Chapter 26
Fox insisted we ride in their van.
The drive to Arcadia College felt a lot longer when you were crammed into a cargo area stuffed with empty egg cartons, rattling milk jugs, and what I really hoped were never-before-used cardboard tubes, the kind that toilet paper comes on.
“Bobby’s not answering,” I said as my third call went to voicemail. I left him a brief message explaining where we were going and what I thought was happening, and I disconnected.
“Jaklin can’t get a hold of the sheriff,” Millie said, phone still pressed to her ear.
“Ask her to keep trying,” I said.
Millie repeated the instructions—loudly—and I tried not to let my worry get out of hand.
It was probably totally normal for a dispatcher not to be able to reach the sheriff.
The sheriff might be in the middle of something.
The sheriff might have bad cell service.
The spear-tip of nervous laughter pressed against my gut.
Heck, maybe the sheriff was busily handcuffing Whitney and Spenser.
When we reached the Lorraine Mildred Cook Conference Center, Fox parked the van at the curb, and we ran inside.
The halls were empty; the final session was about to start, and as was typical of the last day of a conference, a fair number of the attendees had left early.
It didn’t matter. The person I needed to talk to was still going to be here—for a few more hours, anyway.
Sam and Frodo—I kid you not—were coming out of the ballroom as we reached it.
“Hey, they’re looking for you—” Sam started to say to me.
“Sorry,” Frodo said to the Last Picks. “You can’t go in without your badges.”
Darting past them, I said, “Keme.”
I didn’t actually see what Keme did, but behind me, Sam said, “We’re sorry!” and Fox yelled, “Into the breach!”
Which I took to mean Keme had successfully bullied his way through.
The ballroom was full. And I mean full. Apparently the topic of traditional publishing versus indie publishing still held some interest for prospective writers, to judge by how many people from the conference were here.
Graeme must have anticipated it, though, since he’d given us the ballroom rather than one of the smaller multipurpose rooms. That was the mark of a good conference organizer: they anticipated everything.
The kerfuffle behind me faded, and I hurried toward the table at the front. Margaux was already sitting there next to a weedy-looking man who, I suspected, had gone to great lengths to shine his head before today’s meeting. As I dropped into the seat next to her, Margaux gave me a scowl.
“Morning,” I said.
“It’s twelve-thirty.”
“Uh, afternoon. And sorry about yesterday.” In case she needed clarification, I added, “The whole accusing-you-of-murder thing.”
Margaux pressed her perfect nails against the table and stared out at the crowd.
A moment later, the microphone warbled as Graeme picked it up.
“We’re going to get started. I’m excited to welcome you to our final session of the 2019 Northern Noir Writing Conference.
We’ve got three experts on our panel today who will talk about the advantages and disadvantages of the various paths to publishing—whether authors today might want to consider going indie, working with a traditional publisher, or finding a hybrid path.
Dashiell Dawson Dane, author of A Work in Progress, is an independent author.
Margaux Mendez is the president of the Margaux Mendez Literary Agency.
And Maximo Bonilla is head of marketing for Black Hat. Why don’t we start with—”
“Graeme,” I said.
Well, tried to say.
The feedback on my mic was intense.
“Graeme—”
It wasn’t any better.
“You don’t have to shout,” Margaux muttered next to me.
Maximo leaned past her to say, “Hold it like you’re eating an ice cream cone.”
Which was exactly zero help because the stupid microphone was in a stand, and even if it hadn’t been, I had my doubts about the ice-cream-cone model of public speaking.
“Graeme—”
The screech of feedback cut me off again.
“We’re having a bit of technical difficulty,” Graeme said, and a polite laugh rolled through the audience.
Keme, I saw out of the corner of my eye, did not laugh. Keme looked like he was going to die from secondhand humiliation—he was even sinking down in his seat like someone might spontaneously recognize that he was associated with me.
(Fox, for your information, was trimming their nails.)
Giving up on the microphone, I stood and projected as best I could. “Graeme, aren’t you forgetting another path to publishing? What about small presses?”
Graeme gave me furrowed eyebrows. “That’s a good point, but unfortunately, most small presses have closed in the last ten to fifteen years—”
“Like yours?”
The sudden silence was like a thread being snipped—all except for one man in the back who said, “I can’t hear.”
“That’s what happened to you, isn’t it?” I said. “You were the owner of a small press. I believe it was called Doorstopper.”
Slowly, he said, “Yes, but I don’t see what—”
“What happened?”
Graeme cast a look out at the audience and then back at me. “You know, Mr. Dane, I think we’d better get back on topic here.”
“I bet I can guess. Your business was struggling. Indie authors were getting more and more comfortable working on their own, and the types of writers you had previously worked with were realizing they didn’t necessarily need someone to help them find a cover artist or hire an editor.
The ones who stayed were demanding higher royalties. And you watched your revenue dry up.”
“That’s a problem a lot of small presses face,” the weedy-looking man from Black Hat said. (His microphone worked perfectly.) “The advantage to working with one of the Big Five—”
I hissed at him and waved my hand for him to stop, and with a few startled blinks, he cut off.
“And then,” I said to Graeme, “the opportunity of a lifetime fell into your lap. A new author, but one you could tell was going to be a star. Literary acclaim. Commercial success. Everything. You were going to have it all. And it was thanks to a struggling young writer named—”
Graeme opened his mouth.
“Unh-uh,” I said. “Don’t you dare.”
“I—”
“No! It’s my turn.”
“But I—”
“Let the cute boy talk!” shouted a woman—who was waving, perhaps in solidarity, a tote bag that said I’M THE OTHER KIND OF WITCH.
(Okay, I’m going to admit: I did let that go to my head a little.)
Expression tight, Graeme gestured for me to continue.
“A struggling young writer,” I said, “named—”
“Simona Wolf,” Margaux said into her microphone. She sounded dazed.
“No,” I said, “I’m doing this—”
“Who’s Simona Wolf?” a man in suspenders shouted from the audience.
“Simona—” I began.
“I remember Simona!” That came from a fortysomething in glasses and, blergh, overalls. “She killed that guy!”
“Everyone— Could everyone please let me—”
“Oh my God!” This from a man who, to judge by the feather boa and the swashbuckling boots, was likely prone to hysterics. “Simona was framed!”
“Please—” I tried.
“EVERYBODY SHUT UP!”
In that moment, I discovered I’d never heard Millie employ her full vocal, uh, range.
“And if anybody’s thinking about getting smart,” Fox said—they were standing on their chair now, displaying their switch-comb. With an ominous click, the comb snapped open.
Keme glowered and cracked his knuckles, and it was, I have to say, terrifying.
“Go ahead, dear,” Indira said.
“You killed Robert Kessler,” I said. I waited for the interruption; nothing came. “Ten years ago. At Snitches and Stitches. And you got away with it.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Graeme said. “Simona killed him.”
“No,” I said. “She didn’t. She was with Margaux that night. She must have genuinely loved Margaux. That’s why Simona didn’t testify in her own defense. That’s why she didn’t give an alibi. She didn’t want to ruin Margaux’s life. And, I think, part of her hoped that Margaux would save her.”
Margaux, pale to the point of looking bloodless, wavered in her seat.
“You killed Robert,” I said, “because he stole Simona away from you. Simona was going to be your breakout author. She was going to take Doorstopper mainstream. Or that’s what you hoped, anyway.
But you weren’t the only one who thought Simona was special.
Robert recognized her talent, and he wanted her for his own imprint.
He convinced her to break her contract with you, and then he offered her the kind of money no author would walk away from. And that left you with nothing.”
Graeme stood with shoulders hunched. Sweat glistened through his thinning blond hair, and behind his glasses, his eyes were so small that they were colorless.
“You’ve been clever about how you’ve handled your…
problems over the years,” I said. “That night, you went to Robert’s room, and he let you in.
He might have suspected you’d be upset about Simona—but at the same time, you were also a colleague.
You were a publisher. It would have been easy enough to tell him that you had something to discuss with him, something that concerned you both, and he would have let you in. Did you mean to kill him?”
“I didn’t kill anybody.”