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“Nice office,” he said, folding his arms and looking around, taking in the view. “You must be doing well.”
“I do okay. And I worked for it. No one handed it to me.”
He nodded. “You don’t have to be defensive about it. I know.”
“You know?”
“Sure. I’ve been checking up on you. I know how you started out and that you just moved here to the high-rent district a couple of years ago. I know you bought a home in Malibu, too, at about the same time. Pretty nice digs.”
I tried not to show how flustered I was. Standing, I moved away from him and crossed to the other side of the room, where I had a sofa and coffee table. I sat on the sofa, crossing my legs and folding my arms—an automatic defensive posture, I realized suddenly. I never would have done this in front of an editor, as it would have weakened my position.
Carefully, I unfolded my assorted limbs, leaning back against the cushions and forcing my spine to relax.
“I do all right,” I said coolly. “Is there some purpose to this, Detective? Is it going somewhere?”
“I’m just kind of curious about your relationship with Tony Price. It seems you and he went out a lot. You even went on trips together.”
“And?”
“And Price’s murder looks as if it might have been a crime of passion.”
I laughed. “You think I killed Tony in a moment of passion?”
“Stranger things have happened.”
“Well, you’re wrong. If anything, Tony’s death will hurt me, especially in terms of financial loss. The best thing for me would have been if he’d lived to be a hundred.”
“And kept writing till then, of course.”
“All right, what are you getting at?” I snapped. Reaching for the cordless phone on the coffee table, I said calmly, “And is this supposed to be a formal interview? Do I need my lawyer here?”
“Nah, relax. This is off the record. I’ll let you know when you need a lawyer.”
He came over and stood above me, hands in his pockets. “The thing is, if Tony Price wasn’t writing well, if he hit a wall and couldn’t get going again, or if he’d decided to drop you as his agent—”
“Sorry to burst your bubble,” I said, putting the phone down. “None of that is true.”
I stood again and walked over to the windows, giving him my back while studying the traffic below. It was a negotiating technique, one I often used to gain time and balance. I noted that the freeways were jammed with commuters winding their way from one end of the city to the other. It was late June, and I knew it was hot out there. I could picture the drivers without air-conditioning loosening their ties and belts, or the buttons on their blouses. Almost everyone would be swilling down bottled water so they wouldn’t dehydrate on their three-hour commutes home to where the rents were reasonable.
I’d probably end up as one of them, now that Craig was gone, too. Even if Lost Legacy got published and I received my fifteen percent commission on it, that wouldn’t last long after taxes and my current expenses. And Craig wouldn’t be around to finish Under Covers.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I said finally, turning back to Rucker. “I’ve lost two valuable authors and an ex-husband I actually still liked. This hasn’t been a red-letter day for me. If you’re arresting me, just say so. I’ll call my lawyer. If you’re not arresting me, this is over. Now.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re a pretty tough cookie, aren’t you?”
“I can handle myself,” I said.
I went back into the workout room, picked up my purse and took out my keys. “Especially with men like you.”
Damn, Mary Beth. I bit my lip. Had that sounded like the tough message I’d meant to send—or a challenge?
When I turned back he was standing only a few feet behind me. “I have no doubt of that,” he said.
I thought a minute, then made a rapid decision.
“Look,” I said, glancing at my watch, “I have to eat dinner. Would you like to join me?”
The eyes widened. “Are you asking me out on a date?”
“Absolutely not.” I gave my laugh the tiniest bit of a scornful edge. “Get hold of yourself. I just thought that if you insist on pummeling me with questions, it might be better if we do it where I don’t feel like I’m going to be thrown in a cell at a moment’s notice. Tony and Arnold were important to me. So was Craig. I’d like to help find their killer.”
“Uh…okay,” he said, his tone sounding suspicious. “Where would you like to go?”
“My house,” I said, handing him my personal card with the address and cell-phone number on it. Which, come to think of it, he probably already had, since he knew so much about me.
“Wow,” he said, “gold-plated lettering for a gold-plated address. Malibu, California…home of the stars.”
I sighed irritably. “Are you going to hold that against me?”
“Not at all. The view should be great.”
“Eight o’clock, then,” I said, sailing out the door. “Don’t be late.”
Better to be on your own turf and in power, I’d decided. The last thing I needed was to be summoned by the police again, just to sit and repeat, “I don’t know, I don’t know.”
Besides, I had plans for the good detective. Before this night was over, Detective Dan Rucker was going to tell me everything he knew about all three murders.
At home I changed into jeans and a T-shirt and took a cup of coffee down to the beach. Gulls came and settled near me, hoping I had food. They soon left, though, and went back to dipping up and down over the waves.
It was seven o’clock and the sun had begun its downward slide toward the sea. The sky was blood-red from all the smog that had been blown west from what had, over the past few hours, become an unseasonable Santa Ana wind—hot, heavy and dangerous, blowing trees into houses and causing all kinds of havoc, according to the drive-time news.
Here at the beach, though, it made the evening air balmy and gave us some of our best sunsets. The smog blows westward from inland when pushed by the Santa Anas—Devil Winds, as they’ve been called for years—and the setting sun filtered through the smog is incredibly beautiful.
Too much of the Santa Anas, however, can make a person crazy in the head. When they go on for days I become irritable and off my feed. Some days I want to kill everything in sight—even my authors.
Fortunately, that’s only a temporary aberration. I’d never really wished for any of my authors, including those three men, to be murdered. And now that they had been, where did that leave me? Grieving aside, that is.
And I did grieve. Now that I had time to be alone, I grieved for Arnold and Tony, both of whom I had loved so unsuccessfully, and for Craig, who deserved better and almost got it. He had worked hard to sober up and stay that way, and from the manuscript I’d seen on his desk in the motel, he was doing good work. Unexpectedly good work, even though the topic had been done before.
Why on earth would anyone want to kill him? Craig had been divorced for several years, and his ex, Julia, owned a successful antiques shop in New York City. Craig had told me Julia had never needed or asked for alimony.
Was it the new book, then? If I’d had time to do more than scan the pages, would I have found that he had tremendously damaging information against someone important? Information that was only lightly fictionalized?
But then the killer would surely have taken the manuscript with him.
Unless Craig had been clever enough to put a floppy disk or CD-Rom in a safe-deposit box, or some other secret place.
I sighed, drawing my knees up and leaning my chin on them, watching the neighbors walk by with their dogs or make their last run of the night. I usually made time each evening to run, but I hadn’t been able to lately. I did work out three times a week, and sometimes more. Working out gave me an endorphin high, and I felt afterward as if I could take on the world.
Today, though, was different. Today I wanted to just sit in a funk and think about the state of my life.
As Rucker had said, I’d been living here at Malibu for about two years—the same amount of time I’d been at my office in Century City. My house was tiny and a fixer-upper, but it still took more money to get into it than my father had made in his lifetime. My pop had been a streetcar conductor in San Francisco, and a good man. He supported my mom and me the best he could, and even though times were often tough, we never really went without. When I graduated from high school I left home, like most kids, for freedom from parental control—but also because I wanted to get a good job and give the poor guy a break. He died a year later, almost as if it was a relief to leave, once I was out of the house and settled on my own. Sometimes I feel guilty about taking away his motivation to go on. Other times, I must admit I’m proud to have done so much for myself, as young as I was.
Not that I’ve always been thrilled with my career choice. The life of an agent, a manager, or any kind of broker, is unlike any other life I’ve known or even heard of. We spend our days walking a tightrope between editors and authors, trying to keep both of them happy with each other. Not always an easy task. A good agent, some believe, is the kind that’s feared by New York editors. Most editors, on the other hand, will tell you that they prefer agents who are “easy to work with.” Which sometimes means that those agents don’t get the best deals, because they haven’t got it in them to act like a shark with a friend.
Those of us who are “sometime sharks” believe that the only way to win is to make a difficult editor so intimidated that she or he will give the author a good deal, with either money or extra perks. We do whatever it takes to come to an agreeable conclusion. And though bullying is not a good habit to get into, it becomes one sometimes, before we even know it. As natural as breathing.
So yes, I’ve learned to negotiate, and I’ve been successful at it. When threatened, I always look at whatever skills I have to defend myself, and that’s what I did this afternoon. Detective Rucker had accepted my invitation even more quickly than I’d expected him to. He would come here for dinner thinking he could get something out of me, because surely I was the main suspect in all three deaths so far. He’d play his game. But more importantly, I’d play mine.
If I didn’t want to end up arrested, I needed something to go on—information of some kind that would help me find out who the real killer was.
“Nice place,” Dan Rucker said, whistling softly. The sun had gone below the horizon, but the sky was still streaked with bright red, and my white sofa, carpet and walls were all tinted pink. The gulls were now wheeling over the beach in droves, probably scoping out dead fish.
“Look at that sunset,” Rucker said.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
He nodded, standing at the window with his back to me. “Mind if I go out on the deck?”
“Be my guest, Detective. I’ll bring the wine out there.”
I watched as he went onto the deck and sat at a patio table with four chairs. Putting his feet up on one chair, he seemed comfortable about making himself at home.
Well, good. A couple of glasses of wine and he’d be even more ready to tell me what he knew.
I took a cold bottle of Chardonnay out, along with appetizers I’d defrosted and nuked.
“Any trouble getting here, with the traffic?” I asked.
It seems like that’s the first question people ask when a guest walks in and they don’t know what else to say.
“A little,” my guest answered, “but it’s thinned out pretty well by now.” He took a bite of a small cheese-and-ham tart and sighed. “Delicious. You’re a good cook.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ve always been pretty handy with piecrust.”
He looked at me intently and I had to look away.
“Okay,” I said, flushing. “I got them at the store. You think I really had time to cook?”
He smiled. “But you heated them up so well.”
“I did, didn’t I? It’s a talent I have…heating things up.”
“I’ll try to remember that,” he said, grinning.
“Why, Detective, are you flirting with me?”
“You’re the one who made the comment,” he countered. “What else did you have in mind?”
“I, uh…nothing, really. And by the way, you’re moving awfully fast.”
“I don’t mean to. I’d just like to get the sex stuff out of the way so we can get down to business.”
I felt my face grow hot. “Sex stuff? Detective Rucker, wherever is your mind? And what do you mean by business?”
“I mean the real reason you invited me here,” he said.
“You suspect me of having a secret agenda?”
“I suspect you of just about everything right now, Mary Beth Conahan.”
He said it easily, as if he were merely commenting on the weather.
“The key word is suspect,” I replied. “You have absolutely no evidence that I had anything to do with any of those murders. You can’t possibly have, because I didn’t commit them.”
He shrugged and took a long swallow of the wine. “Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. I just figured if I came here tonight you might feel more comfortable about telling the truth.”
“Then you’ve wasted your time,” I said, “because I already have.” I took a sip of the Chardonnay. “I honestly don’t know who killed Tony and Arnold. Or Craig.”
“But you know something you aren’t saying. I’d bet my badge on it.”
“Then I hope your badge doesn’t mean too much to you.”
“It means everything. I wouldn’t bet it if I weren’t sure.”
“I think dinner’s just about ready,” I said, looking at my watch and changing the subject. “I don’t cook much, so I hope you like Poor Man’s Lasagna.”
He smiled. “Poor Man’s Lasagna? What’s that?”
“You cook some pasta, then layer it in a casserole dish with tomato sauce, garlic, sour cream, cream cheese and Monterey Jack. Takes about twenty minutes to pull it all together.”
“Sounds absolutely wonderful. A sure way to harden the arteries.”
“Is that a complaint?”
“Not at all. It’s my favorite kind of food.”
A man after my own heart—if only he weren’t here to tear it out and roast it on a spit. I’d have to tread carefully with Detective Dan Rucker.
We were having after-dinner coffee, on the deck with Bailey’s Irish Cream, my excuse for an easy dessert. It had grown dark, and I’d plugged in the little fairy lights around the railing. The night air was warm, even balmy, and the ocean waves were soft and muted. Thanks to the Santa Ana winds, the sky was clear now, and the moon illuminated the shoreline all the way down to Palos Verdes.
“There was a small piece on the evening news about Craig Dinsmore,” Dan said, leaning back lazily in his chair, his feet on the middle railing. “They said he’d once been on the track to stardom, but he’d fallen off track along the way. A ‘friend’ they interviewed said it was alcoholism, but that Dinsmore had recently cleaned up and was fighting his way back. The anchor ended up by saying in somber tones, ‘…only to end up dead in a seedy motel room.”’
“They’d make the most of that, of course. It’s a great story for the media.”
“Is any of it true?” he asked.
“Most of it, more or less. He did clean up and I’ve been negotiating a good contract for his current book. I’m not so sure about the next one. I saw a manuscript at Craig’s motel room, just before the El Segundo police came crashing in. It wasn’t the kind of book he told me he was writing.”
