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Authors: Parnell Hall
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find anything else?”
“The sewer pipe’s broken.”
“Relating to the crime.”
“How do you know someone didn’t kill him for having a broken sewer pipe?”
“Okay. Enough shenanigans. I got a murder to solve. And I can’t solve it if I’ve got to spend all my time chasing you around. In case I wasn’t clear before, let me be explicit. This cabin is off-limits. Don’t go in, don’t drive by it, don’t look in the window, don’t inventory anything that might happen to be there. And for God’s sake, don’t remove anything from the property under penalty of death. You haven’t removed anything from the property, have you?”
“Absolutely not,” Cora said.
“Or do you have anything on your person right now that you intend to take from the property?”
“Gosh, you have a suspicious mind, Chief.”
“You agreed just a little too readily.”
“There’s no pleasing you, Chief. I agree with you, you’re unhappy. I don’t agree with you, you’re unhappy. What do you want us to do?”
“What do I want you to do?” Chief Harper cocked his head. “I want you to avoid any TV interviews in which you give out information not already released by the police.”
“Becky must have misunderstood you, Chief. I don’t know how that happened.”
“Yeah. Well, this time let there be no mistake. I want you to get in your car, drive off, and don’t come back here for any reason whatsoever. Is that clear?”
Cora patted him on the cheek. “Crystal.”
Chapter 18
As soon as Becky dropped her off, Cora hopped in her car and sped back to the cabin. The front door was locked, but the kitchen window was still open. Shimmying through was a pain. It also upped the chance Brooks would call the cops, but that couldn’t be helped.
Cora went straight to the bedroom, stood up on the bed, lifted down the picture frame. Recalling lines from the Dylan song about looking like Robert Ford but feeling like Jesse James did not cheer her. She glanced over her shoulder for potential assassins. Finding none, she flopped the picture down on the bed, pulled off the folded piece of paper taped to the back of the dog art. She rehung the picture, pelted down the stairs, and was out of there faster than you could say elderly housebreaker.
Cora felt bad about holding out on Becky. She wouldn’t have held out on Sherry, if her niece had been the one helping her search the cabin. To a certain extent, Cora realized that was why she’d done it. She felt guilty about using Becky in Sherry’s absence. It was as if Sherry had gotten married so Cora had gotten a surrogate niece. Not exactly, the pilfered paper said. Withholding the evidence kept Becky outside the pale.
Cora raced into the house, locked the front door behind her, as if that would keep Chief Harper out. It kept Buddy in, and he wasn’t happy about it, yipping his displeasure until Cora threw him a dog biscuit to shut him up.
Cora flopped her purse on the kitchen table, yanked out her precious find. It was a single sheet of paper folded into eighths. The Scotch Tape was still on. Four strips diagonally across the corners. Cora pulled them off with a reasonable amount of care for her level of excitement.
She unfolded the paper.
There was writing on it, which became evident only when it started to unfold. That was good because any writing on the outside would have been ripped off by the tape. But the writing was on an interior fold. It couldn’t be seen when the paper was folded in eighths or quarters, only when it was unfolded into halves.
Cora spun the paper around.
It wasn’t a message. It was merely numbers. Numbers and dots scrawled on the page in a haphazard fashion. To a woman whose husband had played the ponies—for the life of her, Cora couldn’t remember which husband—it looked like some bookie’s scratch sheet, a secret record of bets and races the cops could never figure out that made sense only to him.
Or made no sense at all.
Cora
“The sewer pipe’s broken.”
“Relating to the crime.”
“How do you know someone didn’t kill him for having a broken sewer pipe?”
“Okay. Enough shenanigans. I got a murder to solve. And I can’t solve it if I’ve got to spend all my time chasing you around. In case I wasn’t clear before, let me be explicit. This cabin is off-limits. Don’t go in, don’t drive by it, don’t look in the window, don’t inventory anything that might happen to be there. And for God’s sake, don’t remove anything from the property under penalty of death. You haven’t removed anything from the property, have you?”
“Absolutely not,” Cora said.
“Or do you have anything on your person right now that you intend to take from the property?”
“Gosh, you have a suspicious mind, Chief.”
“You agreed just a little too readily.”
“There’s no pleasing you, Chief. I agree with you, you’re unhappy. I don’t agree with you, you’re unhappy. What do you want us to do?”
“What do I want you to do?” Chief Harper cocked his head. “I want you to avoid any TV interviews in which you give out information not already released by the police.”
“Becky must have misunderstood you, Chief. I don’t know how that happened.”
“Yeah. Well, this time let there be no mistake. I want you to get in your car, drive off, and don’t come back here for any reason whatsoever. Is that clear?”
Cora patted him on the cheek. “Crystal.”
Chapter 18
As soon as Becky dropped her off, Cora hopped in her car and sped back to the cabin. The front door was locked, but the kitchen window was still open. Shimmying through was a pain. It also upped the chance Brooks would call the cops, but that couldn’t be helped.
Cora went straight to the bedroom, stood up on the bed, lifted down the picture frame. Recalling lines from the Dylan song about looking like Robert Ford but feeling like Jesse James did not cheer her. She glanced over her shoulder for potential assassins. Finding none, she flopped the picture down on the bed, pulled off the folded piece of paper taped to the back of the dog art. She rehung the picture, pelted down the stairs, and was out of there faster than you could say elderly housebreaker.
Cora felt bad about holding out on Becky. She wouldn’t have held out on Sherry, if her niece had been the one helping her search the cabin. To a certain extent, Cora realized that was why she’d done it. She felt guilty about using Becky in Sherry’s absence. It was as if Sherry had gotten married so Cora had gotten a surrogate niece. Not exactly, the pilfered paper said. Withholding the evidence kept Becky outside the pale.
Cora raced into the house, locked the front door behind her, as if that would keep Chief Harper out. It kept Buddy in, and he wasn’t happy about it, yipping his displeasure until Cora threw him a dog biscuit to shut him up.
Cora flopped her purse on the kitchen table, yanked out her precious find. It was a single sheet of paper folded into eighths. The Scotch Tape was still on. Four strips diagonally across the corners. Cora pulled them off with a reasonable amount of care for her level of excitement.
She unfolded the paper.
There was writing on it, which became evident only when it started to unfold. That was good because any writing on the outside would have been ripped off by the tape. But the writing was on an interior fold. It couldn’t be seen when the paper was folded in eighths or quarters, only when it was unfolded into halves.
Cora spun the paper around.
It wasn’t a message. It was merely numbers. Numbers and dots scrawled on the page in a haphazard fashion. To a woman whose husband had played the ponies—for the life of her, Cora couldn’t remember which husband—it looked like some bookie’s scratch sheet, a secret record of bets and races the cops could never figure out that made sense only to him.
Or made no sense at all.
Cora
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