Killer Sudoku (12 page)

“I sort of feel as though I should tell you what a lovely evening I had,” she said.

Michael smiled back as he pulled up at the main building. “I guess that’s a bit difficult, considering the way this evening started.”

“So do you mind if I just say that parts were really good?” Liza asked.

Michael leaned forward, and they kissed—for a while. He sighed, but Liza moved his hands away as they wound around her. “Let’s not start something we can’t finish,” she warned.

“Yeah.” His smile got a little lopsided, but it was still a smile. “I guess we don’t want to shock poor Mrs. Halvorsen. And it’s way past bedtime for most of the kids where I’m staying.”

They kissed again, with a bit more restraint this time. Liza got out of the car, and Michael drove off to his motel.

Heading across the lobby, Liza had just one thing in mind—well, more like a succession of things: getting to her room, brushing her teeth, heading for bed . . .

“Excuse me—Ms. Kelly?” the young man behind the front desk called to her.

“How did you know—?” Liza began.

The young reception guy just shrugged. “Whenever there’s a major event, we get pictures of the special guests. Ms. Vereker left this for you.” He held out an envelope—the hotel stationery, Liza realized.

She tore off one end and extracted the note from inside.

Liza folded the note and put it in her pocket with a shrug. “Just another part of the all-inclusive services from Markson Associates,” she told herself as she headed up to her own room and her own bed.

 

 

The next morning, Liza was up well before nine, getting herself ready for the day. Mrs. Halvorsen’s door stood slightly open, and Liza had a brief qualm about disturbing her neighbor.

Well, there’s no tie hanging from it, so there shouldn’t be anything too embarrassing,
she silently told herself as she approached. When she heard the regular breathing of deep sleep, she stepped softly away. This was supposed to be a bit of a vacation for Mrs. H. Liza decided to let her enjoy herself. Why wake her up just because Liza didn’t want to find herself running around like a nut right before the next round of competition?

And something that had struck her while she brushed her teeth suggested that some running around might be in order.

If the cops have closed the kitchen, we may have a bit of a problem getting breakfast around here,
Liza thought as she tied the laces on her Saucony running shoes.
Like it or not, we’ll be stuck on the Detective Janacek Diet.

In fact, Liza debated calling Michael to collect an order from Denny’s or maybe some breakfast tacos from last night’s restaurant as she headed down the hallway to Gemma Vereker’s room.

She knocked on the door and got some sort of noise in response. Then the door opened, and a half-dressed and slightly worse for wear Gemma welcomed her. “Sorry, Liza. I’m afraid I’ve been acting too much like a movie star lately. Usually, I don’t need minders, but I’d appreciate it if you would check in, especially if I’m still in the running tomorrow morning. I’d hate to get myself disqualified by oversleeping.”

Grinning, Liza nodded. “I guess it’s easy enough to act like a movie star with all that expensive Scotch floating around last night.”

Gemma winced. “Not to mention the somewhat cheaper champagne a bit earlier. Let me put on my face and a top, and then we’ll explore the breakfast situation.”

The actress went into the bathroom, and Liza stood waiting in the suite’s sitting room. She smiled as she spotted a magazine with a sudoku puzzle sticking out from under Gemma’s purse.
Always practicing, eh?

Deciding to get a look at Gemma’s solving techniques, Liza teased the paper out. It was from an airline in-flight magazine, and it was not exactly the most difficult sudoku Liza had ever seen.

That’s why Liza frowned as she looked over Gemma’s attempted solution. Not one of the digits Gemma had inked in was in the right place, and it didn’t take much to see that. Often, a neighboring number and sometimes two invalidated Gemma’s choices.

If this was the level of competence Gemma displayed, how had she done so well solving Will’s puzzles? Either she was pretty crocked on the flight from New York, or . . .

Liza shook her head. No. The Will Singleton she knew would never play with puzzle results to keep a celebrity in the tournament.

“There, done,” Gemma called.

Liza hastily moved away from the table as Gemma emerged, fully dressed and made up. The actress scooped up her bag, stashing the butchered puzzle inside. “I’ll admit that things got a bit hazy toward the end of the evening,” she said, “but I seem to remember Fergus Fleming promising something for this morning.”

That something turned out to be an improvised breakfast buffet in the hotel lobby. Angus and his people had indeed been exiled from the kitchen, but the chef had rounded up some chafing dishes and supplies and was making like a short-order cook, doing up eggs and omelets while his cohorts grilled ham, bacon, and sausages. They’d also set up tables with cereal, chilled pitchers of milk, urns for coffee, decaf, and tea, platters of sliced fruit, and display baskets filled to overflowing with rolls and pastries.

“Excellent,” Gemma said, surveying the bounty. “I’ll have one of each.”

They didn’t—quite—but both of them had well-laden plates as they stepped outside to find a table for two on the tree-shaded patio.

Liza looked about at the plants surrounding them. “These aren’t going to bother you, are they?”

Gemma took a deep breath, let it out, and shrugged. “Guess not. The problem is, I can never tell. I did a Western some years ago, filming on location somewhere in West Cupcake, and something in the air just shut me down. They got a lot of footage of me walking and riding around this town, but I had to do all of my dialogue on a sound stage back in L.A. I could barely breathe out there, much less talk.”

She took another deep breath. “If there was anything here that would start this up, I’d be wheezing already.” She laughed. “I remember my manager Artie bought some sort of dried plant to brighten up his office. Next time I went to visit him, I could barely breathe.” Gemma gave Liza a crooked smile. “I told him that if he expected to keep me away with that damned thing, it would work better than he hoped—I’d find myself a new manager.”

They’d just settled down to eat when Will Singleton came rushing by as if the hounds of hell were after him. He all but screeched to a halt when he saw Liza. “I did what you suggested last night.” Will rummaged in his portfolio. “Look here.”

Liza looked at the sheet he extended and instantly recognized the puzzle.

“This is how it printed out.” Will’s voice was tight.

Gemma craned her neck, trying to get a look. “What is it?” she asked.

“It’s the puzzle for the promo event at SINN headquarters,” Liza explained. “But here one of the extra eights—”

“I’d call it more embarrassing than extra,” Will grumbled.

“One of the numbers that fouled things up turns out to be a three,” Liza went on.

“That’s how it was in the computer, but not how it was on the fax to SINN,” Will said. “So this morning I sat down with a magnifying glass. The original I gave to Charley Ormond was definitely altered. When you look carefully, the ink on that second eight is different.”

“Well, then, I think you should take them both to Charley and show her.” Liza frowned as she took in the agitated expression on Will’s face. “Look, you’ve got proof,” Liza began.

“Proof that convinces me, and I guess you,” Will said unhappily. “But would it convince someone who doesn’t know me?”

He turned to Gemma, who responded with a long, drawn-out “Ahhhhhhhhhh . . .”

Will nodded violently. “Exactly. I don’t know if waving printouts at Charley will convince her. She might just think I was trying to cover my ass after a monumental screwup.”

His agitation intensified. “Or worse, she might believe me . . . and decide I’ve lost all control of this tournament. What if the person who’s responsible for all these disasters is another invitee? Charley—and SINN—could easily say it was all my fault.”

Liza opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out. Will had very neatly hooked himself on the horns of a damnably difficult dilemma. Neither hunkering down nor warning SINN about sabotage would please the network or make up ground in a rapidly deteriorating relationship. And Will had made it clear that hooking up for national TV coverage was important not only for the tournament, but for his career—and for sudoku in general.

Liza also realized something Will either didn’t have the words or the nerve to say out loud.

The only way to end this string of disasters was to find whoever was responsible and stop him, her, or it.

PART THREE:

What do you do when you really get stuck in a sudoku? I mean besides swearing and breaking your pencil?

There are two possible courses of action for calmer heads. One is to check whether the puzzle at hand is too complex for your skill set. Since Sudoku Nation still lacks a universal rating system, one puzzle-maker’s “Medium” could be another sudoku-smith’s “Hard.” You may want to get hold of similarly rated puzzles from the same source and see how you fare.

Another approach is to walk away for a while. Make a clean copy of the puzzle clues, file the original somewhere, and put your attempted solution out of your mind. Give it a little time, and then try a fresh take at the copied puzzle. It may be that you made a mistake the first time around, but it hadn’t shown up as a fatal flaw in your solution—yet.

If trying again brings success, you might want to compare your solutions to pinpoint your initial problem.

If it doesn’t work out, you can try, try yet again . . . or you can get the original and create some very decorative sudoku confetti.

 

—Excerpt from
Sudo-cues
by Liza K

When Liza told Will that she was thinking about solving his problem, he grabbed a seat and sank into it, staring at her. “But how can I—”

“We,” she corrected.

“I know you’ve solved several murders,” Will admitted. “But a whole string of events like this—”

“And kind of crazy ones, at that,” Gemma put in.