I knew that I was going to kill Eric Atwell the moment I’d finished reading Claire’s diary. But it took me many more months to work up the courage to admit that to myself.
I also knew that when Atwell was dead, I was going to be an immediate suspect. My wife had been coming from his home on the night she died in a car accident. Atwell had even confessed to providing the drugs that were found in her system, and the police, no doubt, had also determined that Claire Kershaw née Mallory had been having an affair with the wealthy owner of Black Barn Enterprises.
I thought of hiring someone to kill Atwell, then making sure that I was far away (out of the country?) when it happened. But there were so many reasons this wouldn’t work. For one, I doubted I had the kind of money it would take to hire a professional hit man, and even if I could scrape it together somehow, it would be obvious to anyone looking at my suddenly depleted bank account. I also had no idea how to go about hiring a killer. Nor did I even want to support such a profession. Anyone who killed people for money was not someone I wanted to be involved with; besides, it would be giving someone far too much power over my own life.
So I decided that I couldn’t hire a killer. But I did like the idea of being far away when Eric Atwell was killed.
A year earlier, sometime in 2009, a young woman had come into Old Devils with a stack of incredibly valuable first editions. They weren’t primarily mystery novels, although there had been an 1892 Harper & Brothers edition of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes that had made me ache with longing. There were about ten books in all—including two Mark Twain firsts that must have been worth thousands—and the woman, who had stringy hair and scabbed lips, had been carrying the books in a grocery bag. I asked her where she got them.
“Don’t you want them?” she said.
“Not if you can’t tell me where you got them from.”
She’d left the store, as quickly as she’d come in. In retrospect I began to wish I’d simply bought them from her with whatever money was in the register. And then I’d have been able to find the owner—she must have robbed someone’s home—and returned the books. As it was, I did call the police to report the incident, and they told me they’d keep an eye and an ear out for reports of stolen books. I never heard anything back from them, and I never saw the young woman again. At that time, Old Devils had an employee named Rick Murphy, who worked weekend shifts. Rick was a collector, primarily interested in anything horror related.
I told Rick about the woman who’d come in with the rare first editions.
“She might try and sell them online,” Rick had said.
“She didn’t look like the type who goes online.”
“Worth checking, though,” he said. “There’s this pretty tasty little site, more of a dark web place, where people sell collectibles under the table.”
Rick, who worked in IT at an insurance company during the week, showed me a site called Duckburg. To me it looked nearly incomprehensible, like message boards from the early internet days, but Rick pulled up a section where rare collectibles were offered for sale. It was all anonymous. We did searches for some of the books that had been brought into the store, but nothing popped up.
“What else is on here?” I said.
“Ah, the gentleman is intrigued. A lot of it is just a place to chat anonymously. To tell the truth, this isn’t the true dark web, but it’s darkish enough.”
Rick went to get his gigantic soda and I quickly bookmarked the page. I thought I might check it out later, but never did.
After deciding in late 2010 to kill Eric Atwell, I went to my bookmarks and discovered I still had that link. I spent a few hours one night after closing time, exploring the different portals, and creating a fake identity, calling myself “Bert Kling.” Then I logged on to a portal called “Swaps” that didn’t specify exactly what it was for but primarily seemed to be sexual in nature. Sixtyyearold man wants to buy you a 1000dollars in clothes. Young and sexy only. Won’t mind me accompanying you into changing room. No touching, just looking. But there were also offers such as Looking for cleaning ladies that want to be paid in oxy.
I opened up a dialogue box and wrote, Any Strangers on a Train fans out there? Would love to suggest a mutually beneficial swap. I posted it and logged off.
I told myself to wait for twenty-four hours before getting back on, but only managed about twelve. It was a quiet day at the store, and I logged back on to Duckburg under my alias. I’d gotten a response. Big fan of that book. Would love to discuss. Go to private chat?
Okay, I responded, clicking the box that made the chat visible to only the two parties involved. Two hours later there was a new message: What did you have in mind?
I wrote, There’s someone who deserves to disappear from the face of the earth. Can’t do it myself, though. I somehow couldn’t bring myself to actually write the word die.
I have the same problem, came back almost immediately.
Let’s help each other out, okay?
Okay.
My heart was beating, and my ears had gone warm. Was I being trapped? It was possible, but all I had to give up was Eric Atwell’s information, not my own. I decided, after about five minutes, that it was worth it.
I wrote: Eric Atwell, 255 Elsinore Street, Southwell, Mass. Anytime from February 6 through February 12. I was going to be at an antiquarian bookseller’s conference in Sarasota, Florida, during that week. My ticket was already bought.
I watched the screen for what seemed like an hour but was probably only ten minutes. Finally, a message appeared. Norman Chaney, 42 Community Road, Tickhill, New Hampshire. Anytime from March 12 through 19. After that message another one popped up thirty seconds later. We should never message again.
I wrote, Agreed. Then I copied down Norman Chaney’s address on the back of an Old Devils bookmark and logged out. From what I understood of Duckburg’s policy, the conversation would now disappear forever. It was a comforting thought, even though I doubted its veracity.
Taking a deep breath, I realized that I’d been barely breathing for the past twenty minutes. I stared at the name and address I’d written down and was just about to punch it into the computer when I stopped myself. I needed to be more careful than that. There were other ways to find out about this person. Right now, the name was enough. I was glad, I had to admit, that it was a man I was supposed to kill. And I was very glad that I was going second. Obviously, I would only have to go through my half of the bargain if Eric Atwell died while I was in Sarasota.
In February 2011 I attended the conference. I’d never been to Sarasota before and I fell in love with its old brick downtown. I made a pilgrimage to what had been John D. MacDonald’s house on Siesta Key, peering through the locked gates at a midcentury modern structure surrounded by lush vegetation. I even attended some presentations and had dinner with one of my few friends in the antiquarian world, Shelly Bingham, who had owned a used bookstore in Harvard Square before “retiring” to Bradenton, Florida, and selling used books at Anna Maria Island’s weekly flea market. We drank martinis at the Gator Club, and after our second Shelly said, “Mal, I was so gutted to hear about Claire last year. How are you doing?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but began to cry instead, loudly enough that several heads swiveled toward me. The suddenness and force of the tears was shocking. I stood up and walked to the restroom at the back of the dark bar, where I composed myself, then returned to the bar, and said, “Sorry about that, Shel.”
“No, please. I’m sorry I brought it up. Let’s have another drink and talk about the books we’re reading.”
It was later that night, back alone in my hotel room, that I got onto my laptop and checked out the Boston Globe’s online site. The top story was related to an off-season trade the Red Sox had just made, but the second story was about a homicide in Southwell. The name of the victim had not yet been disclosed by the police. I was tempted to sit with my laptop, refreshing the site until Eric Atwell was named as the victim, but I forced myself to try and sleep instead. I opened the window of my hotel room, lay on the bed under a single sheet, and listened to the breeze, plus the occasional truck rumbling by on the nearby highway. Sometime near dawn I fell asleep, waking up a few hours later, skin damp with sweat, the sheet twisted around my body. I logged back on to the Globe website. The body that had been found had been identified as Eric Atwell, a prominent local entrepreneur and angel investor. After throwing up in the hotel bathroom, I lay back down on the bed and savored, for a moment, the fact that Atwell had gotten what he deserved.
By the time I was back in Boston, I’d learned that Eric Atwell had been reported missing on Tuesday night by one of his housemates. He had gone out on one of his daily walks earlier in the day and had never returned. The following morning the police conducted a search and Atwell’s body was found near a walking path on conservation land about a mile from his house. He had been shot several times; his wallet had been taken, along with an expensive set of headphones, and his cell phone. The police were investigating the possibility of a robbery and asking for help from nearby residents. Had anyone seen someone suspicious? Had anyone heard the gunshots?
The article went on to mention that Atwell was a renowned philanthropist, someone with a keen interest in the local arts scene, who frequently hosted gatherings and fund-raisers at his restored farm in Southwell. The article didn’t mention drugs, or extortion, or anything about Atwell’s role in the vehicular death of Claire Mallory. For that, I was glad. A week passed, and I had begun to believe that no one had made any connection between me and Atwell. Then, on a Sunday afternoon, nursing a cold, I was surprised by the sound of the door buzzer. Before I even answered it, I was sure it was the police, come to take me away. I braced myself. And it was the police—a tall, sorrowful-looking detective named James—but she did not have the look of a police officer preparing to make an arrest. She said she had a few quick questions. I let her in, and she explained to me that she was a Boston Police detective following up on some leads on an unsolved homicide in Southwell.
“Did you know Eric Atwell?” she asked, after she’d taken a seat on the edge of the sofa.
“I didn’t, but my wife knew him. Unfortunately.”
“Why unfortunately?”
“I’m sure you know this already, because it’s why you’re here. My wife produced a video for Eric Atwell, and after that they became friends. She . . . Claire . . . my wife died in a car accident coming home from his house in Southwell.”
“And did you blame Eric Atwell for this accident?”
“I did, partly, at least. I know that my wife started doing drugs again after she met him.”
The detective nodded slowly. “Did he provide those drugs?”
“He did. Look, I know where this is going. I hate . . . hated . . . Eric Atwell. But I didn’t have anything to do with his death. The truth is, my wife had on-again, off-again problems with drugs and alcohol. He didn’t force her to start taking drugs. He didn’t introduce her to them. Ultimately, it was my wife’s decision. I forgave him. It took a lot, but after what happened, I did finally make a decision to forgive him.”
“So how do you feel now that you know he’s been murdered?”
I stared at the ceiling, as though I were thinking. “Honestly, I don’t really know. I’m telling the truth when I say that I forgave him, but that doesn’t mean that I liked him. I’m not sad, and I’m not exactly happy. It is what it is. If I’m honest about it, I think he probably got what was coming to him.”
“So you think he was murdered by someone from a sense of . . . out of revenge, maybe?”
“You mean do I think he was intentionally murdered . . . as opposed to just being mugged?”
“Right, that’s what I mean.” The detective was very still, barely moving in the sofa.
“It occurred to me. Sure. I can’t imagine that my wife is the only one he gave drugs to. And she probably wasn’t the only one he started charging after she became addicted. He must have done that to other people.” As soon as I spoke the words, I realized it was more than I had wanted to tell the detective. There was something about her calm presence that was making me want to talk.
She was nodding again, and when she realized that I had stopped speaking, she said, “Did your wife end up giving a lot of money to Atwell? Money you didn’t have?”
“My wife and I had separate accounts so I wasn’t aware of it at the time. But, yes, she started giving money to Atwell for drugs.”
“I’m sorry to have to ask you this, Mr. Kershaw, but as far as you knew, was there any sexual relationship between your wife and Atwell?”
I hesitated. Part of me just wanted to tell this detective everything I had learned from Claire’s diary, but I also knew that the more I spoke, the more it became obvious that I had a very serious motive for Atwell’s death. I said, “I don’t know, to tell the truth. I suspect they might have.” Saying the words made my throat start to close a little, as though I were about to cry, and I pressed the heel of my hand against an eye.
“Okay,” the detective said.
“She wasn’t herself,” I said, unable to stop myself. “I mean, because of the drugs.” I wiped a tear from my cheek.
“I understand. I’m sorry to come out here and make you go through all this again, Mr. Kershaw. I hate to have to do this, but investigations of this kind are often all about the elimination of possible suspects. Do you remember where you were on the afternoon of February eighth?”
“I was in Florida, actually. At a conference.”
“Oh,” Detective James said, almost looking pleased. “What kind of conference was that?”
“Antiquarian booksellers. I run a used bookstore here in Boston.”
“Old Devils, right. I’ve been there.”
“Really? Are you a mystery fan?”
“Sometimes,” the detective said and fully smiled for the first time since she’d stepped inside of my apartment. “I went to see Sara Paretsky read. About a year ago?”
“That sounds right,” I said. “She was good, I thought.”
“She was. Were you the one who introduced her?”
“I was. You’ll be forgiven if you don’t remember me. Public speaking is not my forte.”
“I think I remember you being fine,” she said.
“Thank you for that,” I said.
Detective James put her hands on her knees, and said, “Unless you have anything to add, I think we’re probably done here.”
“I don’t,” I said, and we stood up at the same time. She was almost exactly my height.
“I will need some corroboration about the conference in Florida,” she said.
I promised to send her flight details, and I also gave her Shelly Bingham’s name and address.
The detective left a card. Her first name was Roberta.