First to Die

Chapter 80

THAT WAS THE PIECE of the puzzle I needed. If Jenks had premeditated these crimes, mapped them out in some early book, it would constitute unimpeachable knowledge. No longer circumstantial. With everything else we had, I could definitely bring him in. "Where can I find this book?" I asked. "It wasn't very good," Joanna Wade replied. "Never published." Every nerve in my body was standing on end. "Do you have a copy?" "Trust me, if I did I would have burned it years ago. Nick had this agent in town, Greg Marks. He dumped him when he got successful. If anyone would have it, it might be him." I called Greg Marks from the car. I was really humming now. I loved this. The operator connected me and after four rings, an an277 swering tape came on: "You've reached Greg Marks Associates" I cringed with disappointment. Damn, damn, damn. Reluctantly, I left him my pager number. "A matter of great urgency," I said. I was about to tell him why I was calling when a voice cut in on the tape" This is Greg Marks." I explained I needed to see him immediately. His office wasn't too far; I could be there in ten minutes. "I have an engagement at One Market at six-fifteen," the agent replied curtly. "But if you can get here…" "You just stay right there," I told him. "This is police business and it's important. If you leave, I'll arrest you!" Greg Marks worked out of his brownstone, a third-floor loft in Pacific Heights with a partial view of the bridge. He answered the door with a suspicious reserve. He was short, balding, smartly dressed, a jacquard shirt buttoned to the top. "I'm afraid you haven't picked a popular topic with me, Inspector. Nicholas Jenks hasn't been a client for over six years. He left me the day Crossed Wire hit the Chronicle's bestseller list." "Are you still in touch?" I wanted to make sure anything I asked him wouldn't get back to Jenks. "Why? To remind him how I baby-sat him through the years when he could barely use a noun with an adjective, how I took his obsessed midnight calls, stroked that gigantic ego?" "I'm here about something Jenks wrote early on," I interrupted. "Before any big deals. I spoke to his ex-wife." "Joanna?" Marks exclaimed with surprise. "She said he had written a book that never got published. She thought it was called Always a Bridesmaid." The agent nodded. "It was an uneven first effort. No real narrative power. Truth is, I never even sent it out." "Do you have a copy?" "Packed it back to him as soon as I turned the final page. I would think Jenks must, though. He thought the book was a suspense masterpiece." "I was hoping I wouldn't have to go through him," I said, without conveying the basis of my interest. I leaned forward. "How do I get my hands on a copy of that novel, without going to Jenks directly?" "Joanna didn't save it?" Marks rubbed a finger across his temple. "Jenks was always paranoid about people ripping him off. Maybe he had it copyrighted. Why don't you check into that?" I needed to run this by someone. I needed to run it by the girls. "Do you want to hear something really scary about Jenks?" the agent said then. "Please, go ahead." "Here's the idea for a book he always wanted to write. It's about a novelist who is obsessed- the kind of thing Stephen King does so well. In order to write a better book, a great book, he actually murders people to see what it's like. Welcome to the horrible mind of Nicholas Jenks."