Corpus de Crossword

PRAISE FOR THE WRITING OF NERO BLANC

“At last puzzle fans have their revenge … super sleuthing and solving for puzzle lovers and mystery fans.” —Charles Preston, puzzle editor,
USA Today

“Addicts of crossword puzzles will relish
The Crossword Murder
.” —
Chicago Sun-Times

“A puzzle lover's delight … A touch of suspense, a pinch of romance, and a whole lot of clever word clues … Blanc has concocted a story sure to appeal to crossword addicts and mystery lovers alike. What's a three-letter word for this book? F-U-N.” —Earlene Fowler on
The Crossword Murder

“Snappy, well-plotted … an homage to Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh … The solid plot never strays from its course and features a surprising yet plausible ending.” —
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
on
Two Down

“Another neat whodunit, along with some clever crosswords … Blanc builds the suspense slowly and surely, challenging the reader with a dandy puzzler.” —
Publishers Weekly
on
The Crossword Connection

“A great investigative team in the tradition of Nick and Nora … Nero Blanc is a master.” —Book Browser

Corpus de Crossword

A Crossword Mystery

Nero Blanc

In Memoriam Nina and Slim

Nina, whose gentle prodding and subtle sighs reminded us when it was time to eat, take walks, sit in the sun, share our abundant love with each another
.

Fifteen and a half years: puppy to adult to wise old lady
.

Slim, who liked to type with his beak and tiny bird feet, who was fearless and raucous, and had free and delighted reign of our home
.

You two are greatly missed
.

A Letter from Nero Blanc

Dear Reader,

Once again, we auctioned off a character in our novel to benefit a charity we support. The organization we chose is ECS (Episcopal Community Services) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a social services agency that has been assisting needy folk of all faiths for over 130 years.

Giving a fictional character the name of a real person is a fun and intriguing challenge. In life, we are named as infants; how we are called molds us—and vice versa. In fiction, the character and his or her place in the story is the first decision; the name is secondary and is selected because of associations it creates. We're all aware of the power of words!

As always, we look forward to hearing from you and invite you to send your thoughts and comments to us through our website:
www.crosswordmysteries.com
where you'll find information on other Nero Blanc books as well as some clever puzzles.

We hope you enjoy our fifth crossword mystery. There are more tales of Rosco and Belle in the works!

Happy solving,

Cordelia and Steve

AKA

Nero Blanc

P.S. To learn more about ECS's programs, please visit their website:
www.ecs1870.org
.

CHAPTER 1

“What if you had something to hide …? Or maybe you already hid it?” The speaker stood, hunched and frail beside the room's wide window, then lifted a veiny, blue hand to touch glass grown greasy from institutional cooking: glass that now reflected an early autumnal night, a fog-wet roadway, the diamond-bright lights of trucks and cars and minivans roaring past—roaring away. The hand stroked the window's surface, leaving a smeary mark on the cold pane.

The response to these questions drifted across a hospital-style bed, and came from a nurse's aide who huffed and puffed with exertion as she lifted the mattress and tucked in sheets. She was a large and cherub-faced woman, dressed in a lilac cotton smock and matching drawstring pants printed with teddy bears and balloons—a peculiar choice for a home for the elderly, but one intended to bring cheer into declining years. “You mean an object—like a purse or piece of jewelry or some such …? Or do you mean something hidden from yourself? Like an emotion?” The aide wheezed, stood up straight, and tugged at her print top. She was long accustomed to these verbal guessing games with her patient. “Or like a lie? Something like that, you mean?”

No reply came from the aged body at the window.

“Playing twenty questions tonight, are we?” The aide chortled and punched a bedraggled pillow into shape.

“Can't see anything from up here,” was the grumbled retort.

“Sure you can! You look down, you see the highway, the supermarket off at the right—”

“There's no people out there. No people at all.”

“You want people, you come downstairs and join the others in the recreation lounge … game hour … activities hour … TV … mealtimes … I keep telling you—”

“Just a lot of old folks drooling in their sleep.”

“Not when they're eating,” was the cheery comeback. “Besides, you're gonna go stir-crazy if you insist on staying up here for the rest of your born days.” She grabbed another pillow, turning her back on her charge, and so failed to notice the reaction to this reference to incarceration.

The shoulders grew stiff and hostile; the head with its paltry covering of hair ducked as though anticipating a blow. “I don't like it downstairs. Never have—”

“Tell me something I don't already know.” The bed finished, the aide turned to the single dresser, a shabby affair with a top crisscrossed by water rings and deeply etched scars. She sighed, but the sound was indulgent. “Why you keep all them books stacked up here, I'll never understand.”

“Don't you touch them.”

The aide ignored the familiar directive, instead tidying up a storm while her patient helplessly scowled in protest.

“I don't like my things—”

“Touched, I know … You'd be happy rolling around on the floor with a bunch of dust bunnies … Oh, dear, you spilled your juice again, didn't you? Cranberry, too, which is real sticky …”

A dismissive shrug greeted the complaint.

“And down the wall …” The aide bent, flicking a damp rag over the gummy spots while two old and weary eyes followed every bustling movement.

“What if …?”

“You back to hiding things again?”

“… What if you had a horrid secret?”

The aide straightened her bulky body and looked long and hard at her charge. “Horrid? How horrid?”

The patient didn't answer while the nurse's aide kept up her searching gaze. “You mean something you did a while back? Something that makes you feel unhappy now? Or guilty, even?”

A brief nod was the sole reply, and the aide's round face crumpled in empathy.

“Why, everyone on this earth has feelings like that! Honest! Things we wish we hadn't done … unkind words we shouldn't have said to loved ones … mean thoughts … selfish notions … If I was to pay you a penny for all the times I—”

“I mean something worse … something evil.” The words ceased, but the frightened stare bored holes into the aide's eyes.

“Are you asking to see a priest maybe?”

The denial was far more forceful than the aged voice seemed capable of. “No!”

“Sounds to me as if you're—”

“I'm not … I'm just … I was just … talking.”

The aide cocked her head to one side. In the ten years she'd worked at the nursing home, she'd learned that almost all the patients had secret worries and sorrows they'd hidden away. The older the residents grew, the more anxious they became to unburden themselves. Mostly the stories were commonplace tales: long-forgotten sibling rivalries, family arguments needlessly begun and never resolved, estranged children, unforgiving mates. Once in a while, though, the situation was worse.

“There's the priest who comes to—”

“I'm not talking to any priest!”

The wet rag was folded with a noisy slap; a chair was yanked back against the wall. “I'll fill your water pitcher and bring in some more straws … He's an Episcopal priest … The religious preference you indicated on your—”

“I don't want any priests in here.”

“But your admission card says—”

“I won't see him!”

“Okay, okay. You needn't bite my head off.”

“And I don't want anyone else coming into my room …”

“I know—”

“No one!”

The aide's expansive chest released a weary sigh. “I'll be bringing your supper in about half an hour. You want I should put one of your books beside the bed before I go?”

“No one else—”

“I said, I heard you.”

CHAPTER 2

“‘The way of transgressors is hard.' Proverbs 13:15.” The voice of the man making this pronouncement was stony, a no-nonsense tone that brooked no equivocation—or argument. As he spoke he thumped calloused fingers on the long Formica table while his aging yet wiry physique and bristly white hair quivered with outrage and indignation. “‘If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small.' Proverbs again … Well? I'm still waiting for an answer. Are we going to make them cease this reprehensible activity?”

It was Curtis Plano who answered. Unlike the first speaker, his fingers were not visible on the tabletop. The reason being that Plano had lost his left hand in the early days of the Vietnam War, where he'd served as a medic. And although his prosthetic hook had long been accepted by his peers, he wielded it with discretion; the rest of the time it remained out of sight: in a jacket pocket, under a table; in church, the hymnal or prayer book rested upon it. “Wars are better off forgotten,” Curtis liked to repeat, with a been-there-done-that shrug. “The past is the past, and nothing's going to change it.” Now his speech was equally pragmatic. “I agree with Warden Stark, something needs to be done—”

“Something needs to be done, and right
quick
, Curtis,” was the fiery retort. “The damage is already—”

“
Potential
damage, John; it's only
potential
,” Milton Hoffmeyer interjected. Like Stark, he was in his early seventies, but where John was a dictatorial bantam rooster, Milt was yielding and placid, a bear-shaped man with a tranquil and shambling air. “Because like it or not … and I admit, I don't like this situation any better than you … I cannot, at this point, say that they're—”

John Stark snorted. “So you're advising we just let them get away with murder up there—?”

“No. That's not what I'm saying. And murder isn't a word I'd—”

“It's the term I'm using! Unlike you and all the other nervous Nellies who live around here … closing your eyes to every problem that comes down the pike. But then, you always have—even when you were a kid.” Stark rocked rapidly back in his folding chair while Hoffmeyer's tall body bent forward, precipitating another stalemate among the two top-ranking vestry members of Trinity Episcopal Church in the hamlet of Taneysville, Massachusetts.

Senior Warden Stark and Junior Warden Hoffmeyer, lifelong neighbors and polar opposites. Month after month, year after year, decade upon decade: allies one moment, adversaries the next. Before his retirement, John had spent a life out of doors, first as a house painter, then as a self-employed general contractor. He held little truck with those whose trade consisted of “punching cash register keys.” This dictum naturally included Milt, who still worked “six days a week, sunup to sunset” at Hoffmeyer's General Store, an emporium established by his father during the late 1930s; and little had altered since that bygone era.

“I take ‘nervous Nellies' amiss, John. I have to tell you that.”

“Well, I take it
amiss
that you're waffling on this issue.”

“I'm not
waffling
. I'm merely suggesting that your approach is extreme—”