A Dark and Stormy Murder (A Writer's Apprentice Mystery)

by Julia Buckley

  “Oh, don’t get all mad at me, now. You can’t blame a girl for being curious. Clay said I should have been a cat, because then I’d have eight backup lives when my long nose sticks into stuff that ends up being dangerous.” She made a silly face.

  I softened slightly. “You don’t have a long nose.”

  “He just means, you know. Nosy. I am nosy—always have been.”

  “Well, it’s good to know your weaknesses,” I said with a tiny smile.

  “I like you, Lena. I wish I had known you in high school. We would have been best buds.” She popped a whole sandwich into her mouth and chewed it, rolling her eyes and patting her stomach so theatrically that I laughed out loud.

  “You’re right, we would have, because you remind me a lot of the girl who was my best friend in high school. Her name is Allison; I’ll have to introduce you sometime.”

  “That would be cool.”

  “Meanwhile, if this house ever reveals its secret to me, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “Okay.” She grinned. There was a little piece of cucumber in her teeth. Then her smile disappeared. “Man, you know who would have loved this? Marty. I told him about the Graham House secret a long time ago. This one night we were just sittin’ and drinkin’ and actin’ big. Talkin’ about what we’d be someday.”

  “What did you want to be?”

  “A singer in a band, like half the kids at my high school. Or a movie star or something.”

  “And Marty?”

  “He just wanted to be rich. His family always kind of struggled. It was sort of sad. He just always told me what he’d do for his mom and dad if he had money, and how he’d buy a huge house and a million cars and start investing in crazy stuff like travel to the moon.”

  “Not that crazy anymore,” I said.

  “I guess not. Poor Marty.” Her face was genuinely sad, and she was subdued for the remainder of our little lunch. An hour later she stood up and said, “Let me help you clean this up. I only have a sitter for another half hour, so I’m going to have to go. Cinderella turning back into a pumpkin.”

  I laughed. “This isn’t exactly a palace, Lane.”

  We walked into the kitchen and she set some plates on the counter. “No. It’s just away. Sometimes away is as good as a palace, if you know what I mean.”

  I did know. “We’ll get together again soon. Maybe we can see a movie some night when your husband can watch the babies.”

  She brightened. “That would be fun! Clay and I don’t really do movies anymore. Not since you can get every darn thing on TV and the computer. We just sit in our house.”

  “It’s a date, then. Text me the nights you’re free, okay?”

  “Okay. Thanks so much for having me over, Lena.” She lunged forward and gave me a big hug—the kind she said her husband gave to her. “It’s nice to have a new friend.”

  I walked her to the door and waved as she headed to her red Ford. “Drive carefully,” I called.

  I shut the door and realized that, for the first time, I was in Graham House alone. The dogs came snuffling over, and I let them out into the yard; they returned to the porch a couple of minutes later, and I let them in. A house with a secret, Lane had said. What could her grandpa have meant?

  I shrugged at the dogs. “Not my problem. You know what? I have work to do.” I finished cleaning up in the kitchen and went to my room.

  I returned to the beautiful desk and spent some time investigating all of its drawers and cubbies. There was nothing so exquisite as a fine piece of furniture. With a pleased sigh, I opened my laptop. It was time to do some more work on the chapter in the Black Forest. I reread what I had, then started making changes here and there. I deleted the last four paragraphs and started something new. My conversation with Lane had given me an idea, and it would change the structure of the chapter entirely. Johanna Garamond was in the car with the man she loved, driving through the Black Forest. But the chase was not enough tension—there needed to be tension inside the car, between the two of them. This would layer the suspense and make the reader wonder which was the bigger danger—that they would be caught and confronted by the man behind them, or that the fragile love between them might be destroyed.

  “Yes,” I said, just as Lestrade came strolling up to see what I was doing. I barely noticed him as my fingers moved over the keys. I saw only the two people in a car, its headlights cutting the gloom of twilight in the forest, trees towering over them like sentries, arching above and linking their branches as though to prevent escape even through the sky. The woods were beautiful, yet sinister, and the road curled infinitely ahead, offering no relief . . .

  By the time I had finished, it was dark outside and I could hear vague noises downstairs that indicated people were back in the house. I reread what I had written; it was good, and I was excited, this time, to show what I had to Camilla.

  I got up and stretched, and suddenly questions I had been keeping at bay bombarded me. Where was Sam West and what was happening? Had Doug Heller thought about what I had told him? Did he truly believe Sam was guilty of killing his wife? Did Heller have total laryngitis now, after talking with that sore throat? Was Sam’s lawyer going to sort this out and make them realize it was all a mistake? Was he going to find out what was really going on, so that Sam could come home where he belonged? Did Sam have people to talk to, people who would support him, in New York?

  Of course he did. It was only in Blue Lake that he was a pariah, surely? New York should be full of family and friends who were in his corner. I remembered the way he had cleared his throat and changed the subject when I had asked about family, and it made me sad.

  On a sudden whim, I took out my phone. I had called him at home the previous day; if it had been his cell phone, and not a landline, then I could text him, as well. I found his number and texted a message: Are you okay? Let me know if you need any moral support.

  I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I clicked “Send.”

  I grabbed my laptop and headed down the stairs, seeking Camilla. I found her in the kitchen, drinking a glass of water and looking out the window. “Hello,” I said.

  She turned. “Hello, dear. How was your luncheon?”

  “Oh—fine. I think Lane is a little bit starved for adult companionship. And a little bit in love with this house. It seems to represent prestige for her.”

  Camilla sniffed.

  “How was your doctor appointment?” The question had been on my mind, because I feared that Camilla was sick and not telling me, and that our new arrangement would somehow be ruined.

  “I’m fit as can be. Apparently I have good genes. Both of my parents have longevity. My father died at age ninety-four, and my mother, if you can believe it, is still alive.”

  “Is she? Where does she live?”

  She set down her water glass; her expression grew fond. “In England. She’s ninety-one and still on her own; she has a cottage by a lake and some very caring neighbors. I Skype with her. And I see her twice a year.”

  “She must be proud of you.”

  “She is. She’s proud of all three of her daughters.”

  “Oh—you have sisters! I read that once, in one of your interviews. I think I know their names: Philippa and—don’t tell me—Sybil.”

  Camilla’s brows rose to her hairline. “My goodness. You have done your homework.”

  “I have. Camilla, I have two things to tell you.”

  “Yes?”

  “One: I’m craving one of those cupcakes. And two: I’m ready to show you what I’ve written—whenever you have a chance.”

  Her face brightened. “Let’s combine those into an impromptu meeting. You get the cupcakes, and hand me that laptop. Where will I find it?”

  “It’s the document already open—just click the Word icon.”

  She sat down at the kit
chen table, opened my chapter, and began to read. I busied myself with the cupcake plate—there were two left—and concentrated on getting napkins and little forks so that I didn’t scream with the tension caused by wondering what she would think.

  Finally I set everything on the table and darted out of the room. I went into Camilla’s study and did a couple of jumping jacks and ten push-ups, then ten crunches. Exercise alleviates tension, my father had always said. And he was right. My heart was beating faster, but I felt better, more ready to face whatever Camilla had to say.

  I waited a few more minutes, then returned to the kitchen. Camilla had pushed my laptop aside and was daintily eating the sailboat cupcake with a fork. I sat down across from her.

  “It’s good,” she said. “Very good. Very exciting, in fact—the idea of her telling him a secret, blossoming out the tension in an unexpected way—I like that. It will involve me going back, though, and planting the seeds of this revelation. We have to know all along that Johanna has a secret, so that when it comes out at this least appropriate of times, we will have known it was coming.”

  “Yes—that’s the only dilemma.”

  “Not a dilemma at all! This is doable. I need to think on it, but I am grateful, Lena, because you’ve pinpointed the area that was a problem, and you’ve written us a way out of that problem.”

  Us, she said. Us. As in Camilla Graham and me, writing team.

  “Now,” she said, cutting off another piece of her cupcake. “I have another problem to run past you. It’s the ending. Johanna and her Gerhard must flee the Black Forest. Initially I pictured them wandering through the mountains, finding the freedom to pursue their love. But that’s a bit laborious, isn’t it—time-intensive and uncertain. And too reminiscent of the ending of The Sound of Music.”

  I giggled.

  “So I was thinking: what about another train? They’re in the south, but they could take a night train—say from Freiburg to Hamburg—it would take what? Six, seven hours. Then they are right on the North Sea.”

  “The train would create powerful parallel structure—a train out of Austria at the beginning, a train out of the forestland at the end. But then what?”

  “Somehow they would have to be smuggled out from there. Remember that Gerhard has family with money. He could have someone—that long-lost brother, maybe—make arrangements. I have to work that out.”

  For some reason, I thought of Sam West and his wife, who wanted to metaphorically sail away from her problems. Why not make that metaphor real? “They could sail away,” I said.

  “Sail?” She took off her glasses and leaned in to study my face. “Sail on a boat? What sort of boat—oh my goodness. Yes. A yacht, Lena!”

  “Yes. If the brother has money, he might have one, right? Weren’t yachts all the rage in the 1960s among the wealthy? Or am I just imagining that?”

  “They sail away,” she repeated dreamily. “Perhaps that’s more evocative of the freedom I want them to feel, and the reader to feel, at the end.”

  “Oh, yes, Camilla! I agree. That would be wonderful! My only regret at the end is that we really don’t see them get to the place that we know they’re going. If we see them boarding a boat, we know they are free. And there can be so much imagery about the freshness of wind and sky and water. How beautiful!”

  “Good. Then here is your next task—yacht research. This is happening in 1965, remember, and things were different then. Travel, and politics, and perceptions about wealth. But yachts? Yes, they were very much around.”

  “I love it. I’ll start tonight.”

  She sat back, her face contented. “We make a good team, Lena London.”

  “We do, Camilla Graham.”

  “You haven’t even touched your cupcake.”

  “That is the best evidence you’ll ever have that your novels are better than sugar to me,” I said. “But I will eat it now.”

  * * *

  AFTER I E-MAILED my new draft to Camilla, I put my laptop away upstairs; I planned to start my yacht research that very evening, and I was excited to have a specific plan. I would write up a sheet of facts for Camilla, and she could pick and choose from all the information (and images culled from the Web) that I could summon.

  When I went back downstairs, I found Camilla marching toward her desk with a determined expression. “Camilla? Before you start on your new notes, I wanted to tell you two things I forgot to mention.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes—just something Lane Waldrop said. Her grandfather was apparently a very popular handyman in Blue Lake. She said he was in everyone’s house, including this one, and he had told his grandchildren that this house had a secret. It was the suspense of her childhood, and he never got to tell her the secret because he died. Apparently he enjoyed holding the knowledge over them, if there was any knowledge at all.”

  Camilla pursed her lips. “It would have been unprofessional of him to reveal it. He had the sense to know that.”

  “You remember him?”

  “Oh, yes. His name was Mr. Haney, and she’s right—everyone used his services. He was very good, and charged reasonable prices.”

  “But—there was no secret?”

  “Not exactly. What was the second thing?”

  “What? Oh. She said that Martin Jonas knew there was a secret, too, and that he, like Lane, had always wanted to know what it was.”

  “My goodness. Well, now that we’re the writing team of Graham and London, and now that you already know significant secrets of my life, why not share the so-called secret of my husband’s manor house? Come here, my friend.”

  She walked to the back of her study and pointed to the window. “Go over there and take a look at the scenery.”

  “All right.” I walked to the window and glanced out at the bluff and the blue line of lake. “What now?”

  “There’s a heating vent in the floor there at your feet. Do you see it?”

  “Yes.”

  “On the right there’s a little dial for opening and closing the vent.”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s another dial on the left—about an inch away from the vent itself. Slightly larger. Yet you don’t really notice it, do you? It blends in.”

  “Yes—it doesn’t open the vent?”

  “No.”

  I turned to look at Camilla, who smiled at me with twinkling eyes. “Go ahead and turn the dial,” she said.

  I squatted in front of the vent and rolled the dial mechanism toward me until I heard a loud click. The sound had come not from the floor, but from an area to my left, where a corner hutch bookcase tucked against two walls. Now one of those walls seemed unproportional. I stood up and walked to it; I pushed it slightly, and it moved farther. It was a doorway, and the darkness behind it emitted a lavender scent.

  “There you are,” she said. “The only secret this house has, that I know of. Go on through. There’s a light just there, near your right hand.”

  I flicked on the light and walked into a narrow little room lined with shelves. On one side were jars of canned fruits and extra dry goods like sugar and flour and spices. On the other wall were, predictably, more books. The walls stretched for perhaps fifteen feet, and at the back of the space were a couple of folding chairs. “I don’t know why we put those there. It’s a fun little hiding place, but the heat and air-conditioning don’t reach here as well, so it’s often a bit too warm or cold. But it’s handy for extra storage. I keep my little air fresheners in here so that my books won’t grow musty.”

  “There were times,” I said, gazing around, “that I couldn’t find you—or that I thought I’d seen you in your office, and then you weren’t there.”

  “I dart back here now and then to claim a book I need. Or a jar of something to give to Rhonda for dessert. That jelly in the cupcake? Homemade raspberry preserves.”

&nb
sp; “This is an impressive secret! Sort of a cliché, but still impressive. I never would have imagined it. Why did your husband’s family have this room?”

  “Oh, who knows?” she said, brushing some dust off the spines of books. “The house is very old. It may well go back to the late eighteenth century, the local Realtor has told me. In any case, some claim it might have been a sheltering place for runaway slaves. Indiana has many registered sites on the Underground Railroad.”

  “Wow.”

  “But James—that’s my husband—felt that it was more likely connected to bootlegging in the twenties. No one will admit to anything, but he thought his grandparents made their share of bathtub gin. He figures maybe they stored it in there. Anyway, in the modern era it is nothing but a storage space, devoid of excitement or intrigue.”

  “It’s still amazing. And that dial hidden in plain sight—a sophisticated touch.”

  Camilla grinned. “Have we seen enough? Because it’s rather drafty out here.”

  “Of course. And thank you for sharing.”

  We left the room, and I slapped my head. “Camilla! Last night, when we thought there were intruders—could they have been—?”

  “No. I checked there while you were turning on lights. The dogs did seem interested in that corner, but there was not a soul inside, and nothing had been disturbed. Besides, you saw that the room is self-contained, and one can enter only from the inside.”

  “Hmm. It’s weird, anyway.”

  “Yes. But I believe I’ve had enough real-life mystery for one day. I only want to spend time on my fictional one.”

  “Fair enough. Is Rhonda coming back tonight?”

  “I gave her the night off. I figured we could be fun and order a pizza. Would you do that for me, Lena? You can decide what to put on it.”

  “Of course. I’ll have them deliver it in—two hours?”

  “Perfect. See you then.”

  I waved and went upstairs. I could do some yacht research and share it with Camilla while we ate.

  I grabbed my phone and put it on my desk so that I would remember to order the pizza in time. I held it in my hand for a moment, then clicked on text messages. I had one.