The Paper Mirror (30 page)

Damn! There was that wave of guilt again!

To take my mind off it, I called Glen O’Banyon’s office, and on being told that he was with a client, I left my number and asked to have him call me just as soon as he could.

I fixed a pot of coffee and sat back down at my desk, staring into the cup as though it held some deep secret. Fortunately, the ringing of the phone pulled me back to the real world.

“Hardesty Investigations,” I said, setting the coffee cup down on the desk.

“Dick, hi.” I recognized Tim’s voice immediately. “Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. We just finished with Dave Witherspoon…I gather that’s why you called me.”

“Yeah,” I said. “What can you tell me about it?”

“Not too much. Blunt trauma to the back of the skull, very similar to that earlier death at the Burrows.”

“Caused by the fall?” I asked, knowing full well that this one was no accident.

“Hard to say, but probably not. With Cates, the size and shape of the wound indicated almost a puncture, and could have been from his hitting a corner of the metal stairs as he fell. With this one—an almost identical wound, he fell down concrete steps with no sharp edges that could cause a wound of that shape.”

“Any indication of a murder weapon?”

“Not at the scene. A piece of pipe, maybe? We’ll be examining the wound more closely to get a better idea of what it might have been.”

“The police say there was a broken bottle of booze by the body, and that he reeked of alcohol.”

“Yeah, that’s another interesting thing,” Tim said. “He may have had a drink or two earlier in the evening, but his blood alcohol levels were well within limits. The smell of alcohol was pretty strong, though…almost like he’d spilled it all over himself.”

“Or someone else had done it for him to make it look as though he were drunk,” I said. “Did you determine a time of death?”

“Somewhere between ten p.m. and midnight, roughly.”

“Well thanks a lot for the information, Tim. I owe you.”

“Ah,” Tim said, “sounds just like the old days.”

I knew he was referring to the time before he met Phil or I met Jonathan when, as I’d mentioned, Tim and I used to spend some very pleasant…uh…single-guy time together…and I laughed.

“Yeah,” I said. “Sorry I can’t repay you like I used to, but we wouldn’t want to break up two happy homes, now, would we?”

“Nope,” Tim said. “But a little nostalgia’s no crime.”

“I’ll drink to that,” I said.

“And on that happy note, I’ve really got to run,” Tim said. “Talk to you soon. Give my best to Jonathan and Joshua.”

“And you to Phil. So long.”

*

Talking to Tim—even albeit about dead bodies—lifted me out of my guilt trip. But I also realized I was experiencing a little something akin to postpartum depression. I mean, I’d been working on this case for what seemed like a long time, and suddenly, in one poor guy’s assisted fall down a flight of stairs, it was over. Well,
it
wasn’t over; there’d still have to be a charge and a trial and a conviction, but
my
direct involvement was finished. I’d be an onlooker from here on out.

Not having heard from Glen O’Banyon yet, I took a quick minute to call Wayne Powers to see about borrowing the letters again. He wasn’t home, so I left a message, and had no sooner hung up the receiver when Glen called.

“What’s going on?” he asked, and I told him everything I knew, including my conversation with Marty and his partner and my talk with Tim.

“There is one minor side issue,” I said, “and while it doesn’t really involve me at all, directly, I am concerned about it on Morgan Butler’s behalf.”

“And what is that?” O’Banyon asked.

“
If
the police find more manuscripts in Knight’s house, and I have a hunch they will—I know he was getting another book ready for his publisher—it raises the question of what to do with them, and who has the rights.”

There was a slight pause, then O’Banyon said, “Well, the Burrows has the rights, unless Morgan assigned them to his son. I know he left a will, and that his bequest to the Burrows Collection is specifically in it, but I don’t know if he made any separate or specific mention of unpublished manuscripts. I can check, though.”

“I don’t know if anything can be done with those manuscripts already published under Evan’s name, as far as giving Morgan credit for them,” I said, “but if there are unpublished manuscripts, I’d really like to see them published under Morgan’s name. Plus, they could bring in quite a bit of money to the Burrows Foundation.”

“A good point,” O’Banyon said. “I’ll definitely check into it. We’ve got enough trouble with Collin Butler as it is…we don’t want another squabble over rights to Morgan’s books.”

“I’m sure Collin would fight for them,” I said, “but not for the money they could bring. I think he’d want them just to make sure they were never published. It may sound a little odd, but I feel I owe it to Morgan to be sure that doesn’t happen.”

“Well let me get back to you on that. I’ll have one of my associates look into the will immediately.”

There was another pause, then, “Well, I’d better set up a meeting with the board to let everyone know what’s going on. Thanks for everything, Dick.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. “It’s been an interesting case.”

*

I’d put the photos to be framed in the back seat of my car before leaving for work, and had arranged to meet Jonathan and Joshua at the framer’s, which turned out to be in the basement level of a very nice little art shop in one of the more trendy parts of town.

Seeing the fragile nature of many of the glassware and sculptures on display as we entered, Jonathan wisely picked a fascinated Joshua up and carried him through the danger zone.

“Put me down!” Joshua insisted. “I wanna
see
!”

“When we get downstairs,” Jonathan said, nodding me toward a neatly painted sign near the stairway.

I had no idea there were so many different types and styles of picture frame available, but this place seemed to have them all. It took nearly half an hour to make the right selection…which is to say one Jonathan and I agreed on…for each of the three photos we were planning to hang. The process was interrupted twice by first Jonathan’s and then my hurrying over to scoop Joshua off the stairs as he tried to take advantage of our distraction to go up and play with the “toys” on the main floor.

Told that the newly framed pictures would be ready within the week, we left and celebrated Joshua’s getting out of the place without breaking anything by going to Cap’n Rooney’s Fish Shack for dinner. It occurred to me that we ate there so often we should buy stock in the place.

*

When we got home, I called Wayne Powers’ number, and found him home. I asked if I could borrow the letters again, explaining that the police wanted copies of those which could prove some of Morgan’s other papers had been stolen from the Burrows Collection.

“I’ll be home all morning,” Powers said, “if you’d like to come by and get them. Though to be honest, I feel a little awkward about …well, you know…these are personal letters to Scot, and…”

“I understand of course,” I said, and I did. “I can come over around nine thirty, if that’s okay. And if you have the time for me to go quickly through them while I’m there, I’ll be able to take only the letters I think would be pertinent to their investigation.”

“I’d appreciate that,” he said. “So I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

“Yes, and thanks again.”

*

It wasn’t until Joshua was in bed and asleep that I had a chance to fill Jonathan in on everything that had happened during the day.

“You mean Evan didn’t write all those books?” he asked, incredulous. “I knew he wasn’t the nice guy I thought he was at first, but that he’d steal another writer’s books? And then
kill
somebody?” He shook his head. “Wow.”

He was quiet for a minute, then looked at me, his face serious. “I guess it’s true what they say.”

“What’s that?”

“You can’t tell a book by its cover,” he said, and grinned.

I groaned and reached over to grab him by the back of the neck. “Time for bed, Jonathan,” I said.

“Make me!” he said, defiantly.

“My thought exactly.”

*

Ever since I first discovered sex, I have noticed that it is an excellent way to relieve tensions, and I awoke the next morning feeling much more positive about the world in general. A case was, after all, just a case, and they aren’t always pleasant. I was truly sorry Dave Witherspoon was dead, but I couldn’t let myself take the blame for it.

Joshua, in the few minutes before his before-bedtime bath, had apparently picked up a new word from a medical show we’d been watching on TV:
hyperventilating
. He must have used it six times during breakfast. He wasn’t, he assured me when I told him not to play with his cereal, playing with it, he was hyperventilating it. The fact that he had no idea what a word meant didn’t slow him down. If he liked it, he used it.

“As soon as you’re old enough to read,” Jonathan told him, “we’ll get you a dictionary so you can look up words to see what they mean.”

“I can read now!” the boy responded, and in fact he could make out quite a few of the more common words in his story books. “I’m hyperventilating,” he said firmly, as though that settled the debate once and for all.

*

I arrived at Wayne Powers’ house right on time (I was getting much better at not arriving fifteen minutes early every time I went somewhere), and was greeted at the door by an eager Andy, butt and tail both waggling. Wayne invited me into the kitchen for a cup of coffee, and had the box of letters open on the kitchen table.

Having read all the letters at least twice—and, in the case of those that hadn’t been removed from the Burrows Collection, four times—I was able to move through them rather quickly as we sat and drank our coffee. I set aside those few which had direct reference to incidents in the books, and those in which he talked about writing constantly. There were maybe fifteen letters when I finished. And when I reached that final letter—which of course I did not take, since it had no bearing on the plagiarism—I wondered again what had happened to the copy torn from the spiral notebook.

Wayne and I had another cup of coffee and talked for a few minutes after the letters I wasn’t taking were returned safely to the box. The more time I spent around Wayne, the better I liked him. He was, as Morgan had been, a high school English teacher, and retired about the time that Scot died. He’d traveled extensively, read vociferously, and had many interests. I told him about Jonathan and Joshua and something of my life, and he had the tact and diplomacy to at least appear to be interested. Andy, with his head on my lap, was obviously enraptured hearing me talk…as long as I kept stroking his head.

I invited Wayne to have dinner with us as a small token of my appreciation for his help, and I knew Jonathan would enjoy meeting him. He accepted with thanks, and I told him we’d call to set up a date.

While he went to get me a manila folder to put the letters in, I asked if I could use his phone to call the City Annex to see if Marty might be in. I thought I might be able to go directly there from Wayne’s house rather than going to the office first. But no luck on that one; neither Marty nor Detective Carpenter…Dan Carpenter, I learned…was in, but I left my office number and asked them to call.

*

There were two calls waiting when I got to the office, Glen O’Banyon and Marty. I tried Glen first, in case he might have something for me I could pass on to Marty. I was both surprised and relieved when I was put right through.

“Hi, Dick,” he said. “Just wanted to let you know that I sent one of my junior associates down to probate to check Morgan Butler’s will. It took a while for them to find it, since they put records in storage after ten years, but he found it. There is no specific reference to any books, though the bequest to the Burrows Collection does state ‘all personal papers,’ which would cover them.”

“Ah, good,” I said. “Now we have to find out if there are any more unpublished works out there. Will you be initiating a suit against Evan Knight for the books he already published?”

“I think we’ll hold off a bit on that until we see how this murder thing goes,” he said. “But I’ve called a meeting of the board for tonight at nine at the Burrows. Can you make it? I think the board would like to hear everything directly from you.”

“Sure. But isn’t nine a little late?”

“The library’s open until nine,” he said. “And this will give us more privacy, and give everyone time to have dinner first. Use the side entrance and come to the conference room next to McGill’s office.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll see you at nine.”

As soon as we hung up, I called the City Annex and asked for Marty’s extension. The phone was picked up immediately.

“Detective Gresham.”

“Marty, Dick. I got the letters. Do you want me to bring them over?”

“Actually,” he said, “we were just on our way out. Things are really moving in the Witherspoon case. Are you going to be at your office? We’ll stop by there as soon as we can. We can pick up the letters and fill you in on what’s happening.”