Read Corpus de Crossword Online
Authors: Nero Blanc
“You makin' up another one of them crossword puzzles?” The anxious eyes glanced up, then blinked, but no other response appeared. After a long, suspicious moment, the eyes looked away while a well-rubbed eraser began daubing at the paper's edge.
“Look, hon,” the nurse's aide continued in a conciliatory tone, “I don't mean to be a wet blanket or nothin' but I sent those other two you asked me to ⦠and, well, what I mean is: You haven't heard nothin' from that crossword gal ⦔
As the aide spoke, she fussedâa continual blur of pastelhued uniform as she straightened the graying thermal blanket on the bed and its yellowed cotton spread. When she finally reached the armchair in which the room's resident sat, her beefy and active arms tugged at another blanket that had been draped over the narrow and brittle shoulders.
“I can take care of myself,” was the sullen response to all this care.
“Sure you can ⦠Sure you can ⦔
“Stop!” the old voice ordered with a coughing wheeze.
The nurse's aide drew back, her mouth suddenly irritable. “Have it your own way, then! You want to look a sight ⦠sittin' there in that tatty robe, your shawl slippin' off ⦠be my guest.”
“There's no one here to see me ⦔ The statement was quiet; it also contained a sad and unsparing assessment of the situation. “Not like before ⦔
The aide's heart immediately softened. “There's lots of folks who want to see you! Why, if you just let me bring you downstairs, everyone wouldâ”
“No. I like being alone.” The eyes returned to the crossword. The shoulders hunched.
“Ah, honâ”
“Don't you âhon' me. You know I don't like it ⦠Besides, I'm busy.”
The aide drew a steadying breath. Dealing with the elderly sometimes required a superhuman amount of patience and forbearance. “But I don't think that gal at the newspaper is going to publish yourâ”
“I don't care. That's not the point.”
“Hon ⦔
“I told you, I'm not your
honey
. Never will be, eitherânot if I have anything to say about it! And I don't care about the newspaper ⦠Besides, maybe she hasn't received the puzzles yet. You know how irregular mail service can be.”
The aide nodded. “Maybe ⦠Still, if I was you I wouldn't want to waste my timeâ”
“It's my time ⦠what there's left of it.”
The aide wheeled her large body around to face her charge. “Look, you don't want to sit all alone up here ⦠I know you don't ⦠You're just being stubborn is all ⦠A body's got to have a little pleasure. Any doctor'll tell you that ⦠Fun ⦠a laugh or twoâ”
“Iâdoâthisâforâfun.” The words were evenly spaced and almost fiercely emphatic. “F-U-N.”
“Well, glory be!” the aide sang out. “Maybe we'll get a smile out of you yet.” Then she bent down and studied her patient's creation. “I'll tell you what ⦠My shift is nearly up. What if I drop that puzzle of yours off at Belle Graham's house on my way home. I know right where Captain's Walk is. That way you'll be certain it gets there ⦔
The old face looked up in surpriseâto which was added the very faintest element of pleasure. “I already affixed a stamp, though.”
“I'll get you a replacement stamp.” She stifled an additional “hon,” then gave her charge a kindly and encouraging pat. “That'll be my gift to the project.” The aide stuffed the crossword into its envelope and dropped the missive in her pocket. “Nothin' to it ⦠Now, I'm gonna bring in your lunch ⦠alphabet soup, animal crackers for dessert. Gotta get them choppers workin'.”
TWENTY-FOUR SKIDDOO
Across
  1.  Appeal
  5.  Sweet smells
 10.  School grp.
 13.  Rock's partner
 14.  Shrimps
 15.  Tennis shot
 16.  Child's rhyme, part 1
 18.  Shaker Lee
 19.  Emcee prop
 20.  Its capital is Bhubaneswar
 21.  Beer option
 22.  Belt position
 23.  Aroma
 24.  Child's rhyme, part 2
 29.  Hook's henchman
 30.  Church vault
 31.  Certain serpent
 34.  Gropes in the dark?
 39.  Over there
 40.  “___Souls,” Gogol work
 41.  Scan
 42.  Child's rhyme, part 3
 46.  Boy Scout site
 49.  Dental exams?
 50.  Go along with
 51.  King or general of 1776
 53.  Mayday
 56.  Child's rhyme, part 4
 57.  Child's rhyme, part 5
 59.  Light bedstead
 60.  Aft
 61.  Mr. Lugosi
 62.  Many, many mins.
 63.  Heyerdahl, et al.
 64.  Soon
Down
  1.  June event
  2.  Ms. Anderson
  3.  Power source; abbr.
  4.  Franklin's '36 foe
  5.  “Pause a while from learning to___” Johnson
  6.  Soulé or Greeley dreamer
  7.  Meadows
  8.  Arizona city
  9.  JFK arrival
 10.  Tartan
 11.  Silverheels role
 12.  Dogpatch denizen
 14.  Danger
 17.  Slack off
 21.  Building site
 22.  Work unit
 24.  “Typee” follow-up
 25.  Bar light
 26.  New Deal project
 27.  Road-race turn
 28.  Stitch
 29.  Crafty
 31.  “Fit to___”
 32.  Capone had one
 33.  Doctorate
 35.  Auto style; abbr.
 36.  Charge
 37.  Lout
 38.  Berlin et al.; familiarly
 42.  Go for
 43.  Goofs
 44.  “Fix one's____”
 45.  Corrida cheers
 46.  Bag
 47.  Detest
 48.  Runs into
 51.  Emote
 52.  Outer; comb. form
 53.  Exposed
 54.  Norwegian capital
 55.  Ollie's partner
 57.  ___and mouse game
 58.  Celtics' org.
To download a PDF of this puzzle, please visit
openroadmedia.com/nero-blanc-crosswords
CHAPTER 21
Twenty-four Skiddoo
. Belle's eyes glanced from the crossword's title to the clues as she passed through her living room and into her office. She was speaking to Rosco on the portable phone while she walkedâand read. “⦠Okay, but you'll be home for supper? ⦠Uh-huh ⦠Uh-huh ⦔ She nodded in assent, then cradled the phone against her shoulder while reexamining the envelope in which the puzzle had been sent. The stamp hadn't been canceled, meaning that the crossword had been hand-delivered and stuffed in with the letters Artie had left on his roundsâor, more probably, that the machinery in whatever station had sorted and redirected the mail had missed its mark. It wouldn't be the first time.
“⦠And that's all you could find out about this guy Petri? ⦠Okay, okay ⦠I'll wait till then ⦠Hey, no fair. You tell me what you've learned up in Beantown, I'll share what
I
found in the
Crier
morgue ⦠Okay ⦠Uh-huh ⦠See you later ⦔ Just before clicking off, she added a quick and loving, “Drive carefully,” and grinned as he shot back his habitual:
“I'm so glad you reminded me. But, hey, you know meâMr. Never-miss-an-opportunity-to-run-a-red-light.”
“Smart alec.”
Belle chuckled as she slid the receiver back into its cradle on the desk, then she turned her concentration to the puzzle in her hand.
Twenty-four Skiddoo
⦠a turn on the antiquated phrase
twenty-three skiddoo
. She closed her eyes, thinking:
Skiddoo
⦠an early-twentieth-century variation of the late-nineteenth-century
skedaddle,
meaning to hurryâor to flee ⦠and
twenty-three,
which had been a slang expression used by telegraph operators to indicate dire news.
Belle opened her eyes, took up her red pen, and began filling in the crossword's blanks while muttering clues under her breath. “
Nursery rhyme, parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ⦠Mr. Lugosi ⦠Heyerdahl, et al.⦠Franklin's '36 foe ⦠Soulé or Greeley dreamer
⦠How old is the person who constructed this?”
For a moment, she was tempted to phone Sara and appease her fears by explaining that the fellow posting these anonymous puzzles was most probably a relic from a bygone era. But then Belle realized she'd need to justify her theoryâwhich would mean getting into a potentially dicey conversation as to why choosing the clue
Ollie's partner
for 55-Down might be considered antediluvian. Better to leave sleeping dogs lie. Or in Sara's case, an octogenarian aristocrat giving orders to seditious shrubbery.
Belle cocked an eyebrow, shook her head, and returned to the crossword. Within a matter of minutes she'd polished it off.
ONE FLEW EAST, she'd penned for the answer to 16-Across:
Nursery rhyme, part 1. Nursery rhyme, part 2
at 24-Across was ONE FLEW WEST while the remainder of the rhyming clues at 42-, 56-, and 57-Across revealed the rest of the Mother Goose poem: ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST. Belle talked to herself as she reread the answers: “6-Down running the length of the puzzle: A WESTWARD LOOKER ⦠34-Across running the puzzle's width: LOOKS FOR A SWITCH ⦠LOOK repeated ⦠I wonder why ⦔
She glanced at the title again.
Twenty-four Skiddoo
. Twenty-four, not twenty-three ⦠and
skiddoo
denoting troubleâeven catastrophe. Then her thought process focused on the subject of the nursery rhyme. A cuckoo, she remembered, was a parasitic creature that slyly inserted its own eggs in other birds' nests while removing and then devouring several of the hosts' unborn offspring ⦠Then, when the young cuckoo was hatchedâusually in advance of its foster siblingsâit repeated the same murderous pattern by burrowing under un-hatched eggs, thrusting them from the nest, and then demanding so much food and care that the unsuspecting adoptive parents starved their natural babies in order to appease the hungry interloper.
Belle grimaced, cupped her chin in her hand. Cuckoo clock ⦠crazy as a ⦠She stood and walked to the window, where she idly watched what appeared to be a swarm of sparrows hopping and fluttering across her garden grass or swooping up into the trees. Something felt unsettling about this crossword. It wasn't the constructor's anonymityâthe previous two had also failed to indicate the creator's nameâno, it was the tenor of the puzzle. “Twenty-three,” she muttered; “Danger ⦠danger ⦠dangerâ”
She gasped, then stared at the title again. Could the number indicate that she was supposed to pay attention to the answer to 24-Down? OMOO? Melville's classic novel, sure, but also the Polynesian word for a rover. And then, 24-Across? WEST ⦠Go WEST, she thought, rove, hurry, skedaddle, SKIDDOO WESTWARD. And what's west of Newcastle? ⦠Taneysville.
Belle yanked open a desk drawer and retrieved the two prior anonymous crosswords.
Swap Meet,
she read silently;
A Burning Question
. She glanced over the answers: SMOKE AND MIRRORS ⦠SMOKE SCREEN ⦠SMOKE 'EM OUT.
She looked at her watch. It was nearly three
P.M.
She'd have time to drive out to Taneysville, do some private sleuthing around, and be back by eight. Kit's evening walk and supper would be a little later than usualâbut not by much.
Belle grabbed a pad of paper, wrote a quick note to Rosco, snatched up her purse, threw on a winter jacket, and bolted for the door.
It was the smell she noticed first; it invaded the car's interior even with the windows rolled up and the heater on. A smell of fireâof a large fire. Belle glanced at the woods to her right and left, but could see no smoke or distant flame. The road descending the hill was likewise clear, but as the pavement turned sharply to the right and began climbing another hill, she realized the acrid scent was increasing. Something big was burning, and it was in the vicinity of Taneysville.
Belle pushed ahead, but at a slower speed. Then, sure enough, there was the sudden wail of a fire engine, horn blaring, siren screaming. The sound grew closer to her; she expected the vehicle to race into view at any moment. Then, eerily, the noise ceased, leaving the landscape quieter than it had been before. She guessed the truck had reached its destination.
Belle's car climbed another hillâthe official entry into the hamlet of Taneysvilleâand on the left was the cause for alarm. At the end of a tree-lined lane, a house was being engulfed in flames. Volunteer firemen darted to and fro; neighbors gawked at a safer distance. The hiss of the water hoses, the shouts rising from those trying to save the building, the growling roar of the fire itself, was nearly deafening.
Belle pulled off the road and parked, then stepped from her car, transfixed by the primordial power of the evergrowing flame. Hot cinders sparked through air which seemed scalded. Orders, questions, barked-out answers competed with the crackle and crash erupting from the burning building.