Holmes & Moriarty 02 - All She Wrote (MM) (8 page)

The ladies went for various cakes and dainties. I opted for the most substantial selection on the menu which turned out to be three different kinds of finger sandwiches: smoked salmon, watercress and walnut. I don’t think any of it was true British fare, but by then I was starving and I’d have been willing to eat soggy cucumbers or anything else my system could digest.

“Can I ask you a question?” Victoria asked diffidently once we’d given our orders to the tiny brisk Englishwoman who owned the Tudor Teashop. “How did you get an agent?”

I opened my mouth. Closed it.

“Remember,” Nella told her. “He wrote letters to everyone in
Writer’s Market
.”

I said, “Huh?”

“Oh, I must have missed that,” Victoria said.

“Me too,” I said.

Nella turned those wide blue eyes my way. “Isn’t that right?”

“Well, I mean it’s sort of right. I didn’t write
everybody
. I tried to target agents who handled my kind of thing. Agents I had a chance of scoring with.”

“How many rejections did you get?”

“It’s a long time ago.”

She said with disarming honesty, “I always remember the rejections better than the good news.”

I thought of the recent rejections in my life. Maybe my perception was wrong, but I felt like even though I received fewer rejections these days, my bounce back had been better when I was younger. Part of that was probably spending nearly twenty years at the same publishing house with the same editor. Not to mention the thirteen years I’d spent with David. Although

“spent with” was maybe looking at it through rose-colored reading glasses.

I said, “I was lucky. My agent was starting up and she was what’s known in the industry as
hungry
. She signed me before the others had a chance to reject me.”

“Is she looking for clients?” Nella asked.

“You know, I’m not sure.” It was the truth.

Her gaze fell, her cheeks turned pink, and I knew she felt she’d been brushed off, which was kind of true, but not entirely.

To my astonishment, I heard myself saying, “If you want to mail me a copy of your manuscript, I could send it on to Rachel with a note of recommendation.”

She lit up happily.

Yeah. No good deed goes unpublished.

“What’s to stop you from stealing Nella’s story?” Poppy broke in.

“I’m sorry?”

“You could steal Nella’s story and submit it as your own, right?”

“
Wrong
.” One cold, compact ice cube of a word cracked out of the frozen tray I wanted to dump over her head. I was too offended to let it rest there. “First of all,
ideas
aren’t the hard part.

Secondly, there are no new ideas, only the author’s unique execution.” I think I spoke the word
execution
with more fervor than strictly necessary. “Thirdly, why the hell would I want to submit Nella’s book as my own when I—like every author in the world—like my own work better?”

“I guess I hit a nerve,” Poppy said, amused.

“Nerve is the right word. I’m offering to do Nella a favor and you’re basically—” I stopped there. He who argues with a fool is a bigger fool. Or drunk. And I was neither. I wasn’t drunk, anyway. Worse luck.

I said to Nella, who was staring wide-eyed from me to Poppy, “Do what you want. If you feel safer sending the book on your own, you can let Rachel know I recommended you.”

Our food came at that point, which was probably as well. I occupied myself with the triangles of sandwiches and did my best not to grind my teeth.

Victoria cleared her throat. “How long does it take you to write a book, Christopher?”

“Six months.” Three of which were spent on research and convincing myself I still had one more Miss Butterwith in me.

I stopped chewing. Where had that thought come from? That almost sounded like I was tired of writing Miss Butterwith, and of course I wasn’t. I adored her. I adored Mr. Pinkerton. I adored Inspector Appleby—even if he was in the closet.

I finished chewing, swallowed the last bit of sticky walnut sandwich and reached for my teacup.

My expression must have been peculiar because Victoria asked even more meekly, “Do you use an outline?”

“Yes.”

Poppy opened her mouth. I leveled an austere look her way, and she subsided.

For a couple of minutes we all applied ourselves to sipping and chewing, but eventually I got over my ire. If I was fair, a lot of this publishing stuff seems complicated and mysterious when you’re on the outside of it. You hear horror stories about crooked agents and insolvent publishers and nefarious writing partners. A lot of misinformation floats around, not to mention flat-out misunderstanding, rumor and speculation.

“So tell me about this guy, Luke,” I asked.

They turned to the change of topic in relief.

Poppy laughed. “What’s to tell? He’s sex on legs.”

Nella’s cheeks went rosy again. I suspected that explained the awkwardness of her sex scenes.

Victoria said, “Now there’s a story.”

“Really? What is it?”

“He’s an ex-con.” That was Poppy.

I managed to drain my cup of Earl Grey without spilling a drop. “What was he convicted of?”

“Armed robbery,” Poppy answered.

Victoria objected, “I heard it was assault and battery.”

“I heard it was vehicular manslaughter.” Nella reached for another frosted cake.

“Are you sure you’re talking about the same guy?”

“Whatever it was,” Victoria said, “Anna heard about his case and worked to get him out on parole. I guess the evidence used to convict him was pretty shaky, and that factored into his being released early.”

“Interesting. And you think they’re having some kind of relationship?” I did my best to look innocent and inquiring.

Victoria’s expression was uncomfortable. Poppy, however, could always be relied on. “If you ever see them together, you’ll know it in a minute.”

I could see Nella was about to protest. I cut her off. “How long has he worked for Anna?”

“It’s been a couple of years now,” Victoria said. “She hired him before she and Todd divorced. I think it was part of the condition of Luke’s parole.”

I returned lightly, “That Anna get divorced?”

They all laughed, though uneasily. Victoria spoke. “That Anna offer Luke a job. I’m not sure how it works. But it seems to be successful.” She looked at the other two for agreement.

Poppy shrugged. Nella looked vague.

Having given up on finding a subtle way to introduce the subject, I joked, “Is Luke the one responsible for keeping the garden steps cleared of ice?”

Nella swallowed a bite of cake the wrong way and began to cough. Both Victoria and Poppy patted her on her back.

“That was
awful
,” Victoria said. “I actually saw it happen.”

“You did?” Poppy looked startled.

Nella was still spluttering and coughing. Poppy absently thumped her again.

Victoria explained to me, “I live in a cottage on the estate. In the woods. It’s about a two-mile walk to the house. It’s really pretty and I find it calms my mind to walk rather than drive sometimes. Anyway, that morning I’d strolled over to bring Anna some rutabagas from my winter garden. I was cutting through the lower garden when I heard her scream.” She shivered.

“It was terrible. I thought…I don’t know what I thought. That she’d been attacked. She sounded like she was being murdered.”

“It’s amazing she hasn’t been,” Poppy muttered.

“So you actually did see her fall?”

Victoria nodded. “That is to say, I saw her roll to the bottom of the steps. I ran to her and saw that she was conscious. I told her to lie still and then I ran up the stairs to sound the alarm.

Luke had heard her scream too, and he was already on his way down.”

“That’s why you should carry a cell phone,” Poppy told her.

Victoria made a face. “I hate the damn things.”

I considered her story. “Did Anna say anything when you found her?”

“Just that she’d slipped on the ice. She was in a lot of pain as you can imagine.”

“Did Luke say anything?”

Victoria’s brows drew together in an effort at recollection. “I think he asked what had happened. To tell you the truth, it’s all kind of a jumble. I was so shocked.”

“Could you tell where she’d slipped?”

“Look at you making like Miss Butternut.” Poppy seemed tickled.

“Butter
with
.”

“Same difference.”

Why
was I wasting my breath? I turned to Victoria who said apologetically, “I didn’t notice. I was only thinking about getting help as fast as possible.”

Nella said, “We should be getting back or we’re going to be late.”

Her shuttered expression caught my attention. Generally her face was as open and guileless as a little kid’s.

“They can’t start without us,” Poppy replied, reaching for the last blue iced cake. “We’re holding the teacher captive.”

Next came the inevitable tussle over the bill. I was prepared to pay for everyone’s lunch. I had some vague idea that this was what Anna had done back in my day, but to my surprise Poppy graciously insisted on picking up the check.

“Don’t worry about it.” She brushed aside my thanks. “My old man left me a big fat insurance policy when he kicked off.”

I recalled that her spouse had died in a drowning accident. I wondered if anyone had thought to investigate possible suicide.

The bill paid, we trudged out into the elements once more. It was starting to sleet as we piled back into Poppy’s battered Mercedes.

“Victoria’s the tallest. She should sit in front,” Poppy said when Victoria tried to offer me the copilot position. Victoria looked apologetic, but I was only too happy to yield to her. I squeezed in the backseat with Nella and we had a moment of awkwardness as I had to ask her to shift so that I could find the other half of my seat belt. Having driven into town with Poppy, no way was I risking the return trip without buckling up.

As we left the parking lot and hit the slushy, crowded streets, Nella said softly, “I’d like to send you my manuscript.”

“Sure.”

“How much do you earn per book, Chris?” Poppy questioned.

“Not enough.”

“But you get an advance, right?”

Less at Millbrook House than I was used to receiving from Wheaton & Woodhouse, but beggars can’t be choosers. Not that I liked to think of myself as standing at the transom, cap in hand, but for a while there that had been uncomfortably close to the truth.

“Yes.”

“And do you have to pay that back if you don’t sell all the books they print?”

“Sell through my print run? No. The only way you pay back an advance is if you don’t deliver the book or the deal falls through for some reason.”

Nella asked, “Can you live on an advance?”

“If you’re willing to give up eating.” Realizing that I was being a bad author ambassador, I amended, “It depends on the size of the advance and where—and how—you live. I have a large backlist by now, so I earn significant royalties. My advances tide me over between royalty checks.”

“I’ll say you have a lot of books,” Poppy commented. “I don’t know how you keep them straight. The book-jacket blurbs all sound the same.”

I sighed and gazed out the window at the picture-postcard landscape gliding past. I was already starting to feel queasy thanks to the walnut-paste sandwiches. Poppy’s driving wasn’t helping. We don’t do a lot of traveling through snow in Southern California, and I don’t like being a passenger under the best of circumstances. And finding myself as Poppy’s passenger was not the best of circumstances. She had a habit of frequently taking her eyes off the road to converse with Victoria—or even me and Nella in the backseat.

We left Nitchfield in the soft and snowy distance, and Poppy shifted into high gear as the road opened up before us.

The other three chattered about people unknown to me, and I tuned out, watching the dark ragged outline of pines, ice-limned chestnut and maple trees, the occasional tall stalk of grass poking through the blanket of snow.

There was scant traffic and the highway was mostly empty, though snow lined the shoulders in tall drifts. I could see glimpses of a frozen lake or reservoir over the top of the ice wall.

I was thinking that there was a very good chance that Anna had simply slipped on the icy steps. If Victoria had gone up the stairway immediately after, there couldn’t have been anything obviously wrong with the stairs or she would have fallen too.

That didn’t explain those other near misses, though.

“How long did it take you to be able to support yourself with your writing?” Nella asked me.

I turned to answer her—and so did Poppy.

The car swerved slightly, the tires failed to grab and we slid sideways. There were gasps all around, me included. Poppy instinctively slammed on the brakes, and we began to skid in horrifying earnest.

Victoria screamed. Nella cried out as Poppy wrenched the wheel against the skid. The fishtailing rear end of the Mercedes pitched violently away in the opposite direction, and now we were spinning, spinning like a top across the black and shining road. The trees and frozen hills went whirling by, the white wall of snow loomed up and we crashed into it.

Crashed into it—and ploughed right through.

The three women were screaming as we sailed out into empty air. For a moment we seemed to hang in the nothingness. Clumps of snow slid down the windshield and then blew away as we smashed down the hillside.

The next time I opened my eyes I was being whooshed along in a wheelbarrow. A crowd of excited gardeners surrounded me, shouting confusing questions.

That was…odd.

I ignored the hollow, booming voices, and stared up past the hovering green pajamas and smocks to the white ceiling and light panels skimming swiftly past like train tracks.

Train tracks?
No. That wasn’t it…

“Can you hear me, Mr. Holmes?” one of the gardeners yelled in my ear. Loud, annoying man.

No. Not a gardener. And not a wheelbarrow, although it was uncomfortable enough for one. A trolley of some kind…

“Are you allergic to any medications?”