Final Edit (16 page)

“Right.” I felt I was beginning to sound like a parrot.

“So her phone number is likely to be there. Use it. Tell her that you’re getting in touch with Parker’s authors and associates,
and would she mind if you paid her a visit. Something like that. Okay? You’re a publisher, you were Parker’s boss. You have
every reason to want to talk to her.”

“Yes, Joe.” Not for the first time, 1 felt cowed by Joe’s professionalism. Who was I to think I am any kind of detective?
Merely, after all, a publisher.

Joe was quite right; Parker’s Rolodex, when flipped to the letter “M,” produced a Michaelson, but not a Judith—an Alexander.
Interesting. Obviously husband of Judith, and also obviously a writer.

“Hello.”

“Mrs. Michaelson?”

“Yes, who’s this?”

“I’m Nicholas Barlow. The publisher.”

“I
know
what you are, Mr. Barlow.”

Not a propitious beginning, but I soldiered bravely on. Couldn’t let Joe Scanlon down at this juncture.

“I’d like to speak to your husband. A writer, I believe?
One of Parker Foxcroft’s writers?” To the best of my knowledge as the publisher of Parker’s books, he had never mentioned
an author named Michaelson, but he might have not offered the man a contract.

Her voice suggested a temperature hovering around absolute zero. “My husband is dead, Mr. Barlow—”

“Oh, I’m so
sorry
to hear that.”

“And he most definitely was
not
one of Parker Foxcroft’s
writers.”
No sign of a thaw in the Michaelson deep freeze.

“I’m sorry to hear
that,
too.” Silence. Had I made another gaffe of some sort? This wasn’t going well at
all.

Plunging gamely on, I said: “I’m speaking to anyone who might know something about Parker’s murder—and well, your husband
Alexander’s name was on his Rolodex, and—”

“Why bother, Mr. Barlow? Why not leave all that to the
police?”

I was beginning to hyperventilate, so I went straight into overdrive. “I have a feeling, Mrs. Michaelson, that Parker Foxcroft
may have done you and your husband an injury—”

“To say the least.”
That
sounded encouraging.

“—and my firm would like to redress the injury if possible. To make amends.”

“Can you raise the dead, Mr. Barlow?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Can you bring my husband back from the grave?”

Somehow I did not feel the question required a reply. The silence that followed was tomblike—on both our parts.

Finally: “I’m sorry, Mr. Barlow. I’m sure you may not know about Parker Foxcroft’s treatment of my husband…”

“No, madam, I did not. But I would like to find out.”

“Well…” Now at last I felt I was reaching her. In for the kill—rather, close the sale, that sort of thing.

“May I come and see you, Mrs. Michaelson? I promise not to take too much of your time.”

“Time?” She sighed, one of those soft moans that seem to come from a soul in pain. “I have a lot of that these days, Mr. Barlow.
Yes, you may come and see me.”

“This afternoon? Four o’clock, perhaps?”

“Why not? Let me give you the address.”

I damn near told her I wouldn’t need it—but thought better of that. The lady must never know that the great Barlow tailed
her like some common peeper.

When I arrived at Judith Michaelson’s apartment at four, give or take a few minutes, she had tea ready for us, and a tray
of what appeared to be tiny cucumber sandwiches.

“Or would you prefer a drink, Mr. Barlow? Sherry, maybe?”

I raised my hand, palm out. “Tea will be fine.”

Judith Michaelson was a woman in her early forties, I surmised, probably about my own age—but she appeared to be at least
a decade older. Her face was almost devoid of color; there were dark circles under her eyes—but her bones were good, as they
say, and her hair was perfectly composed in a style that used to be called “pageboy.” She was wearing a silk housedress, green
and maroon, in a flowered pattern. Altogether a woman one would call handsome.

“I’m sorry if I was so difficult on the phone, Mr. Barlow.”

I dismissed this with another wave of the hand. “I can’t blame you for being wary.”

“It’s not that so much—it’s—well, it’s that I don’t really give a damn that Parker Foxcroft was murdered. In fact, I think
whoever did it ought to be congratulated. I’m sure that sounds harsh, but—”

“Many others would agree with you, Mrs. Michaelson.
And, as you may have gathered from his obituary, others would disagree.”

“Ha,” she murmured. Just “ha.”

“If it’s not intrusive of me to ask, Mrs. Michaelson, just why did—I mean
do
you dislike Parker so much?”

“I’d be quite happy to tell you.” She leaned forward and refilled my teacup. I smiled gamely. Tea is definitely not—well,
not my cup of tea. “My husband was a writer, Mr. Barlow. A damn fine writer.” She shook her head back and forth a few times,
as though to clear it, or to shake the memories loose. I could tell she was also struggling to hold back tears.

“I’m sure he was, Mrs. Michaelson.” Another fib, since I had no idea what kind of a writer the man was, but excusable in the
circumstances. “Go on.”

“I also write, Mr. Barlow—under the name of Judith Simon Michaelson.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know your work.”

She made a rather poor effort to smile. “No reason why you should. I write romantic short stories for the kind of magazines
women usually read under the hair dryer.”

“Oh.”

“My husband, on the other hand, was a literary writer. I’m told there are only two reasons for writing, Mr. Barlow—fame and
money. My work paid the bills, his was going to make him famous—or so we both thought.”

“Anyway,” she continued, “to make a long story short—and where have I heard that before?—Alex spent twelve years working on
one manuscript, writing, rewriting, polishing it until he finally deemed it ready to go out. He believed it to be a masterpiece.
Having heard about Parker Foxcroft and his literary protégés, my husband sent his manuscript directly to the celebrated editor.”
She put a
decided spin on the word “celebrated.” “Foxcroft returned the book with a three-page letter that left no doubt whatever as
to what he thought of Alex’s effort. ‘A puny piece of work,’ he called it. ‘Paltry in concept, and anile in execution. I suggest
you put this manuscript to some useful purpose, such as starting a good blaze in your fireplace.’ Those were among the
less
objectionable phrases in his letter, Mr. Barlow.”

I confess I did not know what to say. I was shocked, at least mildly so. God knows there are a lot of puerile writers out
there, but we usually let them down easy. Easier, anyway. What’s to be gained by savaging a manuscript that already has its
death warrant written all over it?

Judith Michaelson saved me the trouble of finding words that might be adequate to the situation. She went on, in a voice trembling
with controlled fury: “Alex was devastated. He fell into a depression that lasted for days. I really feared for his sanity.”

“I understand how you might.”

“How can you
possibly
understand?” she said. “And then—”

“Yes?”

“—and then—” She bowed her head and hunched her shoulders forward. Her hands were clenched together, her eyes tightly shut.
“He
killed
himself. Just a month ago, Mr. Barlow. On May the third.”

Oh my God
, I thought.
My God.

“He had a gun, and—” She could not, did not, finish the sentence. There was no need.

We sat in a mutually painful silence for several moments. It was Judith Michaelson who ultimately broke it.

“So you see, Mr. Barlow,
why
I hate Parker Foxcroft. If it were not for him, my husband would still be alive. Parker
Foxcroft
drove
Alex to suicide. He said as much in the note he left behind—that his book meant everything to him, and that now he had nothing
left to live for.”

“But surely, Mrs. Michaelson, you don’t mean—”

“Oh, but I
do
mean it. I hold Parker Foxcroft solely and completely responsible for my husband’s death, as surely as if he had pulled the
trigger himself. That letter—
his
letter—killed Alex.”

It was clear to me that there was no way in which I could convince her that suicide is never (well, perhaps almost never)
the result of a single event or an immediate cause, so I did not even make the attempt. And what if she was right, that her
husband ceased to care about living after receiving Parker’s letter? What if his entire self-esteem, that rickety structure
most of us build out of or around our doubts, our misgivings, and our fears, depended on the praise—the recognition, at least—of
a Parker Foxcroft?

At this point, sensing that her tears were “winking at the brim,” quite like Keats’s “beaded bubbles,” I stammered out a few
halfhearted (and also probably half-witted) apologies and rose to leave.

At the door, Judith Michaelson extended her hand, and I took it. “I appreciate your concern, Mr. Barlow. I wish I could have
been better company.”

“Don’t give it another thought, Mrs. Michaelson. Thanks for the tea.”

I left Judith Michaelson’s apartment with mixed feelings. Doubtless, Parker was a cruel man, but it is a cruel world we live
and work in, and publishing has not escaped its own homegrown cruelties. To the vast legions of wannabe authors who flood
the mails with unpublishable manuscripts, which we unfailingly reject, we must seem like hanging judges, blockheads at best—disciples
of the Marquis de Sade. I
sighed in sympathy with Judith Simon Michaelson, and in the same gesture shrugged off any guilt I might conceivably feel for
the death of her husband. And as for Parker? He’s well past caring.

The doorman Victor was now on duty as I stepped out of the apartment building. He nodded and favored me with a slight smile.
Well might he smile, with all those twenty-dollar bills in his pocket!

And there was this possibility to consider: could Judith Michaelson have hated Parker Foxcroft enough to kill him?

Quite possibly. In fact, quite
probably.

The following day I lunched with Joe Scanlon at The Players. I decided we’d better take a corner table in the main dining
room, where we could speak in privacy, rather than going down to the Grill Room. Supplied with a vodka martini for me and
a Jack Daniel’s on the rocks with a splash for Scanlon, we got down to business. Police business first.

When I told him about my interview with Judith Michaelson, Scanlon nodded in what I hoped was approval.

“Her husband killed himself with a gun,” he said, holding his drink poised in midair. “I wonder what kind of gun he used.”

“You think it might be the same one that killed Parker? If so, perhaps it could be traced.”

“No chance. According to information I got from Sergeant Falco, the murder weapon was unlicensed.”

“Tough break.”

“Yeah, it certainly is. No recognizable prints, either, Falco told me. Not even a latent.”

“What else did you find out, Joe?”

He took a long sip from his glass and leaned forward. In
a low voice, he said: “A piece of information about one of your people, Nick. A Lester Crispin?”

“My art director. He couldn’t get along with Parker.”

“Lieutenant Hatcher and Falco know that. What you may not have known, Nick, is that Crispin has a record.”

“What?” I knew the instant I spoke that my voice was much too loud; it wouldn’t do for anyone else in the room to overhear
our conversation. “Excuse me, Joe, I didn’t mean to shout. It… comes as a shock, that’s all.”

“I’m sure.”

“What was it?”

“Criminal assault. He was indicted but never tried, and never served any time. Apparently there were extenuating circumstances.”

“Such as?”

“The party he beat the bejeesus out of had attempted to rape one of the women who worked in Crispin’s office.”

“Jesus, what do you know? I guess I’m not surprised, Joe. The man does have a violent temper.”

“Anyway, he moves up a notch or two on the list of suspects.”

“And what about me? Where do I stand?”

“You’re still up there, Nick.”

“I can’t say I like that much. By the way, does Hatcher or Falco know of our connection?”

“Not yet, and I’m hoping we can keep it that way, at least for a while. Otherwise, he’s not going to like feeding me information.”

I downed my martini and signaled the waiter. “Let’s move on to lunch, Joe.”

After we’d ordered, I said: “To change the subject—”

“If you don’t, I’ll be glad to.”

“Have you heard from Kay McIntire? About taking you on as a client?”

“Nothing definite yet. She’s reading my stuff—said she’d let me know.”

“I hope it works out.”

“Nick,” he said, “I’m curious about what happens after my book is out. That is—what will the launch be like?”

“Launch?” I paused. It was a long, grave pause. “Well,” I said at last, “ninety percent of our books are sent out into the
marketplace with a rather wistful hope that something, anything, will happen to start them selling.

“You may be thinking of a launch,” I continued, “as a space shuttle roaring off into the heavens, or a new movie opening on
six hundred screens. What we publishers do is—well, we kind of
push
a book out onto a huge pond, like a little toy boat. Ready to catch the wind in its sails if there
is
any wind, fortunate if it doesn’t sink without a trace.”

“Oh,” said Scanlon.

“Let’s hope, Joe,” I said, not wishing to ruin his digestion altogether, “that your book is one of the other ten percent.”
He brightened at this.

“One other thing, Joe. How would you like to consider joining The Players?”

He whistled softly. “They’ve got a category for cops?”

“As an
author,
my friend. But we have had at least one cop as a member.”

“How does it work? Joining, I mean.”

“I nominate you for membership. Another member writes a seconding letter, and we get letters from three other members approving
your nomination.”