Fiction Can Be Murder

by Becky Clark

  “I know it’s wrong, but I’m jealous of Heinrich.” AmyJo nudged her cheesy scrambled eggs onto her fork with a crisp piece of bacon.

  “You know he gets published because he puts himself out there and submits to editors.” I knew I sounded like a naggy scold, but I couldn’t help it. The guilt was strong with this one. “And since you still haven’t answered, did you submit The Zero Boy Summer to an agent?”

  Not only did she ignore me, she refused to meet my eye. Simply continued with her thought as if I hadn’t spoken. “He’s had such an interesting life and it gives him so much to write about. He’s had a much more interesting life than I ever will. I’m sure by the time he was twenty-nine and three-quarters, he already had a bunch of stories. Real and fictional.” AmyJo pointed the bacon at Jenica. “Even you have more stories than me and you’re ten years younger.”

  Jenica shrugged, causing her spiked leather collar to poke the underside of her chin. “None of my picture books are getting published.”

  “Because you insist on submitting your manuscripts with illustrations.” Kell dunked his donut in his coffee, transforming it to a sodden mess, making my gorge rise. “You know that’s not how it’s done in the industry, even if your boyfriend is an artist.”

  “Tattoo artist,” AmyJo corrected. She turned to me. “Hey, get this. Jenica and her boyfriend won tickets to the Fillmore last night. Backstage passes, hanging all night with the band, the works. And here I thought I had a big night babysitting my nieces and getting them off to school this morning.”

  “Sounds fun … for both of you.” I pointed ironically at Jenica’s spiked collar and tight leather bustier. “Just getting home?” I teased.

  “Ha ha. But yes.” She flashed a grin.

  Ah, to be twenty again. If someone had told me how ancient and matronly I’d feel at thirty, I never would have believed them.

  I leaned forward apologetically. “I hate to say it, Jenica, but Kell’s right about your boyfriend. I don’t think he’s the best illustrator for your picture books. Woodland creatures shouldn’t have enormous boobs.” My lips twitched. “Although it delights me to no end to picture story time with some unsuspecting librarian reading your sweet rhymes and showing those illustrations to a bunch of toddlers. The art he did for your Bunnies to the Rescue was downright pornographic.”

  Everyone laughed except Cordelia, who quietly tapped a delicate spoon around the shell of her soft-boiled egg. While the others joked about which picture book characters could star in adult films, I finished my yogurt and picked up the china cup and plate from my elaborate place setting.

  As I chose some Danish and poured coffee, Kell called out, “So, Charlee, you had a breakfast meeting with your agent this morning?”

  I kept my back to them, buying some time. Did I say it was a breakfast meeting? I held my hand on the coffee spigot even though my cup was full, trying to remember.

  “I wish I had a hotshot literary agent like you,” AmyJo said.

  I turned and smiled, hoping I looked sincere instead of smug. AmyJo had known me for almost a dozen years. We’d met in a creative writing class in college and then later shared an apartment, so she knew all my expressions.

  I tried not to advertise how glamorous my life was. Mainly, because it wasn’t. I understood better than most the concept of grass being greener elsewhere. I’d learned it’s because it’s fertilized with bullshit. Lots of my writer friends—not just AmyJo—were envious of my publishing success. Nobody but me really likes the story of how I landed a high-powered literary agent on my first try who immediately got me a multi-book deal for my mysteries. It came with a sizable advance, the kind Publishers Weekly calls “a good deal.” Better than a “nice” deal, not as lucrative as a “major” deal, but big enough that by being careful, I could quit my soul-sucking temp job to write full-time. Idyllic on paper. The reality, of course, was always different, more nuanced and veiled, and not green grass at all.

  Like I said, fertilized with bullshit. Rather quickly, I’d realized I was just another cog in an overly complicated machine. My job was to churn out manuscripts fast, so my publisher could transform them into books, slow. My newest mystery, Mercury Rising, wouldn’t be in bookstores for almost two years, at which time I’d be expected to drop everything and blather through six months of nonstop marketing and promotion by myself. I often found myself wishing for the good ol’ days, which ended long before my time—those halcyon days when authors were held in high esteem and agents and publishers took care of all the business except for putting the right word on the page. But these days, I wouldn’t be surprised if I were summoned to New York to scrub the corporate toilets.

  Very few got to peek behind the publishing curtain, so I tried not to complain. At least not so much that my agent might hear about it.

  “AmyJo, be careful what you wish for. Yes, I have a literary agent. But Melinda Walter is a raging bitch. She’s downright sadistic to her assistant and absolutely delights in sending the snarkiest rejections to people.” I shot her a worried look as I sat down. “Promise me you’ll never submit a manuscript to Melinda.”

  “I’m from Iowa. I’m not a masochist.”

  “Why do you stay with your agent if she’s so awful?” Jenica asked me.

  Einstein added, “Surely with your track record you’d have no problem getting another agent.”

  “Plus, this thing with your royalties.” Kell wagged a spoonful of cottage cheese. “Did you figure it out yet?”

  I shook my head. “No. Still ongoing.”

  “I don’t understand what’s going on. I thought you had contracts with both your agent and the publishing company,” AmyJo said.

  “I do. But for some reason, my royalty checks are drastically smaller than they used to be and nobody can tell me why. I don’t know if somebody is bullshitting me or if I’m just crazy.” Or if the reading public formed a committee to shun me.

  “Isn’t there some sort of accounting involved?” AmyJo asked.

  “Yeah, lots of it. And I’ve been prodding Melinda to get me a full accounting from the publisher, but she says they’re dragging their heels getting it to her.” I broke my Danish in half and buttery flakes crumbled to my plate. “For a tough, no-nonsense literary agent, she sure seems to be rolling over for them. I’m running out of patience with everyone, especially her.”

  “If you need attorneys or financial guys, I have a whole team on the payroll. Maybe it’s bad accounting by your agent. I’d be happy to have them look into it for you,” Kell said.

  “That’s really generous of you, but I think I’ll give it a bit more time. My next royalty statement should be here in a couple of weeks. Maybe it’ll be back to normal. But thanks.” Plus, if my royalties have dropped off because nobody buys my books anymore, I sure as hell don’t want everyone to know. Some mortifications are best kept to oneself.

  Jenica frowned at me. “But you didn’t answer my question. Why stay with Melinda?”

  “I’m just a midlist author—not a bestseller, not a nobody. Melinda would still have rights to these books. Like a dope, I signed the contract she put under my nose. I was so thrilled and naïve I barely read it.” I gave a rueful shake of my head. “Sure, I can fire her, but she’d still have all ten fingers in my books and in my wallet until one of us dies. Her contracts, I found out much too late, are notoriously ironclad and in her favor.” I stared, unfocused, at the far wall. “My relationship with her is like a marriage. Even if we get divorced, our lives are still tangled up. And my books are like our kids who never grow up, with custody issues that never go away.” I looked around the table and realized I sounded like a whiny crybaby. “But don’t worry about me. I’m this close to cracking the royalty mystery wide open.” If you define “close” as the distance between Earth and Jupiter. “But the short answer is, Melinda loves my writing. That’s why I stay with her. She’s truly my biggest f
an and there’s no better advocate in the world than someone who’s enthusiastic about your work and can get impossible things done in the publishing world.”

  “Probably because people are scared of her,” Cordelia said.

  “Probably,” I said, laughing. “I know I am.”

  “Melinda Walter’s got a good reputation in the industry. And in this world, all you have is your reputation.”

  AmyJo’s words boomeranged me back to my living room when I was seventeen. I sat on the tufted hassock in front of my dad in the matching chair. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, all parental earnestness while he lectured me. “Charlee, all you have is your reputation.”

  If I’d have known those would be his last words to me, I would have flung myself into his arms and asked for all the knowledge he wanted to impart. Instead, I had rolled my eyes and minimized him and his words, as only a teenager could. I’d been sure he was chastising me for being late to my crappy fast food job, in my mind the only purpose of which was to make my hair reek of French fry grease.

  And what about your reputation, Dad? The blood stains in that strip mall parking lot are a good indication you probably didn’t follow your own advice.

  “Charlee? Hello … ”

  I blinked, clearing out the past. “Reputation, right. Well, Melinda sure won’t win Miss Congeniality, that’s for sure. Last year somebody sent me a link to a huge anonymous website dedicated to people she has slayed verbally. They post all of her horrible rejections and then everyone comments. It’s horrifying and hilarious at the same time.”

  “That doesn’t mean people are scared of her,” Jenica said. “That means people hate her.”

  My phone rang and I checked the caller ID. Queue Quaid, Melinda’s assistant. Probably calling to tell me Melinda read my manuscript and had notes ready for me. Just once I’d like to submit a manuscript without anyone wanting changes. Brownies and beer will become diet food before that happens, though. I slid my phone past my plate, ignoring it.

  A different ringtone sounded. Probably Q again, texting now. I continued to ignore it, getting up to refill my coffee cup instead.

  “Must be important. You should answer.” Kell stood. “Looks like everyone’s done eating anyway. We’ll meet you in the sunroom.” Without him ringing a bell or yanking a velvet rope or clapping his hands, two women appeared and began clearing the breakfast items.

  How did he do that? Did they just hover outside the door, peeking in at us? I’ve tried to figure out the system for years. It must be a combination of small workload and high salary.

  I slipped my phone into my pocket, slung my bag across my chest, and carried my coffee to a couch on the other side of the library, out of their way. Everyone else gathered near the coffee urn to refill their cups before the meeting started.

  AmyJo said, “Earlier? When we were talking about ‘write what you know’? I still think it’s really bad advice. I mean, how would we have any science fiction or fantasy if we could only write what we know?”

  “I’m not sure that’s what it means, AmyJo.” Cordelia poured cream into her cup.

  I glanced across the room, listening to their conversation.

  “I think when people say ‘write what you know,’ they’re talking about the emotion of writing,” Cordelia went on. “Of course, you have policemen writing crime procedurals, and people remembering their time in junior high in order to write realistically for young people. But you don’t need to have lost a child to write about how that would feel. Or have your house burn to ashes, or win the lottery.”

  Or have carnal romps. I thought about Cordelia’s books. This buttoned-up, well-coiffed lady, wearing pearls and tailored outfits, had the most nimble imagination of us all and wrote the filthiest erotica I had ever read, which, granted, wasn’t a lot. Only Heinrich could look Cordelia in the eye after we’d critiqued one of her submissions. Maybe his years of teaching high school English had steeled him against all things awkward. Or just made him dead inside.

  Last week, Cordelia read a passage she’d written: “The seemingly never-ending streams of ectoplasm emanating from his musket soon had me coated like a plasterer’s radio. His plowing made me spray my vertical moisture all over his cream reaper.” Without a blush, vocal quiver, or minced word, Heinrich had told her, “Seemingly is weak. Lose it. And musket makes him seem old. Like Otto von Bismarck.” He pronounced it with extra phlegm. “Ja. Make it a howitzer. And what’s with the mixed metaphor? Is he a soldier or hanging drywall?”

  Cordelia continued her explanation to AmyJo. “You already know how that would feel, even if it never happened to you. A little bit of research, a little bit of imagination, and a little bit of being observant about the world around you is all you need.” She moved her cup under the spigot of the urn and watched as it filled with coffee.

  It was conversations like these that made me love my writing group. I was incredibly blessed to have these people in my life, despite their idiosyncracies. We bickered sometimes, but I didn’t know how writers functioned without writing partners. All of us had different strengths we used to help the others, and our weaknesses didn’t feel so insurmountable in a group.

  “Well said, Cordelia.” I raised my cup in salute and coffee splashed on the couch. One of the maids instantly loomed over me with a napkin. I accepted the napkin but waved away her assistance and blotted the spill myself. I’m sure she scurried away to assemble her arsenal of pine-scented this or morning-fresh that, ready to pounce on the spill the moment I stood.

  AmyJo was the last to leave the room. She turned back with a smile aimed at me. “If we’re writing what we know, I know what you could write about.” She pantomimed pouring coffee on her own shirt.

  “Very funny.” I gave her a good-natured middle finger. I’d learned soon after my tremor developed that if I didn’t make light of it and the problems it caused, then people would turn it—and maybe me—into a big pathetic deal. I’d rather they acknowledge my shake, even tease me about it, lessening the seriousness for everyone. Besides, my tremor was as much a part of me as my dark hair or the sound of my laugh, even though I had both of those before my dad’s funeral.

  Despite the maid’s anticipated cleaning, I fished a stain remover stick from my bag and performed a little triage on the spill. I didn’t know why I bothered, though. The sticks never worked. Most of my shirts and blouses had vague outlines of coffee, salsa, marinara, and/or soup. I chose my outfits using a complicated algorithm based on answers to questions like Will my hair cover it, Who will I see today, and Does the stain match my shoes?

  I dug out my phone to return the call from Melinda’s assistant and saw the low battery warning and a couple of additional messages. One text was from my mom and simply said Hey, Bug, so I knew she was just checking in. I replied with my favorite kissy-lips emoji and made a mental note to call later when I had time to chat.

  I clicked on the other message and up popped Sheelah Doyle’s ready-for-anything grin. Sorry I didn’t call last night. I know you wanted to see that movie today, but this &*%^ tooth is killing me. Wish they woulda yanked it in the ER last night and been done with it. Rain check? And fill me in on crit grp. Ask if my chp was too long.

  Bummer. I’d been looking forward to hanging out with Sheelah after the meeting. I typed back. Sure. No worries. Feel better!

  I returned the call from Melinda’s assistant. “Hey, Q. What’s up?” I heard her take a deep, calming breath, something she did often as Melinda’s assistant. “What did she do now?” I asked, grimacing. “Are you quitting?”

  “Charlee. Melinda’s dead.”

  I gasped, almost dropping my phone. “What?” My mind raced. Had she been ill? “When? How?”

  “A couple of hours ago. In her car.”

  “She was in an accident? I knew that car would get her into trouble.”

  “It wasn’t an accident.”

/>   “Then what—was she carjacked? How awful.”

  “No, Charlee. I … ”

  “What? Tell me.”

  Q was silent for so long I thought we’d lost the connection.

  “Charlee, it’s bad. Melinda was murdered.”

  This time I did drop the phone. As I fumbled to pick it up, I heard Q’s voice, along with a man’s, in the background.

  “Q, I’m at Kell’s. I’ll be there in twenty.” I stood, collecting my messenger bag.

  “No, Charlee. There’s more. You need to stay there.”

  “I can’t do anything here. I won’t be able to concentrate.”

  “Melinda was killed exactly how you wrote it in Mercury Rising. Mercury poisoning in her car. Windows glued shut with Glu-Pocalypse. Heater glued on high.”

  I collapsed back onto the couch and sunk down. None of this seemed right. Dread caused my hands to tremble double-time. “Are they sure?”

  AmyJo poked her head into the library. “We’re ready to start. Are you coming?”

  I nodded numbly, not really sure what she just asked. “Q? I gotta go.”

  “Charlee. Charlee! Stay there. Stay at Kell’s. I told the police you were there.”

  The implications of this conversation began to come into focus. My chest felt like a vise. “Why would you do that?” Hysteria tightened my voice, raising its pitch. “You couldn’t just give them my number?”

  “Timing is important here, Charlee.” Q paused. “I didn’t think you’d have anything to hide—”

  “I don’t!”

  “—and that you’d want to help.”

  “I do. Of course I do.” I suddenly felt lightheaded, hearing how my protests sounded. Every word felt like a betrayal. I pulled my phone from my ear and stared at it, finally pushing the button to disconnect. Maybe it was a prank. Q was pranking me? About this? I’d heard Q make threats against Melinda’s life, but they were jokes, right? Idle threats like we all make out of frustration. Not real.

  Not a prank.