A Crossworder's Holiday by Nero Blanc

Rosco’s shoulder. “You’re probably right …” Then she looked at Jack Keegan. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help. Where do you go from here?”
    â€œAs much as I hate to say it, this Mummers thing is all we have to go on. Some of the brigades are rehearsing at the Convention Center. I know a few guys, inside guys … I’ll see if anything fishy’s going on.”
    â€œMind if I tag along?” Rosco asked.
    â€œBe my guest. I need all the help I can get … And, Belle, you keep the crossword. You never know. You might get a flash of inspiration. Save us all a heck of a lot of trouble if you did.”
    Instead of responding, Belle sneezed again.
    T HE Philadelphia Convention Center was much like other big-city convention facilities, with one major exception: a portion of the building had once served as the grand terminus of the Reading Railroad; and the classic nineteenth-century architecture had been artfully incorporated into a newer, even more expansive structure that gleamed with strategically placed laser and neon lights and long, sleek surfaces of stainless steel and marble. Modern multicolored sculptural installations dangled from the ceiling, appearing to defy gravity. Philadelphia past and present, the hub of nineteenth-century commerce boldly embracing the twenty-first.
    â€œThis is really something,” Rosco said as he and Jack Keegan stepped off the escalator that had brought them up from street level.
    â€œYeah, they were going to tear Reading Terminal down before someone got the bright idea to save it. Back in the old days trains used to bring in the produce from Lancaster County. The original marketplace is still right below us.” He pointed at his feet. “Hasn’t changed a lick in a hundred years. Fruit and vegetable merchants, poultry and egg vendors, fishmongers, and the best French and Italian cheeses north of the Italian Market on Christian Street. My grandad had a butcher stall … Hell, I damn near grew up in this building. Woulda been a real tragedy to have lost it. You want real Philly-style food: porchétta and pepper sandwiches, scrapple, cheesesteak. You come here.”
    A tall, thin man in a red sweatshirt with TEMPLE LAW stitched on the front approached, and extended his hand to the FBI agent.
    â€œYo, Jack, what’s shakin’? Come to watch us strut our stuff?”
    Keegan shook his hand. “Just the man I’m looking for. Pete Dixon, meet Rosco Polycrates. Rosco’s down from Massachusetts.”
    â€œPleasure,” Pete said, assuming Rosco was another FBI agent.
    â€œDixon was the lead prosecutor at Sonny Pancakes’s trial,” Keegan explained. “He also happens to be the captain of one of the best string bands around.”
    â€œSo you’re marching in tomorrow’s parade?” Rosco asked.
    â€œWouldn’t miss it for the world. Quaker City has won the competition four years running. That’s got to be adjusted. This is our year. I feel it in my bones.” There was a smile on Dixon’s face, but there was no mistaking that he and his club were out to win.
    â€œYou heard about Freddie Five?” Jack said, getting right to business.
    â€œYo? Who hasn’t?”
    â€œIt turns out Freddie was our crossword snitch, and we’ve got a strong indication that there’s going to be some discord at tomorrow’s parade.”
    â€œAnd you’re thinking it may come my way?”
    Jack only shrugged, so Pete Dixon continued:
    â€œWell, if someone’s aiming to get even for Sonny Pancakes, your troubles are just beginning. I know of two witnesses who are marching in the Comic Division; three guys from my office alone are in the Fancy Brigades, two more in another string band; and I’ll bet you’ll find half the damn jurors out there somewhere too … Not to mention the arresting officers—like you.”
    â€œAnd Tony