You Have the Right to Remain Puzzled Read Online Free PDF Page B

him.
    He gave her a look, trudged to the back of the house, took down the ladder, and stowed it noisily in the barn. He emerged with a hammer, nails, and some plywood. He tacked one sheet over the broken window, and locked the barn door.
    “You’re gonna patch the other window from inside,” Cora said. “I know that because I’m a trained investigator. And I saw you put away the ladder.”
    “You
ever solve
a case?” Wilbur asked her.
    “How long have you lived here?”
    “Too damn long.”
    He went up the front steps into the store. Cora followed, found herself in a room full of junk. Granted, what Cora knew of antiques couldn’t have furnished your average breakfast nook; still, the stuff in Wilbur’s shop looked more likely to be piled up on curbside next to the recyclables than adorning anyone’s home or office. The demand, for instance, for a two-wheeled tricycle with no seat couldn’t be high.
    As for the furniture, while it was certainly old, it was also cracked and covered with dust. Tables, dressers, desks, sideboards, etc., in various periods, styles, and materials were thrown haphazardly together. The desk with the missing drawer was grouped with the director’s chair with no back. Cora managed to restrain herself from buying them. She wasn’t surehow long she could hold out against the allure of the ripped vinyl settee.
    Wilbur shuffled behind what turned out to pass for a desk, though Cora wouldn’t have known it. He flipped open an appointment book, took out a pen, and wrote laboriously, moving his lips.
    “Police . . . send . . . inspector. Refuses . . . to . . . inspect.”
    “That’s hardly fair,” Cora protested. “I’m here. What do you want inspected?”
    “You read the file?”
    Cora took a breath. “Of course I read the file. You bought some chairs. You reported them stolen. From the barn out back. Under interrogation, you admitted you might have left the door open.”
    Wilbur dismissed that with a brief, exceptionally pungent comment.
    “You didn’t admit you might have left the door open?”
    “If you knew that, when I broke the window, why’d you ask me if that was how the robber got in?”
    So. The guy was sharper than she’d thought. “Why are the chairs important?” Cora asked.
    “What?”
    “Are these valuable chairs? How much did you pay for them?”
    “Isn’t it in the file?”
    “Is the file accurate?”
    “You first.”
    Cora flipped open the file. “It says you bought the chairs for fifty bucks apiece, but you claim they’re worth closer to a hundred.”
    “They are.”
    “Is that why you bought them? Because they were cheap?”
    “Sure.”
    “You were looking to make a profit on the chairs?”
    Wilbur said nothing.
    “That’s a hundred percent profit. If you sell ’em at a hundred bucks apiece. You report the loss to your insurance company?”
    “What’s that got to do with it?”
    “I assume you want to get your money back. Of course, you couldn’t get a hundred bucks a chair.”
    “What the hell are you talking about? I don’t want the damn money. I want my chairs.”
    “I understand. How’s that working out for you so far?”
    Wilbur opened his mouth to retort, closed it again. Tugged at the sleeves of his sweater. Peered at her with crafty eyes. “Okay, lady. You wanna help, I’m glad to have you. Not that I’m letting Harper off the hook. It’s a police matter, and you ain’t police. If Harper thinks sending you out here takes care of it, he’s dead wrong. Now, do I gotta tell him that in person, or will you communicate it to him?”
    “I can promise you it will come up in conversation.”
    Cora had the impression she might have detected a smile at the corner of Wilbur’s mouth.
    “All right, lady. Find my chairs.”
    “How?”
    “You’re the detective. You tell me.”
    “Let’s look at the scene of the crime.”
    “Why?”
    “That’s how crimes are solved.”
    “Not this time. I had chairs. They’re