Manuscript for Murder

by Jessica Fletcher

  I realized Artie had rested his trusty memo pad in his lap and had been making notes the whole time. I hadn’t noticed before because I had kept my focus trained on Alma Desjardins.

  “So,” he continued, “four emergency room personnel treated Kristen Albright after she was brought in, these two doctors and two nurses.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Anyone else? Another doctor or nurse perhaps? A technician who may have prepared the body for transport?”

  Alma shook her head. “After the poor girl passed, those policemen blocked off the room where we tended to her. They didn’t let anyone else in until her parents arrived, followed closely by the funeral home to pick up the body.”

  “The couple came together?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how would you describe them?”

  “Exactly as you’d expect from parents who’d just learned they’d lost their only child. ‘Grief-stricken’ wouldn’t do it justice.” Alma’s expression turned genuinely sad. “I’ve seen that scene replayed all too often as well.”

  I couldn’t help myself. “How long after their daughter was pronounced dead did they arrive?”

  Alma didn’t respond right away, as if she was taken aback by my suddenly inserting myself into the interview. “I don’t recall exactly, but I’d say around twenty minutes.”

  I felt Artie staring at me harshly, but I continued anyway. “So that would be eighty minutes after their daughter was brought in. Do you remember how they were notified?”

  Artie kicked my leg lightly.

  “No.”

  “What would be the routine approach?”

  Artie kicked me harder, hard enough for Alma Desjardins to notice.

  “The police normally handle such things. And since they arrived with, or shortly after, the ambulance, I assumed they’d taken care of it.”

  “Except you can’t be sure they were police.”

  “Who else would they be?” Alma challenged.

  I took that as my cue to go silent, before Artie left my leg bruised.

  “How many of these plainclothes policemen were there?” He picked up the thread.

  “Four inside, but I seem to recall two more taking up posts outside the ER entrance.”

  “So six in total. And you’ve dealt with comparable tragedies with comparable dignitaries, or their family members, before.”

  Alma sighed. “As I’ve already said, far too often.”

  “Do you recall a similar security presence for those?” Artie asked her.

  “No, never anything like that night. No.”

  Artie flipped his memo pad to a fresh page and wrote down some more notes. “One more thing, Mrs. Desjardins. Do you still have a record of the two nurses and two physicians who treated Kristen Albright?”

  “I’m sure we do. It might take a few minutes, but I can look it up for you.”

  She started to stand up, suddenly impatient for us to be gone.

  “I have one more question, if you don’t mind,” I said.

  Alma sat back down, not minding. But Artie clearly minded enough for both of them.

  “No autopsy was performed, was it?” I continued.

  “As I said, we turned the body over to the funeral home at the request of her parents, just Mr. and Mrs. Albright at the time. The results of the blood work and toxicology screen later positively confirmed the initial diagnosis and cause of death. We were dealing with grieving parents. There was no reason to put them through more heartache at the time.”

  I rose from my chair ahead of both Alma Desjardins and Artie. “Of course. And you recall nothing else unusual from that night?”

  “Like what?”

  “Anything suggesting that Kristen Albright died of something other than a drug overdose, specifically opiates.”

  Alma shook her head. “No, nothing at all.”

  “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Desjardins,” Artie said, extending his hand across the desk to shake hers.

  “My pleasure, Lieutenant. And I can either text or e-mail you the information I find on those two nurses and two doctors who treated the poor girl.”

  He jotted both his cell phone number and e-mail address on a fresh page he tore from his memo pad and handed it across the desk.

  “Thank you, Alma,” I said, feeling Artie tugging me toward the door.

  “My pleasure . . . Mrs. Fletcher.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “Happy, Jessica?” Artie asked me in the hallway beyond, stopping just short of the same elevator we’d used to get up here.

  “That she recognized me?”

  “That you could have compromised us. I’m not actually here in an official capacity, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  “Says who? You told her you were following up some murders that had taken place in New York City that may—may—be connected to the death of the president’s daughter. That’s the truth.”

  “True or not, I wasn’t here under the auspices of Homeland Security.”

  “Semantics, Artie.”

  “You can explain that to my wife if I get suspended without pay.”

  The elevator door opened. People got out; people got in. We stayed where we were as the door closed again.

  “Are you this meddlesome with Mort?” Artie asked me.

  “I’m usually worse with Mort.”

  He scowled, starting to look more and more like Harry McGraw. “Now I know what I’ve been missing.”

  All that was missing from his expression were those sliding jowls.

  “Tell me what we just heard,” I said.

  “You need me to repeat it for you?”

  “Just the part about six plainclothes security types showing up with the ambulance.”

  “We need to check with Capitol Police or DC Metro to see if they were part of a detail.”

  “What kind of detail?”

  “The kind that might’ve been working a nightclub or concert where Kristen Albright was ambulanced from. Or maybe it was a private detail, hired by her parents to babysit her.”

  “Wonderful job they did.”

  “You have a better explanation . . . Mrs. Fletcher?” Artie asked, imitating the way Alma Desjardins had said my name.

  “Go back to that text message I received, the one that said Kristen Albright didn’t die of a drug overdose.”

  “Which led you to believe it was murder instead.”

  I nodded. “A theory that much better explains the six men who looked like cops but wore no badges. And I’ll tell you something else, Artie: Until we speak to one of the doctors or nurses who actually treated the girl, we can’t be sure it really was an overdose, can we?”

  “‘We’?”

  The elevator door opened again and this time we got in, joining a young woman smiling at a picture displayed on her phone. That made me think of Alma Desjardins’s desk, priority given to any number of framed photographs she’d surrounded herself with. I’d caught brief glimpses of a few of them, enough to know she had a big family, children and grandchildren everywhere.

  I was thinking of those pictures when a thought struck me, a memory of another desk I’d recently seen and what had been bothering me about it.

  “Oh my . . .”

  The girl with the phone looked at me.

  So did Artie. I wondered if he knew my knees were shaking.

  “What is it, Jessica?”

  I held Artie’s stare. “Something I just realized about my visit to the Oval Office.”

  “Something you saw?”

  “No,” I told him. “Something I didn’t see.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  After leaving Georgetown University Medical Center, Artie and I headed over to the Starbucks on Pennsylvania Avenue. While he followed up
outside with some phone calls based on the contact info Alma Desjardins had forwarded him, I joined a line inside as long as one you might find for a ride at Disney World, emerging finally with a hot tea for me and some kind of iced mocha concoction for Artie.

  “Two nurses and two doctors,” he said, popping off the lid on his large cup and sniffing the foam. “One of each of whom has a phone number that’s been disconnected.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “It gets worse. I googled all four. The other two are dead, both within a year after leaving the hospital in Georgetown.”

  “So the four people who treated the future president’s daughter when she was brought into the emergency room suffering from a drug overdose all relocated and we know that at least two of them are dead.”

  “That’s right.”

  In spite of everything that had transpired, I was still having trouble believing that. “What are the odds?”

  “I’m not a betting man,” Artie said. “I’ll keep trying to reach the other two, whose numbers don’t work anymore. I’ve already called One PP back in New York to run more detailed checks on all four.”

  “Wanna bet the other two turn out to be deceased, too?”

  “What did I just tell you?”

  “And if you were a betting man?”

  He flashed that Harry McGraw–like scowl again, jowls not dropping as dramatically this time. “That’s one I wouldn’t take.”

  We sipped our drinks, standing there on the sidewalk outside Starbucks, the world continuing to pass by around us.

  “I need to ask you something now, Jessica.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I haven’t asked the question yet.”

  “But chances are that’ll be my answer.”

  “It’s about the manuscript,” Artie said.

  “Have I thanked you for saving my life, by the way?”

  “Only a dozen times, but feel free to thank me again. After you tell me what the missing manuscript has to do with all this.”

  “Best guess?”

  “Best guess.”

  “An author who goes by the name Benjamin Tally wrote something that turned out to be too close to the truth.”

  He nodded, eyes scanning the surrounding area for a place to sit down. “I think it’s time you told me everything you can about the manuscript, the abridged version.”

  “You mean like CliffsNotes?”

  “Anything that helps me understand what the hell is going on here.”

  * * *

  • • •

  I summed up the contents of the manuscript as best I could, composing the kind of plot summary normally found in the kind of extended piece I occasionally penned for the New York Times Book Review. On the sidewalk we’d found a shaded table belonging to a restaurant where the luncheon rush was just ending.

  When I finished, emphasizing what I took to be the most salient points of The Affair for our purposes, Artie just sat there, stonelike and expressionless, as if he hadn’t heard a thing.

  “The Guardians,” he said finally.

  “I thought that would get your attention. What if they’re real, Artie? What if they’re the ones behind all this?”

  “And this author, Benjamin Tally, just made it all up and happened to get lucky?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t call it lucky.”

  “Figure of speech.”

  “The fact is, the best hope we have that Benjamin Tally is still alive is because he used a pseudonym. The only person who probably knew his true identity was Lane Barfield, and he’s dead. In any case, until we find Tally, we won’t know for sure.”

  “I think it’s time to put the resources of the NYPD to good use.”

  “I was thinking more like Homeland Security.”

  “I’d rather keep the circle as small as possible, Jessica, limited to people I trust.”

  “Speaking of which, I think it’s time I called someone I can trust.”

  “Anybody I know?”

  “The first lady of the United States.”

  * * *

  • • •

  I was supposed to meet First Lady Stephanie Albright at the Compass Coffee on Seventeenth Street Northwest between the Capitol Building and the Lincoln Memorial. The airy, bright, and modern coffee shop and roaster was always packed. Luckily, I arrived ahead of her and managed to snag a corner table for two with a clear view of the entrance, so I’d know when her entourage arrived.

  A woman wearing sunglasses, with her hair bunched beneath a wrap, suddenly pulled out the chair across from me without asking if anyone was using it. I looked up, started to protest, then stopped as quickly as I had started.

  “Hello, Jessica,” said the first lady.

  “Stephanie?” I said to the woman, who didn’t resemble the first lady at all.

  She took the chair she’d just pulled out, positioning it so her back was to everyone else in Compass Coffee. I looked around, seeking out her Secret Service detail.

  “I came alone.”

  I waited for her to continue.

  “You said this was about my daughter.”

  “And that’s why you came alone?”

  She shoved her chair farther beneath the table, kept her voice low. “When it comes to this subject, I become a mother again, not the first lady.”

  “Are you in the habit of just walking out of the White House on your own?”

  “I made an exception.”

  There was no point in delaying the issue. “How did your daughter die, Stephanie?”

  She looked angered by my question. “You know how she died; the whole world knows how she died.”

  “No, they don’t, and neither do I.” I decided not to mention the text message I’d received yesterday yet. “I need for you to tell me the truth, Stephanie.”

  “I know you, Jessica. I know you well enough to be sure that you’re looking for confirmation, not information. Why don’t you tell me what you think happened?”

  “I don’t believe it was a drug overdose. I believe Kristen was murdered. I believe she was murdered because of something you and the president had become involved in. And I believe that’s connected to the residence you currently occupy.”

  “A great plot for a mystery,” was all she said, but her voice cracked several times.

  “There’s more. I think she was murdered as a warning to your husband, because whoever wanted to make sure he became president didn’t want him stepping out of line. Is that what happened, Stephanie? Had he stepped out of line, refused to follow somebody else’s plan?”

  “Where’d you get such a ridiculous idea?”

  I took out my phone, jogged it to the text message I’d received yesterday, and angled the screen so she could see it.

  She didn’t die of a drug overdose

  I watched the first lady mouth those words to herself, her lips trembling slightly.

  “Who sent you this?”

  I hardened my stare. “It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

  “Who sent it, Jessica?”

  “I thought maybe you had. Because you were tired of living a lie, because things had spiraled out of control. Because you saw me potentially offering a lifeline to help get the truth out and bring whoever’s behind this down.”

  “You’ve read too many of your own books.”

  “Indeed I have, each one as many times as it takes to get it right. Same thing I do when a real-life case ends up in my lap. I need to get everything right; the difference is that I’m not in control. The story’s not mine to change, just to interpret.”

  “And that’s what you’re doing here? That’s why you called me?”

  “I called to help you,” I told the first lady.

  “I didn’t ask for your help.”

  “Yes, you did
, Stephanie: You asked for my help when you showed up here in disguise without the Secret Service. You had an idea of exactly what this was about as soon as I mentioned your daughter. That’s why you came.”

  The first lady removed her sunglasses. I could tell she’d been crying.

  “They’ll kill you, Jessica.”

  “They already tried.”

  “These are powerful men. You don’t understand.”

  “Help me to understand.”

  “You mean the whole truth, Jessica?”

  “Is there any other?”

  “The truth will bring my husband down.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “You don’t understand,” the first lady implored.

  “You said that already.”

  “It’s not you, not me, not even the president. You’ve sealed all our fates, Jessica. We made a deal with the devil and it looks like he’s finally come to collect on the debt.”

  “Who are these people, Stephanie?”

  “They got him elected. They set this all up.”

  I let that comment hang in the air, weighing everything Stephanie had just said with what I already knew. But there was still another mystery hanging out there.

  “If neither you nor the president sent me that text, it had to be either Sharon Lerner or Harlan Babb,” I said finally. “They were the only other ones in the Oval Office when I met with the president.”

  “It was Sharon.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because Harlan Babb, the chief of staff, was the one who came to us in the beginning. He’s the one who set this whole thing into motion. My husband gets to go from congressman to the most powerful office in the world. All we had to do was cooperate, go along with the plan.”

  “But Kristen disagreed,” I advanced, laying the truth alongside the contents of The Affair, “didn’t she? She caught on to what was happening and became a liability.”

  The first lady didn’t nod, didn’t have to. “How did you figure all this out, Jessica?”

  “Because of a book.”

  “What book?”

  “An unpublished manuscript,” I said, and proceeded to fill her in on what had brought me to Washington in the first place.