Double Booked for Death

by Ali Brandon

  Jake gave him a friendly punch in the shoulder, though a smiling Darla wasn’t sure if it was for the “hot broad” comment or the pajama party reference. Once she returned with glassware and the surprisingly good champagne had been poured, Darla offered up a little toast toward the ceiling.

  “To Valerie.”

  “To Valerie,” her friends echoed and raised their glasses, as well.

  “I guess she wasn’t quite the witch she pretended to be,” Darla observed after they’d settled on the horsehair sofa, displacing a miffed Hamlet in the process. “But the way she treated Mavis at the autographing . . .”

  “Pretty much an act,” Reese said. “Morris and I had another informal chat after you two left. Apparently, the whole Valerie-as-diva thing was a put-on. They figured it was best to have the public Valerie Baylor be something of a bitch. That way, if a fan or an interviewer asked her a question about the books that she couldn’t answer, she could blow them off, and people would figure that’s just how she was. It also helped protect Mavis. They were afraid if the two of them got too chatty together, it would call attention to her, er, him. And that was what Morris was trying to avoid from the start. Social anxiety disorder is what he said it’s called.”

  “Jeez, you’d think the guy was rich enough to afford counseling, or at least a bottle of antidepressants,” Jake broke in.

  Darla gave her friend a disapproving glance. “It’s not always that easy. I once worked with a woman who refused to go out to lunch with the rest of the department. We all thought she was a snob. Then one day she told me she just was afraid to eat in front of anyone, couldn’t swallow a bite if anyone was looking at her. I’m sure Morris does the best he can.”

  Jake appeared unconvinced, but she dropped the subject of the author’s brother for the equally confusing motivation surrounding Hillary.

  “Her, I don’t get, either,” she said of the agent. “Wasn’t killing off Valerie basically killing off her golden goose?”

  “Not necessarily,” Darla answered. “If Valerie’s death really had been an accident—or if Morris had thought it was—Hillary could have cut a deal with Morris directly. They could have said that Valerie had a couple of finished manuscripts sitting around and then put them out posthumously under her name. And once everyone got used to her being dead, Morris could have officially been authorized by the estate to keep writing under her name. It’s been done with a lot of authors before.”

  Then another thought occurred to her, and she sat up straight in her seat.

  “Lizzie’s manuscript!” she exclaimed, drawing looks of surprise from the other two. “Jake, remember in the basement how Hillary claimed that Valerie had stolen other authors’ books, and that she couldn’t even write a shopping list? It sounded like maybe other people had the same thing happen to them that Lizzie said had happened to her. So Lizzie probably was in the right, even though she tried proving it the wrong way.”

  “You think?” Jake said with a snort. Then, turning serious again, she said, “But I still don’t understand why Hillary hated Valerie so much. The way she was carrying on, it sounded like something personal between them.”

  She turned to Reese, who shrugged and said, “That’ll probably come out in the trial. I can make a couple of guesses, but that’s all they’d be. It’s not like a cop show on television, where the perp spills her guts as soon as she’s arrested. You should know that better than anyone, Martelli.”

  “Yeah, so I like my murders tied up in nice red ribbons. So sue me.”

  Darla gave her friend a commiserating look. She liked things tied up in nice red ribbons, too. She’d also read somewhere that greed was the number one motive for murder, closely followed by fear and jealousy and rage. All of them seemed likely reasons for the agent to have snapped. But perhaps it was something even more basic. Maybe Hillary, suffering from paranoia because of her drug use, had felt betrayed on a personal level when she learned Valerie was not who she had claimed to be and had felt compelled somehow to punish the woman.

  Before Darla could ask what would happen to Hillary next, an ear-searing yowl from Hamlet made her jostle her champagne. She turned to see the cat sitting on the chair in front of her laptop, pawing at the screen. Alarmed, Darla rushed over to see what had caught his attention. The screen was displaying the interior of her store, along with a dark figure as it slid through the shadows past the cash register and then disappeared somewhere near the locked case of collectible fiction.

  “Jake, Reese, come quick,” Darla called, barely able to keep the panic from her voice. “Someone’s in the bookstore again!”

  Her cry was unnecessary, for the pair had already rushed up behind her. With no more movement to trigger it, however, the single channel view already had subsided back into the usual six-segment display.

  “What did you see, and where?” Reese demanded, leaning in closer.

  Darla pointed, leaving a champagne fingerprint on the screen. “There. Whoever it was went behind that shelf.”

  “Can you switch views and show that part of the store?”

  Darla shook her head in frustration. “That’s one of the blind spots Ted told me about. None of the cameras catch it.”

  “What about sound?” Jake prompted. “Didn’t he set up some audio, too?”

  “You’re right, I forgot.”

  Fingers shaking, Darla pulled up the on-screen menu and found the audio option. Turning up her computer’s speakers, she could hear the hiss of an open microphone . . . and then, the soft sound of stealthy footsteps. Then came a sharp thud, which Darla recognized as a book hitting the floor. That noise was followed by what sounded like a gasp and a small voice saying, “Oh my gracious!”

  Darla felt her mouth drop open. She turned to gaze at Jake, who appeared equally astounded. As one, they chorused, “Mary Ann?”

  “Mary Ann?” Reese echoed with a frown. “You mean Ms. Plinski, the nice little old lady I met at the autographing, looks like everyone’s granny?”

  “That’s her,” Darla choked out, dragging her gaze back to the monitor.

  She saw another flicker of movement, and the channel that caught it abruptly blew up to a full-size screen. Now, Darla spied a small figure dressed in what appeared to be one of those baggy tracksuits popular among the over-seventy set. The figure turned in profile, and she made out the distinctive silhouette of hair styled into a neat bun. Definitely Mary Ann.

  “Guess she didn’t get the memo about Darla’s new security system,” Jake said with a wry shake of her head, leaning in for a closer look. “But what the hell is she doing?”

  “She’s looking for something,” Darla replied. Indeed, she could see now a tiny beam of light emanating from the miniature flashlight that the old woman held in one hand. “But why is she sneaking around in the middle of the night when she could just ask me for whatever it is she needs?”

  “What I want to know is how she got into your store without tripping the alarm,” Reese answered. Then, sighing, he added, “Hell, guess I’d better go down and arrest her.”

  “Oh, no, I don’t want to press charges,” Darla exclaimed in horror. “She’s old, and she was Great-Aunt Dee’s friend.”

  “Okay, I won’t arrest her, but I’m going to bring her up here so she can explain why she’s been breaking into your place.” Turning to Jake, he added, “You’ve got the key and the alarm code, right?”

  “Got it,” Jake said. “I guess I’m backup?” At his nod, she gave Darla a commiserating look. “Ma is going to kill me if she ever hears about me arresting a nice little old lady like Mary Ann,” she said in a resigned voice.

  Darla trailed them to the door, but Reese shook his head firmly when she made as if to follow after them. “Old lady or not, a crime is being committed. We’ll be back in a few minutes. You wait here and keep an eye on the monitor.”

  “I will, but only if you swear to me you won’t frighten her,” Darla insisted, clutching his arm. “She’s totally harmless.”

/>   “Yeah? Well, remind me sometime to tell you about the nice, harmless old lady who once about carved out my liver with a spatula when I tried to arrest her grandson.”

  Jake gave Darla a reassuring pat on her shoulder before she followed Reese out the door. Darla closed it after them and then rushed back to the computer. The security video had split back into six smaller eyes again, meaning that Mary Ann had moved out of camera range once more . . . that, or else she had vanished as mysteriously as she had arrived.

  A few seconds later, the screen again switched over to a single-channel view, this time of the store’s side door as it slowly opened. Reese and Jake slipped past it and then carefully closed the door after them.

  Darla stared more closely at the laptop, straining her ears to hear any sound from the store. She saw Reese gesture Jake to move in one direction while he took another. The screen flashed from image to image as they passed each of the downstairs cameras. Then she heard Reese’s voice break through the silence to say, “Ms. Plinski, this is Detective Reese. We know you’re in the store. Stay right where you are. We’re going to turn on the lights.”

  “Oh my gracious!” she heard Mary Ann exclaim again as someone—presumably Jake—flipped on the lights closest to the inside stairway.

  The camera angle changed again as Jake came striding past and headed for the spot behind the shelves where they’d last seen the woman vanish. Darla heard murmured voices, though she couldn’t make out the words. A few moments later, Reese was walking toward the camera. One leather-clad arm supported Mary Ann, whose wrinkled visage reflected both fear and embarrassment. Jake followed after them, stopping to gaze up at the camera and wave in Darla’s direction.

  “We’ve got her,” she called. “Reese is bringing her up. Once they’re out, I’ll hit the lights and lock the store, and then head up myself.”

  Darla kept an eye on the screen, watching as the shop’s bulbs dimmed again. She saw Jake make her way back to the door, which opened and closed again. Then the screen subsided into the usual six-segment view and remained that way.

  She shut down the sound option just as a knock came at the door. She rushed to open it, finding a teary Mary Ann clad in a purple tracksuit, and a rueful-looking Reese. Jake was right behind them, looking equally dismayed.

  “Oh, my dear,” the old woman cried, wringing her hands as Darla ushered her inside, “I am so sorry. Truly, I didn’t mean any harm.”

  “I know that,” Darla assured her as she settled the trembling woman on the horsehair couch. “Here, let me make you a cup of tea, and then you can explain everything.”

  By the time she returned from the kitchen with a pot of boiling water and a teabag in a cup, Mary Ann was looking calmer. She stroked a docile Hamlet, who lay sprawled across her bony knees. The cat shot Darla a reproving glare, as if blaming her for the situation, and then sprang off Mary Ann’s lap to stalk his way over to the window overlooking the street.

  “Thank you, my dear,” the old woman said, her voice stronger now as she accepted the cup and began dunking the teabag. Her glance encompassing all of them, she sighed and said, “I suppose I had better come clean.”

  They waited while she took a sip and then set the cup on the table before her.

  “I’m afraid this is most embarrassing,” she began, once more clutching her hands together. “You see, a few months before Dee passed away, I found myself in something of a financial pickle. Normally, I would have gone to Brother for help, but business had been poor over the past year, and he was in monetary straits of his own. But Dee was—pardon the expression—rolling in dough from all her ex-husbands, so I asked her for a small loan.”

  She reached again for her teacup and took another steadying sip.

  “Of course, I insisted on giving her some collateral. I had a very old book—well, technically, it was Brother’s, too, since it had come from our parents’ estate—which was of some value. And then, silly me, I discovered an old insurance policy that I’d forgotten about. I cashed it in, intending to repay Dee, but she refused to accept the money. She said that I should consider the loan a gift, from one friend to another.”

  “But what’s wrong with that?” Darla asked, confused.

  Mary Ann gave a helpless wave. “Oh, yes, it was kind of her, but what I really wanted was my book back. It was something of a family heirloom, and I knew that Brother would eventually ask what had happened to it. I tried to explain that to her, but you know how stubborn some old folks can be.”

  “Stubborn as some young folks,” Jake said with a smile, earning a grateful nod from the old woman.

  Mary Ann went on to tell how they finally had compromised. Dee would accept half the money she had loaned Mary Ann as payment in full, but she wanted to finish reading the volume before returning it to her friend. Seeing no other recourse—“Really, your great-aunt was quite strong headed about the whole situation”—Mary Ann finally had agreed to her terms. The only problem was that Dee had suffered a stroke and passed away before she’d gotten around to giving it back.

  “And ever since then,” Mary Ann finished with a sigh, “I’ve been trying to find my book.”

  “But how in the world did you get in without setting off the alarm?” Darla wanted to know. “You don’t have a key or the alarm code.”

  Now, the old woman’s expression grew sheepish.

  “I suppose, not being from here, you don’t know much about row houses, do you, Darla?” she asked. “Well, most of the homes on this block were erected around the turn of the last century. Your brownstone, mine, and the apartments on your other side were actually all built at the same time.”

  Darla nodded. She’d known this much from some of the legal papers she had signed when she inherited the place. Her building (and presumably the others around it) dated to about the 1880s.

  “Since the same workers were doing all the construction,” Mary Ann went on, “it didn’t make sense for them to be constantly running out of one house and into the next. So, they very cleverly put in several doors connecting all three houses from the inside. Of course, when they were finished building, the workers bricked up all the connecting doors again, and that was that.”

  “Unless someone opened them back up again,” Reese countered with a slow nod. “Are you trying to say that there is still a door between your place and Darla’s?”

  “I’m afraid so,” the old woman admitted, her cheeks turning pink. “I don’t know if Dee ever mentioned it, but my father used to own both of these buildings. My family lived in the side where Brother and I now live, and my grandparents lived here in Darla’s brownstone. So you can see that it made sense to keep them connected. After my grandparents died, Papa sold your place to someone else, but no one ever got around to bricking up the doorway again.”

  “But I’ve never noticed any extra doors before,” Darla protested. “This hidden one, where is it?”

  “It’s in that little alcove under the stairs on the second floor in your storeroom. The door looks like part of the paneling, and the knob is just a wooden latch, so you wouldn’t even see it unless you knew to look for it.” The old woman paused and gave a small chuckle. “You had stacked several boxes in front of it, so I had a doozie of a time getting through there the first time I tried.”

  “Sorry,” Darla replied with a contrite smile. Then she narrowed her eyes as she recalled yet another incident, and Mary Ann’s reaction to it. “Wait. What about the night I found those books in neat piles in my living room? Was that you in my apartment, too? You’re the one who stacked the books?”

  When Mary Ann gave an abashed nod, she went on, “But I thought you said there was just one door between us. How did you get in?”

  “Why, through the dumbwaiter, of course.”

  When Darla stared at her in astonishment, Mary Ann continued, “Dee and I were both old ladies who liked a visit, but we couldn’t be running up and down two flights of stairs all the time. It’s far too hard on old knees. So I showed her w
hat Brother and I used to do when we were children—we’d ride up and down the dumbwaiter. How else do you think your aunt made her way down to the store and back every day at her age?

  “Oh, perhaps it’s not perfectly safe,” the old woman admitted as Darla continued to gape. “Nothing fun these days is! But it is rather thrilling. And I did insist that she always carry a cell phone with her in case something went wrong and she got stuck. But I promise you, I will never do it again . . . at least, not on your side of the house.”

  Jake was grinning outright by now. Reese was attempting a stern look but failing miserably at it. As for Darla, she took another swig of champagne. Really, this was all a bit much for one night!

  “All right, Mary Ann,” she replied, raising her hands in surrender, “you’ve explained everything, except why in the heck you just didn’t tell me about the book! I would have been happy to let you search as much as you wanted until you found it.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t have done that,” she protested, her pink cheeks now turning bright red.

  Darla frowned. “Why not?”

  “Well, my dear, I am mortified to admit it, but this is not just any book. It’s filled with etchings of, er, people in the altogether, doing terribly naughty things.”

  “You mean, Victorian porn?” Jake broke in with a terribly naughty whoop of her own.

  Darla burst into laughter and leaped off the sofa. “Wait right here, Mary Ann. I think I can solve this problem for you.”

  So saying, she headed to her bedroom, returning a few moments later carrying a small cardboard box, which she handed to the old woman. “Is this what you’re looking for?”

  Veined hands trembling, Mary Ann pulled off the lid and then gasped. “Oh, my dear, this is it,” she cried, pulling book from box and clutching it to her like a favored child. “Wherever did you find it?”

  “In the most obvious place of all—Great-Aunt Dee’s bedside table. I must admit, I was a bit shocked when I found it. I knew she was eccentric, but this was bit too—”