Chapter 11 #2
HIS WIFE WENT MISSING, THEN HE DISAPPEARED. WHERE IS THE MISSING PORTERVILLE COUPLE?
“WE TRIED SO HARD TO GET HER AWAY FROM HIM.” MURDERED SANTA ROSA WOMAN’S FAMILY SPEAKS OUT.
MORE THAN HALF A MILLION AMERICANS DISAPPEAR EACH YEAR. WE DIG BACK INTO SOME OF THE MOST MYSTERIOUS MISSING PERSONS CASES
OF THE PAST CENTURY.
And beneath all of that, a larger photograph. It’s clearly Uncle Tad—I’d recognize that lanky frame and those shaggy eyebrows
anywhere, although he can’t have been more than twenty in the photo. He’s standing with an older woman who is beaming with
pride, and a younger woman who is clinging to his arm even as she smiles.
My hands are shaking as I open the other passport. It belongs to another resident of Porterville, a Miss Virginia Joy Winslow, born in 1930. There’s a faded black-and-white photo of her and this is not my mother—this is a slightly older version of the girl in the photograph with Tad.
I take the tin with me as I leave Tad’s office, flicking off the lights as I go. I wander down the hall to my own room and
I close the door again, but this time I know I’ll leave it closed. I’m bone-tired and unsettled, but there’s no way I’ll be
sleeping tonight.
Jon forwarded me Tad’s agent’s contact information, so I bring up my email app on my phone and write Rita a quick note.
Hi Rita, you might remember me—I’m Tad Winslow’s niece. I’m currently cleaning out his house and I found some books by an
author named Charity Wilkie. I can’t find any information about her online—can you shed any light?
I don’t expect a reply from her right away as she lives in New York, so I put my phone down and pick the book up. I’m not
even a page in when a reply from Rita pops up on my screen.
Fiona, of course I remember you. I think this one is easier handled over the phone. Can I call you?
I send her my number, and she calls right away. We exchange pleasantries before she says, “Fiona, do you mind telling me why
you’re asking about this Wilkie business?”
“Well, I’m currently reading Charity Wilkie’s book . . .”
“You are?” She sounds gobsmacked and that makes two of us. “How did you find it?”
“There was a box of books here in his house and I thought Tad may have intended them as gifts so I was curious.”
“There were copies of that book in his house? Where on earth did they come from?”
“The publisher sent them. Spencer Kallaide and Michaelson Books,” I say, reading the imprint name on the spine.
“When were they sent?”
“The parcel was postmarked November ’99, but they only arrived the day of his wake.”
Rita sighs heavily, but then we both fall silent, and I’m not sure what to say or how to ask what I’m starting to suspect.
This book is nothing like my uncle’s books. He wrote dense literary tomes, and as much as I adored his work, it was never
easy to read or to interpret. But the further into The Midnight Estate I get, the more familiar it feels.
This book reads like Uncle Tad’s conversational voice. He’s telling this story exactly as he would if we were seated together
having dinner.
“Did Tad write this? Was that box of books his author copies?” I blurt.
“Why do you ask me that?”
“Just a hunch.”
She falls silent, then she gives a heavy, dramatic sigh. “Darling, listen to me. I’m going to tell you the truth about this
but only because he’s dead and I don’t believe in ghosts so he can’t haunt me. Okay?”
“What’s the story, Rita?”
“Tad was a beautiful man. A real gem. But he could be a difficult client sometimes. Just to start with, he didn’t like answering
the phone, and he lived on the other side of the world. It used to drive my mother crazy. I mean, how was she supposed to
work with him if he never talked to her? Then your mother came along and God bless that woman, she made it all so much easier.
Everything went through her—everything. A force of nature! And then can you imagine I get a call directly from Tad out of the blue at the start of 1999, telling me he’s written something and he wants to find a publisher for it?”
“So he did write this. Charity Wilkie was just a pen name?”
“It was him. That’s right. I was never really certain why he chose a woman’s name, but I did assume it was another way of
covering his own tracks—he was so determined that no one would ever know this was his work. I said to him—Tad you are killing me here. If we publish this as a Taddeus Winslow novel we’ll make a fortune! He just would not listen to reason. And there
was more—he didn’t want Ginny to know about it. Not ever, he said. And he had all of these rules for where we could sell it! Not into North America. Not into Australia and New Zealand.
Just the United Kingdom.”
“That’s why it’s a London-based publisher.”
“That’s right. A tiny, now-defunct publisher, and they paid a pittance for it because no one else wanted it and everyone thought
the author was no one. And Tad insisted the contract have no provision for author copies. What author specifically asks not to be sent copies of their own book? None, Fiona, and that’s probably why the good people at Spencer Whoever and Whoever
Books assumed it was a mistake and sent them anyway.”
“Did you think it was strange?” I ask her. “The book, I mean. I assume you read it.”
“Oh yes, darling. It was all very odd, not his usual cup of tea at all.”
“Where do you think the idea came from?”
“Who knows with these creative types? Their minds are fascinating, sometimes terrifying places. Where did any of Tad’s ideas
come from? A muse, the universe, daydreams, nightmares. I am impressed you recognized it as his work though!”
I’m not going to tell her it’s not the work I recognized first, but the setting.
Maybe the timing of Elsie’s death was for the best, because I can’t see how anyone could read this book and visit this house and not immediately start to wonder.