5-MINUTE
MYSTERY
BY MARGARET LUCKE

THE MYSTERY | THE SOLUTION:

in the Hall of Justice lunchroom, Nick Gardino and I shared Sunday-morning coffee after all. He sipped his and grimaced at the bitter taste. "Too bad, losing your chance to have your paintings in the trendiest gallery in town."

I'd chosen tea; it's harder to ruin. "I'm sure it's bad luck to show your work where someone's been murdered."

"Place'll probably go bankrupt. The insurance company'll never pay off, seeing that one owner whacked the other for the express purpose of collecting on the policy."

"I can't believe Musgrave thought he could pin the murder on Ira Plotkin."

"Ira, or one of you." Nick licked doughnut sugar from his fingers.

"That's why he placed the 911 call -- the timing would establish that the killer must be one of the people who supposedly had just left the gallery."

"But he was one of those people."

"Yeah, but he's a lawyer." Nick's tone was sarcastic. "Who'd suspect a pillar of rectitude like him? Of course, he didn't figure on you."

"If we hadn't bumped elbows when we were taking notes, I might never have guessed," I said. "But the way you described the murder -- the blow hitting Bergman on the left where he parted his hair, the body landing on his broken right arm. It pointed to a left-handed killer. That's why I inveigled everyone into writing down their complaints -- to see who the southpaws were."

"And Musgrave was the only one."

"Right." I sipped my tea. "Nick, you said you came to me for professional advice, but I was a suspect too, wasn't I?"

"Not really," he said, perhaps to make me feel good. "But I needed the whole group there. Besides, you knew all the players; you could give me insight. I said I was consulting you as an artist. I meant the art of solving a murder."

Congratulations to Hy Dales, who was the first person to correctly solve the Artful Murder.