THE SUBJECT OF MALICE

by Cynthia Kuhn

  We all reassured her that it was fine.

  “Oh! We were in the middle of the panel.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “I ruined it, didn’t I?”

  “No,” Simone sat down next to her. “You’re fine. Don’t worry about it.”

  “But how can someone win now?” She wiped her cheeks.

  “No one cares about winning,” I said. “We’re just glad you’re okay.”

  Selene gave me a suspicious look, as if she didn’t quite believe me.

  “I mean it.”

  “Thank you, Lila.”

  The paramedics burst into the room, evaluated Selene, and dismissed us. Lex and I moved toward the back row, where Richmond and Candace were waiting with solemn faces.

  As I walked past the empty chairs, a text came in from Calista, saying that I’d done a great job and asking me to please send her an update as soon as I could. She and Nate were worried about me. There were a lot of heart emojis at the end of her message.

  “Everything okay up there, Detective Archer?” Richmond’s hearty voice belied his appearance. His suit was wrinkled and his pocket square hung from its perch as if dejected.

  “Appears to be,” Lex affirmed. “She’s regained consciousness.”

  “Good news.” He pulled a small cloth out of an inside pocket and unfolded it. “Good, good, good.”

  “We’ve been sitting back here feeling quite helpless,” Candace said. Her hands were clasped together in her lap, giving her a composed air, but she’d missed a button and her whole jacket was off-kilter, with a gap at her sternum. “And hoping that it wasn’t anything like...you know...the other night.”

  “Candace means she hopes it wasn’t fatal. No chance of that, right?” Richmond gaped at Lex.

  “Not as far as we know. It doesn’t appear to be serious.”

  “Excellent,” Richmond said, wiping his glasses with the cloth. “Speaking of the other night, any theories on what happened to Ellis?”

  “We’re following up on leads,” Lex said. “As you may have heard, Ellis was hit with a metal bar. It looks to have been wiped clean but we’re still analyzing it. We’ve conducted interviews with a number of people.”

  “In other words, you have no idea,” Richmond drawled. He held his glasses up to the light and squinted through them.

  “I’d say we’re in the middle of the process,” Lex said tightly.

  “Again, I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said to the editors.

  Candace’s eyes shone with tears. “Thank you, Lila.”

  Oh no. I hadn’t meant to make her cry again. I tried to move to safer topics.

  “You both have said that you knew him for years, right? Can you think of anyone who would have wanted to attack him?”

  “No,” Richmond said. “He didn’t really get into tangles with other people. Bit of a loner. He just liked to sit in his office and read literature and write about it.”

  “Very good scholar,” Candace added. “Renowned in his field, actually.”

  “How was he as a teacher?” Lex inquired.

  They stared at each other, silently conferring.

  Richmond gave in first. “Not the strongest, if I’m being honest. Students often complained that all he does is lecture.”

  “Which used to be considered a perfectly legitimate teaching method,” Candace said. “For decades. But nowadays, there’s pressure to be more interactive. You know what I mean, Lila.”

  I nodded.

  “He was talking about retiring next year, anyway. Wanted to go down to Florida and get a little house on the beach with his wife.”

  A wave of sadness went through me.

  “Long overdue, if you ask me. We’re both turning seventy this year.” Richmond’s face changed, perhaps as he realized that Ellis would not be celebrating his next birthday.

  Lex went on. “Aside from working on the book, did you spend time together?”

  Richmond emitted something between a cough and a bark. “Absolutely. We were colleagues both on and off campus.”

  “Our families vacationed together last year.” Candace pressed her fingertips just below her eyes. “He was a great husband, father, and friend.”

  “We did.” Richmond nodded in agreement. “We talked about our book on the beach, remember?”

  “He was so excited.” She looked at Richmond. “I don’t know what we’ll do without him, going forward.”

  Richmond sniffed and his shoulders slumped. “Don’t even know if there is a way forward. Not after what Flynn did last night.”

  “True.” Candace patted his shoulder. “But let’s try not to think about that right now.”

  “Can’t you just ignore what Flynn said?” I asked. “It’s only his opinion, anyway. Who says he gets to decide?”

  Richmond stared at me. “It’s his opinion, true, but since he’s the toast of the town at present, and visible on a grand scale, it goes a long way. A very long way.”

  “Even longer on social media.” Candace shook her head. “Hanover is doing his best—he hasn’t budged from his hotel room since the dinner, if you can believe it, because he’s been working so hard—but there’s only so much that he can do. Flynn’s speech went viral.”

  “What about no publicity is bad publicity? That’s a thing, right?” I heard myself reversing what I’d said after the dinner, but suddenly I saw the value of the sentiment—it’s useful for when there’s nothing else to say and you have to dredge it up in order to be able to say anything at all.

  “It is,” Candace agreed.

  “Or isn’t there one about waiting for the next news cycle because everyone will then forget about this news cycle?” I was having trouble coming up with the exact words, but there had to be something that would make them feel better.

  “It’s heartbreaking,” Richmond said. “You have no idea how hard we had to fight to make this series happen. First the university, then the board of trustees—and oh, the hoops that had to be jumped through for funding. Many people couldn’t see the vision.”

  Candace took up the thread. “We thought we were so blessed to have access to a superstar like Flynn. Thought the critical guides would sell themselves. How ironic.”

  “Didn’t they sell out this weekend?” I asked softly.

  “That’s true.” She closed her eyes for a moment.

  Richmond harrumphed. “In a nutshell, it was a coup. We knew it, he knew it, and so did everyone else. It was a tremendous launch. Then for him to just decimate it—us—in that way. With one speech. It was a knockout.”

  “We never saw it coming.” Candace looked down, noticed the gap in her jacket, and repositioned her hands over it coolly. She was genuinely unflappable.

  “In any case, we’re done with the series now. He saw to that.” Richmond studied his fingernails. “I’d also like to do a recall of all the books we sold this weekend. Erase the whole thing. Forget it ever happened.”

  Candace swung her head around. “You can’t, Richmond.”

  He met her eyes and shook his head sadly. “I know. It’s not up to me, anyway. We need to give that money to the investors. And it wouldn’t be fair to the scholars who are published there, either. At least they’ll get some good out of it. As long as their schools don’t hear the negative review that Flynn gave their chapters, that is.”

  We all pondered the damage that Flynn had done. The ripples moving outward would have an impact on a number of other people’s lives.

  When everything went quiet, it seemed like a good time to gather up my things from the table. Excusing myself, I hurried over to the riser and slid the binder into my satchel. As I fastened the flap, I saw Selene’s binder resting on the table. Perhaps Richmond and Candace would want to hold onto it.

  I picked it up, went down the stairs, and promptly tripped on the same cord from before. This
time, I did a full face plant.

  In front of my boyfriend and publisher.

  Not optimal.

  Seeing them lurch forward in their chairs, arms reached out as if they could catch me, I assured them that I was unhurt and begged them to stay in their seats.

  Gingerly, I did a reverse inchworm and righted myself, reaching over to get Selene’s binder, which had fallen open.

  I did a double take.

  Settling the binder in my lap, I flipped back to the beginning and went through, page by page.

  They were all blank.

  Chapter 12

  As soon as we walked out of the room, I asked Lex if we could go to Scarlett’s Café, one of my favorite places in Stonedale. I desperately needed a break from this conference. He happened to have a lull in his schedule and whisked me off-site immediately. One jangle of the door chimes and two steps into the warmth of the fragrant, cozy restaurant, and I knew we’d made the right decision.

  The large sugar-free caramel latte delivered much-needed caffeine to my very core.

  The muffin that followed further enhanced my emotional state.

  The ibuprofen that tamped down the pounding headache made it a trifecta.

  I sighed happily.

  “Better?” Lex studied me from across the booth, one arm slung along the top of the red vinyl bench, the other holding a mug of steaming coffee.

  “You have no idea.”

  He set the mug down and reached his hand out for mine. “How are your knees? That was a pretty hard fall.”

  “They’re fine.”

  “And how’s your—” He gestured toward my forehead.

  “Head wound?” The mirror in his car had confirmed a red circle, but it wasn’t as bright as I’d imagined.

  “Also fine, and thank you for your concern.”

  “Always.”

  “You know I’m tough, though.”

  “If you say so.” He squeezed my fingers once before letting go and picking up his coffee again.

  “What do you mean, Lex? I’m tough.”

  “You are. Just not...” A smile played over his lips. “Cop tough.”

  “Fair enough. But definitely...professor tough.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And now that I’m fortified by caffeine and my synapses are crackling again, let’s talk about our interview.”

  His eyebrows went up.

  “You know, the interview? With Candace and Richmond?”

  “Ah. Yes.”

  “Isn’t that what you call it?”

  “Sure. Go ahead. What did you think?”

  “They seemed fond of Ellis. They didn’t know who else might have had it in for him.”

  “Agreed.” Lex toyed with the spoon in front of him, thinking. “There doesn’t seem to be any conflicts among the three editors. And we’ve looked all over social media too—”

  “I was going to suggest that. If we weren’t at this conference where every second of every day was accounted for, I’d have done it already.”

  He smiled. “We’ve completed a sweep. There’s nothing to indicate any discord there. No trolling, no complaining, no arguments—on his pages or those of his colleagues. We’ve spoken to people at the university and to his family as well.”

  Through the window, I watched a blackbird hopping across the sidewalk outside. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to where it went.

  Kind of like this investigation.

  “Could this have been a random act of violence? Someone who happened to be walking through that room the same time as Ellis and took a swing at him?”

  Lex rubbed his eyes. “It’s possible. Could have been a spur-of-the-moment assault. You never know what will set someone off.”

  “Where did the metal bar come from?”

  “Chair leg. The hotel manager said one of the staff was mid-repair and was called away to help out with a spill in another location. By the time he returned, the leg had been used as a weapon.”

  “Wow. Was anyone else seen in the room beforehand?”

  “No one was scheduled to be in there at that time. Doesn’t mean they weren’t. Just means they weren’t required to be.”

  I drank the last of my latte. “So no one was observed going into or out of the room.”

  He shook his head. “But no one was watching, either.”

  I shot up in my seat. “What about cameras in the hotel? Don’t they have those for security?”

  “In the lobby, near doors, and at check in. They don’t cover the whole floor.”

  I slumped down. Then I perked up again. “We still have the book.”

  Lex scratched his forehead. “What are you proposing?”

  “Perhaps there’s an aspect of his editorial work that made someone angry.”

  “Maybe someone didn’t like his tone in an email, you’re saying?” He appeared dubious.

  “Could be. Or they didn’t like how their chapter was edited.”

  “Would that make someone murderous?”

  “You’d be surprised at how strongly people feel about editing suggestions,” I said gravely.

  “So there’s that...”

  “Or,” I snapped my fingers at a dawning realization, “maybe it’s not about who is in the book at all.”

  He looked confused.

  “Maybe it’s who’s not in it.”

  I pulled out my phone and wrote an email to Richmond and Candace, asking if they would be willing to provide a list of the people who had submitted to the Flynn McMaster project.

  When I looked up, Lex waved his coffee mug. “Fill me in?”

  “When someone wants to put together a collection of critical essays, they usually send out a call for papers. Scholars submit whatever is required—usually an abstract or short summary of the argument, sometimes the chapter itself. Then the essays that work best together are selected by the editor or, in this case, editors.”

  “And...”

  “They only chose five essays for the guide, and we know there were many more than that. This was, by all accounts, a prestigious and visible project and, well, you’ve seen firsthand how people love Flynn. There must have been numerous scholars dying to get in.”

  He gave me a pointed look.

  “No pun intended,” I said. “Oh, that’s horrible. Sorry.”

  “Go on. How does this help us?”

  “All the people who were rejected may be harboring some resentment. So if we can find any names on the list of submitters who are also attendees of this conference, we could have a proper suspect.”

  “Got it.” He nodded approvingly. “Well done, Professor. Anything else you can think of?”

  “Two things, actually.”

  Lex leaned back. “I’m listening.”

  “First, I wanted to show you this.” I scrambled around in my satchel and withdrew Selene’s binder, which Richmond and Candace had asked me to return to her. I placed it in front of Lex. “At the panel, we were each supposed to read an excerpt from our books. The Raleighs are co-writing theirs, which is divided into two sections, so they each brought a binder with their half. Simone read from hers, and Selene was supposed to go next. But...” I pointed to the notebook. “Open it.”

  He flipped the cover with an air of amusement. I had the feeling he was humoring me. But as he began to leaf through the blank pages, his expression turned serious.

  “You can stop now. They’re all the same.”

  “So,” he raised his head slowly, “she didn’t bring anything to read.”

  “Correct.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, Lex. It may be a simple mistake. Perhaps she grabbed the wrong notebook. Or”—I sat up straighter, stuck by a thought—“perhaps she brought this blank binder on purpose.”
<
br />   “Why would she do that?”

  “Because she didn’t have anything to bring.”

  I expected him to gasp at my insight but it soon became clear that he didn’t understand the importance.

  “What I’m saying is, she didn’t write anything for the project. At all. Ever.”

  “Strange.” Lex pushed the binder back toward me.

  “Please be more excited. This is a big deal.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it shows that she was trying to fake a presentation. She is up for an award for the book that she was supposed to read from. For which she has a publishing contract. And yet, there is no evidence that her part of the book exists. Doesn’t that seem odd to you?”

  “Selene could have just not printed out her chapters, Lila. Maybe she didn’t have time, so she used a ream of paper from the business center to make it appear as though she was fulfilling the competition guidelines.”

  He was right. The blank book didn’t prove anything, really, no matter how peculiar it was. “But she was supposed to read from it.”

  “Maybe she just wanted to wing it. Some people thrive on spontaneity. Or rule-breaking.”

  “Okay, Detective. You’ve made your point.”

  He smiled at me. “We’re on the same team, Lila.”

  What an annoying saying. It was right up there with “calm down,” or “your imagination is running wild,” or “stop acting like coffee is the answer to everything.” But we had a criminal to catch, so I’d give him a pass this time.

  “Oh, wait!” I pulled out the note I’d found in Flynn’s room. “Does this seem like anything?”

  He studied the writing on the paper. “How did you get this?”

  I told him about Acadia sending me on the mission to retrieve Flynn from his hotel room.

  “But why did you take it?”

  “It could be a clue.”

  Lex shook his head. “We don’t take things from people’s rooms, Lila. That’s not how it’s done.”

  Oops.

  “There’s a protocol.” An edge crept into his tone.

  “I’m sorry about that. I thought it might be helpful if we knew who was upset with him. Maybe they pushed him to speak out.”