A Clue for the Puzzle Lady (12 page)

On it was the grid of a crossword, a crosshatch of squares, with a few black squares and the words
queue
and
ewe
.

“Okay,” Sherry said. “This is what I was working on before I was so rudely interrupted. This is a basic program for constructing crossword puzzles. What we have here is a fifteen-by-fifteen square, which is your fairly standard daily puzzle, which is why I started with it first. Fifteen squares across, fifteen squares down.

“This is what it looks like if we put
ewe
in as fourteen across and
queue
in as four down.”

“How do you know that’s where they go?”

“I don’t. But some things you can infer.” She pointed to the black square in the fourth box over. “Like this
black square here. Four down is
queue
. So if this square wasn’t a black square, it would mean
q
would be the fourth letter of one across. The number of words with
q
in the fourth position is somewhat limited.”

“Ah. The old limited number.”

“Right,” Sherry said. “So, the more likely construction is what I have here. One across is a three-letter word. Then a black square. Then four across and four down are both words beginning with
q
.”

“That makes sense. And the other black square in the top line?”

“Is a guess. As to where it goes. But there can only be one.”

“Why?”

“Because
ewe
is fourteen across. Two black squares makes thirteen clues down in the first line, so
ewe
fits in there.”

“What if there were three black squares?”

“Then fourteen across would move over one word and the
e
in
ewe
would intersect with the
u
in
queue.”

“But this way they both fit?”

“Yeah, but I don’t like it.”

“Why not?”

“The words don’t intersect.”

“Do they have to?”

“No,” Sherry said. “But we have two clues, and there must be some connection. One’s across and one’s down, so the most likely connection is that they intersect. And both words have
e’s
in them. In fact, both words have two
e’s
in them, which makes an intersection likely.”

“But they don’t intersect,” Aaron said.

“Right,” Sherry said. “Unless we change the grid.”

“Change it how?”

“I was about to try something smaller.”

“Such as?”

“Twelve-by-twelve.”

“Can you do that?”

“Sure.”

Sherry pressed some keys, and the crossword puzzle vanished. She pressed some more, and a twelve-by-twelve grid appeared. Sherry and Aaron played around with the two words, but they couldn’t get them to intersect.

“Eleven-by-eleven,” Aaron Grant said.

“Huh?”

“Do eleven-by-eleven.”

Sherry deleted the twelve-by-twelve, punched up an eleven-by-eleven grid.

“Now,” Aaron said, “you’ve got three three-letter words across. That’s nine words going down. In the second row you’ve got ten, eleven, twelve. In the third row across the first one is thirteen and the second one is fourteen. Go on. Fill it in. Doesn’t it work?”

Sherry filled in the black squares, typed in
queue
and
ewe
.

“That’s it,” Aaron Grant said. “That’s it. We’ve done it.”

“We’ve done what?” Sherry said. She swiveled her
chair around to look at him. “We’ve found a way the words could conceivably fit. I hate to break it to you, but that was not a particularly difficult challenge. I knew there was a way they would, finding it was not that hard. Now that they do, would you mind telling me what they happen to mean? In terms of that poor young girl who’s dead?”

“I have no idea.”

“Neither have I. And Aunt Cora won’t know either. Nobody could. This is a puzzle that doesn’t make sense. And we don’t even know if this last clue is a real clue at all, if it came from the same person.”

“I know. That’s my fault. I’m sorry. Even so.”

“What?”

“If your aunt comes up with anything, will you let me know?”

“That’s up to her.”

“Right. Well, thanks for the coffee.”

“Going so soon?”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but if I can’t write about this, I gotta come up with something else.”

“Fine. You do that. Just so it isn’t crossword puzzles.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t. Trouble is, you already did.”

“Yeah, I know,” Aaron said. “I’m sorry about that. But don’t worry. I’ll fix it.”

He smiled at her and ducked out the front door.

“Fix it?” Sherry stuck her head out the door, called, “What do you mean, fix it?”

But Aaron Grant was already climbing into his car. As she watched, he gunned the motor and drove off.

Sherry closed the door, leaned against it. Aaron Grant had to be one of the most exhausting men she had ever met.

She smiled, headed back to the computer.

Without the crime scene ribbon it took Aaron Grant a little while to find the grave. When he finally did, he saw that he had not been the first to do so. There were a lot of footprints in the soft earth. A lot of curious people had been by.

At least the TV crews were gone. Aaron hadn’t seen them all day. With the passage of time, the story had lost its immediacy. If the girl had been raped it might have been another matter, but she hadn’t. Now that she’d been identified, she was just a runaway unlucky enough to have been hit over the head. Tragic, of course, but not compelling. Not newsworthy. Not without something else.

Like the clue he’d promised not to use. How frustrating. The perfect story, and he couldn’t write it. Of course a promise was a promise.

Or was it?

What was bothering Aaron Grant was whether he would actually withhold the story if he hadn’t made a deal with the police. If it was only Cora Felton asking him to.

And her niece.

What was it about that girl? Uh-oh. The word
girl
. It occurred to him he’d better not even think it. Somehow she’d know. He shook his head.

What was it about her?

At any rate, he’d agreed to quash the crossword puzzle story, so that’s what he was going to do.

Aaron Grant looked around. Okay, what was it she’d said? Four graves down from the body in the fifth row of graves. Carefully, Aaron Grant counted down, then counted over. He took out his notebook, wrote down the information on the stone.

Aaron Grant put his notebook back in his pocket, got in his car, left the cemetery, and drove back to the paper.

Bill Dodsworth popped out of his office when Aaron came in. The managing editor not only looked like a bulldog, he also always seemed to growl and bark. “There you are! You got somethin’? We need somethin’. Right now we got squat!”

“I’m chasing leads.”

“Leads?”
Dodsworth repeated. The editor had a sour expression even when pleased. “I don’t need
leads
. I can’t print
leads
. Give me something I can go with.”

“I’m working on it,” Aaron said.

He brushed Dodsworth off, continued through the pressroom, out the swinging door, down the hall, and into the morgue, where the back issues were kept. The morgue, a large, dark room with metal bins of papers, was foreign territory to Aaron Grant. In his short time at the
Gazette
, he’d had little cause to go there. Aaron hated research, preferred personal interviews.

Not this time. He switched on the lights, went to work.

Only he had no luck. All but the most recent newspapers were missing. Aaron couldn’t find a thing earlier than 1990.

Aaron went back to the editor’s office. “Where’s the old papers?” he asked Bill Dodsworth.

“What?”

“The back issues. There’s nothing in the morgue.”

“Of course not. We’re converting to microfilm. You
ever pay attention at staff meetings? This is not something new. It’s been going on for months.”

“Where’s the microfilm?”

“At the library.”

“Oh?”

“Best place for it. We donated the papers, they donated the viewers.”

“Who paid for the transfers?”

“Is that any of your business?”

“None at all,” Aaron said.

He hopped in his car, drove to the library.

The Bakerhaven Library was a white, wood-frame building that a plaque on the front proudly proclaimed had been built in 1886. The wide wooden front porch was a favorite reading spot, and an old man sat on it now, reading the morning paper. In spite of himself, Aaron Grant couldn’t help craning his neck to see if the man was reading his story, but the way the paper was folded, he had to be reading the sports.

Aaron Grant went up the steps and went in.

Edith Potter, the librarian, was at the front desk, typing card catalogue entries. She looked up when he came in. Her gray hair, as always, was pulled back into a bun. Her face appeared more lined than usual. It occurred to Aaron that this murder was getting to people.

“Aaron Grant,” she said. “Oh, Aaron Grant. Isn’t it awful?”

Aaron couldn’t dispute that. He spent a few minutes convincing Edith he didn’t know anything new about the case, then asked her where the microfilm was kept.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh. You should ask Jimmy. He can help you with that.”

“Jimmy?”

“My son Jimmy. He’s home from school and he’s been helping out. He’ll be glad to show you.”

“I’m sure I can do it myself.”

Edith Potter smiled patiently. “Yes, but do ask him,” she said. “He likes to be asked.”

“Oh, yes,” Aaron Grant said. He recalled that Jimmy
Potter had always been a little slow. It wouldn’t hurt to let him find the microfilm.

Edith Potter directed him to the back of the stacks where a tall, gawky boy was placing books on the shelves.

“Hi, Jimmy,” Aaron said.

Jimmy Potter looked down from the ladder where he’d been working on the top shelf. “Huh? Oh, hi, Aaron. What’s up?”

“You got time to help me with something?”

“Sure, Aaron. With what?”

“It’s about the murder.”

Jimmy nearly fell off the ladder and his face went white. “Don’t know anything about that,” he said.

“Of course not,” Aaron said. He’d forgotten who he was dealing with, and felt a pang of guilt. “I know you don’t. That’s not what I meant. I just need help looking something up.”

Jimmy exhaled. “Oh. Oh, that’s different.” He climbed down from the ladder. “Sure thing, Aaron. Anything I can do.”

“You know where they keep the microfilm?”

“Sure do.”

“How about for nineteen eighty-four?”

“I can find it. You want the whole year?”

“No. Just anything on the death of Barbara Burnside.”

Jimmy Potter wouldn’t quit. Aaron Grant had taken what Jimmy’d found him, said it was enough, and gone back to the paper to write his story, but Jimmy had gotten such a kick out of doing research for him that he’d kept right at it. And sure enough, he’d managed to find a few more mentions of the Barbara Burnside accident.

Jimmy wanted to print them out for Aaron like he’d done with the others, but he knew he couldn’t because Aaron had said he didn’t need them, and if Aaron didn’t need them, then his mother wouldn’t want him wasting the paper. So, instead, Jimmy just made notes of where the articles were.

Unfortunately, organization was not Jimmy’s strong suit. By the time he was done he had written the information everywhere. When he realized this, Jimmy Potter was upset. He knew he couldn’t hand Aaron Grant a pile of little scraps of paper. Why hadn’t he used a big sheet of paper to begin with? That would have been the smart thing to do. Only he hadn’t had a big sheet of paper on him. He would have had to go back to the little office to get one. And he hadn’t wanted to go back to the office.
Not while he was in the middle of looking stuff up. He certainly wouldn’t have wanted to do that.

Jimmy went back to the office now, got a big sheet of paper, and a sharpened pencil. He could have sat at the desk, but it was piled with the file cards he’d been helping his mother type. There was even one in the typewriter. He could have taken it out and typed the list, but he didn’t want to. Too hard. Too many numbers.