The Devil's Puzzle (9 page)

“Should it?”

“I understand your father had a promotion at the theater in the early seventies. Something that involved poker chips?”

Ed nodded. “Oh, I do know what you’re talking about. I didn’t own the theater then, my dad did. I was still teaching at the high school.”

“When did you take it over?” I asked.

“Only about ten years ago, after my father passed away. I couldn’t let the old girl be turned into a fast-food place or some such nonsense, so I took over. I was retiring from the school anyway. I needed something to keep me busy.”

“The poker chip,” Jesse said, nudging us back to the topic.

“Right. My dad used to have silly promotions all the time. He had as much trouble keeping the bills paid as I seem to. I guess I’m as crazy as he was, wanting to own a movie theater, but I love it, and he loved it.”

“And the poker chips?” Jesse asked again.

“It must have been in ’74 or ’75, he had these coded poker chips he handed out to patrons. You got one when you saw a movie and one if you bought a combo of popcorn and a soda. If you collected ten, you got into a movie for free.”

“What stopped people from just buying a box of poker chips and handing those in?” I asked.

“Dad had the chips specially made. There’s a code on the back of each one of them.” Ed pointed to the poker chip in the evidence bag. Engraved into the chip and painted a faded gold were two small letters : “‘B.C.’ It stands for ‘Bryant’s Cinema,’” Ed continued. “Each movie was a different color chip.
Young Frankenstein
was yellow;
The Sting
was green . . .”

“What movie was red?” Jesse asked.

“
Towering Inferno
.” Ed smiled. “I loved that movie. I must have watched it at least a dozen times.”

“That would mean the chip is from 1974,” I said. “Do you know what month it played here?”

“Not off the top of my head. I know it wouldn’t have played right when it was released. We got movies after they had played at the bigger theaters.” He thought for a moment. “It was the summer. I remember that because I was off school. If you give me a minute, I can look at the records. I have all my dad’s files in my office,” Ed said, and then frowned. “I’d offer you a Coke while you wait, but . . .” He pointed toward the broken soda machines.

Jesse shook his head. “If you can tell me when that poker chip was handed out, it will be a big help.”

“Anything for you, Chief.”

Ed seemed like a nice man. He was almost completely bald and kept what hair he did have almost military short. He had a bit of weight around the middle, but he was quite tall so he carried it well. Most of all he was friendly, and Jesse seemed to like him, so that counted for a lot.

Once Ed went to his office, Jesse turned to me. I could see he was about to speak, so I spoke first.

“I know what you’re going to say,” I said, assuming he would kid me about asking Ed questions when I’d promised not to.

“I was going to ask how you knew
Towering Inferno
came out in 1974.”

“I like disasters.”

“I know that,” he said. “And I know you. Which one did you have a crush on—Paul Newman or Steve McQueen?”

“So I only could have liked the movie if I liked one of the actors?”

“Enough to know when it was released? Yes.”

I shrugged. No sense in pretending he was wrong. “Robert Wagner.”

Jesse looked at me for a minute. “No kidding?”

“No kidding. He’s very suave.”

“Like me.” A wide grin spread across his face.

I laughed. “Exactly like you.”

A few minutes later, Ed returned. “We had the movie for two weeks in the summer of 1975. It opened here on the Fourth of July.”

“And that’s the only time your dad would have given out this particular poker chip?”

“I think so. He had lots of colors, maybe thirty different chips. He figured it would encourage people to buy popcorn and stuff, to get a free movie faster.”

“Did it work?” I asked.

“It did. In fact, that promotion did well enough to keep the doors open that summer. Dad was going to have to shut down if he didn’t fix some things in the building and get it up to code, but he did well enough that year to fix everything and take home a salary. But then things slid downhill and he was barely hanging on after that. He was like me. He even looked like me.” Ed ran his hand across his balding head. “Big guys with big hearts and no brains.” He laughed. “At least that’s what my mother used to say.”

“Do you know how many of these chips he would have given out?” Jesse asked.

“No idea. Maybe a hundred or so.”

“It’s a long shot, but he wouldn’t have kept a record of who got them?”

“Heavens no,” Ed told him. “We just handed them out to whoever came through the door for a movie. I worked the ticket booth in the summers. I probably was the one who gave out that very poker chip.”

I perked up at that. “Do you remember giving a chip out to a stranger?” I asked. “A tall man?”

“Not that I recall, Nell. But if you find my fingerprints on the chip, I just want you to know how they got there.” He slapped Jesse on the back and laughed a loud, friendly laugh.

CHAPTER 14

“S
o, assuming that our friend went to the movies and collected a chip, he was in Archers Rest sometime between July 4th and July 18th of 1975,” Jesse said as we walked into Jitters for our usual cappuccinos and chocolate-dipped biscotti.

He settled into the corner of the purple couch and I sat close enough for him to put his arm around me, while I rested my hand on his thigh.

I sipped my coffee. “But you’ve already checked missing persons in the seventies, haven’t you?”

“Yes. And got nothing. The thing to do now is ask about those years . . . you know, to find out what she remembers.”

“You mean Eleanor?”

“She was living there in 1975. She has to know something.” My head did an involuntary jerk as I pulled back from Jesse. He grabbed my arm to keep me from moving farther away. “I’m not saying Eleanor did it. Obviously she didn’t kill him. Eleanor wouldn’t harm anyone,” he said. “But even if I didn’t know Eleanor I’d still say it was pretty unlikely she killed a man in his prime, someone over six feet tall, all by herself. She wouldn’t have had the strength.”

I relaxed back into his arms. “Just to play devil’s advocate, couldn’t she have shot him?”

“Yes, but if she had, there would be bullet wounds. There aren’t. From what the medical examiner has been able to tell, he was hit over the head with something. Repeatedly. It would take someone pretty strong to do that.”

“And you figure Eleanor wasn’t strong enough?”

“You and she are about the same size. You’re only a few years younger than she would have been then. I’m about the same height and probably the same weight as the victim. Maybe a few years younger than he would have been. How many times could you hit me with something without my stopping you?”

“If you were asleep, I could get in enough blows to kill you.”

“I’ll sleep with one eye open from now on.”

“But assuming the victim was asleep when he was killed,” I said, “then someone would have had to drag him out to the backyard, dig a hole, and dump him in.”

“So asleep or awake, the killer would have to be pretty strong . . .”

“And probably male.” It was hard to argue with his logic. “Unless the killer had help.”

“Or a wheelbarrow,” Jesse admitted. “Then maybe she could have moved the body on her own. Or he could have. And if the victim were drunk, or drugged, his reflexes would be slower, making it easier to get a blow in.” He sighed. “With just a skeleton to work with, there’s no way of telling whether there were drugs in his system. So I guess we haven’t eliminated someone Eleanor’s size.”

“Not yet. What’s the next step? We talk to Eleanor?”

“Which she won’t like.”

I sat up. “What if you came over for dinner? You, me, Oliver, and Eleanor. You could slip it into the conversation somehow.” I hesitated before adding, “But just so you know, she’s going to hint around about a wedding because she thinks you’re about to propose.”

“She thinks what?”

“She knows you and Oliver went to the jewelry store together and figured it was you buying the ring.”

“Amateur sleuthing runs in the family.”

“The point is, just go along with it because we don’t want her suspecting that it might be Oliver. Not until we’re sure why she’s against remarrying.”

“Until
you’re
sure. I’m staying out of that. Even if you are helping with the murder investigation.”

“I’m helping you talk to Eleanor in a way that will be open and relaxed, so she won’t think you’re accusing her of something.”

“Oliver and I are lucky men to love such interesting women.”

I grazed his lips with mine. “It’s amazing how often we agree these days, isn’t it?”

I had just settled back into his arms when I heard a booming voice from above. “Hello, lovebirds.”

I looked up at our mayor, smiling at us, his favorite green tea in one hand and a double-chocolate brownie in the other.

“I like to balance my bad habits with good ones,” Larry said when he saw me looking at his food.

“Smart man.” I smiled.

With him was a young woman in her late teens or early twenties with an intense, almost angry look. She had long black hair—so dark that it could only be from a bottle—long black fingernails, and a large Celtic cross hanging from her neck. But she was wearing a soft pink lipstick that matched her outfit, a light T-shirt, and khaki pants. She looked as though she were trying to be Goth enough for her friends and country club enough for her parents, though neither look was a perfect fit.

“This is Molly O’Brien. Summer intern down from Newton. She’s helping with the anniversary celebration. She’ll coordinate with the committee chairs,” the mayor nodded toward me, “on anything they may need.”

Molly smiled vaguely at us but seemed bored.

“And Molly,” he turned to her, “this is our chief of police, and this is Nell Fitzgerald. It was in her grandmother’s garden that we found our skeleton.”

Now Molly was interested. “I saw the mayor’s blog,” she said, her voice more animated with each word. “It’s so cool. A dead body just buried in your backyard all these years. Any idea who he is?”

“Not yet,” Jesse said.

The mayor sat on the arm of the couch and leaned in. Larry Williams owned the local travel agency, sold insurance, and from January to April did the taxes of nearly half the town. He’d even set his sons up in a hardware store that served as one of his many unofficial campaign offices. And when Larry wasn’t working, he was helping. He had a jovial, laid-back way about him, but he was absolutely passionate about Archers Rest.

“We have to talk about this skeleton situation, Chief,” he said.

“We’re doing everything we can to identify the victim,” Jesse said.

“Oh, I’m sure you are. It’s just I’m thinking of the big celebration this Fourth of July.”

Jesse nodded. “And you don’t want this becoming bad publicity for the town. Which is why posting pictures on your blog is a bad idea . . .”

The mayor waved him off. “On the contrary. I want this to be huge publicity for the town. A skeleton in a backyard in a small town like Archers Rest? If we can get you a few interviews with some of the New York papers, talking about how the town is full of secrets, maybe even ghosts . . .”

“Ghosts!” I nearly spit out my coffee.

“City folks love staying in haunted bed-and-breakfasts, visiting old houses where spirits still roam,” he said, with a confidence that suggested he’d done a study of it.

“Mayor,” Jesse interrupted, “there aren’t any ghosts in this investigation.”

“You don’t know that,” Molly jumped in. “The house with the skeleton has to be full of ghosts. I’d love to see it sometime. Poke around for spirits. It’s at least a hundred years old, isn’t it, Nell?”

“A hundred and thirty,” I told her. “But no ghosts.”

“But those New Yorkers don’t have to know that.” Larry looked around as if he were afraid of being overheard, which was likely considering how loudly he spoke. “We have a picturesque little town here, right on the banks of the beautiful Hudson River. We have the nicest people in the world, the best shops, great little coffee places like this one. What we don’t have is tourism.”

“We don’t really have anything that sets us apart from all the other picturesque towns on the Hudson,” Jesse said. “Sleepy Hollow has the Washington Irving story, Hyde Park has Roosevelt’s home, and West Point has—”

Larry practically jumped up. “That’s my point. We’re losing out to those flashier places. We need something unique, something that gets people interested in Archers Rest.”

I didn’t want to burst his bubble, but I didn’t see it. “Why would a decades-old murder investigation get people interested in coming here for the anniversary celebration?”

“We have to dress it up a bit. Make it more exciting. And that’s where Jesse comes in. We don’t have to run around solving this thing right away. We could maybe suggest that it might be a Revolutionary War hero. Or something else, I don’t know—maybe a pirate, or a duel gone bad. There are lots of scenarios.”

“A pirate?” I looked over at Molly, who was listening intently. “Would pirates be interesting enough for you to come to a town like Archers Rest?”

She glanced at the mayor, seemed to consider her words, and said, “I think murders are always interesting. Even—maybe especially—old ones.”

“Exactly,” the mayor said. “This is an old town. That body could be hundreds of years old. No sense in solving it tomorrow and making it another mundane homicide when it could be the jumping-off point for a story that would get us on the map.”

I could feel Jesse tensing up. “Mayor,” he said, “I’m interested in identifying this man, and if possible, solving his murder. That’s my job. I’m not interested in parading the body of a dead man around so some bored New Yorkers can have a bit of weekend fun.”