Last Writes (A Ghostwriter Mystery)

by C. A. Larmer

  “There’s nothing there,” he said firmly. “Honestly, I don’t want you wasting your time with that.”

  So she let it drop.

  After they’d finished and paid their bill, Roxy dragged Lockie to one side and gave him a quick hug. “You take care, okay?”

  “Always,” he said, then shook David’s hand. “Nice to meet ye, David, always good to have another writer aboot the place. Drop in any time for a coffee, eh? The next one’s on the house.”

  “Thank you,” David said. “Okay, Roxanne, I’ll catch you at my place Monday afternoon for the first interview, yes?” She nodded. “I’d better run, don’t want to keep Mr Horowitz waiting.”

  “Hang on a minute.” She turned back to Lockie. “Give us a couple of your almond friands, Lockie, that might cheer Olie up.” She paid for them and handed them to David.

  “With my love,” she said, and watched him dash away, hoping as he did so, that he went easy on their agent. But she knew deep down that he was too good an investigative reporter for that.

  Chapter 11

  Friday morning was as dull and dreary as an old dishcloth. Thick clouds clung to the sky, threatening to unload, but Roxy didn’t let that put her off as she slipped into khaki trousers, tank top and Converse sneakers, and headed outdoors to fetch the morning papers. She used to subscribe to every newspaper she could get her mitts on and then, with the advent of the Internet, happily viewed them all online, until she realised she was turning into a hermit. Without a paper to go out and purchase, she could go days, once even a full week, without ever leaving her apartment. This didn’t worry her nearly as much as everybody else. Her mother was constantly horrified by her solitary lifestyle and couldn’t understand for a moment why she didn’t rent with others “like a normal thirty-something”.

  “Because I don’t need to rent, Mum, I own the place, remember?”

  “Then get a lodger in!”

  “And stick them in the pantry? This is a one-room apartment, the size of a shoebox, and I’m not talking boots.”

  “Then buy something bigger.”

  “Would love, to! Got a spare six hundred grand?”

  Her mother always glanced away at this point, money a topic she felt extremely uncomfortable discussing. Roxy guessed it had something to do with her own guilt. Since Roxy’s father had died of cancer when she was just a girl, Lorraine had sold their family home and moved into posher, pricier yet far smaller digs in the well-heeled suburb of Lane Cove where she and Charlie were fast going through the inheritance. Roxy wanted to tell her now as she often did that she couldn’t give a toss about the inheritance—would give it up in a heartbeat to have her dad back—but she didn’t bother. Lorraine never seemed to hear her.

  Even Max used to wonder at her hermitic existence. It was the reason he instigated their regular Thursday “sanity dates” at Pico’s—to get her out whether she liked it or not. But those days were long over, too, and Thursdays now passed with little more than fond memories for Roxy. It had been months since she and Max had shared beers and banter together.

  Roxy shrugged off the encroaching blue and headed down the street to her nearest newsagency, a tiny sliver of a shop between a steamy Laundromat and a Chinese takeaway. It was run by a gregarious Greek guy with an enormous nose and a hearty appetite, judging from his pregnant belly, and he spent most days standing outside his shop, not so much to summon trade as to free up space inside. Costa greeted her warmly (and why wouldn’t he? She spent a small fortune here each week) and threw in a free, chocolate Freddo Frog for good measure.

  “You spoil me,” she said with a laugh and he laughed along as he handed her the papers.

  Back in her apartment, Roxy slipped off the sneakers, made herself a plunger of fresh Papua New Guinea coffee and two slices of Vegemite toast then padded into the lounge room. She spread the newspapers out on the floor, grabbed her scissors and the scrapbook, and began to work her way through them.

  The lead story in the Herald was something political and there was just a small image of William Glad on the top, urging you to turn to page five. They clearly didn’t have the scoop. That honour was David’s alone, and his story took up the entire front page of the Telegraph.

  To call it sensational was an understatement. It led with details of William Glad’s death and she lapped the words up like a hungry Labrador. According to David’s “sources”, the gardening guru had not just been found dead in his own sprawling garden, between the banksias and the bottlebrush, he had been murdered with gardening shears and a pot plant left, dumped on his stomach. It contained a small Wollemi Pine, a recently discovered species that that was once thought extinct. David wrote that it was left there “like a calling card from the devil” and “as a warning, perhaps, to all those who are past their use-by date”.

  She felt herself recoil, and not just from David’s hammy one-liners.

  How cruel and inhumane! she thought. What kind of animal does that to a dying man, and to a sweet dying man at that?

  As she continued reading, she saw that David had done as he had promised, strongly indicating that there was a link between Glad’s death and that of Silva’s just five days earlier. There was no mention of the fact that Silva’s death had been ruled a suicide.

  A separate section titled, “Last Writes” and sub-titled, “Two famous authors dead in less than a week!” featured headshots of Glad and Silva and a breakout box listing so-called “similarities” between the two deaths. This included the fact that they were both famous in their own genres and had both once worked for the writers’ agent Oliver Horowitz. As far as she could see, the only other mention of Oliver was a quick, polite statement of condolence that shed him in a good light. He came across as nothing more than a grieving agent, and she was glad of that. She kept reading.

  David went on to say that someone was “clearly targeting genre writers”, and to prove the point, he was leaving a different calling card at each murder scene. According to David, Seymour Silva had been deliberately marked with an “X” across his wrists, to indicate the science-fiction genre, while the once-extinct Wollemi Pine had been left as a reminder of the horticulturalist’s own inevitable demise.

  This secondary story ended with an ominous warning. “Who will be next?” David wrote. “Will a famous cooking writer be found gassed in his own oven? Will our greatest comic book artist be discovered drowning in black ink? When and how will this horrific story end?”

  Roxy sat back with a thud. Did David really believe there would be more horrific murders? And did he truly suspect that another writer would be next?

  The phone’s sudden shrill caught Roxy off guard and she yelped, then took a deep, steadying breath and picked it up.

  “You reading it?” Oliver’s voice was almost chirpy at the other end.

  “Yep, sensational stuff. Haven’t got to the Herald’s story yet.”

  “Don’t bother. They know nothing. Just playing catch-up. Nope, Davo’s The Man.”

  “He doesn’t really believe there’s a psycho serial killer on the loose, does he?”

  “Don’t know but it sure makes great copy.”

  “Makes me on edge, is what it does.”

  “Think you’re next on the list?”

  She scoffed. “I don’t think I sell enough to warrant murdering, but I do think David is tempting fate. He could be putting ideas in crazy people’s heads.”

  “Nah, he’s just stirring the pot. But you have to give it to him, both deaths were very suspicious, especially poor old William. The pot plant and all that. It does look like someone is leaving some kind of message.”

  “Where does he get his inside goss? Is it Kay or does he have someone at the copshop in his pocket?”

  At his end Oliver shrugged. “Again, don’t know, don’t care. The point is he gets it. He’s a bloody champion reporter, probably Australia’s best. This book of his is going to be a best seller for you, Roxy, the man is getting quite a reputation. You’re going to
make a motzer.” He laughed. “So am I now I mention it.”

  She didn’t laugh along, didn’t want to think about that now and wondered at Oliver’s ability to. He was supposed to be an old friend of William’s.

  As if reading her mind he said, “Look, I’m as cut up about old Will as you are, Rox, but this is an important story and we want to get to the truth, right?”

  “Well now that you cloak it like that.”

  “I was just speaking to Erin, actually. She’s devastated, of course, but she also wants some good to come from this.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah, well, we’re thinking of bringing out his back catalogue after all. William had a bunch of old gardening guides that haven’t been published in a decade, we might dust them off and get them out there. Show the world that William is certainly not past his use-by date!”

  She felt a little nauseated suddenly. “Capitalising on his death, are we?”

  “Hey, don’t be like that. We’re celebrating a great Australian horticulturalist. And his family’s all for it.”

  “But will his books even be relevant today?”

  “Jesus, Rox, you sound like old William himself. Nature doesn’t change too dramatically no matter what the doomsayers predict. Winter plants are winter plants, spring are spring, and that’s still the same. So his books will do well. Channel Nine is already dusting off his old gardening programs, can’t see why we shouldn’t do the same. Of course, we’ll wait ’til things settle down a bit, and then Erin and I will make it happen.”

  Again, she was surprised by his capitalistic take on the gardening guru’s death, such a switch from the dispirited man she spoke to just yesterday, but she guessed that it was Oliver’s way of dealing with it all. So she let it drop.

  Again, he seemed to catch her reticence through the phone. “Listen, Roxy. We all miss the guy, deeply, but thanks to Davo, the cops will find out what’s happened to William and they’ll put the bastard away. And while they’re doing that, we’ll celebrate him and his amazing work. So don’t let it get to you. Okay?”

  She muttered something and hung up, but still she wondered at Oliver’s buoyancy and wished she could bounce back as quickly. Two famous writers were dead, and David was predicting another gruesome murder. No best-selling back catalogue was going to change that.

  Chapter 12

  The next twenty-four hours were spent doing what Roxy hated doing the most—cleaning her apartment, shopping for groceries and ticking off her weekly chores. Eventually she found herself with enough free time to focus on the Saturday papers, which she had placed like a lure, just out of reach until the domestic duties were done.

  The apartment gleaming, cup of peppermint tea in hand and Nina Simone belting out the blues on the stereo in the corner, Roxy grabbed the Telegraph, dropped down onto her sofa and began to read. This time, David’s article was not only sensational, it was verging on defamatory. According to him, the police had now uncovered an “alleged link between William Glad’s homicide and Seymour Silva’s manager Norman Hicks”.

  Roxy’s eyes popped. What link? It had her enthralled. What had David found?

  She kept reading but there was nothing more, nothing to back up his startling assertion, and she imagined Norman reading the same copy, his pale face bursting red with rage. It was a very damning statement and she hoped David Lone knew what he was doing, and had good lawyers on his side.

  “I hope he knows what the hell he’s doing,” Oliver repeated an hour later as he reread the article on Roxy’s coffee table.

  Her agent had dropped around briefly, hoping to drag Roxy to an afternoon movie before his “hot date” with Tina Passion that night, but she put him off. She had much more important things to do, like working out what to wear to Max’s party.

  “You and Tina should come along after your dinner date,” she said. “I’m sure Max would love to see you.”

  But he wasn’t interested. “No way, José. I’m finally getting Tina to myself and I’m not prepared to share her.”

  Roxy laughed. “Well, good on you and good luck with that one! What time are you meeting up?”

  “Oh we’re having a late dinner. Her bloody father’s still in town, so she can’t get away until about nine-ish.”

  “That is late. So what’s the story with this father of hers? I gather you have some history?”

  He scratched his double chin and cleared his throat. “Yeah, Lorenzo—that’s the father—he hates my guts. God knows why.”

  “There must be a reason. I mean, you’re annoying at the best of times, but hate’s a pretty strong emotion.”

  He stared at her deadpan. “You’re hilarious, you know that?” She shrugged. “I don’t know what Lorenzo’s problem is, but he always avoids me like the plague when he comes to town. I did run into him last time, though, and it wasn’t pretty. Called me a scumbag and told me to fuck off.”

  “Yikes.”

  “I know. Embarrassed the shit out of poor Tina, and she doesn’t embarrass easily, that one. Look, I figure it’s just ’cause he’s Italian. You know what Italian dads are like. Super protective. He’d be jealous of any bloke in Tina’s life.” He pulled himself up. “Rightio, I’d better bugger off if I want to catch this flick. Have fun tonight, eh?”

  “You too, and good luck with Ms Passion.”

  She saw him out then headed straight to her wardrobe where she found herself staring glumly into it again, wishing suddenly that she had heeded her mother’s advice and bought something exciting and new. Roxy hadn’t wanted to stand out at Max’s party, or look overly keen, and she realized now there was no chance of that. Her entire wardrobe, she decided, was frumpy and forgettable. She groaned. Why did it matter so much? It was just another party.

  Or was it?

  She didn’t let that thought develop, simply refocused on her clothes and began to pull pieces out.

  Two hours, ten wardrobe changes and at least one hissy fit later, Roxy opened her front door to Gilda Maltin who was looking stunning as always.

  “You look gorgeous,” Gilda said, sweeping a quick glance down the tight black jeans and white dinner shirt Roxy had settled on. She’d tied the white, cotton shirt in a loose knot at the front and added dangly, silver chains, hoop earrings and strappy black heels, but she didn’t feel gorgeous, especially now she’d caught sight of Gilda.

  As always, the policewoman was a knock-out. Her former pixie cut had grown out a little and her golden-blonde hair was now worn longer and tussled around her face. Her skin was tanned brown, she had a lot of smoky eyeliner on, and her petite figure was clad in a body hugging jersey dress that dropped down from one shoulder provocatively, and was cinched at the waist by a thick, black belt.

  “You are the one who looks gorgeous,” Roxy said, pecking a kiss on her friend’s cheek and showing her in. As she did so, she wondered, yet again, how someone so sexy survived in the misogynist world of the police force. If Roxy worked with a bunch of burly blokes, she imagined she’d tone it down a lot, preferring trousers and minimal makeup. Not Gilda, and tonight she had amped it up even further.

  “This ole thing?” Gilda said in a Southern drawl and stepped inside, producing a bottle of champagne as she did so.

  “I know your fave is merlot, but tonight we celebrate!”

  “Oh?” said Roxy, closing the door and stepping into the kitchen to fetch glasses. “Anything in particular or are we just celebrating life?”

  “Life, love, whatever comes our way.”

  Gilda popped open the champagne cork with a cheer then poured the sparkling liquid into the glasses Roxy had placed on the bench. She handed one to Roxy, took one herself and raised hers high.

  “To love!” she said.

  “Actually, I’d prefer to toast life, if that’s all right with you. It’s been a fatal week for writers.”

  “You’re referring, of course, to William Glad.”

  “And Seymour Silva. David Lone thinks the two deaths are connected.
”

  Gilda raised a plucked eyebrow skyward and stared at Roxy for a few seconds, leaning across the kitchen bench. “I can see you’re going to try to squeeze some valuable information out of me.”

  Roxy laughed. “Would you expect any less?”

  She shrugged, grabbed the bottle and proceeded to the living area where she dropped down into Roxy’s bright, cushioned sofa, patting the seat next to her. “Okay then, let’s get this out of the way. So you read today’s article or do you have some sort of inside track with Mr Lone?”

  “Actually I’m writing his life story, as we speak.” This took Gilda by surprise so Roxy added, “We’ve got the same agent, Oliver Horowitz. So ...”

  Gilda nodded and thought about this for a few seconds, slowly sipping her champagne. “Hmmm,” she said eventually. “This changes everything.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I can’t tell you a bloody thing. You’re too close, my dear.”

  Roxy scoffed. “You can trust me, Gilda, you know that.”

  “It’s David Lone I don’t trust.”

  “You know him?”

  “Know him? I’ve had to lock horns with him on several occasions. Not my cup of tea. Excuse the mixed metaphors.”

  “Really? What’s wrong with David?” She was feeling protective of him, suddenly.

  “Well, it’s nothing a bit of heavy duty insect repellent won’t fix. He’s a like a relentless mosquito, that man! I’ve only ever dealt with him a few times before but now he’s practically camped out at the office trying to get the inside goss on the William Glad homicide.”

  “So you’re investigating that?”

  “Not me, specifically, but some of my colleagues are, it’s in our jurisdiction. And I have to say, Lone works his charms well. At least one of them has been leaking information to him, he knows way too much for my liking.”

  “Or maybe he’s just a very good investigative reporter,” she said and Gilda narrowed her blonde eyebrows.