The Puzzle of Piri Reis (28 page)

Chief Ibbara glanced around the den. "Who would
have believed it? Edna had been with Uncle Bernard
thirty-four years"

Ted, his arm in a sling, muttered, "I can't figure it.
She was like a sister to me." He frowned at me. "What
made her do it?"

All I could do was shrug. "Well, from all I learned,
your father wasn't an easy man to get along with."

Ibbara laughed. "No offense, Teddy, but I don't see
how she lasted all that time with your father."

Teddy grinned ruefully. "No offense taken. He had
a temper. I didn't like being around him, but at least I
could get out of here when I wanted." He shook his
head. "She couldn't. In a way, I feel sorry for her."

"Yeah," Ibbara replied. "And after all that still no map" He grinned at me. "What made you first suspect
her?"

I tried to smile, but the side of my face was swollen
from Edna's well-delivered kick. "I almost didn't. I
guess I started wondering when I saw the picture of
her with her wristwatch on her left wrist. I-" A wild
idea suddenly popped into my head.

Hastily, I fumbled for the puzzle in my pocket. I
spread it on the large table.

"That's Father's puzzle"

I glanced at Teddy. "Yeah. Now take a look."

"The characters at the bottom are the only ones I
could decipher. They're characters in various fonts but
they make no sense. You see, Edna used her computer
to flip-flop her picture at The Clock, making her right
hand appear as her left. What if your father did the
same thing, more or less, sort of flip-flopped, substituted one character for the other?"

Ibbara frowned. "You mean, like that E means another letter?"

I nodded. "Look at all the Hs. Five of them. Since E
is the most frequent letter in our alphabet, let's give
that value to H"

I wrote out the alphabet. ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQ RSTUVWXYZ. "Take a look. H is three letters
removed from E. Let's try that" Quickly, we transposed
the characters. E became a B, H an E, and D an A.

Ted pointed to the third word. "That one has two
letters. Could they been an IN?"

Ibbara grunted. "The first character sort of looks
like a capital I, huh?"

"Yeah," said Ted. "And that roman numeral two
would be the N"

Excited, I replied, "Look. There's three of those twos"

Our next translation came up as BEEEN_ANE
INABE.

"The first word has to be 'between,"' said the chief.
"And that curlicue-looking character that's a T is on
the last word. That makes it TABE"

"Table!" Ted shouted, stepping back and staring down
at the table on which we had spread the puzzle. "And
look, there's another L in the second word, _ANEL"

"Panel. Or panels," I said, glancing under the table.
I read the translation. "BETWEEN PANELS IN TABLE."

Ibbara pointed to dark panels at either end of the
table on which a lion's head rose in relief.

Five minutes later, with the aid of a screwdriver, lbbara removed the back of one panel. "Well, I'll be," he
muttered, his voice muffled. With a grunt, he slid from
under the table a well-worn leather portfolio. He handed
it to Teddy, who fumbled to open it.

When he looked inside, his shoulders sagged with relief. He grinned sappily at us. "Here it is, the Piri Reis."

"Well, let me see what all this trouble has been
about," demanded Chief Ibbara.

As we stared at the map on the table, Ted glanced at
me. "What made you think of that flip-flopping sort of
thing?"

"The brown patch on Edna's left hand. Did you ever
notice it?"

He frowned and shook his head. "Never paid much
attention."

"Well, probably no one else did either but it bothered her. She always kept her right hand over it. She
wore her watch on her right hand. When she reversed
the snapshot she'd taken at The Clock, it showed what
appeared to be her left hand covering her right. By
flipping the picture on her computer, she gave herself
the alibi she needed"

Ted frowned. "Alibi?"

"Your father was killed around nine. She had taken
the snapshot at ten after three, but when she flip-flopped
the picture on her computer, it showed ten to nine. She
couldn't have killed your father if she was at the nightclub at the same time."

Ted shot Ibbara a puzzled look. "I understand that,
but what's this left hand and right hand business?"

"Her left hand had the patch of brown. An age spot
I guess. The left hand in the picture didn't show it. She
was self-conscious about the spot. She always covered it with her right hand. Flip the shot over, and it will
show the left hand covering the right. Like you were
looking in a mirror." I paused. "If she had removed the
watch, I don't think I would have ever caught it."

"Pretty slick." Ted lifted an eyebrow.

"Not slick enough," Ibbara replied. "Those kind always forget something." He nodded to me. "Good thing
you spotted it, Boudreaux"

I glanced at the chief. "What about Hogg?"

With a wry chuckle, Ibbara replied, "He's got a tough
road ahead. Lucky he's got a few million. He'll need
them" He paused, and for a moment, a trace of sympathy filled his eyes. "I figure Edna had him snowed the
whole time. Typical big sister-little brother relationship.
At least, that's what I think."

Shaking his head, Ted asked, "You mean, he didn't
know about Father's death?"

"No. And not about your cousin's either. Oh, he knew
Lamia Sue was blackmailing Edna, for he set up the FC
Motor Company to launder the check each month"

Staring at the Piri Reis Map, I couldn't help wondering if that ragged piece of parchment was truly
worth two murders, a still-unknown amount of embezzled funds, and half a dozen lives caught up in its turmoil.

Somehow I doubted it, but then what do I know? I'm
just a little Cajun boy who stands up when the band
plays "Jolie Blon."

And with my luck, in the middle of "Jolie Blon," Jack
Edney would show up.