Joanne Dobson - Karen Pelletier 05 - The Maltese Manuscript (26 page)

The waiter approached, a skinny student whose entire head was shaved except for a flop of bleached hair at the crown. Earlene asked for a Caesar salad.

I opened the tall menu, stared mindlessly, then slapped it shut. None of this stylish food appealed. “Earlene, what would you say if I ordered a double martini?”

She pursed her lips. “You’re teaching this afternoon, aren’t you?”

I nodded.

“Then I’d say you’re out of your mind.” She turned to the waiter. “She’ll have a Caesar salad, too. No martini.” He scribbled on his pad and slouched away.

I shook out the linen napkin and spread it on my lap. “Earlene, I am getting such a sick feeling about Peggy. You know a lot more about her than you’ve told me. You really have to help me out here.”

“Hmm.” She waved at Avery Mitchell, just entering with two white-haired men, both in navy blazers with gold buttons. Tweedledee and Tweedledum. They had to be either college trustees or wealthy alumni ripe for the fleecing.

The waiter delivered a basket of bread, what Amanda calls “holy bread,” presented with such a reverential air it feels like worship to bite into it. I chose a chunk of Russian black bread and lavished it with pale sweet butter. Earlene went for the cornbread with jalapeno.

“So…give,” I demanded.

“Well, okay…since we definitely need to find out what’s going on with her. This is all confidential, Karen….”

“Of course.”

She sighed. “Earlier this spring Peggy had a problem at home that almost caused her to drop out of school. I can’t be more specific about it than that. We were looking into the possibility of college housing for her and her little girl—her niece really—”

“Triste. She told me.”

“Peggy is devoted to her. But it was difficult. You can’t house a child in a dorm, and there were no openings in faculty housing. To tell the truth, I was about to take them in with me until I could work something out. Then Peggy changed her mind, said she had to stay at home—her mother needed her.”

“Poor kid, she must be torn between her two lives.” I watched the waiter deliver my martinis to Avery’s table. Checkbook lubrication, I thought, and took a sip of Perrier.

“She’s not a kid—we’ve got to remember that about Peggy. She’s a fully grown woman. I’ve never known a student so mature, so aware of her responsibilities. When I think of some of the spoiled cry-babies at this school…Anyhow, that’s what makes me so uneasy about her missing classes and not showing up for her job in the library. It’s just not like her. And, in addition to everything else, Peggy’s been working on a book—”

“She has?” This was news to me. “What kind of book?”

“The story of her sister’s life and death. She’s just about finished it. She practically made me take a blood oath of silence. That’s why I didn’t say anything when you were at my house the other day. But now…You
have
talked to Charlie about Peggy, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

My brusque response merited a raised eyebrow.

“Why didn’t Peggy want anyone to know about the book?” I asked.

“I think she was…embarrassed.”

“You mean it’s no good?” The waiter placed the salads in front of us with a flourish, then produced a high-tech stainless-steel pepper-mill from a holster on his hip. Earlene waved him away before he could press the trigger. I had to grab him by the sleeve to get him back.

“No. Not that at all. It’s more like she feels she doesn’t have the
right
to be an author, that she’s encroaching on forbidden territory. She actually said, ‘People like me don’t write books.’”

“Trespass…” I thought about Sunnye Hardcastle, also from a deprived background, but with no compunctions at all about trespassing.

Earlene laughed. “That’s actually very apt. Literary trespass.”

“As if,” I mused, “the world of print was a reserve for the privileged.” I took a bite of salad. It was perfect, just the right touch of anchovy in the dressing. I wished I were eating a hamburger. “So…she wants to get it published?”

“Yes. She’s adamant that her sister’s story be told, and precisely as it happened, with no embellishments.”

“Hmm. True Crime—there’s a market for that. Have you read the manuscript?”

“No. She said she wanted to show it to a friend first. She didn’t say who, someone who knew about those things. Someone who was taking a creative writing major.”

“Must be Stephanie,” I said. “She’s a poet.” Then I recalled Stephanie waiting for Peggy after class the day of Peggy’s outburst. Peggy had handed her a bulky bag. I tried to re-visualize the scene. A plastic grocery bag, Stop ‘N’ Shop, with pages poking out of a rip in the bottom. And Peggy had been almost furtive about the exchange. It could have been her book manuscript in that bag.

“Stephanie definitely knows more than she’s letting on,” I said to Earlene. “How can we encourage her to tell us?”

My companion sighed. “She’ll talk if and when she wants to talk. Until then all we can do is make ourselves available.”

The sound and scent of sizzling steak caught my attention. I glanced over at Avery’s table where fajitas were being delivered. I beckoned to the waiter and requested the dessert menu.

Chapter Twenty-two

My class went well, and I called Amanda before I left for home. “Hey, Sweetie, how you doing?”

“I’m tired, Mom. I’m just really tired.”

“Can I bring you anything?”

“Videos. I’ve been watching
Key Largo
on HBO, and I want more, more, more—black-and-white, moody Humphrey Bogart.”

“I’ll see what I can find, kid. We’ll have a Bogie festival.”

When I pulled up to the house an hour later, a black Lincoln Town Car was parked at a skewed angle in my driveway, one wheel mired in the tulip bed. I stared at it hard but couldn’t make it belong to anyone I knew. My skin crawled: Amanda, alone, sick, helpless in the hands of a sinister intruder. The afternoon was just edging into evening. A wind had sprung up, tossing the bare tree branches. No one was anywhere around. Across the street, the only house in sight was long abandoned. The road was empty of vehicles. I checked my car for a weapon, and grabbed the plastic bag of videos—sharp edges, good heft. I swung it for practice, then crept toward the house. The kitchen door was ajar. I edged it fully open and tiptoed in.

***

A fire blazed in the wood stove. The smell of buttered popcorn hung in the air. Amanda was curled up in one corner of the couch, Sunnye Hardcastle in the other. Trouble sprawled between them. They were watching the end of
Key Largo
.

“Sunnye! What the—” She’d torn up my flower bed, left my kitchen door open, and scared the hell out of me. Now here she sat, cool as a cucumber, eating my popcorn and watching videos with my daughter.

The novelist held up an imperious hand. “Give us a minute, Karen. This is almost over.” No light in the room other than the glow of the fire and the flickering grey of the TV screen. Without removing my coat, I sank into the black Naugahyde chair. The theme music swelled and the film credits began to roll. No one spoke until the screen resolved into visual static. Amanda sighed, then looked intently at the video bag. “What else did you get me?” She was wearing one of the sleep shirts I’d bought her, over grey sweatpants. Her short hair stuck straight up on one side.

“You’re going to love these.” I tossed her the bag of videos. “Hello, Sunnye.”

“Hi, Karen.” She dipped her hand into the big green popcorn bowl. She wore dark jeans and a rose-red sweater. Next to poor, pallid Amanda she seemed to glow with health.

“Did we have a date, or something? Did I forget you were coming?” I levered myself up from the chair and unbuttoned my coat.

She shrugged. “I got bored at the hotel, so I thought I’d rent a car and come up to hit the antiquarian bookstores again. Then I decided to drive out here to see if you knew anything more about what’s going on with the library case.” She was talking too fast. “Got here just in time to catch Bacall tell Bogey to pucker up his lips and blow. What a knock-out film!”

Amanda stacked up the videos.
“The Maltese Falcon!
Co-oo-l! Sunnye, can you stay for dinner? We’ll watch this one afterwards.” Without waiting for a response, my daughter looked over at me with her beautiful hazel eyes. “You know, Mom, I should probably tell you something. Sunnye and I have been talking about—”

I broke in. I didn’t want to hear it. To tell the truth, I was envious of my daughter’s admiration for the mystery novelist. “She’s probably seen
The Maltese Falcon
a thousand times,” I told Amanda. Anyhow, I didn’t have time for company. I had tons of reading to do before class tomorrow.

“But it’s always fun. You want to watch it again, don’t you, Sunnye?”

“I’d like to…” Sunnye seemed hesitant. She slid her eyes over at Amanda. What
had
they been talking about, anyhow? Trouble fixed me in his enigmatic gaze.

Suddenly the writer’s uncharacteristic diffidence struck me.
Sunnye’s lonely
, I realized.
Sunnye Hardcastle, celebrity author, world traveler, urban explorer wants to be friends. She needs a refuge.

And her little dog, too.

“Great,” I said, my jealousy dissipating. I could prep my class in the morning. “I picked up a roast chicken on the way home, potato salad, some other stuff. We’ll eat, then have an evening of film noir.”

Sunnye grinned at me, and hefted her leather bag, which had been leaning against the couch. “Isn’t that odd—I just happen to have a nice bottle of pinot noir in my bag.”

***

I was too tired to attempt anything complicated like carving the chicken. I slid it whole from the plastic container onto a platter, slapped down silverware and plates, took out wine glasses and rinsed them. We sat, and Sunnye poured the wine.

From the road, headlights raked the dining-room window, then vanished. Then another car passed slowly, its motor loud in the country quiet. Two cars in a row on my deserted road. Hmm. I rose from the table and drew the curtains shut. Another car crawled by, this time in the opposite direction. I shuddered: What had happened to my safe, sane, predictable life? I hacked a thigh off the chicken, then flopped the bird over to fork out the two succulent pieces at the base of the backbone. Trouble eyed me lovingly. He laid his head in my lap. I hesitated, then slipped him one of the tender back morsels. He accepted it gingerly, leaving my fingers intact.

“You should assume you’re being watched,” I told Sunnye.

She paused as she spooned potato salad from the plastic tub onto her plate, then glanced nervously at the window. “You think there are reporters out there?”

“Well, maybe. But I meant, by the police. As far as I know, they don’t have any other suspects, and they’ll want to know where you are, who you’re with, what you’re up to.”

“Surveillance,” Amanda said. Her eyes were slitted, like those of a street-savvy television cop.

“Oh, the police.” Sunnye shrugged, and returned her attention to the food:
No problem
.

I wondered just exactly what had transpired that morning with her high-powered L.A. lawyer.

“Then I hope they had fun lurking outside Henshaw’s Rare and Antiquarian Books for over three hours,” she continued. “I know
I
enjoyed being there. Paul’s got terrific stuff.” She tore a wing off the chicken and winked at us. “In more ways than one.”

Amanda grinned. At least my poor, ailing daughter wasn’t being freaked out by the prowling cars.

“Henshaw’s? Isn’t that the shop you went to last week?” I asked.

“Yeah. Any law says I can’t go back?” Sunnye nibbled on a wing. “He is a bit of a hunk, don’t you think? Not bad for a…a mature guy.”

“Not bad at all, for any guy. So, you two hit it off?”

“Sure. He’s smart, knows everything there is to know about American first editions. He’s got a sense of humor. Great conversationalist, too. He showed me his stock. I signed some books. We had coffee. Talked for a long time. I bought a couple of books, even found a copy of—” She stopped abruptly.

“You found a copy of
what
?” I asked.

“Oh, just something I was looking for. Nothing particularly interesting.” I could almost hear the gears grind as she changed the subject. “Listen, Karen, you ever get in touch with Peggy Briggs?”

“No.”

“Hmm. That’s not good. Maybe we should take another swing by her house—”

“No!”

“Why not?” She laughed. “You afraid of that muscle-bound goon?”

“Goon?” Amanda’s head swiveled back and forth, trying to follow the conversation.

“Of course not. It’s just that I’ll…I’ll catch hell if I go there again.”

“Catch hell from who?” Sunnye wrinkled her brow.

“From
whom
.”