Puzzled to Death (14 page)

Cora snorted. Phooey on it. What about Billy Pickens?

Looking around, Cora was pleased to discover that the young man and his wife were not playing the third game but had moved to the table at the far side of the room where coffee and desserts were available. Now, if Cora could just figure out some way to separate Billy from the young woman …

A crackling of paper alerted Cora to the fact she was still holding the crossword puzzle. That would never do. If she wasn’t careful, Harvey Beerbaum would materialize out of nowhere and ask her to solve it.

Unobtrusively, Cora managed to sidle up to a trash receptacle and drop the puzzle in. That task accomplished, Cora looked back over at the refreshment table: Billy Pickens and his wife were no longer there.

Wrong again. The woman with her back to Cora filling a cup with coffee from the big silver urn was indeed the young woman she had seen earlier with Billy Pickens.

Excellent. Billy Pickens must be alone. Now was her chance. She had only to find him.…

Cora’s quest for Billy Pickens led her by the rest rooms
again. This time, however, she managed to resist temptation and felt duly virtuous.

So where was the man? If Cora was going to give up a drink to find him, she damn well better find him. If he’d had any consideration and been easy to find, she’d have talked to him already and been back in the john. The fact she wasn’t was entirely Billy Pickens’s fault, and what did he have to say for himself?

Cora noticed Harvey Beerbaum peering in her direction. Drat the man. Officious, intrusive dweeb. Why wasn’t he supervising the stupid game? It was all his idea. He should be keeping his eye on it. Not spying on her.

Unless
that
was his idea.

Damn.

Cora had just about decided to sneak back to the rest room when she spotted Billy Pickens.

Cora frowned. Her chances of talking to him alone had not improved.

For Billy Pickens seemed deeply involved in an earnest conversation with Judy Vale’s nosy neighbor, Mrs. Roth.

C
ORA DREAMED SHE WAS ON
TV. B
UT NOT IN A BREAKFAST
-cereal commercial. She was a cartoon character, an animated two-dimensional drawing, scooting across the TV screen like the Road Runner trying to get away from …

Harvey Beerbaum, with a double-barreled shotgun, all dressed up like Elmer Fudd.

Of course. She wasn’t the Road Runner. She was Bugs Bunny. That wascally wabbit. Gnawing on a carrot and hoodwinking Harvey before her real identity dawned on him. Good thing he was so gullible, or he would have figured it out.

Because she didn’t
look
like a rabbit. And she couldn’t
do
crossword puzzles. And surely even Elmer Fuddy-Duddy Beerbaum was going to see through her tricks if she gave him enough time.

Oh, why had she ever agreed to be in this cartoon? Cartoons weren’t good for her. She couldn’t be herself in
cartoons. She had no
feel
for them. Why had she let Sherry talk her into it? It was all Sherry’s fault. If Sherry would just leave her alone—

But Sherry wouldn’t. Sherry kept pulling her into things. Pulling her, even as Cora tried to bat her away. Pulling and yelling, or at least talking way too loud. And—

Cora opened her eyes to find herself sitting upright in bed. Her niece had a hold of her arm. Now she gripped her shoulders to keep her from burrowing back under the tangled sheets.

Cora blinked at her in bewilderment. “You’re not Elmer Fudd.”

Sherry ignored that epiphany. “Good. You’re awake. Now, do we have to go in the shower?”

Cora’s brow furrowed. “Shower? What shower? Baby shower? Are you and Aaron having a baby?”

“No,” Sherry said tersely.

That penetrated Cora’s subconsciousness. She frowned. “Oh? Not so glowing?”

Sherry shook her. “Aunt Cora.
Focus
. It’s Saturday morning. The crossword-puzzle tournament’s in twenty minutes, and you gotta be there.”

Cora’s face fell. She groaned. “Oh, no …”

“Oh, yes.”

Sherry grabbed her aunt’s ankles, swung her legs over the side of the bed.

“Sherry,” Cora babbled, as her niece wrenched her to her feet. “Last night. At Fun Night. What happened?”

“Nothing much, except you had a little too much to drink and forgot why you were there. When Aaron and I brought you home you were babbling about pickles. Dill pickles, as I recall.”

“Dill pickles. Can’t remember. God, my head hurts. Dill pickles.” Cora’s eyes widened. “Oh. No, no, no. Not dill pickles. Billy Pickens! Did I talk to him?”

Sherry piloted her aunt into the kitchen, flopped her in a chair. “Who’s Billy Pickens?”

“Sherry, don’t you know anything?” Cora wailed. “Billy Pickens is the murder suspect.”

Sherry shoved a cup of coffee in front of Cora. When Cora made no move to take it, Sherry picked it up, put it in her hand. “Here, drink this. It should wake you up enough to get dressed.”

“Dressed? Where are we going?”

“Aunt Cora, you gotta focus. The tournament’s this morning. You gotta drink your coffee and get dressed.”

“Sherry. I can’t go. You go for me.”

Sherry was sorely tempted, but if she left her aunt at home, Cora was very likely to get into further mischief. Which might lead to a most unfortunate surprise appearance at the tournament later on.

“You’re going, Cora. And you’re going to get right up there on the stage next to Harvey Beerbaum. And you’re not going to screw up, and you’re going to be fine. Now, drink that coffee, or I’ll pour it on your head.”

A
ARON
G
RANT MET THEM IN FRONT OF TOWN HALL
. Any tension from the night before was lost in the immediate task of getting Cora inside. This was complicated by the fact that Cora did not take kindly to being assisted and kept batting their hands away as they helped her from the car.

“I’m fine,” Cora muttered irritably.

“I’m sure you are,” Aaron said pleasantly. He jerked his thumb in the direction of the Channel 8 van parked in the side lot. “The news crew’s inside. Are you ready for your close-up?”

“No, but she will be.” Sherry jerked a compact out of her purse and began to touch up Cora’s face.

“Can do my own makeup,” Cora protested.

“I know you can, but this morning you didn’t, so just hold still.”

Sherry whipped off Cora’s glasses, touched up the bags under her eyes. “There. Ten times better.”

Sherry stuck Cora’s glasses back on, and she and Aaron marched her up the front steps.

“Remember,” Sherry cautioned, “you’re going to be on TV, so when you stand next to Harvey Beerbaum, try not to look like you wish him dead.”

Cora managed her most indignant version of
harrumph
, then wrenched herself free from Sherry and Aaron and sailed in the door.

The Channel 8 news team was waiting to pounce. Rick Reed, handsome, young, ambitious, and bright as the average fireplug, grabbed her by the shoulder and stuck a microphone in her face. “Miss Felton,” he cried. “Any thoughts on the tournament? Which contestant do you pick to win?”

Cora’s first instinct was to punch him in the nose; in the past the on-camera reporter had done his best to embarrass her every chance he got. She restrained herself and, with a twinkle in her eye, replied, “The one with the most points.”

Cora smiled sweetly, patted Rick Reed on the cheek, and wove her way through the tables, reassuring herself that she
did
know how the scoring worked, and it actually
was
the most points that won, and she had not committed some gaffe that would be played gleefully on the six o’clock news.

Cora reached the stage and stepped up next to Harvey Beerbaum, who stood tapping his foot and looking at his watch just like a schoolteacher awaiting the arrival of a tardy child.

“Well, nice of you to join us, Miss Felton.”

Cora frowned. The man even
sounded
like a schoolteacher. “Could have started without me,” she muttered.

“Yes,” Harvey said. “But we agreed that this morning you would make the opening remarks.”

Cora blinked, thunderstruck. Somewhere in the deep recesses of her brain a vague memory of something to that effect chimed like a death knell. “We did?” she murmured.

“Yes, of course,” Harvey said pedantically. “I did last night, you do today, and I do the finals tomorrow. You don’t remember that? You
are
prepared, aren’t you?”

Fortunately, nothing propelled Cora into action faster than the suggestion she was not capable of it. “Of course I’m prepared. Just give me a moment, and I’ll be right with you.”

Cora marched to a table at the side of the stage, shrugged off her coat, and made a show of fumbling in her purse as if looking for the paper on which she had written her carefully prepared welcoming speech. Of course, there was no speech to find—Cora was just stalling for time. As she dug in her purse, she glanced surreptitiously around the room, desperate for a clue as to what she was supposed to say.

The tables were pretty well filled. Most had only two people, though some had as many as four: two on the long side facing the stage, and one on each end. Sharpened pencils were lined up on the tables. Coats and scarves hung over the backs of the chairs.

As everyone would be doing the same puzzle, blue cardboard dividers stood on the tables between the contestants. Cora figured she could talk about that, though not much, since the dividers must have been explained when they were being set up.

All right, what about the contestants themselves?

At the table just in front of her sat the Thornhills. The divider between them indicated Paul’s wife must be playing too. Or did just her presence indicate that? Cora couldn’t remember if spectators were allowed at the
tables at this juncture of the tournament. Another thing she could have commented on. Why on earth hadn’t she been paying attention?

Most of the spectators were in the back of the room. Cora spotted Sherry and Aaron in the crowd. And the TV people, who were taking the camera off its tripod and bringing it up the aisle.

To film her opening remarks
.

Cora was beginning to sweat.

And then she saw it.

Behind the stage, facing the tables, was the clock. A huge, old-fashioned wooden clock, with a circular dial. White, with black hands and black numbers. Only not the usual numbers. Where the twelve should have been was zero. Going round the dial, counterclockwise, instead of eleven, ten, nine, eight … were the numbers five, ten, fifteen, twenty …

Yes.

She could do this.

Saved by the clock.

Cora pretended to find the lipstick she’d actually had in her hand for some time, pulled it out, and applied some lip gloss, much to Harvey Beerbaum’s undisguised irritation. She ignored him, marched to the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she purred. “I’d like to welcome you to the competitive part of the tournament.” She had a rough moment with
competitive
but managed not to mangle it too badly. “Volunteers will be circulating among you, passing out the first puzzle. Keep it facedown in front of you on your table. Write your name on the back, otherwise we won’t know it’s you.”

“And your contestant number,” Harvey Beerbaum prompted.

“Yes, your contestant number.” Cora forced a smile so as not to glare at Harvey for interrupting her. “Do you all
know
your contestant number?”

Everyone appeared to, since no one said anything and no hands went up.

“All right,” Cora said. “As soon as the puzzles are passed out, we will be ready to begin. I call your attention to the clock in the front of the room. You will note that it is set for …” Cora had an instant of panic as she realized she didn’t know what it was set for, then remembered there was nothing to figure out, it was what it said. “Fifteen minutes,” she announced. “For those of you not familiar with the clock, it runs clockwise.” This, unexpectedly, got a laugh. Cora smiled, as if she had actually been joking, then remembered the rest of the instructions that both Harvey Beerbaum and Sherry had drilled her on. “But you might not take fifteen minutes. In this competition, speed counts. So the second you are finished, raise your hand, and a volunteer will take your paper and note the time when you are done. Okay, if everyone is ready … Ready, set, GO!”