Last Puzzle & Testament (17 page)

“Why?” Cora Felton said.

“Why, indeed? My mother was the eldest. Evan’s money should have gone to her. Or to Chester, as the eldest son. Or even to Randy’s children. Instead, it went to
her
.”

“Why?” Cora repeated, less patiently.

Frown lines wrinkled Annabel’s flat face. “Goody Two Shoes. That’s what Emma was. Little Miss Goody Two Shoes.” Her lips compressed in a grim line. “And Mamma wasn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mamma was wild. By Grandpa Evan’s standards. She and Daddy weren’t married. That’s why I’m a Hurley. Why I have her name.” Annabel Hurley sighed. “Daddy died when I was two. Mamma never married. She mourned his death with alcohol and men. Grandpa didn’t like that. He tried to control Mamma the best he could, was always butting into our business.

“Right up until he got sick. Cancer. Treatment wasn’t so good then. Doctors gave him six months. Evan lasted ten. Long enough to write a new will.”

“And that’s the will you wanna talk about?”

“That’s the one. That’s what did my mother out of her rightful inheritance. That’s the reason Emma Hurley had any money to give.”

“And your point is?” Cora Felton asked.

Annabel Hurley sniffed. “I’m getting to it. You have to understand the background.”

Cora Felton was sorely tempted to tell Annabel Hurley she didn’t have to understand anything, she hadn’t asked for this conversation, and if Annabel didn’t want to say squat, that was okay with her.

Except Cora wanted to know.

“A week before he died, Grandpa called Mamma in and told her the facts of life. I was young but I understood, at least the gist of it. Grandpa didn’t approve of Mamma, Grandpa wanted Mamma to straighten herself out, Grandpa was revising his will to make sure she did.

“Mamma thought she knew what he meant. A trust fund of some type. A provision stating she couldn’t touch the principal until she was forty or fifty or so. That she was prepared for. But not the other.”

“He cut her off?”

“Not entirely. He left her ten thousand dollars. Just like Emma’s doing now. Just to rub it in. He left ten thousand to her, ten thousand to Chester. Ten thousand to each of Randy’s kids—Philip, Phyllis, and Jason. Randy was dead by then—killed in a car crash. His widow, Jean, might have expected better, what with three little kids to raise. But Grandpa set no store by spouses. Or grandchildren, for that matter. He cut them off with only ten thousand each.

“Same as Mamma.” Annabel Hurley sniffed again. “He left the rest to Emma. Free and clear. To do with as she liked.”

“It was his money,” Cora pointed out. “I guess he had a right to do so.”

“A team of lawyers studied the language in that will. They couldn’t break it.”

The waitress slid salads in front of Sherry and Cora, and looked inquiringly at Annabel, who shook her head.

“I still have no idea why you’re telling me this,” Cora said as the waitress moved off.

“I just want you to have the background, that’s all. And the background is a monumental injustice. Because Emma Hurley was not what she seemed. Goody Two Shoes, that’s what Grandpa saw. But Emma was sharp, Emma was crafty, Emma was sly.”

“How do you know this?”

“A lot is what my mother told me, and, granted, she’d be prejudiced. But I’ve also seen for myself. I knew Emma many years. In the humiliating capacity of a poor relation. And Emma wasn’t the saint Grandpa thought she was. The real Goody Two Shoes was Chester. He was the real chip off the old block. A grim, prim, straitlaced Hurley. Only Grandpa had a blind spot. And Emma poisoned his mind against Chester. I don’t know how she did it, but she did. Or he never would have cut him off.”

Cora Felton picked up her fork, poked at her salad. “What’s this got to do with the present will?”

“It’s all wrong. In the same way Grandpa’s will was wrong. It’s arbitrary and unfair. Which makes sense to me, if Emma wrote it. I would expect her will to be arbitrary and unfair, compounding the sins of her father.”

“Suppose it is,” Cora Felton said. “What do you expect me to do about it?”

“I expect you to figure it out. That’s what you’re good at, isn’t it, figuring things out? And not just the puzzle. That’s not important—no disrespect meant—I know puzzles are important to you. I mean the
reason
behind the puzzle. What Emma was getting at. What she meant in the will.”

“Uh huh,” Cora said. “And just what was that?”

“Well, that’s the thing. She said that the puzzle was forty years old, that it was out of the os ov>

“How do you know?”

“I know Emma. And she didn’t do them.”

“Maybe not normally. But she was confined to her bed. She might have gotten bored, wanted something to do.”

Annabel Hurley looked at Cora Felton skeptically. “You mean this was a new preoccupation? Which is why I didn’t know about it?”

“Isn’t that possible?”

“In that case, where did a
forty-year-old
puzzle come from?”

Cora Felton frowned.

“But that’s beside the point,” Annabel Hurley continued. “Emma talks about the puzzle being special and challenging. Yet here you hand me a perfectly ordinary crossword puzzle that could have come out of the daily paper. What’s so special about that?”

“It didn’t have all the clues,” Cora pointed out.

“But I have to assume eventually we’ll get all the clues. Otherwise, what would be the point? And, once we do, what have we got? What if it turns out we have a perfectly ordinary crossword puzzle? My question to you is, what does it mean? Never mind who solves it first. I know that’s your primary concern. You determine who solves it first, and that person gets all the money. But what does the puzzle itself
mean?
That’s what you need to determine.”

“That’s what
I
need to determine?” Cora Felton said.

“Exactly. Emma Hurley named you. She entrusted you with the job of finding the solution to her puzzle. And your responsibility goes beyond solving some crossword puzzle. It goes to interpreting what these things mean.”

Sherry Carter had been studying Annabel Hurley’s face during this long exchange. “Let me ask you something,” Sherry put in. “Have
you
tried to solve the puzzle?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Why not?”

Annabel Hurley rubbed her chin. “That’s a complicated question. I guess the answer is money doesn’t matter to me. Maybe at one time it did, but not now. I get ten thousand just for losing. That’s more than I need. And, as for the rest … I wouldn’t want to win it to have it. Only to keep the others from getting it. And that’s no way to go through life. You have to let go.”

Cora Felton frowned. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“You really don’t have to understand,” Annabel Hurley told her. “As long as you’re willing to figure itg t="0em out. And not give the money to the first person who claims it.”

“I think you can trust me on that score,” Cora Felton said. “Was there anything else?”

Annabel Hurley hesitated. “What you said this morning—at the house—about Emma being murdered—you weren’t serious, were you?”

Cora looked at her sharply. “Why?”

“You seemed a bit … confused.” Annabel Hurley said it delicately. “So I don’t know if you mean it. But I have to tell you. I don’t think it’s true. But I wouldn’t put it past them.”

“Them?”

“Any of them. But Philip and Phyllis in particular. They had it in for Emma ever since she kicked them out. But you don’t know that either. Emma took the kids in after their mother died. Or, perhaps, took them in is the wrong choice of words. Moved in on her is what they did. After all, they were grown by then. They certainly could have set out on their own, if they hadn’t happened to have a rich relative.”

“You said she threw them out,” Cora Felton prompted, but Sherry could see she was interested.

“Yes, she did, and who could blame her? After her money, every last one of them. Well, maybe not Jason. But certainly the twins.”

“
Why
did she throw them out?” Cora persisted, sounding a little impatient.

“Philip was a schemer, was always trying to get Emma to invest in his shady deals. Of course, she never would. But he used her name without her knowledge—something about collateral—so that when his deal fell through, the investors came back at her.”

“I see,” Cora said. And she did. Her fourth husband, Henry, had a weakness for business deals. “And that was when she threw Philip out?”

“Yes. And Phyllis too. That’s why she hates him so much. Phyllis, I mean. Why she hates her brother. Not that it wasn’t always a fierce rivalry, but she blames him for that.”

“What about Jason?”

“Oh, he was long gone by then. Off on some romantic lark or other. The house was empty after Emma threw out the twins. Just as it’s been ever since.”

“So, when you say you think they’re capable of murdering your aunt, it’s Philip and Phyllis you’re talking about?”

“Don’t get me wrong.” Annabel Hurley looked Cora Felton right in the eye. “I don’t for a minute think they killed her. I’m just saying they
could
have. So you must make sure they didn’t.”

Annabel Hurley got up from the table, started for the door. She turned back. “The boy. Jason’s son. Do you know wheo yp heire he’s staying?”

“A bed-and-breakfast. I don’t know which one, but it must be near here.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he was in here for dinner, and I didn’t hear his motorcycle.”

Annabel Hurley smiled. “Ah, you
are
good at figuring things out. I just know you’ll be able to solve Emma’s puzzle.” She smiled again, and went out the door.

“Did you hear
that?
” Cora Felton asked Sherry. “
She
thinks her aunt was murdered.”

“She thinks nothing of the kind,” Sherry scoffed. “She ridiculed the suggestion.”

“She said Philip and Phyllis had a motive.”

“Yes, but she doesn’t think they did it.”

“She said she thought they were capable of it, and asked me to look into it.”

“She asked you to
eliminate it as a possibility
,” Sherry said.

“Right,” Cora said. “And that’s
exactly
what I intend to do.”

Sherry didn’t like the gleam in her aunt’s eyes. “Aunt Cora.”

“You don’t want to break into the Hurley mansion?”

“No, I do not.”

“Okay. Compromise. How about the post office?”

“Aunt
Cora.
We are not breaking in
anywhere
.”

“No, of course not,” Cora said. She pushed her salad around with her fork. Considered. “Still, it is a small town.”

“So?” Sherry said suspiciously.

Cora Felton shrugged.

“I wonder where the postmistress lives.”

Sherry Carter managed to dissuade Cora Felton from rousting the postmistress from her bed to let them in, but could not prevent her aunt from dragging her to the post office at seven-thirty the next morning.

“In case she opens early,” Cora said, steamrolling over arguments to the contrary.

It was all Sherry could do to grab a cup of coffee before her aunt whisked her out the door. Cora Felton was bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and sober. It was not lost on Sherry that having a mystery to unravel was helping her aunt tread to yp nt whiskedhe straight and narrow.

“I bet that’s her,” Cora Felton said at five minutes to eight when a front door opened three houses down the block.

Sure enough, the woman bustling down the front steps was the one Cora had bought stamps from just the week before.

The postmistress came walking up. She was an exceptionally plump woman with red hair and bright rosy cheeks. She smiled when she recognized Cora Felton. “It’s you. I thought it was you. What brings you here so bright and early?”

Cora Felton smiled back. “No stamps. I have deadlines, and no stamps. I feel like such a fool. I was in here in just last week. I thought I bought enough. But I thought wrong. Oh, this is my niece, Sherry Carter. A big help to me with my secretarial work. Only she didn’t notice we were running out of stamps either. Until this morning. I said, no matter, we’ll run right over. Of course, we didn’t know when the post office opened until we looked on the door.”

The postmistress said, “Aha.” Her tone had become slightly less cordial. “Well, I certainly hope you won’t make an issue of it. There are those who think I should open at seven-thirty. I have to tell you, that is just too early. There is not enough demand.” She slipped back into bubbly mode, smiled at Sherry Carter. “Hi, I’m Betty Roston. And I don’t mean to complain. It’s just some people like to tell other people how to do their jobs.”

Betty Roston pulled out her keys, unlocked the front door. She ushered them in, flicked on the light switches on the wall.

The Bakerhaven post office was an L-shaped affair, at least the part for the public was. The L was formed by the rectangular room where Betty Roston worked. On the short, front wall of the room was a door and a postal window. On the long side wall were the individual mailboxes.

Betty Roston unlocked the door to the inner room and slipped inside. Lights went on, and moments later the frosted postal window slid up.