Savannah remained seated at her desk, staring at the pile of letters in front of her.
“This can’t be happening. Everything was going so well two years ago. I was on the cover of Food and Wine and Southern Living. Everyone loved me. I often wondered if Quinn couldn’t bear my success. After all, he was beginning to fall apart as I was soaring.”
I didn’t say anything. Fame was like any other addiction. At first you thought you were in control, enjoying the high, and when you realized how desperately you needed it, you were lost.
“You think I’m vain and selfish,” Savannah said.
I shook my head. “That wasn’t what I was thinking.”
Savannah examined papers on her desk, arranging them in piles—some for her inbox and some for the outbox. She sighed and began to open a small stack of mail while I remained silent.
“Lurleen makes me sound like a monster. I’m not a monster,” she said. “See this pile of letters? These letters are from my fans.”
Savannah straightened her back.
“I have allowed myself to care too much about what people think of me and my empire. And it was my empire, never Quinn’s. Quinn wanted me to be a pretty object, wear lovely things, even when he couldn’t afford those things. My fans wanted me to be as pure and perfect as my grandmother’s pound cake.” She paused and looked up at me. “Frankly, I was getting sick of all of it, and I was sick of people constantly telling me what I should and shouldn’t do.”
Once more, she focused on the letters, opening them one by one with a pearl-handled letter opener. She read each letter—smiled or frowned, depending on the content, and put it aside. “It’s amazing people still write letters at all. Most of my fans use social media to reach me, but a few are more old-fashioned. They know the value of a handwritten note, true Southerners I call them.
Savannah grabbed a pile of letters.
“These are from people who love me and say I’ve changed their lives. There’s nothing like it, realizing you’re in everyone’s heart. Once you have that, how can you live without it?”
“You must have worried that to keep their admiration, you could never tell them the truth about who you were.”
“When things started to unravel, when it was clear Quinn was failing financially and physically, I felt trapped in a way I never had before. Fans don’t want to see their heroes lose strength.”
Savannah tapped the letter opener on the desk. “I had to keep up appearances!”
“What did that mean exactly?” I asked.
“I had to pretend everything was still perfect. When Anna asked about the culinary school, I had to pretend it was in the works. I had to give the same lavish parties I’d always given.”
“Obviously, you couldn’t keep that up,” I said.
“No. At first I thought Quinn’s problems were temporary, and I thought my falling ratings would improve. I went on every talk show that would have me. Then producers stopped returning my calls. I worried my show would be canceled. I didn’t think I could stand that.”
“So?”
“With the help of a very good man, I began to examine my options. I began to find my way. I’m a fighter, and I began to fight.”
“Peter Young?”
“Of course not. Someone far more decent. My friend helped me realize I didn’t have to be trapped. ‘People reinvent themselves every day,’ he said. ‘That’s how successful people maintain their success.’ I thought about it and I realized he was right. He also said that Quinn wouldn’t be around forever, and that I should think about how I would live without him. Somehow that freed me to see a world of possibilities.”
“You were ready for that,” I said, “life without Quinn.”
Savannah shifted back in her cushioned desk chair. “Yes. Once I saw the possibilities, it opened my world. Anna and I could start a cooking school, here on the premises. I could change the format of my television show to use guest hosts like Olivier or even Granny Flumm. She’s a very good cook, and she looks great on camera—like everyone’s grandmother. Maybe out of the guest hosts I’d find one I could work with on a regular basis.”
“You didn’t mention Anna as a guest host. She looks beautiful on camera. I happened to see her as she was arranging the prep tables. I guess the cameras were running to test the lights.”
“I love Anna, but she and I are too much alike. We wouldn’t look good side-by-side on camera—there wouldn’t be enough contrast between us. She’ll do great as the head of a culinary institute, once we find the money for that. She’s a wonderful teacher.”
“I wonder if you were afraid she’d steal your success. She’s a striking beauty, ten years younger than you, and a great chef.”
“You too want to bring me down! Why? Because I have what you will never have?”
“I’m thankful I don’t want what you have,” I said. “I couldn’t really live like that—waiting to see if I’d be renewed for another season, if my fans would continue to stick with me. It’s a hard way to live.”
“You’re right, it is a hard way to live. Fame is such an overwhelming experience—you get a little and you want more. It’s never quite enough. I’d look at the number of people who’d watched my last show or bought my latest cookbook, and I’d get frantic if the numbers weren’t increasing.”
“So, what did you do?” I asked.
“What are you talking about?”
“What did you do with all that frustration?”
Savannah said nothing for a moment. Instead she used the sharp point of her letter opener to violently slice through another envelope. She read what was inside and it seemed to calm her. She even smiled, and then she looked over at me.
“I turned for comfort to the one man who could provide it—provide it and keep his mouth shut, a man who had his own secrets.”
“The man who gave you such good advice.”
Savannah nodded.
“Who was it?” I asked and waited while Savannah seemed to be deciding whether or not she’d tell me.
“Dorian Gray,” she said at last.
“What? According to Anna, he wanted to have an affair with her—now you say he actually wanted it with you?”
Savannah looked at me wide-eyed. “Anna said that? You don’t know who Dorian actually is?”
“I don’t know his real name if that’s what you mean.”
“He’d never have wanted an affair with Anna. Anna is his sister.”
She stopped speaking and stared at me.
“You’re shocked. I can see it on your face. Dorian would do anything for me, anything at all, and he knew how to keep his mouth shut—even from his sister.”
“You found him attractive?” I asked, thinking of the obsequious man who had waited on me, the man who looked pasty and unwell.
“Yes, in a way that has nothing to do with physical appearance. We never had an affair unless you call our abiding friendship an affair. I knew Dorian always had my best interest at heart.”
“Do you intend to marry him?”
Savannah laughed—a hard-edged laugh. “Don’t be absurd. I will never let a man dictate my future again. Besides, it would be like marrying my uncle.”
“You don’t seem like a particularly patient woman,” I said, “and the walls were closing in on you. What did you plan to do if Quinn didn’t divorce you for Anna?”
“Quinn was a very sick man. He’d had two heart attacks,” Savannah said.
“And survived them. You could be waiting a long time for that future you dreamed of.”
The color rose on Savannah’s neck and she clutched the pen knife until her knuckles grew white. “You think I killed Quinn? I loved Quinn to the end, and I never wanted to hurt him or see him suffer. Why would I make such a point of getting people to protect me if I’d done that?”
“It would be a good alibi,” I said, “and when the reporter came, perhaps you felt you had to kill him before he found out what you were up to.”
Even as I spoke, I could hear Mason’s admonition—don’t accuse anyone of anything. “I’m sorry I said that.”
“Sorry perhaps, but it is what you meant.” Savannah picked up a letter from the desk. Then she stood, holding the letter opener in her right hand and the letter in her left.
I couldn’t read her expression, even as she walked toward me. Her face was blank.
Mason flung the door opened and wrestled the letter opener out of her hand. “I was watching this from Quinn’s office.”
Savannah stared at the letter opener on the floor. “I didn’t kill Quinn, and I wasn’t going to kill Ditie. What kind of a fool do you take me for? I wanted her to read this letter.”
In her left hand she held a carefully folded piece of linen stationery, which she handed to Mason.