“Other sins only speak,” wrote John Webster in The Duchess of Malfi, “murder shrieks out.”
I would have to agree. When one of my mystery authors delivers a book in which there is no murder, I begin to worry at once. Readers expect murders in their mysteries; no other crime is quite as popular or as intriguing. In short, murder sells books.
But when the murder is in my own backyard, in effect, I could do with less shrieking all the way round.
The morning after Parker’s body was discovered, the first problem I had to deal with was the press. Ordinarily I welcome publicity, as long as it is favorable, or at least not invidious. In this instance, I decided to shut my office door to the reporters and the television cameramen who milled around the Barlow & Company anteroom, hoping for an interview. I declined. Hannah Stein, my secretary, was instructed to tell everyone who asked that I had no comment. I somehow could not summon up the crocodile tears that were probably called for in the circumstances. Though I did not care much for Parker, really, I cared for hypocrisy even less. Let them think his death had left me speechless.
Of course the police were also present, and I’m sure the reporters converged on them, and like good public servants, they were happy to oblige the television people as well. For myself, as soon as I could, I sent for Sidney Leopold. He popped in through the private entrance to my office, bright-eyed as always, his frizzy brown curls even more tousled than usual.
“Nick,” he said, raising one hand and waving it in a kind of greeting, “what’s guh-going on around here? Puh-people all over the place… cameras… puh-police?”
I gave him the bad news. “Oh, my Guh-God,” he said, slumping into the visitor’s chair. “Oh, my God.”
“Don’t worry, Sidney, I’m sure you can account for your whereabouts last evening.”
He turned a shade paler. “Actually I was at huh-home alone at the time.”
“Then you don’t have an alibi.”
“Hey, Nick, sh-surely you don’t think that I—that I—”
“Certainly not, Sidney. You had no reason to wish Parker dead, had you?”
“I th-thought he was a son of a buh-bitch, but if I started kuh-killing every SOB I know, I’d have to buh-be a serial killer.”
“My sentiments exactly.”
The buzzer on my desk rang softly. I picked up the phone. “Yes, Hannah?”
“Lieutenant Hatcher would like to see you, Nick.”
“Not as presentable as Joe Scanlon, is he?” Scanlon was an NYPD detective, now on leave to write a book for Barlow & Company.
“Really, Nick! I’d rather not say.”
Hatcher came in briskly, all business, and got to the point at once. Hannah was right behind him. She turned to go, but I motioned her to stay.
“I’m going to need to talk to the members of your staff, Mr. Barlow. Could you—?”
“There’s a conference room down the hall, Lieutenant. Hannah, will you show Lieutenant Hatcher where it is? He may also want to ask you a few questions.”
“Right,” said Hatcher. “Then I’ll want to see the others, one by one.”
“Hannah will bring them to you.” I turned to Sidney. “You don’t mind leading the pack, do you?”
He shrugged.
I had a feeling little work was going to be done in the office this day. I flipped open the pages of my desk calendar to Wednesday, June 2. “2:00 BANK,” it read. I groaned silently, impaled on the horns of a dilemma. Lifting the phone, I dialed Mort Mandelbaum’s extension.
“The bank date, Morty,” I said.
“Two o’clock, right, Nick?”
“You’ll have to reschedule that appointment.”
“What? But—it’s an emergency.”
“I realize that. However, there’s the matter of Parker Foxcroft’s murder. I think the police ought to have first call on our attention. And, Morty?”
“Yes?”
“How’s your alibi?”
A shocked silence, a bit of sputtering, and the phone went dead.
My turn with the inquisitors came just after lunch.
“The lieutenant would like to see you now, Nick,” Hannah informed me. I cursed under my breath, straightened my tie, and headed for the conference room. Hatcher, appearing quite morose, was sitting at the head of the conference table, his chin resting on one hand, in the other a pencil poised over his notebook. He squinted up at me.
“Mr. Barlow.”
“Yes, Lieutenant?”
“You sure you’ve been completely candid with me?”
“I certainly thought so.”
“Isn’t it true that you were involved in a heated discussion with the deceased at”—he glanced at his notebook—“the ABA… the American Booksellers Association?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“And isn’t it also true that you were… well, unhappy about Mr. Foxcroft’s situation at your firm?”
“Yes, I suppose I was.”
“Why didn’t you mention this before?”
“I didn’t think it was important.”
Hatcher rose from his chair and took a turn around the room. When he returned, he did not resume his chair, but positioned himself on the edge of the conference table. Moments passed.
“Mr. Barlow,” he said at last, “what was your business arrangement with Foxcroft? Your financial arrangement, I mean.”
“As an imprint publisher, he was under contract to me. Perhaps I ought to explain what an imprint publisher is…”
“Yeah,” said Hatcher. “Do. If you please.”
I gave him beady-eyed stare for beady-eyed stare. “I’ll do my best. An imprint publisher, as the name implies, has his own imprint—his own name on the books he brings in. Arrangements vary from house to house, of course.”
“I’m only interested in your house, and in his imprint.”
“Parker Foxcroft acquired and signed up his own authors and his own books. I financed his operation, provided the money he paid his authors in advances, and paid for the costs of manufacturing and marketing his books. In turn I gave him a drawing account—a salary, in effect—and performance bonuses when his books did well.”
Hatcher closed his notebook and rose from his chair. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Hold it there. It looks to me like you took all the risks and Foxcroft made out like a bandit.”
“Not quite,” I said. “There was no distribution of earnings on his books until his drawing account had been earned out. In effect, he was still an employee of my company, despite his imprint. He was not a partner, and he had no equity. If his books didn’t make money, neither did he. If his books lost money, well…”
“But you said he had a contract.” Hatcher was a bulldog, all right, and with a bone he wasn’t going to let go of. “And you couldn’t exactly fire him if his books didn’t earn money.”
I admitted it would be difficult.
“How long did his contract have to run?”
I hesitated, remembering how queasy I had felt about the possibility of having to buy Parker out. Hatcher waited me out, impassive, to me inscrutable. I only wished I could say the same for myself.
“A year and a half, Lieutenant.”
“A year and a half. Getting rid of him could have been costly, right?”
“Right.” I couldn’t have agreed more.
“Just how costly?”
“I’d rather not say.”
Hatcher’s eyebrows rose. “Oh?”
“That’s privileged information,” I said.
Hatcher squared his shoulders and tucked his notebook in his inside jacket pocket. Apparently my interview was over.
“Lieutenant…”
“What, Mr. Barlow?”
“Did you learn anything from questioning the other members of my staff? If you don’t mind telling me, that is.”
“Sure, I learned a few things.”
“Like?”
“You were right, nobody cared much for the victim. The question is…”
“Yes?”
“Who didn’t care for him to go on publishing books?”
Having no answer to this, I fell back on the typical Irish response to a question: another question. “Is that all, Lieutenant?”
“Not quite. I’ve been fingerprinting all the members of your staff. I’d also appreciate yours.”
“Mine? Is that necessary? My prints are on file with the FBI.” Again the raised-eyebrows response. “I was in Air Force Intelligence in Washington a number of years ago, and I needed a security clearance.”
“That’s fine—but it would be more convenient if we could get them again now.”
“Oh, very well—if I must, I must.” I made sure that Hatcher took careful note of my displeasure. As it turned out, it was Sergeant Falco who did the dirty work of taking my prints. Once I’d cleaned up, I returned to the conference room and said to Hatcher: “Now is that all?”
“For now.”
Dismissed from my own conference room, for God’s sweet sake, that was one hell of a note!
I was quite certain now that this was going to be a day when little or no business would be done in the offices of Barlow & Company.
However, I didn’t reckon on the tenacity, the fierce concentration, of my editor in chief. Not long after I returned to my office, slammed the door, and lay back on my couch, hands locked behind my head, I heard a soft knock from the adjoining office.
“Come in, Sidney.”
He peered around the edge of the door, hesitating to come all the way in. “You’re sh-sure you duh-don’t mind, Nick?”
“I don’t mind, Sidney. Not you, anyway.”
“It’s hell having the cuh-cuh-cops all over the place, no?”
I did not feel his question needed a reply. Sidney had always been sensitive to my changes of temper and forgiving of my occasional moodiness. He merely nodded and pressed on.
“I’ve guh-got something that might interest you, NuhNick.”
“What is it, Sidney?” I said, sounding, I supposed, rather like Eeyore conversing with Christopher Robin.
“A promising nuh-new author,” he said. “Nick, it’s your cup of tea, not muh-mine. A puh-private eye. Fuh-female.”
I brightened instantly, as though I had been confronted with a balance sheet showing nothing but black ink. Female P.I.’s were, at the moment, at least, highly fungible. I didn’t have one, how I would love to have one. Yes, yes, yes.
“Tell me more, Sidney.”
“Well, Nick, it cuh-came over the fuh-fucking… over the fuh-fucking…”
“Transom?”
“Right!”
That meant it was submitted by the author directly, and not through an agent. Better and better. One of my colleagues has a sampler behind his desk which reads: “An agent to a publisher is as a knife to the throat.” I think most of us in the trade would applaud that sentiment.
“Who’s the author?” I said.
“A wuh-woman—”
“I would hope so.”
He ignored my feeble jest. “—nuh-named Sarah Goodall.”
“What do we have, Sidney? Outline and chapters? A complete manuscript?”
“Muh-manuscript,” he said with a deep sigh. For Sidney, speaking at any length must be like what running a marathon would be for most of us. And I know for a fact that Sidney has run the New York Marathon.
“Give it to me, please, Sidney,” I said, “before I break down and cry.”
He did, and I didn’t. Instead, I packed a manuscript of comforting heft into my attaché case and headed for home, knowing I would not want for bedtime reading.
Hope lived once again in my mercenary publisher’s heart.