It's Richard!

Here's a famous old Riddle: A man lives on the tenth floor of an apartment building. He gets in the elevator on weekday mornings, rides down and goes to work. When he comes home, he rides to seven, gets off, and walks up three flights – unless it's been raining, or there are people in the elevator with him, in which case, he rides to his floor. Why so?

“The bones of an infamous English king, lost for centuries . . .” began a news report on my clock radio early Monday morning, bringing me rolling out of bed angry. “Infamous” - how dare they? “Controversial” would be more accurate. Swallowing all the old tonypandy, all the Tudor lies, after literally centuries of corrections, it is to weep! On the other hand, O joy, O glee, the skeleton discovered buried under what was once the choir of Grey Friars in Leicester, England, is, indeed, that of King Richard III, who on that dreadful day in 1485, fell in battle against the infamous (if ever there was one) King Henry VII-to-be. The city fathers of York wrote in their official city record, “On this day was our good King Richard . . . piteously slain and murdered . . . to the great heaviness of this City.” The question now is, where are the bones to be interred? The Mayor of Leicester says, according to a story in the Washington Post, that the King will be interred in Leicester. I hope that isn't so, that he will go to his beloved York. I'm hearing now that the bones won't be released from the University until next year. Will there be a huge funeral? And, shall I get to go?

I got an e-mail from someone in Minnesota pointing out an error in And Then You Dye. I spoke of Jill having a concealed carry license for her gun. That's wrong, he wrote; in Minnesota you get a license to carry a weapon – not a concealed weapon. Funny how I went through all the training and never noticed the word “concealed” wasn't there.

Snaps still hasn't quite gotten into the shower with me, but he likes me to run my wet hands over his body.

Waaaaay back, when I was first plotting the novel I'm now embarked on, I had a character ask my heroine if she could get a cross stitch pattern called The Secret Door – I had found it on the Internet. If I recall correctly, it depicted a beautiful pre-Raphaelite-style woman standing in front of an unpainted plank door surrounded by vines and flowers. But when I contacted the shop that sold it, I was told it had been discontinued. I'd still like to use it in the story and mention the designer and publisher – but I mislaid that information, and so far my Internet search has come up empty. Can any of you help? Thanks.

Answer: He's a little person and can only reach as high as the seventh-floor button – unless he brought an umbrella with him, or another resident punches the tenth-floor button for him. (If it was me, I'd just always carry an umbrella, or a cane – both could make a cool accessory.)