The Paper Mirror (32 page)

He was still staring at me sullenly. “So what do you want to know?”

“Tell me about the blackmail.”

“I knew it was Witherspoon the minute I got the first demand letter—he sent me a copy of one of Morgan’s letters mentioning an incident in
Chesspiece
—and I confronted him, but he insisted on playing coy. He never did admit it, but it couldn’t have been anyone else.”

“You set the fire at the Burrows estate?” I asked, though I was 100 percent sure he had.

He shrugged. “I panicked. I’d gotten back from Europe and suddenly I get this copy of one of Morgan’s letters. I didn’t know what else might still be in there that Witherspoon might find, so the same night I got the demand, I went over to the estate…I had a key…and set a fire in the room where the Butler papers had been kept, and then I called the fire department. I didn’t want to destroy the whole collection—Chester Burrows had been too good to me and I couldn’t do that to him. I didn’t know Butler’s papers had been moved to another room while I was in Europe. And when I had a chance, later, to go through them, I noticed that a hell of a lot of them seemed to be missing.”

“You hadn’t read them all then or before you took the manuscripts?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “It didn’t occur to me that I’d have to. I’d read them over quickly, but wasn’t really looking for specific tie-ins to the manuscripts.”

“So you paid the blackmail,” I said. “How?”

“Cloak and dagger shit. I think Dave really got off on his little games,” he said. “I put the money in an envelope and left it at the library.”

“Behind one of the planters at the top of the front stairs.”

He looked at me oddly. “How did you know that?”

“I just knew,” I said.
A very lucky guess
would have been closer to the truth. “Was this a one-time deal?”

He gave me a slight sneer. “What do you think? It was the only time we played that stupid little hide-the-envelope game, though. The second time I got a demand letter, right after the second book was released. I had a little talk with him. I knew he wouldn’t stop, so I made him an offer…I’d ‘hire’ him as a ‘research assistant’ at a weekly ‘salary,’ which I figured would be cheaper in the long run.”

“And he went along?”

“He did. Especially after I told him that if he didn’t, I’d kill him.”

“Would you have?”

Another sneer. “Kill him? Don’t be ridiculous!”

“And you can prove that you ‘hired’ him?”

“It’s all in my bank records. Plain as day.”

“So no more money drops behind the planter?”

He shook his head. “Only that one.”

We were both quiet a moment while my mind went running off in a couple different directions at once. Finally I said, “I’m curious; did you take the suicide note, or did Dave?”

He looked at me. “Suicide note? What suicide note?”

“You didn’t see it on the last page of the last spiral notebook?”

He shook his head. “No. I just saw he hadn’t finished it, so I put it back.”

“And Dave didn’t mention it in his demand letters?”

“No.”

Odd, I thought. Of everything stolen from Morgan’s papers, I’d have thought that one would be the one Witherspoon would be sure to have used.

“But he did say he had proof that Morgan was gay, didn’t he?”

“No,” he said. “What difference would that make to me?”

“Just that Morgan’s being gay could be seen as another link to the manuscripts,” I replied.

He snorted. “Lots of people are gay who don’t write books.”

He had a point.

“So who killed Dave?” he asked.

“You can read about it in the paper,” I said. “Just be glad you’re off the hook.”

“Off the hook…yeah,” he said contemptuously. “My life’s ruined, my reputation destroyed, I’m going to lose every cent I have…yeah, I’m ‘off the hook’ all right.”

“Better than the rest of your life in prison,” I said.

He shrugged.

As I got up to leave he said, “So you’re going to talk to the police again?”

I nodded. “And they’ll be talking to you again, too, I’m sure. I might suggest you voluntarily do everything you can to make things right with the Burrows Foundation over the manuscript theft, both with the money you’ve made from the books and as far as giving Morgan Butler credit for his own work. You might be able to avoid a bunch of civil charges that way. The important thing is that you initiate the procedure and don’t wait until the Burrows Foundation comes after you.”

And, without an exchange of good-byes, I walked to the door and left.

I couldn’t wait until morning, but I had no choice.

*

Jonathan was asleep on the couch in front of the TV when I got home. I turned off the TV and went over to kiss him on the forehead. He awoke with a start, then grinned sleepily. “How did it go?” he asked.

And, pulling him up off the couch and leading him to the bedroom, I told him.

*

“Detective Gresham,” the voice said.

I took another deep swig of coffee, still trying to shake the cobwebs from not having had much sleep, before saying, “Marty, we’ve got to talk; the sooner the better.”

“I was just going to call you,” he said. “We’ve got some news. Just a second,” he said, and I heard the suddenly muffled sound of him saying something to someone…detective Carpenter, I’d guess…and then clarity as he said, “We can come right over.”

“Great. See you then.”

I wondered what their “news” might be, but hoped it would support the neat tower of cards I’d constructed, rather than knock it down.

I knew who killed Dave Witherspoon and I knew why and how. I knew that Dave had
not
killed Taylor Cates. Proving it…well, that would be up to the police. I’d just give them what I saw as the facts, and let them take it from there. I just hoped I was right.

*

Marty and Dan Carpenter arrived within twenty minutes. I offered them a cup of coffee from the just-made second pot of the morning, which they accepted this time, and we all sat down.

“We got the reports on the fingerprints,” Carpenter said. “Evan Knight’s fingerprints were all over Witherspoon’s apartment—we knew they were his from the things taken from his house during the execution of the search warrant. So that nails him for breaking and entering, at least. The murder is a little more iffy. They picked up a partial thumb print on a piece of the whiskey bottle by Witherspoon’s body, but they weren’t either Witherspoon’s or Knight’s, and they don’t match any on record.”

“I think I know whose they are,” I said. And with that I started dismantling my little tower of cards, laying each one out in front of them.

“Taylor Cates supposedly fell down a flight of metal stairs,” I began. “The cause of death was a small wound to the back of the head, apparently from hitting a sharp corner of the stairs as he fell. Dave Witherspoon had a similar wound, but there was nothing on the stairs to have caused it. And no possible weapon was found in either case.

“Dave Witherspoon was a blackmailer, but Evan Knight wasn’t his only target. It was the second target who killed Taylor Cates…by mistake. He didn’t know who was blackmailing him, but he knew whoever it was was working on Morgan Butler’s papers, and he somehow found out it was Taylor. He had no way of knowing that Taylor had only been working on them since Dave was fired. I was the one who told him that Taylor was doing the cataloging, I’m sorry to say.

“But chances are that Dave, who didn’t have any idea that Taylor’s death was anything but an accident, made another blackmail demand, and the target realized his mistake. I think Dave had used the same drop-off spot—one of the planters at the top of the Burrows’ front stairs—for the second target as he at first had with Knight, and was killed when he went to pick up the latest payment. Knight wouldn’t have had any reason to be there, since he was paying his blackmail in the form of a ‘salary’ to Dave. He was ransacking Dave’s apartment only because he panicked after I told him I thought Dave had killed Taylor but might try to pin it on him. If he could find the letters Dave was using for blackmail, he could deny he was being blackmailed at all. “

Both Marty and Carpenter had been listening closely to everything I’d said, but Marty gave me a bemused little smile and said, “Okay, Dick, you’ve got us. But can we cut the ‘target’ stuff and get a name…and how he did it? I know you’re enjoying this, but we do have a job to do.”

I grinned, probably a bit sheepishly. “Sorry, guys,” I said. “Every now and then I fall victim to the Inspector-in-the-drawing-room syndrome.

“The evening Taylor was killed…the night of the Burrows’ opening ceremony…Jonathan and I were walking up to the place when we were passed by a guy with a gold-knobbed walking stick. It wasn’t until last night that I realized that guy had to have been Collin Butler. And once I realized that, everything fell into place. Witherspoon was blackmailing Evan Knight because of Morgan’s manuscripts, but he was blackmailing Collin Butler because Dave had figured out Morgan was gay, and had Morgan’s suicide note to prove it. Collin Butler couldn’t bear to have that knowledge made public, especially considering who his grandfather was.

“Dave, again, had no idea that Taylor had been murdered, let alone that the killer was the guy Dave was blackmailing. If he had, he would have been smart enough to take a hint and drop the blackmail. But he didn’t, and when Butler got another blackmail demand just at the time he expected to be given a seat on the Bob Jones University Board of Trustees, he realized—maybe partly as a result of my having told him Taylor wasn’t the only one who’d worked on the Butler papers—he’d killed the wrong guy. He couldn’t risk losing something he wanted so badly by having a bunch of rock-bound fundamentalists know his father was gay. He’d already killed once, he didn’t hesitate to do it again.

“I’m not sure how Collin got into the cataloging room the night of the opening, or how he knew Taylor was there working late, but apparently he threatened Taylor, who was working late, as usual who didn’t have a clue who Butler was, even though they’d known each other when they were kids, and when Taylor tried to get away from him, Butler chased him through the stacks and hit him with the walking stick as Taylor tried to make it to the back exit.

“I’m willing to bet you anything that if you get that walking stick, it will match the wounds on both Taylor and Dave.”

Carpenter shook his head. “Now
that’s
a story!” he said.

“Yeah, it is, isn’t it?” I said. “Now all you have to do is go out and prove it.”

*

And prove it they did. The partial thumb print on the whiskey bottle was a perfect match with Collin’s; his walking stick matched both wounds, and though he had carefully wiped the heavy knob clean, a small speck of Dave’s blood was found in the space where the knob joined the staff.

Evan Knight was charged and convicted for breaking and entering, but because he made full restitution…which included selling his house…to the Burrows Foundation, they chose to take no further action against him. The Foundation demanded he also make a formal acknowledgment of Morgan as the rightful author of the four books published under Evan’s name, and the books’ publisher, after some hesitation but unwilling to lose a cash cow that Morgan’s talents represented, agreed to publish under Morgan’s name the book Knight had been proofing, and agreed that at the next reprinting of the already published books, Evan’s name would be removed and replaced with Morgan’s. There were four other books in the box confiscated during the search of Knight’s home, and they also were destined for publication under Morgan’s name.

Collin Butler, fighting…unsuccessfully…two charges of first-degree murder, had no time to contest his father’s unspoken wishes.

*

The story of Collin Butler’s murder conviction on both counts appeared in a Sunday edition of the paper, which Joshua and I were reading upon our return from brunch. All three of us were seated on the couch, with Joshua leaning up against me pointing at the pictures and asking his usual ten thousand questions.

Jonathan, who had been reading through the Books section, leaned over toward me, holding the paper open.

“Look, Dick!” he said. “They’ve got an article on Morgan and his new book…and there’s a picture! He was a nice-looking guy!”

It was a photo I’d not seen before…a head shot. He was indeed handsome, but what got to me was the fact that he was smiling.

At last.