All of this on top of my usual full-time load meant that instead of staying home chugging scotch in my pajamas all day (as I’d no doubt have done if left to my own devices), I was forced by necessity and by Molly to go into the office and work hard every day.
Scattered among these days were interviews with the police—so many that they began to blur into one long repetitive marathon against changing backdrops. The police had determined that Rowena died sometime between eight and ten Wednesday night, and everyone in the office was asked for alibis. I’d been home reading that evening, alone except for Mingus, who couldn’t testify. The doorman could confirm that I’d neither entered nor exited the lobby all night, but that didn’t preclude my having snuck out the basement door, to which all the tenants had keys.
After the detectives left, my staff gathered in my office, and we compared notes. Their alibis were as feeble as mine. Harriet, who had gone to the movies, complained bitterly about the detectives’ attitude. “Who the bloody hell saves ticket stubs? If I were a copper and someone handed me a stub, I’d arrest him on the spot!” Lorna had been home alone in her little studio in Bensonhurst, with no doorman to back her up. Jean-Paul had gone running in Central Park, also alone, and Chloe had been food shopping.
After a week of constant intrusions, my staff was looking frazzled. What the detectives seemed to want was everything we could tell them about Rowena: her past, her professional life, her finances, and her love life. I didn’t know much about her love life. Rowena had enjoyed the company of younger men, but whether she slept with them or just displayed them I had never cared to ask. About her finances I was able to be more helpful, since nearly all her income came though the agency. Advances, royalties, film and TV options and residuals, translation, and all other subsidiary rights were subject to our commission, so our records were detailed and up-to-date. With a new hardcover each year and her backlist constantly in print, Rowena was making north of three million a year, some years considerably north.
“Which means,” said the police forensic accountant who was sitting in my office, poring over our books, “that your agency made at least $450,000 a year in commissions.”
“Well, yes, less the subagents’ share,” I said, taken aback; I had not yet begun to think what Rowena’s death meant for the agency.
“Who gets her royalties now?”
“I don’t know, her family, I suppose. She had a will.”
“How will her death affect her earnings?”
“She’ll enjoy them a lot less,” I snapped.
He sat back, blinking mildly behind his glasses. “I’m sorry, did I—”
“No, I’m sorry. It’s just . . .” I took a deep breath and started again, trying to match his dispassionate tone. “I expect there’ll be an immediate spike in sales because of all the publicity, and because some of her publishers are putting out new editions. Then there’s one more book in the pipeline. After that, without new books to bolster the old and Rowena to promote them, her sales will start to decline.”
He made a note. “That’s very clear; thank you, Ms. Donovan. And how will this affect your agency’s earnings?”
“In direct proportion,” I said bleakly. It occurred to me that if the killer’s motive was to hurt me or destroy my business, he could hardly have taken better aim. There was nothing random about this. No stranger could hate me this much. No stranger could know so much.
I looked past the auditor at the closed door of my office. Just beyond it, my faithful staff manned the phones and sheltered me from everything they could. Outside them was a concentric circle of friends, people like Molly and Max and Gordon, who had involved themselves deeply in my troubles, who talked to and counseled and helped me every day. And beyond them was a wider circle still, dozens of clients and colleagues who did not burden me with daily demands for updates but stayed in touch with e-mails and handwritten notes urging me to bear up, assuring me of their love and support. (And if some of my clients could not resist appending apologetic little requests that I read their latest pages or look at jacket copy or run interference with their publishers, that only warmed my heart the more; for writers can’t help being writers.) Without the concern and support of all these people, I would surely have flown apart, for the truth is, I lack a center of gravity. If Hugo was an oak, I was a vine twined around greatness; and this was as true of my working life as it was of my marriage. As an agent, my one talent lies in recognizing talent in others and nurturing it. Whatever I’d given to them was coming back to me tenfold. No one could have been more grateful than I for the friends who had closed ranks around me . . . and yet I couldn’t help wondering if Rowena’s murderer was sheltering among them.
This constant grain of suspicion was so irritating that it would have been almost a relief to learn that Charlie Malvino was the culprit, which seemed less far-fetched than any other explanation. He was, after all, the only person I knew who hated me, and he had the savvy to carry out well-aimed attacks. Rowena knew him too, and wouldn’t have hesitated to open the door to him. But one of the few things I’d been told about the investigation (by Tommy, in confidence) was that Charlie had an alibi for the time of Rowena’s murder. “Do you have any suspects?” I’d asked, and gotten no reply, which was typical. With the police, I was discovering, information flowed one way only.
I’d given the homicide detectives everything they asked for. I’d opened my books and files, let them trawl through my computers, given permission for phone taps and e-mail surveillance in case the stalker tried to contact me again. I’d gone further than I should have in surrendering my privacy and that of my clients, but I didn’t care; there was nothing I wouldn’t do to help catch Rowena’s murderer.
By way of return they fed me vague talk of promising leads and a methodical investigation, but never any specifics. Maybe Max could have gotten more out of them, but he, for the happiest of reasons, was unable to come to New York. His baby had been born, two weeks early, and he had flown home to be with Barry when they brought the baby home. It was a little girl whom they were naming Molly, to the tearful delight of my Molly. This event was a great consolation to us both, and we spent a couple of therapeutic evenings shopping for the new arrival. In the midst of death, we are in life. Or in our case, Bloomingdale’s.
As day followed day with no arrest, the detectives seemed to focus more intensely on Rowena’s ties to the agency and to me. On Monday, the last day of Molly’s stay, I was asked to come into police headquarters for another interview. By “asked” I mean that two patrolmen were sent to fetch me from the office. Lorna tried and failed to keep them out. “Am I being arrested?” I asked, only half joking, for the feeling that I was responsible for Rowena’s death still lay heavy upon me.
“No, ma’am,” the taller patrolman said, while his partner looked around with the sort of frank nosiness only cops and small children display. “We’re just here to escort you.”
“That’s his job,” I said, nodding at Mingus, who had positioned himself between me and the cops. “He’s my bodyguard.”
“I can see he’s a good one. But there’s no dogs allowed at headquarters, except police and assistance dogs.”
“He was a police dog, and he assists me in staying alive.”
But in the end I went peaceably, and Mingus stayed behind.
• • •
I was shown into a small room with a mirror at one end, a solid oak table, and upholstered chairs. Three people rose as I entered the room: Tommy Cullen, Detective Suarez, and a tall black woman of fifty or so, whom Tommy introduced as Lieutenant Boniface. It could have been a meeting in any large publishing house, except that the detectives were better dressed. There was a faint whiff of acrimony in the air, as if I’d interrupted an argument; but the men greeted me politely, while the lieutenant, who had warm brown eyes and a ready smile, shook my hand enthusiastically. “Thank you so much for coming, Ms. Donovan, an
d for all your cooperation. You’ve been a great help.” She gestured toward the chair beside hers, which put Tommy on my left and Suarez across the table. I felt surrounded.
Boniface swiveled her chair toward me and leaned forward, as if what she had to say was just between us girls. “We’ve asked you to come in today because as this case has developed, we’ve grown concerned for your safety. The writing on the wall of the crime scene keeps bringing us back to you and your mysterious stalker.”
There was something in the way she said “mysterious stalker” that made it sound like “imaginary friend.” I felt immediately defensive, though I’d no idea why I should, and took refuge in silence.
“One theory of this case is that Rowena’s murder was in some way aimed at you. We’ve already looked very carefully at Rowena’s life. Now we need to look closer at yours.”
“It’s an open book,” I said. “Just Google me; you’ll get everything you could possibly want to know and more.”
“I’ve done that. You’ve led quite a life for someone so young. But what I want is the stuff that’s not public.”
“Like what?”
“Let’s start with the message on the wall, the same message you previously received in an e-mail. ‘Can you hear me now?’ I’m sure you’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it. Do the words remind you of anything? Have you ever heard them before?”
“Only as a catchphrase from an old Verizon commercial. I’ve tried to remember, but nothing else comes to me.”
“‘Can you hear me now?’ suggests that at some point you could not or would not hear this person. Did you ever tell someone ‘I can’t hear you’?”
A vague recollection stirred, nothing I could pin down. “On the phone, maybe. A bad connection?”
“Is there anyone in your life now or in your past who might feel that way about you, that you don’t hear them?”
“Harriet often thinks that. She feels that because she’s been in the business longer, I should be guided by her. But I promise you that Harriet is quite incapable of shooting anyone, let alone Rowena. It has to be the stalker. People whose work we reject often think that we’re deaf to their unique voices. Sam Spade was one of those.”
“We’re searching for him,” she said with a reassuring nod. “We’re looking at everyone your agency rejected over the past year. But the person who did this knows a lot about your agency and your industry. And you yourself told Detective Suarez that Rowena wouldn’t have opened her door to a stranger. I think we’re looking for someone closer to you, someone you know, even tangentially.”
“I understand,” I said. “But there’s no one I know of who bears that kind of grudge, except maybe Charlie Malvino, and you know about him.”
“Tell me about your family. Are you close?”
“Don’t have any,” I said, unsettled by this abrupt change of subject.
“What happened to them?”
“Parents died in an accident when I was an infant. My grandmother raised me. She’s dead too.”
“Boyfriends? Lovers?”
“No.”
“Not just current. I’m talking about prior relationships as well.”
I was careful not to look at Tommy. I felt him not looking at me, either. “I was married for ten years,” I said. “I’ve been widowed for three. I’ve had no other relationships in all that time. Am I going back far enough, or do you want the name of my sixth-grade valentine?”
Boniface raised her eyebrows the way people do when they’re thinking something they don’t mean to say. Then she said it anyway. “I know that’s what you told my detectives, but that was before Rowena died. Now we need you to be frank with us.”
“I was frank. Painfully so.”
“I just find it hard to believe that an attractive young woman like yourself, free and unencumbered, wouldn’t have relationships.”
“It’s a tough town.”
“Not that tough.” She looked at me like she knew me. “The thing is, if there was someone and you didn’t want to tell us on account of he’s married or female or whatever, that would have to change right now. There’s no more privacy in a murder investigation than there is a delivery room. We need to know everything. We’ll be as discreet as we can be, but we have to know.”
“That’s the third time you’ve asked, Lieutenant, and the answer is still the same. Do you have any other questions?”
“I do, actually, and I hope you won’t take them personally. In any murder investigation we have to look at who benefits.” She waited for an acknowledgment.
“OK,” I said, curious to see where this was going.
“Rowena made a lot of money for your agency, didn’t she?”
“We like to think of it as the agency making a lot of money for her. But yes, either way you look at it, it was a very successful partnership. She was by far our best earner.”
“How will her death affect the agency’s income?”
“It will decline as her sales decline.”
“So on the face of it, the agency stands to lose by her death.”
“On the face of it?” I looked around the room. No one had moved, and Boniface was still smiling pleasantly, but the atmosphere had changed.
“Well,” she said, “you personally stand to realize quite a windfall, don’t you? Several million, paid out over several years, according to the accounts you so kindly shared with us.”
“What are you talking about?”
Boniface looked surprised. “You know the terms of Rowena’s will.”
“I know that I’m her literary executor.”
“And your compensation for that work?”
“The same as it is now: our commission.”
“But Rowena was asking you to undertake a lot of work and responsibility on her behalf. Surely you’re entitled to be paid for that. Did you discuss a specific amount with her?”
“There was nothing to discuss. It was understood that I would continue to represent her estate as I’d represented her. Our commission was ample payment.”
Boniface looked worried on my behalf. “Be careful here, Jo. If you tell us you didn’t know, and later it turns out you did, it wouldn’t look good for you.”
“Didn’t know what?” I said impatiently.
“That Rowena left you ten percent of all future earnings.”
“We get fifteen percent,” I corrected her.
“I’m not talking about the agency commission. I’m talking about the additional ten percent she left you personally.”
Blood rushed to my head; amid such a welter of conflicting emotions I could not speak at once. If Rowena had died of natural causes, I’d have been touched and grateful for this bequest; tickled, too, by the form it took. It was a great deal of money, an extremely generous gift, but she had not left it to me outright; I would have to work for it by perpetuating the sale of her books, thus ensuring her legacy. This mixture of slyness and generosity was so utterly Rowena that a part of me couldn’t wait to tell Molly.
But Rowena hadn’t died of natural causes; and under the circumstances, her bequest only exacerbated my sense of guilt. “I’ll give it to charity,” I said. “I don’t want it.”
“Oh, now that’s rash,” Boniface said. “It’s a good deal of money, isn’t it, Jo? Ten percent of three or four mil a year? Quite a healthy annuity.”
I stared into her kind, placid face and realized I’d been played, lulled into stupidity. They weren’t worried about my safety. They saw me as a suspect. All of them? I wondered. I glanced at Tommy, whose face bore all the expression of sheet metal.
One theory of the crime is that it was aimed at you, Boniface had said. Your mysterious stalker, she’d said. When I finally understood what the alternate theory was, a calmness came over me. From a cave deep inside myself, I said, “You’re suggesting that I murdered
my friend for money?”
“My detectives don’t believe that. I don’t either, now that I’ve met you. But it’s not like we can just ignore inconvenient facts, can we? Because if we do, I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. Somewhere down the road, some smart-ass defense attorney’s going to point a finger at you and say, ‘Why is my client being charged? That woman had a million dollars’ worth of motive and no alibi for the time of death!’”
“That was careless of me. I must remember the alibi next time.”
“Easy, Jo,” Tommy murmured.
Ignoring him, I stood and shouldered my bag. “Apart from being insulting, it’s a stupid theory. I’d have earned that money ten times over if Rowena were alive to keep writing.”
“Sit down, Ms. Donovan,” Boniface said. Now the gloves were off. “We’re not done yet.”
“I’m going back to work. Maybe you people should do the same.” I walked out. No one tried to stop me.
I sat up late that night, drinking scotch and trying to watch TV while Mingus snoozed beside me. Molly had gone back to Westchester. For the first time since Rowena’s death, I was alone with my thoughts, and they were not good company. When the buzzer rang, Mingus jumped up barking, with no transition at all between unconsciousness and full alert. I answered the intercom. “Sorry to ring so late, Ms. Donovan. It’s Detective Cullen again,” the doorman said, disapproval stamped on every syllable.
Of course it was. I’d half expected him. No doubt Boniface had sent him. I could just hear her. Go see her yourself, Tommy. You’ve got a relationship. Maybe she’ll open up to you. I’d made up my mind that if he really did have the nerve to show, I’d refuse to see him.
“Send him up,” I said.
Tommy wore the same suit he’d worn earlier that day, minus the tie. “Sorry about the time,” he said. “Figured you’d be up.” As he passed me, I smelled liquor on his breath.
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