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Pippa said, “Anyone else local you can remember?”
“There was Harber Fossen, an old drinking buddy of the major’s. I remember joking with him about the T-shirt. And there was Jamie Frost, who lived next door to us when we were married, but he’s a nerd, always fixing computers, harmless. Those are the only locals I remember off the top of my head.”
Pippa said, “Do you have records you could check?”
“I have some credit card records, going back, but I doubt I could remember who bought what. A lot of people in town have bought my puzzles over the years.”
Wilde said, “Have you ever had a customer copy the puzzle, maybe someone you gave instructions to?”
She shook her head. “Never. Most everyone wants to copy Indiana Jones in the pit with all the snakes, or the kraken.”
“Have you ever seen anyone take a picture of this puzzle?”
“No, never did, but that doesn’t mean someone didn’t. Of course, when I finished it, Lill snapped countess shots with her iPad, while laughing her head off.”
Pippa said, “Could you tell us how someone would make a puzzle like that, Mrs. Filly?”
“All you would need is a drawing or a photo to copy and enlarge, an X-Acto knife, acid-free glue, and cardboard. You find whatever puzzle template you like online, outline the puzzle pieces on the back of the cardboard, and cut. Here I apply acrylic to finish them off, you know, make them look professional, but a seal isn’t necessary if you’re using a photograph. Of course, whoever made that puzzle on your phone altered the picture digitally first, easy enough with Photoshop. Agent, Chief, what strikes me is he didn’t even bother to make it look good. See here, the shapes of the pieces match the original, but some of the edges are ragged, some bent. I doubt he used an X-Acto knife, probably a pair of scissors.”
Pippa said, “The puzzle wasn’t the point, it was the subject.”
Wilde said, “I never met Major Trumbo, Mrs. Filly, but it seems to me you took some artistic license. The big belly? The yellow snake kissing his cheek? He doesn’t look like he has much of a mouth.”
“Oh, Major Trumbo had a mouth all right, but he could seam it into a thin line when he wanted to put you down. He could still sneer, blight you, with that thin line. I guess you could say the puzzle was my payback to that philanderer.”
“Philanderer?”
Mrs. Filly’s eyes showed some heat, not much, but enough for Pippa to see it. So there was a little anger left. “He was always going on out-of-town trips, never told me why, said it was none of my business. I knew he was cheating on me—lipstick on his clothes, bits of paper left on the dresser with phone numbers, names, you get the gist. I think he did it on purpose. He was proud of his cheating. One day he told me he wanted a divorce. I asked him her name. He smiled from ear to ear, told me her name was Lillian Pomfrey. She had a son by a previous marriage, and she managed a hotel in Baltimore, where he’d met her. He said she understood him, she’d do anything for him, things I wouldn’t. Can you believe he actually used that tired old cliché? I told him good luck with her and let me know what she’d be doing for him six months from now. He didn’t hit me, but I knew he wanted to. I filed for divorce myself. Of course, I should have done it long before. My only demand was he pay off the mortgage on my puzzle store, which he did. After fifteen years of dealing with the major, believe me, I was glad to have another poor woman take him on. I celebrated with a bottle of champagne.”
She beamed at them and laughed.
