I found Barbara Berry sitting at a corner table at Perfectly Pastry, nibbling on a half-eaten beignet, her eyes fixed on a cargo ship lazing along the ocean. Although her lips were coated in white powder, she was possibly the youngest sixty-eight-year-old woman I had ever seen. Her skin was milky and smooth; her sleek, platinum, shoulder-length hair was tucked behind her ears so no one would miss the gigantic diamond stud earrings declaring her obvious station in life.
I approached and she turned, aiming a pointy, ruby-colored fingernail in the direction of a chair next to her. She put the beignet on a plate, cupped a hand around a paper cup, took a sip, and said, “Well, this is a damned disaster, isn’t it?”
I sat in the chair and wondered if the disaster she referred to had to do with her biggest moneymaker never publishing another book again.
“I’m sorry about Alexandra,” I said. “You two have been friends for decades. I’m sure you’re still in shock. I imagine everyone is.”
She blotted her lips with a napkin. “No, no. I wasn’t talking about how she died or the fact she’s dead. I mean, Alex’s death was tragic, to be sure. The disaster is the subpar coffee they’re serving in this place.” She frowned. “It’s stale and bitter. We should have met each other at Café Beignet instead. They have the best ... well, the best everything, but certainly the best beignets.”
A waiter walked by. Barbara reached out, depositing the coffee cup onto a tray he was carrying, even though the tray was full of fresh coffee being delivered to other patrons. He flashed her a distasteful look. She flicked her wrist in return, like he was a meddlesome gnat she couldn’t trouble herself with, and then she continued talking to me. “I just don’t understand it. I mean, for this to happen now, when she was ... you know ... it baffles me.”
All I knew was she’d just stopped herself from saying something she decided she didn’t want to say. “I’d heard Alexandra planned to retire soon,” I said. “I asked her about it, and she didn’t admit it outright. She did say she didn’t have the same passion she once did.”
Barbara leaned back in her chair, crossing one arm over the other. “Retire? Alex? You must have heard her wrong. Scale back, perhaps. But retire? I don’t believe it. She was devoted to her work. She would have gone to her grave writing.” She paused for a moment then added, “In a way, I suppose she did, didn’t she?”
I wondered if Barbara realized how heartless she sounded. Alexandra’s death seemed to bother me far more than it bothered her, and I didn’t even know her very well. I thought back to the night of the book signing, about the comment Alexandra had made. Was it possible she hadn’t told her agent about her plans to stop writing?
“What was Alexandra working on before she died?”
Barbara’s shoulders bobbed up and down. She didn’t speak.
“You’re her agent. Wouldn’t she discuss it with you?”
Barbara shook her head. “Most of the time, Alex pitches an idea and we talk about it all beforehand. We’d have a brainstorming session, make sure the person she wants to write about is relevant, will sell well, has the potential of being a bestseller.”
“Why was it different this time?”
“This time she knew what she wanted to write. She wasn’t interested in a discussion. We had a meeting set up for next week.”
“Couldn’t she have emailed the book to you so you could take a look at it?”
“Alex was paranoid about being hacked through email transmission and her books being read before they were released. Given the lengths she went to in order to secure her files, I didn’t see how it was even a remote possibility. She’d saved the book to a flash drive for me, and we were to meet next week to look it over.”
“And you were okay with not knowing anything more until the meeting?”
She raised a brow. “Do I look like a person who doesn’t care about those kinds of things? At some point, I knew I just needed to trust her. Everything Alex publishes turns to gold, Miss Jax, no matter what it is. Believe me, I still tried to weasel it out of her, but it was to no avail. She simply said she knew I’d love it and talking about it would have to wait until we were in person. So here I am, and now she’s dead.”
“Do you think it’s possible she’d already started writing a new book and that the subject of that book put her in danger or may have even been the reason she was murdered?”
“Anything’s possible. She told me she had been working on the book for a long time. It was almost finished.”
“Hmm. Who’s relevant right now? Who would make a great story, move the most books?”
“You tell me. You’re far more tuned in to criminal society than I am. Who are you writing about these days?”
Her evasive, non-committal attitude made me feel she was hiding something. Perhaps who Alexandra was writing about. I considered the most likely candidates. There was Harvey Lindon, a transient who murdered six women in Kentucky over a span of three months. There was also seventeen-year-old Steven Dent, who snuck out to the campground his parents were staying at, doused the tent in gasoline, lit it on fire, and burned them alive. Toby Barker had an affinity for luring women he met online to his cabin, and they were never seen again. And last but not least, Darla Winehouse, a classy black-widow type who finally confessed to poisoning both of her ex-husbands in the eighties after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer a few years before.
“I’d write about Harvey Lindon, Steven Dent, Toby Barker, or Darla Winehouse.”
Barbara shrugged. “I wouldn’t waste your time on any of them. There’s no motive. They’re all behind bars.”
My thoughts turned to Alexandra’s current novel, The Devil Wakes. “Maybe I shouldn’t be looking at the book she was in the process of writing, but instead should focus on the book she just released. What about Elias’s family or the victims’ survivors? It’s possible Alexandra said something in her book that offended someone.”
“Enough to kill her? Sounds like a lot of work to me. I read The Devil Wakes a few times. I didn’t see any red flags.”
“Well, someone wanted her dead,” I said.
“Yes. Someone did. I have my suspicions.”
“You have a suspect in mind?”
“Two. That’s why I asked to see you today.”
“Why me? I’m not investigating the case.”
She laughed. “You’re not, eh? That’s not what I heard.” She reached down, slipped a hand inside the front sleeve of her handbag, and pulled out a piece of plain white paper folded in half. She handed it to me. “I’ve jotted a couple of names down for you.”
I unfolded the paper, glanced at the two names listed. Both men. Neither familiar. “Why didn’t you give this to the police?”
“I did. I just came from there.”
“And?”
“They listened to what I had to say with minimal interest. Who knows if they even took me seriously? I’m not waiting around to find out they didn’t.” She stabbed the tip of her nail onto the table repeatedly. “Something must be done. Something must be done now.”
“This first name you listed, Doyle Eldridge. Who is he?”
“Alex’s stalker.”
My hand gripped the edge of the table so hard I thought I might snap the corner off. My breathing changed, staggered and rough. Restricted, like my throat was being squeezed closed.
I glanced across the crowded restaurant. Finch was still sitting alone in the same seat he’d been in since we arrived. Although he wasn’t privy to the conversation I was having with Barbara, he cracked a slight smile, almost like he knew I needed it in that moment. Seeing him there calmed me. It also kept me from rubbing the three-inch scar on the inside of my right forearm until it was inflamed.
Barbara bent her head toward me. “You all right?”
I took a breath, forced my mind out of the past, forced myself not to think of the word stalker. “Fine. Sorry. It’s just a bit warm in here today.”
She laughed. “Warm? It’s December, and I’d swear they have the air conditioning on. It’s freezing in this place.”
“Tell me about Doyle Eldridge.”
“He’s a squirrely fellow. Not much to look at. Good body for his age. Built like a linebacker. Been popping up at Alex’s events for over ten years. Her ‘most devoted fan,’ she called him. She thought he was harmless.”
“What makes you think he isn’t?”
“He reminds me of the kind of guy who’d have a sick shrine devoted to Alex in his house.”
She pulled out a cell phone, used her finger to type something, then turned the phone toward me. “This is Doyle.”
She was right. He held a stack of Alexandra’s books in his Facebook profile photo. His face was bent toward the stack, sniffing, like the books were a pile of sweet nectar. Good body, homely face. He didn’t look like a killer. But then, killers didn’t always look like killers.
“I see what you mean,” I said.
She put the phone back in her pocket. “He showed up to one of her book signings a few years back with a scrapbook. The first few pages were filled with her book covers and articles about Alex he’d printed off the Internet. The last few pages were twisted. He’d clipped a bride and groom out of a magazine, replaced the heads with his and Alex’s.”
“What did Alexandra think about the scrapbook?”
“She laughed it off. They both did. He said he replaced the heads as a joke because he knew she’d like it. Seemed weird to me. Alex always said he was just a friend, that he’d been a friend of hers for years. I didn’t believe it. A fan isn’t a friend.”
“Where does this guy live?”
“Are you ready for this? He used to live in Nevada. Then several years ago, he moved here. Said he was tired of the desert. Wanted a change.”
“And you think he moved here to be closer to Alex?”
She turned her palm up. “In my opinion? Yes.”
“I didn’t see him at her book signing the other night,” I said.
“What time were you there?”
I told her.
“Doyle is usually the first person to arrive, but never the last one to leave. He always struck me as the shy, introverted type. He arrived before the crowds, got his one-on-one time, then scampered away when the line started forming.”
“You think someone as timid as Doyle is capable of killing Alexandra?”
“Miss Jax, even introverts have their limits, and quite frankly, with all the suppressed emotions they carry around, if you think about it, they’re really the most volatile of them all.”
I was an extrovert. I wouldn’t know. But I did know a little something about the mind of a murderer, and she was right. “What reason would he have to kill a woman he had been so devoted to for all this time?”
“Jealousy. Read any tabloid over the last several years, chances are Alex and Porter’s rocky relationship was mentioned from time to time.”
Porter Wells.
The other name on Barbara’s list.
“Porter Wells is Alexandra’s husband?”
She nodded. “Weston was Alex’s maiden name. Wells was her married name.”
“Doyle obviously knew Alexandra was married though.”
“When Doyle saw Alex, he’d say things like, ‘Next time I see you, maybe you’ll be single, and I’ll finally get the chance to ask you out.’ She’d laugh it off just like it was nothing more than a compliment, but I could see it in his eyes—part of him meant it. Part of him believed he’d have a chance with her someday.”
“Did you tell her about your feelings?” I asked.
“I warned her to stop being so nice.”
“And did she?”
“The last time they saw each other, several months ago, she was friendly like always, but Doyle was different.”
“Why? What changed?”
“There was a nasty rumor going around alleging Alex was involved with another author.”
“Was it true?”
“Yes and no. The two of them have been friends for years.”
“When you say involved, do you mean—”
“Romantically, yes.”
“Who is the other author?” I asked.
She blinked, didn’t respond.
“Barbara, I need to know. Besides, if a rumor was going around, it’s not going to make a difference if you tell me now, is it?”
“It’s just ... this particular individual, he has a wife. A lot of effort has gone into shooting down the rumors and making them go away. If you were to question him now—”
“If Alexandra was murdered in a jealous rage, the other man in her life could also be in danger. What happens if this other author shows up dead next, and you were the one person who could have stopped it?”
Barbara crossed one leg over the other, leaned forward, whispered, “All right, fine. It’s Roland Sinclair. You didn’t hear it from me. Understand?”
Roland Sinclair. One of the greatest thriller authors of our day. Married to actress Debbie Donnelly, America’s sweetheart. No wonder the rumors had been squashed.
“You listed Porter Wells as a suspect in his wife’s murder. Why? Was he jealous too?”
“Jealous? Heavens, no. In recent years, their relationship had become more of a convenient arrangement between two people than real love. And when I say convenient, I mean convenient for him, not for her. He sees other women on the side. Has for years.”
“If jealousy isn’t a motive, why do you consider him a suspect?”
“The divorce rumors were true. They’d been heading that way for years. For reasons unknown to me, she always hesitated to pull the plug though. Then a couple weeks ago, she told me she’d decided to do it. She even visited with her lawyer and started the paperwork, which was bad news for Porter.”
“Why?”
“Alex had an ironclad prenup.”