"What?"

"They say I can't smoke in the addition."

"Well, it's nice and new there, why should it smell like an ashtray?"

"Because I'm in it."

Harper smiled. "I see your problem."

"So?"

"You may have to quit smoking."

"You're a big help. You know what it took me to quit drinking?"

Harper started to answer, flushed. It had taken a man to make her stop drinking. The chief didn't want to point that out. It was a rhetorical question, anyway. Cora was in full grumbling mode, and nothing was going to make a difference.

"Listen. The reason I dropped by..."

"It wasn't just to see the house?"

"No. I got a crime scene."

"Someone's dead?"

"No one's dead. There's other crimes besides murder. And other crime scenes. This one's a robbery."

"Well, that's something. What was taken?"

"Nothing."

Cora scowled. "Chief, are you messing with me? Believe me, I'm not in the mood."

"I can see that." As she started to flare up, he quickly added, "Roger Randolph. You know him? The banker."

"He owns a bank?"

"He works in it. Not as a teller, but at a desk. He approves loans."

"He doesn't turn them down?" Cora said dryly.

"You get turned down for a loan?"

"I haven't tried to get one. I just have a thing with job t.i.tles. 'He approves loans.' It means he also rejects them. But you don't hear a guy introduced as 'He rejects loans.' The guy evaluates and decides on loan applications. Isn't that what he does?"

"Yes."

"To say he approves them makes him sound like such a good fellow."

"Well, whatever you want to call him, he got home from the bank this afternoon and found he'd been robbed."

"Of nothing." Cora nodded. "It was probably someone who asked for a loan and got nothing. You're bringing me a nonexistent crime. A robbery that didn't happen. Too bad it wasn't a murder. We could interview the corpse."

"Would you be happier with the term attempted robbery?"

"I don't know. What did the robber attempt to steal?"

Harper frowned. "That's the problem."

"Nothing? The robber attempted to steal nothing? And the robber succeeded in stealing nothing. That's not an attempted robbery. That's a fait accompli."

"Anyway, Randolph's mighty upset about it."

"A robbery that didn't happen? Yeah, that would upset me."

"The perpetrator got into his house, went upstairs, lifted down the picture over his bed, and opened the wall safe."

"But they didn't take anything?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"There was nothing in the safe."

"So, what's the problem?"

"There is now."

CHAPTER.

6.

Roger Randolph lived at the top of the hill in a two-story frame house, white with black trim, like the majority of houses in Bakerhaven. The banker, a slight man with a milquetoast complexion, met them outside. His manner was much more ingratiating than Cora imagined it must be when approving loans.

"I'm glad you're taking this seriously," he said. "Considering nothing was stolen."

"It's still an unlawful entry," Harper said. "That's serious."

"a.s.suming you didn't leave the door unlocked," Cora said.

Randolph frowned, immediately looked much more the way Cora had envisioned him.

"I a.s.sume you know Cora Felton?"

"Only by reputation. I've seen you around town."

"You make me sound like a lady of the evening."

Randolph blushed.

"I'm kidding. Come on, let's see your safe."

The banker led them upstairs to the bedroom. The picture lay on the bed. The safe was open.

"This is just the way you found it?" Cora said.

"That's right."

"And why did you leave it this way?"

He pointed at Chief Harper. "He told me to."

"I wanted you to see it," Harper said.

"How come?"

"Because there's something in the safe."

"If it's a crossword puzzle, I'll kill you."

"It isn't."

Cora reached in, pulled out a sheet of paper.

Her eyes widened. "Oh, my G.o.d. It's a KenKen."

"What's that?"

"The new number puzzle. Haven't you seen them? They have them every day in The New York Times."

Harper flushed slightly. Cora realized he didn't read it.

"What does it mean?" he asked.

"Nothing. It's just numbers."

"It's not just numbers." Harper pointed. "There are pluses and minuses."

"Operations. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. All the numbers in a darkly outlined area will add, subtract, multiply, or divide to yield the number by the operation sign."

"You lost me."

"Oh, come on. It's easy. Look at the last two boxes in the first row across. See the number 7 +? That means the numbers in those two boxes add up to 7. So they could only be 3 and 4."

"Or 5 and 2," Harper pointed out.

Cora shook her head. "Couldn't be. This is a 4-by-4 KenKen. It uses only the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4. Each number appears once, and only once, in every row or column. It's like sudoku with math."

"I see," Harper said.

Cora had a feeling he was just saying that. "Of course you do. So the only two numbers that give you 7+ have to be 3 and 4. Or 4 and 3. They could be in either order. But only one is right."

"How do you know which?"

"They have to fit in with the other rows and columns. 7+ tells you the answer will be 3 and 4 or 4 and 3. You have to narrow it down."

"How?"

"Okay. Look just below those two boxes. See the 3- in the second box down in the last vertical column? That means one of the two numbers in the darkly outlined boxes will subtract from the other to make 3. The only two numbers that do that are 4 and 1."

"Which is which?"

"You don't know that yet. But one of those boxes is a 4, and one of them is a 1. That means the box directly above the 3- can't be a 4. Because there can't be two 4's in that column."

"So?"

"That tells you where your 3 and 4 go in your 7+ boxes. The last box can't be a 4, so it has to be a 3. So the other box, the one with the little 7+ in it, has to be a 4."

"Uh-huh. What else can you tell?"

"See the box on the bottom of the second column? With the dark line all around it and the 1 in the corner?"

"Yeah."

"That's a gift. You don't have to do anything. That tells you that box is a 1."

"I like that."

"I thought you would. And the two boxes with the 12 have to be 3 and 4, because they multiply to give you 12. And do you know what that means?"

"No, but I'm sure you're going to tell me."

"That means the square just above them, the top square in the second column down, has to be a 2."

"Why?"

"Because you already have a 1, 3, and 4 in the column, and the column has to have one of each number."

"Yeah," Harper said. "But now look. That 4 in the upper left corner has three squares marked off together."

"Right. It's a triple. That means the three numbers multiply to make 4. The only three numbers that do that are 2, 2, and 1."