Squirrel & Swan Stolen Things

by M. D. Archer

  They’d told Cecilia what they’d learned and said they’d reveal the culprit. It was the only way to get her to agree to a meeting that evening.

  “In order to make the thief reveal themselves, we have to lull them into a false sense of security, okay?”

  “Fine.” Cecilia said. “Have a seat. Can I get you a drink?”

  “Better not,” Paige said, just as Sophie said, “Thanks. Pinot Gris would be great.”

  Cecilia wafted into the kitchen and Paige turned to eye Sophie, who’d dropped down into the armchair in the corner.

  “Are you feeling okay?” she asked, noticing that Sophie’s arms were wrapped around herself in a protective pose.

  “Wine will help. You’re taking the lead on this, aren’t you?”

  Paige nodded.

  Cecilia returned to hand Sophie her glass of wine. “It’s Chardonnay.”

  Paige wrinkled her nose and shook her head, but Sophie said, “Fine.”

  Once again, Paige turned to study Sophie.

  Sophie, aware of the scrutiny, looked away.

  The landline rang loudly, startling Paige. “God, that phone is irritating.”

  “I know, right?” Sally appeared, tucking her phone into the pocket of her jacket. She came to stand next to Paige. “Cecilia told me about Peyton. Is it true? Do you have proof? I need to determine what pre-emptive steps I might take.” She looked thoughtful. “Whether I should keep him as a client.” She looked off to the side. “It could be fantastic publicity. Sales would go through the roof.”

  “You’d keep him on? After he did that to Cecilia?” Sophie asked.

  Sally shrugged. “I suppose it depends whether he’s formally arrested.” She shook his head. “I suppose I should have known it was him with the name J. J. Wonder. But I’ve never been good at anagrams. Or crosswords.” Sally cleared her throat and pulled out her phone which was buzzing once again. “Better take this.” She moved quickly out to the hall.

  Paige followed her to peer out the doorway of the living room.

  “Um, Paige? When people leave the room to take a call, it means they don’t want to be overheard.”

  “You can’t tell where people go, can you. Once they’ve left this room, I mean. Like Annie said.”

  Cecilia appeared in the kitchen doorway but almost immediately the landline rang again. She cast her eyes upward. “Mum does this. She forgets to tell me something and then remembers the moment she hangs up. But she usually times it so I’m already halfway up the stairs.” Cecilia went back to the kitchen.

  Paige watched with widening eyes. “That’s the thing about landlines. They stay in one place.”

  “Yes, I’m aware,” Sophie said.

  “You can make a mobile call from anywhere, but here, you’d have to go into the kitchen to answer the landline.”

  “I know how phones work.”

  Cecilia reappeared once again. “That should do it. Where did Sally go? She didn’t leave, did she?”

  “Without saying goodbye? Does she do that frequently?”

  “I don’t take it personally. She’s going to be busy doing damage control for Peyton.” Cecilia smiled.

  Paige nodded slowly, then dropped her voice to almost a whisper. “Tell me what happened on December 10th again. From the writing group right through to bedtime.”

  Cecilia sighed. “The writing group was until about five o’clock. And I remember seeing everyone out because we were all crammed in the hall together and both Tammy and Geoff somehow had garlic-breath.” She nodded as she continued. “And while they were leaving, Peyton and Sally arrived with the bubbly. We all went through the kitchen, stopping to pick up champagne flutes, out to the back deck. We’d only just sat down when Gillian popped her head over the fence and a moment later Martin got home, so he got two more glasses and they both joined us.”

  “Yes, yes. Carry on.”

  “We drank the bottle, it didn’t take very long and then... oh yes, Peyton called me a hack, like he always does, he’s so jealous it’s laughable. I knew he had to be the one who stole it.”

  “Yes, yes.” Paige made an impatient gesture.

  “I told him to leave. I marched him over to the front door to make sure he left. And Sally came scuttling along too, trying to smooth the waters, like usual. And then Peyton said something else and I turned around and walked off because I honestly thought I was going to slap him.”

  “And Peyton and Sally left together?”

  “Yes, well I heard the front door shut.”

  “You heard the door shut,” Paige repeated.

  “That’s what I said.”

  “And then?”

  “Gillian went home, and Martin and I had a quick bite out on the patio, just a tapas platter with olives and hummus and bread. Then Sally called to remind me I had to look at the suggested edits to the short story collection, so I went upstairs and started on that.”

  “How long did you work for?”

  “Oh, gosh, at least a couple of hours. I can’t remember exactly.”

  “You didn’t stop for a break or anything? Or to take a phone call?”

  Sophie glanced at Paige, her eyes widening with realization.

  Cecilia tilted her head. “Oh, wait. Yes, the landline rang so I went down.”

  “Your mother?”

  “No, it was Sally again. She calls the landline if she can’t reach me on my mobile. Like this time, for some reason it was going straight to voicemail and she wanted talk about the short story collection. Or more specifically, she wanted to make sure that Peyton and I were going to behave ourselves. She did her usual thing of trying to make excuses for his poor behaviour.” She shook her head.

  “And you left your office open while you were downstairs.”

  “Of course. There was no one around. Martin had gone over to help Gillian move some furniture. I was alone in the house.”

  Paige nodded, sliding her eyes again to Sophie who nodded too.

  The doorbell rang.

  “That must be the writing group.” Cecilia stood up and left the room.

  Paige turned to Sophie. “We know who did it, we just have to get a confession.”

  THE LIVING ROOM WAS spacious, but it felt crowded. Full of nervous anticipation.

  “If you don’t know why you’re here, it’s to solve the mystery of Cecilia’s stolen manuscript,” Paige announced, standing in front of the bay window of the living room with her hands clasped behind her, looking thoughtfully out to the street. She’d moved a reluctant Gillian and Martin to sit with the others so that she had space to “do her thing”.

  Suddenly she turned to face the group. “And you’re all suspects.”

  “Now hang on,” Geoff blustered. Tammy let out a little whimper of dismay, while Annie looked worried. Juniper, as always, seemed confused. Peyton was uncharacteristically devoid of a reaction.

  “Each of you had motive and opportunity.”

  Paige was thoroughly enjoying herself. This was obvious to everyone.

  She started pacing but stopped abruptly. “In the interests of time, I’m going to strike two of you off the suspect list immediately.” She paused, making eye contact with everyone in the room.

  “Oh, for goodness sake,” Cecilia cried. “Tell us.”

  “Fine, fine,” Paige said graciously. “Annie desperately wants to be a published writer. She’s gone about it in some pretty unusual ways, but these ways don’t include stealing Cecilia’s manuscript.”

  Annie paled at the mention of her name, then nodded as she realised she was being absolved of guilt.

  “Your special project is just your novel, right? You wanted Sally to sign an NDA to protect your novel, and you wanted her to represent you. That’s all.”

  Annie nodded. “It seemed wise. Especially with Cecilia’s novel being stolen.”

  “I think you’re safe,” Paige muttered, then turned to Juniper. “And you,” she said, “you know nothing at all.”

  “Huh? Are we talk
ing about our stories, or what?” Juniper said, casting a confused look around the room. “Is it my turn? I haven’t, uh, written much recently.”

  “Exhibit A,” Paige said. “Clueless.” She recommenced pacing. “But we still have five people in the mix. Five people who were all in this very house on Sunday the 10th of December. The date the manuscript was stolen. And with so many people with means and motive, we had to focus on the opportunity. The how. Because according to our tech expert, saving the manuscript to a USB and deleting all traces from both the laptop and the external hard drive would have meant at least ten minutes of direct access to the laptop and the hard drive,” Paige said, then paused. “And because they were kept in Cecilia’s writing room which she kept locked... and wore the only key around her neck,” she finished dramatically.

  Cecilia, getting into the swing of things, stood and pulled her necklace out of her blouse to show the key to everyone in the room.

  “Given this, the obvious culprit is Martin.”

  “Hey—” Martin began.

  “He easily had most access. Especially when you consider...” Paige stepped forward, drawing out the moment for dramatic tension. “... that he’s having an affair with Gillian.”

  “What?” Cecilia gasped. For just a moment she was frozen in shock, then burst into action, lunging to where Martin and Gillian sat, side by side.

  Geoff jumped up and managed to insert himself between her and the couple, just in time.

  “You little tramp,” Cecilia huffed and puffed. “How dare you! You were always jealous of me.”

  “We’re sorry, Cecilia, it just happened,” Martin said lamely.

  “Oh, we’re sorry, are we?” Cecilia snarled.

  Geoff, looking as if he was having difficulty holding Cecilia back, cast a desperate eye around the room for assistance. Finally, Sally stood and went over, eventually managing to shepherd Cecilia into the kitchen.

  “I’ll get her a glass of a water, calm her down.” Sally threw Paige a look, as if to ask whether that was necessary.

  Paige didn’t notice.

  “Gillian also had a lot of access to this house, and together, they could have found a way to copy the key and get inside the room at their convenience.”

  “But how?” Martin protested. “You make it sound easy, but she’s obsessed with locking that room. She never lets me in there.”

  “Cecilia takes her key necklace off to shower. You could have found a way to get a key cut. Especially with Gillian helping.”

  Martin opened, then closed his mouth, and slumped in his chair.

  “But we have another dynamic duo in the mix.” Paige turned her attention to the other side of the room. “Tammy and Geoff.”

  Tammy gasped.

  “What?” Geoff hissed. “I already told you that I had nothing to do with it. Tammy’s the one to look into.”

  Tammy spun to look at Geoff. “You did?” Her lip wobbled. “But...” She turned back to Paige, her eyes filling with tears. “I can’t... anymore,” she blurted. “We did. We did steal it.”

  “Pardon?” Paige’s eyes were wide.

  “Not The Bonds of Death. We stole a story idea from Cecilia. Six months ago. We’ve been working on it ever since.”

  “You did what?” Cecilia appeared at the kitchen door, clearly not so upset as to be unable to listen to the proceedings.

  “I’m so sorry, Cecilia,” Tammy pleaded.

  “Explain yourself,” she retorted.

  “During one of our sessions, you came up with an idea for a fantasy series about a young boy and his shapeshifting dog. Both Geoff and I loved it. And it just kind of happened. We started developing the plot, discussing characters, motivations etc, etc. And it was better than either of our individual projects. It had a lot of momentum.”

  “About a shapeshifting dog?” Cecilia scoffed.

  “It was ironic,” Geoff said unconvincingly.

  “Whatever. You’re welcome to it. It sounds ridiculous.”

  “Oh.” Tammy’s face was pale. “That’s good, I suppose.” She glanced over at Geoff who gave her an uncertain smile.

  “Look, I love a crime story reveal as much as the next person,” Cecilia said, coming farther into the room, apparently mostly recovered but studiously avoiding the area where Gillian and Martin sat. “But can you just get on with telling us how Peyton did it? I’m rather curious.”

  All eyes landed on Peyton, who’d been quiet as he stood in the corner near the door. He lifted his chin and eyed Paige. “Yes, I’m waiting to hear this too,” he said.

  Paige nodded. “Since your office is locked, Cecilia, and you wear the key around your neck, we had a locked room mystery on our hands.”

  “That’s right,” Cecilia said, stepping farther into the middle of the room.

  “But as we looked into the situation,” Paige said, also stepping farther into the middle, trying to reclaim her position at centre stage, “we realised it was a little trickier than just getting access. The culprit also had to be fairly confident about when Cecilia was going to work on the manuscript. Because as soon as she returned to it, she would discover the deletion.”

  Paige clasped her hands behind her back once more, dropping her eyes to regard the floor as if it held the answers.

  “And in the end it wasn’t a locked room mystery at all, because when the manuscript was stolen, the door was wide open.”

  There was a satisfying gasp from the room.

  “Cecilia. That night of Sunday 10th December, you thought you were alone in the house. You were not.”

  “But Martin was helping Gillian move...” Cecilia’s eyes widened then turned to daggers.

  “Martin was with Gillian, yes, but there was someone else. Someone was waiting, hidden in the murky corridors of this poorly designed house.” She stopped suddenly and smiled. “Your editor, your agent, and your friend. Sally Cookson.”

  Sally went pale.

  “Because you know Cecilia’s routine best, don’t you Sally. Better than Martin, even. You know she goes downstairs to answer the landline and you know Martin never answers it. You know how this house is set out. You knew you could keep her talking about how annoying Peyton was for at least ten minutes. And you knew you could force her to abandon The Bonds of Death until the new year by making her work on the short story collection.

  “That evening, on December 10th, Peyton left the house after drinks, but you didn’t, Sally. You loitered in the doorway, on a call as always, and after he’d gone you went back inside and found a hiding spot in one of these murky alcoves. There, you waited patiently while Cecilia ate dinner. Then, you made sure she went upstairs to work. And you probably guessed that Martin would take this opportunity to go over to Gillian’s because you knew he was Tomcatting around town—”

  “I hardly think—” Martin said.

  “But even if Sally didn’t know about the affair, she knew that Martin never answered the landline and he wasn’t allowed in Cecilia’s office. So she made sure Cecilia had opened not only her writing room, but also her laptop, and then she called the landline to get Cecilia downstairs.” Paige turned to Cecilia. “Then, while she was talking to you on the landline, she saved the manuscript to a USB and downloaded an app to delete it from your entire system.”

  Cecilia clasped one hand to her throat.

  “The only thing we don’t know is why. I mean, apart from the money, of course.” Paige turned to Sally. “Perhaps you can help us with that part.”

  “This is all just speculation,” Sally said. “You can’t prove it.”

  “Actually, we can. Our IT specialist, Leo, can trace the document.”

  About this, Paige was bluffing.

  But she was good at it.

  “It has unique markers, a digital fingerprint, if you like. It has a memory of where it was saved. If you know where to look, you can find it. He’s running a trace right now.”

  Sally’s eyes widened then darted toward the door.

  “But
that’s not all. You gave yourself away with the pen name. J. J. Wonder.”

  “But that’s Peyton.”

  “Yes.” Paige turned to the others. “Peyton’s real name is Jason Jackson Rowden. It’s an anagram.” She turned back to Sally. “But why on earth would he implicate himself like that? Why would he bring attention to the past he so desperately wants to forget?”

  “Vanity?” Sally threw up her hands. “Who knows?”

  “The only person in this room who knows his real name is you, Sally. And you made the author of the stolen book an anagram of his name, to implicate him, just in case.”

  Peyton nodded, sombre. “When I saw the author name, I couldn’t believe it. It took me a day or two, but I put it together. I realised that the only person who knew was the same person who must have done it. At first, I wondered if it was something Sally and Cecilia had cooked up, a publicity stunt, but deep down I knew the truth, and I didn’t know what to do.” He turned sad eyes to Sally. “How could you?”

  “Yes, Sally,” Cecilia said, throwing Peyton an accusing look, as if he was stealing her thunder. “How could you? And why? It can’t be the money; you’re doing very well—”

  “It was my idea!” Sally hissed suddenly, turning red.

  “Excuse me?” Cecilia gasped.

  “And I came up with the twist about the brother. That was me.”

  Cecilia’s eyes went round, then narrowed. “The overall premise came up while we were having a glass of wine together, yes. And fine, you said maybe the brother was involved. It was a good plot twist, sure. But in what delusional reality do you think that is the same as writing the whole goddam book?”

  “I-I... I edited it too. I changed some words. I suggested that midpoint restructure.” Sally’s voice dropped.

  “And?” Cecilia barked. “That’s your job.”

  “But—”

  “I created the characters, I took a tiny nugget of an idea you had and turned that into an actual story, with conflict and tension and life. I turned a tiny kernel into a 90,000-word feast. I wrote the book!” Cecilia shouted. “What is wrong with you?”’

  Sally crumpled onto the couch. “I wanted to prove that I could do it too. You always make me feel as if I’m less than... inferior...I wanted to prove I could.”