by Nancy Warren
Was he really this naïve? And then I realized he couldn’t be more than about twenty-three or -four. I’d probably been that naïve as well when I was that age.
“We had coffee, and she seemed a lot more interested in my work than in talking about her dead husband’s. Finally, she asked if I’d be interested in a ghostwriting project.”
“After one coffee date, she offered you a ghostwriting gig?”
“Well, she’d obviously already read the piece I’d submitted for the Branson contest. I had deliberately written something that I thought sounded like Branson. Not my usual voice at all. But for the two grand top prize money, I was willing to prostitute myself.”
Now I began to understand. “That’s what she’d loved about your work. That you could imitate Branson’s work.”
“It’s not easy to write in another author’s style. I was super proud of it. I really doubted that the casual reader would be able to tell which was his work and which was mine.”
I wondered if she’d actually gotten the idea to continue Branson’s work without him when she’d read Tristan Holt’s submission. Even if Branson wasn’t dead yet, she might have held on to the idea just in case.
“You agreed?”
He shrugged, suddenly looking a lot older than his age. “It was a twenty grand flat fee. Twenty grand meant I could take off some time and work on my own stuff. Plus, it wasn’t that hard to copy Branson’s style. If you can call it a style.”
“So you took the twenty grand and you wrote the manuscript.”
He shook his head, looking far from happy. “I took the five grand. It was five grand upfront, another five when I turned in the manuscript, and I’d get the final ten when the book got published.”
I was no attorney, but it didn’t seem like those were the greatest terms for Tristan Holt. What if the book had never been published? He’d have lost out on half his money. Echoing my thoughts, he shook his head and banged the tree trunk a bit harder. “I should have gotten a lawyer. But I didn’t have any money, and she seemed like such a nice lady.”
I knew only too well how enthusiastic and nice-seeming Candace Branson could be.
“Anyway, I finished the book. I turned it in. I waited for the second five grand. It didn’t come. I phoned the number that Candace Branson had given me, and she never returned my calls. I emailed her. I emailed the lawyer who drew up the contract. Nothing.”
He shook his head. “She stiffed me.”
Chapter 14
“That must have hurt.” I was trying to act sympathetic so he’d tell me more than he might have intended, but it wasn’t difficult. I did feel bad for him.
“Then I saw the excitement build for Branson’s last book. From the amount of press it was receiving, it was pretty clear that the book would hit every best-seller list just because it had Branson’s name on it and the poor guy was dead.”
“He’s still a bestseller,” I agreed.
“Then I saw that Candace Branson herself was coming over for this launch in Ireland. Probably I wasn’t even thinking right, but I decided that if Candace Branson was going be here in Ireland, I would make sure to show up. I only wanted the money she owed me.”
I could imagine being that angry. And it was a bold move.
“So you got on a plane and you came to Ballydehag.”
“That’s right. I found a dirt-cheap flight and I know how to live stealth camping. I was determined to get right up in her face. All I wanted was the five grand I was owed. But she was too cheap to pay it to me. First, she pretended she didn’t even know who I was, so I told her I’d talk to Andrew Hazeltine and Giles Montague if she didn’t want to honor our agreement. She told me to come to the B&B where she was staying but no one could know. And, well, you saw the rest. She had me thrown out.”
“So you admit that you did you go to the bed and breakfast late at night to see Candace Branson?”
“Because she told me to. When she threw me out, she said, ‘We can’t talk here. Come and see me later. I’m at the O’Donnell House, room three.’”
Maybe I’d half-believed a lot of his story. It was certainly plausible. But did he really think I was going to buy that Candace Branson had invited him to her room?
My skepticism must have shown on my face. For he said, “It’s true. She even gave me her front-door key. How do you think I got in after hours?”
I looked at Lochlan. His story did sort of make sense. Lochlan shrugged.
I turned back to Tristan. “Well, pretend I believe you. Then what happened?”
“She’d told me to wait until everyone was in bed and the lights were out. She didn’t want an audience, obviously. A little after midnight, I let myself in. I went upstairs and found room three, the one at the front of the house. When I went in, she was reading the manuscript. She had these glasses on and, I don’t know, she just looked really pretentious. She said, ‘Before this can be published, I’ll have to do a lot of work. Frankly, it’s pretty much going to be a complete rewrite. Be glad I’m not asking for the whole advance to be returned.’”
“She did?” That was harsh and, I suspected, untrue.
“I was furious. Nobody had asked me for revisions. And our deal was twenty grand for writing the manuscript. Which I had done. She shoved a copy of A Killer in His Sights at me and told me to be thankful for the five thousand dollars and that maybe we could work together again in the future.”
“Wait, you’re saying she stiffed you out of your fee and still strung you along for more work?” That was the craziest thing I’d ever heard. But somehow, I suspected Candace had been capable of that kind of behavior.
“I don’t get mad very often, but I was mad. I told her I wasn’t leaving until I got my money. She threatened to call the police. I told her to go ahead.”
“And then you strangled her?” Lochlan put in sweetly.
“No! She told me to look in her handbag and take whatever euros were in there and she’d send me a check when she got home.”
Oh, this was not going to end well for poor Tristan. “You went through her handbag? And we’re supposed to believe she was still alive when you did it?”
“She was. She told me to take the cash that was in her purse, since she’d be going home soon anyway. Then she said to contact her when I got back to the States.”
“How much money was in her purse?” Lochlan asked.
“Six hundred euros and some change.”
“Not five thousand dollars then, was it?”
“What was I going to do? It was the middle of the night. I don’t know anybody in Ireland. I figured my best bet was to take the money and wait till I got home.”
There was silence. I could just smell the scent of the sea and hear the sound of the odd car that traveled along the Wild Atlantic Way.
As though he couldn’t stand the silence any longer, he almost shouted, “She was alive. I left and she was alive.”
“What was she doing when you left?” Lochlan asked him. Oh, good question.
“She picked up the manuscript again and went back to reading it.” He made a face as though he was suddenly in pain. “I couldn’t stand watching her read it, especially with that look on her face, like she was about to puke from how bad it was.”
His hands fisted as he spoke. No doubt he was unaware he was doing it, but considering the way Candace died and that he’d admitted to being in her room late at night and going through her handbag, the gesture only added evidence that he was guilty of murder.
“And then I left.”
There was a beat of silence. “I can see that you’re a fine novelist,” Lochlan said. “You’ve spun a brilliant story there. I’ll trouble you to tell it again to the Gardai.”
He picked up his cell phone and, before I even knew what was happening, Tristan Holt ran at me, shoved me so that I tumbled back against Lochlan, who dropped his phone. In the time that it took us to pick ourselves up off the ground, the author was speeding away on foot, clutching his back
pack to his chest.
“Are you all right, Quinn?” Lochlan asked.
“Yes. Fine. But we’ll have to chase after him.”
To my surprise, the vampire shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“But he’ll get away. He probably killed Candace Branson. And even if he didn’t, he’d be a key witness.”
Lochlan was watching the figure get smaller and smaller. “I’m curious to see where he goes.”
“Then don’t you think you should follow him?”
He shook his head. “I can find him well enough when I need to. He’s a bag of nerves, and he’s running on adrenaline. Very easy to track.”
Right.
“But why are you letting him get away?”
He looked at me. “Before I make a grab at that young scribbler, I want to talk to Bartholomew Branson.”
I turned so quickly, my head spun. “Do you still think Bartholomew killed his ex-wife? When you sent those two undead minders to stay with him?”
“He ditched them.”
“What?”
“They were as surprised as you are. We’d all forgotten that the man spent his career writing about secret agents escaping from captors. He must have used the plot of one of his books, but he certainly hoodwinked Francis and Allan.”
“Guess they’re in the doghouse.”
“You’ve no idea. You saw Bartholomew. He was very angry when he left us, and he spent most of the night alone. I’m curious to hear what his movements were.”
“Will he tell you the truth?”
Lochlan sent me a cool glance. “Oh, yes.”
Lochlan was still holding the manuscript. He read the title aloud. “All Fall Down. I wouldn’t have thought that was enough to kill for.”
“It’s not the book. It’s the money that the novel will earn. A lot of people would be very happy to cash Bartholomew Branson’s royalty checks.” Including Bartholomew Branson.
“Him running away doesn’t look good.”
“No. Should we call the Gardai and report that we’ve seen him?”
He gazed at the pup tent, which looked even more forlorn now, as though it knew it had been abandoned. “We could, of course, but how helpful is it now he’s run off again?”
Looking at the pup tent and his abandoned stove made me weirdly worried about Tristan Holt and where he was going to sleep that night. “Six hundred euros won’t get him very far.”
Lochlan looked at me curiously. “You believed him, didn’t you?”
“You know, I think I did.”
We both turned to stare in the direction that Tristan Holt had gone. I said, “If he was good enough to write a whole conspiracy thriller, when asked about his movements last night, wouldn’t you have thought he’d have come up with a better story? That’s what makes it sound like the truth.”
Lochlan said, “There’s something in what you say. But there’s a lot of evidence stacking up against him.”
“I know. And I have an idea.”
“What’s that?”
“Let’s go back. You try to prove that Tristan Holt did murder Candace Branson, and I’ll try to prove that he didn’t.”
He looked rather amused at my suggestion. “Is there a prize for the winner?”
I shook my head at him. “Only the satisfaction of helping the course of justice.”
“I know you’ve Irish in you somewhere, Quinn, but it’s deeply buried. You can’t challenge a man like that without there being a proper wager.”
This was ridiculous. “What did you have in mind?”
He seemed to think about it. “Since this is a crime apparently about greed, the wager should be a monetary one.”
I felt sick deep in my belly. It was okay for Lochlan Balfour, who was I had no idea how many times a billionaire, to casually toss out the idea of a monetary bet. He could afford to lose. But what about me? I was a mortal, with a mortal’s savings.
“What did you have in mind?”
“I think ten euros should do it.”
I nearly fainted with relief. Ten euros was about fifteen bucks. I thought I could handle losing that sum. And, if I did happen to win, I wouldn’t feel embarrassed to be taking that much money off someone else, even if they did have untold wealth. We shook hands on our bargain and decided we should head back.
Lochlan would have put the manuscript in the back of his car, but I took it from him instead. While he drove, I read Tristan Holt’s manuscript in imitation of Bartholomew Branson. Lochlan was very easy company. He left me alone to read, not asking every five minutes what I thought of the book, which I knew I would be doing if I were driving and he were reading. And soon, I found myself falling into the story. I read for about half an hour probably, then looked up to find I was missing some of the most beautiful scenery in Ireland. I knew enough now anyway that I could stop reading, enjoy the scenery, and finish the book at my leisure.
“He’s really a very good writer,” I said at last.
“Does he sound like Bartholomew Branson?”
I screwed up my face as I considered. “Honestly? His biggest problem is that he’s a much better writer than poor Bartholomew. His prose is smoother, his sentences aren’t so jerky, and already the protagonist is feeling more like a human being than a cartoon character.”
“It’ll be interesting to see what you think when you get to the end of the book.”
Unlike reading one of the real Bartholomew Branson thrillers, I was actually looking forward to getting back to this one.
As we got closer to Ballydehag, he said, “Are you in a hurry to go straight back to your cottage?”
I wasn’t nearly ready. I was having fun trying to solve this murder. I said, “Why? What did you have in mind?”
“For either of us to win our wager, we need to know more about Candace Branson’s movements and more particularly, her visitors’ after she returned to the bed and breakfast last night.”
I glanced at him. “You’re going to a lot of trouble for ten euros.”
“I always find it isn’t the amount wagered that’s interesting, it’s the bet itself.”
Since I wasn’t much of a betting woman, I couldn’t comment.
He was right though. It really did seem like this murder revolved around money and greed. Which brought me to the obvious question. “Who benefited if Candace Branson died?”
Chapter 15
He nodded. “An excellent question. And one I hope we’ll soon have the answer to.”
“Would Bartholomew know who Candace’s beneficiary is?”
“The trouble with Bartholomew is that he’s not a credible witness at the moment.”
I nodded. “Because he’s a suspect too. And, by the way, if we start trying to prove Bartholomew killed his wife, then that’s one crisp ten euro note for me.”
His lips quirked at that. “What will you do with your grand winnings, if you do win?”
I settled back and watched a seagull soar and dip. “Oof, that’s a hard one. So many choices. I could have one glass of wine at the pub. I could afford both a coffee and one of the potato scones at the coffee shop.”
“You’d blow it all at once then? You’re not the type to save for a rainy day.”
I nearly burst out laughing. I’d always been taught growing up that you should save ten percent of everything you earned. Which sounded great in a book or on a public television series, but the reality was money was a lot easier to spend than it was to save. Especially if you didn’t have a whole lot of it. The idea of carefully saving some percentage of my ten euros made me laugh.
When we drew up in front of O’Donnell House Bed and Breakfast, he turned off the engine and looked at me. “We’ll need a strategy.”
“Right. You’re trying to prove the young author is a killer who strangled Candace Branson, while I’m trying to prove he didn’t.”
“Exactly.”
“What do we do? Ask the opposite questions?”
“Or ask different people quest
ions and compare notes later.”
I liked this idea. It seemed efficient and unbiased.
I knocked on the door, and when Karen answered it, she looked as frazzled as I’ve ever seen her.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do, Quinn. I’ve had police up and down all day, carting that poor woman away, and then forensics going over the front room with a fine-tooth comb, and every time I turn around, there’s a television blaring the Antiques Roadshow. I’m about ready to take a sledgehammer to every television in the place.”
I had a sneaking feeling that might be the only way she was going to get that television program out of her house. I felt terrible that this was partly my fault. I’d thought I was so smart casting a spell that would prevent Antiques Roadshow from playing at all, but I’d made the worst rookie mistake. I’d cast the spell right in front of a vastly older and much darker witch. Most of us lived by the rule to do no harm. Biddy, however, had done so much harm she’d been given the death sentence. And while I was well aware that a lot of innocent women had been hanged and burned for witches over the centuries, it stood to reason that some of them must have deserved punishment, and I strongly suspected that Biddy O’Donnell was one of those.
She’d reversed my spell as easily as I’d made it but had been smarter than I was, as I couldn’t reverse it back again.
There had to be a way to stop this. I’d give Biddy a stern talking-to and one more chance to mend her ways, and then I was going to have to go to Pendress Kennedy. I knew that Pendress would have a fit if she discovered that Biddy O’Donnell was not back in her underground prison but haunting O’Donnell House and once more making trouble for the citizens of Ballydehag. So far, she hadn’t killed any husbands, but I couldn’t rule out the possibility that she was the one who’d killed Candace Branson.
Karen looked surprised and somewhat flustered to see Lochlan standing at her door. But he was smooth as always and apologized for bothering her, saying he’d heard of her troubles and was there anything he could do to help?
