs. “Grab Chief Harper and get out of here. Just make enough noise doing it so Rupert has someone else to yell at. I’ll owe you one.”

“If it’s a puzzle we’ll need your help,” Doddsworth pointed out.

“Take Harvey. Rupert won’t care. If you take me, he’ll freak.”

They had reached the top of the stairs, where dozens of actors hissed, “Come on, come on, where are you! Get out there!”

Cora walked out onstage, where Rupert stood motionless. The director looked like a time bomb primed to explode.

“Miss Felton. How thoughtful of you to join us.”

Astonishingly, Doddsworth came to Cora’s rescue. That was how it looked to everyone in the theater. The inspector strode out onstage, his overcoat flapping behind him, and stepped between Cora Felton and the director, actually shielding her behind his arm. “Mr. Winston. I regret that a situation has arisen which requires Miss Felton’s attention. I fully appreciate your need to rehearse, and I promise I shall return Miss Felton with all due speed. But at the moment, the game’s afoot. So do carry on in our absence, there’s a good chap.”

“Now, see here,” Rupert Winston sputtered. “You can’t do that.”

“I can and I will,” Doddsworth told him. “I happen to need Miss Felton’s assistance with this.” He reached into his coat and pulled out the plastic bag with the red envelope. The gesture would have been more dramatic had he not dropped the evidence bag on the floor. Even so, its production was greeted with oohs and ahs.

Rupert Winston’s mouth fell open. For once the director could think of nothing to say.

“So,” Doddsworth went on airily. “Perhaps we can clear up this little matter of someone bombarding your actress. Chief Harper, if you would accompany us. Miss Felton, where’s your wrap?”

Cora cast a pleading glance stage left, where Sherry Carter stood amid the ladies dancing. Sherry shrugged helplessly. Under the circumstances, what could she do?

“Sure you don’t want Harvey?” Cora whispered desperately as Doddsworth spirited her away.

“From the expression on your director’s face, it would be prudent to remove you from the line of fire.”

On any other occasion Cora might have been grateful.

As they drove to the police station, Doddsworth filled Chief Harper in on the discovery of the fourth envelope. Cora barely heard. She was too busy trying to think of a way out.

Cora was trapped, and she knew it. Any minute now she was going to be confronted with a puzzle that she could not solve. This time there was no escape. Sherry wasn’t there to slip her the answers. Harvey wasn’t there to do the puzzle for her. She could hardly smash her glasses again. Maybe she could drop them, lose them in the snow. It was coming down harder now, covering the road. Maybe Chief Harper would skid and have an accident.

It occurred to Cora how desperate she was.

And how short the trip was from the high school into town.

Chief Harper cruised down Main Street and pulled up before the police station, a white building with green shutters that could have passed for any of the other shops on the picturesque street, and had once actually been one. He ushered Cora and Doddsworth up the steps and fitted the key in the door. A native New Yorker, Cora could never get used to the concept of a police station that was locked because no one was there.

Chief Harper flipped on the lights, stamped the snow off his boots, and led the way into his inner office.

“Let’s not stand on ceremony,” he said. “Where’s the new clue?”

Doddsworth fished the plastic bag out of his pocket, then put on thin rubber gloves. “Useless precaution. Our poet doesn’t leave prints, but even so. Have you a letter opener, Chief?”

The chief did. Doddsworth inserted it into the flap, slit the envelope. He pulled out a folded piece of paper and opened it.

Cora Felton sucked in her breath.

“Well?” Chief Harper demanded. “Is it another puzzle?”

Doddsworth looked up from the paper at Chief Harper, then looked at Cora, then down at the paper again.

He turned the paper around for them to see.

On it was written:

WRONG GIRL.

THE BAKERHAVEN MALL WAS LIT UP LIKE A CHRISTMAS TREE, with enormous plastic Santas blazing bright on every lamp pole. There were also angels, stars, bells, and wreaths, but they were discreet wire sculptures outlined in tiny white lights, actually rather artistic and tasteful, if one could see them through the commercial Christmas haze.

Not that any such reminder to shop was necessary. The parking lot was jammed, and cars were hungrily circling.

“Good lord,” Cora griped as she piloted the Toyota through the rows. “What kind of shopping mall is this? No parking spaces?”

“It’s almost Christmas.”

“Exactly. Which is why we need to shop.”

“I still feel funny about it. I mean, that young girl just got killed.”

“Sherry. Life goes on. You wanna get something for Aaron?”

“Of course I do. I just can’t think of anything. Come on, help me out. What do you think he’d like?”

“I
know
what he’d like.”

“Aunt Cora.”

“You wanna make Aaron happy, give
yourself
something from Victoria’s Secret.”

“You’re not helping.”

“Not that I ever did that. Though I wouldn’t even wanna tell you some of the things Melvin used to give me.”

Taillights gleamed as a car backed out down the row. Gunning the engine, Cora skidded toward it, but a man in a sports utility vehicle rounded the corner and screeched into the spot.

Cora voiced her opinion on men, malls, Christmas, SUVs, men, shopping, husbands, and men.

Sherry was lucky to keep her from leaping out of the car.

Cora eventually drove off, but not before treating the other driver to a rather unseemly gesture.

“Boy, what a shock finding that new clue,” Sherry said, largely to distract Cora, who was driving angrily, and a little too fast. “You should have seen the look on Rupert Winston’s face. I swear he thought you left it yourself just to get out of rehearsal.”

“I didn’t, but what a great idea.” Cora skidded around a corner, tore down another row of solidly parked cars. “I wonder where I could get some red envelopes. . . .”

“Cora! Don’t you dare!”

“Killjoy.”

“So what do you make of the case?”

Cora grimaced. “It doesn’t make sense. That’s the most striking thing about it. Everything’s a contradiction. The girl was killed in a stable. Aside from you, the only ones who could have killed her there are her boyfriend, her best friend, and Alfred the One Drumstick Wonder Nerd. Which makes perfectly good sense, except, drat it, she was the wrong girl. Everything points to the fact Becky Baldwin was the target. The poems were delivered to Becky Baldwin. Becky Baldwin was supposed to be in the stable, not Dorrie. As soon as it becomes clear that the murdered girl was not Becky, there is another attempt on Becky’s life. And, just in case there is any doubt, the killer leaves a message stating that he—or she—blew it.”

“Assuming the message was from the killer.”

“It was in a red envelope.”

“Yes, but it wasn’t a puzzle.”

“Of course not. Those first three puzzles were prepared in advance. Then the wrong girl gets bumped off. Oops. Slight miscalculation. Becky Baldwin still needs to be dispatched. A sandbag on her head will suffice, but a note needs to be found, informing us
this
was the real crime. This time, the killer doesn’t have time to write a poem and stick it in a puzzle. But this time, the killer doesn’t have to. All the killer needs is a short, blunt message, getting the point across.”

Cora, seeing a snub-nosed minivan snag a parking space, muttered a short, blunt message herself, getting the point across.

“And who was the killer?” Sherry asked. “Who planted this message?”

“I have no idea. Except for one thing. When I saw Doddsworth in the girls’ dressing room with that envelope, it occurred to me he might be the one who put it there.”

“Come on.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t all this start, the puzzle in the pear tree and all that, didn’t that start
after
that Brit got here?”

“The policeman is the killer?” Sherry arched her eyebrow. “Isn’t that a popular plot twist in some of those books you read?”

Cora ignored the remark. “He wasn’t there when the sandbag fell. He came right after, claiming he’d just driven up. Well, maybe he did. Or maybe he was at the top of the backstage stairs—the ones he pretended he didn’t know where they were—and maybe he was there with a rope dropping a sandbag on Becky Baldwin’s head, sneaking out the back door, walking around the high school, and walking into the gym as if he’d just arrived. Now, wouldn’t that work?”

“Perfectly,” Sherry said. “He comes over from England to murder his daughter’s best friend. Someone he used to play with when she was a little girl. I can’t think of a thing wrong with that.”

“Well, when you put it that way.”

A car turned the corner, coming their way. Cora skidded sideways to let it go by. Instead, it slammed to a stop in front of them, forcing them to stop too.

This time, Cora was out of the driver’s seat while the Toyota was still rocking. She came pelting around the front of her car to accost the other driver, who was climbing out of his.

It was Chief Harper.

Cora was still steamed. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she raged.

“Looking for you. Aaron Grant thought you two might be here.”

“I told him we were going shopping.” Sherry got out of the car too. “What’s up, Chief?”

“I assume you’ve been discussing the crime?”

“That’s a brilliant assumption,” Cora said irritably.

“What’s your opinion of it?”

“It’s a bummer.”

“Yes, it is. Unfortunately, as police chief, I have to be slightly more specific.”

“That’s tough, Chief. Would you mind moving your car? I’m trying to get a space here.”

“Oh, I’ll be going. I just wanted to make sure you have as bad a night as I do.”

“I
beg
your pardon?” Cora snapped.