Naked Once More (40 page)

Jacqueline made use of the informal exit Marybee had shown her, and went back to where she had left the car. A gentler, kinder woman might have felt some regret at dealing so brutally with Sherri, but it must be admitted that Jacqueline’s conscience did not trouble her in the slightest. Sherri was not a hapless teenager, she was a grown woman; it was time she faced reality and learned to deal with it. It was almost as if she had stopped maturing emotionally the day Kathleen left. Jacqueline felt sure Sherri had loved her sister deeply. Only love betrayed could turn to such violent resentment. But that was something else Sherri had to learn, and soon: the betrayal had not been one-sided.

With the comfortable conviction that she had done what she could to straighten Sherri out, Jacqueline got into the car and considered her next move. It was getting late; the longer she delayed the more probable it was that she would rudely intrude on the Smiths’ dinner hour, but she couldn’t stand the suspense any longer. She had to know what was in that mysterious, sealed package.

Delicately, wary of broken glass, she took the scissors from her purse and slit the tape.

The contents of the package had been wrapped in several layers of heavy plastic, each carefully sealed with tape. The person who had done the job had apparently known that years might pass before it was found, and had taken pains to ensure that it—whatever it might be—would survive intact.

An ordinary treasure seeker would have found the contents anticlimactic and disappointing. They consisted of two sheets of paper. One was a signed, notarized statement by a lawyer who was not one of the Craigs. The other bore a surrealist pattern of black smudges—fingerprints. According to the sworn statement attached, they were the fingerprints of one Kathleen Darcy.

Jacqueline was, at first, more bewildered than disappointed. She had not even dared speculate as to what the package contained; on discovering the hiding place, she had hoped it might hold Kathleen’s pre-
Naked
manuscripts. But as she continued to stare at the two papers, she realized what they might mean—no, what they must mean. Her far-out theory was looking better than ever.

She arrived at the Smiths just as the family was sitting down to supper. Laurie’s manners were faultless; there was plenty of spaghetti, they’d be delighted to have her join them. Jacqueline pleaded a previous engagement, and apologized for her poor timing. “Please go ahead with your supper or I’ll feel even guiltier.”

The spaghetti looked and smelled delicious, but the sight of Benny eating it made her all the more anxious to conclude her business and get away. Benny had a generous heart; he kept picking up sticky strands and offering them to her. They were all glad to see her, it appeared, except possibly Marybee. It was hard to know what the child was thinking. How had she learned to guard her face that way?

“I just wanted to tell you that you needn’t worry about a media barrage in the near future,” she began, choosing her words carefully. “It’s under control, at least for the time being.”

“It’s not the reporters we’re worried about, it’s the people in town,” Earl said, frowning. “You don’t need to beat around the bush, Miz Kirby. Marybee already knows about it—she’s a natural-born gossip, ain’t you, kiddo? And the others is too young to understand. We appreciate you coming; nobody else had the decency to tell us what’s going on.”

“I really can’t tell you much,” Jacqueline said. “The question of identity is still undecided. Hasn’t anyone asked you, Laurie, about that?”

She saw with relief that Laurie was less disturbed than she had expected. It wasn’t just a question of putting on a good face in front of the children; Kathleen’s sister looked tired but calm, and she replied quite easily, as she untangled spaghetti from Benny’s hair. “No, they ain’t, but I expect it’s because there’s not really any doubt. That poor Mr. Spencer—he must’ve gone a little crazy for a while, they say he was bad off after Kathleen.… But it just can’t be, and they’ll find that out, if they haven’t already. Benny, honey, don’t put spaghetti in your ears, put it in your mouth.”

Benny launched into an enthusiastic and generally unintelligible explanation of his reasons, which seemed to have something to do with earrings, if his gestures at Jacqueline’s heavy gold hoops were to be interpreted in that light. Jacqueline wiped flecks of sauce off her glasses, and tried to remember what she had been about to say. “Laurie, the people I’ve talked to say that she—Kathleen—had no distinguishing physical marks. You know what I mean—broken bones, scars.”

“She never was sick much,” Laurie said thoughtfully. “No, I don’t remember she ever had broke an ankle or nothing, and she certainly never had an operation. But she did have a couple of moles, one big one on her back, and a couple on her… well, on her chest. And that funny thing on her ear. I don’t know how she got that, must have been a fall or something when she was little; it wasn’t much, like a lump on the earlobe. You couldn’t see it till you got right up close, and she usually wore her hair down to cover it. Would that help, do you suppose? Uh—Miz Kirby?”

“Sorry,” Jacqueline said. “I just thought of something that might… I don’t know that it would help with identification, Laurie; Jan Wilson had had facial surgery. But I’ll pass the information on, if I may.”

“Sure. Anything I can do to help.” Laurie sighed.

Then she stood up and began removing the plates. “At least you’ll have some dessert, Miz Kirby. It’s chocolate cake.”

For once in her life, the thought of homemade chocolate cake didn’t stir a single one of Jacqueline’s taste buds. She repeated her apologies, and took her leave; and as she drove back to town through the gathering dusk, she was conscious of an unusual sense of depression. Murder—and any other crime—didn’t affect only the victim and the perpetrator. Its ugly effects oozed out like a spreading pool of slime, touching all the people involved. When she passed Jan’s bookstore, now closed and dark, she felt herself flinching. In some sense, perhaps greater than she dared admit, that death was on her head.

She took the precaution of parking on a back street and entering the inn yard through the side gate. A movement in the shrubbery beside the path made her start and swear, before a plaintive mew reassured her. Lucifer’s mood was not conciliatory. He leaned heavily against her ankles, complaining. When Jacqueline reached down to pat him, he swiped at her with a clawed paw.

“Well, damn it, I’m sorry,” she said. “I know I’m late, and there’s no cat door here, but life is tough all over, Lucifer.”

Lucifer agreed in raucous tones. He walked with her to the door. He would react—wouldn’t he?—if someone was hiding in the bushes. No one was, so that hypothesis could not be tested, but to Jacqueline his very presence had made the dark less threatening.

He set her straight on her priorities—first to the kitchen and the canned tuna. Jacqueline fed him, apologized again, and made herself a drink. None of the covered dishes in the fridge or the packets in the freezer appealed; her appetite was gone. She went to the study and picked up the phone.

Mollie sounded a good deal more cheerful. “Are you joining us for dinner, Jacqueline? The coast is clear—and Tom said to tell you he’s making duck à l’orange.”

I’ll bet he’d rather be making author à l’orange, thought Jacqueline. She felt sure Sherri had called Tom, to report what Jacqueline had said, and blubber accusations. Any normal, outraged female would. But that wouldn’t account for the duck; the complex recipe took hours to prepare. It must have been the raspberry stains and the ensuing discussion that sent him into a frenzy of gourmet cooking—the first step, perhaps, in a campaign of propitiation and/or seduction. Jacqueline wondered, somewhat regretfully, how far Tom had been prepared to go in order to win her silence. “What a pity,” she said. “I mean—what a pity, I’ve already eaten. Any new guests, Mollie?”

The descriptions Mollie gave struck no familiar chord, but Jacqueline suspected one might be a colleague of MacDonnell’s. There had been a number of messages, which Mollie duly relayed, and a sizable stack of mail.

“I may be in later,” Jacqueline said. “Don’t hold any of the duck for me, though. I’m not certain of my plans.”

She was certain of one thing, that she had a lot of telephoning to do. As she dialed the first number, Lucifer sauntered in and climbed onto her lap.

“Ouch,” Jacqueline exclaimed. “Can’t you cuddle without drawing blood?”

“You ought to know,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “Or was that remark addressed to your latest conquest?”

“My latest is a large black cat,” Jacqueline admitted. “Hello, Patrick. Are you still there?”

“I’m here again. Sarah needs to have her hand held. She’s been trying to reach you all day. When you didn’t answer, she was convinced you’d been exterminated. She was packing a bag and getting ready to head for the airport when I got here.”

“Let me talk to her.”

Sarah’s first remark was not hello, how are you, but “I don’t think your next book is going to be reward enough.”

“Why, what’s happened?”

“I am now being blackmailed by the blond bimbo,” Sarah said grimly. “She caught me going through Stokes’s private files.”

“That’s what comes of hiring amateurs,” Jacqueline said, half to herself. “What did you find out?”

“Nothing, damn it. There were a lot of weird letters, all right—one from the president of Kathleen Darcy’s fan club, threatening everything from a picket line to a boycott of all his authors’ books—”

“That is damned insulting,” Jacqueline exclaimed. “What makes those morons think I can’t write a decent sequel?”

“It wasn’t directed at you, Jake. They don’t want anybody to do a sequel. And then there was one from a psychic who has written six sequels—”

“I know about her.” Jacqueline conquered her resentment. “Nothing signed Amicus Justitiae?”

“Amicus what?”

“Never mind. Don’t worry about the bimbo, I’ll think of a way to get her off your back. There’s one more thing I want you to do.”

After she had explained, Sarah said doubtfully, “I’ll try. But it won’t be easy. Some of them—”

“I know. Do the best you can, and call me as soon as you get anything.” Jacqueline hesitated. “Oh, hell,” she said. “I’ll even give you this number.”

O’Brien grabbed the phone back, after Sarah had written the number down. He knew, if she did not, that Jacqueline wouldn’t give up her privacy lightly. “What’s going on?” he demanded. “I won’t allow Sarah to get involved in anything dangerous or—”

Sounds from the background stopped him, and showed what Sarah thought of his chivalry. Jacqueline grinned. “It isn’t dangerous, Patrick. Not to Sarah.”

After a moment O’Brien said, “I’m not really crazy about you being in danger either, Kirby. Is there anything
I
can do?”

“As a matter of fact, there is.”

“I thought so. Okay, let’s have it.”

“Patrick, darling, you know I wouldn’t trouble you if it weren’t absolutely necessary.… What did you say?”

“Nothing. I just groaned.”

“Oh. This is serious, Patrick. Jan’s death was no accident. It was murder, and by now the police have probably realized that. If you don’t believe me, I’ll give you Bill Hoggenboom’s number. He’ll tell you—”

“Never mind.” O’Brien was audibly not amused. “What do you want me to do?”

“The same thing I asked Sarah to do. I want to know the whereabouts—present and recent past—of the people whose names I gave her. It’s essential that I track them down, particularly Brunnhilde. In addition, I’d like you to run them and one other person through your handy computer, find out whether any of them have criminal records.”

“Who’s the other person?”

“His name is Tom Kyle.”

“Spell it.”

She did so. O’Brien said, “I’ll try those names. If they used aliases—”

“I know. Thanks, Patrick.”

“Keep in touch, Kirby. I mean that.”

Jacqueline hung up and dialed again, hoping she would find Bill in a better mood than she had found O’Brien.

“Where the hell you been?” Bill demanded. “I got enough to worry about without worrying about you.”

He was not in a better mood. “Why should you worry about me?” Jacqueline demanded. “The chance of two different women suffering fatal accidents on successive nights in the same small town is approximately one million to—”

“Don’t play games with me, Jake. I don’t know why you expected something to happen to that woman, but you and Spencer wouldn’t have hightailed it into town the way you did if you hadn’t been suspicious.”

“It wasn’t the bookshelf that killed her, was it?”

“Could’ve been. Probably wasn’t.”

“Come on, Bill.”

“Her neck was broke, all right. But the marks don’t quite fit. Doc thinks it was something smaller than a slab of wood.”

“Like a poker, from the fireplace?”

“Something like that. We’re checking the one in the shop. But there won’t be anything on it, there wasn’t enough blood to matter.”

Jacqueline reached for her glass. It didn’t help. “What about the question of identity?”

“Christ, Jake, you wouldn’t ask if you’d seen that poor woman’s body. She’d been in some kind of accident that just about mashed her to a pulp. Couple of dozen bones broken, from a fractured skull to compound fractures in that bad leg. Doc thinks it might’ve been a car smash. But there was one thing. This woman—Jan Wilson—had had a baby.” He paused. “What did you say?”

Jacqueline cleared her throat. “Nothing. Just… nothing.”

“You and Spencer didn’t mess with Jan’s desk, did you? Or go into any of the other rooms?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Bill! You know that young cop was with us every second. How could we… Aha. Somebody searched the place?”

“I think so. It was a neat job, but not quite neat enough.”

“Fingerprints?”

“We haven’t even bothered with the shop,” Bill admitted. “Too many people were in and out of that place; we’d have to get the prints of half the population of the county, and even then we’d be left with unknowns—tourists, casual visitors. The only prints in the bedroom were Jan’s and the cleaning lady’s; but I’m pretty sure somebody else had been rummaging in the closet and the dresser drawers.”