Rejection: Publishing Murder Mystery (Lou Drake Mysteries) (19 page)

“Sure. What exactly do you want to know?”

“Like I said—”

“Oh yeah, what’s up with publishing. Look, I hate to put it this way, but that whack job you’re looking for has a point. If he’s trying to say the book industry is a bad deal for most authors, then he’s right. I’ve never seen such a downturn in book sales. That’s why most publishers don’t want to take a chance on new authors. We’re pumping out more and more titles by the proven big names, and all the up and comers get is the door slammed in their face.”

Collins started to ask another question but Drake beat him to it.

“What about Halberson? Do you ever publish new authors?”

Shapiro threw both hands in the air.

“He talks! I was beginning to think you guys were playing good cop, quiet cop.”

Collins’ jaw was working in agitation. Drake couldn’t tell if it was because he had dared to join the conversation or if it was due to Shapiro’s antics.

“We occasionally take on a first time novelist,” Shapiro continued, “but only if we absolutely love their work. Unfortunately we have to be as mindful of the quarterly income statement as any other publisher.”

“But why are sales so bad?” Collins asked. “Is it just the economy?”

“No, I don’t see it that way. Our figures were headed south long before the banks screwed up the country.”

“So what then?”

“Competition. Used to be you had books and records and TV, and if you wanted an extra jolt you could pile your friends and a couple of six packs in your Chevy and off you’d go to the drive-in theater. Now people spend their time playing video games and watching streaming Internet and walking around with Whitsitt’s stuck in their ears. With all those options, not as many people take the time to read books anymore.”

“So our killer—”

“Most likely couldn’t even pay us to publish him,” Shapiro finished.

“What about self publishing?” Drake asked. “The people in my writers group are always talking about print-on-demand companies.”

Shapiro blinked. He looked at Drake as though he had just grown antennae. Then he looked at Collins.

“Did you hear that?” Shapiro said. “All this time he sits here and now he comes out with this?”

Back at Drake.

“You’re a writer?”

“Well, I—”

“Then you probably know this already. Print-on-demand? Sure. You write whatever you want, then you pay somebody a grand and what do they do? They send you five copies with a nice looking cover and get you a link with an online bookseller.”

“So our killer could get his book published that way,” Collins said.

Shapiro waved that comment away with a contemptuous look on his face.

“Published, schmublished. You can get a few copies printed up nice, but to me published means an editor has looked at it and pronounced it fit for human consumption. Mostly what readers get from self-publishing is a nightmare of misspellings and terrible writing.”

“But some successful authors started with self publishing,” Drake said.

Shapiro inclined his head, acknowledging Drake’s point. “Every rule has its exceptions, but mostly wannabe authors pay their money and no one reads the book but their Aunt Edna. That’s hardly the author’s dream, so they still end up frustrated.”

“Which,” Collins said, “brings us back to our killer.”

Shapiro shot his finger at Collins like a gun.

“You got it.”

“Well thank you for your time,” Collins said. He gave Shapiro one of his cards. “Call me if you think there’s anything else we should know.”

Shapiro nodded distractedly at what Collins was saying, turning his attention to Drake.

“What do you write? Let me guess. Cop thrillers.”

Drake nodded. “I’ve written one, and just started another one.”

“Joseph Wambaugh! The Onion Field, New Centurions, Choirboys, now those were novels.”

“Yes sir, they were.”

“Tell you what. You write one like that and then give me a call. I’ll tell you if it’ll sell.”

Drake felt a small thrill. He didn’t know if the old man was serious, but an invitation like that from an honest-to-God publisher was intoxicating for an unpublished novelist.

“Thanks,” Drake said. “I will.”

Collins was silent as they rode down in the elevator and walked back to the car. As they drove back toward Malcolm his face was flushed and Drake could tell he was angry. Drake watched the city go by as the clouds made good on their threat and rain began pelting the windshield.

“You knew, didn’t you?” Collins finally said.

“Knew what?”

“Everything that clown just told us.”

“Not quite all, but most of it, yeah.”

“Then why did we have to do this? Why didn’t you say something and save us the bother of talking to that nut case?”

Drake felt like belting his former partner, but he did his best to keep the anger from his voice.

“Because a guy like Shapiro has forgotten more about publishing than I’ll ever know. And besides, if I had spoken up you would have told me I was full of crap.”

“What a bunch of happy horseshit. And I didn’t care much for that guy’s attitude. I don’t think he respected us.”

“Bullshit. Didn’t he answer all your questions?”

“He was a nut case.”

Drake stared at the rain. Neither of them spoke on the drive back to the station.

C
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IVE

BETTY JADE WALKED in a biting wind from the university to her apartment building. Her coat was warm and a woolen scarf protected her face, but she was still uneasy walking alone in the twilight. The talk around campus about the murders made her nervous, even though all the victims had been literary agents.

Betty worked as a nurse at the university infirmary. She spent her days stitching cuts, applying cold compresses and dispensing condoms. Two nights a week she attended classes to finish her RN certification. Afterwards she normally walked up University Avenue to stop at the bakery. Tonight, though, the cold drove her to take a short cut.

After leaving the campus commons she turned on Delmar Avenue and climbed the concrete stairs to Hale Street. At the top of the steps she winced at the smell of something rotten. She knew that odor from nursing school, the undeniable stench of death. Betty pinched her nose and breathed through her mouth as she looked around. Nothing was on the hillside or in the ditch.

To her left the bottom units of the apartment complex had windows at ground level, the living quarters built into the hill. She peered in a dimly lit window ten feet from the stair railing. Inside she could make out a shape slumped over and wearing a Halloween mask, one of those gruesome clown things with large teeth and mottled skin.

Betty gasped and drew back. It had to be a dummy, she thought, a prop left over from Halloween. The figure was tied to a straight back chair with coils of yellow rope. The wind stirred and again the odor assaulted her, strong and repugnant.

The clown mask stared back and the lean of the body was too natural. It didn’t look like a dummy, but a dead body.

A chill ran up Betty’s spine. “Oh God,” was all she could manage.

She ran down the Hale Street sidewalk while rummaging in her jacket pocket for her cell phone. With her gloved hands she managed to dial 911. She could barely find her voice when the operator answered.

“Yes, I think there’s a dead person in an apartment on Hale, the ones by the steps. I’m sure, I … uh … I …”

The panic took over and she began to cry.

“Can I have your name?”

Betty closed the phone, shut her eyes and opened her mouth in a wail. She ran home, fumbled her way inside, and dropped onto her couch, still wearing her coat and boots. She lay there for what seemed like forever, hyperventilating in terror. After a time she curled up on her side and escaped into a fitful doze.

Two hours later a knock at her door awoke her with a start. The panic flooded back. She nearly screamed but held it in, not wanting whoever it was to know she was there.

The knock came again.

“Police, Ms. Jade,” a voice called out. “Officer Santino with the NYPD. Are you home? We traced your cell phone call.”

Betty’s legs felt unsteady as she rose from the couch. She approached the door and leaned against the wall beside it.

“Ms. Jade?”

“Is he dead?”

Her voice sounded unsteady and cracked.

“Ma’am, you need to open up.”

Betty opened the door just enough to see out. A handsome young man in uniform stood outside, his face ruddy from the cold night.

“Are you Betty Jade?”

She nodded through the opening.

“You called 911 tonight, correct?”

“Is he dead?” she said.

“We found a deceased person in an apartment on Hale, as you mentioned on the phone.”

Betty felt the tears coming again. She bit her lower lip, trying to hold them inside.

“Mind if I come in, ma’am?”

She opened the door and let him in.

“Why did you hang up on the 911 operator?” Santino said once the door was closed behind him. “That’s an unusual thing to do.”

Betty couldn’t answer right away. She breathed through her mouth, trying to gain enough control to speak without crying.

“I just … couldn’t,” she finally whispered. “It was so terrible and … I’m sorry.”

“Did you know the deceased?”

She shook her head. “No. With my schedule I haven’t made friends in the neighborhood.”

“How did you discover the deceased?”

“It was the smell. It was really awful. I smelled it when I walked up the stairs next to the building.”

“Do you walk that way often?”

“Only when I want to get home quickly. Tonight was cold.”

“Have you noticed any strangers around, anything out of the ordinary?”

Betty took a deep breath. Her nerves were starting to settle down slightly. It helped to talk with the young officer. He seemed so calm and self-assured.

“Not that I noticed. Lots of students live around here so people are always coming and going.”

“Okay, thanks,” Santino said. “Is there anybody I can call for you? You seem upset.”

“No, I’ll be fine.”

“Okay then. We may have to speak with you again and don’t hesitate to call if you remember anything else.”

He handed her a card.

“Thank you,” she said and closed the door.

She stood in the dim light and read the name on the card. Santino. She doubted she would ever forget his handsome, caring face.

And unfortunately, she was also sure she would see the leering face of the clown over and over again in her nightmares.

* * *

Collins watched through the window as the coroner cut the latex clown mask from the seated figure. The stench was overpowering. The officers and techs inside the apartment all wore bio masks. Collins took updates through his radio as the team inside tended to the horror.

“Detective Collins?” Prichard called from inside the apartment. “We found a page describing the murder.”

Collins spoke responded into his radio.

“Can you bring it out for me to look at?”

Prichard exited the apartment. With a gloved hand he extended a clipboard toward Collins. Thatcher stepped up and grabbed the clipboard from Collins. The FBI agent looked like a futuristic warrior in his coveralls and mask.

“Thank you Detective. We’ll take it from here.”

Collins turned back to Prichard.

“Can you at least tell me if the paper was left in plain sight?”

“Definitely, on a table by the corpse.”

“Did it have a page number on it?”

“Yes, 156,” Prichard said, and then headed back into the apartment.

Collins walked down the steps to the University common and took refuge from the light rain underneath a large evergreen. He dialed Andrade’s cell.

“Yeah?”

“The dead man is victim number three. Another agent,” Collins said.

“We already had three.”

“Three murders, but I think we had one, two and four. Looks like this was the third guy killed.”

“How do you figure that?”

“We found a page describing the killing again, next to the corpse. The page number is 156. The last guy we found was page 183, and trust me this newest guy has been here since Halloween. He’s tied to a chair wearing a rubber clown mask. Stabbed through both eyes with an ice pick. The weapon was left on the counter by the fridge.”

“What about canvassing the neighbors?”

“I talked to some. They said he drank a lot. Plenty of people saw him alive Halloween night, but nobody saw a thing after that.”

“Any links to the other victims?”

“Other than being an agent? Nothing yet, but it’s early days. Before I drove over here I checked his name though a few of the publishing websites. He used to be a pretty successful agent, sold some books, but he hasn’t done shit in years. Now he’s divorced, lives alone. That’s all I got so far.”

C
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