“I asked him that. The executor would make decisions. Who should get access to his papers? Who should write an official biography? Should another writer continue his series with the French detective? When should those books come out?”
Val saw opportunities for Clancy to profit as the literary executor. “Clancy would want to choose himself as the biographer and the writer of follow-on books. But I’ll bet Rick Usher can specify in his will that the executor, whoever it is, can’t give himself those plum jobs.” Val caught Granddad’s twitch when she mentioned a will. Before dinner he’d phoned Althea, a lawyer who could draw up a will. “Is Usher going to change his will?”
Motionless for a second, Granddad then shrugged. “How would I know?” He stood up. “Mighty good dinner. I’ll eat dessert later. I gotta think through some things.”
He didn’t usually put off eating dessert. His reaction made her suspect Rick Usher had asked him to arrange a lawyer for him, possibly to handle a change in a will. But why would the author ask a virtual stranger to do that? Maybe because he didn’t want interference from anyone close to him. Reading and watching murder mysteries had taught Val a lesson about wills: Don’t alert your heirs of impending changes, or you might not live long enough to make them.
Chapter 16
When Val finished cleaning up after dinner, she went into the sitting room and found Granddad in his lounge chair. He usually watched television, read the newspaper, or napped in that chair. Tonight, it had apparently turned into his thinking chair. He stared at the TV, which wasn’t even on.
“Can I get you anything, Granddad?”
“Nope.” He massaged his forehead.
She went into the study and left the door open so she could see him. She checked her e-mail. Althea had sent her the names of two criminal lawyers in Annapolis. She forwarded the message to Gunnar.
Then Val opened Emmett’s composition book to the 1974 page. Beneath the statement that Rick Usher married Rosana in that year, Emmett had jotted other notes: What made Usher leave UVA? Didn’t get tenure? Library job? Affair with student? Lazy and married money?
Except for library job, whatever that meant, Emmett had chalked up Usher’s departure to failures or weaknesses. Val had a more positive take on why the author might have left the university. He was in his late thirties, wanted to write novels, and decided to focus on that—similar to what Gunnar had done in leaving a secure government job to pursue his ambition of acting. Gunnar had received an inheritance. Perhaps Rosana’s money served the same function for Rick.
Val reread Emmett’s jottings. She found it hard to believe that an affair with a student would cause anyone’s removal from the faculty. But at a conservative school like UVA in the 1970s, it might have jeopardized Rick Usher’s chances for tenure.
Emmett’s notebook contained no information about the author for the five years after he left the University of Virginia. Usher might have spent those years writing fiction. His first historical mystery about Gaston Vulpin hit the best-seller list in 1979. Another Vulpin book came out two years later and then every year after that including 1988, when Usher returned to academia as a visiting professor at Boston University.
Didn’t Simone study there? Val turned to her computer. She went to the Web site for Chesapeake College, where Simone taught, and brought up the faculty list. Sure enough. Simone had earned a Master’s degree from Boston University in 1988 and a Ph.D. there five years later. No way to know if she’d taken a course from Rick Usher, but with her research focused on Poe, surely she would have known him. By then he was in his fifties. She must have been in her twenties in the late 1980s. Had he become romantically involved with Simone in Boston as he had with Rosana at UVA? A liaison between the Ph.D. candidate and the visiting professor would explain her intense interest in him.
Thinking about Simone reminded Val to arrange a meeting with her. Monique would have the photos of the digitally aged men ready in the morning. Val called the number she’d found online for S. Wingard in Treadwell. The woman who answered sounded like Simone.
“Hi. This is Val Deniston, the caterer who made dinner at the book club meeting Sunday night.”
“The caterer.” Simone sounded bemused. “Oh, yes. You sent Judith your onion soup recipe, and she forwarded it. Thank you for that, but I don’t need a caterer.”
“That’s not why I’m calling. I have some news for you about Rick Usher and something to show you related to him. I’d like to make an appointment to meet you, tomorrow afternoon if possible.”
The silence on the line ended after three seconds. “You want to show me something about Rick? What is it?”
“I’ll explain tomorrow afternoon if we can get together then. I can meet you at your house or office or at my house in Bayport, whatever’s most convenient.”
“I’ll be home by three tomorrow.” Simone rattled off her address in Treadwell.
“See you then.”
Val hung up and glanced at Granddad in the sitting room. He hadn’t moved out of his lounge chair. She went back to Emmett’s notebook. For 1989, the year after Usher taught at Boston University, Emmett noted one major event—the death of Usher’s daughter. Emmett’s notes for the next few years, or rather the lack of them, confirmed what Granddad had said. No Usher books came out until four years after the girl died, when Usher’s first horror book was published. From then on, one or two Usher books came out every year.
Val looked up as Granddad came into the study. Would he tell her what he’d spent the last half hour pondering? She swiveled in the desk chair to face him.
He sat on the sofa. “I want your opinion on something Rick told me. When he asked me my philosophy of old age, I talked about finding new interests. He told me I was making the most of the present, but he cared more about the past and the future. He needed to put a few things right. Then he could die in peace.”
Val could tell from Granddad’s emphasis that Rick Usher’s reference to dying bothered him. She struggled to interpret the comment in a matter-of-fact way. “Don’t make too much of it. We’d all like to die in peace, but we don’t expect it to happen right away.”
“He said he made up his mind a long time ago where and how he wants to die.” Granddad hugged himself as if chilled. “I’m afraid he’s going to kill himself.”
An understandable worry. Val had read about the high suicide rates among men in their eighties. She abandoned the desk chair and sat next to her grandfather on the sofa. “He didn’t decide recently how to leave this world. He came up with a plan in the past and he’s been living with it for a while. There’s no reason to think he’s going to act on it now.”
The worry lines in Granddad’s forehead showed no signs of smoothing out. “He must be very depressed. That’s why he’s talking about dying.”
She feared the author’s depression might spread to her grandfather. “Talking about dying doesn’t mean he’s going to commit suicide. Maybe the doctor gave him bad news. Knowing he doesn’t have long to live means he has to take care of unfinished business.”
Granddad took off his bifocals and wiped them on his shirt. “You may be right, but if I don’t do anything and Usher takes his own life, I’d blame myself for not speaking up. But if I go behind his back and tell Rosana what he said, he won’t trust me anymore. I’d like to help him if I can. Getting him out of the house to meet more people might cure what ails him. I can coax him to do that, but not if he’s mad at me.”
Val finally grasped the dilemma. “You don’t know whether you’d be making the situation better or worse by telling Rosana.” He’d come to her for advice. She wouldn’t tell him what to do, but maybe she could convince him that he didn’t have to do anything immediately. She reached for his hand. “I think you can put off a decision until you know more about his state of mind. Whether or not he’s contemplating suicide, he said he’s not ready to die until he sets something right.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” Granddad squeezed her hand a
nd released it. “He asked me to help him do a few things.”
Val hadn’t cared for the way Granddad had helped Rick Usher previously. At least this time he was alerting her in advance. “He’s living with three people whose sole purpose is to help him. He needs you too?”
“He doesn’t want them to know what’s bothering him. Besides, I might do a better job than they would. He’d like to locate something he misplaced and someone he lost touch with.”
Val groaned inwardly, guessing how Granddad had responded. “You told him you learned how to track down people in your private investigator course and you’ve had great success in finding missing items.” Like the strayed cats and misplaced keys he’d recovered for the residents of the retirement village.
“I sure did.” Granddad leaned toward her as if telling her a secret. “He pointed to the highest shelves in the room and said I wasn’t tall enough to find what he was looking for. When he was going up a ladder to search there last weekend, Rosana stopped him. She told him he was too old to climb it and took the ladder away. So now he needs a man tall enough to reach the top shelf by standing on a chair.”
Or someone who brings a ladder with him, but Val didn’t say that because Granddad might decide to do exactly that. She was no happier about him balancing on a ladder than Rosana was about Usher doing it. “He must have shelved something up there. It’s got to be a book or a small item he tucked behind the books. You could phone a few handymen and ask them how tall they are.”
“I can’t just call anybody to do this job. He wants someone who wouldn’t steal what’s there or blab about it.” Granddad leaned forward. “Do you think Gunnar would do it?”
Val stifled a smile. Gunnar was neither thief nor blabbermouth, a strong testimonial from Granddad, who’d been deeply suspicious of him six months ago. She now understood why he’d confided in her. He wanted Gunnar’s help. “I’m sure Gunnar wouldn’t mind, as long as he doesn’t have to do it right away. He’s getting ready for the biggest role he ever had on stage.”
“This won’t take long. Find out if he can spare some time tomorrow morning around nine thirty. That’s when Rick’s expecting me back. He said the other three in the house would be busy then. He’ll let me in the side door to the study. I’ll take Gunnar in with me.”
She would text Gunnar to phone her when his rehearsal ended tonight. “If he’s willing to do it, I’ll tell him to meet you here at nine. He may ask me a lot of questions. I’ll have to explain how you know Rick Usher.”
“Okay, but he’s not allowed to tell anyone else.” Granddad yawned and glanced with longing at his comfortable chair in the sitting room.
Val was on a roll getting answers from him and didn’t want him falling asleep yet. “Let’s go to the kitchen and eat some brownies.” An offer he couldn’t refuse.
She waited until they were seated at the kitchen table with the tea and brownies in front of them before tossing more questions at him. “You came up with a way to help Usher find something he lost. Who’s the person he lost and wants you to locate?”
“His son.” Granddad bit into a brownie.
She was surprised Granddad had answered her question. Did he want her help with locating the son? “Wait a minute. I thought you said he had one child, a daughter who died.”
“She was his only child with Rosana. The son was from another relationship.” Granddad sipped his tea. “I told Rick I could get on his computer and look up his son on the Internet. I just needed a name and a birth date. He said his computer wasn’t connected to the Internet. He uses it only for writing. He also wasn’t sure of the son’s last name or birthday.”
Val nearly choked on her brownie. She swallowed some tea to wash it down. “Did he explain why he didn’t know his son’s name or birthday?”
“He had no chance. Rosana interrupted us.”
“Maybe the boy was put up for adoption.” If so, it wouldn’t be easy to locate him. “How did Rosana react when she saw you with Usher?”
“Surprised, but she treated me like an honored guest. Rick said that he’d waylaid me and that we’d had a great time talking about the fifties and sixties. The next thing I know, we’re all sitting around eating canned soup and crackers for lunch. No wonder they hired you to make meals.” Granddad yawned again. “After lunch she handed me off to Clancy.”
“What did you and Clancy do?”
“He gave me some stuff to read about Poe. Then he set me up with earphones so I could listen to a talk Rick gave. I’m supposed to try to sound like him. That’s in case he backs out of his event this weekend. He’s done it before, so I have to prepare to take his place.”
“When are you going to tell Clancy you’re backing out?”
“Not yet. I’m hoping to convince Rick to go. Then I’ll get paid for my work this week. I can’t ask for my pay if I refuse to go.” Granddad ate the last of his brownie.
“I wonder why he’s trying to find his son after so many years.”
“Like I said, he’s fixin’ to die.”
“But not by his own hand. He wouldn’t locate his son and then commit suicide. Only a monster would inflict that kind of pain on a young man. Rick Usher doesn’t sound like a monster. He wants to set things right. He feels guilty, possibly because he didn’t reach out sooner to his son. Now he hopes to make up for that somehow.”
Granddad finished his tea. “He might want to change his will and provide for his son. He asked me to find a lawyer who’d take care of business for him over the phone, so he doesn’t have to go to a law office. He didn’t tell me why he wanted a lawyer. I talked to your lawyer friend, Althea. She’d need a face-to-face meeting and a picture ID for anything related to a legal document.”
“I’ll bet every other lawyer would say the same thing.”
“She makes house and hospital calls for clients who can’t make it to her office. That won’t work for Rick since he doesn’t want his wife to know what he’s doing. Maybe I can spring him loose.”
Bad idea. “Don’t get in the middle of anything to do with his will, Granddad. That man is worth a lot of money. If he designates a new heir, someone’s getting a smaller piece of the pie and won’t be happy about it.”
Granddad shrugged. “He can do what he wants with his money.”
Val foresaw trouble. “Suppose his current heirs get wind of the plan? They can’t try to stop him without making him angry. They wouldn’t want to do that to the man who’s leaving them money.” She pointed her teaspoon at Granddad. “Instead, they’ll prevent you from springing him loose, whatever it takes.”
Granddad glowered at her. “Again, you’re trying to protect me from a threat that’s all in your head. You’re always jumping to conclusions, and you’ve been wrong before.” He stood up. “I’m going to turn in. It’s been a long day.”
She couldn’t reason with him when he was tired and grouchy. Even if he were rested, she would face an uphill battle. Now that he had a personal relationship with Rick Usher, she’d have a hard time convincing him to stay away from the author and his house.
Chapter 17
Val returned to the study and drafted the survey about the café’s evening menu. It was nine thirty by the time she e-mailed it to the printer. He’d promised a quick turnaround for a job request that came by early morning. When he arrived at work tomorrow, he would have both the survey and the flyer she’d sent earlier.
She texted Gunnar to call her when his rehearsal ended. Then she skimmed Emmett’s notes about Rick Usher’s speaking engagements. The author had given lectures on Poe, conducted workshops on creative writing, and delivered keynote addresses at conferences over several decades, but none after he moved to the Eastern Shore. In case Emmett hadn’t gotten around to recording the author’s more recent appearances, she checked online references to Rick Usher for the last seven years. She found announcements of forthcoming books, fanfare about their publication, and reviews, but nothing about speaking engagements.
Speculati
ons about Usher’s health popped up occasionally over those years. They became more frequent and went viral last summer. In quick succession, various fan sites reported not only that Usher was gravely ill but also that someone else was writing the books under his name. Though denied by an unnamed spokesperson for the Usher family, those speculations continued. They petered out in November when announcements appeared about Usher’s upcoming book signings.
Quelling those rumors might have been the reason the Ushers scheduled events and hired a stand-in for the author. Why had the rumors gained more traction six months ago than they previously had? A concerted campaign could have revived old speculations about Usher. Val combed through the online reports of his poor health but couldn’t trace them to any one source.
Her phone rang. Gunnar greeted her when she answered.
“Hi, Gunnar. How did your rehearsal go?”
“Not as well as I’d like.”
Val heard the dejection in his voice. Here was his first chance to show what he could do with a big part, and the threat of arrest dragged him down. “You’ll do better tomorrow.” Unless Holtzman harassed him again.
“Did you ask me to call so you could cheer me up?”
“Of course, and for other reasons. A few months ago, you mentioned a computer forensics expert you got to know when you were tracing laundered money. I’d like to find the source of information that was repeated on various Web sites. Maybe your friend can help.” She explained her suspicion that the widespread rumors about Usher’s health might have come from a single source.
“E-mail me the search terms you used to locate the sites where the rumors appeared. My friend can take it from there.”
“Thank you. Granddad has a request too.”
“I can’t pass up a chance to improve my standing with your grandfather.”
The Tell-Tale Tarte Page 14
