Chapter 11
Charlie had a semi-private room at Klikamuks General Hospital.
It had walls in a soothing neutral that wasn’t quite brown and wasn’t quite gray.
It had big windows to let in the light. It had a whiteboard with a note that said MANDY and then some scribbled reminders—I was guessing Mandy was the nurse for this shift.
Gift-shop flowers—roses, lilies, lots of green filler—leaned precipitously in a vase.
Charlie’s bed was near the windows. The privacy curtain was drawn around the other bed, but I could tell you one thing: whoever was in there was wearing some knockout perfume.
Charlie was propped up in the hospital bed, frailer than usual in the thin gown, and they had a bandage around their head.
Dark circles ringed their eyes, and the way they held themselves suggested stiffness, maybe pain.
They were clutching a stuffed animal—an otter—to their chest. It looked like it had come from the gift shop too.
But Charlie’s eyes were open, and they smiled at us.
“Mr. Dane!”
“Just Dash,” I said. “Charlie, thank God you’re all right. You are all right, aren’t you?”
Thatcher was leaning against the windows, beanie pulled low, brooding like the troubled young artist that he was. “They could have been killed.”
AJ—busily typing on a tablet—glanced up and said, “The doctor said Charlie has to stay overnight for observation, but she thinks Charlie will be fine.”
“The murderer did this,” Thatcher said. “The killer. They knew we were investigating, and they tried to stop us. This is it: when we look into the jaws of death and, in the final instant, know the real meaning of life.”
Bobby squeezed my shoulder. “I’m going to call the sheriff.”
I nodded as I sank into a seat next to Charlie’s bed.
“Staring at my friend in the hospital bed,” AJ read from the tablet, “I realized it could have been me. In a way, it was me. I was as much a victim as Charlie.” She tapped her lips. “I think I’m going to talk about how my grandpa died.”
“AJ, you’re not as much a victim as Charlie,” I snapped. “Nothing happened to you. You’re fine.” I turned to Thatcher. “You didn’t stare into the jaws of death. Charlie did. And button up your shirt before all your chest hair falls out.”
(I don’t think that’s actually a thing, but I was on a roll. And Thatcher did button up his shirt—most of the way.)
“I’m fine, Mr. Dane,” Charlie said. When I held up a finger, they smiled and said, “Mr. Dash.”
It was a compromise I was willing to take. Settling into my seat, I said, “What happened? What were you doing? And did all of you somehow miss the part where I told you not to investigate?”
“When life’s sun begins to set,” Thatcher said, “a man only has one person to answer to—”
But the words dried up when I turned toward him.
“We’re writers too,” AJ said. “Did you stop when people told you not to investigate?”
This was how parents felt, I decided. It was also why—if I could ever trick Bobby into having kids—he would be in charge of all the parental conversations. The best response I could come up with was “I know what I’m doing.”
(Which might not have been precisely true.)
“Did you see who did this?” I asked Charlie.
They gave a miserable shake of their head.
“A glimpse? Or an impression—even something that might seem vague, like they were tall, or they moved fast?”
Charlie adjusted the blanket across their lap. “I don’t remember anything; it’s all a blank.” They sounded like they were on the brink of tears when they added, “I’m sorry.”
“Show him,” Thatcher said and kicked AJ’s chair.
AJ glanced at the door. Bobby had shut it behind him. Slowly, she drew a rectangle of folded paper out of her pocket and handed it to me.
I unfolded it. It was several sheets of paper that appeared to be a printout of a Wikipedia article. The title was Murder of Robert Kessler. I scanned the short summary at the top:
The Robert Kessler murder took place at the Snitches and Stitches Conference in October 2009.
Kessler, editorial director of Langstaff and Lock, was found dead in his hotel room by literary agent Margaux Mendez.
According to the coroner’s office, Kessler died from a blow to the head.
Writer Simona Wolf was convicted for first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole.
Celebrity mystery writer Vivienne Carver, who was attending the conference, assisted police with their investigation into the murder.
The Robert Kessler case was Carver’s seventeenth public case.
Carver went on to describe the case in her book Dropped Stitches, which was an instant New York Times bestseller—
I stopped there. “What is this?”
“It’s a Wikipedia article—” Thatcher began.
“I know what it is,” I said. “I meant, where did you find it?”
“We all had a copy,” AJ said. “Charlie made the connection.”
“But whoever attacked me took my copy,” Charlie said. “I don’t even know why—it’s all on the internet.”
I wanted to rub my eyes, but instead, I found them falling back to the article. “Why? Why this case out of all the ones Vivienne solved?”
Thatcher rubbed his chin. AJ pursed her lips.
“We took a picture of Mr. Graeme’s list of Vivienne’s one-on-ones,” Charlie said. “I pretended to fall down, and Thatcher started yelling, and AJ took it right off his clipboard.”
A sparrow fluttered at the window as though peeking in.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“But he didn’t notice,” Charlie said, “because then AJ put it back.”
“What did you not understand about don’t investigate—”
“We googled all the names on the list,” AJ said, “and guess what? This Wikipedia page popped up.”
I had to take a centering breath. “Which name?”
“I think this should be a moment of self-awareness when you acknowledge that we have every bit as much of a right as you—”
“Which name?”
AJ clutched her tablet. “Whitney Smith.”
I didn’t recognize the name, so I scanned the article until I found the longer summary, which listed key people in the investigation.
Vivienne was there, of course, and a longer description of Kessler that didn’t add much, and a section on Simona Wolf, who was—according to the article—a rising star in the world of literary crime fiction.
Margaux didn’t receive any further treatment aside from that mention.
Whitney Smith was there too, listed as one of Simona’s friends, but as I started to read the paragraph about her, Thatcher spoke again.
“I tried to read one of her books,” he said in the tone of a twentysomething who has figured it all out. “But I didn’t care for the prose.”
“She’s got to be the killer,” AJ said. “She’s here.”
“But why would she kill Vivienne?” I said.
“Because she wants revenge!” Thatcher shouted. And then, lamely, “Or something.”
That seemed like a fantastic example of jumping to conclusions, but, on the other hand, what did I know?
“And someone didn’t want anyone else to know about this,” AJ said. “That’s why they had to stop Charlie.”
I almost pointed out that they hadn’t stopped Charlie—they hadn’t even managed to get rid of the Wikipedia article. But now didn’t seem like the time.
“Where did you find Charlie?” I said. “You’d better tell me the rest of it.”
Thatcher and AJ exchanged a look.
“We were going to meet up at AJ’s car,” Thatcher said. “When we got there—” He stopped, and for a moment, the Hemingwayesque bravado drained out of him until he was so pale I thought he was going to pass out.
“Charlie had been hurt,” AJ said softly. And then she squeezed Charlie’s hand. “So, we called nine-one-one.”
Before I could ask another question, Bobby poked his head into the room. “Can I talk to you?”
In the hall, Bobby’s expression was grim as he shut the door—and, I noticed, he didn’t say anything until he was sure it was shut.
“I’ve got to go; the sheriff called me in. But I don’t want to—”
“No, Bobby, go. I’ll be fine. Is everything okay?”
He shook his head. “I know you’re not going to go home, but please, Dash—please be careful. This is getting dangerous.” It must have cost him a lot to add, “I could tell the sheriff I’m not available—”
“Don’t do that. I’ll be safe. I’ll be smart.”
Bobby nodded unhappily.
“What happened?” I asked.
He drew a deep breath and said, “That’s the thing: Steven Block is dead.”