Manuscript for Murder

by Jessica Fletcher

  Unfortunately, Artie wasn’t buying it; maybe the hook and line, but not the sinker. “What is it you’re not telling me?”

  “How do you know there’s something I’m not telling you?”

  “Because I work at One Police Plaza now. I’m important.”

  “And that makes you clairvoyant?”

  “No,” Artie said, “not clairvoyant—just right, in this case.”

  “If I’m not telling you something, it’s because whatever it is doesn’t matter.”

  Artie gave me a long look as the cab began its descent. “Are you like this in Cabot Cove?”

  “Like what?”

  “A pain in the ass.” He reached out and hit the emergency stop button, jerking the cab to a sudden halt accompanied by an alarm buzzing just loudly enough to be annoying. “Got any plans for the rest of the day?”

  “I was thinking of spending it in a stuck elevator.”

  He positioned himself between me and the red button. “And it’s not going to get unstuck until you explain to me the point of what just happened in Barfield’s office.”

  “He made a huge offer for a book that his own contracts department has no record of. He’d never have done that without checking in with the sales department first, but Sales has no record of the book’s existence, either. And every place the manuscript should have been logged in, it wasn’t.”

  “Okay.” Artie nodded. “I get most of that, but give it to me short and sweet, the way you pitch your stories.”

  “I don’t pitch my stories.”

  “Then how do you sell them?”

  “I sign multibook contracts, usually three at a time.”

  “Sight unseen?”

  I shrugged. “It’s the way things are done.”

  “And they trust you to keep doing it?”

  “Lane did,” I told him, leaving it there.

  Artie released the emergency stop button. “You think he trusted Benjamin Tally, too, Jessica?”

  “That’s what we need to find out,” I said, still not telling him I had a copy of Tally’s manuscript.

  * * *

  • • •

  From my apartment after Artie dropped me off, I checked in with Zara twice for updates over the course of the afternoon. So far, her efforts had produced the names of two of the imprint’s biggest authors, whom Lane had been in touch with several times over the course of the past two weeks. The call logs, of course, spoke nothing as to the content of those conversations, but a combination of their length, their frequency, and that they’d occurred one after another on several occasions suggested following up on this lead might indeed yield information pertinent to my investigation.

  Zara excitedly gave me the names of the writers, both of whom I immediately recognized as major authors who could claim number one New York Times bestsellers to their credit, something that had always eluded me. She was a bit more reluctant to pass on their phone numbers, until I said I’d be making the calls on the pretext of ensuring they’d heard of Lane’s passing. One of the authors lived in Santa Fe and the other on a ranch in Montana, so it was very possible they had, in fact, not gotten the news about Lane’s passing, which had come out only this morning.

  I put off making the calls as long as I could, trying to find the right frame of mind. Though I was familiar with both authors, and I was sure we’d crossed paths at some conference or awards ceremony, I couldn’t recall actually meeting either of them. A. J. Falcone, a huge action-thriller seller, was a complete recluse on the order of J. D. Salinger. There wasn’t another ranch within three hundred miles of where he lived in Montana, and I’d once heard he moved there from his first ranch when a neighbor bought a home a half mile away, destroying his sight line of the wilderness. Alicia Bond, meanwhile, was the pen name for a bestselling romance writer who’d needed a new byline to craft a fantasy series that had become a huge hit on pay cable. Her original series would continue to make Lane’s imprint a boatload of cash, but she’d sold her pseudonymous one to another publisher after a bidding war that reached unfathomable numbers. I doubt either one of them ever answered their phones, meaning I’d have to decide between leaving a message and calling back. And I hated leaving a message since it likely meant I’d have to wait who knew how long for them to call me back, if ever. I needed to talk to them, needed them to answer my questions as soon as possible, not next week or next month, not even tomorrow.

  Patience might’ve been a virtue, but it was never my greatest strength, which served me well as a writer, since I couldn’t wait to finish a book. Writing feels like an impossible task, unless you’re doing it. So my solution has always been not to stop.

  I flirted with opening up the manuscript of The Affair again and picking up where I’d left off, but my mind was still racing too fast to concentrate. And after doing pretty much everything else I could think of to distract myself, I finally settled down to phone A. J. Falcone and Alicia Bond, starting with A.J.

  “Lane?” a gruff, gravelly voice greeted me on the other end of the line.

  My thoughts froze, silent for what felt like a much longer duration than it really was. Clearly A. J. Falcone received so few calls on this particular line that he assumed I must be Lane Barfield.

  “It’s Jessica Fletcher, A.J.,” I said finally, sputtering through my words.

  “Who?”

  “Jessica Fletcher, the mystery writer. We’re both published by Lane Barfield’s imprint.”

  “Never heard of you. How’d you get this number? I’m hanging up now.”

  “No, please don’t hang up. I got your number from Lane’s office. I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news to share with you.”

  “He’s dead?” Falcone’s gruff voice kind of rolled his words together.

  “Then you’ve heard.”

  “Nope, haven’t heard a thing. When some stranger calls you on a number they shouldn’t have, what else could it be? How’d it happen? Accident?”

  “Suicide,” I told him tersely.

  “How’d he do it? Shotgun?”

  “Er, no.”

  “Noose?”

  “No again. Sleeping pills.”

  “Barfield never had any guts. Hemingway had guts, emptied both barrels into his head instead of just one, made sure he got it right.”

  That final remark made me cringe. I’d seen author photos of Falcone on his book jackets; he was inevitably pictured in a cowboy hat atop, or standing next to, a horse. Leathery skin with lines and deep furrows that made his face look like a cracked windshield. An old-fashioned cowboy look that had served him, and his book sales, well.

  “I was calling to let you know.”

  “And now you have. Nice talking to you, Jennifer.”

  I switched my cell phone from one hand to the other. “It’s Jessica. And I did have one other thing.”

  “Somebody else die?”

  “No.”

  “Did Barfield die twice?”

  “Mr. Falcone,” I started, adopting a more formal tone, until he cut me off.

  “We got nothing more to talk about.”

  “Did Lane Barfield send you a manuscript lately?”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “To get your thoughts.”

  “Why would he care?”

  “Maybe he wanted a blurb for it.”

  “I don’t do blurbs. You didn’t call for one, did you? Please tell me you’re not a writer.”

  I decided to keep right on going. “Did Lane send you a manuscript called The Affair by an author named Benjamin Tally?”

  “Never heard of him, either. Never heard of any of you.”

  “I’m asking you about The Affair.”

  “Not interested, Jennifer. I’m a married man, most of the time.”

  “I wasn’t talking about that.”

&nbs
p; “It’s what you just said.”

  “Yes, the title of a book: The Affair.”

  “Oh, that. It sucked. Awful. A waste of time, like all books are, including my own. I write ’em, but I wouldn’t be caught dead reading ’em.”

  I felt my heart flutter in my chest. “Lane Barfield sent you The Affair and you read it?”

  “What did I just say?”

  “Did you tell Lane what you thought of the book?”

  “Why bother? He doesn’t hear it from me, he’d figure it out for himself.” I could tell A. J. Falcone’s patience with me was wearing thin. “I’m sorry Barfield’s dead. Would’ve been sorrier if he’d used a shotgun. Bye.”

  Click.

  My call to Alicia Bond went considerably faster: She didn’t answer so I left a voice mail saying I had some bad news to share about Lane Barfield, elaborating no further. Short and sweet. I doubted I’d hear back and began wishing I hadn’t left a message at all, as soon as I hung up.

  My thoughts turned to the author named Benjamin Tally, who wasn’t listed on Amazon or any other book site and didn’t have a Web site, a Facebook page, a Twitter handle, or anything else that might ease the task of finding him. I found plenty of Benjamin Tallys online and a few on LinkedIn with full profiles, too. But none of them were, or claimed to be, writers. The name had to be a pseudonym, just like I’d figured, which meant I needed to find Benjamin Tally’s real identity.

  I jogged my phone to Contacts, jogged the screen to M, and touched the name I was looking for.

  “You again?” came a voice that sounded like it had been strained through oatmeal.

  “Let’s get some coffee, Harry. I’m buying.”

  Chapter Eight

  “You said you were buying,” said Harry McGraw, rising as I approached the same table he seemed to always be sitting at inside the Tick Tock Diner, located on Thirty-fourth Street not far from Penn Station. “That’s why I showed up.”

  The location was perfect, given that I intended to catch a train to Boston directly from our meeting. Harry looked as rumpled and ragged as ever, a cheap suit with arms and legs hanging out of it and a face that looked like he washed it with coffee grounds. Though he refused to admit it and might not have even known it, he was still the best private investigator in the business, all his self-disparaging remarks aside. He never let me down and hated taking credit for anything he did, as if the persona of a down-on-his-luck, has-been loser suited him better. Call Harry a victim of low expectations.

  He was well into his coffee by the time I got there, the usual twisted stack of old-school Sweet’N Low packets nowhere to be seen around the saucer.

  “What happened to the Sweet’N Low, Harry?” I asked him, sliding into the chair and tucking my wheeled carry-on bag under the edge of the table.

  “Gave it up. I heard it causes cancer.”

  “That study is twenty years old, Harry.”

  “What can I say, Jess? I’m still working my way through a pile of old Reader’s Digests.”

  “Twenty years?”

  “It’s a big pile.”

  “I need your help with something.”

  “Of course you do. God forbid you should call just to say hello.”

  “I call to say hello all the time, Harry. You always hang up when I say I don’t need your help with anything.”

  He took a sip from his cup, his jowls drooping as he swallowed. “I’m raising my rates.”

  “I didn’t know you had rates.”

  “That’s because you don’t pay your bills.”

  “You never send me any.”

  “That’s no excuse,” he said and signaled for the server, also the same one he always seemed to get, as if the Tick Tock Diner had only a single table and server so far as Harry was concerned.

  The server refilled his cup and took my order for a tea.

  “Don’t forget my pie,” Harry said to him when he started to back away from the table.

  “You didn’t order any pie, sir,” the waiter said, confused.

  “I just did. Big slice of whatever looks good. Your choice.”

  The man nodded and took his leave.

  “What do you need, little lady?” Harry asked me, draining a river of sugar from an old-fashioned dispenser into his cup. “I’m going to warn you, though, I now require a twenty percent deposit up front.”

  “Whatever you say, Harry.”

  “Okay, fifty percent.”

  I took out an envelope containing the actual title page from The Affair and handed it across the table. “I need you to find the author on this title page.”

  “Who is he?”

  “His name is Benjamin Tally.”

  Harry opened the envelope and consulted the page. “Never heard of him.”

  “He’s new.”

  “Never heard of the book, either.”

  “It hasn’t been published yet.”

  “Lousy title. Any good?” Harry asked, looking back at me across the table.

  “I’ve only just started.”

  “I heard your new book came out.”

  “That’s why I’m in New York.”

  “Where’s my free copy?”

  “I invited you to the launch party at the Mysterious Book Shop.”

  He tucked the title page back into the envelope and frowned. “Then I’d have to pay. I like getting them for free like a tip. Or, in my case, my entire fee for services rendered.”

  The server brought my tea and Harry’s pie, which looked like a double slice.

  “Which flavor is it?” I asked as he took a bite.

  “Can’t tell,” he said, chewing. “Something with fruit. What’s the difference?”

  I leaned forward, rattling my teacup. “Benjamin Tally, Harry.”

  “You try the phone book?”

  “I don’t think they make them anymore.”

  “They also have this thing called the Internet. Maybe you’ve heard of it.”

  “I think the name Benjamin Tally is a pseudonym. I want you to find out who he really is.”

  “Who’s bringing the book out?”

  “My publisher.”

  He nodded as if he’d figured something out. “All right, tell you what I’m going to do. First thing tomorrow, I’m going to call them and ask who Benjamin Tally really is. That ought to keep your bill down.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s dead, Harry.”

  “Benjamin Tally?”

  “No, my publisher. Lane Barfield.”

  “How’d that happen?”

  “Suicide.”

  “Uggghhhhh . . .”

  “That was my thought.”

  “Book sales must be pretty bad.” He nodded to himself, carving out another bite of pie, a chunk of whatever the fruit was falling onto the envelope that held the title page, Harry making the stain worse when he tried to clean it with his napkin. “I’ll bet it was pills.”

  “How’d you guess?”

  “It’s always pills with the intellectual types who hit the off switch. Normally, they don’t own guns and like dreaming anyway, which your boss will now be doing for eternity.”

  “He wasn’t my boss.”

  “Then what was he?”

  “My publisher.”

  “That’s not the same thing?”

  “No more than me paying you makes me your boss.”

  “Except you don’t pay me.”

  I let him work on his pie for a few moments before resuming. “Can you do it?”

  “Finish this whole piece? Absolutely.”

  “Can you find out who Benjamin Tally really is?”

  Harry ran his index finger through the dark smudge on the envelope. “Sure, right after I part the Red Sea
and make frogs rain from the sky. Jeez, Jess, do I look like God to you?”

  “The Red Sea and the frogs were the work of Moses, Harry.”

  “But he had help, didn’t he? He needed God, just like you need me.”

  “So you’re God now?”

  “Only to you, little lady, only to you.” Harry passed the halfway point on his pie and, for some reason, spun the remainder around to eat the crust first. “Anything else you can tell me about Benjamin Tally?”

  I shrugged. “That’s pretty much it.”

  “A name on the title page of an unpublished manuscript?”

  I nodded. “I’m afraid so.” I checked my watch and looked at the upside-down check the server had just set down next to Harry. “I need to catch the train. What’s the damage?”

  Harry looked at the check, so casually he seemed bored. “Two thousand and eleven dollars.”

  “For a piece of pie?”

  “No, my back alimony payments. I thought I’d give it a try.”

  * * *

  • • •

  I walked the short distance to Penn Station and took an Amtrak Northeast Regional train that would get me to Boston just in time to catch another train headed north to Portland, from where I’d make my way home to Cabot Cove. I could have saved time by flying, but I was actually looking forward to all that uninterrupted time alone, if for no other reason than it would give me a chance to read a considerable chunk of The Affair during the ride.

  I’d forgotten the garish opening, so I started from scratch again. The train wasn’t very crowded and I had a double seat all to myself. I’d tucked the tote containing the manuscript into my overnight bag, guarding it as if it might be worth the large sum Lane Barfield had paid for it.

  Lane Barfield . . .

  Strange how much that simple tote bag he’d mindlessly provided had come to mean to me.

  It’s what I had to remember him by, a token of the last time we were ever together. And that got me thinking about the inexplicable oddities surrounding the book itself. Like how could Lane have possibly paid out a huge advance, or at least made the offer, without his own imprint’s contracts department knowing about it? Why was there no profit-and-loss statement assembled by Sales on his computer? That was a basic industry standard, and sitting alone under the dome lights I’d switched on as the train sped through the darkness, I let myself consider what I’d been resisting since Artie and I had met with Lane’s assistant, Zara: