by Josh Lanyon
The police were still searching the house for the mysterious source of Sara’s poisoning when Rudolph and Anna returned from the funeral.
I was in the library listening to J.X. schmooze our way onto a new flight when I saw the long black car pulling up the drive.
Rising, I went to the window and stared out. First Rudolph got out of the car and then he helped Anna, who was slower and clumsy on her crutches. I watched them walking across the courtyard and was forced to admit that they made a strikingly handsome older couple in their black, fur-trimmed coats.
I was perfectly positioned to see their faces. Anna had been crying, but she was smiling now and gazing up at Rudolph with unselfconscious affection. It was a completely unguarded moment and I could see the love she felt for him. My stomach knotted. That’s the problem with real-life villains. Rarely are they black and white.
As for Rudolph, he was smiling indulgently down at her, a protective arm wrapped around her as they moved slowly up the front steps to the house.
The receiver rattled into its cradle behind me. J.X. said, “Okay. If we move fast we can make this flight out of Bradley International. If we miss it, they’ll put us on standby. Either way, we’re getting out of here tonight.”
I blew my nose a final time.
Silence. He came up behind me.
“Are you okay, Kit?”
“Oh hell yeah.”
He put his arms around me. “Is there anything I can do?”
“I think you’re doing it.” I sniffed, gently freed myself. “Let’s do this.”
Detective Eames was in the main hallway when Rudolph and Anna entered and we were in time to hear him break it to Anna about Sara’s body being loaded with poison.
“How is that possible?” Anna said, and she sounded truly shocked, truly horrified.
Not as shocked and horrified as Rudolph, who was literally struck silent. His face was haggard with pain. He and Anna clung together in the wake of it.
“Could it have been suicide? Is that what you think?” Anna asked at last.
Detective Eames was unable to vouchsafe comment on what he thought. He said the police were still searching for the source of the poison, but it appeared as though Sara Mason had eaten cereal shortly before her death.
“Cereal?” Rudolph repeated numbly.
“Oh fucking hell,” Anna murmured—shocking Eames, I think. “Yes. Yes, that’s true. She used to have a bowl of some god-awful granola or something like that every night. She was very health conscious. Fanatical, really.”
“That’s what your kitchen staff said. They said you’d given orders for Ms. Mason’s groceries to be tossed out.”
Anna’s jaw dropped. She looked around bewilderedly. “That’s not true. Cook was asking me what to do about some spoiled soy milk, and I…well, I suppose I did say to dispose of it. The milk. I’m afraid I had assumed your people had already gone through the food.”
“We did. This cereal was evidently overlooked. At the time we were under the impression we were looking for a liquid.”
“Miscommunication all around then. Oh, but this is fucking ghastly. I’ll never forgive myself if—” She broke off as her gaze fell on J.X. and I standing in the library doorway on the periphery of this gathering. I had the impression that she wasn’t thrilled to see us, although she summoned a weary smile. “Had a nice afternoon, darlings?”
“As a matter of fact we’ve got to leave now or we’ll miss our flight,” J.X. said.
“Oh?” Anna looked startled. “You’re leaving now?” Her eyes sought mine.
“Yes.” I couldn’t manage more than that one single flat word.
“But is that all right?” Anna asked Eames.
Eames nodded. “We’ve already discussed Mr. Moriarity and Mr. Holmes’s traveling plans. They’re good to go.”
“I don’t quite know what to say.” Anna stood motionless.
Not as motionless as Rudolph. He looked like he’d turned to stone. He hadn’t said a word since Eames had mentioned the poisoned cereal.
Chapter Twenty-Four
It took us less than fifteen minutes to pack. When we carried our bags down to the front hall it was empty. No sign of anyone. Even the police seemed to have scattered to the far winds.
“I’ll bring the car around.” J.X. set his suitcase down next to mine.
“I’ll be right back,” I told him, turning back to the staircase.
“Wait. Where are you going?”
“I want to say goodbye.”
“Kit.” He started after me, stopping after a step or two when I put my hand up.
“It’s all right. I’m not going to do anything crazy. Just…don’t leave without me.”
His expression was fierce. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”
I took the stairs fast and reached the second level out of breath, but that was more about anger than exertion. I retraced the steps to Anna’s room, remembering walking this way with Sara that first afternoon.
Anna was in her room staring out the window at the frozen lake.
“Didn’t we already say goodbye?” she asked without turning.
“Why?” I demanded. “Why the hell did you have to drag me into it?”
She did turn then, her expression one of polite inquiry. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, darling.”
“Do me the courtesy of sparing me the bullshit. You faked a bunch of tries on your life to make Sara’s murder look like a backfired attempt to kill you. You framed Sara for her own murder.”
Anna smiled, the smile I remembered from classrooms long ago, when a student, against the odds, had managed to get something correct. “If you’ll recall, that was your theory. I’d gone to some pains to spread the clues around. I tried to make sure no particular person looked guilty. But then you popped up with the theory that Sara was trying to kill me to conceal the murder of her sister.”
“There was no murder of her sister.”
“True. But you didn’t know that. Sara never spoke about her sister. Never spoke about anything personal, in fact. She was a very private person.” She added, “Not particularly imaginative, which is surprising in a writer. And devoid of any sense of humor.”
I had a sudden, shocking urge to shove her out that lovely picture window. It took a second or two before I could ask, “Did you do it for Rudolph or was it for Death and Her Sisters?”
Anna’s face changed again. “I can’t believe the little bitch submitted that manuscript without talking to me first. After everything I did for her.”
“You mean like killing her?”
“Keep your voice down, Christopher,” she said softly. “Fair warning. I could ruin you if I wanted to. You’re hanging on by your fingernails now. One word to your editor at Millbrook House and you and Miss Butterwitch will be a footnote in the next edition of Murderess Ink.”
“You go right ahead. You’re a fucking lunatic, Anna. What I still don’t get is why you dragged me across the country to be a part of this?”
Her eyes darkened with emotion. “If anyone should understand, it’s you.”
“What should I have understood?”
“What it’s like to be a has-been,” she cried, and now she seemed to be appealing to me. “What it’s like to know your career is over. To lose your lover to someone younger and stronger. To lose everything.”
I felt the poison arrows hit, but the pain barely registered. “You can’t get it back by killing your…your rival.”
Unnervingly, she laughed. “I might have agreed with you once, but you’re wrong about that. The only reason Rudolph and I weren’t still together was Sara, and ironically her death is serving to bring us back to where we were before she interfered.”
Even if I’d tried, I couldn’t have hid my feelings—and I didn’t try. Anna snapped, “You know nothing about it. Right now you feel magnanimous toward David because of J.X. but J.X. won’t stay with you. Why would he? He’ll be gone to greener pastures as soon as th
e novelty wears off, as soon as it becomes clear to him that your careers—your lives—are going in two different directions.”
“Even if that’s true, it wouldn’t justify—it wouldn’t change anything.”
She said with utter certainty, “Oh, it’s true. And it will change everything.”
It took effort to drag the focus of the conversation back to where it needed to be. “What about Nella? Did you do something to Poppy’s car?”
She recoiled, staring as though I were the crazy one. “I loved that child. How could you accuse me of something like that?” She seemed honestly horrified. “Even if it had been physically possible, I’d never have done anything to hurt her. I would never do anything to hurt anyone…who wasn’t trying to destroy me.”
I didn’t think I misread the warning.
“So this was all about getting Rudolph back? And now everything is supposed to be back to normal?”
She raised her chin. “He never really left me. Sara was merely a distraction. It hadn’t gone far between them and now it never will.”
“Yeah right. So you and Rudolph are going to live happily ever after and he’s going to publish Sara’s stories under your name? Maybe Sara showed him her other stories too.”
“What do you mean too?” Her eyes narrowed.
I started to tell her that Rudolph had advised Sara to submit to Wheaton & Woodhouse—that they were engaged in fact—and not only had he seen Death and Her Sisters long before the Asquith Circle, he was probably familiar with most of her work. But a baleful little notion whispered in my mind and silenced me.
Why warn her? Why give her time to prepare lies and excuses. I’d seen Rudolph’s face in the hall when the police were talking. He wasn’t stupid. Not by any means. No one knew Anna and the way her brain worked better than Rudolph. He was kind and civilized and he would try not to see it for as long as possible, but the sick knowledge was already taking root in his brain.
No. The last thing I wanted to do was give Anna a heads up. Let her stumble right into her own trap the way she’d made it look like Sara had done.
I answered, “You thought she wouldn’t show Death and Her Sisters to the writing group, but she did.”
“She won’t have shown any of the others. She didn’t think they were any good.” Anna’s smile was wry, and I saw where Sara had got the impression her work wasn’t any good.
The righteous anger that had been driving me drained away. I felt tired and empty. I made myself ask, “How long were you planning this?”
She understood. “It’s not what you think. I didn’t have designs on her work. I don’t deny that in my frustration I said things to discourage her. She was only writing for herself and she was so goddamned good without ever trying. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.”
“But you’re trying to steal her work now.”
“What does it matter? How does it help anyone to lose those stories? No, I didn’t do it for the work. The plan came to me a month ago when Rudolph was visiting and I saw the way she tried to monopolize his attention. The only thing I had left and she was trying to take that too.”
“Kit!” J.X. yelled from down the hall.
Both Anna and I froze.
She said quickly, softly, “There’s no evidence, no proof left. I was very careful. I’m a very good mystery writer. It’s your word against mine, and you’re not foolish enough to jeopardize what you have left of a career.”
“Kit.” J.X. had reached the doorway. He sounded angry. “We’ve got to go now.”
From the hostile blaze in his eyes as his gaze found Anna, I understood that the urgency wasn’t only about missing a plane flight. He feared for me in the Wicked Queen’s chamber. I was touched.
I nodded.
“Take care, Christopher,” Anna said as I turned away, and it was a warning, not good wishes.
“You too, darling,” I replied in the same spirit.
“What were you doing?” J.X. asked as the elegant, gaily lit house grew smaller and smaller in the side mirrors.
“You know what I was doing.”
“Kit.” I could hear the frustration though he was trying to bank it down.
“She admitted it.”
He didn’t expect that. He risked a quick look my way. “You’re serious? She admitted it? All of it?”
I nodded.
J.X. was thinking rapidly. “But there’s still no proof. It would be your word against hers.”
“I know.”
He chewed his lip, considering. “Did she tell you why she dragged you into it?”
I gave a short laugh. “Because she’s a freaking psycho? I don’t know. I asked her.”
“You asked her that?”
I nodded.
Another quick look my way. “I’m sorry, Kit. This is total hell for you, I know. But even if she did admit it, you can’t safely pursue this. You’ve just got to trust that…justice will out.”
I snorted. What was there to say? He was right.
I thought about the things Anna had told me. About my career being over. About the fact that J.X. would not stay with me.
Both seemed to carry the ring of irrefutable truth. Was that fear or instinct? I glanced in the side mirror once more. The house had vanished into the white distance. There was only the swish of the windshield wipers and the shush of the tires on the slushy highway.
For a few miles I was lost in the whiteout of my own bleak thoughts. Finally I remembered that I wasn’t alone. I glanced over at J.X.
“Are you flying straight back to Frisco?”
His honey-colored skin turned a darker shade. “Uh, no. I’m flying to L.A. with you.” I didn’t say anything and he said cautiously, “Is that all right?”
“Sure.”
“I mean, we’ve got some things to talk over. We might as well do it while we’re both in the same room.”
“Right.”
“Like…” His voice cracked.
I stared at him. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Something’s wrong. You’re beet red and your voice—”
He interrupted, “I know this isn’t the time for this discussion, but we’re going to pursue this, right? We agreed.”
“I—right.”
He relaxed. Gave me a quick, happy smile. A big white smile.
I wondered what the hell I’d agreed to.
My final conversation with Anna cost us making our flight on time. We spent part of the evening in the airport lounge on standby and caught the redeye to Los Angeles.
It was a mild and smoggy February morning when we landed. We grabbed a taxi at LAX and headed straight for Chatsworth, for home.
The driver kept the radio blasting news as we wove in and out of cars on the 101.
J.X. was slumped against my shoulder, head back at an uncomfortable angle, mouth open as he snored melodiously into my ear when the radio announcer said in his cheerful deep voice, “Mystery fans worldwide will be saddened by the death of Anna Hitchcock, often referred to as the American Agatha Christie.”
I sat up, listening tensely as the shining cars and palm trees flashed by.
“Hitchcock was found dead of what appears to be an overdose of sleeping tablets, in her Connecticut mansion earlier this morning. Her body was discovered by her long-time lover and editor Rudolph Dunst. Dunst told reporters that the sixty-eight-year-old author had been despondent over an ongoing inability to write coupled with the recent death of two of her closest friends. Police are investigating the possibility of suicide.”
The taxi driver’s brown eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. “You like mysteries?” he asked over the wintery howl through the cab’s rattling windows.
I gazed out at the smoggy gray morning.
“I used to,” I said.
Keep reading! Here’s the first chapter to
THE BOY WITH THE PAINFUL TATTOO
Book 3 in the Holmes & Moriarity series
It’s moving day at Chez
Holmes.
Somehow, against Kit’s better instincts, he and J.X. are setting up house together. But while J.X. is off at a mystery fiction convention, Kit unpacks a crate that should contain old china.
It doesn’t.
Within the mounds of Styrofoam popcorn is a dead body.
A very dead body.
There goes the neighborhood.
Chapter One
“Come with me, Kit,” J.X. urged.
As promising a conversational opening as that sounds, and despite the fact that we were in bed, J.X. was talking about attending a mystery fiction convention. The 19th annual Murder in Midtown was being held in Las Vegas this year.
“Nah. I don’t think so.” I scrunched the pillow into a more comfortable ball beneath my head. “There’s a hell of a lot to do here.”
No lie. It was our first morning in our new home on Chestnut Lane in San Francisco. Just the words our new home made me feel a little lightheaded, so it was lucky we were lying down. On a mattress on the floor of our new living room, as a matter of fact. Which I thought sort of reinforced my point.
J.X. seemed unconvinced. “Nothing that can’t wait.”
“Are you serious? Look around you.”
His warm, solemn gaze moved from my face to the stacks of boxes and crates surrounding us. The moving van delivering all my worldly goods had broken down twice on the long hot trek from Southern California. It hadn’t arrived until shortly after midnight and the movers hadn’t finished unpacking until the sun had cracked open a bleary, jaundiced eye.
“It’ll all be waiting here when we get back.”
“Exactly.”
“And so what? We’ll deal with it together.”
“Why don’t I just deal with it on my own, now, since that’s what I’d prefer?”
J.X.’s eyes, the color of warm sunshine on shadowed water, narrowed. “Okay,” he said mildly, at last. “But I think it would do you good to go to the conference.”
Yeah. Because I always have such a fabulous time at conventions and conferences—when I’m not falling over dead bodies. I snorted—which was more polite than what I was thinking—and rolled over, folding my arms around the ball of my pillow. “Our first argument in our new home. I never thought this day would come.”
