Last Puzzle & Testament (19 page)

Cora closed the door and went up the stairs.


At the top was a tiny kitchen with a pantry alcove and a breakfast nook. It was immaculately clean. There were no dishes in the sink, or even on the drain board. Everything from the last meal had been put away.


Cora Felton moved from the kitchen into the living room, or what Annabel Hurley undoubtedly referred to as the parlor. The couches were period pieces, as was the coffee table. The entertainmehe ovent unit consisted of an ancient wooden radio console. It stood on the floor to the right of the Victorian love seat, which was upholstered in red velvet. There were lace doilies on the arms of the couches and chairs. There was no sign of a magazine, book, newspaper, or any personal object in the room.


Except for two sheets of paper on the coffee table. Cora Felton picked these up. One was the first set of clues. The other was the crossword-puzzle grid. It was empty.


Cora Felton put the papers back on the coffee table, and continued her search of the apartment.


The bedroom was a marked contrast from the parlor. Though not large, it was a hodgepodge of styles. Bureaus, bookshelves, end tables, a wardrobe, all strewn with clothes, books, papers, reading glasses, jewelry boxes, a sewing kit, an umbrella stand, hatboxes, shoe boxes, cardboard cartons, a metal trunk.


The clutter, though extensive, was not enough to obscure the body of Annabel Hurley lying in the middle of the floor.




Chief Harper put his hands on his hips and scowled at Cora Felton and Sherry Carter, who were standing in front of Becker & Taylor Insurance. “You want to tell me how you came to find the corpse?”


“I told you on the phone,” Cora said.


“All you said was you went to see the woman and she was dead.”


“Well, that’s what happened.”


Chief Harper’s scowl deepened. “Don’t try my patience. I got a woman up there with her throat cut. I don’t need Quincy to tell me it’s a homicide. I got a crime scene to cover that I’m ill-staffed to do. Dan Finley’s up there taking pictures with his Polaroid till he runs out of film. After that, we’ll have to wait until the drugstore opens before he can take any more. But when he’s finally done, I gotta process the place for fingerprints. Right now I am wondering how many of them will be yours.”


Cora Felton looked pained. “Give me a break, Chief. It’s not as if I
knew
the woman was dead.”


“No, of course not. You just walked in on her uninvited expecting to find her alive.”


“That’s not what happened.”


“Oh? You expected to find her dead?”


“I didn’t expect anything.”


“Then what, may I ask, were you doing in that woman’s home?”


Before Cora could answer, Sherry Carter jumped in. “Excuse me, Chief, but I think my aunt’s a little shaken at finding a dead body. I think maybe I could explain.”


“I think maybe you better. But let me warn you, tI chis one’s gonna take a hell of an explanation.”


Sherry Carter told Chief Harper about Annabel Hurley crashing in on their dinner, and then turning out to have been in the post office the same afternoon.


Chief Harper was skeptical. “That’s it? That’s all you had to go on?”


“Actually, it’s quite a lot,” Sherry said. “The woman’s turned her back on the money and isn’t playing the game. But she wants to know the answer. And she comes and asks Cora to be careful to get it right. She seems to have inside information the other heirs don’t have. Which makes it likely she was in league with Emma Hurley. We know
someone
was in league with Emma Hurley because Emma Hurley wasn’t healthy enough to have personally planted the clues. If Annabel planted the clues, then everything fits.”


“So why is she dead?”


“She was on to something. Something that had to do with the inheritance. How, exactly, I don’t know. I’m not saying that’s why she’s dead. I’m just saying that’s a fact.”


“She talk to anyone else last night besides you?”


“Obviously, since she’s dead. But I don’t know
who
she talked to.”


“She mention talking to anybody else?”


Sherry hesitated.


Chief Harper pounced. “What is it?”


“Well, now, to be perfectly fair, she didn’t mention talking to anyone.”


“But?”


“She asked where Daniel Hurley was staying.”


“Did you tell her?”


“We didn’t know.”


A Volvo drove up and the trim figure of Barney Nathan stepped out. The coroner cocked his head at Chief Harper. “All right. Where is it?”


Chief Harper pointed. “Down the alley, up the back stairs. If you could keep your hands in your pockets, we still have to process for fingerprints.”


“Oh, gee, thanks,” Barney Nathan said witheringly. “I’ve never seen a crime scene before.”


He took his black bag out of the car and stomped on down the alley.


A police car pulled up and Sam Brogan got out. The cranky Bakerhaven officer was chewing a fat wad of gum. As usual, he looked unhappy. He stepped up on the sidewalk, said, “What’s this I hear Annabel Hurley’s dead?”


“You hear right,” Chief Harper said. “Get a crime scene ribbon, string it across the mouth of this alley bf t height=efore people start getting curious.”


“She lives there?”


“You didn’t know that?”


“Never dated her.” Sam Brogan stroked his mustache, popped his gum. “Am I on the clock?”


“It’s a homicide, Sam.”


“This is not my shift.”


“You’re on the clock. Go string that ribbon.”


Chief Harper turned back to Sherry and Cora. “Okay, you’ve had time to think. What were you doing in that apartment?”


“I told you what I was doing,” Cora said.


“Yeah, and you made my day. I need something I can tell the press. Aaron Grant’s gonna be here any minute, and I don’t like your story at all.”


“It’s not a story. It’s what happened.”


“That may be, but it’s not good. You were basically breaking and entering.”


“The door was unlocked.”


“That’s irrelevant. You had no right whatsoever to go in there.”


“Maybe not, but you’re lucky I did. If I hadn’t you wouldn’t know she’s dead. No one would have known till she failed to show up at the lawyer’s office this morning. Even then it would have been a while before anyone bothered to look. As it is, the doctor’s up there now, you got a good chance to nail the time of death, and you’re getting the clues while they’re fresh.”


“Second only to you,” Chief Harper pointed out. “Speaking of clues, these puzzle clues you’re talking about. The ones you think Annabel Hurley might have planted. If they’re as important as you say, they’re evidence.”


“Of what?”


“I don’t know, but if her death had anything to do with ’em, they’re evidence.”


“Fine, Chief,” Cora Felton said nonchalantly. “You take ’em, you solve it. Save me the trouble.”


Chief Harper opened his mouth, closed it again. “All right, you win. I want to know what this puzzle is all about. I want to know where the next set of clues are planted.”


“I thought you might.”


“Well, do you know? Have you worked it out yet?”


“I told you. I just got it.”


“But you think you know the clue for the location. Because thuseu. I juse one clue was
post office,
the other clue was
courthouse.
And the long clue this time is what?”


“I don’t recall.”


“Refresh your memory,” Chief Harper said sarcastically.


Cora Felton opened her car, took out the manila envelope. She unclasped it, slid out one of the clue sheets.


“
Close recycling place, so to speak?


“I beg your pardon?”


“Take a look.” She held the clue sheet up, pointed out the clue.


“Recycling place?” Chief Harper said. “What’s a recycling place? And what would it mean to close one?”


“I have no idea,” Cora said. “I’d have to get some of the other words going across.”


“Can you do that now?”


“Not on your life. I just saw a bloody corpse. That may be routine to you, Mister Police Officer, but I am somewhat shook up. And all you want to do is gripe about the fact I found it.”


“All right. But you’re gonna solve the puzzle this morning.”


“Not the whole puzzle. I still don’t have all the clues.”


“I mean the part you have. In particular the one about the recycling place. You’ll be solving that today.”


“Thanks for your vote of confidence, Chief.” Cora Felton looked at her watch. “By the time we’re done here I think we’ll be due at the lawyer’s.”


“The meeting’s ten o’clock?”


“That’s right.”


“And the heirs will be there?”


Cora Felton jerked her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of Annabel Hurley’s apartment.


“All but her.”




Phyllis Applegate was fit to be tied. “
Again?” she
sputtered. “You’re doing this
again?
”


“I beg your pardon,” Chief Harper said coldly, and tried not to stare. Phyllis Hurley Applegate’s print dress was entirely unbecoming, made her look like Philip Hurley in drag. With her brother sitting right across the table from her, the effect was disconcerting at best. “It’s not like I was boring you with trivialities,” Harper went on. “This is murder.”


“That’s what you always say,” Phyllis whined. “Then it turns out to be an accident.”


“Wrong,” Chief Harper said. “It’s just the other way around. The first death—Jeff Beasley’s—could have been an accident, but turned out to be murder. This time there’s no doubt. Annabel Hurley had her throat cut. It’s violent, it’s personal, and this time it’s one of you.”


Chief Harper glanced around Arthur Kincaid’s law office hoping for a friendly face, but aside from Sherry and Cora and Aaron Grant and Becky Baldwin, all he saw was shock and annoyance. Obviously, none of Annabel Hurley’s relatives knew her well. There was considerable grumbling and shuffling of feet.


Chief Harper sighed. “I know you haven’t had time for this to sink in. But there’s a lot of money at stake here. And there’s a killer on the loose. And someone is targeting the Hurley heirs.”


“Oh, for goodness sakes,” Philip Hurley scoffed.


“You don’t buy that?” Chief Harper countered. “Well, think about it. Jeff Beasley starts nosing around the Hurley heirs: he winds up dead in a ditch. Next, Annabel Hurley winds up dead with her throat cut. And you’re all involved in some no-holds-barred, winner-take-all extravaganza for millions of dollars. Has it occurred to any of you, with Annabel Hurley out of the running, your chances of winning just went up?”


“She wasn’t even playing.” It was the first time Daniel Hurley had spoken since the meeting began.


Chief Harper’s eyebrows raised. “How do you know that?”


Becky Baldwin, standing next to Daniel Hurley’s chair, said, “Daniel, you should be careful what you say.”


“Why?” Daniel said. “Facts are facts. And the fact is, she wasn’t playing.”


“How do you know?”


“She told me.”


“When?”


“Here again,” Becky said, “I’d like to caution you to think before you answer.”


Chief Harper frowned. “Miss Baldwin, are you attempting to act as Mr. Hurley’s attorney?”


“Since you ask, yes.”


“Fine,” Chief Harper said, dryly. “Will you then please advise your client Mr. Hurley that if he declines to answer my questions, I will be forced to arrest him on a charge of obstruction of justice, or perhaps suspicion of murder, and then we will continue this conversation in jail, and, yes, of course, I will read him his rights before I clap him behind bars.”


Chief Harper sighed again. “But there’s no reason this should come to that. Because I’m sure Daniel didn*ni

019;t kill his aunt.” He frowned. “Is that the relationship? I can’t keep these Hurleys straight. Would she be your aunt?”

“Can I answer that?” Daniel Hurley asked Becky Baldwin. Then, without waiting for her reply, he proceeded to do so. “She’s not my aunt. She’s my first cousin, once removed. She was my father’s cousin. My grandfather and her mother were brother and sister.” He shrugged. “I hope that’s not giving away too much.”

“And when exactly did she tell you she wasn’t playing the game?” Chief Harper asked.

“That would be last night, when she stopped by my bed-and-breakfast shortly after dinner.” Daniel smiled at Becky Baldwin. “Which he will find out anyway the minute he questions my landlady, who happened to have let her in.”