Authors: Parnell Hall
“A result of your Woodstock days, no doubt.”
“Woodstock? Wouldn’t know, Chief. I was a toddler then myself.” She cocked her head. “So, who died?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re here because you got a murder and you want me to solve it.”
“No one died.”
“That’s a shame. It’s a result of people living too long. Social Security’s going to run out long before I get there.”
“You’re in an awfully good mood.”
“Why shouldn’t I be? I haven’t done anything. So, whatever happened, it’s not my fault.”
“I never said it was.”
“Maybe not. I always assume you suspect me of something until you prove otherwise.”
“Good Lord,” Sherry said. “Are you two going to keep sparring or are you going to tell her what you want?”
“Hey, who asked your opinion?” Cora said.
“Don’t you want to find out what’s up?”
“Well, if you’d stop interrupting the man, maybe he’d tell me.”
“Interrupting?”
Aaron Grant grinned at Chief Harper. “I think they’ve forgotten about you.”
“Probably just as well.”
“What did you want, anyway?”
“I should probably tell Cora.”
Cora broke off from arguing with her niece. “Go ahead, lay it on me, Chief. You haven’t got a puzzle you want me to solve, have you?”
“No, I don’t. I’ve got a case that has me puzzled, though.”
“Your default position.”
“Hey.”
“What you got?”
“I had a break-in last week.”
“And you’re just getting to it now?”
“Ha ha. The fact is, I can’t make any headway.” Harper pointed at Aaron. “And I’d rather not see an editorial about it.”
“Maybe there’s nowhere to get,” Cora said.
“Doors don’t break themselves. Someone jimmied this one with a crowbar.”
“What was taken?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“There’s nothing to take.”
“Whoa. Time out, Chief. I think you left out a main detail of the story. Whose house is this?”
“It’s not a private home.”
“It was a store?”
“No.”
“You gonna make me play Twenty Questions? Come on, Chief. What was broken into?”
“The town hall.”
Chapter
3
Chief Harper was
unusually quiet on the ride to town.
“Cheer up, Chief. This is not the crime of the century.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“What’s bugging you?”
“I don’t know. He sighed. “We got this case, and we’ll solve it or we won’t solve it, just business as usual. And then we’ll chalk it up and go on to the next.”
“Good Lord. What brought this on?”
“I don’t know. I’m just starting to feel old.”
“Join the club. You’re a little late getting there, but don’t worry, you’ll fit right in.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s the matter?”
Harper grimaced. “I had to testify at Stuart Tanner’s parole hearing last month.”
“Who?”
“Our first case. The girl in the cemetery.”
“What about it?”
Solving that murder had been the beginning of Chief Harper and Cora’s collaboration, though the chief hadn’t known it at the time. They’d been solving crimes ever since.
“That was Stuart Tanner. He’s up for parole.”
“What?”
“Exactly.”
“He was convicted of murder! Three counts!”
“Yeah. He got twenty-five to life.”
“I can do the math. If he’s not dead, he’s got a few years to go.”
“Yeah,” Harper said in disgust. “If twenty-five to life
meant
twenty-five to life. It
ought
to mean he’s there for life, unless he’s such a
wonderful
individual that sometime after he’s served twenty-five years and before he’s dead, a parole board
could
consider releasing him early. But they don’t have to
do
it. They shouldn’t have to grant him parole unless
they
can prove he doesn’t deserve it. They should have the right to keep him until
he
proves he deserves to get
out
. Even then, it should be their decision.”
“Whoa, Chief. Let’s not go off on a tangent. You’re frustrated with the system. I get that. You’ve strayed from the main point. Twenty-five to life. I may be a little dotty myself, but if it’s been twenty-five years since I moved to Bakerhaven, I’m really losing it.”
“That’s what I was saying. Twenty-five to life should mean twenty-five to life. But, no, the son of a bitch can apply for parole after twelve.”
“It’s been
that
long?”
“See what I mean?”
“So the son of a bitch could get out?”
Harper smiled grimly. “Not after what
I
told the parole board.”
Cora lapsed into silence. Damn. Now
she
felt old.
The Bakerhaven town hall, like most of the other buildings in town, was white with black shutters. Of course it was larger than most, with wide front steps and a double door. Harper drove around to the parking lot in the back.
Cora inspected the back door. “The lock’s been replaced.”
“Yes, it has. But you can still see the damage.”
“Yes. You think it was a crowbar?”
“Some sort of pry bar. Or a very large screwdriver.”
“Okay, let’s go inside.”
Cora came down off the back steps.
“We can go in this way.” Harper jerked a ring of keys out of his pocket.
“You have the key to town hall?”
“One of the perks of the job.”
They went inside, found themselves in a small back hallway. To the right was the town meeting hall. To the left were the town offices.
“Okay,” Cora said. “What’s there to steal?”
“Like I said, nothing.”
“There’s no money?”
“No.”
“What about my taxes?”
“Pays my salary.”
“And there’s nothing left over? I’m not the only one paying tax, you know.”
“You pay your taxes in cash?”
“I pay my taxes in blood.” Cora looked around. “Okay, so once he got inside, where did he go?”
“I have no idea.”
“No door was left open? Nothing was disturbed?”
“If there was, I’d have an idea.”
“Did you ask?”
Harper gave her a look.
Cora pushed open the door and found herself in the front of the town hall assembly. Cora had been in the front of the room before; she had just never come in the back door. An audience of chairs faced her. A lectern on the small stage to the right was where she had often held forth.
“You sure you publicized this meeting, Chief? Attendance is poor.”
“Anytime you’re through clowning around.”
“I assume nothing was taken from the meeting room. There
is
nothing in the meeting room, is there?”
“As long as the lectern’s still there.”
Cora closed the door, checked out the corridor. Four doors with frosted glass panels led off to the left. One said
TOWN CLERK
. One said
TAX ASSESSOR
. The other two were farther down the hall.
Cora pushed through the door marked
TOWN CLERK
. All four doors led to the same room. A woman with curly red hair and green eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses sat at a desk. Cora wondered if she dyed her hair. The woman was not much younger than she was.
There was no nameplate on the woman’s desk, which was too bad. Cora recognized her from Cushman’s Bake Shop, but had no idea who she was.
“Excuse me, Mae,” Harper said, solving half the problem. “You got a minute?”
Mae put down her pen, folded her hands, straightened in her chair, and looked up at the chief. “Certainly,” she said. The woman had an air of pedantic efficiency about her. She managed to give the impression of being terribly put-upon while cooperating fully.
Cora wanted to kick her.
“The problem here,” Harper said, “is we can’t figure out what there is here to steal. Can you think of anything anyone would want?”
Mae put up her hand. “As I told you, I don’t keep anything valuable in the office.”
“I wondered if you’d thought of anything.”
“If I had, I would have told you.”
“Yes, of course,” Harper said. “There’s no money kept here?”
“That would be something of value.”
“There’s no personal items you might leave overnight?”
Mae explained as to a small child. “No. I don’t
keep
personal items in the office.”
“And the night of the break-in. You’re sure you didn’t leave anything out someone might have taken?”
Mae drew herself up even straighter. She could not have been more rigid had she had a metal rod in her backside, which Cora thought was entirely possible. “I assure you, none of this is my fault.”
Chief Harper put up his hands in a placating manner. “No one’s accusing you of anything.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Cora said.
Mae’s mouth dropped open.
“If anything’s missing, that would be the responsibility of the person in charge,” Cora said. “I would assume that’s you. Don’t worry. We can help you. When’s the last time you took inventory?”
“Inventory?”
“Yeah. Took out your files, checked that everything was logged accurately.”
“Everything
is
logged accurately.”
“Glad to hear it. When’s the last time you checked?”
Mae blinked.
“Don’t worry,” Cora said. “Most likely it’s not your fault, it’s the tax assessor.”
She blinked again.
“Well?”
“I’m the tax assessor.”
“Interesting. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about my property tax. I suppose it’s not the time. What sort of records do you keep that someone might want to have access to?”
“It’s a public office. Everyone has access to the records.”
“Well, that’s not exactly true, is it?” Cora said. “You don’t have people in here all day pawing through your files. Don’t they have to
request
the information and
you
go through your files?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Well, let’s take a look.”
“You’re not going through my files.”
“Why? Is anything wrong with your files?”
“Absolutely not.”
“You checked them all? You must have logged a lot of overtime. That’s a lot of files.”
“I already told Chief Harper.”
“Now you can tell me.”
“The questions are the same, no matter who asks them.”
“Then the answers should be the same. That will make it easy.”
“Chief Harper is the chief of police.”
“Yes, he is. Astute of you to notice.”
The argument might have continued, had Chief Harper not jumped in and managed to herd Cora out the door.
“Why’d you stop me, Chief? I had her on the ropes.”
“Yes, you did. And if my object had been to put the town clerk in her place, I would have let you continue. I was hoping to solve a crime.”
Cora started to flare up, but saw the chief’s eyes twinkling in amusement. She bit off her angry retort, sidespied up at him impishly.
“Spoilsport.”
Chapter
4
Cora came out of
Cushman’s Bake Shop and bumped into Barney Nathan. As always, the little doctor was wearing his red bow tie. He was impeccably dressed, but his face was drawn, and he looked more harried than usual, even on those occasions when his medical competence was questioned on the witness stand.
“Hi, Barney.”
“Oh. Hi,” Barney said. He looked very uncomfortable.
“So, how you been?”
“I, eh…”
Cora smiled. “No good at this, are you, Barney?”
“Good at what?”
“Post-breakup confrontations. You haven’t had much practice.”
“You’re not making it easy.”
“Yes, I am. Have I tried to rip your face off? Have I burst into tears and made a public scene?”
Barney looked nervous at the thought. “You wouldn’t do that.”
“You’re speaking from your vast experience?”
“Cora.”
“How’s your wife?”
Barney took a breath. “I really must be going.”
“Yes. You have patients this morning.”
“Yes.”
“Amazing you got away.”
“I had a break in my schedule.”
“A break between patients? Wow. I’ve never heard that before. A doctor with a break between patients. Usually a doctor’s patients tend to fill the time allowed, even if there’s a cancellation. Don’t you double- or triple-book? Most doctors do. You sign in at the front desk and find out two other patients have signed in for the exact same time. So, you’re back with your wife. How much did you have to grovel?”
Barney looked hurt.
“Oh, don’t make those sad doe-eyes at me. Poor little boy wronged. Taken advantage of by the wicked, scheming hussy.”
A woman on her way into Cushman’s Bake Shop turned her head.
“I thought you weren’t going to make a public display,” Barney said.
“You call this a public display? This is an amiable chat. Trust me, if I make a public display, you’ll know it. Just ask Melvin.”
“I’m not your ex-husband.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Marrying you would have voided my alimony. Plus making you a bigamist. Much better this way.”
“Well, I must get back.”
“When?”
“Huh?”
“When do you have to get back? You were on your way
into
Cushman’s Bake Shop. Aren’t you going to get your coffee?”
“Oh.”
Cora grinned. “You don’t have a break between patients, do you? You were checking out the bakery because you know I hang out there. You
wanted
to run into me. I think that’s sweet. But that’s one of those fantasies plays much better in your head. When it actually happens, you don’t know what to do. Relax. You’re not alone. Most men don’t. So, you going to get your coffee or not?”
Barney nodded stiffly, turned, and walked away.
Cora watched him go with mixed emotions. Damn the son of a bitch. It was hard enough dealing with an ex-lover who knew the ropes. But a babe in the wilderness was annoying, even if he was sweet.
Especially if he was sweet.
Chapter