Fiction Can Be Murder

by Becky Clark

  She let out another full-bodied guffaw and let herself out of the apartment.

  I was still blushing as I used a fingernail to jimmy the walnuts from an otherwise perfect cookie. A hopeless task with such small pieces. Damn those cooking shows teaching her mad knife skills. I slid the platter across the kitchen counter and tried to ignore its mockery.

  As I carried our cups to the sink, I heard a familiar rustling from the juniper bushes under my kitchen window. Barb must have let their dog, Peter, out when she got upstairs. I quickly shoved my feet in snow boots, grabbed a jacket, and headed outside, stepping past the orange plastic bags filled with two editions of the Denver Post I’d neglected to bring inside.

  The sidewalk had been cleared of snow so I followed it to the edge of my building, where there was a grassy area between my building and the next. There were several shrubs, but Peter’s favorites were the two juniper bushes under my kitchen window. I watched them thrash back and forth.

  “Peter, come here,” I called, squatting down.

  The rustling stopped and the junipers became still.

  Don Singer called out from his balcony above my patio. “Everything okay down there?”

  I looked up and nodded at him before turning back to the bushes. “Peter. Now.” I used my alpha dog voice, hoping he knew I meant business. And that I might be alpha dog.

  The wrinkled, shoved-in face of an irresistibly perky pug poked out from the junipers. When he saw me, he raced toward me, slowing only to wiggle through his favorite gap in the filigree of the wrought-iron fencing by the sidewalk. The bunny he’d cornered shot out the opposite direction.

  Peter O’Drool was the full name of Don and Barb Singer’s dog. He was as charming as he was odd. Like a snapshot of your grandma in the Louvre.

  As was his habit, he’d come down to potty, but instead of trotting back upstairs when he was done, today he’d become sidetracked by a rabbit. Also as kind of a habit, I’d started retrieving him for Don and Barb because at their age it was increasingly difficult for them to step over the knee-high decorative fencing to get close to the junipers to coerce him to come home, especially in bad weather. Plus, their alpha dog voices oozed with unconditional love. I hoped Peter sensed my love was completely conditional. It wasn’t, of course, but he didn’t need to know that.

  With the snow on the ground, I was glad I didn’t have to step over the fence either. With my luck, I’d slip and have to deal with cold, wet snow on my butt as well as cold, wet nose on my face.

  When Peter squirted through the fencing, I braced myself before he could bowl me over with his frantic, quivering love. “Dude. Relax.” His tail curled over his hind end and he wagged them both so hard I thought they might fly off. When he calmed the teensiest bit, I scooped him up.

  “Should I bring him up? Did he do his business?” I lifted him toward Don, who was waiting on his balcony.

  “Yep. Prodigious amounts, too. Makes me jealous.”

  I laughed and carried Peter up the outdoor stairway, to be met at their door by Barb holding a loaf of something wrapped in plastic.

  “Banana bread,” she said, handing it to me. “I forgot to bring it down before. But I didn’t forget to add lots of walnuts, just how you like it.”

  “You don’t have to give me so many treats, Barb. I’m always happy to see Peter.” I set him down and he orbited me three times before racing into the apartment.

  “Oh, dear. I’m so sorry.” Barb pointed at my fleece jacket covered in snow, dog hair, and drool.

  “No worries,” I said. I stuck my head around her and called, “Bye, Don. Bye, Peter.”

  Using cold hands, I picked up the newspapers at my door. Back in my warm apartment, I studied the loaf of banana bread. Yep, full of walnuts. I set it next to the cookies on the countertop and sighed.

  •

  I knew better, but I zapped leftover coffee in the microwave. I wasn’t going to be able to sleep that night anyway, if the last couple of days were any indication. I tasted it, grimaced, and rinsed my cup.

  The newspaper crosswords beckoned me as a welcome diversion from my ineffective sleuthing. I’d added as many suspects as I’d crossed off and had even more questions than when I started. One step forward, fourteen steps back.

  Maybe if I ignored my investigation, it would be like when you try to remember the name of some song that ear-wormed into your subconscious. No matter what you do, you can’t conjure up anything but two lines of the chorus. And those might not even be right. So you forget about the stupid song and start washing dishes, mindlessly scrubbing a pan you should have soaked, when all of a sudden the title, singer, and all three verses pop right into your brain and off your lips like a miraculous karaoke visitation.

  Could happen.

  I dumped the newspapers out of their plastic tubes and onto the table. I junked the ads and sports sections—since football season was over—and made a neat pile for recycling. I set aside the sections I wanted. I decided to make a new pot of coffee and try to enjoy what used to be my ritual. But it seemed a ritual from some other life.

  I stared into the coffee container. Barely enough grounds for half a pot. It’s a bush-league sort of coffee fanatic who runs out of coffee. Lame. While the tiny pot brewed, I organized the sections into the order I wanted to read them—first Tuesday’s, then today’s.

  I loved everything about the newspaper. The comics, the often poorly edited articles, the unintentionally funny headlines, the crazy letters to the editor. But mostly I loved the ritual. I’d been reading newspapers since before I could read. My parents subscribed and, like clockwork, the daily landed on our driveway and I’d race out so I could be first to read the comics. I never failed to find one that amused me, and before I was twelve, I probably cut out a hundred of my favorite full-color ones from the Sunday editions.

  It was a true love affair I had with newsprint, and I didn’t understand why so many people eschewed it for bits and bytes. Sure, online editions have news that’s actually up-to-the-minute, and sure, you could seek out more detailed coverage of the events you were interested in, and sure, your news wasn’t curated by some lonely editor in the middle of the night.

  But only a newspaper smelled and felt like a newspaper. Every whiff and crinkle sent me straight back to sitting on Dad’s lap. He held the broadsheet in front of us, encircling us like a shield. I felt safe in our paper fort, despite some of the photographs and words he tried to hide from view.

  When I was very little, he’d read the comics to me. After I could pick out certain words, I’d point and “read” to him. As I got older, we’d discuss the actual news of the day, analyzing quoted sources and content rather than, like I saw so much today, the distillation of complicated content into pithy, not-quite-accurate Facebook memes. Every Monday in fifth grade we had to bring in articles clipped from the paper for Current Events. I wondered how kids did that today, when so many people didn’t subscribe to any newspaper. Surely fifth graders still discussed current events.

  The coffee finished brewing and I poured myself a cup. Much tastier than the zapped version. I glanced longingly at the banana bread and the cookies that would go so well right now. I squinched my eyes and tried to remove the walnuts from the treats using only the mighty power of my desire. I opened my eyes to learn that my powers were nonexistent. At least as far as deleting walnuts was concerned. I presumed my crossword skills remained intact.

  I decided to skim through the news, then get busy on those crossword puzzles, my true love.

  The first section combined world, national, and Colorado news. Ferry disaster in India. Women and girls kidnapped in Africa. Politicians misbehaving. Mountain snowpack totals. LoDo shootings. Roundup of new craft breweries.

  Quickly turning the pages, I stopped short at page five. Melinda’s photo stared back at me. The headline read, Death of Denver Literary Agent.

 
; I read the short article, tears stinging my eyes as I learned of her early career and current philanthropic work, which I’d never known about. She was on the Board of Directors for many local charities and nonprofits, but the one that jumped out at me was the Children’s Hospital. As far as I knew, Melinda didn’t like kids. Never expressed any interest in them, nor had any in her life. But maybe I didn’t know. Maybe she had a niece or nephew with a medical issue. My hand fluttered to my chest. Maybe she’d had a child who had died. I contemplated that for a moment, racking my brain for any mention she’d made of a child. Nothing came to mind. Then why the Children’s Hospital? I hated to think the worst of her, but how could volunteering to serve on a hospital board help her in any way? A literary agent wouldn’t be trying to drum up business there; that Venn diagram didn’t seem to intersect at all. Could it have anything to do with her murder?

  I read the article from the beginning, slower, with this in mind, but nothing clicked for me. I took a deep breath at the end of the article. “The investigation continues.”

  The accompanying sidebar article showed a photo of Melinda’s crumpled car. It looked like it was taken at an impound lot, even though they reported that the accident had happened in her neighborhood. Mystery Deepens in Agent’s Murder. The reporter used vague language like “it’s been reported” and “unconfirmed sources” but told a compelling story about Melinda’s accident. It ended with, “Anonymous police sources confirm their investigation continues but admit they’ve never seen an accident quite like this.”

  Holding my breath, I rummaged through the stack for today’s paper and stared at page two.

  In all of literary history, there have been only four acceptable types of author photos. One, informal, while staring at a computer keyboard or perhaps reading a book. Two, the author gazing steadily at the camera, either smiling or serious depending on their genre. Three, with some sort of hobby or pet, also informal.

  And mine, plastered all over my website and social media, and on the back of every one of my book covers. Arms crossed, looking bemused while leaning against a photogenic brick wall.

  The one I stared at now, taking up three column-inches on page two of today’s Denver Post.

  Local Author Questioned in Agent’s Death.

  My beloved newspaper had betrayed me.

  Twelve

  Local Author Questioned in Agent’s Death

  By Jonathan Crier, The Denver Post

  Sources confirm local mystery author Charlemagne Russo has been questioned by Denver Police in conjunction with Melinda Walter’s death on Monday. Walter, found dead in her car under mysterious circumstances, had been Russo’s literary agent for nearly seven years, securing publishing contracts for such books as Ashes to Ashes, Fragments of Fear, and Pursued to Death.

  It has been reported there was an ongoing disagreement instigated by Russo over possible questionable accounting practices on the part of Walter or of Penn & Powell Publishing, or both, resulting in a serious decrease of royalties to Russo. Unnamed sources claim Russo was reportedly furious over a substantial drop in income and the purported cover-up of financial information.

  Penn & Powell state through a spokesman they are shocked and saddened by these events and allegations and will cooperate fully with the authorities in their investigation.

  Russo refused to comment when contacted.

  Refused to comment? Nobody ever called. I thought back to the missed calls I’d deleted. Wouldn’t—I looked at the byline—Jonathan Crier have left a message if he was so desperate to speak with me?

  Jonathan Crier. Seriously? Writing for the newspaper with a name like that? I couldn’t decide if it was destiny or irony.

  Should I call him? To yell? To set the record straight? I hadn’t refused to comment. And how did he know about the royalties? I pressed my palms to my eyes. He’d made me look so suspicious.

  I called my brother. “Lance, did you read the paper today?”

  “No.”

  I filled him in. “What should I do? Do you know this guy? Should I call him? Didn’t he make me sound guilty?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, good.” I let out a whoosh of air. “I was hoping it was just my imagination. Wait. No, what?”

  Lance paused. “No, you shouldn’t call him.” Another pause. “Reporters are tricky.”

  “In general, or do you know this guy?”

  “I’m at work. I gotta go.” He was gone.

  Even for Lance, that was an odd conversation. What wasn’t he telling me? Was he one of the unnamed sources? It was easy enough to find out I was one of Melinda’s clients, but who else knew about the royalties? I groaned. My entire critique group.

  Once again, the only way to set the record straight was to find Melinda’s killer. No tiny print retraction buried where nobody ever noticed would do. Online, this bogus story would live forever uncorrected in the cyberspace archives, like the ridiculous story about vaccinations causing autism that kept circling the planet years after it was debunked by scientists. Or that one alleging that brown recluse spider eggs used to fill Beanie Babies in the 1990s were starting to hatch. Or the regular rumor around Denver that our beloved theme restaurant, Bonita Fajita, was closing. Personally, I thought that seemed like the perfect marketing ploy. Every time it happened there was a ton of local buzz and everyone raced down there for unlimited sopaipillas and to watch the cliff divers. Kind of genius if you ask me, as long as Snopes didn’t get wind of it.

  When I was being questioned, Detective Campbell had mentioned Snopes, too. How would I get Snopes to prove my innocence? Oh, who was I kidding. Clearly, if my Facebook feed was any indication, nobody checked Snopes. Not often enough anyway, and never about such juicy stories. People believe what they want to believe, no matter how far-fetched. All I could do was fight for truth, justice, and the American way. Like Superman, but without any of the power.

  I picked up my mug, uncovering the newspaper’s masthead and tagline: Voice of the Rocky Mountain Empire.

  Voice. My readers always mentioned how much they liked my writing voice. Writing is my medium, after all. I can be persuasive and eloquent there. I had to talk to that reporter. But not on the phone.

  I logged into my email. So many messages. Most from the Contact Me page on my website. I clicked on the most recent one. The subject line read, “Melinda Walter.”

  “I always wondered how you got such creative ways of murdering the victims in your books. Now I know you practice them.”

  I gasped and deleted it with a trembling hand.

  I read three more in the same vein. Dammit. Worse than I’d thought. I scrolled through all the emails to see if there were any names I recognized. About three-quarters of the way down, I saw that “Jonathan Crier” had emailed me through my website twice that morning. I scrolled some more. And on Tuesday. And even Monday evening.

  Why hadn’t he left a voicemail? Even just to say, “I emailed you.” Better yet, “I’m going to run a story that’s going to make you sound awfully suspicious regarding the mercury poisoning of your agent.”

  Wait. The article didn’t say anything about finding mercury in Melinda’s car. None of them did. That information wasn’t out to the public yet. That meant only me, Lance, Ozzi, Q, my critique group, and my beta readers knew about the actual cause of death. Everyone but my beta readers knew about the royalties. Had someone been talking?

  I composed the perfect 219-word email, outlining with intelligent reasoning what I wanted to say. I could have used twelve words: “I didn’t kill Melinda and quit saying I did, you big meanie.” I hit send and my phone rang immediately. I glanced at it. Unknown number. As I stared, the voicemail message lit up. I listened to it. “It’s Jonathan Crier. Call me.”

  “Don’t want to,” I said to it.

  I went back to my email messages and deleted all of them. Maybe there were some supp
ortive ones in there, but I sure didn’t want to wade through the others to find out.

  As I stared at the screen, Jonathan Crier responded to my 219 words: I just want to hear your side of the story. No way do I think you had anything to do with her death.

  “Then why did you write it that way, you slimy hellhound?” I yelled at my keyboard.

  My finger trembled over the delete button. I’d said everything I wanted to say to him.

  Another email from him popped up. We can talk totally off the record. Please call.

  Off the record. A reporter’s solemn vow. Reporters went to jail to protect their sources. It’s an unbreakable bond. Their Hippocratic Oath. Their swearing on the Bible. Their Boy Scout Pledge.

  I called him.

  Thirteen

  You promise this is off the record? I won’t see anything in the paper about our conversation?”

  “I can say ‘anonymous sources’ or ‘sources close to Ms. Russo’ if you like,” Jonathan Crier said.

  “What I’d like is for you to—never mind.” I took a breath. “I don’t have anything to tell you except that I had nothing to do with any of this. The reason I called is to find out who you’ve talked to and what they told you.”

  “I can’t tell you that, Ms. Russo.”

  While I considered my next question, I heard the juniper bushes under my kitchen window scrape against the wall again. Peter O’Drool must have cornered another rabbit. I refocused on the phone call. Peter could wait.

  “What if I asked you about certain people and you just say yes or no. Or if you can’t even do that, maybe you cough once for yes, and twice for no. Like Queue Quaid. Did you talk to Q? Cough once for no, and twice for yes. Or was it the other way around?”

  He laughed in a good-natured way that immediately made me suspicious. “There’s no need to go all Deep-Throat-in-a-parking-garage, Ms. Russo. Yes, of course I spoke with Ms. Quaid. She was Ms. Walter’s assistant.”

  “And what did she say?”