The Haunting of Josie

by Kay Hooper

  “A Sudden Death by Luke Westbrook,” Josie read out loud. “That’s an ironic title, considering.” She brooded for a moment, then asked, “Are you sure that’s not on the list?”

  “Definitely not by this title. Why?”

  “I don’t know. Yes, I do—it sounds familiar.” Then before Marc could respond, she said dryly, “Of course, ‘sudden death’ is a sports term, isn’t it? As in, sudden-death overtime?”

  “Yeah. So it could seem familiar for that reason. Or just because it sounds like a fairly typical mystery title.” Marc glanced at her, then indicated the upper right corner of the manuscript’s title page. “Did you notice this?”

  She leaned closer and could barely make out the faint numbers. “Four, thirteen, forty-four. A date?”

  “I’d say so. Two days before Luke died.”

  “Does your friend Tucker date his manuscripts?” Josie wondered.

  Marc was tempted to ask her if she dated her own writing projects, but it was a fleeting thought. “Like most writers these days, Tucker uses a computer, which automatically makes note of the day work was last done on a particular file. But he does note on his desk calendar when he begins and finishes a book. He says it gives him a stronger sense of completion.”

  They looked at each other for a moment, and then Josie said, “Maybe we’d better read awhile.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  Was A Sudden Death a carbon copy of the manuscript Luke Westbrook had been supposedly unable to write before his death? If so, had he burned the original in his fireplace before committing suicide? And, if so, why? Why burn the original and keep a carbon if the project had caused him such anguish that it had driven him to kill himself?

  Josie managed to push those questions aside for the moment, though it took an effort at first. However, by the time she had read the third letter from the lady named Joanna, she found herself completely caught up in that part of the puzzle.

  Joanna wrote well—and she was a woman deeply, passionately in love with Luke Westbrook.

  They had been lovers, that was apparent in the eroticism throughout the letters. It was clear the two had seen each other fairly often; she referred to those meetings in every letter, using phrases like, “yesterday when you smiled at me,” and “last week when we met by the fence…” It was also clear that they had little time together; it seemed to be measured in minutes, and her joy when they could spend an hour or two with each other was so strongly expressed it was almost painful to read.

  As a matter of fact, Josie found herself putting the letters aside after the first dozen, because by then the reason their love affair had been secret became evident. Murmuring something vague about more coffee, she picked up her cup and retreated to the kitchen.

  “Yahhh,” Pendragon greeted her from atop a barstool.

  “Hello, cat.” She put on a fresh pot of coffee, then stood there leaning back against the counter and stared at nothing.

  Married. Joanna had been married, and it appeared that divorce had been out of the question. And so…brief, secret meetings. Letters filled with passionate longing exchanged back and forth—Joanna frequently used the phrase “your last letter” in hers—and no way out of a situation that could have no happy ending.

  Lord, what fools these mortals be.

  Josie thought she could understand Joanna’s willingness to risk so much for Luke Westbrook. People had, after all, risked much for love all through the ages. Usually women risked more than the men, mostly because of the ever-present possibility of pregnancy and the constraints put upon them by society, but who could say that men paid no price for illicit affairs?

  Perhaps Luke had paid a price.

  “Josie?”

  She looked at Marc for a moment across the kitchen, then said, “They were lovers. Very discreet lovers. And Joanna was married.”

  Marc came toward her slowly. “Hence the secret affair.”

  “Yes. I’m not through with all the letters, but it seems pretty obvious that there was no question of a divorce for Joanna. I don’t know why. Family pressure, religious reasons. Something. But not because she wanted to stay with her husband. She…she really loved Luke. And she believed he loved her every bit as much, that comes through.”

  “We don’t know that he didn’t.” Marc smoothed a tendril of bright hair away from her face, then let his hand rest against the side of her neck gently. “You take things very much to heart, don’t you?”

  Josie shrugged, uneasy with his insight, and fought to ignore her body’s response to his most casual touch. “I was just thinking that maybe Luke had more than one reason to kill himself. I was also thinking—what if it wasn’t suicide?”

  After a moment Marc said, “A jealous husband, you mean?”

  “It’s possible. Look, the letters span more than a year, and the longer something like that goes on, the more likely it is that the spouse will guess what’s going on, or see something he shouldn’t. Joanna lived nearby, that’s obvious from the letters; she met Luke here at the house, but they also met out in the woods somewhere between this house and hers. Who’s to say her husband didn’t find out what was going on?”

  “Then killed Luke and made it look like a suicide?” Marc wasn’t disbelieving, just thoughtful.

  “Why not? Or—why say it was premeditated? Why not a confrontation that ended up with Luke shot by one of his own guns? After that, making it look like a suicide wouldn’t have been very hard. Write a passable suicide letter—on Luke’s typewriter right there in the room—giving as his reason despondency over an inability to write, and then burn the manuscript found on his desk to make the motive seem more believable. Make sure the gun had only Luke’s prints on it and…walk away.”

  Marc frowned. “I suppose he wouldn’t have thought to look for a carbon of the manuscript…. But why didn’t the police find the carbon and journal, and the letters?”

  “That question stands—and begs to be explained—even if it was suicide.” She felt discouraged. “And, dammit, how will we ever know? It’s Luke’s journal and manuscript, and letters written to him before his death, so we aren’t likely to find an explanation as to what happened the night he died.”

  Marc looked down at her for a long moment and then said, “You really do believe Luke didn’t kill himself, don’t you? Why? What makes you so sure?”

  Josie hadn’t thought about it specifically, but when she answered Marc without hesitation, she realized her subconscious had already come to a decision. That didn’t surprise her, but her fierce tone of voice did.

  “Because suicide is cowardly—and the man Joanna loved, the man she gave herself to body and soul was not a coward.”

  Marc bent his head and kissed her.

  “Um…what was that for?” she asked when she could, feeling a bit stunned.

  “I wanted to,” Marc replied simply. “Are you always such a passionate advocate?”

  She got a grip on herself. “I don’t know, I’ve never thought about it.”

  He smiled. “Listen, I have a suggestion. We’ve both been cooped up too much lately, and it’ll probably do us good to get away and clear our heads for a couple of hours. Why don’t I take you out for lunch, and then we can get a fresh start this afternoon. How does that sound?”

  “It isn’t lunchtime,” she felt duty bound to protest.

  “It will be by the time we find a decent place to eat.”

  “Well…”

  “Fresh air, reasonable sunshine. And I’ll let you drive my new car.”

  “Oh, well,” she murmured. “If you’re going to resort to nasty bribery. What kind of car? I haven’t even looked out the window to see.”

  “A BMW. With all the bells and whistles.”

  “Really? In that case, let me find my shoes….”

  Leaning forward to drop the manuscript onto the coffee table, Marc said definitely, “I have read this before.”

  Josie looked up from the last of Joanna’s letters and frow
ned. “How could that be? You said it hadn’t been published.”

  “According to Luke’s bio, it hasn’t. Nevertheless, I’ve read the damned thing before. For the past hour I’ve been anticipating scenes—and not because they were obvious ones. Maybe Luke published it under a pen name at some point, and the biographer just missed it.”

  “You haven’t finished the whole thing, have you?”

  “No, I’m about halfway.”

  It was nearly nine P.M. that night, and they had spent most of the evening—with one lengthy interruption for more intimate matters—relaxed in front of a crackling fire, reading and discussing what they read.

  “How can we find out if it’s been published?” Josie asked. “Library of Congress?”

  “I think I know a quicker way,” Marc replied. “I’ll call Tucker. It’s a good bet that he’s read practically every mystery written in this century, and he remembers plots, characters. If this story is as familiar to him as it is to me, he’ll be able to track it down somehow.”

  “Will he be willing?”

  “Sure. He loves a challenge. And he has his computer set up to get information.”

  “It’s worth a try,” Josie said.

  Less than ten minutes later Tucker was saying, “A Sudden Death? Considering that murder is that, it’s reasonable to suppose there’ve been at least a dozen variations of that title.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Marc agreed, resting Josie’s portable phone against his shoulder as he leafed through the manuscript. “But this is definitely Luke’s style, and it just as definitely isn’t listed in the bio as one of his books. So what gives?”

  “A pen name, maybe, but—”

  “But Luke never used a pen name, at least not according to everyone who knew him.”

  “Um.”

  “There are handwritten corrections on some of the pages; I’m not an expert, but the handwriting matches that in his journal—which neither of us has read yet.”

  After a thoughtful silence, Tucker said, “Give me a summary of the plot so far, and let me see if it sounds familiar.”

  Marc did so, keeping it brief but making sure he listed the plot points and the various characters.

  “It’s definitely familiar,” Tucker mused when he’d heard it all. “List those characters again—by name. I’m writing this down.”

  When Marc had finished, he said, “What do you think?”

  “Well, let’s not jump the gun here. A hell of a lot of mystery writers who came after Luke Westbrook aped his style and stole his plots outright—maybe both of us are remembering one of them. But I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “Great. Thanks, Tucker.”

  “Don’t mention it. But you can mention something else. How’re things with you and Josie?”

  Marc glanced aside, where her bright head was bent over the last of Joanna’s letters. “So far, so good.”

  “This little mystery of yours providing breathing space?”

  “Something like that.”

  Tucker chuckled suddenly. “Definitely true love. You should hear how you sound—somewhere between guarded and besotted.”

  “Good night, Tucker.”

  “Good night, Marcus.”

  Marc turned off the phone and set it on the end table, just as Josie looked up and said, “Dammit.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t think my jealous-husband theory is going to work. In this last letter, dated two days before Luke died, Joanna says her husband, Roger, is coming home—the following month. From the war. Where he’d been, apparently, for two years.”

  “Since long before the affair began.”

  “Right. He was coming home because he was wounded, badly enough so that Joanna expected to have to go to an army hospital in Richmond to greet him.” Parenthetically, she added, “Luke had already done his army service, hadn’t he? I seem to remember something about it in the bio.”

  “Yeah, when he was just a kid—enlisted when he was seventeen. He was thirty-eight when he died.”

  “I think Joanna was a lot younger,” Josie mused. “Midtwenties, maybe? Or even early twenties. She sort of reads that age. Anyway, her husband was coming home, wounded, and she was going to be waiting for him.”

  “Is that a…Dear John letter?” Marc asked.

  Reluctantly, Josie nodded. “I’m afraid so. She was too afraid of her husband finding out about them to continue the affair, that’s very clear. She had a three-year-old child, Marc, a little girl—that was why she didn’t dare ask for a divorce. She knew her husband would get custody.”

  “I wonder if she had hoped…”

  Josie nodded again. “That she’d be widowed. And the poor thing felt so guilty about that, she probably drove herself half-crazy.”

  Marc sighed. “What a situation.”

  Unhappily, Josie said, “Yeah. And it means that Luke probably did commit suicide. I mean, after this letter…He couldn’t put the real reason in his note without destroying her life, so he could have invented all that garbage about not being able to write anymore—he probably didn’t give a damn by that point.”

  “Burned the original of A Sudden Death but wasn’t thinking clearly enough to burn the carbon, which he’d put away somewhere,” Marc said slowly.

  “It makes sense. Dammit.”

  “We still have the journal to get through,” he reminded her. “And that’s really the only thing that might tell us Luke’s state of mind that last week—assuming he made entries.” He leaned forward and got it from the coffee table, then turned pages rapidly until he found the last entry. “Damn. The last entry is dated the tenth of April. Before he got Joanna’s last letter.”

  “Of course he couldn’t have made it easy for us,” Josie noted dryly.

  Marc closed the journal and put it on the coffee table, then leaned back and calmly pulled her over onto his lap. “Enough for today,” he said. “Do you realize I haven’t kissed you in hours?”

  “Well, what have you been waiting for?” she demanded severely.

  “Your undivided attention. And, now that I have it…”

  The lamp-lit bedroom was quiet in the drowsy aftermath of passion, until it was disturbed by a giggle from Josie. Pendragon had leaped onto the bed and had attempted to get between them.

  “You must,” Marc told the cat, “be joking.”

  “Ppprupt,” the big black cat responded.

  “No way. She’s mine.”

  “Waur,” the cat said in obvious scorn.

  “She is too. Tell him, sweetheart.”

  Josie was on the point of adding her grave agreement when it occurred to her that Marc was entirely serious. “Well…” she murmured.

  Pendragon said, “Yah!” in a tone of derision practically in Marc’s face, then turned and left the bed with dignity.

  “Thanks a lot,” Marc told Josie ruefully. “I’ve now had the incredibly disconcerting experience of having a cat judge my macho qualities—and give me a very low grade.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be able to redeem yourself. Challenge him to a wrestling match,” she responded innocently.

  Marc laughed, then pushed himself up on his elbow and looked down at her. His expression was suddenly serious, and there was something a bit hesitant in his eyes.

  “Don’t,” she said before she could stop herself.

  He didn’t seem surprised. “Don’t what, Josie?”

  A part of her wanted to move away, even run away, but that was virtually impossible since she was lying in bed with only a sheet pulled up over her naked body and his naked body, and he was so close, the heat of him warmed her….

  “Don’t ruin things,” she said.

  “How would I do that?” He didn’t wait for her answer, but supplied his own a little flatly. “By asking why you couldn’t even pretend to the damned cat that you belonged to me?”

  “People don’t belong to each other.”

  “No? I belong to you.”

  Shaken, she could only
stare up at him.

  He kissed her, a brief contact that nevertheless seemed to brand her, and his voice was rough. “I do. You think I’d be worth a damn with anybody else now? Even if I wanted to walk away from you, I wouldn’t be able to. I love you, Josie.”

  “You can’t,” she whispered. “Not in a week.”

  “No, not in a week. A day, maybe two.” His smile was slow and crooked. “Lady, I fell like a ton of bricks.”

  “You only think so, because—”

  “If you’re going to try to tell me I fell in love because I was bored,” he said calmly, “forget it. That is probably the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

  She had to admit, it sounded ridiculous put like that, but Josie was still finding this impossible to believe. And frightening. “You can’t love me. And—and even if you did, I don’t want—”

  When her voice broke, he said, “You don’t want love? How can anyone not want love, Josie? How can anyone not feel incredibly lucky to find love?”

  “You don’t understand,” she whispered.

  Marc hesitated, then sighed. “You’re wrong, you know. I do understand. I understand that your whole world was turned upside down when you were eight years old. I understand that it tore you apart watching your father trying to prove to people that he wasn’t a monster. I know it hurt when your mother walked out. And I understand how too many years of living with all of it has convinced you that you have to stand alone.”

  She was staring at him numbly. “How long have you…?”

  “One of my professors in law school liked to review old cases. Your father’s was one of them.” He would tell her the rest, Marc thought, about Tucker and the research—but not now. Now the only important thing was to get this out in the open between them so it could be dealt with.

  “You mean, you knew from the first day who I was?”

  He shook his head. “No, not at first. But it came back to me eventually. You must have gone through hell.”

  “He was innocent,” she said fiercely.

  “I know,” he said matter-of-factly, and smiled a little at her shock. “Sweetheart, it was obvious to even a second-year law student that your father should never have been arrested, let alone indicted and tried. The truth is, the police couldn’t find out who really torched that hotel, a shocked city was yelling for action, and a perfectly logical and businesslike insurance policy was knotted into a noose shaped to fit your father’s neck. He could never have been found guilty.”