Naked Once More (11 page)

When she turned the knob and opened the door, a silvery tinkle of chimes announced her. There was no immediate response; the pleasant room within, lined with bookshelves, was empty of life except for a black cat curled up on a chair in front of the fireplace. It raised its head, dismissed her as unworthy of feline attention, and went back to sleep.

Then a voice called from somewhere in the back. “Let me know if you need help. And feel free to browse.”

Charming trustfulness, Jacqueline thought. She called out a thank-you, and began scanning the shelves.

It was a surprisingly well-stocked and sophisticated establishment for a small country town. Kathleen Darcy’s book was there, in several editions; the stock included, but was not limited to, the current best-sellers. Jacqueline always denied that she looked first for her own books, but of course she did; no writer can resist the temptation, even though their absence from the shelves produces an unhealthy rise in blood pressure. Yes, there they were, both of them. A wry grimace twisted her face when she saw Brunnhilde’s numerous oeuvres on the next shelf down.
Priestess of the Ice God
had been such a flagrant attempt to capitalize on the success of another book with the word “ice” in the title.

The bookshelves at the back of the room were freestanding. Jacqueline stood on tiptoe and peered over them, to behold a wall with two doors, both closed. A sound from behind one of the doors made her retreat hastily. She was studying a shelf labeled “Classics” when the owner of the bookshop made her appearance.

The slow, shuffling sounds of her approach had given Jacqueline warning of what to expect, but it was a shock, all the same. The contrast between the light, cheerful voice and the twisted body was hard to accept. She was young, too; less than forty, Jacqueline guessed, despite the pure-white hair, so dull and lifeless it might have been a cheap wig. One leg, shorter than the other by several inches, had been fitted with a heavy thick-soled shoe. From a face that showed the clear lines of plastic surgery, a pair of beautiful dark eyes awaited Jacqueline’s response. They didn’t expect much.

“I hope you didn’t interrupt your work on my account,” Jacqueline said. “I’m still browsing. You have an excellent selection.”

“Thank you.”

“You must be Betty. My name is—”

“But of course I know you, Mrs. Kirby.” Amusement warmed her clear, cool voice. “This may not be the most literate community in the state, but thanks to modern technology we get network television, on which medium your face is not unknown. But my name isn’t Betty. It’s Jan. Jan Wilson.”

“I’m pleased to see you have my books in stock.”

“You sell. Besides, when the news got out, I made sure to order all the competitors’ books.”

“News?” Jacqueline repeated. “But it hasn’t even been in the New York papers yet. Only rumors.”

“We have our little ways.” There was no doubt now about the mockery in her voice. “This is a small town, and people talk. All sorts of people… I was just about to have a cup of tea. Will you join me, Mrs. Kirby?”

“Jacqueline, please, if I’m to call you Jan.” Jacqueline hesitated. The hamburger was beginning to weigh heavily on her stomach, and the siren call of Antiques sounded in her inner ear. But another siren call sounded more shrilly; it was too seductive to be denied. “I’d love a cup of tea, thank you.”

She took one of the chairs that flanked the fireplace—the one not occupied by the cat—and sat with firmly folded hands while Jan limped back and forth with teapot and cups and a plate of freshly baked cookies. Ordinarily she would have offered, nay, insisted, on helping, but given the present situation she was able to overcome her natural tendency to interfere.

Once she was seated, with the cat on her lap, Jan seemed more relaxed. In the shadow of the high wingback chair the scars on her face were almost invisible, and the ugly shoe was far less conspicuous. “How do you like Pine Grove, Mrs. Kirby?”

“It’s a nice little town. Have you lived here long?”

Jan smiled. “You can tell by my accent that I’m not a native, I suppose. No; I came here a little over six years ago. I never met Kathleen Darcy. That’s what you really wanted to ask, wasn’t it?”

“I thought that might have been your reason for coming here,” Jacqueline said. “One wouldn’t expect a town of this size to support a bookstore.”

“There speaks big-city snobbery,” Jan said with a smile. “There are more readers in small towns and rural areas than you might suppose. But you are correct in assuming that Kathleen influenced my choice of locale. I never met her, and yet I feel… I feel I know her well. Intimately. Does that sound silly?”

“I think many of her readers feel the same,” Jacqueline said.

“I’ve read her book so often, I know it by heart,” Jan said. “I’ve read everything I could find about her. I’ve talked to people who knew her. Do you know that no one in Pine Grove has anything but good to say about her? They didn’t understand her; they thought she was ‘weird.’ But they say the word affectionately, admiringly. You can be sure that if there were any scandal, any dirt, I’d have heard it. People love to wallow in filthy gossip. But there’s nothing like that, not about Kathleen. She has to have been a fine person, a good person. And she was pretty—so pretty. Thick, shiny dark hair and big brown eyes.…” She broke off, her cheeks stained with mottled patches of pink. “Heavens. I sound like a doting adolescent. I don’t… I don’t usually ramble on this way to strangers. Does everyone you meet pour out the secrets of her heart to you?”

“I certainly don’t invite confidences, or pry into other people’s business,” Jacqueline said. (She honestly believed this.) “But don’t be embarrassed; I know just how you feel. I too admire Kathleen Darcy enormously.”

“And yet you’ve got the nerve to write a sequel to her masterpiece.”

“Consummate egotism is more like it,” Jacqueline admitted. “But at least I respect her work. I want to do more than produce a quick, best-selling potboiler. And I may not get the job.”

Jan studied Jacqueline thoughtfully, her hand moving across the cat’s sleek fur. “I have to say you’d do a better job than many. There are echoes, distant but discernible, of Kathleen’s style in your books.”

“That’s perceptive of you. Not many people spotted it, but of course I was influenced by her.”

“You could write a better book than you have.”

“You’re the second person today who’s told me that.”

“Who else? Not St. John.” Her lip curled. “I doubt he’s read
Naked in the Ice,
much less your books.”

“No, it was a man named Paul Spencer.”

“Paul.” Something gleamed in the dark eyes; it might have been hate, or its opposite. “Where did you meet him?”

“He stopped me as I was leaving, after luncheon.”

“Oh, yes, that’s right. He owns a landscaping service; I had heard he was working out at Gondal.”

“You know him?”

“He’s one of my best customers.” The emotion was not hate. “And a friend. I don’t know how I would have managed without him. He helped me find this place—he was in real estate then—helped me move in, built those bookshelves, arranged the books.”

“A real jack-of-all-trades.”

“And master of them all.” Jan’s voice sharpened. “What else did he say?”

“That was about the gist of it—that I was a rotten writer, but probably no worse than any of the others who had been interviewed. He asked more questions than he answered. I wondered at the time why he was so concerned.”

“We all are.”

“We.” Jacqueline put her cup on the table and took off her gloves, figuratively speaking. “Who is ‘we’? Surely not the entire population of Pine Grove. How many of ‘you’ are there, and why do any of ‘you’ give a damn who writes the sequel to
Naked
?”

“It’s nothing personal,” Jan said. “We’d be equally opposed to any of the others.”

“In other words, you don’t want anyone to write a sequel. Isn’t that a bit presumptuous of you—whoever and how many you may be? It’s not your book. Nor is it sacrosanct. People have written sequels to
Huckleberry Finn
and completed the unfinished novels of Jane Austen, to name only a few literary masterpieces.”

“Please!” Jan’s hands twisted together. “I didn’t mean… You don’t understand.”

“What did you mean?”

Jan was silent for a moment. When she spoke her voice was soft and flat, without its former vivacity. “Kathleen was one of those rare writers for whom writing is not just a job but an integral part of her very being. The greatest part of her, if you like. To do her book justice you’ll have to enter into her mind and soul. In a sense you must
become
Kathleen. That could be… dangerous. Deliberately to submerge your own identity in that of another person…”

The soft gray of evening veiled the air. In the silence the cat’s purr rumbled like distant thunder. A shiver rippled the hairs on Jacqueline’s arms. Jan had a certain literary skill of her own… or perhaps it was her strange, compelling voice that had created such an eerie atmosphere.

“Did you say those things to the other writers?” Jacqueline asked.

“Of course not. They would have thought I was crazy. I must be, mustn’t I, to have such odd fancies?” The cat gathered its haunches under it and sat up. Two pairs of eyes, one glowing green, the other so dark a brown as to be almost black, studied Jacqueline. “That’s all they are, idle fancies,” Jan said. “You bring out the poet in me, Jacqueline. I’ve enjoyed our talk.”

It was dismissal, regal in its courteous finality. Jacqueline rose and heaved her purse onto her shoulder. “Thanks for the tea. I’ve enjoyed myself too. I hope we meet again.”

“So do I. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.”

When Jacqueline came out of the cottage she blinked in the sunlight that poured into the narrow opening as through a funnel. What an odd conversation! She had forgotten to ask Betty—no, Jan—about the similarity between the two cottages. But perhaps the very oddity of the conversation had given her the clue. Jan was obsessed with Kathleen Darcy; that last, eerie speech had not been a threat, it had been a warning based on her own feelings. She might have replicated Kathleen’s cottage as part of her attempt to identify with her idol.

Jacqueline glanced at her watch. It was only a few minutes after five. The encounter had seemed to last much longer than it had. Maybe the antique shop didn’t close until five-thirty. She could at least look in the window.

She turned, with the abruptness that characterized her movements, and cut across the street just as a car that had been parked along the curb pulled out. The car jolted to a stop; so did Jacqueline. She glared critically at the driver. No wonder the damn fool couldn’t see where she was going; she was wearing wraparound sunglasses and a babushka that drooped down to her eyebrows. Before Jacqueline could see more, or make the rude gesture she had in mind, the driver made a screeching turn and roared away down one of the side streets.

Jacqueline proceeded majestically on her way. The antique shop was closed, and the objects in the window did not strike her fancy. She started back toward the inn. The events of the day had given her considerable food for thought. Perhaps a chat with Mollie would answer some of the questions that bubbled in her brain.

Mollie was a disappointment. Looking more than usually harassed, she apologized for being unable to join Jacqueline. “One of the girls, the one who usually does the vegetables, didn’t show up. And Tom just has to have things right, he’s a creative artist, really, and when he’s distracted, he… I’m so sorry, I really am… If I have time, later, I’d love to chat, but the way things are looking at the moment…”

She backed away, and Jacqueline applied herself philosophically to her martini. She was far too level-headed and sensible to suppose, even for an instant, that Mollie might have had other motives for avoiding their scheduled chat. The woman was too innocent to suspect that Jacqueline herself might have an ulterior motive. But if she had mentioned the forthcoming meeting to someone—her handsome, brooding husband, for instance—and he had told her she talked too damned much, and that it wasn’t wise to confide in strangers… There was no reason whatever to suppose that any such thing had happened.

Mollie did not return. None of the waitresses was in evidence; it was still early. Having finished her drink, Jacqueline decided it would be inconsiderate to call for service. Poor Mollie was probably up to her elbows in potato peelings. Jacqueline went to the bar and helped herself. Mollie might not be busy; Mollie might be hoping she would give up and go to her room. Mollie was doomed to disappointment, if that was what she hoped. The analogy of the spider squatting patiently in the center of its web occurred to Jacqueline, but she brushed it aside.

The next person to enter the room was Mrs. Swenson. She glanced obliquely at Jacqueline, who braced herself; she didn’t mind entertaining bored little old ladies, but deaf little old ladies who preferred not to use their hearing aids were a bit much. However, Mrs. Swenson seated herself at another table and became absorbed in a paperback book. It was not, Jacqueline saw, one of hers. But at least it was not one of Brunnhilde’s.

A few other diners came in. Jacqueline ordered her dinner. She had nothing to read, but she had plenty to think about. Jan’s ambiguous reference, to a group of unknown size and membership, that was dedicated to preserving the integrity of Kathleen Darcy’s literary work, continued to intrigue her. “We” could not possibly include many people. Jacqueline suspected there were only two: Jan and Paul Spencer. Of course there might be others, as yet unknown to her: fanatical fans, skulking and plotting and carrying lilacs to Kathleen’s cenotaph in the shady glade. How lunatic could fans be? How close a friend of Kathleen’s had Paul Spencer been? His name had never been mentioned in any of the stories about her. And what about Tom? Just because he had served as the physical model for Kathleen’s sensitive, sexy hero didn’t necessarily mean they had been intimate. On the other hand, it didn’t mean they had not.

Such entertaining and absolutely useless speculations occupied Jacqueline pleasurably through a meal that was excellent, if not up to the standard of the previous night. Tom must be off his stride tonight. Crisis in the kitchen! Chef in a pet!