Chasing Venus (4 page)

It was naïve, he knew,
the triumph of hope over experience.
 
It’d aired how many times without a tip leading to a capture?
 
Six.
 
That made this seven.

Lucky seven.

He let his hope rise as
he walked to his own car.

*

Before dawn broke over
the
Potrero
Hills neighborhood of San Francisco, FBI
Special Agent in Charge Lionel Simpson got a phone call.
 
He reached a brawny arm toward his
bedside table, kept his voice low so as not to wake his wife.
 
“Simpson.”

“It’s Higuchi.”
 
Simpson’s assistant in the local field
office.
 
“Sorry to call at this hour
but I thought you’d want to know.”

“
Whatcha
got?”

“The prints
ID’ed
from the blowgun that shot the dart in the Maggie
Boswell case.”

Simpson sat up a little
straighter.
 
“And?”

“We got a few
matches.
 
One in particular.”

Beside Simpson, his
wife hiked the patchwork quilt higher on her shoulders and snuggled deeper into
her pillow.
 
He lowered his
voice.
 
“Whose?”

“One set belongs to
Annette Rowell.”

Usually Annie loved San
Francisco’s hills.
 
Today, pushing
Michael’s wheelchair up one of them, she wasn’t so enthusiastic.

She came to a panting
halt on the wide sidewalk in front of Saint Alban’s Episcopal Church, a stone
pile with a fire-engine-red entry door.
 
The weather suited a wedding more than a funeral but Annie knew that
didn’t account for the massive turnout.
 
That was the product of Maggie Boswell’s celebrity, and the shocking way
in which she had met her end.

Mourners in all variety
of somber clothing were descending on the church in droves.
 
Annie knew many of the faces from
publishing; others she recognized from politics and Hollywood.
 
Maggie Boswell had made it a point to
mingle with the rich and famous and now they were turning out in her hometown
to pay their respects.
 
But famous
or no-name, everybody had to push through TV crews, reporters, and photographers.
 
Annie understood now why she hadn’t been
able to park nearby.
 
The prime
curbside spots had been claimed by news vans, satellite trucks, and
limousines.
 
The hearse would have
to double-park.

Michael glanced at her
over his shoulder and arched a bushy gray eyebrow.
 
“It’s a mob scene.”
 
He winked.
 
“Maggie would have loved it.”

Annie returned a wry
smile.
 
She had complicated feelings
about Maggie Boswell.
 
She admired
her as a writer but hadn’t liked her as a person, in part because she’d given
Annie’s first novel the cold shoulder.
 
When Annie’s editor had submitted an early draft of the book and asked
with great deference if Ms. Boswell might help out the fledgling author by
providing a quote for the cover, the only response they’d received was silence.

In contrast to Michael,
who’d given Annie a rave review.

“Thanks again for
coming with me,” he said.

Her lips formed the
words “No problem” though that wasn’t quite right.
 
She wished she’d been able to beg
off.
 
But from the day she’d walked
into Michael’s writing class, he’d helped her in a million ways.
 
The veteran bestseller had taken the
newbie under his wing, lavishing praise and encouragement and helping her hone
her craft.
 
So if Michael wanted to
attend Maggie Boswell’s service, and wanted Annie to go with him, she’d do it.

Annie was nearly to the
wheelchair ramp when a female reporter blocked her way.
 
“Amy Chan, Eyewitness News,” the woman
said to Michael.
 
Ignoring Annie,
she motioned her TV cameraman to angle himself behind her right shoulder and
point his lens in Michael’s face.
 
“May I ask you a few questions, Mr. Ellsworth?”

Apparently Ms. Chan had
done enough research on bestselling mystery writers to recognize Michael on
sight.
 
Even without the wheelchair,
he stood out.
 
He was white-haired
and impeccably dressed, with an Old World elegance about him.
 
It was easier to imagine him sipping
sherry in a London club than hunched over a keyboard in Corona Del Mar, banging
out the hard-boiled detective stories that made him a household name.
     

“Of course,” Michael
said, gracious as always, and the words had barely left his lips before several
other reporters crowded around.

Chan thrust her
microphone toward Michael’s face.
 
“There are two main theories about who’s killing the writers.
 
One is that it’s a psychopath with no connection
to publishing.
 
The other is that
it’s a mystery author.
 
An inside
job, so to speak.
 
Which is it, in
your opinion?”

“That’s a police
matter, and it’s not for me to speculate.”

“But all three of the
murders mirror plotlines from the victim’s own books,” she went on.
 
“Doesn’t that seem like something a
writer would do?”

“Possibly, but not
necessarily.
 
It seems apparent that
the killer is targeting mystery writers and we may presume that he or she is
taking a devilish pleasure in killing them according to scenarios that the
victims themselves devised in their fiction.
 
But in my opinion that doesn’t narrow
the field of suspects to authors.”

A black male reporter
piped up.
 
“But who besides an
author would have motive?”
 
Several
around him nodded.
 
“An author might
want the competition dead and gone.
 
Who else would?”

Michael shook his
head.
 
“I will not presume to
understand the motivation of a serial killer.
 
I think it best that all of us leave
that to the experts.”

Chan spoke again.
 
“Aren’t you afraid for yourself, Mr.
Ellsworth?
 
Right now you’re the
best-selling mystery author alive.
 
Doesn’t that make you the most plausible next target for the killer?”

Annie bristled.
 
Michael was frightened enough already,
though he did a masterful job hiding it.
 
“What kind of question is that?” she heard herself ask, but Michael
quieted her with a wave of his hand and a wry smile.

“If only I were half as
important as you seem to think I am, Ms. Chan.
 
But I guarantee you that many people do
not.
 
My publisher, for one.
 
And, I’ll warrant, the killer for
another.”

The reporters laughed
but Annie had had enough.
 
“We’re
done here,” she said, then stepped backward to escape the reporters and once
again make for the wheelchair ramp.
 
She leaned down to whisper in Michael’s ear.
 
“I hope you were ready to go.”

“More than ready.”

Halfway up the ramp
they were interrupted again, this time by a man who eschewed the dress code by
wearing denim and leather.
 
“Let me
help you,” he said, and attempted to edge Annie aside and take her place behind
the wheelchair.

“Thank you, no.”
 
She kept moving.
 
Unfortunately none too quickly, as the
ramp was on the steep side and she hadn’t yet recovered from the uphill walk
from the car.

“Please.”

“I’m fine.”
 
She hated when men treated women like
weaklings.
 
Plus, these days she
liked to prove to herself that she could manage things on her own.

The man stopped trying
to wrest the wheelchair from her but didn’t leave her alone.
 
“You don’t like the press?”

“Not when they ask
inappropriate questions just so they can get a juicy sound bite.
 
Are you all right, Michael?”

“I’m fine,” he called
back.

“It’s up to reporters
to ask the tough questions,” Leather and Denim said.
 
“The questions everybody wants answered
but is too afraid to ask.”

“Maybe so, but they
should still exercise some common sense.”
 
Annie reached the top of the ramp and stopped so Michael could greet an
editor who’d rushed over.

Who was this guy?
Annie wondered.
 
She didn’t recognize him from
publishing; plus he had a man’s man look about him she didn’t often run across
in the literary world.
 
He didn’t
seem like a politician, either.
 
Maybe an actor?
 
No, his face
was too lined, too world-weary.
 
Not
pretty enough.
 
Attractive, though,
in a tough-guy way.

“Are you a reporter,
too?” she asked.

“No.”

She was about to
inquire how he knew Maggie Boswell when a TV cameraman appeared at his
side.
 
“I got the set-up shots you
wanted.
 
Ready to go inside?”

“You go on ahead.
 
I’ll be right there.”
 
Then he turned again toward her.

She crossed her arms
over her chest.
 
“You said you
weren’t a reporter.”

“I’m not.”

“Then why are you
walking around with a camera crew?”

“I’m a show host.
 
For
Crimewatch
.
 
It’s on Friday nights at nine.”

Crimewatch
?
 
She’d heard
of it, never watched it.

“I was hoping,” he
said, “that we could put a camera on you so you could give your thoughts about
the writer murders.”

“I don’t think so,” she
said, then pushed Michael forward when he gave a slight wave of his hand.

Inside the church,
Annie claimed the end of a pew and parked Michael’s wheelchair beside her in
the aisle.
 
He leaned toward
her.
 
“So you met Reid Gardner?” he
whispered.

“Is that what his name
is?”

“He must be doing a
story on the murders.”
 
Michael
gazed at the altar, where several ministers were assuming the starting
position.
 
“I’ll be interested to
hear his take.”

That surprised
her.
 
“You watch his show?”

“I’ve watched it for
years.”

Annie felt a tap on her
shoulder.
 
It was her agent, looking
as unkempt as ever despite his suit and tie.

She hadn’t retained
Frankie
Morsie
for his looks.
 
He was a former wrestler whose muscles
had long ago gone to fat and who never grasped that no man past college age
should sport a ponytail.
 
Still, Frankie
“The Pitchfork”
Morsie
had proved he could pin a publisher
to the mat when need be and that was all Annie really cared about.

Frankie reached down to
shake Michael’s hand, then spoke to Annie.
 
“I didn’t think I’d run into you here.”

“Same goes double for
you.”

His mud-colored eyes
darted away.
 
Annie got the feeling
he was reliving past hurts with the deceased, the stuff of legend in the
industry.
 
Frankie had
repped
Maggie Boswell for a few years.
 
Then she’d fired him in the most
humiliating way possible, by screaming insults in a Manhattan restaurant that
catered to the publishing crowd.
 
In
true wrestler style, he’d overturned the table and stalked out.

His eyes came back to
hers and this time they shone with a new light.
 
“I got good news for you, Annie.
 
You made it.”
 
She watched him kind of puff up.
 
“I told you I’d make you a star and I
did.
 
You’re gonna hit the list next
week.”

“What?
 
The
list?
 
I made it?”

He nodded, beaming like
a proud parent.
 
Or maybe like a
relieved agent whose client had finally started gaining real traction.
 
“You’re gonna come in at fourteen.”

She knew exactly what
he meant.
 
Any author would, though
it was far more than the vast majority would ever achieve.

The
New York Times
bestsellers list.
 
The most prestigious of all, the hardest
to crack, and she’d made it.
 
Devil’s Cradle
had made it.

She stared straight
ahead, focusing on odd things, the ministers huddled at the front of the
church; the redhead two pews ahead who couldn’t stop fingering her hair; the
scuffling at the rear of the church that signaled that the Boswell family was
about to make its solemn progress up the aisle.
 
She glanced at Michael, who look as
delighted as Frankie.
 
Michael
grasped her hand and held it and all she could do was squeeze back, as tears of
joy and gratitude pricked hot behind her eyes.