When Blood Lies

by Richards, Linda L. ;

  “But I don’t think I understand,” Kyle said to me when I told him everything. I’d called him before I started writing. Then I’d buzzed him into my building around the time I wrote -30- at the bottom of the piece, signifying “the end.” I filed the story while he tromped up the stairs. “You mean the wine was never the target? They wanted these stock certificates all along?”

  “Well, we don’t have all the details yet, but yeah. Something like that.” I told him the conclusions in the story I’d written earlier and filed. It would be in the morning edition, a fait accompli.

  “So let me get this straight. Someone killed Brine in order to get those stock certificates.”

  “Looks that way.”

  “And all that business with Joey and the stocks he was pumping?”

  “Coincidence, in a way. Except the fact that Joey was bidding on the desk must have been what made these galoots think the desk held what they wanted.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It was known that Joey was a promoter. There were times he would have inside information on certain stocks—or at least he allowed people to think he did. And it was known that Brine, for whatever reason, had a golden touch. And all of a sudden Joey is bidding on a dead man’s desk? It wouldn’t have taken much math for them to figure something was going on.”

  “And they were there, too?”

  “Folowing him, yes. That’s what I imagine.”

  “Okay, so that’s Joey. How’d they know to come to you?”

  “That’s been bothering me too. I think it must have been the girl at the auction house. But I guess with all the poking around I was doing, I didn’t exactly make my interest a secret.”

  Once Kyle was gone, and with my story written, I had a strong desire to close this chapter. The chapter of the desk. I wanted a fresh start, everything new. And the feeling of violation, of having been broken into—I wanted that gone as well.

  I’d brought home some oil soap from my mom’s. She blends it with water and puts it in a special bottle so that you can spray it on wood to clean it. Honestly, if you want something cleaned, ask a Scot. That’s been my experience. My mom has a cleaning solution for everything, and bleach figures in a lot of those recipes. For wood, it’s oil soap, water and a damp rag. And so I went to work on the desk.

  I hummed while I did it, enjoying the rise of the honey-gold color of the wood as I rubbed the oil soap in. After a while the wood seemed to glow. When the outside of the desk was polished and gleaming, I turned to the inside. I pulled out the drawers and cleaned everything I could see or reach, going deep into the corners and lovingly around the dovetail joints.

  When I went to push the top drawer back in, it stuck. I tried it this way and that, but I could not put it back where it had been. Something was in the way. I reached in and felt…something. What? The tips of my fingers identified the texture of thick paper—which, it seemed to me, shouldn’t be jammed at the back of a desk drawer.

  I got out my flashlight. Peered deep inside. And against the pure symmetry of this well-designed piece of furniture, I saw something that didn’t quite fit. I reached in as far as I could, but I couldn’t quite grab it. I went to the kitchen. Got my longest set of tongs. Reached inside with them and grabbed. I felt a surge of adrenaline as I got hold of whatever it was with the tongs and pulled it out. It felt like victory even before I knew what it was.

  The envelope was creamy and thick, with a rich texture. An envelope from another time. Sari was written on the front of the envelope in a firm blue hand.

  Before I did anything else, I called Kyle.

  ELEVEN

  Sari MacLeish took the envelope from me with a hand that trembled only slightly. I don’t think I would have shown as much composure under the circumstances. Actually, I’m pretty sure I would not.

  “And it was in a desk, you say?”

  We were at her house again, having called her to let her know what I’d found.

  “That’s right. A desk I bought at auction last week. It was his. Brine’s.”

  “And it’s addressed to me,” she said, looking at the envelope, at her name in what I guessed was his bold printing. There was disbelief in her voice.

  “Do you want to read it after we leave? It’s all right if you do.”

  “No. Stay, please. Just for a while.”

  “Sure,” Kyle and I said almost in unison.

  I watched her closely as she read. Her face was cloudy as she began, but the more she read, the lighter it seemed to become. It wasn’t a long letter, judging by the time it took for her to read it. And by the end, tears ran down her cheeks like spring rain from a clear sky.

  “He loved me,” she said, wonderment in her voice. “He loved me all along.”

  “What did he say?” I didn’t like to pry, but curiosity was getting the better of me.

  “So much. But most of all, he said he should have made different choices. He had regrets.” Her voice hardened then, surprising me. Until she spoke. Then I understood. “Regrets! All those years. What a waste of time.”

  She was right, of course. Because whatever else it said, the note and his apology indicated a loss there was no coming back from. You can’t take it with you, as they say. And when a day is gone, you’ll never get it back.

  “What a waste of time,” she said again. The anger was gone from her voice now. Regret was all I heard. And maybe grief.

  * * *

  In the morning I got up early and went for a run. I like to run in the morning, but today it was the newspaper I was after. The morning edition. My story in particular, of course. It wasn’t front-page stuff. I knew that. But I’d written a good, solid piece that might make a difference in the end.

  I got back to my place, made tea in anticipation of reading, then spread the paper out, preparing to find and read my piece. It wasn’t anywhere. But an article on page six under my rival Brent Hartigan’s byline caught my eye.

  Auction-House Event Solves Decades-Old Mystery

  Brent Hartigan

  And, in very small type, with files by Nicole Charles.

  I felt a flood of rage, followed by a despair that threatened tears, followed by a near-hysterical urge to laugh. I went with the last of the emotions. If a choice had to be made, it seemed the healthiest of the three.

  The article under Brent’s byline was my story. And yet it was not. Brent had hit the highlights, and the stuff about the wine had been left out altogether.

  I called my editor.

  “What the hell, Mike!” I said. I didn’t think he’d need me to fill him in. I was right.

  “Sorry, Nicole. I know you wanted this story. And your piece…well, honestly, it was okay but not as objective as I needed it to be. You understand.”

  “It was plenty objective,” I said. “And if you needed it to be different, I could have fixed it. Easily.”

  “Sure, I get it, Nicole. But there just wasn’t time…” He said more, but I tuned it out. Everything I needed to know, I’d heard. The rest was just whitewashing—I understood that. He’d known I’d be pissed, and he was right. I wanted to rail at him, but I knew I wouldn’t do that. No sense burning bridges or closing doors. In future, there would be a chance for me to get what I wanted. In the meantime, nothing I could say or do would alter what had happened.

  So I’d lost another story. Brent Hartigan had gotten another byline. An opportunity for Joe MacLeish had gone astray. But of all of us, I thought Sari MacLeish had suffered the greatest loss. She’d discovered that she’d been loved in return. A useless love for both her and Brine. Years of hurt and loss when there could have
been joy.

  If the cops ever got around to giving me back the wine, I was thinking I’d give it to Sari. In so many ways, I didn't feel I had a claim to it. And it seemed to me that, as the mother of Brine’s child, she really did. I didn't think a few bottles of wine would make everything better. But maybe it would take the edge off. And at this late date? Maybe that was enough.

  There was a message in all of this. I tried to decipher it. A lesson to be learned. I thought about it as I drove to the office. Something about taking opportunities when they presented themselves. About watching sunsets when they occurred and taking love and chances when they landed, before it was too late.

  I thought again about what Clark had told me when I’d met him at his book launch. About how writing a book made you the expert on a thing. And though I knew I didn’t have the experience to do it, I had a sudden urge to be writing about opportunities taken and lost. About how windows open when doors shut, and that satisfaction is for those who drive toward it.

  I parked the car and got on the elevator to zoom up to the newsroom. There was a calm determination in my heart. There would be other stories.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I continue to be proud of my association with Orca Books and the good work it undertakes with its Rapid Reads program. The challenge is significant and worthwhile and if When Blood Lies works in all of the ways it is meant to, it is entirely due to the challenges issued and efforts given by the whole team at Orca, in particular my splendid editor Ruth Linka.

  A special thanks to the men in my life, Michael Karl Richards, Peter Huber and Tony Parkinson. Your significant and varied contributions add texture, context and substance far beyond what you know and see.

  LINDA L. RICHARDS is a journalist and award-winning author. She is the founding editor of January Magazine, one of the Internet’s most respected voices about books. She is also the author of six other novels and several works of nonfiction and is on the faculty of the Simon Fraser University Summer Publishing Workshops. In 2010, Richards’s novel Death Was in the Picture won the Panik Award for Best Los Angeles-Based Noir. For more information, visit www.lindalrichards.com or @lindalrichards.

  More than anything, Nicole Charles wants to be a real reporter. She didn’t go to journalism school to work the society pages. One night while covering a gallery opening, she discovers a dead body in a dark alley. Suddenly Nicole is right in the middle of the biggest story of the year. It’s the chance of a lifetime. Too bad someone had to die to make it happen.

  “Like any well written novella, author, Richards hooks the reader within thirty seconds: west coast Vancouver atmosphere, tight plot, judicious back story, dialogue and a body. Add the tension of a newsroom full of testosterone, egos and dubious fair play and you get…If It Bleeds…read it. Hope there is more to come.”

  —Don Graves