A Novel Death: a Danger Cove Bookshop Mystery (Danger Cove Mysteries Book 10) (6 page)

And how I was still down one author for my author readings. Well, two authors, actually.

Ugh.

I checked my email to see if any of my panicked emails to Seattle PR people had been returned, but so far no one had a book to sell—at least not in Danger Cove.

Katya took a dinner break, and I took advantage of the lull to pull out Cal's book and read a couple pages. He was filming a movie in the countryside outside of London and dropping names like crazy, and my mind was wandering off. Thankfully, the phone rang, and I had a good excuse to put the book back under the counter.

"I'm returning a call from Meri Sinclair. This is Karen Dale."

"Ms. Dale, thank you for calling me back. I would like to talk to you before you leave town, if you have time," I said.

"Well, I'm here until after the funeral, and I've already seen all the sights. Can you meet for breakfast tomorrow?"

We agreed to a time, and then I picked up Cal's book. I needed to do some homework if I was going to question Cal's publicist about his death. And maybe Cal had already given us the answers.

Karen Dale and I sat at a corner table at The Apple Tree restaurant. I ordered my regular dark coffee with cream. She ordered a mimosa. We'd also ordered food, though I only did so I'd have an excuse to stay and question Karen for longer. My stomach was still too jumpy to consider much beyond dry toast.

"This whole thing is just such a nightmare," she said, reaching for a pack of cigarettes and then sliding them back into her purse when she remembered we were inside.

I could sympathize with the stress from Cal's murder, though I didn't know him as well as she did.

"I'm really sorry about Cal. Were you two close?"

She snorted and shook her head. "God, no. You met Cal. I'm not sure he had friends outside of his 'buddies' in the movie business. And most of them were probably paid—his agent, his manager. You know, his staff."

Our drinks arrived, and Karen sucked down half that mimosa and waved for another before the waiter made it back to the kitchen.

"I know this can't be good for you either," she said with a half smile. "The longer this is in the news, the worse for your business."

"You think so?" I asked. That was my fear, but I was hoping that the more seasoned PR professional would have given me some hope. "The last few days have been pretty busy."

"That won't last. Those are looky-loos. There for a cheap thrill. You better hope for a quick and tidy resolution. Heard anything from the cops?"

I shook my head. "No, not really," I said. I didn't share that I was currently on the list of suspects. "Who do you think would want to kill him?"

"Who wouldn't? Start with anyone who worked for him, married him, or spent time with him—naked or clothed."

That was going to be a long list. I had started to make an actual list last night while reading Cal's book. Unfortunately, his one nod to propriety was to give people nicknames or refer to them by their initials. So far, he had used the proper names of his ex-wife, Pippa, and son, David, his sister, Lorraine, and Lorraine's daughter, Cecilia. He also dropped a lot of celebrity names, but I was still in the beginning of the book, which covered the early part of Cal's career, so most of those names were of people who were now dead. This conveniently made it easy for Cal to tell stories about them without anyone questioning the factual basis.

"Did he ever get threats? Do you think the book angered people?"

"Oh boy. He got threats. But nothing serious. And the book was going to be a gold mine. He had a thousand stories about famous people," she said, shaking her head with a sad smile. "This could have been my retirement tour. But now… Guess I better check in with my office and see if there are any reality TV stars who are peddling their sex tapes."

She finished off her second mimosa before our breakfasts arrived. I needed to get more information from her before she was too far into that champagne flute. I pulled my iPad out of my bag and opened up the photos from the event.

"Do you know who this man is? The young guy with the dark hair. It looks like you're talking with him here," I said.

Karen dug in her purse for a pair of reading glasses and then focused on the screen. "Sure, that's Gibson Knox, Cal's ghostwriter."

"You mean Cal didn't write his own book?"

Karen laughed and removed the glasses. "Oh, hell no. Cal could barely write his own name."

"What was Gibson Knox doing at the reading?"

"No idea. I was shocked that he'd shown up. I told him he had to go. He's supposed to be, you know, a ghost. Invisible. Not at the book tour, especially."

I didn't know much about ghostwriting, but my understanding was that there were strict confidentiality clauses in the contracts.

"Wouldn't that break his contract to take credit for writing the book?" I asked.

"I can't imagine Gib wanted credit. He hated Cal. They had a huge blowup before the book was finished, and Cal fired him."

"What did they fight about?"

Karen shook her head. "The publisher might know, but Cal never told me."

"Do you have any idea why Mr. Knox would come here?"

The waiter brought us two steaming plates of breakfast, including my favorite Seattle Dutch baby piled high with apples, but my appetite was still AWOL.

Karen shrugged and stabbed at her eggs. "No clue. I've only met the man a couple times, and both times it was to tell him to stay away from my client."

"When was the first time?"

"What?" She stuffed her fork into her mouth, and I wondered if she was avoiding answering my question.

"You said you met him a couple times. Once at the bookstore. But when was the first time?"

She chewed and then took a sip of the mimosa. "Oh yes. It was in Los Angeles. I was meeting Cal to go over the arrangements for the book tour, and Gibson showed up at Cal's house. Cal wouldn't see him. Refused to come out and talk to him. He had me go tell Gibson to leave him alone."

I looked over the publicist—in her late 50s, not much taller than me, and the sort of slim build that comes from years of mimosa breakfasts and cigarette lunches. She wasn't the person I'd turn to for muscle.

"Was he stalking Cal? Did he say why he was there?"

She shook her head. "No, he just said that it was a personal matter. But Cal wasn't having any of that."

"When you saw him in the bookstore, did he say why he came to Danger Cove or to the bookstore?"

Karen shook her head, her short brown hair swinging. "No, and I just wanted him gone. Cal would have had a meltdown if he'd seen Gibson Knox at his event, and that would have gotten ugly fast."

It had gotten ugly, but I didn't remind her of that. While the two men had a history of fighting, and Gibson Knox was at least in the neighborhood around the time of the murder, that didn't necessarily mean he shot Cal Montague. But it was a place to start.

"Did you tell the police about Gibson Knox showing up?"

"No, I actually didn't think about it. Their questions were pretty cursory. They seemed more interested in Cal's whereabouts on the day of his murder."

"I don't suppose you've seen Gibson since the murder?"

She sighed and shook her head. "No, sorry."

I tried a bite of the breakfast, and my appetite made a hesitant return. Gibson Knox had opportunity and motive to kill Cal. More than I did. That would have to help me get off the police's radar.

"Do you know where Cal was before the bookstore event?" I asked, taking another big bite of the sweet apples piled on top of the Dutch baby.

Karen shook her head. "Cal didn't keep me informed on his personal issues," she said with a sneer. "He gave me information on a need-to-know basis, like he was the damn president or something. Even though I was organizing his tour. And then he couldn't even be bothered to show up on time."

She slugged down the last of the mimosa, and I pushed my plate away.

"Have you read his book yet?" Karen asked.

I gave a nod but then had to clarify. "I'm not finished with it yet."

"Well, if you're trying to help the police close this case, then I'd suggest you read it," she said, putting money down to pay for both our breakfasts. "If you want a list of potential murderers, it's a good place to start. And have a pen handy."

*   *   *

Taking Karen's advice, I left the bookstore midafternoon, after Katya arrived for her shift, so I could read Cal's book. The store was in Alicia's and Katya's capable hands, and somewhere in Cal's book was the clue that would help the cops close this case and keep my bookstore out of the news and me out of jail. This time, I wasn't going to nod off or drift into daydreams about a cute veterinarian. I was going to read the damn book.

I made it into the early '80s, when Cal had a recurring role on a cop-buddy TV show as a police sergeant. I'd never heard of the show, but it sounded dreadfully cheesy. So I had to search online for some clips, which did not disappoint. Then I realized I was doing it again—drifting away from my homework. I snapped the laptop shut and returned to the book, curled up in a big chair by the fireplace. It was my favorite reading chair and the best place to get lost in a book.

But that was not going to happen today.

The sound of heels on my front porch shifted my scattered attention away from the page, and I knew instantly that it was my mother. I glanced around the room and breathed a sigh of relief. The house wasn't too cluttered. In fact, it was even clean, since I'd picked up before settling in with my book—another attempt at procrastination.

I opened the door as my mom knocked, startling her.

"Oh, you're home!" she said, and a look flashed across her face, an expression that I couldn't immediately place.

"I took the afternoon off," I said, opening the door to let her in.

My mother smiled and stepped across the threshold, and I saw that she was carrying something in her hand but sort of behind her, as if I wouldn't see the bucket of cleaning supplies.

"What are you doing here?"

"Well, I just thought that you've been working so hard you probably haven't had time to clean the house," she said and took a look around. "And I was right."

"My house is fine," I snapped.

Even if it wasn't, even if it looked like a crime scene, I would not let my mother in to clean it. That would set a horrible precedent. Kimberly Sinclair was a lovely woman, a good mother, and an absolutely insanely obsessed clean freak. If I opened the door to letting her do my housecleaning, she'd be stopping by whenever she felt like doing my laundry or straightening my linen closet. It would be like high school all over again.

She set the bucket on the brick hearth and pulled out a feather duster, which she ran across the mantel.

"Mother!"

"Fine!" She jabbed the duster back into the bucket, and I could tell she really wanted to get her mitts on the bookshelves—which, admittedly, I had not dusted in the several weeks since I'd moved in.

"Would you like some tea?" I asked.

She looked thoughtful and then nodded. "That would be nice."

I hadn't planned to spend the afternoon entertaining my mother, but despite our differences over her slight helicopter-parenting tendencies, we did get along well. While we waited for the teakettle, my mom picked up Cal's book and flipped through it.

"Did you finish it?" I asked.

She nodded, and I felt a little guilty that I hadn't yet.

"It was different," she said.

In her language, that meant it was bad. Different meant it was different from things she liked.

"What did you think of it?"

"Well, he certainly wasn't kind to Pippa Montague," my mother said, sitting down at the round oak table in the breakfast nook. "I mean, that whole thing with the divorce and how he married her because he felt pressured. That was uncalled-for. Not very classy, if you ask me."

I really needed to get to some good parts in that book. "She wasn't at the reading, was she?"

My mom gave a short laugh as I poured the water over the tea bags. "Oh heavens, no. She wouldn't have come within a mile of that reading," she said. "She hates Cal with every fiber of her being."

"Seems like a long time to still be nursing a grudge," I said. But what did I know about devastating breakups? I still fantasized about punching Hunter in the face, and it had been two months since we'd split up.

I took the mugs to the table and sat across from my mother. She had a curious expression, as if she was holding a secret in. I knew this look—it meant she wanted to gossip. Except that Kimberly Sinclair held herself above gossip. Luckily, I knew exactly how to get around that.

"I do need to finish reading Cal's book," I said, stirring a teaspoon of sugar into my tea. "I know the police aren't going to read it, and there's probably information in there that could help them crack this case. You know, family history and such."

My mother took that bait so fast that if I'd actually been fishing, the rod would have flown out of my hands.

"Yes, you do need to read it, but don't take it as gospel. I'm sure Pippa would have a different take on many things he said in there," Mom said. "Which is why it's so odd that Pippa is organizing the funeral and the burial service."

I raised an eyebrow at my mother, who gave me the same look back. Okay, so I enjoyed a bit of gossip myself from time to time. We may not look alike, or have the same taste in clothes, or even vaguely similar hobbies, but neither of us could resist a juicy piece of what my mother often called "local news."

"That is interesting," I said, then took a sip of the tea. "How long have you known Pippa?"

Mom leaned forward on her elbows, the mug of tea in her hands. "I wasn't friends with Pippa at the time of her marriage to Cal. She's a good decade older than I. But I do remember the divorce because I was just about to marry your father, and it was all the talk. Very ugly."

She took a sip of her tea before continuing. "Their son, David, I remember him being such a nice, quiet boy. Smart, too."