Death by Sudoku Read Online Free Page A

break up what would otherwise be a big, beige box.
    Right now the box was filled with an array of long tables, but these weren’t set for dining. The tablecloths in the corporate colors were decorated with widely spaced settings of pads and pencils, and the rows of matching chairs were set in a staggered pattern. It looked like a very up-scale setup for a standardized test. Liza’s lips twisted in a wry smile—SATs 90210.
    As she trailed behind the main body of contestants, Hank Lonebaugh kept rushing toward the door, then coming back to her. His back-and-forth moves reminded Liza of Rusty trying to get her to take him for a walk. Since he’d found her again, Hank had indeed talked to her. Mostly, though, the conversation had been along the lines of, “You never said that Derrick Robbins was your friend. He’s a really cool guy—very nice, too. Don’t you think he’s a cool, nice guy?” It made for a pleasant break from what Hank usually talked about.
    It seemed Derrick had made quite an impression on poor Hank.
    They came through the door, and things worked out exactly as Liza expected. She didn’t need to rush in to find a seat. Will Singleton had reserved spots for his honored guests. Liza snorted when she saw he’d placed her right up front.
    Hank had gestured to a seat next to him, but Liza was able to point to the head table and gently detach herself. She left Hank behind in a rear row while she took her seat in the front of the room facing the dais.
    As the crowd settled at the various tables, Will stood up. “This is our third elimination round of five,” he began. “Each participant in this round will receive the same sudoku puzzle and have the same time of forty-five minutes to complete it.” He gestured at the large digital display on the front table, already set at 45:00.
    Just the thing to make any nervous players completely crazy , Liza thought. Did somebody donate that monstrosity? It doesn’t seem like a Will Singleton touch.
    “The first five people to turn in a correct solution will advance to the final round,” Will went on. “Is everyone ready?”
    As Will’s minions began dropping off sealed manila envelopes containing the puzzle, Liza took a moment to reexamine the points on her pencils and made sure both of her pens wrote correctly. That was the only equipment contestants were allowed to have on their tabletops.
    Liza turned at the sounds of a commotion behind her. A young woman, one of the people giving out the puzzles, was taking something out of Hank’s hand. “I’m sorry, sir, but those aren’t allowed.”
    It was a handheld sudoku solver. “B-but how am I supposed to figure all the candidates—?”
    “Like everybody else—by hand,” Will cut in. From his tone of voice, somebody had done the same thing in the two previous rounds. “Any technological help, be it handheld sudoku solvers, BlackBerries, or even cell phones, has been banned.”
    The young woman brought the handheld device up to Will, who stuck it on the table behind him. “You can retrieve this after this round.”
    “But—” Hank said in a forlorn voice, reaching out after his technological crutch.
    “The rules are quite explicit, and they appeared on the contest form that you signed.” Looking every inch the sudoku guru, Singleton glanced around the room. He projected a surprising amount of dignity for his small stature. The envelopes had all been distributed. Liza took a deep
breath as Will reached over to the display. “All right then. Sudoku!”
    Along with every other contestant in the room, she tore open the envelope to reveal an oversized square grid, nine by nine—eighty-one spaces in all. Some of the spaces were filled with numbers, the givens or clues. The rest of the spaces were blank, up to her to fill in.
    The rules were simple. Each of the nine rows right to left, each of the columns top to bottom, and each of the nine three-by-three boxes that made up the gridwork must hold the