by Lauren Carr
Ray Nolan was a computer expert. If it had to do with technology, Ray either knew it or could figure it out. If it was in cyberspace, he could find it.
After the attacks on September 11, 2001, Ray had been assigned to set up a cyberwarfare task force with Homeland Security. His work was brilliant enough for Al-Qaeda to place his name on a hit list. A homegrown terrorist itching to make a name for himself shot Ray in the back in the parking lot of a Chuck E. Cheese following his granddaughter’s birthday party. Ray’s daughter dropped the terrorist with the nine-millimeter Glock she carried in her purse. Luckier than his attacker, Ray ended up in a wheelchair. After he retired, his daughter and her family moved into his home to help care for him.
Her eyes red from crying and moist with tears, Jacqui rushed into Doris’s arms. “I can’t believe Shannon’s gone. I just can’t believe it! I’m going to miss her so much.” The women hugged each other and sobbed.
Ray rolled past them to put the salad on the counter. “I knew Shannon was devoted to Billy, but I never figured her to be so wrapped up in him that she’d off herself.” He stopped to allow Sterling to greet him with his front paws in his lap and a kiss on the face. “Yeah, I didn’t forget about you, Buddy.”
Sterling’s ears perked up.
Ray extracted a dog biscuit from the pouch which hung from one of the arms of his wheelchair.
“It was death by natural causes,” Chis said. “That’s her story and we’re sticking to it.”
“Natural causes, my foot,” Ray scoffed. “And she just so happened to write a letter telling the kid all about it on the day she died. She offed herself. I’m betting she used poison.” Struck with a thought, he arched an eyebrow. “Unless she was coerced into writing the letter and then whoever forced her to do it killed her afterwards. Then it would be murder.”
Doris wiped her eyes with a tissue and offered one to Jacqui. “There’s not a mark on her and the preliminary tox screen turned up nothing.”
“Maybe she used a poison that the medical examiner can only detect if he is actually looking for it,” Jacqui said. “Shannon would know what to use.”
Ray pointed at the letter Chris held in his hand. “Was she already dead when she wrote that?”
Chris’s eyes narrowed to gray slits. “It’s just an assumption on my part, but I don’t think so.”
“How did she know beforehand that willing herself to die was gonna work?” With a chuckle, Ray spun around in his chair and went to the kitchen table where Elliott was checking out the various reports in the box. “At least she left us with a juicy murder to solve.” He reached into the box only to have Elliott slap the lid down. “I hope it’s a good one. My daughter is hosting one of those Happy Chef parties again. I’m available until you don’t need me any longer or you run out of beer—whichever comes first.”
The mud room door opened again.
A tall man with a face weathered from long hours working in his vineyard, Bruce Harris held the door for Francine Duncan, a short curvaceous woman. She carried a box filled with cornbread.
Bruce Harris had a case containing several bottles of wine tucked under his arm. “The wine is here!” With a jaunty flare, he carried the box to the table. “I have Shiraz to go with the chili. Since you prefer white, Doris, I also have Riesling.”
“The chili needs to simmer for at least one more hour.” Doris took wine glasses from the cupboard. “Don’t worry, Ray, we have plenty of beer.”
“What year is it?” Ray asked.
“Beer with chili sounds good to me,” Francine said. “As a matter of fact, let’s drink the beer first and have the chili for dessert.”
“I like how you think, woman.” Ray and Francine bumped fists.
While everyone chuckled, Bruce extracted a bottle of champagne from the box. “But first, a 1996 Dom Perignon champagne for a toast to Shannon.”
Misty eyed, they exchanged memories of their friend while Bruce opened the champagne and poured some into crystal flutes for each of them. Then they raised their glasses in a toast.
“To our dear Shannon,” Bruce said, “to live in those hearts we leave behind is not to die.”
“That is most certainly true of Shannon,” Doris said while clinking her glass against Bruce’s. “You always know the right thing to say.”
“You can’t spend forty years in the bowels of Washington without picking up a talent for BS,” Bruce said while eying the box in the middle of the table. “Since Elliott was so shy about telling us what case Shannon has left for us, I’m betting it’s a good one.”
“It’s a biggie,” Elliott assured them.
“Actually, she’d left the case to me.” Chris held up the envelope containing the letter. “I’m sharing it because I know one of you will kill me in my sleep if I don’t.”
“We’ve taught him well.” Francine delivered an iced mug of beer to Ray, while sipping one of her own.
“Tell us already,” Ray said.
“We’re waiting for Helen,” Chris said. “She had to go home to interrogate Sierra’s date when he picked her up.”
“I’m here,” Helen announced while breezing through the door. “We need to talk,” she whispered into Chris’s ear after giving him a kiss.
“That sounds ominous,” Chris replied as she took a seat in the chair next to his.
Francine rubbed her hands together. “Now read the letter already.”
From a seat at the head of the table, Chris read Shannon’s letter while they eyed the cardboard box. By the time he had finished reading, their mouths were hanging open. Silence filled the kitchen while he folded the letter, returned it to the envelope, and laid it on the table.
Ray yanked his laptop from the case he had strapped to the side of his wheelchair and opened it.
Francine was the first to speak. “This has to be a prank. I’ve read The Last Thing She Said, and I’ve known Shannon for years.”
“You know,” Bruce said in a soft voice, “when you think about it—the protagonist in The Last Thing She Said—”
“Maisie Peabody,” Doris said.
“When you actually think about it,” Bruce said, “Maisie had a lot of Shannon’s qualities. Soft-spoken but strong.”
“Witty,” Chris said. “Shannon had a way with words.”
“That’s one of the things critics loved about that book,” Jacqui said. “It wasn’t just the plotline. The twist out of nowhere was stunning. I still remember when I read that book the first time. I never even looked at him as the killer.”
“That’s because no one thought he had any motive to kill Maisie’s friend,” Francine said. “He’d conned everyone.”
“Except Maisie,” Jacqui said.
“Maisie Peabody was a wonderful character,” Doris said. “One of the first independent female protagonists. Remember the ending? The protagonist walked away from the men in her life—her domineering father and manipulative husband—to strike out on her own and become a professional private investigator.”
“Just like Shannon had done,” Jacqui said. “Makes you wonder if this novel was really her fantasy.”
“She says in the letter that she based the murder on that of her best friend and roommate, Lacey Woodhouse,” Francine said. “Funny that Shannon never mentioned her.”
“I remember someone at the writers conference brought her up,” Doris said.
“That someone was Leah Woodhouse,” Chris said. “I was in the lobby when she pulled that dagger on Mercedes.” He shook his head. “Her son tried to attack Robin Spencer. He was as big as a bull. I think she broke his nose. After Mercedes escaped, Leah Woodhouse said that she was going to take someone she loved away from her to teach her a lesson.”
“Sounds like a threat to me,” Bruce said.
“Was George stabbed with a dagger?” Jacqui said.
“Don�
�t know,” Elliott said. “That’s in the FBI’s files and we don’t have those.”
“How did we all miss that Shannon was a runaway author?” Francine asked.
“You’d met Mercedes Livingston and you worked with Shannon, Doris,” Jacqui said. “If they were both the same woman, wouldn’t you have known it?”
“I’ve been thinking about that ever since reading her letter,” Doris said. “Mercedes Livingston disappeared in late March. Shannon started working at the library in August. That was plenty of time for her hair to grow out to its natural color. Her hair was short and dark with that white streak at her hairline when I’d met her.”
“In her letter, she says she dyed her hair to cover up that white streak,” Chris said.
“Shannon told me that her brother had hit her in the face with a shovel when she was a child,” Doris said. “That’s where she got the white streak.”
“Rough childhood,” Elliott said.
“Mercedes wore designer clothes and heavy makeup,” Doris said. “Shannon wore loose fitting comfortable clothes, flat shoes, and very little makeup.”
“Since neither Mercedes, nor her husband George, were released after the half a million dollar ransom had been paid, everyone assumed they’d been murdered and stopped looking for them,” Bruce said. “We tend not to see what we’re not looking for.”
“Literary circles considered Mercedes Livingston to be the next great thing,” Jacqui said. “Hollywood paid seven figures for the movie rights for The Last Thing She Said. The screenplay won an Oscar, after her disappearance, unfortunately. She walked away from all of that?” She shook her head.
“Jacqui, you retired from the position of state medical examiner in Pennsylvania to be with your husband,” Doris said.
“Billy Blakeley was not my husband,” Jacqui said with a slight grin. “No, Billy was a sweetheart and he treated Shannon like a queen. I had no idea she’d bought that house. I thought he’d bought it.”
“Shannon had told me that she’d bought it with money from an inheritance,” Doris said.
“They’re the same woman.” Ray swung his laptop around for them to see the screen. He had brought up a portrait picture of Mercedes Livingston, a publicity still. Next to it was a picture of Shannon Blakeley from several years earlier. There were dots on both faces, designating cheekbones and other distinctive points pertaining to her bone structure. “Bone structure is identical. The eyes are the same distance apart. The width of her jaw. The teeth.”
“I can’t believe it,” Francine said. “Mercedes Livingston was my friend. I loved that book. There’s so much I would have asked her if—” With a gasp, she covered her mouth with her hand. “Billy must have been the Mysterious Man in Green!”
They exchanged stunned glances.
“She’s right,” Doris said. “I didn’t think about that!”
“Who’s the Mysterious Man in Green?” Chris asked.
“That’s been a big missing piece in the mystery of Mercedes Livingston’s disappearance.” Doris stood up and grabbed the box to dig through the case file. “There was a witness—someone at Hill House—a housekeeper, I think.” She flipped through the reports in the case file. “She’d told the police that on the morning of the disappearance that she went into Mercedes’s suite to clean up and walked in on a man. Mercedes had already left to go to a meeting. She assumed he was Mercedes’s husband and apologized. He said he was just leaving. He left. When George’s picture ended up on the news, the witness realized he was not Mercedes’s husband and contacted the police. No one knew who he was or what he was doing in Mercedes’s room. Kirk thought that maybe he was one of the kidnappers looking for a schedule to plan the snatch and put out a BOLO for information for him. The police did a composite drawing based on the housekeeper’s description.” With a laugh, she slapped the drawing down into the middle of the table. “It was Billy. He’d spent the night with her at Hill House before they ran away.”
Everyone took their time studying the forty-year-old drawing. They each recognized the face.
“Way to go, Billy!” With a laugh, Ray clapped his hands.
“So much for The Mysterious Man in Green being some notorious kidnapper planning the crime of the century,” Elliott said.
“He was just your average mild-mannered love-struck English professor,” Bruce said.
“Here’s something I had seen on one of those unsolved mystery shows that may or may not be in Kirk’s records,” Francine said. “A few of the mystery writers at that conference remembered seeing the Mysterious Man in Green having breakfast with Mercedes Livingston and Robin Spencer that morning. You do know who Robin Spencer is, don’t you?”
“Everyone knows who Robin Spencer was,” Bruce said. “That’s like going to England and asking about Agatha Christie.”
“Well, the three of them were seen eating breakfast at a table on the screened-in porch overlooking the river and these witnesses claimed they looked very cozy.”
“I knew nothing about that,” Doris said. “If he was eating at the same table with Robin Spencer, then she must have known who he was. Why didn’t she ever come forward with information?”
“It isn’t like she wasn’t asked.” A slim grin crossed Francine’s lips. “Robin Spencer claimed he had introduced himself as a local freelance journalist doing a story on the conference and she’d forgotten his name. Now, anyone who had ever known Robin Spencer considered that strange because she was known for her attention to detail. She wasn’t one to forget names.”
“I remember reading that, too,” Doris said with a frown.
Francine sat up in her seat. “Here’s what I think. Mercedes Livingston and Robin Spencer had the same publisher. Robin Spencer was Mercedes’s mentor. I think she’d told Robin Spencer what she was planning to do, and she offered to help.”
“After Robin Spencer had disarmed Leah Woodhouse, she told Mercedes to run because she didn’t want to be late,” Chris said. “She wouldn’t have said that if she didn’t know Mercedes was going to meet someone important.”
“Shannon wrote in her letter that Robin Spencer had invited her to the conference,” Helen said.
“The three of them probably met to plan Mercedes’s escape,” Francine said. “If Robin Spencer knew what she was planning, then she must have seen something that can help us.”
“Unfortunately, she’s dead,” Doris said.
“That does make interviewing her a tiny bit difficult,” Elliott said.
“Didn’t she leave her entire estate to her illegitimate son?” Bruce asked. “A homicide detective from DC?”
“Mac Faraday.” The corner of Francine’s mouth kicked up. “But that’s not all she’d left him. She’d also left him her journal. If she was in on Mercedes’s disappearance, which had resulted in her husband’s murder, then she must have written about it.”
“Are you suggesting we call up Mac Faraday and ask him if the mother who had given him up for adoption and had left him her fortune happened to leave any notes laying around about a cold case?” Ray asked.
“I’m sure that will go over really well,” Helen said with sarcasm.
“She may have known something without knowing that she knew it,” Francine said. “At the very least, if she knew what Mercedes was planning, she may have figured out who took advantage of her disappearance to abduct George, hold him for ransom, and then kill him.”
“Do we really want to invite Mac Faraday to help us with our case?” Bruce bristled at the thought of a prestigious interloper intruding on their investigation.
“Mac Faraday married Robin Spencer’s editor,” Doris said. “She’d been Robin Spencer’s right hand lady for years until she passed away. If Robin left anything behind about that weekend, she’s the one to ask.”
“Archie Monday,” Francine said. “Oh, she’s one of the top editors in the countr
y.”
“I can’t believe you want to call up Mac Faraday’s wife out of the blue to ask her if Robin Spencer knew something about Mercedes Livingston’s disappearance and kept it a secret,” Jacqui said. “Do you know what it would do to Robin Spencer’s reputation if she had. They’d never tell us if she did.”
“Actually, Mac Faraday owes me a favor,” Chris said.
“You’ve met Mac Faraday?” Helen’s eyes were wide. “I hope it wasn’t as a murder suspect.”
“I hope you didn’t body slam him like you did his mother,” Doris said.
“He body slammed Robin Spencer?” Helen asked with a giggle.
“I told you already,” Chris said. “I bumped into her. That’s all.”
“You almost knocked her off her feet,” Doris said.
“I was seven years old.”
“When did you meet Mac Faraday, and why is this the first we’ve heard about it?” Elliott asked.
“Mac asked me to help him with a case he was working on.” Chris lifted a shoulder. “It was a couple of years ago.”
“I helped Faraday on a case, too,” Francine said with a broad grin.
“Why didn’t you mention that when you first brought him up?” Jacqui asked.
Francine cleared her throat. “Because he may not remember our partnership in very good terms.”
“He called you a pain in the butt, didn’t he?” Ray asked with a chuckle.
Francine looked up at the ceiling to recall. “I think that was on his list of descriptions.” She frowned. “He called me a stalker.”
There was laughter around the table.
“I was doing my job,” Francine said. “I was investigating a case where two innocent boys had been railroaded into jail for something they didn’t do. I had to get a detective to reopen the case. I considered it hounding. He called it stalking!” As those around the table familiar with her persistence chuckled, she added, “Plus, just as we were closing in on the bad guys, he handcuffed me to the steering wheel of his car. I ended up missing out on the bust because of him!” She grumbled.
