Conundrum by Susan Cory

to put Norman out of his misery?”
    “Oh, I’ll tell him before I leave. I just love watching that jerk squirm.”
    “Can I ask you something? Did you stay in touch with Will or G.B.? You were close with Will at school. Did you talk with him before this reunion?”
    “Listen, Nancy Drew, I did not k ill Will. I loved his amorality— although I do sympathize with your having had to put up with it. I went to his wedding. Yeah, we stayed friends. He called me last week to say that he’d be here, but we hadn’t set up any specific time to meet. I do want to know who knocked him off. As for G.B., I was never one of his favorites. I seem to be lacking in some department. So, is that everything you want to know?”
    “Almost. Do you know why Will drugged Carey back at the graduation party?”
    “What could that possibly matter at this point, Iris? They’re both dead.” C.C. stared back at her.
    “I just want to know. Why did he do it— the drugging?”
    “It was some stupid joke that Will and Adam thought up to get back at Carey for upstaging everyone for all of graduate school.”
    “Did Alyssa know about it?”
    “Who do you think made the brownies? Look it was a joke. That’s not what killed him.
    “Are you so sure about that?”
    For once Iris saw C.C. look uneasy.

Chapter 14
    I ris trudged back to the jeep. Some joke. They should all be put away for life .
    She brightened a bit when she saw that she’d, once again, escaped getting a parking ticket. She called Ellie on her cell phone and filled her in on what she had learned.
    Cambridge is notorious for its labyrinth of one-way streets, so from her spot by the Broadway Market— now called something fancier with ‘Gourmet’ in it— she had to thread her way down Quincy Street, past the Fogg Museum, back into the chaos of Harvard Square.
    She punched a radio button for WUMB, the folk music station, and listened to Richard Shindell while she waited for the light to change on Mass Ave. He was singing one of her favorites, his cover of “Cold Missouri Waters.” She started singing along as she stared out the window, eyeing the line snaking out of Bartley’s Burgers. She could picture the performer at one of his concerts at Passim’s , eyes closed, strumming a relentless guitar beat. This song always choked her up.
    A loud honk announced that the light had changed. As she edged up to the next light, a short block further, she looked over at the card tables laden with used books on the sidewalk in front of the Harvard Bookstore. A street person seemed to have set up shop. She wondered what the bookstore thought about their competition. From the corner of her eye she spotted a familiar duck-like gait. Norman! Where was he going and why wasn’t he at the panel discussion? Next to him skulked a beige trench-coated figure. Why were Norman and Jerry walking along Mass Ave? She tried to pull into the nearest spot so that she could follow them on foot.
    “Miss. You need to move now. That’s a handicapped spot!” It was the nasal voice of the same meter maid she’d encountered an hour ago. Damnation.
    She pulled back into traffic right as Norman and Jerry disappeared down Holyoke, a one-way street going the wrong direction. She made a left on Dunster , then circled back to Holyoke. They had disappeared. She scanned the block and saw a Thai and a French restaurant. They must have gone into one of those for lunch. A car behind her honked.
    All right already! She tried t o think fast. What could she do— try to find them and eavesdrop? They were sure to see her. How would she ever explain her presence?
    Oh, hell. She jerked the car into drive and headed home, trying to parse out their possible connection.

Chapter 15
    T here were two messages flashing on the phone by the time that Iris got home at one thirty. In the first, Ellie said she had gotten Rachel’s cell phone number off their home answering machine. She had tracked her down to her Cambridge hotel and,