Sixty-seven
My roasting room was in the basement, but as I led the prickly publishing VIP into my tiny second-floor office, I was wholly determined to apply the heat up here.
After Tuck brought us both coffees, I closed the door and pulled out my phone. “This is what I wanted to show you, Ms. Gibson.”
I called up the photos that I’d taken at Mr. Scrib’s apartment. “Since you were a member of the original Writer’s Block group, I’m hoping you’ll help me identify some of these other members. Do you recall any of them?”
Joan plopped her monogrammed leather handbag on my desk and took the phone. This time she didn’t smirk. A genuine smile crossed her face.
“That tall drink of water is Bobby Briscoe. Well, that’s what he called himself, anyway. Bobby was quite sexy, in his own scruffy way. He was funny, too, and so were his short stories. He worked as a bartender and lived in Alphabet City. He was also our candy man—”
“Candy man?”
“Weed, cocaine, LSD, mushrooms, uppers, downers. If you wanted it, Bobby could get it.”
“Who wanted it?”
She laughed. “You’re asking me to narc on these people?”
“It’s for my own curiosity. I promise I won’t tell anyone.”
Joan shrugged. “Ah, what the hell. I’ll dish. These people are mostly gone anyway.” She scrolled back and forth on the photos. “Most of the members of our group were casual users of some sort of drug, but all of us were really big drinkers. Bobby could brew up a mean cocktail, too—”
“Like a Kismet?”
Joan let my question slide as if she hadn’t heard it. “I don’t know what ever happened to Bobby. But if I was to speculate, I’d say he’s serving a twenty-year stint in Sing Sing on a narcotics rap.”
She blinked, then smiled again. “Oh, here’s a picture of Peter. He was a broker on Wall Street, so he preferred the real thing.” Joan touched her nose.
“Cocaine?”
She nodded. “Peter wasn’t a very good writer. But he had money, nice clothes, a Corvette. That’s why Addy was attracted to him—”
“Did they have a love affair?”
“Oh, Addy wanted to—” She smirked again. “Pete wasn’t interested. He was smitten with a long-legged dancer named Lola who was into the New Age movement. She would drop by the group occasionally, mostly to read her truly awful poems: ‘Come Cha-Cha with my Chakras,’ that sort of thing.”
“Did you, by any chance, know a Juliet?”
The name wiped the smirk from Joan’s face. She sat back. “What makes you ask about her?”
“I had a chance to read some of Mr. Van Dyne’s poetry. His love poems were beautiful and often dedicated to a woman named Juliet. Do you know anything about that?”
“About Juliet?”
“Yes.”
She looked away and shook her head. “Jensen Van Dyne was madly in love with her back then. Poor bastard. He probably still is.”
“So Juliet was real. Was she part of the Writer’s Block group?”
Joan met my gaze. “Yes, she was.”
“And is she still alive?”
“No, Ms. Cosi. Many years ago Juliet decided to put an end to Juliet.”
“Suicide?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“That’s so sad for Mr. Van Dyne,” I said, feeling my heart ache for him. It was awful enough to lose a romantic love so young—but to lose her to suicide was almost too horrible to endure. And now I wondered…
Was Juliet’s death the event that pushed Mr. Scrib into a psychiatric facility?
Suddenly, Joan Gibson had questions for me. “What exactly is your relationship with Jensen, Ms. Cosi? What’s the purpose behind all this curiosity? Are you on Addy’s payroll?”
“No, of course not. I consider Mr. Van Dyne a friend. He came to our coffeehouse every day to write—he even asked us to call him by his nickname, Mr. Scrib. And he became quite close to one of my baristas.”
“How close?”
“Very close. Esther is a writer and poet herself. After Mr. Scrib had a mental health episode in our shop, she volunteered to hold the notebook that he’d left here until he returned. She found a pair of keys to his apartment in that notebook, too. After the poor man was attacked—you do know he was attacked?”
“Detective Russell told me about it.”
“Well, after that awful event, Esther went to his place and retrieved his pet to care for it.”
“And where is that notebook now?”
“Esther is keeping it safe. It’s Mr. Van Dyne’s property, and she intends to return it to him.”
“I’m looking for a notebook, Ms. Cosi. Jensen Van Dyne’s notebook. He wrote in longhand, you know? He went into the hospital before he turned in his manuscript. I wonder—”
“It’s not your true crime memoir,” I said, cutting her off. “It’s…something else.”
I expected her to press me on this, but she suddenly seemed indifferent.
Then she began scrolling again, only to pause on a photo of Ace Archer beside a young woman with dark, frizzy hair. This woman seemed shy of the camera, and she partially hid her face behind one hand.
“There I am,” Joan said, surprising me. “Many decades, another hair color, and too many pounds ago.”
“That’s odd,” I said. “Addy pretended not to know that girl.”
“Oh, she knows that girl. Too well. That’s why she pretended not to.”
I pushed a little more on that but got nowhere. Worried her patience was running out, I turned down the heat and switched to another subject.
“Were you friendly with Ace Archer?”
“We all were.” She stared at the screen. “I forgot how handsome that boy was. Too pretty for his own good.”
“Addy told me he was popular with the girls in the group—”
“She would know. She was his choice.”
“So you’re saying Addy and Ace were hooking up?”
“I’m saying she was Ace’s choice. I’m not talking about who slept with whom—you’d need a scorecard to track the way some of the group changed partners. It was about who Ace chose. And he picked Addy.”
“I’m not sure I understand—”
“I’ve said enough about that, Ms. Cosi.” She set the phone on my desk. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember anyone else.”
“Not even the dark-haired man with the mustache?”
Joan just shook her head.
“Do you know what happened to Ace Archer, Ms. Gibson?”
“His murder, you mean? I’d left the group at that point, so I wasn’t there that night.”
“Why did you quit?”
“Because it was time to bow out. There’s no reason for an also-ran to stick around—”
“Then you quit because—as you put it—Ace Archer made his choice, and that choice was Addy. So, again, I’m a little confused. Are we talking about a romantic triangle? You see, my employer managed this coffeehouse back then, and she always wondered how Ace Archer’s life ended the way it did. She doesn’t remember much about those days, but she does recall that a young woman left the group in tears one night and never returned.”
“I hope my exit wasn’t that dramatic,” Joan said with a harsh laugh. “But I suppose that could have been me. In any case, I was long gone when whatever terrible thing that happened to Ace happened.”
“Addy says she was in LA by then—”
“If she said that, she’s lying,” Joan said coolly. “I know for a fact that Addy was here, along with Peter, Bobby, Jensen Van Dyne, and someone else.”
“Who else?”
“That has yet to be revealed. When I get Jensen’s finished manuscript and publish it, I’ll send you a first edition, gratis. Then you can read all about it.”
“Why exactly did you buy Mr. Van Dyne’s book? A decades-old unsolved murder, even one involving a bestselling author, doesn’t sound like a sure winner.”
“Let’s say I’m as curious as you are about what happened. Presumably, all will be revealed.”
“Presumably? You don’t know?”
Joan slipped me an icy smile. “I know Addy was there that night, though she claims she wasn’t. But Bobby was there, too, and we were still friends back then. He didn’t tell me everything, but he told me enough to know there are more secrets to be revealed.”
“In a manuscript you don’t have.”
“It’s not due for another ten days.”
“But Mr. Van Dyne is in the hospital. He’s unconscious, and he may not live.”
“Jensen more than anyone wants this story to get out—he made that clear. I think we’ll find a way.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just what I said.” Joan Gibson checked her watch. “It’s getting late, Ms. Cosi—”
“Only a few more questions. I happened to be at the Grand Maison Hotel last evening. Is Mr. Van Dyne’s true crime memoir the reason you and Addy were arguing?”
“I’ll tell you the truth, Ms. Cosi, in the hopes that this will get back to that Scarlett O’Harridan. What we were arguing about is bigger than Jensen’s memoir, which might amount to nothing. Our fight was about the future. Addy is concerned about her reputation, for whatever that’s worth. But my stakes are higher. I want to save my imprint and my career.”
“How could Addy save your career?”
“My imprint has been operating in the red for two years. And Addison Ford Babcock is the only person standing in the way of a multimillion-dollar multimedia project that I put together and that everyone involved wants to happen. Everyone but Addy.”
“And that is?”
“A reboot of her old TV series, She Slays Me.”
I could hear the sharp determination in Joan’s voice. “I’ve invested a lot of time and a hell of a lot of money in this project. I have two bestselling thriller authors lined up to develop and write a series of novels featuring the female assassin Stephanie Slay, to be published in the run-up to the debut of the She Slays Me streaming reboot, and many more novels will follow—not to mention comic books, video games, merchandising…”
Joan took a breath and drained her coffee cup.
“This is a big deal,” she said. “There’s already a top director attached. The actress who’s dying to play assassin Stephanie Slay—if you’ll pardon the pun—was up for an Oscar last year. All the ducks are in a row and ready to fly.”
“And Addy is stopping this how?”
“As the original creator and executive producer of She Slays Me, she secured an unusual contract term that gives her the right of refusal over any spin-off or licensed projects. The studio moved forward on development without realizing this, and now she won’t approve the She Slays Me reboot or my deal to publish new Stephanie Slay novels and graphic novels.”
“Why not?” I asked. “At our brunch today she shared how excited she was about her New Amsterdam books being adapted into a big new streaming series. I would think she’d be thrilled to have the same thing happen with her old TV show. Why wouldn’t she want She Slays Me to have the chance to become a big moneymaking franchise, too?”
“She won’t admit why she’s killing my deal, but for some reason she wants to bury Stephanie Slay. I told her she shouldn’t. These are savage times. Today’s audience wants a hard-hitting, fantasy-game-level heroine who gets the job done.”
“Is Addy holding out for more money?” I asked.
Joan shook her head. “She’s not. She made that clear, which is why I believe this is about the past. Well, in my opinion Addy should let go of the past. I’m willing to do that if she is. I mean, success is success, and money is money…”
I suppressed a shiver at those words and suddenly realized why. They sounded exactly like Cody Wood’s.
“Anyway, Ms. Cosi, for her own reasons, Addy isn’t willing to see things my way. But that’s all right—” She flashed a sly grin. “I still have an ace in the hole. And I’m certain it will persuade Addy to see reason.”
On that triumphant note, Joan Gibson rose.
“Thanks for the coffee. It’s quite good, by the way. My compliments. But a stack of work is waiting uptown, and Kenny’s taken a personal day, so I’m off.”
As I watched the Ice Woman leave my office, I sat back in my creaky desk chair and considered what she’d revealed. Like Addy, she made a show of acting frank but stopped short of providing clarity.
I needed more answers, and it occurred to me where I might get them.
At brunch, Addy mentioned that her granddaughter had come to the Village Blend to work in our Writer’s Block Lounge. For all I knew, the girl was a sweet young thing just naive enough to tell all. Or she could be as crusty as Grandma. So I decided to enlist Esther in the hunt to find and question her.
I was about to rise from my chair when my eardrums were pierced by a bloodcurdling siren-like noise. Then someone let loose with a shattering scream. Next came angry shouts.
Fearing the worst, I did exactly what Matt had suggested and blasted off—straight into the chaos.