Mayes, Casey - A Deadly Row

We both laughed, happy to have something to break the tension we were both feeling.

As we waited for the food to arrive, I took the copies and laid them out in the sequence they’d arrived in so I could study them better as a whole, and not just parts.

I wasn’t sure, but there was something there.

I just wasn’t seeing it yet.

“I GIVE UP,” I SAID AS I STARED AT THE COPIES FOR THE HUNdredth time after we’d had our dinner. Zach didn’t even hear me he was so intent studying the timeline he’d created. It was a work of art, the size of a regular sheet of paper, but with every suspect’s whereabouts drawn in a different colored pen, looping in and out, making contact, and then splitting off again.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” I said. I had a puzzle to do for tomorrow, but I was tempted to have Derrick run one of my backups again, no matter how much grief he gave me about it. This was too important.

Then again, maybe the distraction of creating a more complex puzzle was exactly what I needed.

I started reviewing the types of puzzles I liked to create on my notepad, but before I could make up my mind, my telephone started ringing.

Zach didn’t even look up as I answered.

It was Lorna.

“We’re still on for tomorrow, aren’t we?” she asked.

“Yes, unless you want to cancel.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she said, and then she hung up.

“Who was that?” Zach asked. So, it had caught his attention.

“It was Lorna. She wanted to be sure I was still meeting her in the morning.”

“She could have been calling for another reason,” Zach said.

“What’s that?”

“To see where we were.”

“Why should she want to know that?”

“She wouldn’t, unless she’s the killer.”

“Come on, Zach. You can’t read too much into everything that happens to us.”

He shrugged. “I’m not saying it’s true. I’m just saying it’s a possibility.”

“Fine; whatever you say. Frankly, I’m too tired to argue.”

I walked back to retrieve my pad when I glanced down at the copies on the floor. I glanced from my grid to the copies and back again, and then I looked at the last clue we’d gotten.

Could it honestly be that easy, or was I letting my imagination get the better of me?

There was only one way to find out.

I studied the letters in the sequence they’d been received, and wrote the combinations below the square on the horizontal axis. And then I remembered the 4O I’d so casually dismissed. What if it wasn’t a zero, but a letter O instead? That would make it 4-O.

I added it to the others, and wrote A3, E5, E2, A4, E1, and 4O.

So far, we’d received As, Es, and an O on the last one before the oblong circles.

The first part of every sequence was a vowel.

Five columns wide had to mean A, E, I, O, and U. I knew Y was sometimes a vowel, but there wasn’t room on my grid, and if I needed it later, it wouldn’t be too hard to add.

What about the y-axis going up the rows? We had a 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Each row had its own number.

I wrote it in quickly, and then called Zach.

“Come here. You need to see this.”

“What is it, Savannah? I’m onto something here.”

“If it weren’t important, I wouldn’t ask you to look,” I said.

He came over to me, and I handed him my pad.

He stared at the grid. “There are a lot of spaces we still don’t know about though. There’s no way we could be expected to solve this with the clues we’ve gotten so far.”

“That’s why the killer sent us this last one,” I said. “He ran out of time, so this has to be the key.”

Zach took it from me, studied it, and then said, “But the question is, what lock does this key fit into?”

“I haven’t gotten that far yet,” I admitted. “Do you think I’ve lost my mind?”

“Yes, but for completely different reasons. This could actually be it. Good work.”

“I’m not there yet.”

“You’ll get it,” he said.

I laid the original clues out again, this time being careful to put them in the proper order. As I did, I stared at each note.

3A, 5E, 2E, 4A, 1E, O4.

After that, I decided to add the order they arrived in, and got something like this: 3A (1), 5E (2), 2E (3), 4A (4), 1E (5), 4O (6 or 1).

Could the sequence of the notes represent the numbers that belonged in the corresponding squares?

I laid out my grid, and started filling in numbers. When I finished, it looked rather stark.

If I only knew what it meant. As a puzzle, it was nearly empty, and if it was one of mine, there was too much information that was still missing.

I just hoped I didn’t run out of time before I unlocked the key.

Chapter 19

“HAVE YOU HAD ANY MORE BREAKTHROUGHS?” ZACHasked as he walked into the bedroom where I’d been working.

“No, I’m afraid I burned out my thought process. How about you?”

He grinned at me in a special way, something I’d seen before.

“You’re on to something, aren’t you?”

“Maybe.”

“Come on, don’t hold out on me.”

“I need to sleep on it, and then I have to check a few things out tomorrow.” I knew my husband’s methods. He’d talk when he was ready, and only when he was ready. Otherwise, his internal thought process could short-circuit if he spoke his theories aloud. I understood it completely, and had learned to respect my husband when he was reticent about a case.

“Good enough.” I started gathering my copies and notes.

“You don’t have to do that on my account. I could always crash in the other bedroom.”

“I don’t spend enough time with you as it is. Besides, I’m just spinning my wheels right now.”

“Don’t worry. You always do better in the mornings.”

“We can only hope.”

After we were in bed, I snuggled up close to my husband. “I’m glad you’re with me.”

“Tonight, or all of the time?”

I punched him lightly. “All of the time, and you know it. Can you believe Barton Lane is really my uncle?”

“It’s hard to grasp, isn’t it? How do you think Tom’s going to take it?”

“One thing’s for sure. He’s either going to be thrilled, or he won’t talk to his brother at all. There’s nothing wishy-washy about my uncle.”

“Which one?” Zach asked, and even though it was dark, I could hear the smile in his voice.

“That’s got a nice ring to it.”

“What are you going to do about it?” Zach asked softly.

“What do you mean?”

“He stole from your family, Savannah. I’m sure it was probably everything your grandparents had. Are you going to give him a free ride for doing that?”

“He tried to make amends,” I said.

“Too late to do your grandparents any good, though.”

“Zach, do you think I should turn my back on him because of something he did before I was even born?” While I prided myself on being my own woman, that didn’t mean that I didn’t take my husband’s advice seriously. He was a smart man, and he loved me. I respected him enough to listen to what he had to say, though I didn’t feel bound to follow it. It was a marriage, an equal partnership, at least as far as we were concerned.

“Hang on. I’m not saying that. I’m just not sure you should make it too easy on him.”

“How many hoops should he jump through first? Would seven be too many? Are three not enough? What’s the magic number?”

“Nope, I’m not going to do it,” he said.

“Do what?”

“Let you work out your frustration on me. I know you’re as torn as I am about the whole thing. Let’s table it for now, shall we?”