Swan Song (6 page)

“Which is why I brought it to you myself. Can you think of anyone who might have been looking for such a letter, Mrs. Farnsworth?”

May tacitly checked with Margo and Isabelle, then me, before answering. “Not the letter, no. Nobody could have known about that, but a writers’ convention is a hotbed of rumors, Mr. Schenk. Everyone wants to be in the know. The liquor flows pretty freely, and tongues loosen up. Drama invariably ensues. More than one mystery novel has been set at a convention and for good reason. I can only imagine the rumors that will fly once news of Lizabeth’s death gets out.” She shook her head in disgust.

“But that’s not what you asked, is it?” She produced the letter from the pocket of her sweater jacket and unfolded it carefully. “Becky, dear, would you be kind enough to make five good, clean copies of this, staple the pages together and number each copy at the top? And Duane, please call Village Pizza and have them deliver two of their large, thin crust house specials to my house in half an hour. No anchovies.”

The young people sprang to do as May asked, obviously excited to be included in whatever was going on.

“You said earlier, Mr. Schenk, that it would have been a federal offense for you to open a letter addressed to me, but we both know that isn’t technically true. The letter had no stamps on it, and it had not yet been posted or put into a mailbox. I’m fairly certain Lizzie didn’t have time to seal it before answering the door. So either you read it, then sealed it and brought it to me to see what additional information I might be able to give you, or you really did receive the letter sealed and brought it to me personally out of compassion. Which is it?” She raised an eyebrow in his direction, and her smile was nonjudgmental. “My niece’s husband is a homicide detective here in town. We can easily arrange to have a DNA analysis done on the saliva used to seal the letter.”

Margo looked dubious about that but wisely kept quiet. Schenk returned May’s gaze, frankly amused. “A little of both, ma’am. The letter was unsealed when it was given to me. I checked the first and last pages for any clue about when it was written. That’s when I saw the time discrepancy. At the end of her letter, Ms. Mulgrew said a room service waiter was knocking on her door at 5:30 a.m.”

“But the waiter who contacted you said he brought coffee at 6:30 a.m. as pre-ordered,” May finished his thought. They smiled at each other in complete understanding.

Duane and Becky returned, and May checked to be sure each copy of the letter was numbered. She returned the original to her pocket and gave one copy to Margo, one to Isabelle, and one to me. We assumed the remaining two were for Duane and Becky, but May surprised us again.

“I don’t want any more copies than absolutely necessary floating around, so I’m going to ask you to share this one between you,” she said, giving the fourth copy to Duane, “but I need as much help as I can get to crack this mystery quickly. Do not let it out of your possession.” Duane nodded solemnly, and Becky made a cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die gesture.

The fifth copy, May held out to Schenk. “I think your instincts are absolutely correct, Mr. Schenk. My belief is that rumors of a final manuscript by a best-selling mystery author, now deceased, have already been spread. Someone else was at Lizzie’s door at dawn this morning, someone who was looking for a manuscript he might have wanted badly enough to kill for, but he didn’t find it. You see, he would have been looking for a big old box of typewritten pages, since Trague was widely rumored to be techno-phobic, but the manuscript was actually produced on a computer and saved to a USB drive, which is safely concealed somewhere for the moment. Lizzie implies in this letter that at least one person is already looking for it. I know you have to get back to your duties at the hotel, but I do hope you’ll help me find it as Liz wanted.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Schenk said as he pocketed the letter and prepared to leave. At the door he paused. “By the way, I sealed the envelope with water,” he threw over his shoulder—and left.

May’s cozy Cape Cod house sat toward the end of a charming cul-de-sac, surrounded by equally well-maintained homes of various styles. The neighborhood population was also diverse and included young couples, a single mom, retirees, kids and dogs. It was exactly the sort of mix May had been seeking when she relocated to Wethersfield from Atlanta after being widowed, and Mack Realty had helped her find it.

Following a rocky period of adjustment, attributable to a local juvenile delinquent and his buddies, she had befriended all her neighbors and endeared herself especially to the children with weekly sessions. Most Wednesday afternoons, the kids crammed into her little house, eager to learn how to make bat houses, bake pumpkin cookies or whatever else Granny May might have in store.

This particular evening the six of us distributed ourselves around May’s living room to enjoy pizza in front of her gas fireplace before settling down to the task at hand. Although we all had copies of Lizabeth Mulgrew’s letter, May read it aloud to refocus our attention:

Friday, February 19
th
(very, very early)

Maybelle –

What a hag you and your companions must think me, and how right on the money you are. I was feeling distinctly hag-like yesterday evening, but I should not have taken it out on you. In my defense I can only say I’d had a bit of a bad day, primarily involving unpleasant test results from the doctors who are determined to delay the inevitable (and prolong my misery) by carving me up and subjecting me to various other indignities over the next year. I said, “No, thank you” as prettily as I could, but still they pouted, which put me into my cups rather earlier than usual. Do please forgive me.

Having recovered my wits and my customary good humor (Ahem!), aided by a great deal of water and several hours’ sleep, I am spending the wee hours rethinking my plan to shock the Mysteries USA members with the truth about the writing and publishing biz. On second thought, why should I bother? They will learn it for themselves soon enough. At this stage of their naively optimistic quest, they wouldn’t believe me anyway, clinging all the more tightly to their misguided hopes. So I shall leave them to it and invent a family emergency to cover my hasty dawn departure.

I candidly advise you to do something similar to avoid the awards dinner Saturday evening. You’re not going to win. I have it on the best authority that Jessica Price will take top honors this year, thanks largely to my superb editing of her latest cozy manuscript, not that she would ever acknowledge my contribution. Without my hard work—unremunerated, of course—she wouldn’t even be in the running. Her ego would never allow for that possibility, but then, I don’t have to tell a publisher colleague about that, do I? Wait until next year, when I’m not around to clean up her sloppy prose, and see how she fares. At any rate, her title is the political favorite this time around, and the totally unbiased judges have gone along, so my advice is to come down with a convenient case of the flu and spare yourself the charade.

You’ll be delighted to know I’m about to get to the point of this rambling diatribe, which has a lot to do with how I wish to be remembered by one of my favorite people. No, I am not going to leave you my publishing company. I wouldn’t burden you with it, as it’s on its last leg. Nor will I saddle you with the three dozen authors currently under contract who will throw hissy fits of impressive proportions when they get the news. I shall simply set my little flock free to make their own way in the world—all, that is, except my single greatest asset, the final manuscript of W.Z.B. Trague.

As you (and everyone else) know, W.Z.B.’s thrillers have been published by Random House, but a few years ago I was lucky enough to land the ebook rights to his backlist, which is substantial and has been lucrative enough to keep my little business afloat. Over time W.Z.B. and I formed a unique bond. To cut to the chase, growing disenchantment with agents and major publishers resulted in W.Z.B. specifying in his will that I would receive the publication rights to his final manuscript, not his agent and not Random House. When he passed on just before Christmas, I received a special delivery package containing a flash drive on which is the manuscript of the mystery world’s next best seller: Swan Song by W.Z.B. Trague. You could have knocked me over with a feather. Ingenious of him, eh? Such a tiny device, so easy to hide, and that’s precisely what I did before I left Lenox to come to Hartford.

The majority of the publishing world hasn’t a clue about all this yet, although between you and me, I’ve had a nagging suspicion that someone is aware that I have the manuscript and intends to get his or her hands on it. This may simply be rampant paranoia, but I still felt it prudent to take precautions. Trague’s will also included instructions to destroy the single hard copy that existed, which I have done. Since I received the flash drive, I’ve been enjoying the hell out of my little secret and looking forward to a bright financial future. Bad timing, I know, but it struck me about an hour ago that W.Z.B. has given me an incredible opportunity to go out with a bang instead of the whimper my doctors are offering. So what say we have some fun, you and I?

Once word gets out about Trague’s defection, all hell will break loose, so you must act quickly. I want you to find the flash drive, publish the manuscript and reap the rewards you so greatly deserve. I trust that this language, written in my own hand, will satisfy any legal eagles who may wish to dispute my decision, so guard it with care until I can have my lawyer tweak my will.

So now all you have to do is find the flash drive before anyone else gets wind of this arrangement. I remembered how much you enjoy setting up puzzles for your sleuth, Ariadne Merriwether, to solve, so I’m betting you’ll have fun finding the solution to this one yourself. The drive is not hidden in my house, my car or my safe deposit box, so don’t waste your time searching there. The key to the drive’s location is contained in this list of song titles. Once you crack the code, which isn’t very difficult, since I am rather pressed for time, you’ll know exactly where to look. Here goes:

My Secret Place

My Heart Is an Open Book

I Will Stand By You

Six and Seven Books

The Best Things in Life Are Free

Best of My Love

Hidden in My Heart

Hometown Girl

Paperback Writer

6,3 … 1,2 … 2,3 … 7,1 … 3,4 … 5,7 … 4,4 …

5,4 … 9,2 … 8,1

Off you go now. As for me, I’ll be incommunicado, traveling to the Galapagos or Australia or maybe Africa while I still can. My attorney, Robert Henley of Lenox, MA, will wind up the details of my estate and close down the business, finally earning the fat retainer I’ve been paying him lo these many years. Since I have no spouse or children, I have only myself to please for whatever time I have left.

Must wind up now as I have an over-eager room service waiter knocking on my door. I said I wanted coffee very early, but 5:30 a.m.???

Have fun, be well,

Lizzie

“Initial thoughts?” she asked over the top of her reading glasses.

Becky was the first to speak from where she sat on the rug, cross-legged. “I think she was smart to hide the flash drive, that’s for sure.”

Duane sprawled beside her, propped up on his elbows, in front of the fireplace. “And smart to shove the letter under the pillows. It’s too bad she got tricked into opening her door to whoever was knocking at 5:30 a.m. I’m really sorry about what happened to your friend, but I’m glad the intruder didn’t get what he was after.”

May regarded him fondly. “Our job is to see that he—or she, by the way, since we don’t know that it was a man—never does. I may not have been able to help Lizzie last night, but I surely plan to carry out her final wishes. What do you make of this code?”

“It can’t be terribly complicated, can it?” Isabelle mused. She took a thoughtful sip of wine. “May had to make it up on the fly. She had her laptop and, presumably, internet access via the hotel’s Wi-Fi, so she could look up the song titles.”

“She could look up everything about them, including the composers, lyricists, every singer who ever covered them and for what labels. Emma does that all the time,” I put in. “There are thousands of databases on line.”

Margo tapped the sheets of paper in her lap with one perfectly manicured nail. “True, but Isabelle makes a good point. It was the wee hours of the morning, remember. May had been drinkin’ pretty hard a few hours earlier, and she was struggling to come to grips with the worst news anyone can get about her health. I’m thinkin’ this is a KISS code.”

“Kiss?” May looked puzzled.

“Keep It Simple, Stupid,” Duane and Becky said together, not even looking up from the letter in front of them.

May laughed out loud, something we hadn’t heard in a while but were very glad to hear now. “Okay, then, it shouldn’t take too long for six reasonably intelligent people to crack it. Where do we start?”

Perhaps the order of the song titles is significant,” I suggested. “The first pair of numbers is 6 and 3. That would translate to Best of My Love I Will Stand by You. The second pair is 1 and 2, which would be My Secret Place My Heart is an Open Book.” I looked up. “Does that make any sense to you?”

“Maybe she hid the drive in a book,” Margo guessed, “but what book and where?”

“Another possibility is that the numbers refer to the song lyrics, not the titles. Can we find those on line?” asked Isabelle.

“Can do,” Duane assured her and whipped out his iPhone. “What’s your wireless network key, May?”