Closer than the Bones (17 page)

With that she swept by us on her way to her sitting room. The Bertrams and Lurleen Landry followed her, while Brett Doran paused to speak with Morwell Phillips. Brett probably intended to go back to the summerhouse, where he could smoke and write, if his muse called. I hung back until they disappeared; and Jack waited, having caught my signal that I wanted to speak to him.

“How was the press conference?” I asked.

He grimaced. “The usual. The sheriff said a lot, without saying anything, other than that the investigation was well in hand. Same old same old.”

“Figures,” I said. “But I think I may have good news for you.”

“What?” he said, instantly alert. His eyes probed my face. “Come upstairs with me, and I’ll show you.” I turned toward the stairs. “I think I’ve found the missing manuscript.”

He whistled. “Be right with you. Let me just tell my guys to come with us, if that’s okay.”

“Fine,” I said, pausing at the foot of the stairs. “Bring them along.”

Moments later I led him and two of his men up the stairs and down the hallway to my bedroom. Jack was burning with impatience to know where I had found the manuscript, but I wanted to show, rather than tell, him.

Once we were all inside my room, I pointed to the desk and told Jack to open the top drawer. Before doing so, he got a pair of cotton gloves from one of his men and slipped them on. He pulled open the drawer and stood staring down at the pile of blank paper. He shot me a swift glance, then picked up a few of the pages and fanned them in his fingers. “What is this? There’s nothing here!” The disappointment on his face made me think of a child who finds his stocking empty at Christmas.

“I think this bundle of paper may be what Hamilton Packer had in his briefcase. There’s no reason for such a large stack of blank typing paper to be here in the desk. Miss McElroy told me there should be a bit of Idlewild stationery in each room, but that’s it. There’s no stationery in this desk. Probably because guests are seldom put in this room, according to what Morwell Phillips told me.”

“But why would Packer be carrying around blank paper, telling people he had an actual manuscript?” Jack was still skeptical, and I couldn’t blame him.

“I know it sounds ludicrous, but maybe Packer was intending to play some kind of blackmail game. He might actually have had—somewhere at home, or maybe in his office—an actual copy of a manuscript like the one he said he brought with him. But he might have anticipated someone would try to steal the manuscript, so he just made it look like he had one. After all, he wouldn’t have had to show it to anyone, at least not in the preliminary stages.”

“Someone wasn’t willing to let the game progress that far, however.” Jack was beginning to believe me, as his mind ran through the possibilities.

“The killer got a rude shock, then, when what was in Packer’s briefcase turned out to be blank pages.”

“Then why hide it?” Jack asked. “Why not just leave it where it was?”

I shrugged. “I'm not sure. Maybe the killer wanted to confuse the issue as much as possible. Delay things until he— or she—could get his hands on the real thing, if it exists.”

He motioned to one of the deputies, who moved forward with a large plastic bag. Jack put the blank pages inside and handed the sealed bag back to the deputy.

“Can you get fingerprints off that paper?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” Jack said, grinning wolfishly. “That kind of paper is excellent for fingerprints. Unless someone handled it with gloves, their fingers will have left various kinds of deposits that should yield us some good, usable prints. We can at least tell whether Packer himself handled the paper, but the killer might have been smart enough to be wearing gloves.”

“At least if you can find Packer’s prints on the paper,” I said, “you’ll know that part of my theory is correct.”

He peeled off the gloves and handed them to one of his men. “As weird as this whole situation is, I’m beginning to think you could be right about the so-called manuscript. It’s just nutty enough to be true.” He paused long enough to give his men orders to fingerprint the desk. “Just in case,” he said.

Jack and his men had gone back downstairs, and I was in the bathroom, cleaning my hands, when someone knocked on the bedroom door about five minutes later.

Calling “just a minute,” I finished drying my hands on one of the fluffy towels. I checked my reflection in the mirror, and everything seemed to be in its accustomed place. Satisfied, I went to open the door.

Lurleen Landry stood there, arms folded across her chest, the fingers of her right hand tapping out a rapid tattoo on her left arm.

“Miss Landry, what can I do for you?”

“I’d like to talk to you, if you don’t mind,” she said, her fingers slowing down their rhythm. “May I come in?”

“Please do,” I said, stepping aside, then shutting the door behind her.

There was an old, but sturdy-looking armchair near the desk, and I motioned her toward it while I took the desk chair. “What can I do for you?”

“I know why you’re really here,” she said.

“Oh, and why is that?” I should have thought it was obvious to anyone by now, but she was the first to say it to my face.

She fluttered a hand impatiently. “Mary Tucker may be working on her memoirs. I wouldn’t doubt it. But she doesn’t need anyone to help her with them, except maybe somebody to take dictation and type, that kind of thing. Frankly, you don’t impress me as someone who’d be very happy listening to an old woman ramble on and on about her life, taking notes and so on. Unless you were in desperate need of money, and I can tell by your clothes you’re not here because you need a job.”

I nodded. There was no point in lying to her.

“Mary Tucker wanted another pair of eyes and ears,” she said. “Someone who was an outsider, to come in here and observe. Someone who would take a fresh look at everything. Someone not bound by old loyalties who could cut through all that to the truth.”

“And you think I am that person?” I asked.

She laughed, a bitter sound, with nothing of amusement about it. “Just because we’re of a certain age doesn’t mean women like us are stupid. The rest of the world may be content to ignore us or to push us to one side, but we know better. We have experience and intelligence on our side. We can see and understand things the younger ones might not notice or grasp, even if they do take the time to see them.”

“I can’t argue with you there,” I said, intrigued by the passion with which she spoke. I thought about the reviews I’d read of some of her more recent books. Critics sometimes lambasted her for what they saw as an outmoded gentility in her heroines, women they considered out of step with the world as it now is.

I had to admit that her later work lacked the fire of her first books. I thought she had become complacent with success and refused to tamper with her “formula,” turning out variations of the same book over and over, year after year. They still sold in impressive numbers, no matter what the critics said about them.

Yet underneath all that, she still had a keen eye for detail, for understanding what made people tick. That’s what made me continue to read them, though I regretted her inability to take risks and try something fresher. She had once had the talent, if no longer the will, to do so.

“You seem to know the investigating officer rather well,” she said, off on another tack.

“Yes,” I said, wondering where she was heading. “He was once a student of mine, at the local high school.”

“Would you say that he’s a perceptive man? An understanding man?”

“I’d say so, yes.”

“Is he prejudiced, do you think?”

This was getting stranger and stranger. I knew Jack reasonably well, but I didn’t think I could answer her question with any kind of authority. “In what way?”

“Is he a racist?” she said, scowling at my obtuseness. “Is he a misogynist? Is he homophobic? That should about cover it.”

“As far as I am aware,” I said, choosing my words with care, “he is none of those things. But you have to realize I don’t see him on a daily, or even weekly or monthly basis. I know the boy he was, and something of the man he has become, but other than telling you, without reservation, that he is intelligent and fair-minded, I don’t know how to answer you.”

“You’re like me,” she said, once again changing tack. “You’ve never married.”

“No,” I said. “I’ve never married.” I began to have an inkling where this was leading, remembering one of the nasty things Alice Bertram had said to her.

“Women like us can sometimes be put into a difficult position, because we’re older and unattached to a man,” she continued, her eyes gazing into mine with great earnestness. “Sometimes our actions can be misinterpreted, and people can do damaging things in response. And there’s nothing you can do about it afterwards. Nothing at all.”

I thought it was time to cut through all this shilly-shallying. “Did Sukey Lytton accuse you of making advances toward her? Did she tell people you were a lesbian?”

Lurleen’s face crumpled, and slow tears began to slide down her cheeks. Her distress moved me, but I wasn’t sure what to say or do to comfort her.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened?” I found some tissues in my handbag and gave them to her. She accepted them with a tremulous smile and began dabbing at her eyes.

“I know you must think I’m being ridiculous,” she said, her voice raw with emotion. “I was just so hurt by the way she turned on me. She was such a vicious little cat when she wanted to be.”

“I’m beginning to think I wouldn’t have cared for her very much, if I had known her,” I said.

She smiled at that. “Probably not. She could be charming, when she wanted something. Otherwise, she didn’t have much use for you.”

“What happened?” I asked her again.

“We first met, about six years ago, at a writers conference. I was one of the invited speakers, and I did a workshop for beginning writers.” She waved a hand in the air. “I don’t know why I still do these things. Heaven knows I don’t need the publicity, but I like to feel that I’m giving something back. They’re a lot of work, but I remember those who helped me, and I try to return the favor.”

“A very admirable attitude,” I said with utmost sincerity.

“Thank you,” she replied. “Anyway, I was at this conference, and Mary Tucker was there, as always. She came up to me after my workshop with this starved-looking creature in tow, and she introduced Sukey as her latest protegee. Mary Tucker had that gleam in her eyes, and I knew she wanted something from me.” She sighed. “I was Mary Tucker’s first pet project, more years ago than either of us cares to remember, and I’ve always felt an enormous debt of gratitude to her. She introduced me to my first, and only, agent; and right after that, I sold my first novel,
Down on the River Road
. I can never forget what Mary Tucker did for me then, nor in all the years since."

“I can understand your sense of obligation,” I said. “What did she want you to do in this instance?”

“She thought Sukey needed a mentor, one who was more directly involved in the writing process. Mary Tucker has the kind of connections to get someone attention from editors and agents, but she knows her limitations.” Lurleen was calmer now, more authoritative. “Mary Tucker thought Sukey needed the guidance and advice of a successful writer, and she assumed, wrongly as it happened, I could offer all that to Sukey.”

“A reasonable assumption, I would have thought.”

She nodded. “On the face of things, yes. But Mary Tucker didn’t know Sukey all that well then, even though she had been acquainted with her for a year or two, and she had no idea what the girl was capable of. None of us did. At first she was so pathetically eager to be part of what she called the ‘in crowd,’ she was practically licking Mary Tucker’s shoes.” She laughed in derision. “That girl’s nose was so brown! Well, I’m sure you know the type.”

“Quite well.”

“Anyway, I talked with her at the conference, and I agreed to read some of her poetry and one of her stories. I knew, if Mary Tucker had taken her up, she must have talent, but I had no idea how extensive, or how limited, it might be. Mary Tucker has had the occasional lapse in judgment over the years.”

I nodded, encouraging her to continue.

“After we met at the conference, Sukey sent me some things. I read them, offered suggestions and criticisms, which she seemed to take well. I saw potential in her writing, and I did my best to encourage her. We continued to correspond, about twice a month, I guess. When she wrote to me, about nine months after we first met at the conference, and said she was worried about being able to make ends meet, I foolishly offered to let her come and stay with me for a couple of months. It was spring, and I had moved to my beach house down near Mobile, where I spend the spring and summer every year. It’s a big house, with plenty of room, and I thought she could use the time to write and not worry about her finances. I still remember what it was like, in those early days.”

“Again, very admirable of you to take an interest in her,” I said, wondering when we were going to get to the point.

"Yes, well,” she said, her mouth turning down in a grimace of distaste, "the worm soon turned. Two months passed. Then three, then four, and she showed no signs of budging. That house began to get smaller and smaller by the day. I was getting ready to close it up and move back to my house in Atlanta, and I didn’t want to take her with me.”

She paused for a steadying breath. “I had no idea what an encroaching little creature she could be! She hadn’t been there a month before she was telling my staff what to do—the housekeeper, who's been with me for nearly thirty years, and her husband—and they were threatening to quit.” Still appalled by the memories, she shook her head. “I couldn’t believe the way she was behaving. When I finally worked up enough nerve to confront her about it, to tell her she was going to have to leave, she turned on me. I flat out lied and told her I had some guests coming, and I was going to need her room.”

She paused; her momentary calm had fled, to be replaced by considerable agitation. “That’s when she accused me of making improper advances and threatened to tell everyone about it. She said she’d see to it that every newspaper and magazine in the country knew about it, and I’d become the laughingstock of the publishing world. I can’t bring myself to repeat all the nastiness that spewed out of her mouth.” Her voice trailed off.