Death By Chick Lit (20 page)

My God.

No wonder Quentin can afford to bid on a 1948 Joe DiMaggio whatever. He’s a goddamn ghostwriter.

And, given that Quentin was so far the only clear, specific link among the three authors, a possible murderer.

And
, given the fact that I set him up with Mimi, I am a possible accessory, but I’m not even going to think about that.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Major question.

If Quentin is the killer, why would he ask me to find . . . the killer?

No no, that one’s easy, Lola thought. The crossword thing: it’s part of his pathology. He dares people to solve his puzzles.

Lola reached for the phone. Doug is not gonna believe—Shit.

I
could
call Doug, Lola reasoned. Tell him I just happened to be noodling around on Quentin’s hard drive?

Right after the phone call about the password? The
big fat lie
phone call about the e-mail password, which, given that what I found was in a folder protected by a password I found myself, turned out to be an absolute waste of a betrayal of trust in the first place?

Better not, Lola sighed.

Not like I can call Annabel either.

She went to the kitchen, sliced open a grapefruit, and, feeling very alone, tried to sort this all out.

Let’s see. It’s common for famous people to have ghostwriters for their memoirs and inspirational/self-help books—but that’s because they’re not writers. It’s also common for companies called book packagers to come up with a concept for, say, a teen novel, and then outsource the writing—but that’s not necessarily ghostwriting, even if the author uses a pseudonym, because they’re only writing
Dear Mom, Ran off With a Boy Band, Love, Shelley
to pay the rent until they break into the
New Yorker
.

But an actual writer with a secret ghostwriter?

Strange, but not outlandish, Lola mused. She poured some leftover coffee into a glass and plopped in some ice. You could have a concept, a voice, even a hook, but somehow lack the follow-through for a whole book. Hey, it made sense. You get a call from an agent or publisher, if you’re one of those people who just gets a call from an agent or publisher. “We think your column/blog/letter would be a great concept for a book,” they say. “But if you’re not sure writing an entire book is really your speed,
we can help you out
.”

Enter the fixer: Quentin Frye.

But wouldn’t Quentin’s various publishers know about each other? Lola wondered. Wouldn’t they have noticed the three murdered authors’ books on his ghostwriting résumé and called the cops?

Not necessarily. A
guy
writing popular chick lit? I’d call that a secret you avoid putting in writing. I’d call Quentin someone who gets work purely on the word of his agent.

Okay, but wouldn’t his agent notice the coincidence? Every author he ghostwrites for winds up, much like a ghost, dead?

Not, Lola thought cynically, if sales are
that
good.

Just for the heck of it, Lola woke up the kitchen computer and entered Quentin’s name into the
WhoRepresents.com
agent/client database, snickering as always at the fact that the Web address also spelled
WhorePresents.com
.

Nothing.

I don’t even want to think about the possibility that he gets all this work without an agent. If he is, he’s clearly not spending the 15 percent commission he’s saving on his wardrobe.

Lola poured sugar syrup into her coffee from a wee pitcher in the fridge—an iced-coffee trick Doug, adorable Doug, had learned from his postcollege espresso-slinging days in Madison. Lola’s chest tightened again, but she wrenched her thoughts away from her husband. Her awesome, skilled, thoughtful husband who made sure her iced coffee was always sweet. Her supersmart, devoted husband whose innocence and trust she was currently—

Lola wrenched her thoughts away from her husband on the second try.

Now, about the killer part. Quentin?

I mean,
Quentin
?

It didn’t make sense, but right now, what else could?

Write the books, kill the authors, drive up sales, laugh all the way to the royalty bank.

Quentin. My God, Quentin.

Wait, another question. Do ghostwriters get royalties, or just one lump payment? Shoot. I think just lump payments! Then how would this work?

I don’t know.

Eye on her prize, Lola determined to forget about the small hole that the royalties question had poked in her theory. She ticked through the murders in her head. She had seen Quentin leaving the party just before Mimi was killed. He’d been released from the cops before Daphne’s body was discovered. And he—unlike Wilma, or Reading Guy, who was looking at this point like a pretty shabby stalker—could easily blend in at Bergdorf’s. Lola could see the
New York Day
story now.

“Acquaintances were shocked by the news of Frye’s deadly double life. ‘Quentin always seemed like such a gentle guy. Guess that’s exactly how he had us fooled,’ said stunned—and stunning—redhead writer Lola Somerville, who, due to her pivotal role in exposing the killer, was awarded a lucrative contract for a book based on the murders.”

Book. Murders. Hang on. Lola chugged the last sips of her iced coffee—ever since the Great Keyboard Root Beer Flood of 2004, open beverages were prohibited from her desk—dropped the glass in the sink, and raced back to her office computer.

The fourth book on Quentin’s hard drive. How could it have slipped my mind? If Quentin’s actually the killer, I’ve got to warn the author that she’s likely his next victim.

The document’s title was
Left Behind
. Its author—author?—was Nina Sambuca.

Lola rolled her eyes. Did it
have
to be Nina?

Nina Sambuca had undergone more than one transformation that seemed suspiciously to match market demand. She’d first made a name for herself as the bad-girl author (if she’d even written it!) of the best-selling pharma-memoir
Xanax Planet
. Then, post-rehab, a reformed Sambuca shocked readers with—and sold a kabillion copies of—
Like a Virgin:The New Chastity
, a footnoted screed whose cover featured the leggy author wearing a corset and that garnered rave reviews from the likes of Alexandria Coltish and Camille Paglia. (“This crazy bitch doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” read Paglia’s blurb. “Then again, the sexual daemonism of chthonian nature is an apotropaion, a fecund signifier of the omophagy of a world seeking cathexis. I couldn’t put it down!”)

Then Nina found God. According to
Amazon.com
, which Lola had quickly searched,
Left Behind
—dubbed “church lit”—was the story of a lonely Christian single whose friends are all married. It had just been published.

Lola looked up Nina’s number, which she’d had since the time they’d spoken together on a Women Writers panel at the Y. During the panel, Lola had said, “I have a question for the moderator: how come the Y never has panels called Male Writers?” After the panel, she and Nina had said “Let’s definitely have lunch.” She and Nina had definitely never had lunch, and Lola had definitely never been invited back to speak at the Y.

As unlikely as it is that Nina will believe me, and as little as I would actually miss her, I’m going to have to alert her to the danger she’s in. The world’s least threatening-looking killer is on the loose—and she could be next.

Warn her, then figure out how to nab him.

Lola reached for the phone just as it rang.

Ooh, maybe it’s Annabel.

“Lola? It’s Quentin.”

Forty-two

Play it cool, Somerville.

“Hey, Quentin. How ya holding up?”

And by “holding up,” Lola added in her mind, I mean “holding up under the guilt of having killed your own girlfriend, and others, for your own profit.”

“As well as can be expected, thanks. Thanks for everything, actually—that’s why I called.”

Thanks for having gotten so far off the trail that I got in another murder?

“Quentin, I really—”

“No, seriously. I know you must have had something to do with their catching Wilma, and wow, am I sleeping better now.”

I’ll bet.

“Hey look, we just want this all to be over,” Lola said. Play dumb. Reveal nothing. He’ll never guess you’ve got his number.

“Hey listen, are you going to Nina Sambuca’s reading tonight?”

“Thinking about it,” Lola replied quickly. Whoa. Didn’t even know she had one. “Are you?”

“Yeah, I feel like it’s time to, you know, get back out there,” said Quentin. “Not to date—I mean, leave my apartment.”

Mmhmm. Smooth. “Sounds like a plan,” said Lola. “Remind me where the reading is?”

“Well, it’s at Theo’s.” Natch. The hip downtown church-slash-bar. “But first I’m taking my sister Penny out for drinks. That’s what I’m really calling about. I mean, I know readings aren’t your favorite.”

True.

“So would you like to join us?”

“What’s the occasion?”

“Hmmm, you’ll find out when you get there,” Quentin said coyly.

I am completely grossed out by all this nice-guy, good-brother posing.

“Sure,” said Lola. Couldn’t hurt. Maybe he’ll loosen up over a lager and say something incriminating. “Where and when?”

 
Lola took a plum from the fridge and ate it over the sink, ignoring the juices that ran down her wrist and into the crook of her elbow. Then, grabbing her garden scissors, she headed outside. The air was humid and sticky, the sky the color of a nickel. Lola hunkered down with her giant potted nasturtium, whose orange-flecked afro needed some serious trimming.

Less than two weeks ago, thought Lola, everything was normal. I was irritated and restless, and fundamentally happy. My bedrocks were in place. I never worried about my marriage, never worried about my best friendship. I never thought about determining when to have children; I just thought I’d know. I never exploited other people’s murders for my own professional gain.

I never felt this lonely.

Lola went inside and came back out with the phone. She sat down on her front steps.

“Hi, Mommy.”

“Lola! Is anything wrong?”

“No, Mommy, everything’s fine.”

“Let me check the calendar—is it Mother’s Day? No, that was a month ago,” Mrs. Somerville said with exaggerated puzzlement. “Then to what do I owe—”

“Can’t a girl just call her mom to say hello?” Lola couldn’t help laughing.

“You tell me!” Her mother was laughing now, too.

“Sometimes,” said Lola, mock serious.
“Sometimes.”

“How are you holding up, sweetie? I know this can’t be an easy time.”

“Oh, you know,” said Lola. “Eh.”

“I know. I’m just so glad you have Doug and Annabel.”

Lola swallowed. “Me, too.” She switched ears. “Hey, Mom? Listen. There’s something I want to tell you.”

“Of course, honey.”

Lola took a breath. “I really don’t know if I’m ready to have kids yet.”

“Oh!” said Mrs. Somerville. “Goodness. Let me just sit down.”

Jesus. “Mom, I—I’m sorry if it’s upsetting,” said Lola.

“Are you kidding?” said Mrs. Somerville. “I’m relieved.”

“Relieved? You mean, you don’t think I’m ready, either?” Lola found herself oddly hurt.

“Oh, no no no. It’s just, do you know how many horrific things go through a mother’s head when her kid says, ‘There’s something I want to tell you’?! Let me just take a moment to purge the doomsday scenarios from my brain. I mean, Lyme disease, some sort of terrible fire, the Peace Corps . . .”

Lola had to laugh again. “Sorry, Mom. But so—you’re not, like, disappointed?”

“Disappointed that you don’t want to have kids until you’re ready? Hardly.”

I have really underestimated my mother, thought Lola.

“But just one thing, Lulu,” her mother added. “You’ll never be ready.”

“Wait, what?”

“I mean, not that you’ll never be ready. I mean,
one
is never ready. Not truly ready. There’s no way you could be until you actually have the kid, and really, not even then. You just kind of decide that you’re willing to wing it, is all,” said her mother. “You’ll know when you’re ready to do that.”

“I will?”

“Yes, you will. In fact, I remember the very night your father and I—”

“Thanks, Mom,” Lola interrupted. “Well, okay. Now I’m the one who’s relieved.”

“I can understand why you’re thinking about it now, Lulu, what with all the death you’re in the midst of. Cycle of life thoughts, ‘How can I bring a child into this world?’ thoughts, that kind of thing.”

“You’re so right, Mom.” Looking around, right at that moment, Lola appreciated the tangled, thriving beauty of her garden more than ever. She ran her hands over the fuzzy leaves of a foxglove.

“But don’t worry. This will blow over, and you will definitely know. I trust you to trust yourself.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

“So, any plans for tonight?”

“Eh, Doug’s going to the movies, I’ve got a book reading. Nothing major.” Oops. Maybe I shouldn’t even have mentioned that I’m leaving the house. “But it’s right here in Brooklyn, so—” Crap! That was even worse. Now she’ll think I’m walking home, right down dark, deserted Murdered Author Boulevard, instead of taking a nice safe cab. Quick, think of a cover—

“Oh, good. I’m so glad you’re getting out.”

Again with the underestimation.

“Love you, Mom.”

“You, too, Lulu.”

 
 
Okay, thought Lola as she scrambled an egg with some just- snipped chives. So I don’t have to plan my whole life right now.

Only the part where I try, once again, to trap a killer.

Or at least keep him from killing again.

She put on her favorite plaid vintage cotton kilt, which had remained on her floor since her day at Coney and, bonus, went rather adorably with Keds—not exactly
running
shoes, but better than clogs—and left a note for Doug. “Out with Quentin & his sis; then, God help me, Nina Sambuca reading at Theo’s. Love you.”