High Heels and Holidays (16 page)

“Okay, that's settled then, isn't it?” she said to fill the awkward silence. “There's food in the kitchen—just go on and help yourselves, please—and Bernie's brought over all the hate mail from the past seven years, so we can each take a stack when we're ready and start looking for wack jobs.”

“Wack jobs, yes,” Alex said—seemed to purr, actually. “Wendell, do you agree to the plan? You are in charge of our little band of merry men and women.”

“Just grab a pile and start reading,” Steve told him gruffly as Maggie and Bernie exchanged looks, Bernie indicating with a few quick head shakes that she wanted to see Maggie in the kitchen.

They were halfway down the hall when Bernie pushed her into the spare bedroom, the one Alex and Sterling had inhabited until they moved across the hall and Alex had returned, to sleep in quite another bedroom, and Maggie wished her mind would just shut up, damn it, because if she didn't know better she'd think Steve knew that or had at least guessed and—“Oh, hell's bells.”

“He knows,” Bernie whispered in the dark. “Steve, that is. He knows. Who told him?”

“You're wrong. He doesn't
know
,” Maggie said, trying to convince herself. “Does he?”

“You saw J.P., right? You saw her, and you
knew
.”

“That's ridiculous, Bernie. With J.P., there were
clues
. Great big flag-waving clues.”

“Exactly,” Bernie said, her smile wicked. “If I hadn't already guessed, I would have known it the moment Alex got here. The way you look at him? The way he looks at you? For a minute there, I thought I heard violin music. Steve had to have noticed. He's a trained investigator, for crying out loud.”

Maggie shook her head. “No, you're wrong. It's something else with Steve. He was acting funny even before Alex got here. Preoccupied. Maybe even guilty. Wow, do you think—do you think he's been cheating on me?”

Bernie gave Maggie a look best interpreted as her “duh” look. “You did hear yourself ask that last question, right?”

“Right, good point.” Maggie dragged her fingers through her hair. “It was easier when I—”

“Wasn't getting any?” Bernie offered helpfully, grinning as widely as her latest BOTOX injection would allow. “Look, Mags, you just need to play it cool. We'll grab something to eat, you'll make me my Shirley Temple, and then we'll go back in there and read letters. Just let things take care of themselves for now. It's not all that bad, I promise. They're men, that's all. Only men.”

Maggie folded her arms, rubbed at her bare upper arms. “Oh, Bernie, if you only knew . . .” she said, longing to give in to the temptation to tell Bernie everything about Alex. The only problem—besides the fact that Bernie could keep a secret about as long as Britney Spears could stay married—was that, while she'd been drinking, Bernie would have believed her, swallowed the whole crazy thing. Sober, she'd probably have her locked up somewhere, weaving baskets. Even the possibility of the terrific sales generated by a melodramatic Oprah book couldn't make her do that.

Five minutes later they were back in the living room, to see everyone else with a stack of letters in their laps, reading.

“You know, what gets to me is how the rat guy knew my address,” McCrae said to no one in particular. “This stuff is all in care of Toland Books, right? I've got an unlisted number, so my address isn't public knowledge. So how'd he get it?”

J.P. swept the pile of letters off her lap and got to her feet. “Maggie, can I use your computer a minute?”

“Sure, go ahead. It's a Mac, so it might seem a little different to you,” Maggie told her, watching as J.P. woke the computer. “Search through Safari, J.P. That compass icon over there, on the right. You are doing a people search, right?”

“Exactly,” J.P. said, launching the search engine. “Come here, sugar.”

McCrae came to heel like a puppy—pitiful, really—as J.P. typed into the search engine. “Hey, I have this same Mac. Love it, don't you, Maggie? I told you, J.P., I'm unlisted. I've looked on those people search sites, and I'm not there.”

“Sugar, nobody's unlisted, not anymore, you've just been looking in the wrong places. I can get your address. I can even pay to get your cell phone records online, find out who you've been calling, who's been calling you. All I need is your cell phone number, and I've got that. Everybody's up for sale on the Internet, and will be until the government stops talking a citizen's right to privacy and starts believing in it. But let's stick to addresses. Maggie, I'll do yours first. Maggie Kelly. New York. Hit
search
and—bing-o!”

“I don't believe it,” Maggie said, picking up her computer glasses and sticking them on her nose as she leaned closer to the screen. “There I am. Name, address—my unlisted phone number? I knew about the addresses part—and a lot of phone books are online now. But
unlisted
phone numbers? Why did I pay extra for an unlisted phone number? Who lets this happen? Type in Bruce's name.”

J.P. did, and up popped Bruce's home address.

“Try mine,” Bernie said, coming to stand behind Maggie. When J.P. had done so, Bernie swore quietly. “Well, don't we all feel safe now? I'd been thinking about upgrading my security system. I guess this settles it. Or are they selling private security codes online now, too?”

“It's not that terrible. If someone wants to find you bad enough, Bernie, he'll find you,” Steve said, shrugging.

“Really? But now somebody's giving out fucking directions.”

“I can do that, too. Driving directions, zoom-in satellite photos, you name it, you can get it,” J.P. said helpfully, and then seemingly changed her mind when Bernie glared down at her. “Hey, I'm sorry. But that's probably how it was done, sugar. Try typing in Hillary Clinton—and up pops Chappaqua. George Clooney, Jennifer Lopez, both the Bushies, you name it. Unless and until something's done about these sites at the federal level, we're all open books to the world—and any crackpot out there. I'm just glad I'm not with the police anymore. I couldn't stomach it, frankly. And you wonder why the big boys want to get rid of trial attorneys?”

“Okay, off the soapbox and back to work,” Maggie said, clapping her hands together a single time. “Alex, give me a bunch of those letters.”

They all worked quietly for a while, until McCrae asked another question. “Let me see if I've got this right. Get our rats in a row, as it were. Maggie, Steve said that you got a rat, too?”

“Yes, I did. I just didn't know that the first time you asked. You seem relieved to hear that.”

“Not precisely relieved, no, but at least we can add to the pattern. And Francis? He got one.”

“But that's not for public knowledge,” Steve reminded him, unfolding yet another letter.

Bernie waved her sandwich in the air to get Wendell's attention. “Hey, down here, Steve. Why not release the information? Maybe if this
all
was public knowledge, we could get somewhere.”

“Yeah, we'd get a bunch of crackpots crawling out of the woodwork, that's what we'd get,” Steve said. “I'm already bending the rules here—again—just by sitting here with you guys. The rat mailings could be coincidence and have nothing to do with the murder. The rest of you are still alive and kicking, right? Plus, we've first got to rule out a killer working the CUNY campus area. That's priority, straight from the mayor's office. His favorite nephew goes to CUNY and lives in the same block where Oakes was killed, in case you're wondering. Again, since all of you are still alive, frankly, we have to consider that the rats were a one-off thing and just happened to happen now.”

“Because barking dogs seldom bite, isn't that right,
left
-tenant? Unless, of course, they do. Granted, Mr. Oakes is our only fatality thus far, rat related or CUNY related. Or has there been another murder close by his place of residence we're not aware of as yet and that's why the mayor is so worried? You would share that with us, wouldn't you?”

“No, Blakely, no more murders. One B and E in the same block two days after Oakes was killed, but that was just a run-of-the-mill TV and stereo robbery. This could all end up being a one-off thing. All I'm saying is we have to have priorities here, we have limited manpower, and all you people have are dead rats and no more threats. So don't second-guess us—you, too, McCrae, all right? We're doing our job.”

Gee, this is fun
, Maggie thought, picking up yet another letter.
I should give these little parties more often, except next time we should probably all play charades. It's quieter
. She removed the paper clip that held the envelope to the letter and began reading. “Oh, wait a minute, I remember this guy,” she said after reading the first two paragraphs of the three-page, single-spaced letter. “George Gordon Bryon.”

“Byron,” Alex corrected punctiliously.

“He wishes,” Maggie said, rolling her eyes. “He took me over the coals for something I wrote about the real Byron in one of my first books. The man slept with a loaded pistol under his pillow—that's known fact. But not to Bryon. I'd maligned his hero. But he never threatened me.”

“So why is a letter from him in the file?” Steve asked.

“I don't know,” Maggie said, quickly reading. “Oh, wait, this is probably why. ‘To imply that Lord Byron had an incestuous affair with his half-sister is a blasphemy not to be countenanced!'” She smiled at everyone. “Another guy who writes with a thesaurus at his elbow. Anyway, he goes on, ‘If you do not remove this offending offal from the shelves of every bookstore forthwith you may inform your author—let it be war upon you both!' ” Maggie put down the letter, grinning now. “That last bit? That's straight out of
Phantom of the Opera
, maybe even word for word. I never touched that part of the Lord Byron story, because there are too many versions out there, some for incest, some against.”

“There's somebody out there
for
incest?” J.P. asked, winking at McCrae. “And she says I need to clean up
my
dialogue? Oh, right. Maggie? I wanted to tell you—you're off the hook, sunshine. Bruce has volunteered to mentor me, haven't you, sugar?”

“Well, I'm crushed,” Maggie mumbled, folding the letter and clipping it to the envelope once more.

“I'll take that, thank you,” Alex said, snatching the letter from her hand. “There are two more from Mr. Bryon that I've located, and he was nice enough to include his return address, which is to Bryon's Book Nook. The address is in Greenwich Village, I believe. I think it might be prudent to pay a small visit to the gentleman.”

“But he never did anything,” Bernie pointed out. “Hell, everyone in publishing knows about good old George G. Bryon. He's a flake, but he's harmless.”

“This one doesn't sound so harmless,” McCrae said, handing a letter to Bernie. “Valentino Gates. Does that name ring any bells?”

Bernie adjusted her rimless reading glasses and began to read, her lips moving even as her eyes widened. “Why in hell wasn't this one turned over to the lawyers?” She squinted at the envelope. “Postmark's here in Manhattan, late last year.”

“What's in the letter, Bernie?” Maggie asked, walking over to lean down on the back of the couch.

“It's about Jonathan West,” Bernie told everyone, “and it's directed to Kirk—you all remember Kirk, right?”

There was a general murmur of agreement, because they all remembered Kirk Toland, although some of them had only learned about him after his death. His murder, actually.

Maggie read the typed letter over Bernie's shoulder.
“ ‘Greatest writer of our age . . . coldly, callously shunted aside . . . genius denied . . . a pinheaded idiot who wouldn't know talent if it jumped up and bit off his nose'
—yup, definitely directed toward Kirk,” she ended, grinning at Alex.

“But no overt threat?”

“No, Steve, no overt threat,” Bernie said. “Just creepy. There's just this underlying tone of malice.
Demand you acknowledge your mistake
. . .
Jonathan West will be avenged
. . .
you have six months
—damn it, that part is kind of overt, isn't it, if not specific? This should have gone to the lawyers.”

“Valentino Gates,”
Steve read when Bernie handed him the letter. “You think that's an alias?”

Alex was already at the computer, as J.P. had left the search engine on the page where she'd demonstrated how easy it was to get anyone's home address. “He's real enough,” he said a few moments later. “And here's a coincidence—his address also, I believe, is in Greenwich Village.”

“Oh, wait a minute,” Bernie said, holding up a hand. “Valentino Gates, I know that name. He's a writer—well, he
thinks
he's a writer. The truth is that if every published author in the known world suddenly was vaporized by a Martian death ray, Valentino Gates
still
couldn't get published. But what he's got to do with Jonathan West, I don't know. Just a dedicated fan, I guess. Very dedicated.”

Maggie rubbed her hands together. “Okay, but now at least we're getting somewhere.” Then she frowned. “Where are we getting?”

J.P. returned her pile of letters to the coffee table. “Maggie's right. This is nothing more than a fishing exhibition. So far, none of these letters are about Francis Oakes, and he's our stiff. You've got nothing, Steve, no grounds for warrants. Zilch. Speaking as a defense attorney, it's my opinion that—”