Not Death, But Love (Quill Gordon Mystery Book 3)

by Michael Wallace

  “Don’t worry. You’ll do fine.”

  Gordon shrugged. “How’d the team do this year?”

  “League co-champions, and we made the quarterfinals in the playoffs. Then we ran into a team with a big man we couldn’t stop.”

  “Sounds like you could have used Gary Bowman.”

  “If he was as good as they say, we would have won it all. It was a good year, anyway.”

  “Any scholarship offers?”

  Jack shook his head. “None. But I’ve been accepted at University of the Pacific, and the coach said I can walk on there. I think that’s what I’ll do.”

  “Well, good luck to you.”

  Judge Fletcher had walked up to Gordon’s right, and Gordon turned to shake his hand.

  “Gordon, my boy. Delighted you could make it. You’re looking well.”

  “As are you, your honor.”

  “I look forward to hearing how Charlotte’s book is going.”

  “You won’t have long to wait,” Gordon said, looking at his watch. “Are you still going to retire next year?”

  “I shall make the announcement the first week in December. On a Wednesday, so The Clarion will have an exclusive. Or do they still call them scoops?”

  “Good question.”

  “And how is the judge?”

  “The judge is the judge,” Gordon deadpanned.

  “Glad to hear it. I won’t bother you any longer; you have work to do. Perhaps we can talk later.” And with that, he was off.

  Gordon scanned the crowd, looking for El. He saw Gina at the far side of the open area, and she waved and blew him a kiss. Robert Paris was only 20 feet from Gordon, but he averted his eyes when Gordon looked in his direction. Finally, he saw her, on the other side of the chairs, notebook in hand and camera with telephoto lens hanging from her neck. She looked good. He made his way through the crowd toward her.

  She saw him when he was just a few feet away and threw her arms apart to give him a hug, then remembered the camera with the long lens and slid it over her shoulder so it hung at her side. They embraced without saying anything for seconds.

  “Hey, you,” he finally said.

  “Hey, yourself.”

  He stepped back and took her left hand in his right. Feeling something rough on it, he held it up so he could see better. It was a ring with a large diamond on her fourth finger.

  “It looks like you have some news,” he said.

  She nodded and flashed a smile that was half joyous, half rueful.

  “He just popped the question last week. It’s all happened very fast.”

  “In my experience, it usually does.”

  “I’m still kind of in shock. We got to talking at the Rotary Club Christmas party in December, and I invited him over for a drink afterward. The next thing you know, we were decking the halls, if you catch my drift.”

  Gordon exercised his right to remain silent.

  “It just took off from there and went full-speed. But, you know, it feels right. I’m ready to settle down now, and he’s always needed to be settled down.”

  “Are you going to give me a name?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. It’s Cam. Cam Winters.”

  “Charlotte’s attorney? I thought he was married.”

  “He was, but in August, his wife got diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. She died the first week of October, and he was beside himself. Some men were never meant to live alone.”

  “Well, I wish you all the best. Both of you.”

  “Thanks, Gordon. That means a lot. And you know the other thing that’s happened because of this?” He shook his head. “I’m reconnecting with my father. He’s thrilled, and if you can believe it, he wants to officiate at the wedding. Cam’s been a real sweetheart about that.”

  “And Anna?”

  “Graduating from law school in a few weeks. She was planning to go into legal aid law, but since the standoff at the house, she’s decided to be a prosecutor and has been studying criminal law.”

  “Ronald Paris’s legacy continues. But what I meant to ask was how Anna feels about your engagement?”

  “Who can tell with her? When I told her the news last week, the only thing she said was, ‘Well, at least I’ll know who’s going to be in the house when I come home.’ Go figure.”

  Gordon shook his head again, and turned to look at the crowd, which was steadily growing.

  “Looking for anybody in particular?” she asked.

  “I’d like to see Alice and Karl if they’re here. And maybe Coach Iverson.”

  “You’re too late for the coach. He died the first week of December.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “In a way, it’s probably what he would have wanted. At the last football game of the season, he was standing on the sideline as usual. It was raining when the game started and it turned to sleet before it was over. He came down with something, and the something led to pneumonia, and then …”

  She snapped her fingers. “Just like that. We’re all that close, when you think about it.”

  After a brief pause, she pointed behind Gordon and to his right. “Karl and Alice are over there with Emma.’

  “Will you excuse me?”

  “That’s fine. I have to work, unfortunately.”

  It took Gordon nearly a minute for to reach the others. Emma saw him first and shouted with delight. The women hugged him, and Karl gave him a hearty handshake.

  “Oh, my God,” said Alice. “It’s so great to see you, Gordon. And look at all these people? Can you believe it? I thought we’d be lucky to get a hundred out today, but it’s several times that. Who’d have thought? I feel so overwhelmed about this. I mean when you look at all that Charlotte did to teach the importance of reading and writing, and for years everybody took her for granted, and now she’s being honored as if she was an athlete or a coach. It’s wonderful to see books and reading honored in the same way as athletics.”

  “Maybe they’re honoring the money she gave,” said Karl.

  “Karl!” shouted the two women in joint dismay.

  “I just say what I think,” he said.

  Gordon felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Walter Williams, the high school principal, looking harried.

  “Gordon! I was afraid you might have gotten stuck in the traffic. We just realized the last couple of days that this might be bigger than we expected. But follow me. We’re starting in a few minutes.”

  That turned out to be an optimistic assessment. After being seated in the chair at the far left of the podium, he had ample time to scan the growing crowd. It was a concentrated enough mass of humanity that he couldn’t tell whether Peter was in it or not. Finally, at 2:20, Williams stepped to the lectern, tapped the microphone twice, and waited as the two staccato reports gradually silenced the crowd.

  “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you all for coming out today to celebrate the memory of perhaps the greatest teacher in the history of Forest County and the dedication of the Charlotte London Memorial Library.”

  He turned and extended an arm toward the door with the canvas over its facade. Two husky student-athletes, one at each side of the door, pulled down on the ropes they were holding, and the canvas plummeted to earth, revealing the library’s new name, recently painted in school red.

  The crowd burst into a roar of applause, whistling and foot-stomping.

  Williams continued for a few minutes, talking about Charlotte’s career and quoting from letters written by former students. He was not a particularly gifted speaker, but was talking from the heart, and he clearly had the audience on his side.

  He introduced State Senator Bart Sturges, who presented a joint resolution from the California State Legislature, honoring Charlotte’s career. Technically, he was a better speaker than the principal, but the feeling wasn’t there. He had the sense to wrap up quickly and sit down to polite applause.

  “After her retirement,” Williams said, “Charlotte decided to try writing a boo
k of her own — a family history. As many of you know, she came from a pioneer Forest County family and had deep roots in the community. Her literary executor, Mr. Quill Gordon of San Francisco, will now say a few words. Gordon stood, and took two steps toward the lectern before remembering the book Peter had given him, sitting on the floor by his chair. There were a couple of titters as he went back to get it. Finally settled at the lectern, he reached into his coat pocket, took out the single page of his prepared remarks, and looked up. The crowd seemed to have grown to 50,000, though that was clearly impossible.

  It’s just like shooting a free throw, he told himself, in front of ten thousand screaming people in a gym.

  “Principal Williams, people of Forest County. Thank you all for turning out to honor Charlotte London today.

  “I’m told that many of you are wondering about the book she was working on at the time of her death. It’s my pleasure to report that Susan Struthers, a former reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, has pulled it into shape, and the draft version is now being reviewed by a professional editor. Susan has done an excellent job of finishing the work, while holding to the style and direction Charlotte established as she was writing it. If all goes well, the book will be coming off the presses in August or September, and I will personally make sure that the first copy off the press is reserved for this library.”

  The audience applauded robustly.

  “In the course of working on this project, I’ve had the good fortune to meet many of the fine people in this county. In doing so, it’s become clear that the students who were lucky enough to have Charlotte London for a teacher came away with lessons they will carry with them the rest of their lives. How does anyone quantify the effect of that? One of Charlotte’s favorite books was Middlemarch by George Eliot. She often remarked that she wished she could have taught it, but she felt it was too long and complex for a high school audience. At the end of that book, though, Eliot offers a valedictory to her principal character, Dorothea, and those closing words of the book might apply equally well to Charlotte London.”

  He opened the book, swallowed hard, and began reading.

  “ ‘Her full nature, like that of the river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.’ ”

  He looked up and snapped the book shut. The microphone amplified the noise, and he started slightly. Then he bowed his head and walked back to his seat. He was so wrapped up in his thoughts and emotions that he never heard the applause.

  THE SUN HAD DROPPED BEHIND the western mountains as the motorboat drifted to a stop near the middle of the lake. The temperature had dropped along with the sun, and the wind lashed with a greater sting than it had during the spring afternoon. The three people in the boat drew their jackets more tightly around themselves, but it didn’t help much. They sat in somber silence for a moment.

  “Shall we?” said Gordon.

  “The sooner the better,” said Peter. “It’s freezing.”

  “You think this will be all right?”

  “I think it’ll be fine,” said Gina, who was sitting between the two men.

  “You think Charlotte would be OK with it?”

  “I think she would. But what I think doesn’t matter. You’re the one she trusted with this. It’s your call.”

  Gordon didn’t answer immediately. Peter, his hands in his jacket pockets, was flapping his arms in an attempt to stay warm. Gina continued.

  “Charlotte was a teacher. She challenged people to push themselves and do their best. You were her last pupil, carrying out her last assignment. I think you earned an A-plus.”

  “I don’t know about that,” muttered Peter. “I think he should have had points deducted for almost killing himself and two other people.”

  “All right, then,” said Gordon. “Let’s do it.”

  He picked up a metal lock box that had been sitting by his feet. Two dozen small holes had been drilled into its lid.

  “The journal’s in there?” asked Gina.

  Gordon nodded. “Along with a dozen stones I gathered along the shore of the lake this morning. And it’s locked with a key. It should be secure.”

  Reaching over the edge of the boat, he set the box on the surface of the water, keeping a hand on either side.

  “So long, Charlotte,” he said, removing his hands.

  The box floated for a moment, its top even with the surface. They could see the water slowly going into the holes. Abruptly, it filled to its sinking weight and plummeted into the inky darkness of the lake. It was out of sight in seconds. The wind picked up again, but none of them felt it or said anything for a full minute.

  “There’s one thing that still bothers me,” said Gordon. “In all the commotion that night at El’s, I never told Paris that Charlotte had forgiven him. And I never saw him again. I don’t know if he was capable of redemption, but he shouldn’t have died without knowing that.”

  “It’s not your job to decide who’s capable of redemption,” Gina said. “And you’re hardly the first person who wished he’d had a chance to say something before someone died. Let it go, Gordon.”

  “Speaking of redemption,” said Peter, “I have a question for the committee. I’m still working on the whole issue of a higher power. All I know now is that it’s not me, and that’s progress. But suppose there really is a God up in the sky who judges us, and that there’s a heaven and a hell. I have some doubts about that, but let’s assume it for the moment.

  “What do you think a God like that does with Charlotte? Does he look at the woman whose journal we just deep-sixed and say, ‘Sorry.’ Or does he weigh that against the woman who was honored at the school today and let her in? If it were my call, I’d wave her through the pearly gates, but — as I said — it’s not my call.”

  “I think you have it right,” said Gina. “And for whatever it’s worth, I think that’s what Charlotte believed. What do you say, Gordon?”

  For several seconds, he stared silently and broodingly at the dark waters into which the box with Charlotte’s journal had descended.

  “I sure hope so,” he finally said. “For all our sakes.”

  THE END

  Author’s Note

  THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED in the spirit of two mystery writers — one British, one American — each of whom published, in 1930, a well regarded book with thematic similarities to this one.

  Anthony Berkeley Cox (1893-1971) was one of the stalwarts of the Golden Age of mystery novels in Britain at the time. Along with Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr, Freeman Wills Crofts, Ronald Knox, and others, he was a founder of the Detection Club. Writing as Francis Iles, he produced Before the Fact and Malice Aforethought, two pioneering examples of the “inverted” detective novel, in which the solution is known at the beginning and the suspense lies in how it will be unraveled. Under the name Anthony Berkeley, he wrote the 1930 Golden Age classic The Poisoned Chocolates Case, in which a group of amateurs, similar to the group in this book, band together, trying to solve a high-profile murder that appears to be baffling the police.

  Earl Derr Biggers (1884-1933) was born in Ohio, attended Harvard, and is best known as author of the Charlie Chan detective series, currently enjoying a well deserved critical revival. His 1930 contribution to that series, Charlie Chan Carries On, has Inspector Duff of Scotland Yard traveling from London to Hawaii, attempting to solve a series of murders occurring on a round-the-world cruise. When the inspector is shot and wounded in Honolulu, Chan steps in for him — much as Gordon and his associates do for Charlotte London — and sees the case through to its conclusion.

  Finally and unrelatedly, in case anyone is interested, the historical abortion story t
old by Karl Bjornstad in Chapter 7 of this book very closely follows a true story that occurred in California in the early 20th Century and was reported in local newspapers.

  Acknowledgements

  EVERYTHING I KNOW about land use, or pretty near, I learned from my friend, business associate, and marketing guru John Bakalian. Thanks, good buddy. The late City Council Member Scott Kennedy and late State Senator Henry Mello shared candid insights about the political mind at work. The Santa Cruz Public Library was an invaluable resource for California history, and I am indebted to SPC Nicholas Wallace for information on private pilots and small airports.

  Thanks, as well, to members of the Quill Gordon team for their efforts in making this a better book than it otherwise might have been. That would include Lauren Wilkins for a stellar editing job, Deborah Karas for capturing the right visual feel in the cover design, and Greg Pio for his helpful comments as the book was being written. Kudos to Chip Scheuer and Rigo Torkos for their fine work on the book’s video trailer.

  About the Author

  MICHAEL WALLACE published his first mystery novel, The McHenry Inheritance, in 2012. He is former editor-in-chief of a daily newspaper and has had a lengthy second career as a publications and public relations consultant. He lives in the Monterey Bay area of California, is a lifelong fan and voracious reader of mystery novels, and has been a fly fisherman for more than three decades. He may be contacted through his website, quillgordonmystery.com