A Dangerous Fiction

by Barbara Rogan

  Jean-Paul replaced the photo. “It didn’t bother you that Hugo was so much older?”

  A strange question, I thought; but it had been a strange day. “Never. There was no difference. He was young at heart, you see, and I’m an old soul.” Hugo’s line, oft-repeated.

  “I totally get that. Age is irrelevant.” Jean-Paul looked at me intently. There was a speculative edge to his gaze, and suddenly he didn’t look so young to me, but just like any other man on the verge of making a move. My heart sank. The kid had misinterpreted the scene in the kitchen, and that was all my fault. What an idiot, throwing myself in his arms over a damn bug! What was wrong with me?

  He finished his drink and set the glass down with a decisive little click. “Jo—”

  “It’s late,” I said quickly. “I’ve kept you long enough. Thanks for the escort.”

  “I could stay if you like.”

  “No, thanks. I’m fine on my own.” I cobbled up a smile as I walked him to the door. “What a mess. Poor guy—not exactly what you signed on for, is it?”

  “I don’t care about that,” he said. “I’m glad I’m here. You don’t have to worry, Jo. Nothing’s going to happen while I’m around.”

  But he was wrong. It already had.

  Chapter 8

  The precinct interview room was tiny and square, three paces each way. The only furniture was an oblong table, bare but for a box of tissues, with four chairs set around it—not folding chairs but comfortable upholstered seats with arms. Mounted high on the wall near a corner of the room was a small video camera of the sort used for security. I wondered if we were being watched.

  Max lounged in one of the armchairs, his briefcase on the floor beside my laptop. “You’re making me dizzy,” he said.

  “How long are they going to keep us waiting?”

  “It’s been all of ten minutes, and we were early.”

  “Sorry.” I dropped into the chair beside his. “I’m a wreck.”

  “You don’t look it.”

  I hoped not; I’d spent enough time on my makeup that morning, trying to conceal the circles under my eyes. Like Max, I’d dressed conservatively for the occasion: in his case a jacket and tie, in mine a little sheath in black cotton chambray, with an old Coach bag in leather so soft it made me want to cry every time I touched it. Four-inch heels, but only because I needed the height. Not Crazy is the look I was going for. Solid Citizen. Woman in Distress Showing Admirable Restraint.

  While we waited, we talked about Molly. I hadn’t told her about the e-mails. Last night, after Jean-Paul left, I’d been sorely tempted to call her and spew out all my troubles, but pity stopped me, and shame, too: for I could not escape the feeling that I’d been an unworthy shepherd of the flock she’d entrusted to my care.

  “You have to tell her,” Max said. “She’ll find out anyway. Better she hear it from you.”

  “I can’t do it over the phone. I’ll have to go up there. Tonight, maybe.” Then it struck me that I had something planned for tonight. I checked my BlackBerry and Teddy Pendragon’s name leapt out at me. God help me, I thought. As if stalkers and cockroaches weren’t enough. My first thought was to put the biographer off, but I’d stalled him too long to get away with that now.

  The door opened and a tall, slender man strode in. Our eyes met, and he smiled. I gasped and stared like a tourist on Broadway. He was a strikingly handsome man, but it wasn’t that.

  Max rose, hand outstretched. “Detective Cullen, I presume?”

  “You must be Max Messinger. Nice to meet you. I’m a big fan.”

  “Really?” Max beamed. “That’s good to hear.” Writers, I thought. Max stepped aside. “Jo Donovan, Detective Tom Cullen.”

  “Hey, Jo,” the detective said.

  “Tommy.” I stood and took a step toward him; there was an awkward moment before we settled on a handshake.

  Max looked from him to me, eyebrows raised. When neither of us volunteered anything, he said, “You two know each other?”

  “Used to,” Tommy said cheerfully. “Have a seat, won’t you?” Max and I sat side by side, across from Tommy. I examined him properly for the first time. He was as fine-looking as ever, but the boy I’d known was gone. It wasn’t just the tailored suit. There were lines around the corners of his mouth and his eyes and a harder cast to both. His sandy hair was shorter now, and his eyes were a darker, warier shade of green, rain forest instead of meadow. His ring finger was bare, I noticed, not that that meant anything. When Hugo and I married we exchanged rings, but he never wore his.

  Max took a buff file from his briefcase and placed it on the table. “We’ve documented everything. There’s a timeline—”

  “I’d like to hear it from Jo, if you don’t mind.” Tommy produced a small notepad, just like a TV detective. “Start from the beginning,” he said. “What happened first?”

  As if I knew when it began. Endings are unambiguous—a slammed door, a final chord, the vacant, glassy stare of the dead—but beginnings are always a matter of perspective. Sometimes you can’t tell where a story begins until you reach the end, which is fine if you’re writing fiction; but in real life, it’s too late.

  I explained this. He said, “You’re making it too complicated.”

  “‘Just the facts, ma’am’?”

  Tommy smiled reflexively, as one does at an oft-heard joke.

  “A series of incidents occurred,” I said. “But I don’t know how they’re connected.”

  “Just tell me what happened. Let me make the connections.”

  How strange, I thought, that Tommy should be giving me the very advice I give my writers. Just show what happens, I tell them, don’t explain it. He waited patiently as I thought about this, his pen motionless against the pad. I saw he was a man who understood the uses of silence.

  “It began,” I said unforgivably, “on a dark and stormy night.”

  Tommy took notes as I told him about the encounters with Sam Spade outside my office and in Santa Fe, the laptop that went AWOL, and the e-mail attack. It made a convincing narrative to my ear, and I thought to his as well, though it was hard to tell what this new Tommy was thinking. Now and then he glanced at me, never for long. He must find me greatly changed, I thought. It was more than the passage of thirteen years; it was marriage and widowhood and the lifetime compressed in between. I wasn’t the same. But he, too, was different, I could see that already. Prom King, I used to call him; you wouldn’t now.

  When I finished, Tommy turned to Max. “What’s your connection to all this?”

  “I’m a client and a friend. I happened to be at the Santa Fe conference when the stalker showed up there. I offered to help.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Had a word with the hotel manager. He swore her laptop never left the luggage room, which is a small room on the side of the reception desk, accessible through doors from the back office and the lobby. But he also claimed that the lobby door is kept locked. When I tried it, it was open.”

  “OK, let’s see what you’ve got.”

  Max slid the file over across the table. It included copies of the e-mails, Sam Spade’s novel summary, Lorna’s submission log, and a detailed timetable of occurrences. While Tommy read through the file, I watched him and wondered: How could it be that of all the damn cop shops in the city, I walked into his? He wasn’t even supposed to be in New York. His plan after graduating had been to work a few years for the NYPD, then go home to Kentucky with some big-city creds, which had sounded as crazy to me as a prisoner escaping from Alcatraz, then taking the next boat back. And yet here he still was, thirteen years later.

  When he came to Sam Spade’s synopsis, his face tightened, and a little tic pulsed in the corner of his jaw. Finally he closed the file and looked at me.

  “I’m sorry, Jo. This is ugly.”

  “It was heartbreakin
g for my clients. I had to tell them the offers were bogus.”

  “Your clients believed them, then?”

  “Absolutely. Those offers were designed to play straight to their wildest dreams.”

  “It’s a major escalation,” said Max.

  I’d forgotten he was there. Tommy looked as if he had too. “It is, assuming it’s the same person,” he said to Max, and turned back to me. “Let’s leave this stalker aside for a moment. Is there anyone in your life with a grudge? Anyone who’d want to hurt you?”

  “No one I know of.” I supposed they had a checklist they have to go through, but it seemed to me he was veering off track.

  “Anyone who might feel betrayed or rejected by you?”

  “Betrayed, no. Rejected . . . that’s part of the job. We decline ninety-nine percent of submissions, and, unfortunately, many writers take it personally.”

  “What about your personal life? Are you seeing anyone?”

  “No.”

  “Had you been? Any recent breakups?”

  I shook my head. “There’s been no one since Hugo.”

  “Really?” Tommy’s eyes flickered toward Max.

  Max laughed and raised both hands. “I’m flattered, Detective. But I’m happily married to a wonderful man.”

  “No one,” I said firmly. “Look, Tommy, isn’t it obvious what happened? Sam Spade followed me to Santa Fe, seized the opportunity to grab my laptop, and hacked into my agency files.”

  Tommy nodded but continued along his own turgid path. “Who else has access to those files?”

  “No one, only me and my staff.”

  “Tell me about your staff.”

  I bristled. “They’re incredibly loyal and supportive and they have nothing to do with this.”

  “He has to ask,” Max said. “Besides, you know, we wondered ourselves.”

  “Not about them!”

  “No, but about how Sam Spade could have pulled this off. About the specificity of the offers, the tone, the publishing savvy in those e-mails.”

  “Well, he’s obsessed with getting published, isn’t he? He probably follows the agent blogs. He had access to my files. There’s all sorts of ways you could pick up the lingo.” I knew I sounded defensive, but I felt that Tommy and Max were ganging up, bullying me and casting aspersions on people who had earned my gratitude.

  “I still have to know everyone who’s ever had access to your work files,” Tommy said, “if only to eliminate them.”

  “Fine!” I ran down the list: Harriet Peagoody, Chloe Strauss, Lorna Mulligan, and Jean-Paul Devereaux.

  “Tell me about them. Where do they come from, how long have they worked for you?”

  “Harriet’s worked for the agency for eleven years. Before that she was with an agency in London. Chloe’s her assistant, with us two years, right out of college. Lorna joined us about a year ago, after working for a publishing temp agency. I took on Jean-Paul two months ago as an intern, also straight out of college.”

  “Anyone else? Accountant, IT person?”

  “Our accountant, Shelly Rubens, comes in once a week and works on the spare computer in the file room. Shelly’s seventy-two and has been with the agency since Molly started it. We don’t have an IT person. We use an outfit in California that provides networking and hosting services to small businesses. I’ve never even met them in person. There’s no one else.”

  “Don’t forget Charlie Malvino,” Max prompted.

  Tommy raised his eyebrows.

  “Former employee,” I said. “I fired him six months ago.”

  “Why?” Tommy asked, and I told him about Charlie’s blog.

  “He didn’t take it well,” Max said. “He started trashing her online, anonymously of course. He also showed up at the Santa Fe conference, even though he wasn’t on the original list of presenters.”

  I hadn’t realized he knew about the cyber-sniping, but it didn’t surprise me. Max was almost as good as Molly at knowing things. “He’s not happy with me,” I told Tommy, “and Charlie does have a mean streak. But it couldn’t be him.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because that would mean that at the exact same time I’m being stalked by a crazy writer, someone else is hacking into my files and sending malicious e-mails. I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  “They happen,” Tommy said, with a flash of his old smile. “Though this might not be one. Who knew about this Sam Spade stalker?”

  “Lots of people. It wasn’t a secret. In fact, when he first ambushed me I was on my way to a client’s launch party, and I told some people there about it. It was a good story; I’m sure it made the rounds.” It occurred to me then that Charlie had been at Rowena’s launch too. I decided against volunteering that information. Tommy was veering off track already; there was no point leading him further astray.

  “Was Malvino there?” he asked.

  I sighed. “Yes.”

  “So that’s one person with a motive. How about the others? Because I’m getting the feeling here that whoever sent those e-mails knows a good deal about you and your business. Stalkers often know their victims.”

  “No one I know would do this.”

  “OK,” Tommy said. “But let’s try a little thought experiment. Apart from Malvino, there are five people with ready access to your electronic files. Imagine this is a mystery story, and you have to come up with a motive for each of those people. What would it be? Start with Harriet Peagoody.”

  “She’d never do it. The woman’s an agent to the bone. The idea of Harriet tormenting a bunch of writers—it’s like trying to imagine a kindly old vet torturing kittens.”

  “Or a kindly old priest molesting kids?”

  “OK,” I said. “But Harriet would never do anything to hurt the agency. It’s all she has.”

  “Is it?” Tommy looked interested. “No family, kids, lover?”

  “Family in England, no kids, no partner. There was a man, years ago, according to Molly, but Harriet was very mysterious about him, so Molly assumed he was either married or a client. The affair ended in some vaguely tragic manner. In the three years I’ve been back, she’s been alone as far as I know. But what difference does that make? The point is, Harriet has no motive.”

  “Then she must have done it,” Tommy said, looking at Max. “The least likely suspect: isn’t that how it works in fiction?”

  “In bad fiction,” Max said.

  Tommy turned back to me. “If you had to give her a motive, though, what would it be?”

  It was like brainstorming with a writer. I didn’t want to play this game with Tommy, but we needed his help, and I figured that the sooner we got through his list, the sooner he could get down to catching Sam Spade. “A Machiavellian plot to usurp the agency.”

  “Now we’re cooking. What about Jean-Paul?”

  “A set-up so he can play the hero.”

  “Chloe.”

  “Jealousy.”

  “Shelly Rubens.”

  “Dementia.”

  “Lorna Mulligan.”

  My mind went blank. Finally I said, “She’s an anarchist who hates all bosses. Are we done, Tommy?”

  “Almost,” he said. “One more. Sam Spade.”

  “That’s obvious: he’s crazy.”

  “Even crazy people have motives. What’s his?”

  “He wants me to recognize his genius and be his agent.”

  “And how does sending those e-mails advance that cause?”

  “It doesn’t,” I said tartly. “That’s where the crazy comes in.”

  “Most stalkers are obsessed and controlling, not crazy. If he sent those e-mails, he had some goal in mind, however moronic it may seem to us.” Tommy spoke with a practiced calmness that I found at once reassuring and infuriating. His professional dispassion hurt my fe
elings, or perhaps just bruised my ego, although there was no reason in the world why he should take a personal interest in my problem, nor any why I should want him to.

  He was waiting for my answer, but I didn’t care to put myself in Sam Spade’s head. At last I said, “Maybe he hoped I’d lose clients and need replacements.”

  “Or,” Max put in, “he started off wanting Jo for his agent, got rejected, and now wants to punish her.”

  Tommy gave him a nod. “Which would explain the escalation.”

  “That and a touch of erotomania.”

  “Yeah, I noticed that, too.”

  They were talking over my head like a doctor and parent discussing a child. I broke in. “Will you help, Tommy?”

  He leaned back in his chair and regarded me through those deep, hooded eyes. “Sure,” he said. “It’s my job.”

  Meaning if it weren’t, he wouldn’t? I felt an unexpected pang.

  Beside me, Max exhaled deeply. He must have been relieved, not only for me, but also for himself. Finally he could turn this over to the proper authorities and get back to his life. I wished I could do the same.

  “What happens next?” I asked.

  “Next,” Tommy said, “I visit your office with a team from the computer crimes unit. While they inspect your computers, I’ll talk to your staff.”

  “I’ve already questioned them, and so has Max. There’s nothing they can add to what we already told you.”

  “Including the accountant, if you can arrange that.”

  “I don’t see why,” I said.