Death and the Lit Chick sm-2

by G. M. Malliet

  "A boondoggle, then?"

  "Quite. One of the perks of the job, you see."

  "A bit misleading to the attendees, perhaps? The aspiring authors?"

  Brackett shrugged. "That's their lookout."

  St. Just wondered how much of Tom's good year had to do with Edith's book sales rather than his own. St. Just struggled to keep his usual easygoing expression pasted on his face: The man seemed to roil with an undercurrent of rage and contempt for the world at large. If that rage found a target in anyone who thwarted him, how dangerous could Tom Brackett be?

  "Inspector," said Edith. He turned to her. "If you have no further questions of me I would like to lie down. It has been a trying day."

  The request surprised him but he could see no reason to detain her. Later, he would see her downstairs-not resting, but sketching in a notebook. There was apparently another door into the hallway from their bedroom. He wondered then if her withdrawal was diplomatic-if she suspected he might get further with Tom without her there.

  When the door closed behind her, St. Just turned to the man and said, "Let's go through this one more time."

  "Why?"

  "Because Edith is too close to you"- too afraid of you – "for me to bank on her neutrality as a witness. Besides, you were there most of the time. It's the others who need you to vouch for them."

  To this there was no reply. Brackett looked away, but his cross expression plainly said keeping the others out of trouble was a very low priority with him.

  "Can you verify what Edith said about her own movements?"

  Tom lit a cigarette in the nonsmoking room, taking his time about it, the rasp of the strike wheel of his disposable lighter puncturing the quiet. Finally, he said, "Edith fetched drinks, maybe twice, maybe three times."

  "Three? That's not what was said earlier."

  A shrug. "I don't remember, I told you. I'd had a few drinks. I wasn't watching the clock."

  "And the men?"

  "Winston went to the john a couple times. Or at least he said that's where he was going. That King jackass went to his room and to the john. I'm not sure about Quentin."

  "When did you first meet Kimberlee?"

  "We've been over this. I didn't know the woman."

  "You lived in London at one point in your life, did you not?"

  Finally. Brackett's consternation at St. Just's easy knowledge of his past had at last wiped the irritable expression from his face, replacing it with a look of wariness. What else might the police know?

  "When was this?" St. Just pressed home the advantage.

  "You tell me," said Brackett. "You know everything."

  St. Just lost his temper, a luxury he rarely allowed himself with a suspect. He moved a menacing step closer to Brackett's chair. As usual with bullies, Tom, surprised, simmered down immediately.

  "This is how it works. I ask the questions. You answer them. When did you live in London?"

  "In the late eighties."

  "Why?"

  "I worked for the CIA in those days. And our pals at MI6."

  "Where did you live?"

  "I had a flat just off Sloane Square."

  "Nice. I didn't know government work paid that well."

  "I was high up the ladder." Another shrug, elaborately casual this time. His eyes held a glint of triumph, and of warning, as if to imply there were still strings he might pull from those days, if he chose. "Also, I had started writing by then. The job bored me. For something to do I began writing. The advance on my first novel helped pay the rent."

  "Were you published by Deadly Dagger Press then?"

  "No. Dagger acquired my house in a merger. They kept me on, naturally."

  "You always wrote thrillers?"

  "Yes. 'Write what you know' is the accepted wisdom. What I knew about was spies. So I did-write about them."

  "What did you do before and after you lived in London?"

  "A lot of that is classified, but it's nothing to do with this situation, anyway."

  St. Just's fists came crashing down on both arms of Tom's chair, effectively pinning him in. He bent down until his face was just inches away. "Quit screwing with me. I'll find out eventually but it would be better to hear it from you."

  Tom turned his head, sparing St. Just the strong smell of cigarette fumes. An exaggerated sigh, now-the sigh of an adult indulging a particularly fractious child.

  "From London I went to Russia," Tom muttered. "From Russia I went to the U.S. I met Edith. I worked. I retired."

  St. Just stepped back, releasing him.

  "That's much more the kind of cooperative spirit I was hoping for," he said. "Now, do you have much contact with other writers?"

  "Not if I can help it. The usual tours and signings. I go out to meet my fans, not other authors. What would the point be of that?"

  "So you don't normally come to conferences. Why come to this one?"

  Brackett seemed to realize the contradiction. He paused to blow a smoke ring, looking like a man trying to remember where he'd mislaid his keys.

  "It's lonely work, writing. Besides, I told you, Easterbrook was paying."

  "How often did you speak with Kimberlee here at the castle?"

  Another pull on the cigarette.

  "That first night at dinner. Maybe I congratulated her on her upcoming award."

  St. Just talked with the man a further twenty minutes, and managed to wrench no more from him than a reiteration of how the murder had nothing to do with him. St. Just, fuming, went downstairs, which was where he found Edith busy with her sketching. She seemed to be an exceptional artist in addition to her other gifts; he hadn't realized that she probably illustrated her own books. He watched as a gentle, comic illustration of field mice emerged from her pencil, and felt a small twinge of envy. He had enough experience of the difficulty of drawing well to know talent when he saw it. He told her this, and once again watched the flush of pleasure beautify her transparent skin like a sunrise.

  "It's safe to go back up," he told her. "I think. Mrs. Brackett-Edith-if there is anything you feel you need to tell me, or if the police can help you in any way-"

  But she cut him off. "He'll be needing me. I have to get back to him," she said, quickly gathering her things. Worried, he followed her back up slowly, heading for the incident room. He passed the Brackett's door again on the way.

  "And just what the fuck did you think you were doing?" he heard Tom say, before she could safely shut the door.

  Now there, thought St. Just, was a man who lived in a world of paranoia and distrust. Did belonging to the CIA do that to one, St. Just wondered? Or were you paranoid to start with, to want to join?

  He sat in the currently empty incident room, rifled through some of the new reports that had come in, and fought down his frustration. He was operating at a disadvantage. These people were separated from their homes and daily lives, thrust against the foreign, outlandish backdrop of a Scottish castle. Thrust into a murder investigation in a Scottish castle.

  The clothes on their backs and in their suitcases, and the few personal items they had brought with them, were all he had to go on for clues to their personalities. That, and the potted biographies on their book jackets.

  How much truth, and how much advertising, might have gone into those? They might be the fabricated product of some fevered brain in the publisher's marketing department, for all he knew.

  And he was working at another disadvantage: His instinctive avoidance of Kimberlee Kalder meant he had to rely largely on second-hand accounts of her from people he barely knew.

  He reached across the desk for a phone. His first call was to Sergeant Fear, his usual aide de camp in Cambridge. Fear had embarked on a three-day course of thatching in Shropshire, of all things, bringing his small family in tow. St. Just gathered that Fear regarded a part-time job as a thatcher as a hedge against future inflation. St. Just managed to reach him on a mobile with an appalling connection.

  "How are you, Sergeant?"
r />   "Nothing a bit of sleep wouldn't cure, Sir."

  "Devin? How old is he now? Nine weeks?"

  "Nearly ten, Sir."

  "He won't sleep?"

  "No, Sir."

  "Have you tried-?"

  "Yes," said Fear, a bit more curtly than his usual respect for his superior would dictate. After a pause: "Yes, Sir. We have tried feeding him before bed, not feeding him before bed, giving him warm baths, massages, driving him around in the car-my God, I've seen more of the back roads of England in the last few weeks than ever before in my life. Do you know when the bakeries deliver to the restaurants? I do. They-"

  "Have you tried placing him on top of the drier?"

  "The what?"

  "The clothes drier. They like the permanent press cycle best, not too warm. Now, why I was calling…"

  He rang off after a few minutes, leaving Fear still wondering how St. Just had become an expert on every subject, however obscure.

  Next, St. Just put in a call to a friend of his at Scotland Yard. It was time to sketch in a little more background on the American contingent.

  JUST THE FACTS

  Having finished his calls, St. Just headed downstairs, in search of a life-restoring cup of tea. He needed to learn what forensics had come up with, but first, according to his stomach, he needed some sustenance.

  He used the back stairs of the castle, which led directly past the spa. Coming out of the main spa door, wrapped in one of the ubiquitous hotel robes, and with a towel over one arm, was Portia, her face painted with what looked like blue plaster of Paris.

  They both leapt back, emitting small yips of surprise.

  "Good God. Are the Picts invading?" he asked her.

  From between stiffened lips, she muttered, "It's a facial, of course." She wiped off some of the mask with the towel before spearing him with her characteristically direct gaze.

  "Most of the women are taking advantage of the 'lull' to visit the spa," she told him. "Even Edith Brackett managed to escape Tom's clutches for a bit. You should see her-she's starting to look fabulous. Anyway, I've been in there all day, being steamed like an oyster-I was just nipping up to my room for a book, hoping not to run into anyone." She gave him an ironic scowl. Only Portia, he felt, could retain her composure with a face covered in blue goo. It was the kind of instinctive poise that could not be taught or learned. She would look dignified in a clown's suit.

  "Anyway," she went on, "I've been buffed and polished and sprayed to within an inch of my life"-and here she lowered her voice- "eavesdropping all the while. I'll tell you all about it later. It's hard to talk with my face glued like this. But you should know this before I forget: Kimberlee lost her key at some point. I saw her rootling around in her purse after the dinner, and she said something like, 'Drat, I'll have to get another one from reception.' I assume she meant key."

  "Yes, one of Moor's men learned she'd asked for a replacement key," he said. He stood quietly a moment, weighing how the missing key could fit in. It might be important, but he wasn't sure just how.

  "Well," he said, "at least you have the perfect disguise for undercover work." He looked her up and down, and smiled. "Your own mother wouldn't recognize you."

  "Ha. Ha. You can thank me when I've helped you solve this case. We exercise zee leetle gray cells, non?"

  " Non. I would much prefer you went back to your room and stayed there. Don't let anyone in who isn't a policeman, either. Don't you have a novel you're supposed to be writing?"

  "With all of this going on? Are you joking? If this isn't the perfect excuse for procrastination, I don't know what is." She turned to go. "See you later."

  He gently took hold of her arm.

  "Is there any point in warning you to be careful?" he hissed quietly.

  She shook her head.

  "None. You know as well as I do-they'll say things to me they'd never say to you. Most of them admit to a dislike of the victim. An active dislike, in fact."

  "A festering dislike, if you prefer. It gets us no closer."

  "Count your blessings that I'm around," said Portia. "It's you who should be careful. Remember, these people lie for a living: They write novels."

  She smiled, a somewhat stiff and lopsided but endearing smile because of the hardening mask, like a dentist's victim before the Novocain has worn off.

  "Keep in mind," she said, here holding up a forefinger as if lecturing a roomful of pillocky undergraduates, "that writers are determined, motivated, often highly organized-belying the notion of the scatterbrained creative artist. One has to be organized to withstand the long haul of a novel. They're also driven, persevering, resilient, and-mostly-able to withstand a lot of setbacks, criticism, and rejection. Apart from the criticism and rejection part, I can't think of a better definition for a methodical killer, can you?"

  The admonishing hand fell to her side. She added quietly, her words slowing, her face struggling against the mask to crease with a frown of concentration. "I realize now I've been writing of murder as if it were an academic exercise, all this time. But now I'm faced with the real horror of it." The fathomless eyes pinned his gaze. "They say people read crime novels because of a human need to see the world set right after any kind of disturbance. What happened to Kimberlee was a desecration. The world has to be righted."

  "Not your job…" he began.

  "It's everybody's job, in a way-if only from a practical standpoint. We're trapped here with a murderer. A sense of self-preservation demands that the killer be caught. And soon."

  She turned from him and glided away down the corridor. He continued to watch her disappear up the stairs, thinking how different their time together here might have been. If only.

  ____________________

  Tea had been set out in the sitting room in a serve-yourself fashion, attracting several of the castle's inhabitants.

  As Portia had indicated, most of the ladies were missing, presumably being roasted or pummeled in the spa. Jay Fforde sat apart from the rest, draped across the window seat, a book open on his lap. Winston Chatley and Julius Easterbrook held down opposite ends of the silk-covered sofa. Annabelle Pace sat slumped in one of the plush chairs. The room was bathed in an ocher light from the table lamps. They might have been posing, carefree guests, for a castle brochure.

  Annabelle looked up from the Tatler magazine she'd been flipping through in an aimless way, as if she'd read the issue several times already. Today she wore a loose smock and trousers the color of London smog. She looked less as if she had dressed herself than as if someone had thrown clothes at her until they stuck. She had made an unwise attempt to enliven this subfusc costume with a polyester scarf of a malignant shade of yellow, the effect of which was to further deplete her bloodless, sallow complexion.

  The papers were spread out everywhere on the tables that dotted the room. Much like a gentleman's club, Dalmorton provided its guests with all the popular and serious daily newspapers, from the tabloid red tops like the Mirror to the broadsheet Telegraph. St. Just winced at one of the headlines: "Chick Lit Author: Victim of Fowl Play?" Another shouted, "Chick Author Slaughtered." He thought of the editorial meetings that had resulted in that headline, where no doubt "Fricasseed" had also been given serious consideration.

  He considered, not for the first time, that Winston was right: There was something dramatic, something theatrical about the way Kimberlee was killed. After all, there were a thousand places to kill her in the castle. Why kill her and then throw her into a bottle dungeon? Why? He wasn't sure the papers had gotten hold of that bit of information yet, but when they did… It was as if the dark arts of public relations that Kimberlee practiced during her short life had lived on after her in death.

  "So, Inspector," said Annabelle, throwing the magazine onto the low table before her. She leaned back, heaving her heavy, maternal bosom, and said, "How's the investigation going? We can't all stop here much longer."

  "Indeed," said Easterbrook. One foot crossed over his knee, he imp
atiently jiggled one polished shoe. St. Just was reminded that in his youth, Easterbrook would probably have been most at home scaling the north face of the Eiger or hunting tigers on safari. Imposed inaction would quickly wear him thin. "You've had plenty of time, man. Don't tell me you can't resolve this."

  Annabelle said, "As for me, I was with either Mrs. Elksworthy or your friend Portia the whole time. Just ask them. So you see, there's no earthly reason to detain me here longer."

  "The police will be cross-checking everyone's statements," said St. Just, hoping against hope that her casually tossed phrase, "your friend," was not making him blush to the roots of his hair. He'd fondly hoped he'd kept his interest in Portia rather well hidden.

  He sat in one of the chairs across from the sofa, addressing Easterbrook.

  "It's not like one of the mysteries you publish, you know, where everything is neatly wrapped up in the course of a few hours, or pages."

  "I've been interviewed by a veritable platoon of your Scottish colleagues," said Easterbrook peevishly. "And by you, as well. I repeat, I don't see what earthly use there is keeping those of us who have been thoroughly interviewed hanging about, wasting our valuable time. I've been on to my solicitor, of course. Annabelle is quite right. You can't hold us here indefinitely."

  St. Just thought, You're right. Not without evidence, which I shall have.

  He said nothing. Let Easterbrook get his solicitor up here, then. The wait would buy the investigation some time, anyway-time he felt they might sorely need.

  "Once all the interviews are complete, we may need to cross-check what we've learned," St. Just repeated equably, but his tone left no room for argument. Easterbrook, seeming to weigh the odds against winning the toss, subsided into a grumbling acquiescence.