Free A Clue for the Puzzle Lady by Parnell Hall Page B

would keep it to ourselves. One, like I said, to frustrate the killer. And, two, to make sure it’s a genuine clue, and not some nut copying what he read in the paper.”
    “Are you offering me a deal?” Aaron asked.
    Chief Harper blinked. “What?”
    “It sounds like you’re offering me a deal. If I won’t print the next crossword puzzle clue, you’ll let me know what it is. Is that what I’m hearing here?”
    Chief Harper opened his mouth to say,
No, it isn’t
, but Cora Felton came in with, “It most certainly is.” She crossed to Aaron Grant and looked him up and down, approvingly. “You seem like an intelligent and reasonable young man.” She cocked her head at Sherry. “Handsome too. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t get along.” She took Aaron by the arm. “Now, then, young man. Are you telling me if I share the next clue with you, you’ll keep it out of print? And avoid mentioning me altogether?”
    “Is that what you want?”
    “It would be nice.”
    “Hey, hey, hey,” Chief Harper interrupted. “What’s going on here? Are you making a deal without me?”
    “You can certainly make your own deal,” Cora Felton told him. “There’s no reason why this young man and I shouldn’t have an understanding.”
    “I thought
we
had an understanding,” Chief Harper said.
    “We do. I’ll assist you in any way possible, and try my best to avoid publicity.” She smiled. “I’m trying to avoid it now.”
    “Yeah,” Aaron Grant said. “And here I am, sitting on this wonderful story about you riding around in her car because you’re dodging the press.”
    Chief Harper snorted in disgust. “This is getting out of hand. I’m sorry I ever asked about the damn clue. I’m beginning to think it isn’t a crossword puzzle clue at all. Frankly, I need to get on with the case. Can I count on your cooperation in this matter? I’m talking to all of you. Can I count on all of you helping me out here?”
    The cellular phone rang. Chief Harper reached in his jacket pocket, jerked it out. “Harper here.” He listened a moment, said, “Okay, I’ll be right there.” He flipped the phone closed, stuck it back in his pocket. “Can you run me back to the cemetery?” he said to Cora Felton. “I gotta get my car.”
    “Certainly. Why?”
    “This has been a lot of fun, but I gotta get back to work.”
    “Come on, what’s up?” Aaron Grant asked. When Chief Harper hesitated, he added, “You got something else you’re not giving out?”
    “No, I guess not,” Chief Harper said.
    “So what is it?”
    “They’ve ID’d the body.”

14
    The ladies didn’t get much bridge played that night, either.
    “A runaway,” Iris Cooper said. “Can you imagine that? All the way from the Midwest.”
    “Indiana,” Vicki Tanner said. “That’s what I heard. Muncie, Indiana.”
    “I thought it was Indianapolis.” A large woman with a broad flat face, Lois Greely was Iris’s bridge partner.
    “No, it was Muncie. Where did you get Indianapolis?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Well, I do,” Iris Cooper said. “You made it up. You hear Indiana, the first thing you think is Indianapolis. It even sounds the same. So that’s what you think. You even think you heard it.”
    “I
did
hear it.” Lois Greely’s voice was tinged with annoyance. A person of import, Lois was not used to having her opinion questioned, even by the first selectman. Lois and her husband Alan were well off by virtue of owning a most successful general store on the south side of town just over the covered bridge. The rickety, red, wooden, one-lane bridge—nicknamed McCreedy’sFolly, after the farmer who had built it in 1845 to get his cows to pasture—was a major tourist attraction, and visitors to Bakerhaven tended to shop at the Greelys’ store just for the sake of crossing it. “Of course, whoever told me could be wrong,” Lois conceded grudgingly.
    “Right,” Iris said. “And they’re the ones who think they heard it.