by Libby Howard
This was like throwing darts at a board while blindfolded. I wasn’t even sure why Daisy and I were driving an hour to attend a church and possibly get a chance to speak with a woman who might have ghostwritten Luanne Trainor’s two bestselling series. We might leave never having seen her, having only enjoyed a pleasant Sunday church service. Well, for me anyway. I was pretty sure Daisy wouldn’t enjoy the service at all.
I glanced over at my friend, who had her feet propped on my dashboard, bopping her head to the music blaring from the radio. It was an adventure. It was something fun to do on a Sunday. I was excited about this spur-of-the-moment road trip. If we came home without having met Geraldine, it still was an adventure.
And I couldn’t imagine anyone else I’d rather go on this adventure with.
The service was lovely. Reverend Pook was much younger then I’d thought he’d be, and more of the shepherd in terms of his sermon than a fire-and-brimstone preacher. I couldn’t see anyone who stood out as his wife, Geraldine, so I decided to take a chance.
“You’re new here,” the reverend said as he shook my hand and looked back and forth between Daisy and me. “Have you just moved to Bayforest? I hope you put your information in the guest registry. My wife is in charge of the welcoming committee and she likes to bring over a loaf of zucchini bread to new residents.”
“Actually, we were hoping to meet your wife, Geraldine.” I gave him a hopeful smile. “We live in Locust Point and I believe we share a friend in common.”
I winced a bit at calling Luanne Trainor a friend but hauling all the way to a church service in Bayforest seemed a bit excessive for an acquaintance.
Reverend Pook lifted his head to look about. “She should be up from the Sunday school rooms by now. There she is! In blue over by the stairs.” He lifted his hand to wave and a plump woman who radiated grace and contentment smiled and waved back.
I thanked him and stepped aside, surprised to see Daisy take my place and shake the minister’s hand. “It was a lovely service and sermon, by the way,” she told him.
“Lovely service and sermon?” I teased Daisy as we moved away.
“Absolutely. I didn’t catch on fire. Lightning didn’t come down out of the sky and strike me dead. Therefore, it was a lovely service and sermon.”
It took more of a wait to speak with Geraldine than her husband. The woman was surrounded by children, and several parents took quite a bit of time discussing the coordination of various upcoming family activities. Finally, we had our chance, and the woman turned to us, deep dimples creasing her round face as she smiled.
“You’re new! Have you just moved to town? Do you have children? We pride ourselves on our youth programs and would love to see your little ones next Sunday.”
“Actually, we were hoping you could spare some time to meet with us,” I confessed. “We’re from Locust Point and got your name from Luanne Trainor—”
“Oh, my goodness, I’d nearly forgotten!” Her eyes widened and she clasped her hands to her cheeks. “Is she with you? Of course not, she probably had a plane to catch this morning and I told her I couldn’t miss Sunday school. Can you come to my house in half an hour? I have the papers, although I didn’t have time to see a notary. Are either of you a notary?” Another woman with two beribboned children in tow approached, and Geraldine glanced over at them. “Just come by in half an hour. You’ve got my address, right? Four Daffodil lane? I’ll see you then.”
“But I…but we….” My protests were in vain. Geraldine had turned away and was now engaged in animated discussion with the mother of the two girls.
“That woman should be in sales,” Daisy told me as we followed the crowd into the parking area. “All that energy and enthusiasm? And that close…. She’d be selling replacement windows right and left. People would be having them installed before they even realized what they’d signed up for.”
“Should we go?” I pulled my keys from my purse. “She thinks we work for Luanne and are here as some sort of courier. I feel like we presented ourselves under false pretenses.” And I felt particularly badly about that having just walked out of a church service. Nosy gossipy me drew the line somewhere and impersonating an employee of the publishing company Luanne and Geraldine worked for crossed that line.
“Of course we have to go, if only to set her straight and let her know that Luanne died.”
The woman had only died last night and although the news was all over Milford within the hour, I doubt it had hit any major news outlets yet. And somehow I also doubted that a woman preparing for several church services this morning had found the time to get on social media and see the trending news of Luanne Trainor’s death.
“You’re right. We need to tell her.” Okay, that was probably an excuse for us to continue being nosy and to find out if Geraldine was really the ghostwriter for the series like I’d suspected. She had to be. Nothing else explained it.
“So…. murderer or not murderer?” Daisy asked as she climbed into my car.
“What?” I eyed her in confusion.
“Geraldine. She doesn’t strike me as the type who would drive to Milford to confront Luanne about wanting more money.”
“No, she doesn’t. And why would she, since she clearly expected Luanne to come see her this morning? It would be easier to just wait for today and ask for more money than haul up to Milford last night. Besides, from what little I know about ghostwriters, the publisher is the one who pays them and contracts them, not the author.” I frowned. “At least I think so.”
“And the murderer probably isn’t her husband either,” Daisy continued. “No sense in him going up to Milford last night to off Luanne Trainor when his wife hasn’t even had a chance to negotiate a higher salary. Ooh, unless he’s one of those controlling types who doesn’t want his wife working and did Luanne in so Geraldine no longer had a job outside of the church.”
“Daisy, he’s a minister!” Besides, Reverend Pook didn’t strike me as the sort to take a violent path when a more peaceful option was right in front of him. “And, Luanne’s death was an accident, not a murder.”
“Hmmm, so you keep saying.” Daisy fastened her seatbelt. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and this Geraldine will break out some of that zucchini bread. I’m starving.”
Chapter 14
The door opened and Geraldine stood in the entrance. She’d changed from the blue dress to jeans and a white tank top with a coffee stain down the front. Her dark blonde hair was high on her head in a perky ponytail, and her broad face was creased by two huge dimples. The raucous sounds of children playing and arguing came from behind her.
“Thank you for being patient and waiting for me to finish up at church. Come in, come in! Don’t mind the toys or the mess. I set the kids up with a movie downstairs but haven’t had a spare second to clean.”
“I’m Kay Carrera and this is my friend, Daisy Mercer.” I hesitated on the porch. “We’re not from the publishing company or to pick up any papers. I just…we just… wanted to meet you. I’m sorry if we’re intruding. This is a bad time, clearly.”
“Nonsense! Don’t be silly. You said you’re friends of Luanne’s? It’s never any bother.” The dimples got deeper. “Come in, come in!”
Geraldine Pook ushered us into her house and sat Daisy and me on a utilitarian, brown micro-suede couch with what looked like several stains and scuff marks on the surface—both old and new.
She disappeared with a flurry of words and energy, then returned with three glasses of sweet tea, only to plop them on a coloring-book-strewn table and vanish again. When she returned the next time, she had a plate of sliced zucchini bread in her hand. Daisy was visibly thrilled.
The place was chaotic. The sounds of high-pitched laughter and shouts came from some other room. There were children’s toys scattered across the floor, and a basket of house-decorating magazines on a side table next to a bible. A huge brass crucifix hung over the fireplace mantle next to the iconic blond Jesus picture. A pug yapped at us
from the kitchen before turning with a huff to curl up on a navy-blue pillow. If I hadn’t known this woman was a minister’s wife, I would have thought she took vampire preparedness to a Trelanie level.
“Please call me Gerry,” the woman said with a sweet smile. “How is Luanne? I was supposed to get those papers to her weeks ago, but we don’t have internet here and my printer died, so I had to drive to Milford to print things off at a Kinkos. These aren’t the sorts of things I can use the church printer for, or even the neighbor’s. Heaven forbid they found out.”
Daisy’s eyes about bugged out at the last bit and she shot me one of those looks filled with significance. The woman was right, though. Accidently leaving part of a Fanged Darkness manuscript on a church printer for parishioners to find would be so embarrassing, especially for a minister’s wife.
“Although you’re not here for the papers, are you?” A frown creased the woman’s forehead. “Why are you here? This is supposed to be secret. Luanne insisted, although I didn’t exactly want anyone knowing, either. You’re friends of hers?”
“No, we’re not here for the papers,” Daisy spoke up. “Ms. Trainor died unexpectedly, and we thought you should know.”
This was a bad idea. Yes, the woman should know, but she’d eventually find out via media. Our being here was beyond nosy at this point. I felt like we were intruding. It wasn’t our business if she was ghostwriting the series. That was between her and the publisher and Luanne. I stood and motioned for Daisy to do the same.
“I was the liaison for Ms. Trainor with the speaker series in Milford and saw your name on an envelope with a marked-up manuscript inside and felt you should know firsthand what happened. We’ll leave. I’m sure the publisher or Luanne’s agent will call you later with details.”
“Sit. Sit.” She waved a hand at me, her eyes wide with shock. “Luanne is dead? When? I just spoke to her Friday. When did this happen?”
“Last night.”
Gerry took a deep breath and shook her head. “Was it her heart? She’s been so careful about her health since that scare she had ten years ago.”
“You knew her that well?” I was more than a bit surprised at her last comment. “You’ve known her for ten years?”
“Twelve.” She eyed me curiously. “I’m glad you came. I deal only with Luanne, so I never would have gotten a call from the publisher or the agent. I don’t even think they know about me. If you hadn’t told me, I would have been calling and leaving messages on her phone. Last time I spoke with her, it was Friday night and she was still planning to come by today. What with our internet down, and I don’t read the papers or watch much television besides the kids’ shows… I get so caught up with getting dinner on the table and the kids. Judah’s got a science fair project due, and Rachel’s recital is coming up, and Hannah won’t sleep a wink unless I read to her every night. I might not have found out for weeks. Poor thing.”
“So, you ghostwrite for her?” Daisy asked. “And neither the agent or the publisher knows about it? They think Fanged Darkness is actually written by Luanne?”
She nodded. “I guess the cat’s out of the bag with her being gone and all—God rest her soul. Shame. It was fun writing those books, and easy working for Luanne. Well, except for that Barton Wells thing. I almost refused to write any more for her after that.”
“The publisher didn’t know? Eva, her agent, didn’t know?” I asked, just to confirm. “No one knew besides Luanne?”
Her laugh was downright charming, the dimples back in her cheeks. “Oh, heavens no! I mean, my husband knows, of course, and my sister, but that’s it. Luanne bought my books directly from me. Part of our agreement was that no one would know I wrote them.”
If no one knew…I frowned, wondering about the assistant producer and the legal issue Eva had hinted about. Clearly the cat had been out of the bag before last night. And hadn’t Eva said that the series would be finished, and even a third series published?
“Book seven is about to be released and I saw the manuscript for book eight in Luanne’s briefcase. Do you have the other books written already and submitted to Luanne? And another spin-off series?”
She shook her head. “No. I guess that’s over now that she’s gone. Oh, I’ll probably write the last two books in the series because I have to finish things out, you know. But it’s not like they’ll ever be published with Luanne passed on.”
“Can I read them?” Daisy hurriedly asked. “Unedited. On notebook paper. Scraps of napkins. I don’t care. I just want to read the last two books in the series.”
Gerry shot her an odd look. “I guess, if you promise not to tell anyone about them. It might be a while, though. With Luanne gone, it’s not like I have deadlines or anything.”
“Wait.” I frowned, trying to puzzle this out. “You’ve known Luanne for twelve years. And you’ve been writing for her for ten? That’s when the first Infernal Awakenings book was published, right? And that’s one of yours.”
Gerry nodded. “I actually wrote that ages ago. Luanne bought that series, then it took a few years for Luanne to sell them, and another three years for the publishing company to release them. There was a lot of delay at first, but once things started moving, Luanne was needing two or three books a year from me. It was so exciting.”
“Twelve years,” Daisy commented. “What were you, ten when you wrote that? You don’t look a day over twenty-two.”
Dimples creased the woman’s cheeks once more. “Oh, thank you, hon! I’m thirty, but it’s so nice to hear that. I wrote the first Infernal Awakenings book when I was sixteen but didn’t get up the nerve to show it to anyone until I was eighteen. I’d always been writing things, ever since I was a little girl. Mostly they were stories about dogs and little kids and Jesus and stuff, but when I got into high school…” She blushed becomingly. “Let’s just say I started reading things my mama wouldn’t have called wholesome. And my writing went that direction. I hid it all under my mattress, not sure whether I should burn it before my parents found it or not.”
“How did you meet Luanne?” What I meant was how in the world did she go from scribbling in notebooks to writing some of the bestselling romance novels of the last ten years?
“There was one of those book conventions in Richmond. I was engaged and hoping to see if maybe I could sell my books to help us get started in our own house. John encouraged me to go and talk to the agents there. Of course, I was thinking I was going to sell some of my children’s religious stories, not the racy ones. I still have no idea why I put that manuscript in my bag that day.”
“John?” I glanced up at the gigantic crucifix.
“My husband, Reverend John Pook, although we were just engaged at the time. He’d read my stuff and thought it was really good. All my stuff, because when you’re marrying, you shouldn’t have secrets from each other, not even the smut under the bed.”
Daisy made a strangled sound. “No, the smut under the bed should definitely not be a secret from your husband.”
Gerry laughed, the sound light and musical. “John never had any problem with smut under the bed, but those stories are not the kind of stuff a preacher’s wife who teaches Sunday school should be publishing. Originally, I was going to sell the children’s stuff, but nobody wanted them.”
“So, you broke out the Infernal Awakenings book and figured you’d give it a go?” I asked.
She nodded. “I met Luanne in one of those panel discussion things. She was so smart, knew how things worked in those New York publishing houses and all that, so I showed her the story and asked what she thought. A few days later, she calls me up and tells me she’ll buy everything I write. Everything.”
“Everything except the kids’ religious stories,” Daisy said with an arched eyebrow.
“Sadly, yes. Maybe someday I’ll be able to sell those. In the meantime, I use them in our Sunday school classes.”
“And your husband was on board with this?” I asked, thinking smut under the bed was a wh
ole lot different than smut out on the front table of a bookstore.
“Oh, yes, as long as they used someone else’s name and I didn’t have to go to signings or have my picture on the internet where someone might recognize me. He and I both figured it would be okay if someone just bought the stories and published them under their own name and nobody ever knew I wrote them.”
So this deal with Luanne seemed perfect on both of their ends. It sounded straightforward to me. No need for Geraldine to drive to Milford and crack Luanne Trainor upside the head. If it had been murder and not an accident, that is.
“You were happy with the money she was paying you?” I asked, just to be sure.
“Oh, yes. The contract says I’m supposed to get a thousand dollars per book, but the last few years Luanne’s been sending me two thousand. It’s a nice little extra for the kids’ college funds, you know?” She clapped her hands over her cheeks. “Oh, no! I was so excited to hear the rumors that there would be a movie made. Do you think they’ll still do it with Luanne gone? Imagine sitting in a theater and watching something you wrote up on the screen, and nobody knows it was you.” Her smile was mischievous.
I could see how this would be an ideal arrangement for her. None of her husband’s parishioners or the parents of the kids she taught would find out that sweet Gerry Pook wrote that kinky stuff with vampires and demons. She seemed happy with the situation. I felt a little uncomfortable with the idea that she was getting one or two thousand per book while Luanne Trainor got one or two hundred thousand per book, but maybe the success was due in part to the author’s already-established name. Maybe Luanne Trainor had worked her butt off to make sure those books sold. Either way, it was clear that Gerry Pook had nothing to do with Luanne’s death. If anything, the woman would lose a couple thousand extra per year because of it.