Holmes & Moriarty 02 - All She Wrote (MM) (3 page)

I poked around, opened the fridge which was stocked with snacks for the following day—

nobly refraining from snitching a brownie—and went upstairs to check out the two rooms there: a bedroom and an office space. The office window offered a view of the flagstone steps leading up to the house and its surrounding grounds. The bedroom was an ordinary, impersonal guest bedroom—with a wrinkled bedspread on the queen-sized bed.

Maybe the gardening staff liked to take a nap in the afternoon. There couldn’t be a lot to do in the winter, could there?

I returned downstairs and stepped outside—and nearly jumped out of my skin.

An elderly man stood on the flagstone step.

“Did I startle you? I’m sorry.” He offered a leather-gloved hand and a quizzical smile.

“No, no. Not at all,” I assured him, as though my normal means of locomotion was to bound like a startled deer through every doorway. “Hi.” We shook hands.

He was tall and willowy, with wavy hair as smooth and white as the snow, and handsome, even youthful, patrician features. He looked like someone famous, but I couldn’t quite place him.

As though he read my thoughts, he said, “You don’t remember me, do you? I’m Rudolph Dunst. It’s nice to see you again, Christopher.”

“I knew I recognized you. I’m still jetlagged. It’s good to see you again, Mr. Dunst.”

“It’s been a few years back,” Dunst said easily. “And please. Call me Rudolph.”

Rudolph Dunst was Anna’s longtime editor. She’d introduced me to him back when he was a Senior Editor at Theodore Mansfield and I was first starting out. Dunst had the incredible bad taste to pass on the first Miss Butterwith. Granted, he’d done it with great kindness and diplomacy. He was one of those old-school gentlemen editors that the new breed use as dipping sauce for their lunchtime sushi. In any case, Miss B. had the last laugh by going on to become an award-winning national bestseller.

Now, ironically, both Dunst and I were fighting to stay afloat in the new publishing environment. Environment being a polite word for acid bath.

Rudolph smiled, displaying impressive dental work. “So you’re going to run the AC for Anna, I understand?”

“The AC?”

I was thinking he meant air conditioner, which Mother Nature seemed to have well in hand, but he explained, “The Asquith Circle. Anna’s writing seminar has produced some marvelous talent over the years. Yourself included.”

It would have been silly to quibble with that. Anna had certainly been instrumental in helping me get published, but I’d sold my first book my final semester of college. Anna had invited me to take part in the Asquith Circle two summers later, so the AC had zero to do with my success. It would have been ungracious, though, to make that point.

Instead, I said, “Are you scouting for new talent?”

Rudolph raised his brows. “Are you working on something new?”

“Me? No.” I was nonplussed at the idea. Give up Miss Butterwith? For what? Another kickass, foul-mouth, bad-mannered female cop/secret agent/bounty hunter? Another kickass, foul-mouth, bad-mannered vampire/demon/witch slayer? Another kickass, foul-mouth, bad-mannered chef? Hmmm…maybe that last wasn’t a totally terrible idea. The research might be fun…

“Still enjoying the Miss Butterwith books?” Rudolph seemed gently amused. Why, I couldn’t for the life of me imagine.

“Yes,” I said staunchly. “I am. Very much so. Totally.”

“Ah.”

“Were you going inside?” I started to move from the doorway to allow him entrance, but he stepped back.

“No, no,” Rudolph said. “I noticed the light was on in the cottage and…”

He looked faintly self-conscious. I wondered if Anna had confided her fears to him. She had said not, but I’ve found that people tend to talk a lot more than they think they do.

“I was trying to get comfortable with the setup before tomorrow.”

He patted me on the shoulder as we started back across the snowy garden, trudging past the black iron bones of obelisks and trellises.

“You’ll do fine, Christopher. Besides, I’d be very surprised if Anna didn’t drag herself down here at some point during the weekend.”

With that cast on her leg? Down those stairs? In the dead of winter? If that were the case, why wouldn’t Anna run the damned seminar herself? But Rudolph probably knew her better than I did. For years the persistent rumor had been Anna and Rudolph were involved in a decades-old on-and-off romance. The only time I ever saw them together was at conferences, and they seemed to be behaving themselves as much as anyone does at those things. Which is to say that they weren’t actually jumping each other during panels.

But I didn’t want to think about J.X. now. I was finding it surprisingly painful to contemplate the fact that I might never see him again outside a professional context. And why the hell that phrase should instantly remind me of how beautiful he was stark naked, I do not know.

Except that I thought of J.X. naked a lot. But I’m sure he’d look equally nice in professional context. It would go nicely with that honey brown skin of his.

“Is something wrong?” Rudolph asked, glancing at me.

“Wrong? No.”

“You were scowling so ferociously, I wondered.”

“No, no. I was hoping we wouldn’t be late for dinner.”

“We’re in plenty of time,” he reassured. “Anna does have a wonderful chef.”

He was telling me all about the potatoes au gratin they’d had for lunch the day before as we started up the stairs. I listened with half an ear, while I wondered if Anna had been going up or coming down when she fell. I assumed coming down, but I should probably verify. Did it make a difference? Hard to know. Miss Butterwith would certainly think so.

How many other people used these steps on a regular basis?

Did Anna even use them on a regular basis? I couldn’t imagine she had a lot of cause to be tromping around her snow-covered bottom garden at this time of year. In a mansion the size of hers it was hard to believe she couldn’t find a quiet corner to write, so what had she been doing down here?

Meeting someone away from the house?

I made a mental note to remind myself to find out.

The steps
were
slippery, but there was a low, rustic wooden railing, and I hung on to that.

Anna, of course, being familiar with the staircase, might forgo clinging cravenly to the support.

“Were you here when Anna had her accident?” I asked Rudolph who was a couple of steps ahead of me.

He was moving briskly, but I noticed he watched where he put his feet. I didn’t see ice—a dusting of snow, as though the steps had been cleared earlier in the day, but no ice. Weather was a changeable thing. Because there wasn’t ice today, didn’t mean there hadn’t been ice the day Anna fell.

“Yes,” Rudolph answered. “I’d arrived the night before and was sleeping late. I heard her scream.” He spared me a grim look. “From the sound, I thought she’d been killed.”

“It’s surprising she wasn’t. This would be one hell of a fall. How far up was she?”

“About halfway up.”

We were about halfway up ourselves.

I paused—it had nothing to do with being short of breath—and looked down.

The snowy bottom of the garden seemed a long way away. Foreshortened, dark evergreens, a tiny, snowy sundial, courtly statues blanketed in white. The snow-globe effect again.

“Seriously? Halfway up?”

Rudolph read my tone correctly. “Anna might be exaggerating. Or confused. She’s always been a tad high-strung. However high up she was, I’m sure it was terrifying. If things had gone differently…”

I was nodding agreement. “It would have been all she wrote.”

What’s that quote by Woody Allen? Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage.

I was thinking of both murder and beverages as I sat at dinner that night in the elegant dining room at Asquith House, gingerly sipping my merlot (red wine always gives me a headache) and studying my fellow guests for signs of incipient homicidal mania. In addition to Sara, who was presiding in Anna’s absence, and Rudolph, there were five writing students staying at the house that weekend.

I politely listened to their names as they were introduced, promptly forgot them all except for Poppy C. Clark which I heard as Poppy Seed Clark. She set me straight fast.

“Poppy
C
. C as in
Catholic
.”

Trust a writer to drag her religious hang-ups into it. “Sorry,” I mumbled.

Poppy wrinkled her nose in disapproval.

She was a small, birdlike woman around my age. She had very short black hair and slanted eyes of a unique turquoise color. She wore men’s style chinos, a white tailored man’s shirt, loafers and a man’s watch. I didn’t pick up
lesbian
, though, so much as affected. Like those non-Francoise non-painters who wear berets.

The soup was served as we were still untangling the introductions. Rudolph was right.

Anna’s cook was superb. The creamed pumpkin was almost worth the entire trip.

I do like my food. And it was sort of a relief to know that I could eat my dinner without fear that I was going to have to get naked in the near future. I could get as fat as I liked and no one would care. Heck, no one would
see
. Sheer bliss.

It was funny the way bliss took your appetite away.

“Christopher Holmes. You write the books about the Scottish police constable, don’t you?” That was Victoria Sherwell, a tall and pleasantly plain forty-something. She wore spectacles and no makeup. An I’m-comfortable-being-comfortable vibe.

“No. I write about Miss Butterwith. She’s an English botanist.”

It was a bit lowering that Anna hadn’t apparently even told her precious writer’s circle who would be taking over for her in her hour of need, but I supposed she was preoccupied with people trying to kill her and whatnot.

Victoria smiled, displaying a cute little gap between the two front teeth. “That’s sweet.”

I tried not to bristle.
Sweet?
Miss Butterwith was not sweet. She was not some sweet old lady in a pink woolly cardigan with Life Savers in her pocket and grandchildren and a weekly bridge club. She was Justice personified. She had a mind like a steel trap and a resolve of iron, and she used scientific methods for solving crime. Okay, she was aided in her investigations by her intrepid cat Mr. Pinkerton—and the dashing Inspector Appleby, who was
not
gay no matter what anyone said—but other than
that
, she was as hardboiled as they come.

Poppy Seed said, “Are you sure she’s not a librarian? I’ve read that series with the English librarian. It wasn’t too bad considering all the typos.”

Librarian?
My hand froze on my glass. Someone was writing a series about an English librarian? Why didn’t I know this series? Who was publishing it? Was it doing better than Miss Butterwith?

Naturally, I didn’t let a flicker of that show. “I’m sure,” I said pleasantly, as though a competitive thought had never passed behind my eyes.

“I only ask because I haven’t heard of your series. Is it new?”

I was still smiling—through my teeth—as I said, “It’s been around for over fifteen years.”

“Has it? I find it offensive that any female sleuth would be referred to as a spinster.”

Poppy Seed turned to Victoria. “Don’t you?”

Victoria smiled noncommittally and dipped her spoon in her soup.

I finished my wine, defiant of the inevitable headache. I was still brooding as the soup dishes were whisked away and replaced with plates laden with juicy prime rib, buttery whipped potatoes and tender asparagus drizzled with creamy tarragon sauce. I began to perk up.

Besides, some people think fullness in the face makes you look younger.

“Who’s your agent, Christopher?” one of the male students asked.

It was going to be one of
those
weekends, I could tell already. “Rachel Ving.”

Ving the Merciless they called her in publishing circles, though so far she hadn’t killed anyone. That I knew of.

“How did you happen to land her?”

“I let my fingers do the walking.”

“Eh?”

What was his name? Something unusual. Rowland…Bride. That was it. Rowland Bride looked like he was in his late forties. He was a short, roly-poly man with bright dark eyes and tight dark curls. He looked hot. Not like J.X. looked hot. Hot as in permanently perspiring.

Hot and perplexed. Maybe he was thinking of the Neil Young song.

“Just kidding,” I said. “I sent the manuscript to several agents who indicated they were willing to look at a new author and were interested in handling mysteries.”

Rowland looked unconvinced. Perhaps he thought Anna had written a letter of recommendation or something, but that wasn’t the case. She would have, of course, but her own agent hadn’t been taking new clients when I went looking. I had found Rachel all on my own.

Poor Rachel.

“How long have you known Anna?” I asked generally of the table.

“Nearly nine years,” Rowland said.

“Have you been part of the AC for nine years?”

“No. I was only invited to join the circle last year.” He pursed his mouth. I couldn’t tell if the expression indicated discretion or annoyance that it had taken so long for Anna to include him in the festivities. As I recalled, invites to the AC were exclusive and much sought after by aspiring scribblers.

“Two years.” Poppy Seed sounded curt. She was hacking away at her prime rib as though she had a score to settle.

“Two years,” Victoria concurred. She was the only person at the table still on her soup.

She had a half bowl to go and was serenely dipping her spoon as though she’d never heard of such a thing as a main course.

“Were you members of the writing group last year?”

“No.”

“No.” Poppy’s portion of the table jiggled as she sawed.

At the far end, Sara and Rudolph were ignoring my efforts at sociability. They spoke quietly together, much like weary teachers supervising a sock hop. Do they still have sock hops?

Do they still have socks?

I’d have liked to sit at the adult table too, but I’d been placed smack-dab in the center of the playing field to be more accessible to the students. It’s true what they say about no good deed going unpunished. Granted, I was conveniently located for sleuthing, but it irked me nonetheless.