You Have the Right to Remain Puzzled Read Online Free PDF

Cora could understand why a man who’d been robbed might be security conscious; still, the whole setup didn’t seem conducive to sales. Cora couldn’t help wondering how long it had been since anyone had actually
bought
an antique there.
    Cora knocked on the door. There was no answer. She knocked again. It seemed from somewhere deep within a faint voice said, “Coming,” but it might have been a TV, a creaking floorboard, or her imagination.
    The door was flung open by a man Cora knew. Or at least recognized. She had seen him eating lunch in the Wicker Basket, dinner in the Country Kitchen, a muffin in Cushman’s Bake Shop. In fact, Cora couldn’t recall a time she
hadn’t
seen him eating. In light of which, he was most unfairly thin. His face was also most unfairly unwrinkled, considering his age, whichhad to be close to ninety. He had suspicious eyes, and a narrow line of a mouth that turned down at the corners. It was hard to imagine anyone buying anything from him.
    His manner was not welcoming. “What do you want?” he croaked. It was the vocal equivalent of Dorian Gray—only his voice had aged.
    “I want to help you,” Cora said.
    That took him aback. Whatever he’d expected, that wasn’t it. He made no move to invite her in. Instead he seemed even more suspicious. “Help me what?”
    “I understand you had a theft. Several chairs were taken. So far the police have no leads.”
    “You want me to hire you to find my chairs?”
    “No.”
    “Then what’s it to you?”
    “It’s a puzzle. I like puzzles.”
    “Right. You’re the crossword puzzle person.”
    “Yes.”
    “I don’t see the connection.”
    “There’s no connection.”
    “Then why are you here?”
    “I asked Chief Harper if he had any cases he needed help with. He told me about your robbery.”
    “Oh, so he’s given up, has he? Palmed me off on you?”
    It was all Cora could do to keep her frozen smile in place. “I prefer to think he called in an expert.”
    “If he had, he’d be paying you. He paying you?”
    “No, he isn’t.”
    “There you are.”
    “Yes, I am.” Cora smiled. “I’m sorry, Mr. Wilbur, but your case isn’t interesting enough for me to put up with abuse.”
    Cora turned, went down the front steps.
    Wilbur was caught off-guard. “Hey! Hey!”
    He stumbled out on the stoop after her.
    The door slammed.
    Wilbur stopped dead, let out a string of invectives that would have befitted a drill sergeant welcoming the raw recruits.
    Cora smiled up at him from the foot of the steps. “I take it you don’t have your keys?”
    Wilbur compared her to creatures of limited intelligence but impressive sexual prowess.
    Cora waited for him to sputter to a halt, then suggested, “How about a back window? You got a ladder?”
    Wilbur seemed on the verge of suggesting unorthodox uses for the ladder. Instead he muttered, “In the barn.” He clomped down the steps and trudged in that direction.
    Cora tagged along behind.
    Wilbur reached the barn door, picked up a rock. He turned back to Cora. “You planning on robbing me?”
    “It wasn’t on my agenda.”
    Wilbur smashed a pane of glass with the rock, reached in, and unlocked the door.
    “Is that how they stole your chairs?”
    “Didn’t you read the report?”
    Wilbur disappeared inside the barn, was back a moment later with a metal extension ladder.
    “I read the report,” Cora said.
    “Then you know.”
    Wilbur dragged the ladder over to the house. It was built on a slope, so the back windows were higher than the front. Unopened, the ladder barely reached. He leaned it against the side of the house, climbed up, took a crescent wrench out of his pocket, and smashed oneof the windowpanes. He reached in, unlatched the window, pushed it up, and clambered over the sill.
    Cora went around to the front door. She wasn’t sure if Wilbur would let her in, but figured he had to move the ladder.
    After a few minutes he came out.
    “Got your keys?” Cora needled