$10,000 in Small, Unmarked Puzzles Read online

  For Bill, thanks for the memory

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  New Shooter

  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

  Also by Parnell Hall

  About the Author

  Copyright

  New Shooter

  I want to thank Fred Piscop, for constructing the crossword puzzles used in the blackmail notes in this book. For his first time out, Fred was pretty impressive, deftly incorporating the blackmailer’s cryptic clues. One would have thought Fred had been blackmailing people all his life.

  I want to thank New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz, for recommending Fred, and for constructing the Sudoku puzzles which, in conjunction with the crosswords, convey the blackmailer’s demands.

  As always, I would like to thank American Crossword Puzzle Tournament champion Ellen Ripstein for editing the puzzles and saving me from my own folly, at least in that regard.

  Chapter

  1

  “Just keep calm,” Cora said as she piloted the Toyota around the curve.

  “Keep calm?” Sherry said from the backseat. “You’re the one driving like a maniac.”

  “Don’t distract her,” Aaron said. He had his arm around Sherry and was squeezing her hand.

  “Distract her from what?” Sherry said. “Skidding off the road?”

  “Hold on,” Cora said. “I’ll get you there.”

  Cora was driving Sherry to the hospital. Sherry had just gone into labor, which seemed to panic the expectant great-aunt more than it did the expectant mother. Cora had fallen all over herself bustling Sherry into the car. Aaron had been lucky not to be left behind.

  The expectant parents were headed for the new hospital, a two-story structure of stone and steel built in 1978. The old hospital had closed in 1984, so there was only a six-year span during which Bakerhaven had two hospitals. Nonetheless, the residents still referred to the hospital by the mall as the new hospital.

  “How are the contractions?” Cora asked.

  “Wonderful,” Sherry said. “I have a deep, abiding love for all of you. Do you have any more dumb questions?”

  “I’ll think of some. Aaron, did you bring her something to bite on?”

  “Bite on?”

  “Like in the movies when they’re digging out the bullet without anesthesia.”

  “I’m fine,” Sherry said. “Cora. I need you to focus. The Puzzle Lady column.”

  “What about it?”

  “You have to turn in the puzzles so people think you write the damn thing.”

  “They’re not going to be impressed if I turn them in wrong.”

  “It’s not a problem. I’m your secretary. I send out the crossword puzzles you create. I’m on maternity leave, so you have to send them out yourself. You’re somewhat spooked by the technology. You hope you get everything right.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “No, I don’t mean it. That’s the part you’re playing. It’s your excuse for any problem with the puzzles that you can’t deal with. Anything you have to ask me about. Any technical, secretarial problem having to do with the functions of the computer programs. You’re the genius who scrawls crossword puzzles on the backs of napkins. I’m the functionary who deciphers your handwriting and prints the things out.”

  “Couldn’t have said it better myself. Could I actually hire a functionary while you’re in the hospital?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I write the puzzles. Because you couldn’t construct one if your life depended on it.”

  “That’s cruel and hurtful. I’ll put that down to labor pains. You’re clearly delirious.”

  “Will you watch the road?”

  “I’m watching the road. It hasn’t moved since I’ve been on it.”

  “You just missed the turn for the hospital.”

  “Huh?”

  “Come on, Cora. I’m not the first person in the world to have a baby.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re early,” Cora said.

  The baby was premature. Sherry going into labor had caught everyone off guard.

  “Five weeks,” Sherry said. “That’s nothing these days.”

  “Easy for you to say. They’ll knock you out with drugs; you won’t feel a thing. They won’t even give me a valium.”

  Cora hung a U-turn, headed back the other way.

  The telephone rang.

  “Is that your phone?” Sherry said.

  “If it is, I’m not answering,” Aaron said. “No, not mine.”

  “Well, it’s not mine,” Cora said. “I don’t have one.”

  It continued to ring.

  “You wanna look in my bag?” Sherry said.

  “You don’t have to answer,” Aaron told her.

  “Yeah, but I can if I want to, right? I mean, having a baby doesn’t cut you off from the world.” Sherry snapped open the phone. “Hello … oh, hi, Becky … yeah, Cora’s here. She can’t talk, she’s driving … yeah, she’s driving me to the hospital.… No, nothing’s wrong, I’m just having a baby.… Thank you, but I haven’t had it yet. I’m not sure of the protocol, but I think you’re supposed to wait until there’s an actual infant. So, what do you want with Cora?… No, she’s driving. You tell me, I’ll relay the message … You’re in trouble and you need her help.” Sherry looked up from the cell phone. “Becky’s in trouble and she needs your help.”

  “Tell her I’m busy,” Cora said.

  “She’ll be right there,” Sherry said, and hung up.

  Cora’s mouth fell open. “Didn’t you hear me? I said no.”

  Sherry scrunched on the edge of her seat. “Cora Felton. If you let my having a baby make you give up the things you love, you’ll end up hating me and the baby. A sharp, young attorney at law wants your help. You’re not going to blow her off just so you can run around the hospital driving everybody crazy. Aaron and I can handle the baby thing just fine. You drop us off, and go help
Becky Baldwin.” Sherry looked out the window. “Assuming you ever get us to the hospital.”

  “Huh?”

  “You just missed the turn again.”

  Chapter

  2

  Becky Baldwin, easily Bakerhaven’s lawyer most likely to be mistaken for a Miss America finalist, had a law office down a side street over a pizza parlor.

  “Garlic and eggplant,” Cora said, sniffing the air. “Wanna put a side bet on it?”

  Becky pushed the long blond hair out of her eyes. “What do you mean blowing me off like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “One thing you should know about cell phones. If you talk loudly next to a cell phone, the person on the other end can hear. ‘Tell her I’m busy.’ Now, is that what you tell a person who has an emergency?”

  “You’re a lawyer. You don’t have emergencies. It’s not like you’re a doctor with a dying patient. If you don’t bail out your client, tough rocks, he sits in jail. What’s an hour or two? Probably do him good.”

  “My client’s not in jail.”

  “Then it’s not an emergency.”

  “Yes it is.”

  “Is it a kidnapping?”

  “No.”

  “Is someone’s life at stake?”

  “Not really.”

  “You wanna play twenty questions, or you wanna tell me what it is? If it was really an emergency, I wouldn’t think you had this much time to waste.”

  “Actually, I do.”

  Cora stood up. “I’m going back to the hospital.”

  “No, wait. My client’s in trouble. They need you to get them out.”

  “They? You have more than one client?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  Cora suggested practices for Becky which probably would have kept her out of law school and might have even gotten her committed.

  “Nice talk,” Becky said. “I said they to avoid a gender-specific pronoun. I have a client. The client needs your help. It’s serious and it’s urgent.”

  “What is it?”

  Becky sighed. “It’s blackmail.”

  Cora searched in her floppy drawstring purse, pulled out her cigarettes.

  “You can’t smoke in here.”

  “Then let’s go out there.”

  “I don’t wanna go out there.”

  “I don’t wanna be here at all.”

  “Fine. We’ll go out there.”

  Cora and Becky went out of the office and down the steps into the side alley. The odor of pepperoni was almost overwhelming.

  Cora lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, exhaled. “Okay, let’s talk turkey. If you don’t want me to know if your client’s a man or a woman, you’re not going to tell me who your client is. Which seriously decreases my interest in the matter. Plus the fact that blackmail’s illegal, so whatever you want me to do is probably illegal. This is a very unappealing prospect indeed. Start talking. You’ve got two minutes or until I finish this cigarette, whichever comes first.”

  “I got a blackmail demand. For ten thousand dollars.”

  “In small, unmarked bills?”

  “Isn’t it always? My client wants to pay it.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want your help.”

  “In talking your client out of it?”

  “No. In making the payment.”

  “Oh.”

  “Well, I can’t let my client do it. And I’m not going to do it.”

  “I, on the other hand, am expendable.”

  “Don’t be silly. This is right up your alley.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s a mystery. It’s intrigue. You’re being hired as a private investigator to do something new. You’ve never been involved in a blackmail, have you?”

  “For good reason. People involved in blackmail get arrested. They go to jail. If you don’t believe me, ask Chief Harper.”

  “I’d prefer to leave him out of this.”

  “I’ll bet you would. The whole thing sounds fishy as hell.” Her eyes narrowed. “Tell me this isn’t something you and Sherry hatched up to keep me out of the hospital. Some secret signal she could text-message you, or whatever the hell it is people do now. Whenever you got it you were to call Sherry on her cell phone, tell her it’s an emergency and you had to see me at once.”

  “You know how paranoid you sound?”

  “Hey, when people are out to get you, you’re not paranoid. You’re either conspiring with Sherry to keep me from the birth of her baby, or trying to involve me in a blackmail. Either way, you’re out to get me.”

  “I’m not out to get you. I’m on your side. I want you on my side.”

  “Making a blackmail payment.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s my side. Are you in or out?”

  Cora shook her head. “You’ll have to give me more than that.”

  “Okay, come back inside, I’ll show you the note.”

  “There’s a note?”

  “Of course there’s a note. You can’t have a blackmail without a note.”

  “You didn’t mention a note.”

  “I was leading up to it.”

  “Spit it out, will you? First you say there’s no time, then you pussyfoot around like we’ve got all the time in the world.”

  “Actually, we have until noon. That’s when you’re delivering the money.”

  “Delivering it to who?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “You’re doing it again.”

  “Sorry, but I have no idea. Come back inside, I’ll show you the note.”

  They went back into Becky’s office. She opened her desk drawer, took out a manila envelope. She reached in, pulled out a sheet of paper. It was a piece of white posterboard. Pasted onto it were words cut from newspaper headlines.

  PLACE $10,000 IN SMALL, UNMARKED BILLS IN A MANILA ENVELOPE. CLOSED SERVICE STATION DUMPSTER.

  “Well, that’s a little ambiguous,” Cora said. “But it’s gotta mean closed station, not closed Dumpster. Tell Chief Harper to stake out the abandoned Chevron station north of town and pick up whoever comes for the money.”

  “Yes, wouldn’t that be nice,” Becky said. “But then my client’s good name would get smeared.”

  “Your client’s got something she’s willing to pay ten grand for, her good reputation ain’t worth squat anyway.”

  “The actions of my client, whoever he or she may be, are not necessarily motivated by logic. It’s a blackmail demand; my client wants to pay up. Whaddya say?”

  “What blackmail demand? I see a request for money. I don’t see a blackmail demand. I don’t see any threat like: If you don’t do what I say I’m going to send your wife that motel registration receipt. Or I’m going to prove you forged hubby’s will. Or I’m going to tell the authorities where they can put their hands on the arsenic you fed Grandma.”

  “Nice fishing expedition.”

  “You can’t just walk up and ask someone for money. You’ve gotta have a motivation. Otherwise, people would be blackmailing each other all the time. So, can we assume this wasn’t the only letter? Or can we assume there was something else in the letter?”

  “Actually, there was something in the letter,” Becky said.

  “Oh? What was that?”

  Becky reached in her desk, pulled out a sheet of paper, passed it over.

  It was a sudoku.

  Chapter

  3

  “Sherry put you up to this?”

  “No.”

  “This is legit?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have a client who wants me to make a blackmail payment at noon today?”

  “Right.”

  “And the client specifically wanted me?”

  “No. The blackmailer specifically wanted you.”

  “You’re deducing that because of the sudoku?”

  “Can you solve it?”

  “Of course I can solve it.”

  “You can’t solve crossword puzzles.”


  “That’s different. There are words involved. There’s an infinite number of possibilities. With numbers there’s only one answer.”

  “So solve it.”

  Cora took out a pencil, whizzed through the sudoku.

  * * *

  Becky took the sudoku, looked it over. “Yup. You’re the one the blackmailer wanted.”

  Cora frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Like Cinderella. The glass slipper fits on your foot, so you’re the princess.”

  Cora suggested ways Becky could use a glass slipper that had nothing to do with her feet.

  “It’s perfectly simple,” Becky said. “The blackmailer wants the money delivered by someone who can solve the sudoku.”

  Cora stared at her. “How the hell do you figure that?”

  “The blackmail note.”

  “It says nothing of the kind in the blackmail note.”

  “Not that blackmail note.”

  “There’s another blackmail note?”

  “Yes.”

  “One you haven’t shown me?”

  “Have you seen another blackmail note?”

  “Becky.”

  “There’s another blackmail note. I can’t show it to you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the client doesn’t want me to.”

  “Why not?”

  “It divulges matters he or she would prefer not known.”

  “It’s really annoying to keep saying he or she. Can’t you pick a gender and go with it?”

  “Sorry.”

  “This blackmail note that you won’t let me see—the blackmailer says they want me to make the drop?”

  “No. Just that they want someone in particular, and we’ll be able to tell from the next message.”

  “And the next message is the one I read?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you are deducing just from the sudoku.”

  “I’m deducing from being told I would be able to deduce. The sudoku is the only clue. Who do you think it points to? The Sudoku Lady? The blackmailer wants you. My client wants you. I want you.”

  “It’s nice to be wanted. It would be nicer to know why.”

  “Because you’re an expert in these matters.”

  “It’s my first blackmail.”

  “You know what I mean. Matters of discretion and tiptoeing around the law.”

  “Poppycock,” Cora said. “There’s no discretion involved. I take the blackmail money and leave it in a Dumpster. How difficult can it be?”