Thirty-eight
Nadine watched Wes leave, hoping he understood what she was trying to say and aching for his situation. She’d be sure to reassure him until he knew she meant it.
“A break, Nadine.” Wes’s voice echoed through the room from the kitchen.
“I will.” He probably meant a walk in the garden or something, but she followed Erma to the library, where she sat down at Dot’s desk for the first time. This was where Dot had written over twenty books. She’d struggled and dreamed and put her thoughts down letter by letter to build worlds for Nadine and millions of others to sink into.
This was the desk where she’d unburdened herself. Unable to publicly accuse her betrayer, she’d sat and written the book out of her soul.
Nadine wasn’t sure how long she stared out the window at the trees before Wes came in. “Lunch will be ready in a minute, but I thought you’d like this.” He put a cup of tea on the desk. “What are you thinking about?”
“How Dot felt when Thirty Pieces of Silver was published. Was she scared? Worried about what Wilson would do? Cold at the idea that her own secret previous life as Mildred might come out before she was ready to reveal it?”
“Or did she feel triumphant?” asked Wes. “Glad to have told her story?”
She’d focused only on the negative, but Wes was right. “I don’t know,” she said.
“I’ll tell you what I think.” Wes leaned against the old desk, worn and scratched. “She wrote it, and she was frightened. After all, back then, Wilson had more power. More money. More social capital and people willing to overlook his sleaze for whatever selfish reason they had.”
Nadine was listening so hard her ears were buzzing. “Then why did she go ahead with it?”
“Because she needed to call him out, to call out men like him, and this was the way she knew how.”
“She named it revenge.”
“I prefer to call it justice,” he said. “Dot’s desire for justice trumped her fear, but she needed a little help to confront him. He’s a bad enemy.”
“So she’s using us.”
“She put her faith in us,” Wes corrected. “Come to the kitchen when you’re ready.”
He levered himself up from the table and gave her a little kiss on the forehead, as if understanding she needed to reflect by herself.
The tea was the perfect temperature thanks to the ice cube Wes had dropped in, and she sipped it as she stroked Erma’s soft fur. In the sun, the black cat showed lighter, reddish stripes that Nadine hadn’t noticed before, and her big eyes were fixed on the wall where Dot’s books sat in tidy rows. They were in chronological order, with Thirty Pieces of Silver in the third spot, right through to Nexus Point . Wait. The last book was It Is Hellish Gain . That wasn’t part of Dot’s standard bibliography, and she’d never heard of it.
Erma rose and curved her back into an arch like a classic Halloween cat as Nadine pulled out the book. The cover was simple, the title in a flowing font and surrounded by flags.
Little golden flags, in the process of unfurling.
There was a clipping tucked in the first page, and she put the book aside to read it. It was a death notice, of a man named Hiro Yamato. He’d been born in the aftermath of the atom bomb that had destroyed his home of Hiroshima, killing most of his family. He’d eventually come to Canada, where he’d suffered the death of a beloved daughter, chronic illness, and the loss of his business. A line from his grandson said, “He was the most resilient person I knew. It’s not that he didn’t feel the hurt. It’s that he knew life was made of pain and happiness, disappointment and hope.”
The final line, underlined by Dot, read, “Hiro would say, ‘I’m alive, and if I am alive, I have faith.’”
Nadine must have made a noise, because Wes came back in, then dashed over with an exclamation of concern.
“Are you okay?”
In reply, she handed him the book. “The shelves are chronological, and this was last. Not Nexus Point .”
She saw from his expression that he understood immediately. He opened it. “‘October 1977,’” he read. “‘Maude Crew knew her love was tainted but insisted on drinking deep from the well. Water from the earth is richer and more satisfying, and to Maude, the slight sulfuric accent made it addictive.’”
“Maude Crew.” Nadine blinked. “Milly Cross. Oh my God, is this an unpublished Dot Voline manuscript?”
“It looks like it is.” Wes’s voice was reverent as he flipped to the last page. “She typed it out, but I don’t think it’s done.”
“I want to read it. This very minute.” She made grabby gimme hands.
“Me too, but, Nadine.” Wes looked torn. “I can’t deal with waiting until you’re done. What if we read it aloud to each other?”
“Deal, deal, deal.” Nadine was up from the chair and almost hopping with anticipation. “Now, now, now.” All the depression of the previous hour had evaporated.
He laughed and started reading.
***
Wes left a message for Brent, who called back to tell them not only had he not known about the unfinished book, but neither had Dot’s agent, and she was desperate to get her hands on it. “I told her after you were done though,” he added.
“It’s all ours,” said Nadine when the call finished, her voice greedy.
Wes kept reading, occasionally struggling with run-on sentences and misplaced words. They read about Maude through lunch, as flashbacks told of a poor girl whose parents died and of her job in a politician’s office.
“It’s nice to see even a Nobel Prize winner has shitty first drafts,” Nadine said. He had to agree. However, despite the slow start and meandering story, the book was a testament to the power of Dot’s writing. He kept reading, then paused.
“Nice,” said Wes. “He starts off seducing her with gifts and helps her move to a better part of town.” He appreciated how Dot had captured the breathless exultation of a lonely girl in love who had been overwhelmed to be chosen and how she explained away her doubts.
By midafternoon, Maude was getting uncomfortable with the favors Jean-Pierre Walker, her boss and lover, was asking. “The initials JW again,” Wes said, putting the manuscript down to get some water for his parched throat. “Our old senatorial friend John Wilson.”
“This is sad,” Nadine said. “It started off with keeping some money safe, and now he’s talking her into insider trading.”
She took over reading, and Wes listened with his eyes shut, in part to absorb the story, in part to enjoy Nadine’s voice. She got to the part where, feeling used and scared, Maude finally refused and was shocked by Walker’s threats. The next part of the book was more exciting, when Maude did some digging and found out the money was from a shady group bankrolling the Jean-Pierre Walker character’s political goals in return for preferential treatment when awarding projects and advance notice of policy changes. “A reference to Matt White,” said Nadine.
Wes listened closely as the drama sped up. Maude threatened to go public although she’d also go down thanks to what she’d already done for Walker and was told the group he was working with wouldn’t hesitate to keep her quiet.
“No specific mention of organized crime, but we can make an educated guess, especially if we take that to be White,” said Wes.
The last chapters were about Maude running away in fear and changing her name to escape Walker. She kept an eye on Walker as he grew in power and saw he’d followed through on a threat against another woman, Anne Spitz.
“AS. Dot likes using initials as clues,” said Nadine. “I wonder if this is someone as well.”
Wes recalled it immediately. “Abigail Spencer.”
“Spencer,” she repeated. “I know that name.”
“Remember, we found her obit in the copy of Thirty Pieces of Silver marking chapter thirteen.”
Nadine pulled out the obit, and they read it again. “It wasn’t the chapter it marked that was important,” said Nadine. “It was the obit itself. Look at her sister’s name.”
“Sarah Owens, née Cohen.” He blinked. “Spencer is her married name.”
They soon found a news story about Abigail Cohen. Although the death notice only spoke of her love for animals and charity work, she had been fired for stealing from John Wilson’s office in the 1980s, which she denied. The reporters had a field day about the role of women in the workplace, vilifying Spencer and using her as proof they weren’t as trustworthy as men.
“Another victim,” said Wes. Wilson was a cold man.
“I bet this story triggered Dot’s keeping tabs on Wilson,” said Nadine. “She saw he hadn’t changed.” She passed over the manuscript for Wes to continue.
The afternoon turned golden as he read the last page out on the patio, his voice scratchy. “She plans to confront him and that’s it,” he said. “There’s a date scrawled at the end of the page. It’s three days before Dot died.”
“Then there’s probably not a hidden final chapter.” Nadine groaned. “I want to know what happened.”
“We know what happened, since this is a thinly veiled autobiography.” He looked at her. “This is enough for me. I want to go to our editors. Tomorrow.”
She moved back into the house without answering. Wes followed her in and saw her put the manuscript down with the rest of their findings before she sat on the couch.
Then he waited for her to speak.
***
Nadine chewed her lip, unsure if she should say what was really bothering her.
“Just say it.” Wes ran his thumb along her lip.
“It might start a fight.”
“It doesn’t need to be a fight, but if we don’t talk, it almost certainly will.”
“This might be unavoidable, talking or not.” She looked up at the ceiling, with the setting sun glinting rainbows through the crystal prisms of the chandelier.
“Say it, Nadine.”
“If I bring this to Daniel, I could be out of a job,” she said quietly. “He’ll tell Majors, who will probably get it spiked. Wilson has been his friend for decades. Knowing I was working with the Spear on my own will make him furious as well. I’m already not Daniel’s favorite, and Irina was taken off reporting when she asked questions. Not to mention it would have to be tight. Not a single thread untied, and we don’t have that.”
“We would do that for any story before publication.” He pointed at the table. “When you take the entirety of what we have, it’s more than enough to get the go-ahead to look into this properly, which we can do after we leave.” He took her hand. “I’m going to ask something that might upset you.”
“I mean, you don’t have to.”
“Did you start thinking this once you found out about John Wilson’s involvement?”
She tried to jerk her hand back. Wes had called her a coward, basically. “It’s reasonable to worry how the Herald would react if I came to them with a story that painted John Wilson in an extremely negative light.”
“Everyone likes to pretend they’re above influence, but journalists are still people.”
“The problem is worse when the pressure’s internal,” she said.
Wes laughed. “When it’s not your editor telling you it’s a bad idea to investigate your primary advertiser’s environmental record but a little voice asking, Hey, is that the best thing you can do for your career ?”
Nadine brooded over this. “We might not like to think about it that way because we’re in it for the journalism, but media is a business, and businesses have owners.”
“Not to mention they’re usually people the world has treated quite well and who don’t necessarily see the need to make changes that would impact that,” said Wes. “But it’s what we have to work with.”
“Well, what about you?” She remained offended that he’d called her out, even if he was a bit right. “Do you want the story out because you want to serve the public good or because you want leverage to get back on the I-team?”
“Both,” he said, more calmly than she expected. “I hate the fact that he screwed Dot over and others for personal gain and got away with it. And is likely still doing it. It doesn’t matter that she made the experience art. The fact that she wanted the truth known, that she carried it with her for this long, means it was heavy on her mind.”
Nadine looked over at the desk. Wes was right, but it was so difficult. She was scared.
“We can’t do anything now,” she said, wanting some distance to think. “Let’s sleep on it and talk about it in the morning.”
“Okay.” He draped his arm around her shoulders so her head was tucked against him. “In the morning. Do you have anything in mind to pass the time?”
“There’s that crokinole board in the game room,” she said. “We could play.”
Wes lost two games before they moved on to other, more interesting games where neither of them could lose. It helped pass the time even better.