NYPD Puzzle (9 page)

“Then I probably won’t. Go ahead. Pass it over.”

Sergeant Crowley opened his desk drawer, pulled out a piece of paper, and handed it to Cora.

“I can touch it?”

“It’s a copy.”

Cora scanned the puzzle:

Need a clue?

Here you go

Inner five

Center row.

She shrugged. “Perfectly straightforward, Sergeant.”

“What does it mean?”

“Clearly it’s referring to a sudoku.”

“A what?”

“You mean you didn’t find it? Unbelievable. A clue like that screaming for attention.”

Crowley practically ground his teeth. “Look, lady. You’re good at what you do. Believe it or not, we’re good at what
we
do. That does not include interpreting enigmatic clues from crossword puzzles.”

“Enigmatic? Wow. You’re lucky you made sergeant, talking like that. Most cops say ‘enigmatic’ get assigned to a desk.”

“Are you having a good time? I’m not. I would imagine in that small town you live in—”

“Bakerhaven.”

“I would imagine you don’t have more than one crime at a time. Here it’s a little different. I got dozens. You know which one has priority? They all do. So you’ll pardon me if I don’t get all excited when you mention some suduko.”

“Sudoku.”

“Whatever. You wanna enlighten me on the subject?”

“Sure, Sergeant. I will try not to take offense at the fact you have never heard of my line of sudoku books. They’re puzzles. If you happen to have two or three hours to spare, I might be able to explain a simple one to you.”

“You might explain why I should give a damn.”

“You said you want to know what the crossword puzzle means. The crossword puzzle is clearly referring to a number puzzle. Specifically, a sudoku, a nine-by-nine number puzzle that is very popular outside the NYPD.”

“How does that help?”

“It tells you what you’re looking for. Which makes it easier to find.”

Crowley gave Cora a hard stare. He snatched up the phone again. “Perkins. You know what a sudoku is?… Then find someone who does. Have ’em review the crime scene evidence, see if anything like that turned up in the apartment.”

“I can’t believe no one would have mentioned it,” Cora said.

“Again, your field of expertise, not mine.”

“Yeah, but with a crossword puzzle on the body. I’d think it would ring a bell.”

“You have a point, or you just trying to rub it in?”

The phone rang. Crowley scooped it up, listened, slammed it down.

“Good news?” Cora chirped.

Crowley made a face. “Perkins spoke to the detective who reviewed the evidence. No puzzle.”

“There’s gotta be,” Cora said. “What about the medical examiner?”

“What about him?”

“Maybe he found something in the clothes.”

“He’d have said.”

“Even if it didn’t seem important?”

Crowley snatched up the phone, had a brief conversation with Perkins, put it down.

Cora’s eyes twinkled. She tipped back in her chair. “You married, Sergeant?”

“Why?”

“I wasn’t proposing. Just passing the time. Assuming it will take your boy a little while to browbeat the medical examiner.”

“That’s not the way it works.”

“How does it work?”

Crowley looked at her sharply. “What do you care?”

“I’m just a country girl from the sticks, trying to make my way in the big city.”

“Didn’t you used to be from New York?”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“I don’t know. Just seemed like you were.”

“Really? I’ve been in the country so long, I barely remember the city.”

“And yet you own an apartment.”

“Which is rented. The rental covers the maintenance, brings in pocket change. Win—win. Of course, once a New Yorker, always a New Yorker. Seems like only yesterday, and it’s been fifteen years.” Cora realized that made her seem old. “I recall I’d just turned twenty,” she hastened to add.

Crowley laughed.

“You find that funny?” Cora said.

Crowley shook his head. “Lotta women been married several times before they were twenty. We just booked one. On prostitution. I don’t think all her marriages were legal, though.”

Cora nodded. “Some of mine weren’t either. Since you ducked the question, I assume you’re married.”

The phone rang. Crowley scooped it up, not, Cora noted, without some relief. “Yeah?… Really?… Well, I’m sure he was. Could you ask him to fax it over? Without handling it any more than he already has. If he’s really sorry, tell him I need it
now.
”

Crowley hung up the phone. “It’ll be right here.”

“If the doctor cooperates.”

“Perkins has him by the short hairs. He’ll cooperate.”

He did. Perkins knocked on the door less than five minutes later, handed Crowley the fax.

Crowley held it up for Cora.

“I assume this is what you mean?”

“You’ve never seen a sudoku before?”

“I’m sure I have. I’m sorry it didn’t make a big impression. Can you solve it?”

“Just watch me.”

Cora whizzed through the sudoku in less time than it took the doctor to send the fax.

She looked at the solution, whistled.

“What is it?”

Cora handed Crowley the sudoku. “Look at the middle row across.”

Crowley looked at the sudoku.

“What about it?”

“What are the five numbers in the middle of the row?”

Crowley read them off. “Two, seven, nine, three, eight.”

Cora cocked her head at him, smiled. “Ring a bell?”

“No,” Crowley said irritably. “What are you getting at?”

“It’s the license plate number Perkins couldn’t trace.”

Chapter

16

Becky Baldwin pushed
the long blond hair out of her eyes, tapped the pencil against the yellow legal pad on her desk. “What the hell is going on?”

“I have no idea,” Cora said.

“But it’s all about you. Which makes no sense. But it has to.”

“We’ve been over this before.”

“It just
happened.
You just
told
me about it.”

“Yeah, but it’s the same concept.”

“Right. The killing had to do with you. Because of the crossword puzzle. Which makes no sense, because the killer must have known I was bringing you, but he couldn’t. Because
I
didn’t know I was bringing you. I just decided it that day.”

“Well, that’s not quite true, is it?” Cora said.

“What do you mean?”

“You asked me the day before. And then that night I asked Aaron about theater tickets. And he asked around to see if he could get some. Which is how we wound up at the play. So Aaron knew I was going, and presumably the people he asked knew I was going.”

Becky shook her head. “I would hate to have to sell that to a jury.”

“Why?”

“The killer invites me to a meeting in New York. Even that’s an assumption, but say he does. The killer invites me to a meeting in New York. I decide I’m going to bring you. He finds out I’m bringing you and says, ‘Oh, great, the Puzzle Lady, I’ll give her a puzzle.’ So he devises a crossword puzzle and a sudoku that, taken together, yield the license plate number of the car he’s going to use to follow us home.”

“Why not?”

“Why not? I’m an editor. I read this in a manuscript, I throw it across the room.

“I mean, come on, give me a break. Not only did the killer decide to work this license plate number into the crossword puzzle once you were involved, but the plate in question is a totally bogus one manufactured specifically for that purpose.”

“Well, when you put it like that,” Cora said.

“It’s enough to make your flesh crawl.”

Cora fished a pack of cigarettes out of her purse.

“You can’t smoke in here.”

“My flesh is crawling. You expect me not to smoke when my flesh is crawling?”

“What did Chief Harper say?”

“I haven’t told him.”

Becky stared at her. “You haven’t told him?”

“It’s not his case. It’s out of his jurisdiction.”

“If a killer’s tailing you around town, it’s in his jurisdiction.”

“We don’t know that.”

“Of course not. A car with a license plate that matches the clues left at the scene of the murder is probably unrelated to the crime.”

Cora lit her cigarette, took a deep drag. “Oh, that feels better.”

“Wish I smoked,” Becky said.

“Want one?”

“I could use an Ativan.”

“That I do not have. Wanna adjourn to the bar at the Country Kitchen?”

“I thought you stopped drinking.”

“You look like you could use one.”

“I’m all wound up. I’m antsy. You said wait, you had something to tell me, and hung up the phone.”

“Well, I couldn’t spill it on a pay phone. It would have taken forever. I’d have never got out of New York.”

“You could have given me the general idea.”

“Right, right. You’re an attorney.
You
summarize the situation in one short, pithy sentence.”

“So what do the cops think?”

“They think I’m a major pain in the ass, and they wish they’d never heard of me.”

“About the case.”

“I thought that
was
about the case. As far as the murder’s concerned, they have no idea who killed him or why.”

“Did he have any enemies?”

“I have no idea.”

“I thought you had that sergeant wrapped around your finger.”

“What made you think that?”

“I don’t know. Just your manner.”

“My manner? Not his?”

“What are you asking?”

“Just trying to figure out what you saw.”

“I saw you lapse into flirty mode. And the guy did let us go.”

“He had good reasons.”

“I’m an attorney. You’re apprehended at the scene of a shooting with a recently fired gun. Your saying it’s not the murder weapon is probably not a unique defense in the annals of crime detection.”

“The claim was made by an attorney demanding a ballistics test.”

“What’s the attorney supposed to do? Claim it’s not the murder weapon and
object
to a ballistics test?”

“Yes, but—”

“Cora. All I said was you seem to have worked your feminine wiles on the sergeant, and you flew into more defenses than I raised against the murder charge. Looks like I touched a nerve.”

Cora took a deep drag on the cigarette, blew it out again. “Yeah. I guess I’m a little touchy since I broke up with Barney.”

“Well, come back to earth and focus on the problem. It would appear a killer followed us home.”

“With clearly no intent to do us harm,” Cora said.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because he could have. He doesn’t want to. He wants to play a game. He wants to play with me, not you. Or he would have left a legal puzzle, not a crossword.”

“Not knowing you can’t do them.”

“Hey. Haven’t you gotten enough jabs in?”

“Yeah, yeah. Fine. So what are we going to do about it?”

“Only one thing we can do. Wait and see what happens.”

“You don’t think we need protection?”

“I’ve got a gun. I don’t think he’s after you.”

“You don’t
think
?”