by Vicki Delany
“She might have loved being an author, but she didn’t like being a writer, did she?”
Linda selected a plump purple olive. She put it on the cocktail napkin next to the uneaten cheese and cracker. She picked up her wineglass and twisted the stem in her fingers. Her fingernails were bitten down to the quick, and she had the small, nervous habits of a chipmunk investigating a pile of picnic crumbs. “My mother wasn’t fond of the work part, no,” she said without looking at me.
“She spent a lot of time in Cape Cod when she was a child. We came once or twice when I was little but haven’t been back for a long time. Out of the blue, Wednesday night, she announced that she absolutely had to visit. Right now! Never mind the events Kevin and M and G had lined up for her over the weekend. She did everything on impulse. Which is a good part of the reason she could never keep a publicist. She drove poor Robert nuts too. He was beyond furious when she canceled this weekend’s engagements. Of course, I, who had no part in the decision, took the bulk of his rage. He yelled at me over the phone. I finally told them both I’d had enough, handed the phone to Mother, and went for a long walk. When I got back, she said she’d do one signing in Cape Cod and ordered me to find something. So I called you first thing the next morning.” Her voice drifted away, and she gave us a soft, sad smile.
“I like it here,” she continued. “In West London, what little I’ve seen of it. I might consider moving here. Buy a small cottage with a view of the sea and a strip of beach.”
“You’d be able to get a lot of writing done,” I said.
“Yes, I would, and that—” She bit off the end of the sentence. Her intelligent eyes studied my face. I tried to look intelligent in return. “You know?” she said.
“I suspected.”
“Suspected what?” Jayne asked. “What are you talking about?”
“Does anyone else know?” Linda asked me.
“I haven’t told anyone. If other people guessed, I can’t say. It was obvious, to me at least, that Renalta didn’t know much about the Holmes canon. Even more obvious that you do. That in itself wasn’t conclusive. You could have been an adviser. When you talk about the books, you say ‘we’ more than ‘she.’ We were invited to a literary festival. You refer to the author of the books as ‘Renalta’ but to the person doing author appearances as ‘Mother.’ You pointedly mentioned how much she loved being an author, but you’ve said not a word about her writing. Her talk at the Emporium about the writer’s life was stiff, scripted almost. I thought at the time she wasn’t telling us the truth, but put it down to wanting to make it sound more interesting than it was. Plus, of course, you mentioned that the psychologist knew she feared exposure as a fake.”
“You’re saying you wrote the books, not Renalta Van Markoff?” Jayne asked.
“Renalta Van Markoff wrote the books, all right,” Linda said. “That’s my pen name. My mother, Ruth Smith, just played her in public.”
“Have you always written them?” The room was empty, aside from the bartender standing behind the bar, wiping glasses, but still I kept my voice low.
“From day one. My mother desperately wanted to be a writer. By that, I mean she wanted to be a writer. Not to write. She tried, and she wasn’t totally awful, but she had no patience for the work part of it. She came up with a vague idea for a historical mystery about a female private detective, but she got no more than a rough outline done before she sat back with a glass of wine and waited for the muse to visit her.”
“That blasted muse again, who, as Picasso said, only strikes when one is working.”
“Precisely. So I tried my hand at it. The outline was okay, and her main character was worth exploring, but all in all, it was pretty mundane. The concept needed a spark. The BBC Sherlock series was on TV, and that gave me the idea for the Sherlock Holmes angle. I finished the book in six months, working nights and weekends. Some nights I wrote straight through until I had to get ready for work. It was a totally amazing time in my life. I called the book An Elementary Affair, and I landed the publishing contact with M and G soon after it was finished. I’m the exact opposite of my mother. I want to write, but I don’t want to be a writer. I don’t want the slog of public appearances, the book tours, the convention circuit, talking to people and trying to be charming.” She gave me a sad smile. “I am not, as you might have noticed, charming.”
“Plenty of authors aren’t. Your mother’s flamboyance, her excessive behavior, was a one-off. A personality like that isn’t necessary for a successful book, you know.”
“You can’t say it hurt our sales.”
“No, I certainly can’t say that.”
“Instead, it was responsible for it. Without my mother’s public personality, I suspect my books would be struggling to stay in the middle of the midlist.”
“Was that always the plan? For her to pretend to be the author?” I asked.
“It wasn’t intentional at all. I was going to use my real name, but Mother insisted ‘Linda Marke’ was totally boring. It needed more oomph. Something befitting the creator of Desdemona Hudson. My dad’s family name was originally Markoff, and they changed it when they arrived in America, so I suggested that. Mother said Van Markoff had a touch of old-world aristocracy. Somehow in all the back and forth about names, my first name got changed to Renalta.”
“Fancy that,” I said.
“When I had to submit a photo of myself to M and G for the first time, absolutely nothing came out right. I looked like . . . well, I looked like myself. So Mother said, let’s do without a photo on the jacket, and that was okay with M and G. The night of my book launch in Manhattan, I was sick, awfully sick. Nerves probably. M and G had pulled a lot of strings to get us . . . me . . . into one of the big bookstores for the launch. And there I was, throwing up all day. I was in no condition to go out in public, but I couldn’t cancel, so Mother said she’d go and represent me.”
“She did more than represent you.”
“It happened, she said, by happenstance. She walked in the door, in her usual over-the-top flamboyant dress and manner, and the staff rushed to greet her. She was introduced to everyone as Renalta Van Markoff. McNamara and Gibbons had sent a junior publicist, and she gushed over Mother. She said that she’d read the book and Mother was exactly how she’d imagined her to be. Mother didn’t correct anyone, and she went with the flow. The evening was a huge success, and the next day my book was the talk of the town in the New York book world. With Mother’s picture accompanying it. And so it was done. From then on, Mother was the public face of Renalta, and I was the hardworking PA by day and author by night.”
It sounded to me as though Ruth Smith had bullied her shy but talented daughter, badly. Whether she had gone to the book launch fully intending to pose as the author or if it truly did happen accidentally didn’t matter now. I also wondered about Linda falling so ill on her big night and whether Renalta had done something to arrange that. But ultimately, Ruth Smith looked like someone named Renalta Van Markoff, and she knew how to play the room and generate publicity.
Obviously, her plan had worked.
People came and went across the lobby. A man shouted for his wife to hurry up. The restaurant hostess was busy showing people to their table or thanking them for coming. The rain had stopped and the evening sun bathed the windows overlooking the veranda in a soft orange glow. But in the bar, all was quiet and still. This was one of the few places left that had enough taste and consideration not to have a TV fastened to the wall. The bartender wiped glasses and probably wished there was a telly turned to the sports channel. He paid us no attention.
“The success of An Elementary Affair was totally unexpected,” Linda said, “although my mother seemed to think it was simply her due. I thought we’d sell a couple of thousand copies, make a bit of money, but not enough that I’d be able to quit freelancing as an editor. The deception, if you want to call it that, worked well for the first two books. I got a kick out of sitting at the back row in a bookst
ore or library and hearing my mother talk about her exhausting writing schedule and where she got her ideas. Then it all started to go to her head. She began to believe her own press. She was the famous author, and I was nothing but the famous author’s personal assistant and thus totally expendable.”
“That had to be tough,” Jayne said.
“She was my mother, and I always loved her. Sometimes I didn’t like her very much, though.”
“Is a new book under way?” I asked.
“It’s close to being finished. Personally, I think it’s going to be my best yet.”
“That’s great news,” Jayne said. “I have to tell you, I’m a big fan, and I just about died thinking there’d be never be a resolution to that cliffhanger.”
Linda smiled at her. “Thanks.”
“Does Robert, the publisher, know you’re the author?” I asked.
“Nope. I act as my mother’s agent, so we don’t have to worry about that. I surreptitiously took out the clause in which the signatory to the contract confirms she is the author.” She looked me full in the face. “I trust you will keep my secret.”
“I’m a bookseller,” I said. “All I’m interested in is selling books. Who actually wrote them is immaterial.”
“There you are!” Kevin Reynolds and Robert McNamara crossed the bar. They loomed over us, making no move to take seats.
“I’ve been calling you and calling you, Linda.” Kevin put a hand on Linda’s shoulder. “I was worried sick when you didn’t answer.”
“I turned off my phone,” she said. “I don’t want to talk to anyone.”
“I’ve been fielding calls all afternoon,” Kevin said. “Renalta’s death is big news, but I’ll do all I can to keep them away from you.”
“What brings you here?” Robert asked me. “This doesn’t seem like an appropriate time for a social call.”
“I think it’s very appropriate,” Jayne said. “We’ve stopped by to offer our condolences.”
“Why were you phoning me anyway?” Linda asked Kevin. “I told you I wanted some alone time.”
“I was worried about you.” Kevin put his hand under Linda’s arm and guided her to her feet. “That interview with the police was very upsetting. If you’d told me you wanted something to eat, I would have gotten it for you. Come on, you need to rest.”
“Thank you,” Linda said to me, “for respecting my privacy. If I decide to buy a place on the Cape, I’ll give you a call.”
Kevin led her away. Robert didn’t follow. Instead he leaned over and helped himself to the cheese and cracker that Linda had never gotten around to eating. He popped it into his mouth. “If you’re trying to find out what’s next for the Van Markoff books, I’m happy to tell you that the next one’s almost finished. We’ll be releasing it ahead of schedule. In honor of Renalta, of course. It’s what she would have wanted.”
In order to capitalize on the publicity surrounding her death, I thought but didn’t say. “Brilliant. Have you seen it? Does it have a title?”
“I haven’t read it yet. Renalta didn’t write from an outline, and I accepted that. Her writing was as daring and spontaneous as her personality. I can always tell, you know, when I first read a new manuscript what sort of person the author is. Renalta could be counted on to deliver a very clean manuscript. She once told me that Linda tidied up some of the inconsistencies and fixed typos for her so it would be as near perfect as possible when I saw it. She was very considerate that way.”
“Quite.”
“She told me only this week that the book’s almost finished. I’m hoping to get it from Linda right away. We’ll hire a ghostwriter to complete it and do the final polish.”
“Why not get Linda to do that,” Jayne said, “if she worked with Renalta on the earlier books?”
“There’s a difference between writing and copyediting. We’ll have the new book on your shelves by Christmas, Gemma.”
“That is quick,” I said.
“That’s the modern face of the publishing industry. The old model of set deadlines and release dates a year from now is passé. We have to be proactive, ready to move at a moment’s shift in the winds of the public mood.”
“I feel myself shifting even as we speak.”
He grinned at me. “I knew you’d understand. We’ll talk later about doing a special promotion in your store for the release of the new book. Something in memory of Renalta’s final signing.” He walked away.
I picked up my glass and took a sip of wine. It was cold and crisp and delightful on my tongue.
“Is it just me,” Jayne said, “or does he seem particularly callous?”
“Callous. Then again, I don’t know if he and Renalta were at all close. Probably not considering he doesn’t know she didn’t write the books or even that her personal assistant is her daughter. He’s making a business decision, and it’s probably the right one. He has to get Renalta’s last book out as fast as he can before interest in her wanes.” I studied the food on the table. Other than a thin slice of Stilton, a single cracker, and one olive, it was untouched. “We might as well finish that cheese.”
“That was interesting,” Jayne said, “about Linda and her mom. What a weird relationship. But we didn’t learn anything to help us with finding out who killed Renalta.”
I scooped up a handful of nuts. “On the contrary, we learned a great deal.”
“And what was that?”
I popped the nuts into my mouth and then leaned back in my chair and cradled my wineglass. I closed my eyes. Linda herself had unwittingly given me a motive for her mother’s murder. How much, I had to ask, did she resent her mother taking all the credit for the hugely successful books? Did Linda want to come out from under her mother’s shadow? Take her rightful place as the author of the novels? Maybe Linda wanted to take her writing in a new direction and Renalta refused. The Desdemona Hudson books were flamboyant and overblown, the writing occasionally veering dangerously toward purple prose. Much like Renalta, a.k.a. Ruth Smith, herself.
Had Linda decided she wanted to write more “serious” books? Something respectable. Literary even, whatever that meant. Had Renalta said no? Had they argued and Linda decided there was only one way to get out of her mother’s shadow?
The afternoon of the book signing, Linda had emerged from the car clearly angry, and Renalta had spoken to her sharply. Unfortunately, I’d not heard what was said. Not difficult to assume they’d had an argument in the car or as they left the hotel. While Renalta gave her talk, Linda had stood against the counter, near the water bottle. She, more than anyone, would have known about Renalta’s habitual consumption of great quantities of water.
Matricide is an exceptionally rare crime, particularly one committed by a daughter. But by Linda’s own account, her relationship with her mother was nothing like the usual mother-daughter bonds, fraught though many of them might be. Notably, whenever Linda referred to Renalta, she said “Mother,” never the more affectionate “Mom.” Even I, who have a stiffer, more formal relationship with my parents than is the norm in modern times, call them Mum and Dad.
“I’m supposed to be meeting Robbie at seven thirty,” Jayne said, “so I have to go.”
I opened my eyes to see most of the cheese, all the crackers, and half of the nuts and olives gone. The leather folder containing the bill lay on the table.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Jayne said. “What were you thinking about anyway?”
I took the receipt and placed money on the table. “I’m thinking that it’s time for me to go home too. This is on me. A meeting with an author’s PA is a business expense.”
“Kevin seemed very concerned about Linda. Do you think they’re an item?”
“He wants to be. He was quick to comfort her when her mother collapsed. I can’t read what she wants though.”
I dropped Jayne off at her place and drove home.
Chapter 9
First things first, I took Violet for her evening walk. The rain had p
assed, leaving the air crisp and fresh and full of the scent of salt from the sea. We took the road that runs along the crest of the hill. The sun was sinking in the west, and to the east the sky over the Atlantic Ocean was streaked pink and gray.
Not far from the shoreline, an enormous yacht drifted past. Yellow light gleamed from multiple windows above the waterline, the deck was strung with lamps, and I could see a swimming pool in the stern and even a helicopter pad. The sound of conversation and laughter drifted over the water. Must be worth a fortune, I thought.
A fortune. The Holmes and Hudson books were a publishing phenomenon. They would have earned the author a heck of a lot of money. Not enough to buy that yacht, but more than most people could dream of ever having.
Whose money was it? Ruth Smith, who pretended to be the author, or Linda Marke, who was?
Regardless, now that Ruth had died, presumably all she had would go to her only daughter.
Kevin Reynolds was handsome and charming. Linda Marke was plain and shy. Kevin appeared to be interested in Linda. She was harder to read.
Was that Linda’s appeal to Kevin? Her mother’s money? I sucked in a breath. Was it possible that Kevin killed Renalta, expecting Linda to inherit her mother’s fortune? He did know the true nature of their relationship, that they were mother and daughter, after all. It would have been a heck of a risk to take, for an unassured outcome. Linda and Kevin weren’t married; they didn’t even seem to be a couple. Maybe Kevin had intentions toward her, but if he did, he didn’t seem to be getting very far. Surely he wouldn’t take the chance of killing the mother until he was safely wed to the daughter?
Unless something happened that forced his hand. How secure was his job with Renalta? He’d been working for her for a short time. He was but the latest in a long line of publicists. Maybe he was about to be let go. Without close access to Renalta, he might not get another chance to, as they say, “bump her off.” Did Kevin know who wrote the books? Linda said he pretty much lived in their pockets, so it would have been hard for him not to.
