Dying to Get Published

by Judy Fitzwater

  Chapter 30

  Sam, love his heart, brought Thai peanut noodles in cute, little Chinese takeout boxes for supper. They ate curled up on the sofa, he with chopsticks, she with a fork and knife. He was obviously tired, having worked all afternoon after driving back from Atlanta.

  Jennifer felt more relaxed than she had in days. If only this were last Friday night. If only… She was playing that stupid head game again. It was time to play that other game her mother had taught her. At least Sam believed she was innocent. At least Mrs. Walker and her O'Hara's Tara Irregulars were doing all they could for her. At least her critique group was a hundred percent behind—

  "You in there?" Sam asked.

  "Unfortunately, yes. I haven't been able to figure out how Monique's heroines slip through those little blips in time to alternate universes."

  "Am I supposed to understand what you're talking about?"

  "I'd be concerned about you if you did." She stood and reached for Sam's empty carton. "Let me take that."

  He caught her hand in midair. "How are you holding up?"

  Jennifer shrugged. Should she tell him? Tell him how frightened she really was? How she was worried that Jaimie, who was destined to be another Albert Einstein or Mother Teresa depending on that pesky gender issue, was most likely never going to be born to discover the true physical and spiritual nature of the universe? Tell him how Maxie Malone's courage never wavered and how she could put together a set of completely unrelated clues and come up with the solution to any perfect crime? And how she couldn't solve more than half of those one-minute mysteries her fellow mystery writers were so keen on writing?

  "I'm okay," she fudged.

  He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. "That's a lie, but I'll play along if you want me to."

  "I want you to." She sank back down to the couch, wishing everything would just go away. He pulled her close to him, her chin resting against his throat.

  "Ouch! What the heck—"

  "Sorry. Earrings." Jennifer pulled the oversized hoops from her ears, threw them on the coffee table, and settled her cheek back down into the crook of Sam's neck.

  This was nice. She could get used to it. She could be content to stay here forever, ignoring the world, ignoring the very real possibility that if Sam were the one she'd been waiting for, she'd waited a little too long.

  And there was that nagging voice again, a little person's voice complaining loudly in her heart that if Mommy didn't get off her duff and clear her name, he or she was fated to oblivion.

  Jennifer sat up.

  "What's the matter?" Sam asked.

  "We need to know what Browning was doing those Friday nights at Richmond's apartment."

  "What comes naturally?" Sam suggested.

  Jennifer shook her head. "You heard what Mr. Staunton told Jessie. He might be old, but he seems to remember sufficiently well what constitutes a romance to know that Penney and Kyle were having none of it. Staunton certainly knew what to do with Jessie. Besides, there is no way a man like Browning could find that Richmond woman attractive." Nor could any other man who wasn't deaf and half blind and not a fan of fairy-tale witches, she added to herself, fully aware she might be just a tad prejudiced against ol' Penney.

  "Browning must have had a manuscript," Jennifer continued. "Not the one I showed you that I took from his office, but another, publishable work."

  "So he buckled down and wrote it."

  "I don't think so. The rejection letter from Richmond's agency was dated only a year ago, and Browning's been dead about four months. He had a lot to learn to put together a decent book in that time. I don't think he could do it. As fast as I write, I've never been able to complete a first draft in less than five, and then there are the revisions. Remember, the man had no concept of the form."

  "So you think Richmond was helping him with a manuscript?"

  "Possibly. She could have made really big bucks off a successful Browning book. He was nationally known and that scandal with the hurricane was a journalist's field day. But that still doesn't tell us where the manuscript came from. Richmond could help polish, but I hardly think she would have written it for him. We don't even know if she could write."

  "You think he used a ghost writer?"

  "Most likely."

  "Do you have any idea who?"

  "All I know for sure is two people were having private meetings and both of them are dead."

  A thump sounded on the door, followed by two more.

  A shot of adrenaline sped through Jennifer's body.

  Muffy's barks echoed from the bathroom, and Jennifer could hear the infernal ringing of the bathtub.

  Sam put a finger to his lips and motioned for her to go to the door.

  She peered through the peephole, Sam at her shoulder. Edith Warfield's face stared back at her. What the heck was Edith doing at her door?

  Sam strained past Jennifer to get a look.

  With a great push that sent Sam in the direction of the coffee table, Jennifer frantically motioned toward the empty cartons. Sam scooped up the remains of their dinner and headed to the back of the apartment. She opened the door a crack. "Yes?"

  "Jennifer, I need to speak to you."

  "What about?"

  "Nothing I can talk about in the hallway. Please. Let me come in."

  Sam had made it to the bedroom. Jennifer heard the faint click of the latch as she swung wide the door. She gestured toward the sofa, and Edith took up residence where Sam had so recently been sitting. If she sensed any lingering scent from his aftershave, she seemed too preoccupied to notice. She sat there with her coat on, clutching her purse in her lap.

  "You seem like a nice girl. I don't know what you've got yourself involved with, but I felt it was my duty to warn you. The police called us in yesterday morning—Steve, John and myself. They asked all kinds of questions about you, your qualifications, how you got the job… They seem to think that your coming to work at Channel 14 last week might somehow be connected to the death of that poor woman in Atlanta." Edith shuddered.

  "And what did you tell them?"

  "Not much. Steve said he'd met you at a party you catered, John's wedding actually, and that he offered you a job doing the food for the party celebrating the sale of his book. Is that true? Were you at that party?"

  Jennifer shoved an imaginary tray in the other woman's direction. "Canapé?"

  "Oh, Lord, that was you, wasn't it?"

  Jennifer nodded. "That's how I make my money."

  "It's just that with Steve, one never knows."

  Oh, great. Edith probably thought he'd picked her up on Hooker Avenue. And she had just started to like Edith, too.

  "I read about your arrest in the paper, and about the fact that you're a mystery writer. I suppose the dead woman was your agent."

  A cynical smile settled in the corner of Jennifer's mouth. "No. As a matter of fact, I'd never met her."

  "Goodness. And yet the police…" Edith pulled a tissue from her purse and ran it over her face.

  "What is it I can do for you?" Jennifer asked.

  "Could you get me a glass of water?"

  That wasn't exactly the answer Jennifer had in mind. But it seemed like the least she could do for a woman who had come all the way from wherever the heck it was she'd come from to tell her whatever the heck it was she was there to say.

  Jennifer slipped into the kitchen and filled a glass with ice and tap water. She brought it back to Edith, who gulped it appreciatively.

  "Thanks. It hasn't been that long since Kyle…" Edith cleared her throat. "You'll have to excuse me. It seems that tragedy is hitting too close to home these days." Edith stared at her solemnly. "I'm sure you're wondering why I'm here. It's Steve. I'm worried about him."

  Worried? About Moore? Did people worry about the Steve Moores of this world?

  "Oh, I know you probably think he's a wretched man the way he chases after attractive young women like yourself."

  Wretched was o
ne term. Jennifer had others.

  "But there's more to the man than… his preoccupation with the physical."

  Sex. The word was sex. Jennifer didn't mind that Edith was talking in the abstract as long as she wasn't expected to comment using the same genteel language. The man was a lech, plain and simple. She'd been too busy keeping him at arm's length to consider any other aspects of his personality.

  "He and Kyle were close. Kyle's suicide hit him hard. Neither had any real family to speak of, no one to care, no one to turn to. It's just that I'm afraid now that Steve's agent is dead and at a time when things seemed to be going so well for him at last… You see, he's had several bouts with depression, clinical depression. He's been hospitalized twice. I think maybe that's why he's like he is."

  Edith paused to again clear her throat. She seemed actually choked up over Mr. Sleaze.

  "What is it you want from me?" Jennifer asked.

  "Steve likes you."

  Jennifer made a face. She couldn't help it. Honest.

  "No, I mean he genuinely likes you, not only in the way you're thinking. He needs a friend right now. I… I'm afraid of what he might do to himself. And there is no one."

  "How about you?" Jennifer asked. She wasn't about to go into the lion's den alone if she could help it.

  Edith shook her head slowly. "He asked me to come here. He wants to see you Friday night at his house, at ten o'clock. We don't want another tragedy. And don't worry, he won't hurt you. I promise you that. You won't have to stay long."

  Edith rose to go. "I need your word that you'll be there."

  And Jennifer needed a bodyguard.

  "Could you live with yourself if you denied him this one meeting? I've known Steve for years. I wouldn't ask you to go if I weren't confident that you'll be safe."

  Edith was convincing. Maybe Jennifer could stop by for a few minutes. Tell ol' Steve to hang in there. And get the heck out of there.

  "Will you come?" Edith pressed.

  Jennifer nodded.

  Edith let out the breath she'd been holding. "Thank you. You've been a tremendous help. And as for your problems over this Richmond woman's death, if there's anything I can do…"

  "Thanks," Jennifer told her, walking her to the door. "I'll remember that."

  She'd barely closed the door and locked it when she found Sam standing behind her.

  "What was—"

  Jennifer shushed him, as she watched Edith disappear out of the view of the peephole.

  She turned back to Sam, a puzzled look on her face. "I don't know. She wants me to see Steve Moore."

  "What for?"

  "That's the part I don't understand. She seems to think he may be suicidal."

  "That oily… He's no more suicidal than Kyle Browning. When does she want you to go?"

  "Friday night. Ten o'clock. His house."

  "Where we catered his book party."

  "Right."

  "Okay. I can make that."

  "You?"

  "You go in; I'll stay in the car. I'll give you, say, fifteen minutes. Any more than that and I'm at the creep's door. Besides, you could learn a lot in fifteen minutes."

  About things she'd rather not know. But if Steve Moore was looking toward her as a confidante, she could hardly pass up the opportunity. The police had far too much evidence against her, and she had far too little to steer them in another direction.

  Sam took her hand and drew her back to the couch. "Let's see if we can't remember where we were before we were interrupted." He pulled Jennifer to him.

  She tried to relax. Really, she did. But an uneasy feeling had broken the mood. What did Steve Moore want with her?