Double Booked for Death

TWENTY-FIVE

“SOUNDS PRETTY DARN WEAK TO ME, KID,” JAKE SAID THE next morning after Darla had told her about last night’s weepy call from Lizzie.

They were eating breakfast back in the little courtyard—the store wouldn’t officially open for another two hours—and Darla had been peppering their bagels and coffee with a recap of Lizzie’s contention that Mavis had some involvement in matters. She hadn’t yet mentioned her own renewed suspicions regarding the author’s brother.

“Besides,” Jake added, “you know how Reese feels about funny looks.”

“Yeah, well the last one panned out, didn’t it?” Darla countered, recalling how Hamlet’s funny look at one of Valerie’s fans had led to their discovering the identity of the Lone Protester. Even as she wondered why she was taking Lizzie’s side, she went on, “I like the guy, but I have to agree that Morris has been on my suspect list ever since the memorial service.”

“Well, so far as I know, he’s not on Reese’s list, so the smart thing would be to drop it before you get slapped with a harassment suit. The Vicksons have pretty deep pockets, even without Valerie’s book-writing money.”

At Jake’s words, a thought so outrageous occurred to Darla that she almost dropped her coffee cup.

“Jake,” she slowly began, “before we drop it, here’s another theory. You know how Lizzie claimed that Valerie Baylor stole her manuscript back in college and got it published before Lizzie could?”

“That’s what Lizzie claims,” Jake replied with a shrug. “All we have is her word against Valerie’s, except that Valerie isn’t here to defend herself. Besides, didn’t you once tell me that you can’t copyright an idea?”

“That’s right, but Lizzie is talking plagiarism, which is a whole different thing.”

“Fine, but what does that have to do with Mavis, er, Morris?”

“Remember when I introduced Callie to Morris, how he began asking what she thought about the previous Haunted High book?”

“Yeah, so what? After all, his sister wrote it.”

“But it wasn’t just nice little chitchat. His questions were specific, the kind of questions that the book’s author might ask.”

Jake was staring at her now, a quizzical look on her face. Darla hesitated, certain she finally was on the right track but not sure how crazy her theory would sound out loud.

She took a deep breath and forged on. “Okay, here’s the motive. What if Valerie really did steal Lizzie’s story . . . and then, later on down the road, what if she did the same thing to her brother?”

“Are you trying to say that Morris wrote the Haunted High books but Valerie took the credit?” Jake’s curious look briefly morphed into one of incredulity before she frowned and nodded. “You know, kid, you could be on to something. If Valerie had been taking credit for his work the entire time, maybe he finally got tired of getting the short end.”

“Wait.” Darla held up a hand, for already she’d seen a few holes in her brilliant theory. “Why would he allow her to keep stealing his work?” she mused. “One book, I could see, but three?”

“Maybe he’d already written all three before she stole the first one? You hear about that all the time, unpublished authors with three or four manuscripts stuck in a drawer somewhere. Maybe she ran off with his entire body of work.”

Before Darla could answer, they both heard through the open shop door the now-familiar thud of a large volume hitting the floor.

Hamlet! While they’d been talking, he had apparently wandered off to do a bit of mischief. Darla gave an exasperated sigh and headed into the shop, and in the direction of what seemed to be the source of the sound—the reference books.

“You need to figure out some way to break him of that habit,” Jake called after her.

Darla spied the wayward book, which Hamlet had dragged from the shelf devoted to books on writing and editing. She bent and picked up the book in question; then, frowning a little, she returned with it to the courtyard.

“Maybe not,” she replied and turned the book so that Jake could see its cover. “I think Hamlet is saying he has his own theory.”

Jake raised a dark brow as she read the title aloud, “How to Work as a Ghostwriter.”

The ex-cop folded her arms and pursed her lips in thought while Darla flipped through the book’s table of contents. “When do you need a ghostwriter?” “How to collaborate successfully.” “Who gets the royalties?” Reading the chapter headings, Darla decided that perhaps her new theory wasn’t a veritable sieve after all. Maybe it simply needed a bit of tweaking.

“Do you think it’s possible—”

“I wonder if maybe—”

They’d started speaking at once and now broke off to stare at each other. When Jake nodded for her to go ahead, Darla tried again.

“Suppose we go with the idea that Morris has something to do with the Haunted High books. But maybe Valerie didn’t steal the manuscripts—what if they had worked out a deal? Maybe Morris helped write the books, she submitted them to the publisher under her name—”

“And they each took a cut of the cash,” Jake finished, her expression of satisfaction matching Darla’s. “That’s a nice little bit of synchronicity, a ghostwriter writing ghost stories. But I think that would be pretty hard, doing all that work and not getting any of the credit.”

“It happens in publishing all the time,” Darla told her. “But what about Valerie’s death? That’s the real issue.”

Jake shrugged. “Maybe it really was an accident. If it was a joint project, then he’d have no reason to want her out of the picture.” She paused and frowned. “You know, I think we need to take another look at the video we watched the other night.”

“I agree. Give me a second.”

So saying, Darla went back into the shop, with Jake trailing behind, and walked over to the computer. She pulled up a browser window and after a bit of searching, she located the clip in question. While Jake watched intently beside her, she fast-forwarded it to the spot where the two black-caped figures made their appearances. They ran that portion of the video several times, pausing and winding back during each play as they tried to pinpoint any feature that would clearly identify the pair and clarify their interaction. By about the fifth or six playing, however, Jake gave a disgusted snort.

“Nothing you could take to a judge. But if Mavis really is the second person in the video, I say we pay him a visit and see if we can’t learn a little more.”

“Do you really think he’d talk to us, after what happened the other day?”

“Trust me, if he saw his sister killed right in front of him, he’s going to want to talk to someone eventually. We’ve got your copy of the business card that Morris gave you, so I’m thinking we try his office. If we go to his house, he’ll probably set the dogs on us.” She took a quick look at her watch. “It’s still early. You wanna go now?”

“Good plan, except today is Sunday. What are the chances he’ll even be there?”

“Any entrepreneur worth his salt works weekends,” Jake replied. “You should know that. And if he’s not there . . . well, maybe it will give us a chance to poke around and find out a little more about how Morris and Mavis fit into this whole sorry mess. You think you can stand opening the store a little late?”

“The church crowd won’t be out in force until later, anyhow, and I’m the only one working today, so why not?”

They returned to the courtyard, made quick work of the rest of their breakfast, and then went back inside to do a quick map check online. “Only about twenty blocks to his office,” Jake said in satisfaction. “Easy walk.”

Darla stifled a groan—she never was going to get used to all this hoofing it about town—but only said, “Let me run upstairs and get a decent pair of walking shoes, and I’ll meet you out front.”

To Hamlet, who was lounging on the counter, his breakfast long since consumed, she said, “You’re the boss for the next couple of hours. Don’t let anyone into the store unless they have a credit card with no limit.”

Hamlet gave her a stony green glare—he knew patronizing humor when he heard it—and knocked the stack of free newspapers off the counter by way of response. Darla shook her head. The mess could wait until later. Right now, she was in Nancy Drew mode, with a possible killer to catch!

“HE’S NOT HERE . . . THAT, OR HE’S NOT ANSWERING.”

Darla and Jake had twice rung the intercom buzzer alongside the tiny brass nameplate frame bearing a handwritten label with Morris’s last name and suite number. So far, they’d had no response, and Darla was beginning to feel a bit conspicuous standing on the chilly stoop outside the three-story apartment building that matched the address Morris had written on the back of his business card. This neighborhood had a much seedier vibe than hers. While the place presumably housed Morris’s office, Darla had begun to wonder what sort of business he actually conducted there, given the condition of both the building and the surrounding area.

Unlike her own tidy digs, this building, stuck midway down a line of row houses, gave off a distinct air of neglect. The façade’s dun-colored brick was pockmarked, as if someone with a grudge had unloaded a few rounds of buckshot at the place. Here and there, the brick was more deeply scarred, as if someone else had followed later with a few judicious blows from a hammer. Above, two rows of three filthy, barred windows each gave a bird’s-eye view from the second and third stories . . . that was, if said bird was wearing a blindfold.

Centered between the two equally barred and grimy windows on the ground floor was what charitably could be called a portico, but was in actuality little more than an alcove large enough to shelter a single person. Even though it was morning, a fly-specked bulb glowed from the open iron fixture hanging overhead. Darla didn’t need that light to make out the wooden door’s peeling brown latex, which revealed a visual account of at least three previous paint jobs, all in similar muddy hues that showed a decided lack of decorating flair. As for the stoop on which they were standing, it looked positively leprous with chunks of concrete missing from the steps. The iron railing gave a definite wobble under hand that spoke of future lawsuits.

It was hardly the sort of place where she expected a man of Morris’s apparent money and good taste to conduct business. In fact, she suspected that anyone who worked in that building also lived there, for the other tenants were all listed by a surname and not a business moniker.

Darla gazed nervously around her in time to see a trio of young men sauntering down the sidewalk toward them. In defiance of the morning chill, they were dressed alike in hooded sweatshirts and pants so baggy that they required a hand clutching their crotch to keep their jeans from sliding off completely. All three challenged her and Jake with a look as they drew closer.

“Yo, what’s doin’, pretty ladies?” one of them demanded, the cold gleam in his eyes turning what might have been a flirtatious question into something far more threatening.

While Darla tugged her wool jacket more closely around her in a reflexively defensive gesture, Jake turned and gave the three her own icy look from behind her mirrored pair of aviators. Her patented don’t-even-think-of-jacking-with-me expression combined with her tough-girl outfit of a battered black leather jacket over the usual jeans, boots, and sweater apparently got the point across. That, or it was still too early on a Sunday for the youths to care to indulge in any real harassment.

Watching them keep on walking past, Darla decided that there were some distinct advantages to hanging with an almost six-foot-tall gal pal who also happened to be an ex-cop. Even better than owning a Doberman, she thought with a nervous giggle.

“What do we do now?” Darla asked. “We can’t get past the front door if there’s no one to ring us in.”

By way of answer, Jake gave her a pitying look. “Watch and learn, young grasshopper,” she intoned and pressed another buzzer, seemingly at random.

When nothing happened, she chose another. A woman’s raspy voice made even sharper by the intercom’s distortion asked, “Who’s there?”

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Yeah? Me who?”

“Deb.”

“Yeah, well I don’t know no Debs. Go to hell!”

Jake gave a philosophical shrug at the figurative door slamming in her face and tried another buzzer. This time, it was a man’s disembodied voice that demanded, “Whaddya want?”

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Yeah? Me who?”

“Deb.”

Darla waited for the next round of “Go to hell!” but instead she heard the distinctive click of the door unlocking. Jake gave it a quick push open and gestured her inside. Darla, meanwhile, gave her friend a questioning look. “Deb?”

“Just playing the odds, kid,” Jake answered with a shrug as she joined her in the darkened foyer. “Everyone knows five or six Debs. In a larger building, it’s even easier. Just punch all the buttons at one time and someone’s bound to buzz you in without all the Q and A.”

Darla nodded, blinking a little as she tried to accustom her eyes to the abrupt change in light. The inside of the building seemed surprisingly homey. Honey-colored wood on the floor and walls emitted a faint hint of beeswax and linseed oil, as if someone had polished there within recent memory. While the treads and risers of the narrow staircase were covered in ancient green linoleum, the trim and railings were painted a contrasting deep cream color for a look straight from a decorating magazine. Over the double row of brass mailboxes mounted on the far wall, someone had hung a series of flea-market prints featuring nineteenth-century New York City street scenes that completed the urban-vintage vibe.

While Darla was still processing this stark juxtaposition between interior and exterior, the male voice from the intercom demanded from above, “Hey, where the hell’s Deb?”

She and Jake glanced up to see a bald, florid-faced man in his thirties leaning over the third-floor railing. He was wearing an undersized wife-beater undershirt that displayed his hairy belly and impressive crop of black armpit hair to distinct advantage. Darla gave a small prayer of thanks that the railing mostly blocked the view of his baggy blue plaid boxers.

Without missing a beat, Jake shoved her sunglasses up on top of her head and opened her eyes wide. “You mean the blonde?” she answered in feigned innocence. “Strange chick . . . she ran off as soon as our friend buzzed us in.”

The man muttered a few obscenities that could have been directed at them, the fictional Deb, or women in general, but to Darla’s relief he contented himself with that before turning from the railing. A door slammed after him a moment later.

“Nice neighbors your buddy Morris has,” Jake muttered as she checked out the numbers on the two apartment doors across from them. “Looks like his little slice of this paradise is number 3, on the second floor.”

Darla hurried up first, leaving Jake to make the climb at her own pace. Number 3 faced the street. She waited until Jake had joined her in the narrow hall; then, with a nervous look around first to make sure there were no witnesses, she knocked on Morris’s door. Once again, no one answered.

Jake motioned her aside and tried the knob. It turned readily enough, but the deadbolt locking the door kept the latter firmly in place. “Worth a try,” she said with a shrug. “You never know, people can get sloppy.”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a key. Inserting it into the dead-bolt lock, she jiggled the key a couple of times while Darla recalled the overhyped news stories she’d seen about lock bumping. Apparently, there was something to the hype, for Jake grinned and tried the knob again. This time, the door swung inward.

Darla gave another uneasy glance about the hall. “Uh, isn’t this technically breaking and entering?”

“Technically, yes . . . but only if we get caught. Don’t worry, I’ll let you be lookout,” she said as she all but shoved Darla through the door and then pulled it closed behind them.

The tiny apartment was a studio, with the living and sleeping space all together. Instead of a bed, however, a futon sofa lay fully open. Its crisp white surface was accented with a series of oversized multihued pillows apparently sprung from the earthy loom of some itinerant weaver determined to use every spare color of wool at hand to make those covers.

The only other furnishings were an oversized desk of blond wood with matching chair and overstuffed bookshelf, and a six-foot-tall screen that divided off the section of the room nearest the alcove leading to a bathroom. Constructed of three random doors hinged together, their glass panes now replaced by rice paper, the screen looked as if it had been slapped together in an hour. Darla guessed, however, that it probably had come from some trendy boutique and had sported a four-figure price tag.

A second alcove led to galley kitchen big enough to turn around in, but not bend over. A two-burner stove dating from the turn of the twentieth century held a teakettle of the same vintage. While it was obvious that someone did own the place, it was equally apparent that it wasn’t lived in on a regular basis.

While Darla took up her post alongside the window—the three youths who had catcalled them were now sitting on a stoop across the street shouting insults to a passing Asian couple—Jake poked around the place. An empty laptop docking station sat on the desk, meaning that Morris carried his computer back and forth with him. Jake dragged out the stylish wooden trash can from beneath the desk and grimaced.

“I hate compulsive neat fiends,” she remarked as she turned it over to demonstrate the can was empty. “It’s hard to pry into people’s trash when they don’t have any.”

She pulled open the desk drawers and then glanced at the bookcase, which held mostly reference books and office supplies. Numerous volumes—hardcover and paperback—of the first two Haunted High books filled one long shelf.

“Look at this,” Jake said, sounding impressed as she pointed down the row. “English, French, Spanish, Russian, Japanese . . . and there’s probably five other languages I have no clue what they are. And, aha!”

Carefully, she picked up a large black three-ring binder propped next to the printer on the topmost shelf. She turned it so Darla could see that it was neatly labeled on the front with the words “Last Ghoul Standing.”

“It’s the next Haunted High book,” she exclaimed, leafing through the pages. “I thought you said that Hillary Gables told you there weren’t any more manuscripts.”

“Either she lied, or she didn’t know,” Darla replied, keeping her gaze on the street below lest Morris abruptly exit a taxi. “I wonder what Morris plans to do with it when it’s finished, now that Valerie’s gone.”

Jake, meanwhile, had put back the binder and wandered over to the divided screen. She peered behind it and then jumped back as if someone had reached out and grabbed her.

“Holy crap, you’re not going to believe this!”

Darla felt her stomach plummet. “Please don’t tell me that Morris is lying dead back there,” she said, wincing over the words. The last thing she wanted to see was another of the Vickson family’s cooling corpses.

Jake shook her head. “It’s even better than that. Come over here!”

With another look out the window—two of the three punks were now involved in a one-handed shoving match with each other that was hampered by the ongoing threat of pants on the ground—Darla went. With the same caution that she’d using peering into a rattlesnake den, she looked around the edge of the screen.

“Holy crap!” she echoed Jake, adding, “Wow!”

Hidden behind the screen were two freestanding racks filled with women’s eveningwear in various lengths and styles. Whether of silk, satin, velvet, or lace, the predominant color was black, though a few jewel tones and pastels were mixed among them. A short wooden shelf stood to one side. She counted on its shelves ten evening clutches stored individually in neat plastic bins, and twice that many shoe boxes with famous designers’ names imprinted on their sides. Darla reached reverently for one of the boxes and gently opened the top to reveal a lilac drawstring dust bag. Unfortunately, the pair of pumps nestled inside appeared far larger than the size 7-½ she wore.

She sighed. She’d always wanted to try on a pair of Jimmy Choos.

“Any one of those dresses probably costs as much as my whole wardrobe,” Jake observed with a similarly wistful exhale as she longingly fingered a red silk strapless number. “Damn, he has good taste.”

Letting the fabric whisper back into place, Jake went over to the bath alcove. “This must be where the magic takes place,” she said, indicating a vintage painted iron-and-glass vanity upon which sat several neatly organized trays of cosmetics. “And look, here’s Mavis in action.”

Photos ringed the lighted oval mirror that hung over the vanity. Most of the pictures were of Mavis and her clients. A few obviously were models, and others apparently actors, including a couple of B-listers whom Darla recognized from television. Also among the collection were a few shots of Valerie Baylor, including one where she appeared to be standing beside a clone of herself.

“Oh my God, it’s Mavis dressed as Valerie!” Darla exclaimed, pointing. “In that black wig, he could totally pass for her, no problem.”

Seeing the photos prompted her to remember her guard duties. Darla muttered a mild oath and rushed to the door, taking a cautious peek over the railing in case Morris had sneaked in while they were admiring his outfits. Seeing no one, she slipped back inside and made a beeline for the front window.

“All clear,” she confirmed a bit breathlessly. “Are we almost finished?”

“Almost,” Jake muttered in an absent tone. She wandered back over to the desk and peered again at the shelves. “There’s got to be something here.”

She paused for a look at the pushbutton phone near the empty docking station. “Let’s see who Morris has been chatting with,” she said and pressed the “Speakerphone” button, opening the line. “If I can just find the ‘Redial’ button . . .”

She found it. Darla heard the familiar beep, boop, bop of tones as the last number that Morris had input now automatically replayed. Jake put a silencing finger to her lips as the line began to ring, but Darla needed no warning. She was holding her breath and mentally counting the rings as they sounded . . . One, two, three.

It was not until the fifth ring that someone picked up. They heard clattering, as if someone were fumbling with the phone, and then a woman’s sleepy voice answered, “Hillary Gables.”