That e-mail had been a reply to one from Adam, which had read:
Gilbert, my man, I could use some good news. If we don’t get some nibbles soon, I’m going to have to start burning the furniture. I need to live in the manner that not only I have become accustomed to, but Miriam, too. Can’t you start circulating some of the early books around again to the studios, see if there’s any interest? God knows they don’t actually have to be made into movies. A bit of option money would hold me over nicely. And go back to Debra at Putnam. Sound her out. Tell her I have a great pitch, a knockout idea, but I want to see some money on the table before I tell her what it is. I know it’s a bit of a pig in a poke, but she owes me.
The next one, which had been opened, had come in late yesterday afternoon. It was from Felicia Chalmers. I called out: “What did you say your father’s ex-wife’s name was?”
“Felicia.” Excitedly, “I’ve found the phone bills.”
“Look for numbers that come up a lot.”
I clicked on the e-mail from Felicia. It was short.
Nice to talk to you. I’d like to say you’ll work it out, and maybe you will, but you do have kind of a track record, you know. Maybe she just needs some time to think things through. But I wish you all the best. Call me if you want, like you need my permission. Love, Felicia.
What I really wanted to find was an e-mail that said, “Hey, Adam, I’ve got a key. I’ll come by and get the discs.” But things were never that simple. But it was interesting that Adam Chalmers still kept in touch with his ex.
The next e-mail was a fan letter from someone who’d read one of his books, and wanted to know, if he mailed Chalmers a copy of it, could he autograph it and send it back? Adam had not responded. And there was an e-mail from Lucy herself, which read:
Hi Dad: Is it okay if Crystal comes over Saturday? I’ve got a conference workshop thing I really need to go to, and if she could spend the afternoon with you, that’d be terrific. So long as you and Miriam don’t have anything planned. I’d really appreciate it. I’d drop her off around eleven and pick her up by four.
The message had been replied to. I looked in the sent file, found a quick note from Adam to his daughter saying, No prob.
I glanced through some of the more recent sent messages. A couple of replies to other fans who’d read and enjoyed one of his books. There was a request from an aspiring author, asking Chalmers to read his book. His reply read:
I can’t think of anything I would rather do than set aside eight or more hours for no compensation whatsoever to read a book about which I know nothing from a complete and total stranger. Do you have friends who have written books, too, that you could send along with yours? Please gather them all up and send them to me, but I want actual paper manuscripts because it has been my experience that the e-mailed ones are much harder to keep lit when you put them in the fireplace to get the logs going.
I continued scanning the e-mails, including those in the trash file. There wasn’t much there. Adam had purged most of the deleted e-mails from the computer. There were only about twenty in there, the oldest from six days ago.
This wasn’t proving to be productive.
Lucy came into the office. “There are three numbers that show up quite a few times on my father’s cell phone bill. Well, four, actually. But the fourth is Miriam’s cell, and that just makes sense.”
“What are the others?”
She read the first one out to me. I opened a browser on the computer and Googled it. If it was a landline, and not unlisted, there was a good chance whoever it belonged to would turn up.
Felicia Chalmers.
“Tell me about Felicia,” I said.
“Is it her number?”
I nodded.
Lucy Brighton stopped to think. “She still lives in Promise Falls, far as I know. I mean, I have nothing to do with her. We weren’t enemies or anything, but once she and Dad broke up, there was no reason to keep in touch. I think she’s got a condo somewhere around here. I think if she’d remarried, Dad would have mentioned it.”
“The two of them clearly have kept in touch. Did your father have financial obligations to her?”
“He gave her a lump sum when they divorced, but not all that much. I wouldn’t be surprised if he slipped her some money now and then. But there were no kids to worry about. And she was the one who’d pushed to get out of the marriage.”
“But she kept the name,” I said.
“Her own last name is Dimpfelmyer. What would you do?”
The Google search had brought up an address on Braymore Drive. I wrote it down in my notebook. Maybe Felicia was still trusted to have a key. And to know the code. Maybe Adam and Miriam’s sex life included his ex. A threesome. I could imagine Felicia might want those DVDs back. If she’d heard about Adam and Miriam getting killed at the drive-in, she wouldn’t want whoever had to empty the house—Lucy, presumably—finding those home movies. So she busted in, grabbed them, and ran out the back when Lucy got here.
It wasn’t a bad theory. And it was a good place to start.
“What’s the next number?” I asked.
She read it off. I did another Google search and came up with nothing. Probably a cell.
“Let’s have a look at the address book,” I said. Lucy handed it to me. I started flipping through the pages, looking for a number that matched the one she’d just given me.
I went through the entire book without getting a hit. I made a note of it, would check it later.
“What’s the last one?” I asked, scribbling it down as Lucy read it off to me. I went to the Google search field again and entered it. Again, no luck. Probably another cell. So I went back to the address book.
This time, I had better luck. And I only had to go to the Ds.
“You ever heard of someone named Clive Duncomb?” I asked Lucy.
She shook her head.
I turned again to my friend Mr. Google.
“Whoa,” I said, seeing a number of stories come up.
“What?”
“He’s the head of security at Thackeray. And a few days ago he blew some kid’s head off.”
“My God. Why?”
“If it was plagiarism, things have gotten a lot tougher than when I was at school.”
• • •
I decided to start with Felicia Chalmers.
She lived in the Waterside Towers condo development, about half a mile downstream from the falls in the center of town. To call it a tower was a stretch. It was a five-story building, which, with the exception of the water tower, was as tall as structures got in Promise Falls.
I parked in a guest spot and entered the outer lobby. No one was on duty, but that didn’t mean I was able to walk in. There was a directory and a panel of buttons by the second door. I found Felicia Chalmers in 502, which meant she was on the top floor.
I hated buzzers. If the woman didn’t want to talk to me, she wouldn’t have to let me in. It was a lot easier to say no to people when you didn’t have to see them face-to-face. And I didn’t want to have to explain, through a speaker, why I was here.
Someone was coming along the sidewalk, heading to the main door of the building. A middle-aged woman with a set of keys in her hand.
I leaned in close to the panel of buttons, appeared to be taking my hand away from one of them, and as the woman came into the building, I said, loudly, “Okay, then, I’ll be up in a second.”
I turned, smiled at the woman with the key. She unlocked the door, glanced my way.
“I’m just waiting to be buzzed in,” I said, making no move to try to sneak in as she pulled open the glass door.
“Oh, just go ahead,” she said, holding the door for me.
“Oh, thanks.”
I scooted in, then politely stepped aside to let her walk ahead of me as we headed for the elevator. The w
oman got off at three, and I stayed on until the doors opened at five. I got my bearings, figured that 502 was to the left, and walked down the carpeted hallway until I was at Felicia Chalmers’s apartment.
I could hear music inside as I rapped on the door.
Five seconds later, I heard a chain sliding back, and then the door opened. I had to adjust my gaze downward. In high heels, she might have been five-three, but she was barefoot and the top of her head was barely level with my chin. Her blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she was dressed in some turquoise workout clothes. Trickles of sweat ran down her temple.
“Yes?” she asked over the sound of Chicago performing “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?”
“Ms. Chalmers? Felicia Chalmers?”
“How did you get into the building?”
I got out my ID. “I’m Cal Weaver. I’m a private investigator. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
She put a hand on her hip. “About what?”
“About your former husband, Adam Chalmers.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “God, what’s he done? Wait, let me guess. There’s a woman involved. There’s always a woman involved one way or another.”
Shit.
“Ms. Chalmers, you haven’t heard?”
“Haven’t heard what?”
“May I come in?”
Worry washed over her face. She opened the door wide, let me in, and closed it. She went over to an iPod resting on a Bose stereo unit, muted it, then crossed the room to what I was guessing was the bedroom, and pulled the door shut.
Having completed those errands, she asked, “What’s going on?”
“The accident last night? At the Constellation Drive-in?”
“What accident at what drive-in?”
“Have you watched TV this morning, been online? Facebook, Twitter? Seen the news?”
She shook her head slowly. “I don’t watch the news. It’s all bad. And I’m not on those other things. About the only thing I use is e-mail. Please tell me what’s going on.”
“There was an explosion last night, at the drive-in. The screen came down on a couple of the cars. One of them belonged to Adam Chalmers. He was in the car with his wife, Miriam.”
“What?”
“Mr. Chalmers and his wife were killed. I’m sorry to be the one to break this to you.”
“Adam’s dead?”
“I thought someone would have been in touch. Or that you would have heard somehow.”
“That’s impossible. Oh my God, this is awful. This is unbelievable. I was talking to him yesterday. I mean, not on the phone, but e-mail.” She shook her head. “God, I need a drink. Get me a drink.”
She pointed toward the kitchen.
“What would you like?”
“There’s a bottle of red in the rack there. Glasses on the right. Fill one of them to the fucking brim.”
She dropped herself onto an oversized couch, brought her feet up, and tucked them under her thighs. “Help yourself, too.”
I went into the kitchen, where I noticed three empty beer bottles standing in the sink. Given what she’d sent me in here for, beer didn’t strike me as her beverage of choice, but you never knew. Maybe she liked wine in the morning, and beer at night. But my beer theory was buttressed by the opened bag of spicy Doritos, rolled up and kept fresh with a rubber band. Didn’t seem to match the workout regimen.
I came back with a full glass of red wine. She downed half of it, handed it back, and said, “Top it up.”
I’d brought the bottle, and obliged. I sat down on a chair opposite her.
“You’re not having anything?”
“I’m good,” I said.
“I’d tell you I hate to drink alone, but you’re a detective, so you’d figure out I was lying pretty fast.” She shot a quick look at the closed bedroom door, then gave me a critical look. “Jesus, this is unbelievable. Tell me again what happened.”
I told her what I knew.
“Oh my God. The two of them crushed? And they’d have been in his old Jag. Oh, Jesus, he loved that car. If he were here now, that’s what he’d say was the most tragic part of this. Sure, Miriam getting killed, that’s bad, but he really loved that car.”
I didn’t know what to say. But I didn’t have to come up with anything. “Why are you here?” she asked.
“Issues related to Mr. Chalmers’s death. As his ex-wife they may have some impact on you.”
She pursed her lips. That seemed to be good enough for her. “You know, I could see Adam dying any number of ways, but a movie screen falling on him?”
“What other ways could you imagine?”
Felicia shrugged. “Some old biker from his past killing him for ripping him off, maybe. A jealous husband who didn’t like Adam fucking his wife. Or maybe a former wife like me who was tired of listening to his bullshit. I don’t know. Take your pick.”
“Was there some old biker buddy from his past who got ripped off?”
“Shit, there were probably a bunch. Except Adam would have been smart enough to cover his tracks, or cover up the guy he ripped off with enough dirt that he’d never be coming after him, if you get my drift.”
“I think I do.”
She leaned forward. “I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. Adam was a good guy. He just had one hell of a past, is all.”
“Why’d the two of you divorce? I gather you were the one who wanted out.”
She took another big swallow of wine. “And why, exactly, would I even answer that question? I don’t know who the hell you are or why you’re really here. Some bullshit about issues related to his death?”
I smiled. “Someone broke into your ex-husband’s home. After it became known that he’d been killed in the accident.”
Her eyes widened. “What kind of sick bastard does that? I’ve heard about something like that. Creeps who break into people’s houses when they’re at funerals. They know they won’t be home. People get home, all broken up over the death of a loved one, and their flat-screen TV and jewelry’s gone.”
“It wasn’t quite like that. This thief was looking for something very specific, in a very specific place.”
Felicia Chalmers blinked.
“Oh,” she said.
“I think whoever came into the house had a key, and knew how to deactivate the security system. Someone Adam or Miriam, or both, trusted.”
Felicia nodded slowly. “I see. And you’re wondering if I’m that person?”
“I’m wondering if you have any idea who it could be.”
“Well, it’s not me. I can tell you that much. Adam would surely have changed the locks after our divorce. I mean, probably. Although I don’t think he ever distrusted me. But once he married Miriam, I’ll bet she’d have wanted to be sure I could never get into that house.”
“You never tried?”
“Of course not. I had no reason. I probably still do have a key somewhere, but I can’t say whether it would work or not.”
“Could you find it?”
“Now?”
I nodded.
A sigh. She got off the couch and went into the kitchen. I could hear her rummaging around in a drawer. “Maybe I got rid of it,” she said, loud enough for me to hear. “Oh, wait. I think this is it. Oh, looks like I’ve actually still got two of them.”
She returned to the living room with a key held between thumb and forefinger.
“May I have that?” I asked. “I’d like to see if it actually works.”
Felicia hesitated.
“If you’d like to call his daughter, Lucy Brighton, to confirm I’m legit, that’s fine with me,” I said.
She hesitated another second, then decided it was less trouble to trust me than to take the time to learn the truth from Lucy. “Here, take this on
e. I don’t need it.”
I did. I slipped it into the pocket of my sport jacket.
“Let me try asking again. Why did you and Adam get a divorce?”
She studied me for a few seconds, then gave a what-the-hell shrug. “I couldn’t take it anymore. I just couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t take what?”
“The lifestyle.”
“I’m sorry. What lifestyle?”
“The lifestyle,” she said.
Now I was the one shaking my head. “I don’t understand. Are you saying Adam Chalmers was gay?”
“No, no, no. Although I suppose he was bisexual to some point. I mean, you’d kind of have to be.”
“Wait, are you talking about wife-swapping?”
She frowned. “That’s what they used to call it in the dark ages. But that’s not a very politically correct term anymore. Made women sound like baseball cards. It’s not wife-swapping, but spouse-sharing.”
“Like group sex?”
Felicia looked at me like I was five. “Where are you from? Mayberry?”
“Enlighten me.”
“The lifestyle is when one couple meets up with another couple for sex. Okay, it could be three couples. Anything more than that and I guess it would be an orgy. Adam always liked to keep it to two other couples. You have six people, and there are quite a number of permutations, even more if the men are into men and the women are into women. Or at least give it a try. Everything consensual, more or less—at least that’s what they pretend. Everyone fooling around with each other, right in the open, no one going behind anyone’s back to have an affair. Supposedly. The openness, the freedom, actually makes relationships stronger. Gets the urge to stray out of your system. You indulge your fantasies with your partner’s blessing.”
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