Read Online Wrapped Up in Crosswords by Nero Blanc - Free Book Online Page A

know the Blue-Delta frequency. You never know when you’ll need to keep official business to yourself.” He let out a rueful chuckle. “One big, happy Massachusetts family, right?”

Eight
    I F the day hadn’t started well for Abe, Rosco, and Al Lever, things had begun in an equally hairy fashion at Lawson’s Coffee Shop. Kenny, Lawson’s head chef, who liked to refer to himself as “a fry cook,” but whom regular patrons called “King Kenny” because of his commanding height and demeanor, had arrived at five-thirty A.M. on the dot—just as he had for nearly three decades. Martha, also as usual, had reached the establishment at five-forty-five; and the other waitresses and kitchen help had begun filing in shortly thereafter. But all appearances of normalcy had ended there, because not five minutes after Kenny had unlocked the exterior basement door, it became clear to him that someone had broken into the coffee shop’s building.
    He was in the midst of suiting up in his whites, an immaculately pressed pair of white cotton trousers and matching jacket, and hanging his street clothes in his locker, when he noticed a curious fact: the basement was icy cold. He crossed to the furnace and checked it, but he found the machine running at a comfortable level. He then turned around in his deliberate and methodical manner and started to survey the entire room. In the still-dim light—Kenny didn’t believe in wasting electricity—his dark skin resembled polished jet against the starchy sheen of his uniform, and his stance was princely and authoritative.
    â€œHi-dee-ho, your majesty,” Martha called as she breezed in through the basement door. She stopped and shivered slightly, and Kenny greeted her with a sonorous:
    â€œSomething’s wrong, Marth. Someone’s been in here.” He and Martha had worked together for so many years they’d developed a number of nicknames for one another. “Marth” or “Madam M.” were favorites of Kenny’s, but they took on a somber formality when expressed in his rich baritone.
    Martha began flipping on light switches. “Place looks the same to me, Dr. K.”
    â€œIt’s cold, Marth.”
    â€œSo? It’s frigid outside. It’s a December kinda thing. The Almanac says—”
    â€œThe basement is never this cold, doll.”
    George, the dishwasher, appeared at that moment. Like Rosco, he was part of the city’s large Greek-American population; unlike Rosco, he spoke heavily accented English. “Window broke,” is all he said, pointing up the cellar stairs he’d just walked down.
    Kenny, followed by Martha, who perpetually came to work already attired in her “Lawson’s pink,” went outside to investigate. The dishwasher followed; a newly arrived waitress, Lorraine, joined them.
    Sure enough, a crawlspace window had been displaced. The foursome—which had now grown to five—returned to the basement where they found the lost glass panel. The framing hadn’t been broken; it had been merely pushed in—not a difficult task since the putty and wood had grown spongy and useless with age. But the single pane of glass had been shattered when it fell onto the cellar floor.
    â€œSomeone did this on purpose,” Kenny announced. “It didn’t happen on its own.”
    â€œBut nothing looks disturbed,” Martha observed.
    The crowd—which was now six—moved upstairs into the restaurant proper where they found the chairs piled upside down on the tables as they always were at the end of a work day.
    â€œSomeone other than the cleaning crew was here last night,” Kenny stated.
    â€œWhat’s this? E.S.P., Dr. K.? Got your crystal ball fired up this early in the morning?”
    â€œI feel what I feel,” was the philosophical reply. “Whether the furniture was disturbed or not, someone marched through here last