And a Puzzle to Die On, page 9
Cora read with disappointment to the bottom of the column.
The last sentence read:
Darryl Daigue’s girlfriend, Cindy Tambourine, declined to be interviewed.
Cora’s mouth stretched into a grin. She practically purred. “Thanks, Jimmy. Good job!”
Cora beat it out of the library, hustled across the street.
Chief Harper grimaced as she came in. “Twice in one day? Cora, you’re working too hard on a hopeless case.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Cora said. “You run that license plate for me?”
“Yes, I did. And I don’t want you to think it sets any precedents. I didn’t do it because I think there’s anything to it. I didn’t do it because I think it’s a valuable lead. I didn’t do it because I think it has anything to do with Darryl Daigue. I did it largely so you would leave me alone. The fact you’re back already is not encouraging. It makes me think maybe I wasn’t negative enough. Is there any way I can impress upon you how worthless I think the information I am about to give you is?”
“I don’t know, Chief. That would depend largely on whether the license plate you ran happens to be registered to a Ms. Cindy Tambourine.”
Chief Harper’s mouth fell open. “How in the world did you figure that?”
Cora shrugged, smiled modestly. “Just a lucky guess.”
“Not that lucky,” Chief Harper told her dryly. “According to the Department of Motor Vehicles, that car is registered to a Miss Valerie Thompkins, of Danbury, Connecticut. Ms. Thompkins is a widow—her maiden name is Thompkins, by the way, her married name was Fleckstein—and she has no connection with either Anita Dryer or Darryl Daigue whatsoever.”
“Can you Google me some people?”
Sherry looked up from the pumpkin she was carving. She’d taken the top off and was scooping out the seeds with her hands. “Cora, I’m kind of in the middle of something.”
“You’re making a jack-o’-lantern?”
“Tomorrow’s Halloween.”
“Already?” Cora said. “Gee, time flies when you’re having fun.”
“Where have you been?”
“The library, mostly. And if that isn’t a place to drive you wild! You can’t eat, you can’t drink, you can’t smoke. You can’t talk. Damn lucky there’s stuff to read. A person could go batty there.”
“You want me to Google someone you met in the library?”
“Someone I read about in the library. And someone I didn’t.”
“Cora, didn’t I show you how to Google?”
“Yeah, you did. If I knew which icon to click I could probably do it.”
“Just keep clicking till you hit it.”
“Oh, no. I’m not opening your programs. I can’t close ’em. Some of them are fine. But some of them say, ‘Would you like to save so-and-so?’ And I don’t wanna delete your program by saying no. But if I say yes, it asks me to do something else stupid, like slip in a disk. Or enter some password. Or promise it my firstborn child, not that that’s gonna happen, knock on wood. I had a stressful day, I don’t need some computer talking back to me too.”
“Who do you want to Google?”
“One of them’s Cindy Tambourine. She was Darryl Daigue’s girlfriend.”
“Who’s the other?”
Cora dug out her notepad. “Valerie Thompkins.”
“What’s her connection to the case?”
“She doesn’t have one.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Cora said irritably.
“Okay.” Sherry picked up a big spoon, began scraping the bottom of the pumpkin.
After a few moments Cora said, “Someone might have followed me today.”
“ ‘Might have’?” Sherry said, spooning out seeds.
Cora told Sherry about the black sedan.
“You traced the wrong license plate, and now you’d like to Google it?”
“Just because Chief Harper says it’s wrong doesn’t mean it’s wrong. What does he know?”
“Yeah, he’s just the chief of police,” Sherry said.
“You know what I mean. Just because Harper can’t find a connection doesn’t mean there isn’t one.”
“Uh-huh. But you personally think it’s the wrong car?”
“More than likely.”
“So why don’t you find the right one?”
“How?”
“Go back to Danbury, see if it starts following you again. Where did it pick you up?”
“First time I noticed it was when I came out of the doctor’s.”
“Who knew you were going in?”
“The doctor. The cop. The doctor’s receptionist. The woman with the poodle. The one I wanna Google. Good God, did I really say that? I wanna Google the woman with the poodle.”
“And how would the woman with the poodle know you were calling on the doctor?”
“How would anyone know I was calling on the doctor? Why would anyone care if I was calling on the doctor, unless they happened to kill what’s-his-name. Ricky Gleason. Who wasn’t mentioned in the newspapers, or the transcript, or by anybody else, for that matter. With the possible exception of Darryl Daigue, who claims it could have cleared him, but didn’t manage to pass it on to either the police or his attorney.”
“Well, when you put it that way.”
“How else can I put it? You got a case that doesn’t add up from any angle. You got a sister who’d like to free her big brother, who can’t be freed, and who only came up with this idea after twenty years of not giving a good goddamn. You got a prisoner with the brains of a tree slug, only slightly less appetizing, whose chance of redemption is even lower than that of the Red Sox winning the World Series.”
“Hey, you’re not in New York anymore. I’d watch that talk around here.”
“I have, in short, the least promising case I can imagine. And yet when I start poking into it, what do I find? My lead suspect died under suspicious circumstances, and the fact I’m looking into it raises someone’s hackles.”
“So you wanna Google them. Or at least Google the leads you got. Tell me, what is the optimum result you’d like from this Internet adventure?”
Cora tried to see if her niece’s eyes were twinkling, but Sherry was busy scraping the pumpkin. “I’d love it if Valerie What’s-her-face and Cindy Gotsagoo were one and the same person. That would teach Chief Harper to be so damn smug.”
“Oh, so that’s what this is all about.”
“No, it isn’t. But I’d like something to make sense.”
“All right.” Sherry put the pumpkin aside, washed her hands in the sink. “Come on, let’s Google.”
They went into the office and Sherry sat at the computer.
“We didn’t get any more puzzles?” Cora said apprehensively.
“No, but I solved the last one. You wanna see?”
“Not really. What is it?”
“Another birthday card. You really need to thank Harvey.”
“I really need to rap Harvey upside the head. Did I ask him for these cards?”
“He doesn’t know you’re illiterate, Cora. He thinks it’s fun.”
“Can’t I just tell him, Sherry? The guy’s a real pain.”
“Sure, if you think he can keep a secret. If you don’t think he’ll put it around the whole crossword puzzle community.”
“Of course he will. He’s worse than an old maid.” Cora raised her finger. “I didn’t say that. Don’t quote me. There is nothing wrong with people who choose not to marry. I think they’re nuts, but that’s just me.”
“Well, here’s Manny’s puzzle.” Sherry called it up on the screen. “Take a look.”
“Do I have to?”
“You need to know it if you run into Harvey.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Cora leaned over, looked at the puzzle.
“Wonderful. Seventeen by seventeen. I can kid Harvey about having puzzle envy.”
Sherry, reading over Cora’s shoulder, said, “Your favorite sci-fi movie is Star Wars?”
“Huh?”
Sherry pointed. “Nineteen Across. ‘Soundtrack of the Puzzle Lady’s favorite sci-fi movie.’ ”
“I guess Planet of the Apes didn’t fit the space.”
“Cora—”
“So I like Star Wars. Is that a crime? The first Star Wars movie was good.” Cora looked up from the computer. “Enough of this damn puzzle stuff. Can we Google?”
“Sure.”
Sherry called up the program, plugged in Valerie Thompkins, and hit SEARCH.
“Well, you got two hits, Cora. Both from the Danbury News-Times. Valerie Thompkins to wed, and Valerie Thompkins widowed. The gentleman in question is a Marvin Fleckstein. Marvin appears to have been a used-car salesman. No, that’s unfair. Actually, he was a dealership owner. Probably made a pretty penny. Probably what Valerie’s living on now.”
A PUZZLING SITUATION
by Manny Nosowsky
ACROSS
1 Nostalgic yet fashionable
6 Computer game gobbler
12 Green land?
16 Neptune’s domain
17 Actor Peter of “Becket”
18 Where the auction is on-line
19 Soundtrack of the Puzzle Lady’s favorite sci-fi movie
22 Freebie
23 Steinbeck migrants
24 Call for a dealer?
25 “Give it ___” (“Check it out”)
27 They go up and down
30 Grammarian’s shtick
33 Hole in the ground
36 ___ Xing (street sign)
37 Blubber
40 Like the Puzzle Lady
44 ___ tai cocktail
45 Areas
46 “Uh-uh!”
47 Grammy winner Morissette
49 Popular gas-guzzler
50 Jayhawker
52 Fill the bill?
53 Firehouse fleet
55 Make a lap
56 What the Puzzle Lady hopes you’ll do
60 Inspirational talk: Abbr.
61 Emulate Chief Dale Harper
62 Doubling prefix?
63 ___ fit (tantrum, Southern-style)
64 Allen or Frome
66 Bank claim
68 Confidence games
71 Gobbled up
74 “Night” author Wiesel
78 What we have to say to the Puzzle Lady
82 “I’d hate to break up ___”
83 Gromyko or Sakharov
84 New currency
85 Like buildup on a floor
86 Injury
87 Lost one’s balance?
DOWN
1 College military unit: Abbr.
2 Say again
3 Be rife (with)
4 “Elephant Walk” climax
5 Married or single?
6 “Th-th-that’s all, folks” speaker
7 Yours, en français
8 Join the party
9 Unlike a rolling stone?
10 Space bar neighbor
11 PBS benefactor
12 Clark’s exploration partner
13 Blind as ___
14 Close, in hide-and-seek
15 NASDAQ rival
20 In favor of
21 Old Valerie Harper sitcom
26 Country singer Gibbs
28 Major work
29 Nonetheless
30 Reveals, on Halloween
31 Shipping route
32 Fly guy
34 “___ Fair” (Don Cornell song)
35 Premeditation, say
37 Obeys the periodontist
38 Helpers from abroad
39 Itsy
41 Director Craven
42 For all to see
43 Larry King employer
48 In mint condition
50 Barbie’s beau
51 “Steady ___ goes”
53 Napoleon’s isle
54 Sealed shut with a hammer
57 On pins and needles
58 “Well, ___ -di-dah!”
59 Seder container
64 Running on fumes
65 Teased teenagers
67 One-million link?
68 “Pygmalion” playwright
69 “Mi ___ es su …”
70 High point
72 Longfellow’s “The Bell of ___”
73 The other Van Gogh
75 Tales of the tribe
76 Multivitamin supplement
77 Sun spot?
79 ___ Harbour, FL
80 It makes Paul a girl?
81 Ouija board reply
“Try the girlfriend.”
“Okay. Cindy Tambourine.” Sherry did a search. “Absolutely nothing.”
“What?”
“No hits at all.”
“How can that be? She was in the Gazette.”
“Yeah, twenty years ago. I hate to break it to you, Cora, but twenty-year-old Bakerhaven papers aren’t going to be on-line.”
“So the woman just ceased to exist. I wonder what happened to her.”
“Why don’t you ask your client?”
“My client?”
“I don’t mean your client. I mean the killer.”
“Do you have to call him ‘the killer’?”
“A jury did.”
“Yeah.” Cora pointed to the computer. “Google him.”
“What?”
“Darryl Daigue. Google Darryl Daigue. I want to see if there’s anything at all.”
“There should be.”
“Oh, yeah? If twenty-year-old papers aren’t on-line, they missed the trial.”
“Well, let’s give it a try.” Sherry typed in Darryl Daigue, hit ENTER. “There you are. A hundred and seventeen hits.”
“A hundred and seventeen?”
“They won’t all be what you want. You’ll get stuff like, ‘Hoop star Darryl Dawkins performed charitable work for the Daigue Foundation.’ ”
“How the hell do you know about Darryl Dawkins? You don’t like basketball, and you’re not old enough.”
“I do crossword puzzles, Cora. I know everybody. Let’s see. Here’s a book called Lifer by A. E. Greenhouse, based on the author’s interviews with several life prisoners, including Darryl Daigue.”
Cora snorted. “Having interviewed Darryl Daigue, I wouldn’t expect much.”
“Here’s an article on sex crimes, by a Lester Moffat. Sort of unfair, since the sex charge was dropped. I wonder if Lester mentions that.”
“I don’t care if he does or not. Darryl Daigue shouldn’t be in the article. How old is it?”
“Just last year.”
“And they’re still calling it a sex crime? That is so unfair.”
“Then you’ll love this one.”
“What is it?”
“Article is called ‘Death Row.’ ”
“Death Row? Darryl Daigue isn’t on Death Row.”
“Yeah, that seems to be the point of the article. How the system keeps the scum of the earth like Darryl Daigue alive for years at a considerable expense to the state, while the man has no hope of redemption, no possibility of parole, no future prospects outside of a ten-by-ten cell, so why not give the gentleman the lethal injection he so richly deserves?”
“Yeah, that would be just great until a DNA test showed he was innocent.”
“It’s not going to happen. Anita Dryer wasn’t raped.”
“Talk about unfair,” Cora said. “The guy gets blamed for raping the girl, but he didn’t, so DNA can’t set him free.”
“Yeah,” Sherry said. “If only he hadn’t killed her. That’s probably where he made his big mistake.”
“Nasty girl. Okay, smarty-pants. What was Darryl Dawkins’s nickname?”
“Chocolate Thunder. Want the computer?”
“Please.”
Cora sat down, scrolled through the articles. Which were, in Cora’s humble estimation, depressing, inaccurate, and annoyingly uninformative. Only one in four was actually about Darryl Daigue. Of the ones that were, most contained no more information than the ones that weren’t.
On a whim, Cora Googled Brandon Prison. It seemed to Cora the machine hiccupped slightly, and yet the search took only one point seven seconds, and yielded twelve thousand six hundred and twenty-two articles.
Cora scrolled through the first page of listings. The heading WARDEN PLAYS HARDBALL caught her eye. Cora clicked on it, was greeted by a picture of the little man who had ushered her into his office, given her a cigar, and blown a slightly inferior smoke ring.
Cora skimmed the article. The gist of it was that in light of a prison riot, Warden Prufrock had cut prisoner exercise time to free up prison staff for guard duty.
Cora wondered if Darryl Daigue had been involved in the riot. She deleted Brandon Prison, typed in Warden Prufrock. That yielded three hundred fifty-six hits. Cora scrolled through, looking for Darryl Daigue. She wondered if there was a subsearch, to search these three hundred fifty-six articles for him. If so, it wasn’t readily apparent.
Cora continued to scroll through the headings, hoping for a hint. The name Darryl Daigue didn’t appear, but a theme began to emerge. Evidently “Warden Plays Hardball” was not an isolated article. Other headlines were WARDEN GETS TOUGH, WARDEN CRACKS DOWN, WARDEN DRAWS LINE, WARDEN STANDS FIRM. There was even an article with the headline IRON MAN. Cora couldn’t help smiling at the thought of the warden described that way.
Halfway down page ten Cora found something new. WARDEN COMMENDS PAROLE BOARD. The article began,
Warden Prufrock issued a vote of thanks and hearty well done as the parole board wrapped up hearing cases today. In response to detractors who characterize the board as a rubber-stamp organization that routinely approves the parole of any prisoner who has met the minimum requirements of time served …
Cora clicked on the heading to bring up the article. The article continued,
The current board has only a fifty-three percent approval rate, proving that each case had been judged on an individual basis.
Cora wasn’t reading the article.
Cora was staring at the picture that accompanied it.
The picture was captioned “Parole board gets high marks.”
The caption then identified the five men and women in the picture.
Four of them Cora had never seen before.
The fifth was Dr. Jenkins.
Warden Prufrock was surprised to see Cora again. “Miss Felton, I can’t understand what you’re doing here.”
