Read Online Death by Sudoku by Kaye Morgan - Free Book Online

don’t suppose you can tell us anything about this?” Howard asked jovially.
    Liza shook her head. “It was all in order when we cleaned the dinner dishes away.” She stepped toward the overturned chair. Both Vasquez and Howard moved to block her, so she stopped and pointed. Beside the disarranged padding lay a broken glass, short, squat, and cylindrical.
    “That highball glass wasn’t out here. We only drank wine.”
    Vasquez’s notebook came out again.
    “There were no disagreements at dinner—no arguments?” Howard asked.
    Liza shook her head. “I was mainly getting to know Jenny.” She smiled at the memory of dinner. “Derrick always has— had —a good line of funny conversation. He could toss off some outrageous statements, but you couldn’t call them arguments.”
    She suddenly remembered his claim about the coded sudoku messages. Was that worth mentioning?
    The two detectives must have noticed her hesitation but said nothing.
    “Did you go anywhere else from here?” Howard asked.
    Liza brought them to Derrick’s study. The door stood open, and she stood openmouthed at the entrance to the room. The calm order she had noticed the night before had vanished. Where the built-in shelves had boasted carefully arranged ranks of books, now it looked as if Derrick were running a rummage sale.
    “This isn’t right,” she said. “Derrick grouped his books by subject. He was into puzzles and codes.” She pointed. “This whole shelf held books about sudoku. Now it’s all messed up. There are books about acrostics and cryptography mixed in. Some of them are upside down, and look—that one’s stuffed in backward.”
    Howard glanced at his partner. “Looks like a job for the fingerprint boys.” He turned back to Liza. “Was there anything valuable in here?”
    “I didn’t look at all the titles.” Liza was still in shock, her eyes roving around. “Two things seem to be missing—a newspaper and an old Gideon Bible.” She carefully scanned the bookshelves but didn’t see a trace of the worn leatherette cover.
    “That doesn’t—” Howard began, but Liza cut him off.
    “He was trying to decode something,” she said slowly, trying to dredge up memories of their uncomfortable conversation in this very room—a conversation where she hadn’t really paid much attention. Haltingly, Liza tried to explain Derrick’s concern over the Seattle Prospect ’s sudoku puzzles—how they seemed to contain biblical references that turned into unpleasant real-life events. “He mentioned something about people grumbling and being burned—that it wasn’t the Lord’s fire.”
    Liza stumbled to a halt. Like Derrick, she’d lost her audience. Detective Howard looked attentive, but his eyes were hooded. Detective Vasquez, who didn’t have to worry about being the good cop, simply stared at her as if she were out of her mind.
    “Do you know if Robbins had any history of mental problems?” Mr. Sensitivity now looked as if she’d stepped on his aching feet.
    Howard put it a bit more tactfully. “I seem to remember that Mr. Robbins tended to play troubled or . . . eccentric characters.”
    “He was playing roles,” Liza replied. “It’s called acting. Derrick was one of the most dependable people on the set—he wasn’t a nut case. He was a very intelligent man.”
    “He was an actor who hadn’t worked in . . . what? The last year? Year and a half?” Howard asked.
    Vasquez didn’t even bother to argue. “We’ll get the crime-scene people in here,” he grunted. “And I suppose we should bring you down to the station and get a statement.”
    His tone suggested how credible he thought that statement would be.
    Liza decided to save her breath rather than argue with the big man. Silently, she sat in the rear of the unmarked car— Where the prisoners go , she thought—while Vasquez drove downtown. Detective Howard stayed at the scene of what Liza now firmly believed was a crime.
    The police station was