Harriet’s?-is linked to a death. Although, what’s the saying? No publicity is bad publicity?”
“I refuse to consider murder a publicity stunt for anyone,” I said firmly.
Marty eyed me. “Amen. But you don’t need to get involved. You’ve got plenty on your plate as it is.”
“Are you saying that as a board member?”
“And as a friend, Nell. Your first couple of months are important-you need to show you’ve got a handle on the Society and that you’ve moved beyond what happened. Both you and the Society are under a lot of scrutiny right now. That’s got to be your first priority.”
“I know.” It would be easier to follow Marty’s good advice if I hadn’t known what Arabella must be going through. It was too easy for me to imagine just how she felt.
I was interrupted in my musings when Marty asked, “So, how are things going?” And we were off. Marty was, for me, an invaluable resource, because she knew everyone and everything there was to know about the place. In fact, since her father and grandfather had been on the board, she probably had hereditary knowledge. And she was one of my staunchest supporters: she had, in fact, engineered my rapid and unexpected ascent to its leadership. Since I’d been foolish enough to say yes, I was grateful that she was willing to help me. Of course, we did share a common goal: keeping the Society afloat financially, in the near term, and polishing it until it shone like the gem of American and local historical information that it deserved to be, in the longer term. I hoped I lived long enough to see that.
Lunch arrived promptly, and we consumed it quickly, then split the tab and emerged into the cool November afternoon. “You seem to be hiring staff nicely,” Marty said as we turned our steps back toward the Society.
“They’ve kind of fallen into my lap, but so far so good, knock on wood. We’re still working on filling Alfred’s position, but I want to be sure we get someone qualified, and who really cares about the place, not just the job. So far that one hasn’t crawled out of the woodwork.”
“I don’t have any candidates in mind, but I’ll keep my ears open. It’s just as well to let things quiet down a bit, anyway. And the collections have been sitting there for years without a whole lot of oversight, and after your recent improvements, I don’t think they’re going anywhere soon. So take your time and choose wisely.”
“That’s what I had in mind.”
As long as other things, like murder, didn’t distract me.
CHAPTER 13
By the next morning, Eric and I were already settling into our own pattern, alternating who got the coffee, each time going through a polite ritual. Shall I? Will you? The quality of the coffee continued to improve, which seemed reason enough to keep Eric around. Although he definitely had other much-needed skills-my phone messages were neatly recorded and appeared on my desk in a timely fashion, and what projects I gave him, he executed quickly and accurately. He was almost too good to be true, but at the moment I was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
I was reviewing the agenda for the next Executive Committee meeting of the Society’s board when Eric answered the phone, then stuck his head in my office. “There’s a Hadley Eastman downstairs to see you?”
It took me a moment to remember who Hadley Eastman was: the author of the
“Will do.” He darted down the hall. I stacked up my papers and put them back in their folder, and mentally reviewed what I knew about Hadley Eastman, which was essentially nothing other than what Marty and Arabella had told me. I didn’t spend a lot of time around children, and while I enjoyed browsing in bookstores, I seldom strayed to the children’s section. I put on a cheerful smile in preparation for my unexpected guest.
Who stormed in, with poor Eric trailing in her wake. He sent me an apologetic glance and retreated quickly. I had a quick impression of a fashionably thin and carefully made-up woman in her middle decades before she turned around and barked an order. “Chloe, wait for me there.” Chloe, a wispy young blonde clutching several bags, looked wildly around for a seat, which Eric pointed out for her. She sat down like a well-trained dog.
My guest turned the full glare of her attention to me and launched into a harangue. “What the hell do you mean, telling Arabella that this death is my fault?” Hadley Eastman demanded, leaning on my desk, braced on both arms.
Getting in my face was not the best way to introduce herself. I counted to three, internally, before saying, “Excuse me?”
“At Let’s Play. You gave Arabella Heffernan the idea that this stupid accident was directed at me.”
At first I didn’t remember saying any such thing, and then I recalled that when I’d talked to Arabella on Monday, I’d suggested a number of alternative scenarios. Apparently Arabella, faced with a belligerent Hadley, had tried to deflect her by pointing out that she could have been the target-and she hadn’t taken it well. “Why don’t we start over here? Welcome to the Society. I’m Nell Pratt, the president. Won’t you please sit down? Would you like a cup of coffee?” I had to grit my teeth to get this out, but at least one of us had to take the high road.
“No, you’re not going to distract me with coffee and showing off your historic stuff. I want to know what you said to Arabella. And to the police, who showed up at my door yesterday.”
“Then you’d better sit down,” I said, with more steel in my voice. “This is, after all, my office.”
For a moment it looked as though she was going to balk, but then she grudgingly dropped into a chair and glared at me. “So?”
Hadley Eastman did not exactly correspond to my mental image of a children’s book writer. Arabella came a lot closer-warm and friendly and happy. Hadley was coming across as a harridan, at least so far.
“Tell me, why are you here?” I asked in what I hoped was a reasonably calm tone.
Hadley tossed her artfully colored hair behind her shoulders. “I had a very unpleasant interview with a police officer yesterday, about this accident at Let’s Play.”
So the police were still calling it an accident? Or was that Hadley’s label?
“You mean that tragic event that resulted in someone’s death? That the police are investigating?”
I enjoyed watching Hadley trying to mold her face into an appropriately sympathetic expression-not very successfully.
Hadley went on. “They wanted to know if I had any enemies, anyone who would like to destroy my reputation.”
“Do you?” It wouldn’t surprise me, given what I’d seen of her so far.
“Well, of course there are those who envy my success. I can name quite a few writers in my genre who would love to see me brought down. Getting published in children’s fiction is brutal.”
“I don’t doubt it.” That at least squared with what little I knew about the publishing business. “But how far would they go?”
The flush on Hadley’s cheeks was receding. “How should I know? I try to stay away from them. I don’t do signings anymore-too many sticky-fingered kids whining. I go to a few conferences and make nice at the cocktail parties, and that’s it. I don’t need to suck up to the masses at this point in my career.”
A children’s author who didn’t tolerate children? “You’re saying you’re that successful?”
She stared at me. “You
“Yes. You write the
“
“I see.” What I actually saw was a vitriolic stick of a woman who was older than she wanted to appear- probably a good ten years my senior. “Do you have children of your own?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Just wondering,” I said mildly. I was beginning to enjoy this dialogue. “I don’t know your books, but I thought the exhibit at Let’s Play was charming-until someone died. Certainly the police have to look at all angles. Do
“I… don’t know.” She looked momentarily deflated, then rallied. “If there’s any hate mail, my publicist would have it. I get lots of mail, you know, from children and their parents, but that goes through my publisher, and they
