Chapter Twenty-Two

 

As Espie seemed to be taking her sweet time getting ready, I left the dining room and went upstairs to knock on Rachel’s door.

“Enter,” her voice commanded distantly.

“Sorry to disturb you, Your Majesty,” I said, shutting the door behind me. “I wondered if you’d reconsidered your decision to let me hang in the wind.”

She jumped about a foot—and so did I, never having seen her without makeup before. The thin Sailor Moon T-shirt wasn’t doing either of us any favors.

“What are you doing out?” she demanded.

I seemed to get that a lot lately.

“I’m on parole. Time off for good behavior.”

“That’s hard to imagine,” she said, recovering a little of her old charm. “Why are you here?”

“You’re my agent. I thought maybe you could give me some advice on what to write while I’m in prison. You know, what’s hot, what’s not—no pun intended.”

“You’re not going to prison.”

“You’re right about that because you’re going to tell me why you killed Peaches and what the hell you did with my earring.”

“I told you what I did with that bloody earring,” she roared. Personally I thought it was a little odd that she focused on the second half of my comment, but clearing myself was my main concern. Well, second main concern.

“The kid swears up and down that the glass on your dresser was empty.”

“She’s lying!”

“Why would she?”

“Why would I?”

“Because you’re trying to frame me.” I said it quite reasonably since we’d been over it before.

She refuted my hypothesis quite loudly, reminding me more of Yoko Ono with every screech. She concluded the opera with, “And I already told J.X. I’d had the bloody thing, but it was lost. Ask him. Ask him.”

“I can’t ask him. He’s missing.”

“He’s missing what?”

“Everything as far as I can make out.” I stared at her suspiciously. “How did you not hear that piece of news? The entire lodge knows. Where were you when everyone else was trying to crowd into the lobby?”

She whipped away to the nightstand and held up a black sleep mask and earplugs. “I didn’t sleep last night.”

“Not a good time to admit that,” I told her. “Someone made off with J.X. in the middle of the night.”

“Made off with him?”

“He’s gone. And I don’t think he went voluntarily.”

She stared at me aghast. “What is going on?” she whispered.

“My best guess? We’re being picked off one by one à la Agatha Christie.” I don’t think she even heard me. I was watching her expression very closely.

“This doesn’t make any sense.”

“Is there a part of it that does make sense?” I inquired. “If so, you should tell me now before you’re knocked off as well. Because as far as I can see, nothing so far has made sense—except that I think Peaches was trying to blackmail you.”

That was a total shot in the dark, so I was startled—but gratified—to see her turn the color of wallpaper glue. “How…do you know that?” she breathed.

“I know eveeryting and noooting,” I told her grandly. I was kidding because I was afraid she was going to faint, and no way could I scrape her off the carpet. She stared at me with empty eyes, and I said, “It’s something to do with Espie’s book, isn’t it?”

She answered mechanically. “Peaches wanted a look at it.”

“She wanted…” The light went on. “She wanted a look at Espie’s new book?”

She nodded.

“She was going to steal Espie’s new book?”

Another of those nods.

“But…I mean, Jesus, couldn’t she steal from someone else for a change? Or. Here’s a wild idea, couldn’t she write her own damn book?”

Rachel said dully, “She hated Espie. I think it gave her a special thrill to know she was robbing her. And, no, she couldn’t write. Not like Espie. Nothing she wrote on her own—assuming she ever did write anything on her own—did what Poké Stack did. That book put her on the literary map. As this next one is going to do for Espie.”

“So you didn’t let Peaches see the manuscript?”

“I told her—” She cut herself off.

I decided to circle round. “And that’s what you were arguing about that night?”

“Yes.”

“How did Peaches find out about the manuscript?”

Rachel winced at some memory. “Espie was boasting about it the night we arrived. It’s going to auction. Two major houses are bidding for this manuscript.”

I felt a sharp stab of jealousy. I’d never had a book go to auction. I ignored the green monster in the room and asked, “Does Espie know Peaches was blackmailing you to get a look at her manuscript?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I didn’t tell her.”

“Would Peaches?”

“Not unless she wanted to commit suicide.” Her eyes widened. “Oh my God.”

“What?”

“Oh. My. God.” She was staring at me in a kind of horror.

“What? What?” I yelled, looking around. Expressions like hers usually herald someone getting bitten in half by a giant ant or spider.

She said faintly, “I know what I did with your earring.”

I blinked at her, trying to reconcile this with the unimagined horrors that I had, in fact, been imagining.

Rachel was on her feet, dragging her purse out from the side of the bed and pawing through it like she’d missed her last dose of Dr. Jekyll serum. “Oh my God,” she said again, and pulled her wallet out.

She ripped open the wallet, dug frantically inside, and held up…my earring.

“I put it away for safekeeping,” she said into my stupefied silence. “I remember now. I was afraid the maid wouldn’t notice it in the glass and might accidentally throw it away, and I didn’t want to mix it in with my jewelry.”

I stared at her, then reached out and took the small winking stud. For a time I stared at it.

Rachel was still babbling guiltily. “With everything going on, it utterly skipped my mind. The only thing I remembered was putting it in the glass…”

So if the stud I had been wearing when I reached the lodge was now in my hand…that meant the earring found beneath Steven Krass’s body was the earring I had lost in the woods.

I fastened the stud in my ear, thinking all the while. Once again I remembered J.X. kneeling down to pick something up. He had said it was a key off his chain, but there was nothing to substantiate that. For the first time I seriously contemplated whether there was anything to Edgar’s theory that J.X. had deliberately disappeared.

Actually, from a mystery-writing standpoint, it looked pretty good. The old murderer-pretending-to-be-a-victim ploy. I’d used it successfully twice myself. Once in Miss Butterwith’s Double Trouble and once in Dead Weights for Miss Butterwith.

But what possible motive could J.X. have for killing Peaches? Krass, yes, that I could see. His comments at the table that night had seemed to be largely directed at J.X. I hadn’t taken them seriously—I don’t think anyone did—because being an ex-cop J.X. was pretty much above suspicion. Which was ironic considering his own work was full of corrupt and crooked cops.

Okay, to be fair, it wasn’t simply J.X.’s former line of work. He was…nice. A nice guy. Smart, talented, handsome, funny, and…nice. True, he was also married and screwing around which sort of undercut his nice-guy standing. Did his screwing around make him vulnerable to blackmail? Because it was sinking in on me that extortion was Peaches’ modus operandi—and had probably gotten her killed. Although it was kind of hard to picture. Blackmail wasn’t the motive it was back in the Golden Age of mystery. And what was Peaches blackmailing J.X. for? From all indications she wasn’t short of cash, and she could hardly pass one of J.X.’s hardboiled cop thrillers off as one of her own.

“What’s the matter?” Rachel asked. “I thought you’d be relieved.”

“We have to find J.X.,” I told her. “Get dressed. I need your help.”

 

* * * * *

 

Through the white emptiness we could hear voices distantly calling out to each other while the other searchers slowly and painstakingly worked their way through the outlying cabins and sheds.

Rachel and Espie were stumbling along at my heels, both of them grumbling about their feet hurting before we had gone more than a few yards. Not that I could really blame them, my blisters had blisters following that forced march up from the bridge the afternoon I’d arrived. I ignored the scrape and sting.

“We’re not going to find anything in this fog,” Rachel informed me.

“You’re just giving the murderer a good excuse to be wandering outside,” Espie put in.

I said, “If he hasn’t killed J.X. already, there must be a reason. If we could figure out what that reason is, maybe we can head him off.”

Neither of them answered. Instead I heard some splashing sounds behind me followed by cursing. I decided to let them catch up with me in their own time.

J.X.’s cabin loomed out of the fog. The windows were dark, the door swung silently open when I touched the handle. Not that I had expected to find J.X. sitting inside, but the chill silence that greeted me was depressing. I went to the chair where J.X.’s jacket hung and checked the pockets. They were empty. So what had he done with the notes I’d jotted down yesterday on the legal pad? He’d had them folded in his pocket when we went to dinner.

I began to go through his things slowly and methodically. Where was the earring he had found under Krass’s body? Had he hidden it for safekeeping? It didn’t appear to be anywhere.

He was doing quite well for himself judging by the quality of his clothes. Very different from when we had first met and his wardrobe had seemed to consist of Levi’s, white shirts, and a leather bomber jacket. One thing hadn’t changed. He still packed as neatly as if he had to pass government inspection, but the garments he now packed were…well, actually for the most part he was still packing jeans and white shirts. The difference was the jeans were now made by Marc Jacobs and the white shirts were by Armani. He’d tossed in a couple of lambswool sweaters and a few silk T-shirts, and there was a gorgeous black wool suit by Carlo Pignatelli hanging in the little closet. If I didn’t know how well his books did, I’d have been highly suspicious.

As it was, his deepest darkest secret appeared to be…shoe trees.

There was also the fact that there did not seem to be any indication of his married life. I’m not sure what I expected. A silver framed photo of the missus and the kid? There was nothing. If I didn’t know better, I’d have said this was the suitcase of a happily single male.

“What are you doing?” Rachel demanded behind me. I managed not to start—but it wasn’t easy, clutching J.X.’s Calvins. I unclenched my hands from his snowy boxers and glanced casually over my shoulder.

“I’m searching his things.”

“You can’t do that.”

“He searched mine, I’ll guarantee you.” Although what deductions he could have drawn were beyond me—seeing that I hadn’t even picked most of what I had packed, let alone worn it. I was kind of a jeans and T-shirt guy myself.

“He’s searching J.X.’s things,” she informed Espie as she staggered up to the doorway.

“Tell me he’s got some good blow. A couple of OCs. I’ll even settle for half-smoked leaf.”

“He’s clean,” I said like I was starring in a 1970s cop drama. And he was clean. He even folded his dirty laundry.

“What exactly are you looking for?” Rachel demanded. “Clues?”

“Red herrings?” Espie offered. “They’ll be stinking by now, esse.”

“I don’t know. But I can tell you what I’m not finding—and that’s anything to do with the murder. The branch, log, whatever you want to call it that was used to clobber Peaches came out of the woodpile back behind the lodge, but it went up in smoke last night. My earring is missing. There’s nothing here relating to the murders at all.”

“Why do you think he’d be keeping anything in his cabin?” Espie asked curiously. “Wouldn’t he leave that stuff locked in the lodge safe?”

“He’s an ex-cop. He doesn’t trust anyone.”

In an effort to get the torture over with as soon as possible, Rachel began checking behind the pillows on the bed, feeling between the mattresses. She worked fast and efficiently. I was impressed and left her to it while I went in the bathroom and checked the orderly row of grooming products. John Varvatos aftershave, deodorant, and fragrance. Baby shampoo. Manual razor and an electric trimmer. Electric toothbrush. Mini floss and cute little bottles of mouthwash.

“I thought we were looking for J.X?” Espie called. “I can tell you right now, he’s not here.”

The bathroom light suddenly came on.

“Oh, thank God, the power’s back,” Rachel cried from the other room.

“Halle-fucking-lujah,” Espie said. “Can we go back to the house now and get warm? I’m tired of freezing my ass off so Christopher can paw through J.X.’s underwear.”

I stared unseeingly in the silvered mirror over the sink. He could be anywhere. Tied up in a barn or buried in the vineyard. How the hell were we going to find him?

Gradually my face came into focus. I looked like a stranger. Pale, drawn, blond stubble, bleak, red-rimmed eyes… I looked old. I looked like a guy who had lost everything that mattered.