Read A Puzzle in a Pear Tree for Free Online

Sherry, and Mabel.
    “He’s only doing his job,” Sherry pointed out.
    Cora winced. Her niece needed to learn when to keep her mouth shut.
    “Oh, is that right?” Becky replied witheringly. “You think his job is to protect me from some secret stalker? On the basis of a silly children’s rhyme that has nothing to do with me? I mean, come on, give me a break.”
    Sherry bristled. “The poem was in the pear tree. Who gets the pear tree?”
    “So
you
think there’s something to it?” Becky scoffed. “As far as everyone else is concerned,
that
,” she said, pointing in the direction of Dan, “is a useless precaution. But you think the threat is real, and you think it’s aimed at me. What is that—wishful thinking?”
    Sherry smiled sweetly. “Why, Becky Baldwin, whatever do you mean?”
    Becky flushed, realizing she’d gone a little too far. An unspoken rule of their ongoing rivalry was never to openly acknowledge it.
    “I mean,” she answered, recovering beautifully, “that you want the puzzle to mean something so your aunt here can solve it and be the big hero.”
    “Heroine,” Sherry corrected.
    Becky frowned, then shot back archly, “You’re rather preoccupied with sex, aren’t you?”
    “I’m not the one taunting young men in the hallways of the high school.”
    “Not my idea,” Becky retorted. “This wouldn’t have happened if your aunt hadn’t convinced Chief Harper that acrostic poem meant something.”
    “Actually, it was Harvey Beerbaum who solved the acrostic,” Cora pointed out.
    “Who wrote it, then?”
    “Not guilty,” Cora said. “I can quite honestly say I have never written an acrostic in my life.”
    “Is that right?” Becky said. If Becky believed her, Cora wouldn’t have known it.
    Becky tossed her coat on a rack, turned to find Mabel measuring Cora’s skirt. “Where’s my costume?” Becky demanded.
    “Skirt waist let out three and a half inches,” Mabel said. She spied judiciously behind Cora’s back. “Bigger all around.” Over her shoulder to Becky she said, “Coat rack in the back. Dress will have your name on it. Put it on, come find me. Bring the measurement sheet pinned to it.” She turned her attention back to Cora. “Did we do the blouse?”
    “You mean did we make note of the fact I’m not as skinny as an anorexic fashion model? Yes, I believe we did.”
    “Yes, we did,” Mabel said complacently, consulting her measurement sheet. She handed it to Cora. “Hang up your clothes, make sure you pin this sheet to the blouse, and you’re done.”

    “All right, what the hell!” came a voice from the back.
    All heads turned.
    Becky Baldwin came striding up in her bra and panties. Her undergarments were black, lacy, and very sheer. That didn’t surprise Sherry Carter any. Under ordinary circumstances, she might have cast a wouldn’tyou-just-know-it glance at her aunt.
    But these weren’t ordinary circumstances. Becky’s eyes were blazing.
    There was a red envelope in her hand.
    “All right, who did it?” Becky shrilled. “Whoever it was, it isn’t funny.”
    “Where’d you get that?” Cora asked.
    “As if you didn’t know,” Becky said. “It was pinned to my costume.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “Oh, sure. I’m really going to kid about a thing like that. You think I brought this with me, just as a joke?”
    “What’s in the envelope?” Cora asked. Her eyes were sparkling.
    “I haven’t looked. But I know what it is. A little puzzle poem, telling me I’m gonna die.”
    “That’s ridiculous,” Cora said. “It simply makes no sense.”
    “Don’t look at me,” Becky said. “I didn’t send the damn thing.”
    Becky ripped the envelope open. Inside was a folded piece of paper. Becky took it out, unfolded it. “Well,” she said, “don’t I feel foolish now.”
    “Why? What is it?”
    Becky turned the paper around.

7
    THERE WAS CHRISTMAS MUSIC IN THE POLICE STATION, bouncy, canned elevator music from a boom box on Dan