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  For my wife,

  who hasn’t killed me yet

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Double Indemnity

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Also by Parnell Hall

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Double Indemnity

  I have taken out insurance against my ineptness and lack of expertise by enlisting the help of two of the finest puzzle constructors in the field:

  New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz created the sudoku, and frequent New York Times contributor Fred Piscop created the crosswords.

  And I have doubled my coverage by prevailing upon American Crossword Puzzle Tournament champion Ellen Ripstein to edit them.

  These people ensure me against my own folly.

  I cannot thank them enough.

  Chapter

  1

  Cora Felton looked out the window and proclaimed, “I hate winter.”

  “That’s nothing new,” Sherry Carter said. “You also hate spring, summer, and fall. They’re too hot, too wet, too windy, as I recall. Though not in that order.”

  “What, you thought I was going to call you on your wordplay? Let’s remember who’s the cruciverbalist here.”

  The cruciverbalist was Sherry. Cora, the Puzzle Lady, whose crossword puzzle column was nationally syndicated and who hawked breakfast cereal to schoolchildren on TV, was merely a front for her niece. Cora hated crossword puzzles, largely because she couldn’t solve them and people were always asking her to because they thought she could. This tended to make Cora cranky regardless of the season.

  At the moment there was no puzzle on the horizon, only snow.

  “Now is the winter of our discontent,” Cora said.

  “Richard III? You’re quoting Richard III?”

  “Hey, I’ve been to the theater.”

  “Yeah, but Shakespeare?”

  “It’s the first line of the play. I didn’t fall asleep till five minutes in.”

  Sherry shook her head. “Cora, why must you always pretend to be less educated than you are?”

  “Give me a break. I’m the goddamned Puzzle Lady. I’m always pretending to be more educated than I am. It’s exhausting, feigning an expertise you do not have. You know what a relief it is to let my hair down and be lowbrow?”

  “Nonsense,” Sherry said. “You do that all day long. You delight in shocking people with your earthy, just-one-of-the-guys approach to everything. It’s only when the topic turns to crosswords you go into your shell.”

  On the front lawn, Sherry’s daughter, Jennifer, was loping through the snow in large, happy circles. Buddy the toy poodle cavorted along behind. Every now and then an ear or the tip of his tail could be seen over the top of the snow.

  “I should charge you a babysitting fee,” Cora said.

  “I should charge you a dog-walking fee. Aren’t you glad Buddy has a playmate?”

  “I’m glad he doesn’t expect me to play in the snow.”

  “No, only Jennifer expects that.”

  “I’m a city girl, born and bred. Snow is that white stuff you can’t go out until doormen shovel off the sidewalk.”

  “You’re going to hole up inside the house until it melts?”

  “That’s a depressing thought.”

  “Everything’s a depressing thought for you these days. You’ve been in a funk ever since you broke up with the policeman.”

  “We didn’t break up. We live in different places. When I’m in New York I call him up.”

  “And when he’s in Bakerhaven?”

  “Hell has frozen over. He’s a New York City cop. What would he be doing in Bakerhaven?”

  Jennifer fell on her face. She stood up, plastered with snow from head to foot, and immediately started bawling.

  “Guess I have to go get her,” Sherry said.

  “You have to get her anyway. Here comes the snowplow.”

  “Again? They were here yesterday.”

  “They’re desperate for the work,” Cora said. “It’s all this global warming.”

  Sherry pulled on a jacket and boots. “Aren’t you going to get Buddy?”

  “Don’t have to. He’ll follow you.”

  Cora watched through the window as Sherry went out to rescue her child.

  Jennifer stopped crying the minute Sherry picked her up, but protested mightily when Mommy started carrying her toward the door. She might have fallen on her face and got snow down the neck of her snowsuit, but that didn’t mean she wanted to come in.

  As Cora predicted, Buddy stayed with Jennifer, safely out of range of the blades of the snowplow. Even so, she should have gone out. She was getting lazy and complacent.

  Something needed to be done.

  Chapter

  2

  “I need a job.”

  Becky Baldwin pushed the long blond hair out of her eyes and looked up at Cora Felton. “You know how many years we’ve been working together?”

  Cora made a face. “Do you know what an annoying question that is for someone as young as you to ask someone as old as me?”

  Becky smiled. “That wasn’t the point I was going for, though it certainly is an amusing perk. It’s just in all the time I’ve known you I don’t think you ever asked me for a job.”

  “Really? I’ve asked Chief Harper.”

  “How’d that work out for you?”

  “I got arrested for murder.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t blame the chief. That happens when you work for me, too. Rather recently, as I recall.”

  “So you don’t have anything?”

  “Why do y
ou want a job?”

  “I’m bouncing off the walls. It’s winter, and I’m stir-crazy. I’m snowed in with a mother and a two-year-old. Not that the kid’s not cute as a button. But you like your children in small doses. That’s the joy of being an aunt. It’s not your kid, so it’s not full-time.”

  “So that’s why you want a job?”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “I have a job.”

  “My point exactly.”

  “Not even close. I have to work because I need the money. People give you money for being the Puzzle Lady.”

  “It does seem unfair, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah, well, if you want a job you’ve come to the wrong place. I don’t have anything at the moment.”

  “You don’t have any clients?”

  “I don’t have any clients who need your services.”

  “You have any clients who don’t need my services?”

  Becky cocked her head. “Are you trying to be annoying?”

  Cora smiled. “Don’t like it, do you? I was cross-examining you, like a lawyer would. Part of my new drive to turn the tables on the professionals. Like giving doctors a dosage of their own medication.”

  “Huh?”

  “You know, when a doctor tries to snow you with medical jargon, puffing up words with extra syllables to make them seem more important. ‘Dose’ becomes ‘dosage.’ ‘Medicine’ becomes ‘medication.’”

  “You’re concerned with copyright infringement?”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re the wordsmith. If anyone’s going to be snowing people with fancy language it ought to be you.”

  Becky was one of two people who knew Cora couldn’t solve crosswords but still thought she created them. The other was Harvey Beerbaum, Bakerhaven’s resident cruciverbalist. Cora had been forced to tell Harvey she couldn’t solve puzzles to get him to help her when Sherry was in the hospital having Jennifer. Which, Cora realized, was actually before she had to tell Becky. Keeping track of who knew what and when did they know it was only slightly less complicated than Watergate, yet another reason for Cora to hate crosswords.

  “Yeah, that’s it,” Cora said. She dropped the snappy banter, sank into a chair.

  Becky frowned. “Cora. What’s wrong?”

  Cora sighed. “I haven’t seen Crowley in months.”

  “Ah. Man trouble. I might have known.”

  “You needn’t sound so happy about it.”

  “Well, you always took delight in my man trouble. Even went so far as to create some.”

  Without actually saying so, Cora had managed to leave the impression Becky was running around with a married man.

  “I don’t know how those rumors got started.”

  “I’m sorry you’re having problems with the sergeant. Why don’t you go to New York and work it out?”

  “I can’t go running off and leave Sherry snowed in with a kid.”

  “She’s not snowed in.”

  “She might as well be. If I’ve got the car, she can’t go anywhere.”

  “Don’t you have the car now?”

  “It’s not the same thing. I’m only ten minutes away.”

  “Yeah, if you had a cell phone. How’s she going to reach you?”

  “She calls you or she calls Chief Harper. It’s not that big a town.” Cora waved it away. “Whatever. The point is, I’m not running off to New York. You really don’t have any work?”

  Becky shook her head. “Better ask the chief.”

  Chapter

  3

  Cora found Chief Harper sitting on the floor of his office banging on the radiator with a monkey wrench.

  “I’m not sure that’s the way that tool was intended to be used, Chief.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Harper said. “Well, I tried loosening the valve that holds the steam back and guess what? No steam.”

  “The police department didn’t pay the bill?”

  “Very funny. The furnace is on the pipes are hot, Dan’s got heat in the outer office. The only place that’s cold is here.”

  “How about the holding cells?”

  “No one’s complained.”

  “Anyone in them?”

  “Not that I know of. It’s been a slow week.” Harper gave the radiator valve another whack with the wrench.

  “Why don’t you buy yourself an electric space heater?”

  “Why should I have to lay out the money?”

  “Can’t the police department buy it?”

  “Sure, if I want to be investigated for graft and corruption.”

  “It can’t be as bad as all that.”

  “You’d be surprised. I’m safer calling a plumber.”

  “Won’t a plumber cost a lot more than a heater?”

  “Sure, but it’s maintenance. No one’s going to fault me for that.” Harper clambered to his feet, plopped himself into his desk chair. It squeaked a little. The chief had put on weight. “So, what brings you by my chilly office?”

  “I just dropped in to see what’s shaking. I didn’t realize business was so slow.”

  “I think it’s the cold weather,” Harper said. “The troublemakers stay home.”

  “Don’t people pack the bars and get rowdy?”

  “Sure, and we lock ’em up overnight and send ’em home the next day. If we’re strapped for cash, we let ’em stop by the courthouse and pay a fine.”

  “That’s pretty cynical, Chief. What brought this on?”

  “I don’t know. Working with your homicide sergeant last summer kind of pointed up the inadequacies of the department.”

  “He’s not my homicide sergeant.”

  “Oh? You could have fooled me.”

  “Come on, Chief. For a small-town police department, you’ve certainly had your share of murders. Hell, it’s like living in Cabot Cove.”

  “I’ll give you that,” Harper said. “It’s just the NYPD has cases every day. We haven’t had one since last summer.”

  “Well, I’ll put out the word, see what I can drum up.”

  “So how’s the family? How’s that cute niece of yours?” Harper flushed. “Grandniece, I mean.”

  “It’s all right, Chief. I won’t tell your wife you think Sherry Carter’s cute.”

  “You know what I mean. It’s just a pain to say ‘grandniece.’ I’m not even sure it’s a word; is it?”

  Cora, of course, had no idea. But that was the type of Puzzle Lady question she had no problem sidestepping. “I could care less whether it’s a word; the fact is I don’t like it. ‘Grandniece’ sounds too much like ‘grandmother,’ which sounds too much like ‘doddering old fool one step away from the junk heap.’” Cora put up her hands. “Please, do not quote me on that to my adoring public. I have nothing but respect for senior citizens. I just don’t happen to want to be one. Anyway, she’s a little dickens, bright as a button, too cute for her own good.”

  “How old is she?”

  Cora made a face. “It always comes back to age. She’s two. Two something, if you’re an obsessive parent who deals in months. As far as I’m concerned she’s two. At some point they’ll tell me she’s two and a half, so that’s what I’ll say. How’s your family?” she added a little belatedly.

  “Clara’s fine,” Harper said. “Not that we know much about it. She’s in Boston, working as a teacher’s assistant at BU. I gather she’s got a boyfriend, most likely undesirable, since she won’t tell us anything about him. We have to keep reassuring each other she’s old enough to take care of herself.”

  Cora was damned if she was going to ask how old Chief Harper’s daughter was. There were some things she just didn’t want to know. She sighed. “Aw, gee, Chief. Things really are slow. I actually stopped by to see if you had anything for me. I can see you don’t.”

  “Oh. Now that you mention it, I do have something for you.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. Hang on. I got it right here.”

  Harper pulled open the top drawer of her des
k, reached in, and took out a piece of paper. He looked at it, handed it to Cora.

  It was a crossword puzzle.

  Chapter

  4

  Cora’s heart sank. This was the kind of Puzzle Lady problem she could not easily sidestep. Her mind began racing to see what type of subterfuge she could employ to avoid having to solve the damn thing, the odds of which happening were somewhere in the neighborhood of a million to none. The problem with her excuses was she had used them all so often it was getting ridiculous, sort of like how many times will it take Lois Lane to realize Clark Kent ducks out every time Superman appears?

  Cora had never solved a crossword puzzle in front of anyone, and it was a miracle this fact had managed to escape notice. The saving grace was sudoku. Cora was as good at number puzzles as she was bad at crosswords and whizzed through sudoku with a speed unparalleled by even the likes of Harvey Beerbaum, who fancied himself an expert. Cora solved sudoku with ease in the presence of Chief Harper, though, so as not to make him suspicious, only after her ritual feigned reluctance.

  There was nothing feigned about her reluctance now.

  “Oh, for goodness’ sakes,” Cora said. “I can’t believe you’re giving me a crossword puzzle. Don’t I ever get a day off? I’m the Puzzle Lady, so I’m always on call?”

  “I thought you were looking for work.”

  “Police work. Not this crap. Give me a crime scene to inspect. A suspect to interview. A clue to interpret.” Cora pointed at the crossword. “And don’t tell me that’s a clue. That’s a pain in the fanny. Boring, boring, boring. Dreamed up by someone to take the fun out of life.”

  Chief Harper put up his hands. “Relax, relax. No one’s asking you to do anything. You weren’t here, so I had Dan run this over to Harvey Beerbaum.”

  “Oh, really,” Cora said, mollified. “Where did it come from?”

  “It was in the morning mail.”

  “I assume if there was a return address we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “There was no return address.”

  “Where was it postmarked?”

  “Here in Bakerhaven.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “Why?”

  “You can learn a lot from an envelope.”

  “You don’t want to see the puzzle, but you want to see the envelope?”

  “Why not? I’m not the Envelope Lady. I won’t feel like a doctor at a cocktail party having to listen to everybody’s symptoms.”