Read Arsenic and Old Puzzles Online
Authors: Parnell Hall
“Is that an editorial comment?” Cora said.
“If it is, she’s got good taste,” Aaron said.
Rick kept on talking, oblivious to the fact a baby was critiquing his performance. “Today, another bizarre twist in the
Arsenic and Old Lace
murders. The prodigal nephew returning and picking a fight with his stay-at-home brother, just like in the movie starring Cary Grant. We caught up with local boy Alan Guilford, just this afternoon.”
The picture cut to a shot of Rick Reed shoving a microphone in Alan’s face as he came out the front door of his house.
“No comment,” Alan said.
“His brother Sebastian Guilford was not so reticent.”
The picture cut to a shot of Sebastian’s mocking face. “Someone killed my aunt, and no one seems to have the slightest idea who did it. That’s the problem with living in a small town. You have to put up with small-town people. That’s why I moved out long ago.’”
“Are you blaming the police department for not catching the killer of your aunt?”
“No. I’m applauding and giving them a medal. All I can say is, if I had to look for a killer, I wouldn’t look that far from home.”
“Are you referring to anyone in particular?”
“Obviously not. If I were, I’m sure they’d be arrested on my say-so.”
“You’re being sarcastic?”
“I’m being facetious. It’s a subtle difference. Ask that puzzle person to explain it for you.”
The picture cut back to a shot of Rick Reed. “I’d be happy to ask Cora Felton, but she hasn’t seen fit to come on camera. This is Rick Reed, Channel Eight News.”
“Wanna give Rick an interview?” Aaron said.
“So I can lecture him on semantics? Not in this lifetime.” Cora stood up and clapped her hands. “Okay, I’ve got the night off, maybe I can do something here.”
“What do you mean, you got the night off?” Sherry said.
Cora tap-danced fast. “Nobody’s killed anybody. Chief Harper’s not asking me to do anything. Hell, it’s like a vacation.”
“What’d you have in mind?” Aaron said.
“Solving the crime would be nice. But I’m happy just taking a shot at it. I haven’t been myself lately, Nancy Drew–wise. It’s time for that to change.”
“You have a new philosophy of life?” Aaron said.
“Yeah.” She grinned. “Let Cora be Cora.”
Cora put on
cotton pants, a knit sweater, and running shoes. She was so psyched to be going into action she didn’t even bother to consider if they matched. They didn’t. The pants were green, the pullover was blue, the running shoes were purple. No matter. She wasn’t going to a fashion show.
Cora dug in her drawstring purse, pulled out her gun. She flipped the cylinder open, checked that it was full. It was. She dumped the bullets out to make sure there was no expended cartridge. Of course, there wasn’t. Cora always reloaded the gun after she fired it. Her ex-husband Melvin had taught her well.
Cora put the bullets back in the gun, flipped the cylinder closed. She wondered if she had something lighter to carry it in. The hell with it. She was comfortable with the drawstring purse. She had her cigarettes in it. If she left them behind, she’d be a nervous wreck.
Cora got in the car, drove out to the Guilford house. She smoked along the way, trying to calm her jangled nerves. Which shouldn’t have been jangled. She had nothing riding on the outcome of this one. No one was threatening her family. She had nothing to fear. Nothing to lose.
Except her sanity. The idea that she couldn’t think straight because she had a man. That would be devastating. A crushing blow from which she might not recover.
Cora slowed down a few blocks from the turn, looked for a place to put out the cigarette. She’d stopped using the car ashtray when the baby was born. Sherry had made her stop using it, insisting that Jennifer ride in a smoke-free car. She wasn’t supposed to smoke in it, let alone use the ashtray. She’d kept the windows open on the way.
Cora stopped the car, got out, and stomped on the cigarette. Hoped the tobacco wouldn’t get caught up in the sneaker’s tread. She’d have to inspect her feet before she went back in the house. Something else to worry about. Or was she just reaching for things to worry about, so she wouldn’t worry about the biggie?
Cora slammed the car door, turned onto the Guilfords’s street. She didn’t stop, however. She drove right by and kept going, didn’t slow down until she had turned the corner onto the next block.
The Channel 8 news team was camped out in front of the house, interviewing the neighbors. There was no way she could get into the house unseen. Rick Reed would pounce on her the minute she got out of the car.
Cora drove down the side street. The house she was passing would be Arlene’s. It bordered on the Guilford property, which was how Arlene heard the noise she sent Alan to check out, only to get arrested as a prowler by Sam Brogan.
When was that? The first or the second murder? The second. The drunk in the window seat. And the crossword puzzle in the bushes. Was it even related to the crime? Did it have to mean anything?
It did, of course. The answer was
Arsenic and Old Lace.
Which is how they all got in this mess.
No it wasn’t. It came with the second murder, not with the first. If that puzzle was what it was all about, why wasn’t it found on the first body?
Cora parked in the shadows of the side street, away from any house. She approached Arlene’s house from the side, keeping low in the bushes, feeling her way along for any strand of barbed wire. Could there be one? No, then Alan couldn’t have gone back and forth. There had to be easy access between the houses.
A light in Arlene’s house was on. Through the window Cora could see what appeared to be a living room. There was no one there. If Arlene and Alan were home, they would be upstairs. There was a light on in one of the bedrooms.
Cora slipped around the back of the house. In the dark she could make out the outlines of a picnic table, a grill, what appeared to be a water fountain but turned out to be a bird feeder, and a large doghouse. There did not seem to be a dog. Unless he was inside, and unaware of prowlers.
Cora went farther, encountered the fence. It was too flimsy to climb, not flimsy enough to push down. Not that Cora would have done such a thing, still that was how she thought of it.
Cora followed the fence to the right, came to a dead end at the edge of the property. She retraced her steps, followed along to the left and found the hole. Or rather the gap. A space wide enough for a person to slip through.
A thin person. Not a person who had put on a few pounds lately. Damn it, must she be reminded of that at every turn?
Cora wriggled her way through, making sure the drawstring purse didn’t snag. Ahead of her was the Guilford house. It was more lit up than Arlene’s, but then there were more people staying there. The boarder had checked out, after supplying Chief Harper with his name and address and IDs of all descriptions, locking the barn door after the horse had been killed in the back of a bus, but Sebastian and Edith were staying there. And Alan still had a room there, when he wasn’t staying at Arlene’s, which he wasn’t necessarily doing. From experience Cora knew girlfriends and fiancées did not always wish to suffer the presence of even the most ardent suitors until after the knot was tied. If so, Cora wondered what room he was in. It occurred to her she could knock on the door and ask. She realized she was getting giddy.
Bright lights reminded her of the presence of the TV crews. There was no chance of sneaking in the front door. There was a kitchen door right off the back porch, but it was locked. Cora could see the skeleton key sticking out of the lock on the inside. In an emergency, she could have gotten in just by breaking the pane of glass in the door, but this was not an emergency, she told herself, this was merely indulging a whim.
Cora came down off the back porch, worked her way around the side of the house. A light from a downstairs window formed a long rectangle on the lawn. Bushes in front of the window mottled the light spill, so it resembled the surface of the moon. She crept closer, peered in the window.
A fireplace on the opposite wall gave Cora her bearings. It was the living room. This was the window the drunk had climbed in. It had been unlocked at the time. Surely it would be locked now.
Cora’s scanned the room. It was empty, at least the part she could see. There might have been someone sitting in the corner just out of her line of vision, but why anyone would sit there she couldn’t imagine. They’d be away from everything, up against the wall.
Not that it mattered, with the window locked anyway.
Cora put her fingers under the bottom and pushed.
The window shot up.
Cora, expecting to encounter resistance, nearly fell over the sill. She righted herself, shrank back into the shadows. The window slamming open was loud. Surely someone would come.
No one did.
The room was exactly as before. The door to the foyer was still shut.
Cora took a breath, flung her drawstring purse over the sill. She took ahold of the sill, and climbed in. Instead of landing on the floor, she found herself perched on the window seat. She climbed down, looked around.
Everything was quiet. There was no one there.
On the far side of the room, next to the fireplace, was a portable bar. There was a carafe of wine on it. It was half full. On the lower tray were half a dozen wineglasses.
The bottle of wine intrigued her. She hadn’t expected to see a bottle of wine in the house. But there it was, a glass decanter, right there on the tray as if to be ready for afternoon tea. Cora wondered if it was elderberry.
Cora took the stopper out of the bottle, tried to see if she could smell bitter almonds. She didn’t think so, but she wasn’t tasting the wine just to make sure.
She put the stopper back in the bottle, looked around the room, and went to the door. She put her ear to the keyhole, heard nothing. She opened the door a crack and peered out. There was no one in the foyer. The hallway to the kitchen was dark. But there was a light shining in from the pantry. If she remembered correctly, that was where the door to the cellar was. Could someone be down in the cellar? For what conceivable reason?
Cora tiptoed down the hall.
The creak of a door startled her. Cora froze. Had it come from the pantry? It was hard to tell.
A door shut. It was definitely from the pantry. The cellar door. And steps coming her way.
Cora tiptoed quickly back down the hall, went in, shut the door, and listened at the keyhole.
Footsteps. Coming in her direction.
Cora ran for the window. She was almost there when the door started to open. There was no time to climb out.
Cora raised the lid of the window seat, hopped inside, closed the lid.
Cora lay in
the dark, holding her breath and counting footsteps. Cold, deliberate, menacing. It couldn’t be Edith, it had to be Sebastian. She wouldn’t have thought such a gaunt man would have such a heavy tread. Had he seen her? Was he coming straight for the window seat?
Cora fumbled in her purse for her gun.
The footsteps stopped. Cora could imagine Sebastian looking around. How could he miss the open window? He’d see it, it would lead him to her, and what would she do? Shoot him? You could get away with shooting an intruder, but the police frowned on it when an intruder shot an occupant.
The steps resumed, approached the window.
“Ah, look who’s here!”
The voice came from the direction of the door. A male voice. One Cora thought she knew.
“What are you doing here, little brother?”
“What do you mean, what am I doing here?” Alan must have been right next to the window, but had turned back toward the door. “I live here.”
“Well, yes and no. I thought you were staying with the fair Arlene.”
“Keep her out of this.”
“Oh, but she’s so much in this, isn’t she? They all are. Aren’t they, little brother? Lucky for you. It’s your only skill.”
Alan’s voice was nasty, taunting. “And don’t you wish you had it? It’s so much harder having to live by your wits.”
“You got a little short-suited in that department, didn’t you, brother?”
“I’m smart enough to stay out of trouble. Which is something you never learned.”
“Till now. Why’d you have to start killing people? You got a nice, rich girlfriend. I thought you had it made.”
“Sure you did,” Alan said. He took a few steps toward his brother, away from the window. “That’s why you had to screw it up. What tipped you off? You got spies on the East Coast now? I know you’re not living here. It’s not safe for you anymore. Unless you had plastic surgery, like the guy in the movie.”
“What movie?”
“You know what movie. Don’t play dumb.
Arsenic and Old Lace
.”
“Oh, that movie.”
“Yeah, that movie. Happen to ring a bell?”
“Sure it does. It’s what you patterned your crime around. You never were an original thinker. Always had to copy someone else. What I don’t understand is why you killed Charlotte. Your aunts are your only buffer against the outside world.”
“Would you keep your voice down,” Alan warned.
“What, you afraid Edith will hear? Don’t worry. Doctor gave her some pills to sleep. He said one every four hours. I gave her three.”
“So, what’s your game, big brother? Why are you here?”
“Are you kidding me? My baby brother’s got himself in the soup. I wanted to see how bad.”
“So you could help, of course,” Alan said sarcastically.
“Okay, so I like to gloat. But you gotta admit, it is pretty funny. Here you are, perfect setup. Rich, young heiress falls into your lap, right next door. Gorgeous, gullible, taken in by the Guilford charm, what could possibly go wrong? So what happens? You suddenly snap and go on a killing spree.”
Cora couldn’t bear it anymore. Risk or no risk, she raised the lid a crack and peered out.
Alan Guilford and his brother were circling each other like predatory cats, slowly, purposefully, move and counter, each face a picture of contempt, Sebastian’s gloat matched by Alan’s sneer.