Page 15 of Broken Bird (The Last Picks #4)
Elodie answered the door on the first knock. Her eyes were red rimmed, her face sallow. She was dressed in what I now (thanks to Millie and Keme, the youths) recognized as a tradwife aesthetic—what I’d taken for the Carter schoolmarm era: high-waisted navy trousers with a windowpane check; an old-fashioned belt; a crisp, white blouse. No pearls, but the black pumps were definitely on brand.
“Mr. Dane?” she said. “Can I help you?”
The Rock On Inn was quiet in the late afternoon. From the street came the clank and growl of an old diesel engine, but the sound was attenuated, and it was already fading. Beyond Elodie, the light coming into the room was low and thin—winter light, at the end of a winter day.
“Elodie, we need to talk. May I come in?”
She’d straightened her room since the last time I’d been here. The bed was made. Her bags were packed. A faint hint of something—body spray, perfume—covered up the smell of the sea, and the air was humid, like she’d showered recently. And yet, I thought as she directed me to the only chair, she’s still here. She hasn’t left.
“I know you killed Marshall,” I said.
She didn’t laugh. She didn’t look away. Her voice sounded dry, like cracked snakeskin, when she said, “No.”
“Yes, you did. You killed him because he was going to end your relationship. And you killed him because you knew he was going to get rid of you sooner or later. But mostly, you killed him because he’d stolen your story.”
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t even blink.
“He did, didn’t he?” I asked. “You wrote Titus Brooks.”
Still nothing. She shifted her weight on the bed and brought one hand to her throat, where it rested, pale and stiff.
“Elodie, there’s no point trying to deny it. The sheriff already knows. She’s going to get a warrant. She’ll have experts take your laptop apart, and they’ll find the files—the drafts of Titus Brooks, the earlier versions. They’ll look at Marshall’s laptop too. They’ll find the exact moment when he took your story. They’ll have forensic linguists analyze his stories and yours, and they’ll be able to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the two books were written by different authors.” She was still staring at me, her hand touching her throat. My own mouth was starting to feel a little dry. “I could tell the first time I read it, by the way, although I didn’t realize that’s what I was noticing. The Titus Brooks story felt so much more alive. So much more vibrant. Fresh, if that makes any sense. Full of passion.”
Her mouth twitched in what might have been a smile. “They’re already talking about it on the discussion boards. They’re saying it’s the best thing he’s written in years. And they’ve only heard the readings; they haven’t even read the book yet.”
“Hayes told me that you met Marshall through your writing.”
“I’d always wanted to be a writer. Marshall told me how talented I was. That’s how—” A hint of a blush rose in her cheeks. “The first time. After that, he didn’t have to try so hard.”
I nodded. “I’m sorry that he treated you that way. I’m sorry that he stole from you. I want you to come down to the station with me; everything will be better if you do this yourself, instead of waiting for them to drag you out of here.”
“I didn’t kill Marshall,” she said, and her voice still had that snakeskin rasp. Her fingers fluttered over her throat. “I never would have killed Marshall. We agreed that I would be an uncredited co-author. Like a ghostwriter, you know? Marshall had been struggling…” Her voice faded before she picked up again. “He’d been struggling to write something new.”
“Elodie—”
“I didn’t want Marshall dead. I needed him alive. We’d write the next book together. He was going to help me to get my own series, once the Titus Brooks books were doing well. So, it doesn’t matter. All that stuff you said—the forensic analysis, the laptops, the drafts—it doesn’t matter. Because I admit it. I wrote the book. It doesn’t prove I killed Marshall. It doesn’t prove anything.”
“I’m not sure anyone is going to believe that story,” I said. “Certainly not anyone who knew Marshall. You can try it in court if you want, but there’s one problem, Elodie. You made a mistake.”
Those restless fingers settled at her throat, and she was perfectly still. Her hands drifted down to fold in her lap.
“You—”
She stood up so abruptly that I cut off and leaned back in the chair.
“I changed the manuscript,” she said in a dead voice. “I changed that stupid manuscript. And I was the only one who could have changed it.”
“Okay, yes, but I was kind of building up to that—”
“I knew it was stupid. I knew—I knew that I was only making things worse. Taking the manuscript from his portfolio, that was bad enough. But I was so afraid; he stood there in front of everyone, making those awful jokes about Pippi Parker’s books. All the anachronisms. The landlines and voicemails and cell phones. And with every word that fell out of his mouth, all I could think was how the Titus Brooks manuscript sounded so much…younger than Marshall’s Chase Thunder books. I knew—I knew —whoever looked at that manuscript would notice it immediately. And then they’d know I’d written it. They’d know Marshall stole it from me, the way he stole everything from me. And it was too late to change anything—he’d already drunk the scotch, the diazepam was in his system. I was watching a dead man stand there, making jokes that were going to help everyone figure out who killed him.”
“So, you did the only thing you could think of. When I came around asking for a copy—”
“I’d already changed it. I’d been up all night making sure it sounded like—like a fifty-year-old man had written it. Making it sound like the Chase Thunder books.”
“For real? I was about to say that.”
“And as soon as you walked out the door, it was like—it was like I had a fever. Because you’d reminded me about the package, the one from your parents, and I knew. I knew what was in it. Your dad always sent his edits by mail. I didn’t know what had happened to it at the reading. I thought maybe you had it.”
“So, when you came to Hemlock House, you weren’t trying to steal the copy of the manuscript I’d printed off. You were trying to get the one my parents sent. You saw the manuscript in the den and assumed—”
“It was just lying there! Right out in the open! And I knew I didn’t have much time.”
I said some non-Santa-like words under my breath.
“But when I got back here—” Elodie continued, pacing toward the windows that looked out on the town. Not on the ocean, I thought. Because Marshall hadn’t wanted to pay the extra to get her an ocean-view room. “—it was the one I’d given you. And that’s when I realized how stupid I’d been. It was like a fever breaking.”
“If you’d left it alone—”
“No one would have cared! No one would have even thought twice about the book!” She braced herself with her hands on the windowsill and sounded like she was trying not to cry. “But he had to make those stupid jokes.”
As gently as I could, I said, “Elodie, I know you’re sorry for what you did. If you hadn’t been, you would have packed up and left. But you stayed; I think you stayed because you wanted to take responsibility for what you did. You just didn’t know how. Why don’t you take a minute to get yourself ready, and we go down to the sheriff’s office?”
Wiping her eyes, she nodded. And then she unlatched the window and slid it open. Cold air, sharp with the ocean’s tang, blew hard.
“Hold on—” I began.
She threw herself against the screen. It held, but only for a moment, and then it was forced out of its frame. The top half of her body was already out the window by the time I got to my feet.
I caught her by that wide, old-fashioned belt. For another moment, she continued to fall, and the sudden resistance of my grip almost jerked my arms out of their sockets. Then she hung there, the windowsill supporting her weight like a fulcrum, as she scrabbled and kicked and screamed for me to let her go.
“Bobby!”
The door crashed open, and a moment later, the sheriff was there, and then Bobby took my place. They dragged Elodie back into the room, wrestling her through the window when she tried to clutch the frame. As soon as she hit the floor, Bobby snapped the cuffs on her wrists.
And then it was over.