by Sara Rosett
And then there was the question of why? Why would someone be desperate enough to commit murder? I turned off the car. I couldn’t answer either question, and I needed more than speculation before I went to Quimby.
Doug took one look at me and shook his head in wordless sympathy. “You’ll be safe here. No need to worry.”
I hadn’t given him any details when I called. I only told him we’d had a change of plan and asked if he had a spare room available. “Already? Really? How can you know what happened?” I asked. “That has to be a record, even for Nether Woodsmoor, if you know about the gas leak that fast.”
“Constable Albertson’s wife knows Marie’s aunt, who mentioned it to Marie, who mentioned it to me,” he said with a grin.
Some things—like village gossip spreading faster than a virus—never changed. I followed Doug, who had insisted on carrying the suitcases, upstairs to the room. As he left, I glanced around the antique furniture and chintz, feeling steadier in the familiar surroundings. I didn’t bother to unpack, only checked that I had the keys to Cart Cottage and my phone, then went back downstairs again.
“Kate,” Doug called as I crossed the entry area. “Almost forgot to give this to you.”
He removed a large mailing envelope from the shelves behind the reception desk and handed it to me.
“What’s this?” I didn’t recognize the handwriting. “I didn’t know you were the post now.” My name was scrawled across the front, but there was no address under it. The return address area was also blank.
“Neither did I. A young woman blew in this morning and asked if I could see that you got it. Said it was important—extremely important.” Doug imitated the last two words, pronouncing them in an American accent. “I told her you were on your way here. If she stuck around she could give it to you herself, but she didn’t want to do that.”
“Long dark hair?” I ran my finger along the envelope’s seam. “Sort of dramatic?”
Doug opened a drawer and handed me a pair of scissors. “That was her. She left in a taxi.”
I cut the envelope open and found a composition notebook inside. On the square in the center of the black-and-white marbled cover, a faded handwritten line read, 1985. The edges were worn, and a large section of the marbled cover was missing on one upper corner, leaving the cardboard backing showing through in a diagonal shape.
A piece of paper stuck out of the top, so I opened the notebook to it. The thin napkin was similar to the one I’d used in the pub to jot down our questions. The ink from the pen had bled at some points, but it was readable.
Kate,
This diary belonged to Nick’s mother, and he said it was worth a lot. Once I knew he’d lied to me about where he was traveling, I took it from his apartment. He thought I didn’t know where he kept it, but under the mattress is like the worst hiding place ever! Since he’d never let me look at it, I wanted to see what the big deal was. Nothing! Just a bunch of boring stuff about traveling around. I kept reading, thinking that I’d find the part that made it valuable, but—like I said—there’s nothing there. I suppose I should give it to the police, but now that they’ve said I can leave, I’m not taking any chances. (I can finally get out of this horrible, wet place.) You can give it to them for me! And if they don’t want it (and why would they?) you can give it to your mom. You said she was into all the family history stuff, so she might like it.
—Fern
CHAPTER 23
I tucked the note into the front of the composition notebook and flipped through the pages. Dates headed the entries, beginning with January first. The handwriting was easy to read. I skimmed a few paragraphs describing a city and a hotel. Other entries recounted conversations. A few doodles in the margin caught my eye. One captured the soaring clock tower of Big Ben in a few strokes while another showed two young men laughing over pints.
The phone on the reception desk rang, drawing me back to the present. I tucked the diary into the outer pocket at the back of my purse. I now understood that the diary was what caused Fern to give off her I’ve-got-a-secret vibe when I spoke to her at the top of the hill. She must have still been trying to figure out if it was valuable when I’d spoken to her. I was irritated that she’d dumped the diary on me. I’d have to call Quimby, but before I did that, I would run by Parkview.
I checked the time. The estate office at Parkview didn’t open until nine, so I had plenty of time to check on Mom first. While I was waiting, I’d check out the diary.
“Of course, I’m here.” Mom peered through the gap between her door and the doorframe. “Where else would I be with that inspector insisting I cancel my sightseeing trip?” The door inched open, and I could see she was wearing a robe with a blue paisley design. “Do you think I can get them—the police—to reimburse me for the day tour?”
“I doubt it. Do you want to have breakfast?”
“Now? It’s barely eight.”
“And if you were on your tour, you’d already be halfway to London, I bet.”
One corner of her mouth turned up. “You’re right. Give me a few minutes. I’ll meet you in the conservatory. Order me a spinach-and-mushroom omelet.”
It was a nice morning and the other guests were on the terrace, so the airy room was quiet. I ordered two omelets and fruit, then called Quimby. I left him a message about the diary. Albertson had said Quimby had been informed about the gas leak, so I didn’t mention that. I also didn’t say anything about my inkling about who killed Nick. I couldn’t take an inkling to the inspector.
I took out the diary and skimmed it as I waited for breakfast. Many of the first entries were only the name of a city, usually somewhere in England, and a few lines, something like “small crowd, but into it,” or “wasn’t worth the time.”
By spring, the numbers listed with each city were growing and the notation “sold out,” appeared more and more. Then in the summer, one entry caught my eye. The writing was harder to read as if it had been scrawled quickly.
Tom finally believes me. I’ve known for months that Mike has been taking quite a lot off the top for himself, but Tom refused to believe it until he saw the actual merchandise receipts from the gig in York. Tom was furious of course, and rightly so. At last! Getting the actual receipts without Mike knowing was a headache, but if Tom finally understands what Mike has been up to, then it will be worth all the trouble. Now, at least Tom knows what we’re dealing with.
I glanced over the entries that listed only locations and numbers. Interspersed with these numeric entries were a few long summaries of conversations—heated arguments, it sounded like, between Tom and Mike. A longer entry in August caught my eye.
It’s done. We’re done. It’s over! Tom finally had it out with Mike last night. I’m so happy I could dance around the room—and I did, but not when Tom could see me. I understand how worried he is about going out on his own, but I know he’ll do great.
Mike denied everything. Of course. I knew he would, but Tom had documents—well, I had documents. Mike couldn’t talk his way out of it this time. Tom told Mike he won’t go public—because of Helena—but that The Zeros were done. Tom is scared to death of course, worried that he won’t be able to compose on his own, but I know he can do it. The tour is over. They’ve fulfilled the contract. Nothing ties them together anymore, thank goodness. I know it will—
“That’s quite a good sketch of Town Hall in Manchester,” the waitress said as she refilled my orange juice.
I’d been so caught up in the diary entry that I hadn’t paid any attention to the sketch in the margin on the opposite page. Now I looked closely and saw that it wasn’t Big Ben as I’d first thought. The clock tower did resemble the famous London landmark, but instead of an almost free-standing clock tower, this sketch showed a clock tower that rose from an ornate Victorian building.
“Here I am.” Mom hooked her black umbrella over the back of her chair. The waitress returned with our omelets and coffee for Mom.
I closed the dia
ry and put it on the corner of the table.
“Why are you up so early?” Mom glanced around. “And where is Alex? You didn’t have a fight, did you?” She asked her last question in a suspicious tone before she popped a bite of omelet into her mouth.
“No, nothing like that.” My first instinct was to make up some excuse and gloss over what had happened at the cottage. That’s what I usually did. I avoided telling her anything that would cause her to worry, telling myself that she was miles away, and she’d only work herself into a state. But she wasn’t miles away. And she was as involved in the mess around Nick as I was—more involved actually, considering her lunch with Malcolm. I put down my fork. “I don’t want to worry you—especially since everything is okay—but there was a little…um…incident this morning.”
“Kate, you’re scaring me. What happened?”
“There was a gas leak at the cottage.” I recounted the whole thing, explaining about the leak and how someone started a fire in the fireplace. Then I said, “Alex and I decided to move to the inn.”
“Oh, Kate.” She set down her coffee. “This is getting worse and worse. Why didn’t you and Alex come here?”
I was glad to see she didn’t launch immediately into dramatic mode. At her core, Mom is a bit of a showman. Drama is her default setting. If things aren’t thrilling or sensational enough she finds a way to make the situation dramatic. But now that we were facing something truly dire, she’d abandoned her usual theatrical manner. I said, “Parkview is booked.”
She nudged her plate with the barely touched food to the side and leaned forward, elbows on the table. “It’s one thing to have to answer questions from the police and then have them reorganize your schedule, but what happened to you—that’s dangerous. We can’t have that. We have to do something. Oh, I know you and Alex and your father are asking around, but that’s not working. We have to do something else.” She sat up straight. “My first choice is to leave, but I doubt that’s going to happen. How long can it take the police to figure out what happened? Surely they can’t keep us here indefinitely?”
“I think they can.” I hurried on before she could protest again. “I have an idea—it might be completely off, but, well…it’s all I have at this point. I don’t see how it all fits together, but…here, take a look at this.”
I handed her the diary, and she sent me a half-indulgent frown. “I don’t think this is the time to read your old journals. How did you get this here? I thought all these were boxed up at the condo.” She ran her hand over the diagonal section of exposed cardboard on the top corner.
“Mom, it’s from 1985. Way before my time.”
She focused on the inscription on the cover. “Oh. Then whose is it?”
“It belonged to Nick’s mom. Take a look.”
She removed a pair of glasses from her fanny pack-slash-money belt. She skimmed the first pages as I had done, then some text caught her eye, and she read more slowly. By the time the waitress removed our plates, Mom barely noticed as she turned the pages. She suddenly flipped to the front of the book and stared at the name on the inside of the cover. All I could make out from across the table was the capital R at the beginning of the name. “Rebecca…?” she murmured as she removed her glasses then her eyes widened. She slapped the diary down on the table. “He lied to me.”
“Nick?” I asked.
“Yes. He told me he wasn’t related to that Davis family. He even said his mom’s name wasn’t Rebecca.”
“I’m not surprised. He lied to everyone.”
“But the first time we met, I specifically asked him if his mother’s name was Rebecca.” She punched her glasses at me as she emphasized her words. “Tom Davis is such a common name, so that’s why I asked about Rebecca. He flat-out lied to me.”
“Well, if he didn’t know you, I can almost see why he’d do it. You did say his dad’s music was pretty popular.”
“Oh, yes. The Edge of Zero songs—Fatal Memory and Sure Feeling and Random Hello—”
“Okay, I get it. They were popular.”
“Still are. I hear their music all the time—piped in at the coffee shop and the grocery store, that sort of thing.”
“Maybe he didn’t want to deal with the notoriety if he told you he was related to the singer.”
Mom huffed. “I wouldn’t have behaved like a silly fangirl.”
“What happened when he went out on his own? Tom, I mean? I didn’t get that far in the diary.”
“Rebecca wrote about the breakup of The Edge of Zero?” She put her glasses on and picked up the diary. “Where?”
“A little past the middle, I think.”
Mom flipped pages, scanning as she went. “The breakup of the band was a huge deal at the time. Neither Tom nor Mike commented on it publicly, but everyone speculated about it. And the rumors, you wouldn’t believe…”
She must have found the entry I’d been reading earlier because she trailed off into silence as she read down the page then quickly turned to the next entry.
While she read, my own thoughts were churning away. Finally, she looked up. “Mike? Sweet, shy Mike? He was stealing?”
“Looks like it,” I said.
“But that doesn’t sound like him. He was an orphan and seemed so happy to be part of a family—his music family, he called it. Oh, don’t look at me like that. I watched an interview with the two of them, Tom and Mike. The interviewer played up the fact that they were opposites. Tom had a posh upper-class background, and Mike had nothing.”
I wasn’t interested in how the media had emphasized their differences years ago. I was more focused on what the diary meant in the present day. “I think the diary was Nick’s leverage to get money out of Mike.”
“What are you talking about?” She set down the diary and put her glasses on top of it. “I’m sorry. I’m still trying to adjust my mental picture of Mike—he seemed so nice.”
“Maybe Nick didn’t know why the group broke up until he got the diary from his mother’s belongings. The timing fits with what Fern told me—that Nick began to talk about a new source of money after he cleared out his mother’s things. And she said he checked everything—opened every box, read every scrap of paper. Maybe he was looking for something like this.” I reached across the table and tapped the diary. “It fits Nick’s pattern of behavior. He blackmailed you to get into the wedding. Why wouldn’t he blackmail Mike so that the story of why the group broke up would stay a secret? Apparently, Tom didn’t announce why they broke up because he didn’t want to hurt Helena, whoever she was.”
“She was Mike’s wife. Their wedding was a big deal. They got married on an island in the Caribbean with paparazzi buzzing the ceremony in helicopters.”
“So Tom didn’t want to ruin Mike’s career—he had a wife and maybe kids…?”
“No.” Mom shook her head. “No kids. The marriage didn’t last. A few years later they divorced. Again, it was big news. Why did you say Mike with that odd inflection?”
“I think it was a stage name. I think Mike is Malcolm.”
CHAPTER 24
A t Mom’s incredulous look, I said, “What rock star is named Malcolm?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. “You’re right. It’s not a rock-star-type name.”
“No, it’s not. And who else fits? Why was getting into the wedding so important to Nick that he’d blackmail you for an invitation? He must have wanted to speak to Malcolm. Maybe he’d tried to meet him, and Malcolm refused to see him. He turned down Shannon’s offer to introduce him, but maybe that was because he’d already tried to approach Malcolm and been rejected. If Nick came here to Parkview, he could ambush Malcolm at a public event. You’d told him about how the wedding was taking place at this beautiful English country home.”
“But how would Nick even know Malcolm worked at Parkview?”
“A blackmailer would find out everything he possibly could about his target, right? I bet he researched Malcolm online. In fact, I bet that�
�s what the trip to Nether Woodsmoor was about during the summer. Nick was checking things out, seeing what sort of life Malcolm lived.”
“But how would Nick know where Malcolm lived? Or where he worked? If Malcolm used a stage name—and even Rebecca used the name Mike in the journal—then how would Nick know his name was really Malcolm?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But he’s the only one who fits. All Nick’s other encounters that we’ve been tracking down were with women. Malcolm is the only person at Parkview who is the right gender and age to have been part of The Edge of Zero band.” Except for Carl. Were Carl and Malcolm the same age? Malcolm with his sweater vests stretched over his paunch and his disappearing hairline seemed so much older than Carl, who was fit and lean, but pounds aged you. “Wait—the sketch!” I picked up the diary, and Mom caught her glasses as they slid off the cover. I found the page with the drawing of the two men.
“I didn’t see this,” Mom said. “I didn’t get this far. That’s a good likeness of Tom and Mike.”
“Yes, but imagine Mike without that full head of wavy hair. What if he had a lot less hair and it was wiry more than curly?” I put my thumb over the curls. Mom squinted and tilted her head then said in a wondering tone, “It does look like Malcolm. Imagine…Mike here at Parkview. I even danced with him!”
“Don’t get starstruck now,” I said. “I think he’s a murderer.”
Mom glanced around the conservatory, which was still mostly empty. She lowered her voice. “You think Malcolm killed Nick?”
“It makes sense, if you think about it. Nick arrives, tells Malcolm to pay up or he’ll announce the real reason The Edge of Zero band broke up. Nick even has written proof of what happened, his mother’s diary. It sounds like a story that the tabloids would eat up.” I gestured at her. “Look at your reaction to the diary. You couldn’t wait to find out the story behind the band’s breakup. Nick probably saw dollar signs from Malcolm. Or if Malcolm didn’t come through, who knows what the tabloids would pay for exclusive interviews with Nick and the rights to print the diary. He might have even gotten a book deal out of it.”
