by Jessica Beck
“Of course it doesn’t,” she said with more than a hint of frustration in her voice. “When I’m writing or traveling for business, I tend to lose track of the days of the week. Tomorrow I have to be back home for my real job, and I can’t afford to miss another day of work.”
“Do you work somewhere else and write, too?” Grace asked her.
“Trust me, my books, as well as they sell, don’t pay me enough to keep me from having to work a day job for the insurance alone. That’s why I was originally going to look for a new deal. If I could only get a large enough advance to stay home and write the next few books, I might be able to finally hit the big time. I’d love, dearly love, to have enough to allow me to sit home alone and create, but so far, it hasn’t happened.”
“You could always publish your next book yourself,” Grace said. “That’s what Suzanne is going to do with her cookbook.”
I shook my head and frowned at Grace for even bringing up the phantom tome while Hannah looked at me with sheer pity in her eyes. “I’m sure that would be fine for you, but I only know one way to see my books published, and I don’t have the time, the energy, or the inclination to do it any other way.” It was clear from the way she’d said it that there was no changing the woman’s mind, which was certainly her business.
“So, that’s why you’re considering going with Monique and Maye?” I asked her. “We weren’t exactly eavesdropping, but we were nearby when you started chatting, and it was hard to miss.”
“I was considering it at first,” Hannah admitted, “but after the stories Tom told last night at dinner, I knew I was going to turn them down.”
“Then why not go ahead and do it and get it over with?” Grace asked her.
“I wanted to keep them on tenterhooks for a change of pace,” she said, smiling a bit of a wicked little smile. “When I was starting out, I queried both of them, and all I got was two form rejection letters. Now that I’m starting to make a name for myself, they are both suddenly interested in me and my career. Well, let them see how it feels to be left dangling on a hook for a change of pace.”
Wow, this shy, unassuming girl really did have a touch of wickedness in her that I hadn’t seen when we’d first met. Whether she’d kill Tom Johnson or not was another question, but by her own admission, she could certainly use the money he’d tried to steal from us. I had to figure if that were true for her, it had to be equally the case for Amanda and Hank. Evidently writing wasn’t the money-making machine that a great many folks believed it to be.
“When was the last time you saw Tom?” I asked her.
“It was outside just after we broke up from dinner,” she said, her face suddenly clouding over.
“What is it? Did something happen between the two of you?” I asked her.
“It was nothing. He made one of his patently inappropriate comments to me, but Hank was standing close enough by to hear it this time. I thought he was going to strangle Tom on the spot by the way he grabbed the front of his shirt and shook him.” She seemed to realize how that made the other writer sound, because she quickly added, “He didn’t kill Tom, though. I’m sure of it.”
“How can you be, though?” Grace asked her. “After you two split up, he could have decided to teach Tom a lesson, and things got out of hand from there.”
It was clear that the same thought had occurred to Hannah herself, because her face suddenly went ashen. “No, it couldn’t have happened that way. Excuse me, I’ve got to go.”
“What exactly is your relationship with Hank Fletcher?” Grace asked her as she started to go.
Hannah looked at my best friend with open contempt, and then, without even bothering to reply, she walked away from us. The only way we would have been able to stop her was to tackle her to the ground, and neither Grace nor I were ready to do that.
“Well, well, well,” Grace said. “What do you make of that?” she asked me after we were alone again.
“I can see three possibilities,” I said. “She’s either lying about what happened to keep us from suspecting her, she’s telling the truth about what really happened, or it’s some combination of both of them.”
“As long as it’s clear to you,” Grace said with a wry grin. “She’s not the dainty little wallflower she’d like everyone to believe she is, is she?”
“Not by a long shot, but is she a killer? At this point, I honestly couldn’t say.”
“By her own admission, she could have really used that money someone stole from you and Paige.”
“Evidently they all could have used it,” I said. “Remember, Hannah was the most successful of the bunch, and that includes Tom.”
“So maybe I don’t want to be a famous writer when I grow up after all,” Grace said.
“Elizabeth told us during one of our book-club meetings that a well-known author once said that you could make a fortune writing fiction, but not a living. I don’t remember who it was, but the words stuck with me. I guess the next thing we need to do is speak with Hank and see if what Hannah just told us was true, and what happened after she left them.”
“Let’s go see if we can find him, then.”
Easier said than done, though.
We popped into the diner in case he was there, but Trish hadn’t seen him all day. Next, we walked over to the bookstore, and at first, I thought we were going to draw another blank as well. We couldn’t even ask Paige, since she was with someone new to me, having a very intense conversation.
“I don’t see him,” Grace said. “Let’s keep looking.”
“Hang on. I want to see if I can get Paige’s attention.”
She noticed me waving at her and held one finger up in the air. I wasn’t sure how long I had to wait, though. Time was ticking on the clock of our investigation, and I knew that by the end of the day, I could be losing most of my suspects. I wasn’t at all confident in the police chief’s ability to make them hang around after the festival was over. That wasn’t a knock on Chief Grant. It was more about what he legally could and could not do. Something in my gut told me that if we didn’t solve the murder by dinnertime, it would never be solved. That belief gave me even more resolve to make it happen if it was even in the realm of possibility.
I spotted Rita Delacourte, Paige’s assistant, coming out of the storeroom with, no surprise, a book in her hands. She indeed looked to be the very essence of a sweet little old lady. “Rita, do you have a second?”
“Suzanne, this book is really dreadful,” she said with a frown as she held a paperback with a lurid cover up to show us. “I couldn’t believe how it ended, though I should have known. It was written badly from start to finish, and how it ever got published I will never know.”
“If it was so bad from the beginning, why did you even bother finishing it?” Grace asked her. I was curious as well, but I had other, more pressing questions to ask her. Still, I wanted to hear the answer as well.
“Oh, my dear, what if he’d managed to turn it around and make it worthy in the end? I couldn’t risk taking the chance.” She shelved the book and then dusted off her hands as though she was trying to eliminate the very memory of reading it. “Are you excited about your panel? It should be interesting, given what happened yesterday, as well as last night.”
“Is that black armband for Tom Johnson?” I asked her as she straightened it.
“Yes, some lovely but dreadful woman insisted I wear it. She had dozens, so don’t be surprised if she asks you to wear one as well.”
“Don’t tell me. It was Cindy Faber, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t believe I caught her name,” she said. “As I said, she was quite lovely. Dressed in mourning, black from head to toe.”
“That’s Cindy,” I said. I glanced over at Paige and saw that she was wearing an armband as well. I hadn’t noticed it because of the way she’d been turned from me, but it was clearly evident now. “Rita, have you by any chance seen Hank Fletcher?”
Rita looked around quickly before answering me in a soft voi
ce, “I have.”
“Would you mind telling us where he might be?” Grace asked her.
“I mustn’t. I really mustn’t. He asked me so nicely, and I agreed to keep his secret, so how can I violate his trust? He’s rather dashing, isn’t he?”
The man was old enough to be my father, but that didn’t make me blind to his rugged good looks. Coupled with his almost courtly manner and his piercing blue eyes, I could see how women of all ages might be drawn to him, and clearly Rita was no exception. “He is,” I admitted. Matching her tone with my own, I added, “I hate to ask you this, but it’s extremely important that we speak with him.”
“As I said, I gave my pledge not to say a word,” she repeated ruefully.
“Could you perhaps point us in the right direction, then?” Grace asked her, clearly fighting a smile.
“Oh, I couldn’t,” she said as she gestured gently to the writer’s green room.
“I understand,” I said as I started for the door to the space. “I would never want you to violate a trust.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Ma’am, do you have the latest Janice Davis novel?” a woman asked from the mystery section. “I can’t find it anywhere.”
“That’s because we’ve already sold out,” Rita said.
The woman looked quite disappointed. “Rats. I was hoping to get Mr. Johnson to sign it for me. I rushed to town for the panel, and this was my first stop.”
“We need to talk, my dear,” Rita said with real sympathy in her voice. “Excuse me, ladies,” she told us, and then she took the woman gently by the arm and led her to a spot in the store where they could have a little privacy. I felt sorry for Tom’s fan. No matter what kind of man he might have been in real life, and I hadn’t been fond of him at all, I knew what it was like to lose an author I adored. Knowing that there would be no fresh books written by the voice I’d grown to enjoy was always a sad thing, and it never got any easier losing a favorite author, especially to death.
“Let’s go talk to Hank,” Grace said as she touched my shoulder lightly, breaking my reverie.
“Okay. I’m ready,” I said as we went into the back room. I just hoped that Hannah hadn’t found her way to him for the moment. I wasn’t sure how I would feel finding them in each other’s arms, but fortunately, he was sitting alone, staring hard at a notepad nearly filled with his scribblings.
“We’re not interrupting, are we?” I asked as I got his attention.
“Did that infernal woman tell you I was back here?” he asked, turning the notepad over suddenly.
“She didn’t say a word,” Grace replied, following the letter of the truth, if not the spirit of it.
“Then how did you find me?” he asked. The author was clearly cranky about something, and I couldn’t help wondering what it might be.
Before I could come up with a way to respond, Grace took the option out of my hands. “Believe it or not, the world doesn’t revolve around you, Hank. We have more responsibilities, today of all days, than spending it tracking you down.”
I just shook my head, not trusting myself not to give away the fact that we had indeed been looking for him, and him alone, for the last fifteen minutes.
“Sorry,” he said, the edginess in his voice dropping off completely. “It’s been a rough couple of days. I shouldn’t be taking it out on you two, though. I apologize.”
The man could be devilishly charming when he wanted to be, and I found myself feeling a tug of warmth toward him despite what I knew about him. I couldn’t let that sway me, though. “Since we did find you, we need to talk,” I said sternly.
“Go on. You’ve already interrupted my muse, so you may as well say what you’ve come to say.”
“You need a muse to write a cast iron cookbook?” Grace asked him.
“No, this was something else entirely,” he said, pulling the overturned notebook closer to him, as though he were warding us off from trying to wrestle it from him. From his actions, I was getting really curious about what was written there, but there was no time for that at the moment. “What is it you need?”
“We heard that you had a confrontation with Tom Johnson after the writers’ dinner broke up last night,” I said.
“It was nothing,” he said, trying to brush it off.
“I beg to differ. We’ve got an eyewitness account that you stepped in to defend Hannah, and after she left, things escalated quickly.” What I’d just reported had been put together from different sources, but it was true all the same.
“You heard the man yourself. Do you honestly think that he’d ever listen to anything that wasn’t shouted at him? I had to get through to him that his behavior was unacceptable, and that he needed to straighten up immediately.”
“Or else what?” Grace asked him. “Did you bully him, Hank, or maybe even do something worse than just threaten him?”
“I don’t have to answer a leading question like that, certainly not from the two of you,” Hank said. “I said my piece, and he stormed off in a huff. After that, I went in search of Hannah.”
“But you didn’t find her, did you?”
“Not right away,” he admitted, “but I saw her in the park this morning, and we had a nice long chat about things.”
“We heard about that, too,” Grace said. “From what we understand, you had your arms wrapped around each other.”
“What is it with this town? Does everyone always stick their noses into everyone else’s business? It was all innocent. She was upset when she heard what happened to Tom, so I tried to comfort her, end of story.”
“That’s not the way we heard it,” I said gently. “Hank, are you two having an affair?”
“She’s young enough to be my daughter,” he said stiffly.
“Maybe so, but that doesn’t answer the question,” Grace pushed. “It’s happened before, and I’m sure it will happen again. There are younger women who are drawn to older men, for whatever reason. It’s a legitimate question.”
“Coming from the police perhaps, but not the two of you,” he said, letting a hint of anger start to show. It had taken some doing, but we’d confirmed that Hank Fletcher hadn’t completely overcome his ability to hold his temper, especially when Hannah Thrush was concerned.
“If it’s all so innocent, then why are you getting so upset?” Grace asked him, pushing yet a bit harder. I hadn’t been ready to go there so quickly, but evidently my investigating partner had a different thought altogether. “You’ve still got quite a temper, don’t you?”
He looked from Grace to me and then back at her again. “You know about my past,” he said, sounding defeated for the first time since I’d met him. “It was a long time ago. I was a different man back then.”
“Maybe so, but you did what you did in defense of a woman you cared about,” I reminded him gently. “I’m sensing a pattern here.”
“There is no pattern!” he said, nearly shouting as he slammed his open palm down on the table, rattling the legs with the force of his blow. He stood, grabbed the notepad, and started for the exit. “I’m finished with the two of you.”
“Until the panel in an hour, that is,” I reminded him.
“Maybe even before that,” he said.
“Are you saying that you’re not going to bother showing up?” I asked him. It was going to be hard enough to pull this off with three authors instead of four. If there were only two of them, our discussions might not be enough to allow me to keep our audience engaged.
“You’ll just have to wait and see,” he said abruptly as he threw the door open, strode quickly through, and then slammed it behind him.
“That went well, didn’t it?” I asked, wondering if we’d pushed the man a little too far. “If he leaves now, we’ve lost our chance to find out if he’s innocent or not.”
“He’s not going anywhere, despite the threat he just made,” Grace said.
“How can you be so sure of that?”
“Easy. If Hannah stays
, then so will he. I guarantee it.”
That made me feel a little easier, but I wasn’t looking forward to the panel discussion we were going to be having soon. After all, I’d managed to irritate every last living author we had. If they had been unruly the day before, I couldn’t imagine how they’d behave today. Oh, well. Unfortunately, that was the cost of doing business when I was acting as an amateur sleuth. I’d angered more than my share of friends in the past, and none of these folks had started out being even lukewarm toward me, let alone openly hostile, as they were bound to be now. I’d find a way to muddle through it though, and if I could manage it, I’d try to put a little pressure on each of them when they were in front of a crowd. Whereas we’d failed to generate much in the way of a confession from any of them when we’d had them alone, being on stage might be an entirely different matter. All I had to do was use the information I had to goad them into saying something they regretted in front of dozens of people in the audience.
Sure, that sounded easy enough.
Not really, though.
Chapter 18
“There you are, Suzanne. I’ve been looking all over for you,” Ray Blake told me the minute Grace and I stepped out of the bookstore.
“We’ve been looking for you, too,” I said, glancing at Grace. Out of Ray’s sight, she used one index finger to scrape across the other, scolding me, making a mock sad face at the same time. Okay, so I was already breaking my rule of not lying during our investigation, but it wasn’t as though Ray was a suspect. Still, she had me, so I shrugged sheepishly and smiled a little, which made her burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Ray asked. “Are you two laughing at me?”
“Not at all,” I said quickly. “I told Grace something funny earlier, and evidently she just got it.”
“I can be slow that way sometimes,” she said, shaking her head again, but this time trying to keep from laughing again.
“Okay then,” Ray said. “I’ve got some interesting news for you, but I’d like to know what you’ve got first.”
“Why do I have to be the one who goes first?” I asked him.
“Suzanne, we don’t have all day,” Grace reminded me. “If we’re going to get some lunch before the panel starts, we have to do it soon.”
