Priscilla Janovich leaned down and pulled the canvas tote bag up into her lap, then upended it onto the table. Four paperbacks tumbled out.
“Him,” Priscilla said, pointing at one of the books. “He did it.”
Maria stared at the pile of battered paperbacks. “Who?”
she asked blankly. “Who did it?”
The man who wrote these books!”
A half hour later, Priscilla Janovich had finished her synopsis of each one of the four paperback editions of Michael Schiftmann’s novels. She explained that she’d read the latest book,
, but hadn’t bought it yet since it wasn’t out in paperback. Priscilla went on to say in a moment of supreme irrelevancy that she was such a mystery fanatic she read her favorite writers in hardcover on loan from the library, then when the paperback was issued-usually a year or so later-she bought the cheaper edition and read the book again.
“And yesterday, when I read the article in the
Maria looked up from the yellow legal pad where she’d been taking notes. “So you’re saying this guy commits murders, then writes books about them.”
“Yes,” Priscilla said excitedly. “He bases the plots of his novels on murders he commits. Oh, he changes the locations around and some of the details, but the substance is there.
You can’t change that.”
“Okay, so-”
“And the books are really good!” Priscilla continued. “I mean, I sat down yesterday afternoon and started rereading them again from the first and wound up reading all four in a row.”
Priscilla rearranged the books in order of publication. “I was up all night,” she said proudly.
“And I’m sure that if I got the fifth one and reread it, it would only back up what I already know.”
Maria leaned forward on the small table, her elbows perched on the edge. “Miss Janovich, I don’t mean to doubt your word here, but can you understand how tenuous this is? Do you see how little this is to go on? I mean, how little sense this makes? I don’t know this guy”-Maria looked down at the paperbacks-”Michael Schiftmann, but he’s obviously, like, a famous writer and stuff. If the guy’s on the best-seller list, why would he go around committing these murders.”
“If you read the books, my dear,” Priscilla Janovich said, slipping into teacher mode, “you’d know the answer to that question already. He kills because it’s the right thing for him and because he
The old woman’s words echoed in Maria’s mind. She remembered the first briefing she’d been given by the FBI agent, whose name she couldn’t remember because it was too early in the morning and she still hadn’t had her tea yet.
Even though Priscilla’s choice of words made the hair on the back of her neck prickle, it still didn’t overcome her common sense, every bit of which told her this old lady was crazy and her story was ridiculous.
“Look, Miss Janovich, I’ve made notes on what you’ve told me and I’ll enter it in the record,” Maria said. “But we can’t pursue something like this when-”
“You don’t believe me, do you?” Priscilla demanded sternly.
“Well, it’s not that, it’s just that we have to have more sub-stantive evidence to go on. Sheer speculation isn’t enough.”
“Why don’t you read the books?” Priscilla asked. “See if it doesn’t make sense to you.”
“I’m very busy, Miss Janovich,” Maria said defensively.
“We’ve all got a lot to do around-”
“That’s no excuse!” Priscilla snapped.
“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but I just don’t think I can do anything on what is obviously speculation. I mean, we don’t even know this guy. And anyway, these murders you’re talking about that were allegedly recorded in this guy’s books, they’re outside our jurisdiction. We can’t do anything about that.”
“What about those two girls on Church Street?”
Maria nodded her head. “See, there you go. Good point.
We don’t have anything to connect him to those murders.
Nothing.”
“Oh yes you do!” Priscilla exclaimed.
Maria felt her blood pressure rising. She had to extricate herself from this as quickly as possible. There was too much work to do.
“What?” Maria asked. “What have we got to connect him to these murders?”
“Well,” Priscilla Janovich said in a huff. “How about the night those two girls were killed he was in Nashville?”
Maria stopped cold. “How-how do you know that?”
“I met him,” Priscilla announced in triumph.
Maria thought the old lady really had gone off the deep end now. “Oh,” she said, patronizingly, “and where did you meet him?”
“At the Davis-Kidd bookstore in Green Hills,” Priscilla said, smiling. “He was doing a book signing. Just check the newspaper. Better yet, call them.”
An aggravated Lieutenant Max Bransford hung up the phone, pulled his massive bulk out of the worn desk chair, and went to the open doorway of his office.
“Bea, you seen Chavez anywhere?”
Bransford’s longtime secretary looked up from her computer screen. “No, sir, not all day.”
“Damn it,” he muttered, walking past her and out into the hall. He walked twenty feet or so down the hallway and stuck his head in the squad room. Four detectives sat behind desks, each with his head buried in a folder.
“Hey, any you guys seen Chavez?” No one looked up.
“Chavez, guys. Remember her? Short, brunette, slight Hispanic accent, carries a gun. I just got a call from Hershel over at the ME’s office. She was supposed to be there an hour ago to pick up the tox screen reports on the Grant murder.”
Jack Murray looked up. “I saw her this morning, Loot.
Had to run upstairs to Print Division. Passed by the break room up there.”
“The break room?” Bransford asked.
Murray hesitated. “Yeah, Loot, the break room. She was laying on the couch.”
Bransford felt the pressure from his jaw grinding his teeth together. “She sick?”
Murray shook his head. “Didn’t look like it.”
“What was she doing then, son?”
“Uh, she was reading a book, sir.”
“Reading a book …” Bransford said slowly. Murray nodded. Bransford turned and headed down the hall to the lobby.
This was just weird enough to arouse Bransford’s curiosity. He walked down to the main lobby, then climbed the staircase to the second story. He ran his ID through the card reader outside the second-floor main entrance, then opened the heavy metal doors. He went down one hallway, turned left, then went down another hallway past the Fingerprint Division. He stopped at an open door, his bulk filling the doorway.
Inside the small room, on a couch against the far wall, Maria Chavez reclined with her head on the armrest facing away from the door. She held a paperback book open between her hands. On the floor next to her was a stack of file folders, a legal pad covered in scribbles, and an open felt-tipped pen.
Bransford cleared his throat loudly, which elicited no response at all from Chavez. Bransford cleared his
