by Lev Raphael
The bedroom revealed much more, and that’s the first room I was truly uncomfortable in. It wasn’t the intimacy of her futon or dresser top, or the pot of Claire Burke potpourri near the door, her favorite, I knew, from being in her SUM office.
The wall space not taken up with bookshelves was crammed with her book covers in frames, framed reviews of her books (including a starred PW, which I knew from Stefan meant a lot); pictures of Priscilla with other authors like Anne Rice and Patricia Cornwell. I couldn’t tell from the poses if they were good friends or if the photos had been taken at writers’ conferences. But I suspected they were the latter, because Priscilla looked somewhat needy in each one, pinched around the eyes.
There was so much of it that the whole room reeked of desperation despite the potpourri, as if Priscilla had to prove to herself her career was alive, and that she was connected.
But the heart of the house was definitely her small study next door, which was just as Detective Valley had described it. There were hundreds of true crime and other research books for her mysteries, and over her desk, the corkboard-covered wall was filled with clippings and photos of Chloe DeVore.
Here was Chloe getting inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. And accepting her Pulitzer. Chloe getting some kind of French award. Chloe with Saul Bellow. Chloe with Salman Rushdie. Chloe with Steven Spielberg, for God’s sake! Profiles and interviews cut out of newspapers and magazines from around the world. Had Priscilla actually hired a clippings service to track Chloe DeVore’s career? Or had this all been sent to her by that informal network of Chloe-watchers she had talked about?
In some spots, the articles were two and even three deep.
The dartboard with a much-pierced photo of Chloe was right in the middle, and underneath, Priscilla had pinned an index card with a typed quotation from Emma: “One half of the world does not understand the pleasures of the other half.”
What could that mean? And how could Priscilla have worked here with the roiling evidence of Chloe’s success staring her in the face? Or was that very pain what she needed to keep going? The power of Priscilla’s obsession alarmed me. Even the sunshine coming through the Venetian blinds seemed tainted and somehow malign. This wasn’t a place to work, it was a sepulchre. She had been digging her own grave.
For a few moments, overwhelmed by the evidence of her single-minded focus on Chloe, I thought that maybe she had killed herself, despite the anomalies Angie had reported to us. But it wasn’t because she was afraid of being arrested and tried for murder. It was the loss. If her emotional life and her career had revolved around Chloe for so many years, without Chloe life was meaningless.
Which led to the conclusion that Chloe was killed by someone else. How could Priscilla knowingly deprive herself of the touchstone in her life?
I sat down at her desk, feeling burdened by the sadness of her life, of every writer’s life (including Stefan) who hadn’t made it into the upper echelons of publishing where your books simply became products and served as wallpaper in the chain stores.
Thankfully, I was just a bibliographer, with no hope of ever be coming even moderately famous or making much money on my writing. The Wharton scholars all knew me, and so did other bibliographers, librarians, and people like that. I had my certain small fame, my share of dusty immortality.
I shook myself, trying to focus on why I was there. Okay, how should I start?
Remembering Angie’s computer search, I turned on Priscilla’s computer, glad that it was an IBM just like mine. I was pretty sure that she used the same Word Perfect word processing program I did, because we’d talked about installing a new virus protection program some months earlier after a departmental memo.
Yes. She hadn’t updated her word processing program since then. We’d joked about being Neanderthals because we didn’t have Windows and didn’t use a mouse and it shocked some people as much as if we’d said we had outdoor toilets. I suppose it was a small protest against the speed at which computer technology was advancing—and it really didn’t do us any harm.
Her screen was the same size as mine and I felt oddly comfortable. When the directories came up, I chose LETTERS. I skimmed the hundreds of file names, looking for anything familiar, anyone from the conference, but I drew a complete blank.
Since I had the time, I decided to scan the letters more carefully, running the cursor rather than going down screen by screen. One file name was unusual: a series of exclamation points.
With a tinge of excitement, I pulled up the letter, but it was just a letter to a magazine, complaining about its review of one of her novels. Embarrassed, I turned away from the screen.
This was exactly the kind of thing that made me cringe when I read the New York Times Book Review. Was there anything as undignified and demeaning as an author writing in to rebuke a reviewer for having missed the point of a book, or misquoting it, or something? Why couldn’t authors just let it go? Why couldn’t they turn their anger and humiliation back into their writing, instead of trying to defend themselves in print? It was almost always a waste of time, because the reviewer got a chance to reply and demolish the author once again—coolly and diplomatically, of course.
I turned back, wondering if I shouldn’t just shut the computer off and leave. I wasn’t going to find anything this way.
Then I thought of Angie again. She wouldn’t give up so easily, would she? I took a tour through Priscilla’s other directories to see if any rang a bell.
How had I missed the directory called ENEMY? Excited, I pulled it up, but was instantly disappointed to find it was blank. She’d told me that Sleeping with the Enemy was the title of her next book, but there was nothing in the directory. Maybe she hadn’t even started it, and that’s why she’d seemed a little uneasy when we talked that night at my house several months ago. I could imagine her publisher pressing her to get another book done, and her being afraid to admit she hadn’t gotten further than a title.
Unless I was completely off-base. Maybe that wasn’t her new book at all, but just an idea for one.
I exited and recommenced my search, and this time I caught something far more interesting: FROME. Could it be Ethan Frome? That was the book they found in her car!
This was it for sure.
But I felt crushed when I went into the FROME directory. There was only one document in it, a title page:
THE ETHAN FROME MURDERS
by Priscilla Davidoff
The date on the file was only a few weeks back. Was this another new book? Why hadn’t she mentioned the title to me? Unless it was the same book and she’d been experimenting with different titles? But why separate directories, then?
Or was it that Sleeping with the Enemy had been finished, but deleted, and Priscilla was just beginning to work on this one, and that was why she had a copy of Wharton’s paperback with her when she died? It must have been inspiration, I figured, or a talisman of sorts.
But what the hell could it mean? I felt almost crazed now. Here I was, the one person in the world who’d read more about Edith Wharton than anyone else, and Wharton’s best-known (but not best) novel looked like it was a major clue in a murder, and I couldn’t figure it out.
I stared and stared at the screen. Then it occurred to me that Priscilla might have done more, much more than just create a directory and do a title page. And maybe everything in this directory had been deleted by whoever killed her. Which meant someone intimately aware of what she was writing about….
I looked down at my hands. Had the Campus Police checked for fingerprints? If not, then I had probably blurred any prints on the keys. Unless the killer had worn gloves.
If these were two separate books, Priscilla couldn’t have killed herself, I thought with conviction, remembering what Stefan had said about her book coming out in the summer. She not only had the rush of that one, she had a claim on the future. She wouldn’t have killed herself with a new book calling to her. No matter how despairing she might have
felt about her career, the idea of a new book was a doorway to something better, a real promise of change and engagement. Didn’t I know that from living with Stefan all these years? Whenever he was depressed, a new project always pulled him out. He knew it; I knew it. Sometimes in those dark moods, he’d snap at me when I suggested working on something new, but he always gave in to his own need to create and the inner certainty that work would pull him through.
I turned off the computer and tried going through Priscilla’s desk and file cabinets, but there was nothing connected to this future book—no file folder labeled anything like Ethan Frome. I felt crippled by my lack of information: I didn’t know who Priscilla’s writer friends were, the name of her agent, or even her editor. All that might help me find out about what she was supposed to be publishing next.
The desk phone rang, startling me, but I didn’t dare pick it up, and the volume must have been down on the answering machine because I couldn’t hear if anyone was leaving a message.
Just as I was wondering about turning up the volume setting, I heard a key in the front door.
What if this was the mystery figure Mrs. Lorraine had spotted on those evenings? Or was it the murderer?
I was frozen to my seat—or Priscilla’s seat, actually. I couldn’t get up or make a sound.
I looked wildly around the room. Through the half-open blinds I could see that the small window had a storm window on it. There was absolutely no way I could escape through it quickly, or escape at all. I was trapped.
There was nowhere to hide. What could I use to defend myself? There was nothing in sight I could grab as a weapon—no heavy bookends, nothing. Could I reach for the phone and quietly dial 911? Was there time?
No. I heard footsteps.
Terrified, I swiveled in the chair to face the door, unwilling to be surprised by my fate.
Detective Valley appeared in the doorway, shaking his head.
I sighed heavily, feeling myself deflate, feeling the pulse beat in my forehead, the sweat in my palms.
We stared at each other. I asked, “Are you going to arrest me?”
“Why? For being an idiot? For interfering with a criminal investigation and trespassing in broad daylight? Give me a break. I’ve got more important things to do with my time.”
I flushed.
“How did you get in? The lock wasn’t jimmied. Was it that old bitch across the street? She give you a key?”
I was afraid to answer and get Mrs. Lorraine in trouble, but my silence was incriminating enough, and Valley nodded sourly.
Then something occurred to me. “I thought Campus Police only had jurisdiction at SUM.”
“We do, normally. You’re just lucky we’re working with the Michiganapolis police on this one. Okay, Sherlock,” he said, leaning on the doorframe. “Did you find anything us dumb-ass campus cops couldn’t find?”
Now I felt a little better. I reported on Priscilla’s new book—maybe even two new books—claiming this as proof that she couldn’t, wouldn’t have killed herself. Despite the agony over Chloe DeVore, the book was bigger than that. “She was a writer.”
Valley sneered at me. “So what? We know she didn’t kill herself. We’ve got real proof—the physical evidence.” He described it to me almost exactly the way Angie had, and I tried to look surprised or at least attentive, so that he wouldn’t know I’d heard any of it before.
But while he was talking, something occurred to me. If Priscilla had indeed been murdered, then the copy of Ethan Frome in her car was just a coincidence, wasn’t it? There’d be no link with the copy of The House of Mirth at Chloe’s side.
“What?” Valley asked. “What are you thinking about?”
I shrugged, feeling like Lucy when Ricky sensed she was up to no good.
“What else have you been doing?” Valley asked.
“Do you have the registration list with you? The conference list?”
“It’s in my office. Why are you interested?”
“Well, we’ve been wondering—”
He cut me off. “Who’s we?”
I decided not to mention Angie’s involvement, though I wondered if he already knew, since she’d said she was going to call him. Was Valley testing me again? Okay, then, let him test me.
“I’ve been talking it over with Stefan. Is that all right?”
He shrugged and I explained that we suspected there might be people besides me and Serena at the conference who weren’t registered, and maybe they didn’t get fingerprinted.
Noncommittally, Valley said, “We could pursue that.” Then he clapped his hands like a kindergarten teacher shepherding her charges from one activity to the next. “Time to go,” he said, ushering me out.
At the door, I asked him if he had known I was there, and that’s why he’d come in. Valley smiled.
“I left my card around and told the neighbors to report anything suspicious. You’re suspicious.” He held out his hand. “The key.” When I started to protest, he said, “I’ll get it to the old lady.” Then he gave me a warning: “Stay out of this now. Next time, I arrest you.”
And then, precisely because I should have just gone quietly to my car and driven away, I didn’t. “What’s your first name?” I asked. “How come it’s not on your cards, and you just introduce yourself as Detective Valley?”
Unexpectedly, Valley smiled. “It’s pretty bad. I’m half Italian, and I was named for my grandfather, Salvatore.”
“Jeez! The kids must have called you Sally or something gross like that.”
Valley winced. I’d clearly guessed right. He stood there in front oPriscilla’s house, probably to make sure I drove away. As I opened my car door, Valley said, “Remember—cool it with the detecting.”
Sheepishly, I assured him that I would. And then I drove a few blocks away to Serena’s house to see if she had a copy of the registration list.
11
SERENA LIVED ON a short, dead-end street lined with Tudors and colonials. I’d attended a party at her place once, and the pseudo-timbered exterior gave no sign that inside, the house was relentlessly black, white, and red in each room, and filled with gleaming glass and plastic furniture.
She opened the door, clearly surprised to see me. And I was surprised to see her wearing jeans and an oversized University of Michigan T-shirt. That was SUM’s rival school!
Serena didn’t invite me in, and she even held one hand on the door as if she suspected I might try to force my way in. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Another fatality at the conference?”
“I’ve lost my copy of the registration list.”
“Why do you need it right now? What’s the problem?”
I’d thought of the answer to that on the short drive over. “I’m not sure why, but Detective Valley wanted a copy.”
Now she was really suspicious, and didn’t understand why Valley couldn’t have come over himself or called. “Are you his deputy?”
I was thrown by her interrogation. After all, wasn’t I the official program chair and didn’t I have a right to this information? But I recovered quickly. “Well, yes. Iamhis deputy, in a way. Remember how he had me sit in when he was questioning people Thursday night, after Chloe’s body was found?”
Serena considered that thoughtfully, then nodded. “Sure. Wait here, I’ll be right back.” She closed the door, which made me think there was someone inside she didn’t want me to see. It couldn’t have been that her house was a mess and she was embarrassed.
Serena was back quickly with her copy of the list, which she had slipped into a manila envelope.
I thanked her and drove back to the Campus Center, once again grateful that the weather for the conference, at least, had been good. No, not just good, terrific. I wondered if Serena had been a bit prickly simply because she’d hoped to have some time alone away from the conference, and I’d intruded on her rest.
At the Campus Center, I wandered down the main hallway into the bar where I was supposed to meet Stefan and A
ngie, but they weren’t there. I decided to hold off consulting the list until the three of us were together.
Connected to the Campus Center restaurant, the bar was completely covered in mirrors and dark gray velvet, making it look like a Seventies love pit. At a glass-topped corner table, Devon Davenport and Grace-Dawn Vaughan were throning, as Wharton would say. They grandly waved me over. Vaughan was drinking something from a saucer-shaped champagne glass, and Davenport had what looked like a glass of Scotch.
“We’ve been trying to figure out these deaths,” Vaughan told me cheerfully. “Are they connected or separate? If they’re connected, how? Is there one murderer, and was that Priscilla, or did one person kill both women? And if there are two murderers, was the second one opportunistic—did he, or she, decide to link the deaths to confuse the police?” Grace-Dawn sighed with contentment, as if she’d just sketched out a plot complication in one of her novels.
I wasn’t far off.
“She’s working on a new book,” Davenport growled, eyeing her affectionately. Hell, why shouldn’t he be affectionate? She was always on the best-seller list. But there was something more between them: the comfort of a long-married couple, who seem oriented to one another in ways too subtle for outsiders to guess.
“Yes,” Vaughan said breathily, tapping my hand. “But I may change the setting to a literary conference, and throw in some extra murders for spice!”
Grace-Dawn Vaughan wrote Big Books with far-fetched plots, shallow but showy characters, and improbable coincidences. I dreaded the way our conference would be transformed in fiction by a woman who could write about a character cutting her wrists after having lived “on the jagged edges of her broken dreams.” Stefan had read me that line, howling, after getting one of her books from the SUM library when I told him she’d be attending the conference. Her writing was almost as florid and ungrammatical as David Baldacci’s in Absolute Power.
“No offense intended,” Grace-Dawn said to me carefully, “but I think the conference in my book will have to be a little more exciting, I mean in the choice of writer. Edith Wharton isn’t very sexy, is she? My God, have you ever seen that picture of her where she looks positively strangled by all those pearls—well, of course you have, you’ve written about her—and she’s got no lips? No lips at all!”