Bad Things Happen Read online

  “Kendel’s Fortune,” Elizabeth said.

  He nodded thoughtfully. “That’s a dramatic subject.”

  “Kendel’s Fortune is the title of your latest book. It comes out in hardcover at the end of the month.”

  “Just in time for holiday shoppers.”

  “Last month Sean Wrentmore had the words ‘Kendel’s Fortune’ tattooed on his left arm,” Elizabeth said. “Why do you suppose he would do that?”

  Hifflyn smoothed the palm of his right hand over his close-cropped beard.

  “I imagine you won’t be satisfied if I tell you he was a really big fan.”

  “No.”

  “Then the alternative is obvious,” he said. “Sean Wrentmore was a writer.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “He was an obscure writer with an unexplained source of income. And you’re a famous writer with a demanding schedule. Book signings, speaking engagements, and you’re expected to crank out at least one new novel every year. And that’s what you’ve done—eighteen books over the last seventeen years. Ten stand-alone novels and eight Kendel mysteries. How many of those did Sean Wrentmore write?”

  “Just three,” Hifflyn said, with a little lift of his shoulders. “The last three Kendel books.”

  “How much did you pay him?”

  “We split the money, half-and-half. Maybe he deserved more—he put the words on the pages. But I created the character, and my name on the b a d t h i n g s h a p p e n

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  cover sold the books. I think he was happy with what he got. It was more money than he had ever seen.”

  “But he never got any recognition.”

  The wind sent stray leaves tumbling over the grass. Hiffl yn followed them with his eyes.

  “I’m not sure he wanted it. Sean was a classic introvert. I think he would have been out of his element at a reading or a book signing.”

  “Still, it must have bothered him,” said Elizabeth. “He wrote novels that made the best-seller lists, and he couldn’t tell anyone. That was part of the deal, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “All he had was empty gestures—like tattooing the title of his novel on his arm. Did you know about that?”

  Hifflyn looked up from watching the leaves. “No.”

  “He had it put on backwards. It was something for him to look at in the mirror. That reveals something about his character, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose it does.”

  “Maybe you’re wrong, when you say he didn’t want recognition. I think he wanted it—even if he felt ambivalent about it.”

  “That may be true.”

  “I think we both know it’s true,” Elizabeth said. “And it’s the reason Tom Kristoll died.”

  She studied his reaction. He looked away, at the grave. She thought she saw one of his eyelids flutter—a sign of tension, but hardly enough to convict a man on. When he looked back to her, his features were composed. His mouth set itself in a pleasant line. He asked, “Am I going to need my lawyer?”

  “That’s up to you,” she said. “I haven’t read you your rights. I’m not going to ask you questions. I’m going to spin you a tale. All you have to do is listen.”

  He spread his arms. “Go ahead.”

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  Elizabeth’s fingers touched the beaded necklace at her throat. “Some of this is speculation,” she said. “Suppose Sean Wrentmore did care about recognition. He was the author of three Kendel books, and he wanted it to be known. But he liked the money he was earning, the deal he had made. He wanted it to go on, and that meant keeping quiet. But Wrentmore thought of himself as a serious writer. Serious writers take a long view. At some point—whether at the end of his life, or after his death—the deal wouldn’t matter anymore. Then he would want people to know who he was.

  “How could he make that happen? First he would need proof. Suppose he kept the original manuscripts of his Kendel novels—the working copies, with his own handwritten edits. Suppose he sealed them in envelopes and sent them to himself by registered mail. That would fix the dates. It would prove he hadn’t copied them from published sources. It wasn’t a hoax; he was the real author.

  “Then he would need to keep the manuscripts in a safe place. He decided not to keep them in his condo—I can only guess about the reason. If he died, his family would control access to his condo, and he wasn’t close to his family. Maybe he didn’t want to trust them with his secret.

  “The hiding place he settled on was a fireproof box in unit 401 of a place called Self-Storage USA. Now he needed an accomplice, someone to carry out his wishes after he was gone. In the end, he chose two accomplices. Neither one knew about the other. He gave them each a key to the storage unit, asked them each to go there if anything ever happened to him. They would know what to do when they got there, because he had left instructions in the box with the manuscripts. It’s easy enough to guess what the instructions were: Alert the press. Call Publishers Weekly, or whoever you’d call to report that the real author of the most recent Kendel books was Sean Wrentmore.”

  Hifflyn smiled at that, but said nothing.

  Elizabeth continued. “So his accomplices take the keys and agree to Wrentmore’s request. Maybe they’re curious, but they’re not curious b a d t h i n g s h a p p e n

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  enough to actually drive out to Self-Storage USA and see what’s there. Sean has his strange ways, and it does no harm to indulge him. Nothing’s going to happen to him anyway.

  “But something does happen. Wrentmore’s got this manuscript—this ungainly thing he’s been working on for years. Liars, Thieves, and Innocent Men. He shows it to Tom Kristoll and Tom tries to do him a favor. He edits the novel down to a realistic length. Adrian Tully helps him. But Wrentmore doesn’t take well to being edited. It’s a matter of pride—and he’s earned some pride, hasn’t he? He’s the author of two published novels, with a third one coming out soon. Tom’s editing—all these drastic cuts—it ticks him off. There’s an argument, and it goes farther than anyone could have predicted. Wrentmore ends up dead.

  “But his death is kept secret. Tom covers it up. Adrian Tully knows about it, because he’s the one who knocked Wrentmore over the head with the Scotch bottle. Laura Kristoll knows because Tom tells her. David Loogan doesn’t know—even though he helps Tom dispose of the body. Tom decides to keep him in the dark.”

  Elizabeth paused. She watched Carter Shan strolling along behind a row of headstones. Rex Chatterjee slouching against the fender of his car. She returned her gaze to Hifflyn. “So that’s three people who knew, not counting Loogan,” she said. “But that’s not all. Tom told you, didn’t he?”

  “Yes,” Hiffl yn said.

  “Because he knew about your arrangement with Sean Wrentmore.”

  “Tom’s the one who brought us together,” Hifflyn said. “It was his idea to get Sean to take over the Kendel series.”

  “How did you react when he told you Sean was dead?”

  Hifflyn put his hands in the pockets of his black wool jacket, drew his chin down to the collar as if to escape a chill.

  “I thought it was horrible, naturally,” he said. “But I’m afraid I reacted less than honorably. Tom had made the decision to conceal Sean’s death. It was done. I thought reversing that decision could only make things worse. 2 5 8 h a r r y

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  I told him I didn’t want to hear anything more about it. I didn’t want to discuss Sean Wrentmore ever again.”

  “But that wasn’t the end of it,” said Elizabeth.

  “No.”

  “Because Wrentmore still had his two accomplices. His death was a secret, but one of them found out.”

  Hiffl yn cocked his head to the side. “You might as well say her name—

  Valerie Calnero.”

  “All right.”

  “I don’t know why you’d want to hide her identity from me, unless you think I intend to do her harm.”r />
  “Well, she’s given you reason to wish her harm, hasn’t she?”

  Hifflyn shrugged the question away.

  Elizabeth went on. “Wrentmore made a bad judgment when he chose Valerie. David Loogan thinks he chose her because he wanted to get close to her. But whatever affection he may have had for her, it only went one way. Wrentmore had everything planned, he knew what he wanted, but Valerie didn’t follow the plan. She found out he had been killed—I imagine she found out from Adrian Tully. He would have needed someone to confess to.

  “She heard his confession and then remembered the key Wrentmore had given her. She drove to his storage unit and found his Kendel manuscripts and his instructions, but she didn’t call the newspaper or Publishers Weekly. From what I can gather, she was unhappy at the university. She may have been looking for a way out. Now she had one. She knew Tom Kristoll had covered up Wrentmore’s death. He might pay to keep her quiet. And she knew Sean had been writing your Kendel novels—and she was sure you’d pay to keep that quiet.”

  A cloud drifted across the sun. Elizabeth watched the change in the color of the grass.

  “So you and Tom each got a letter,” she said to Hifflyn. “Valerie asked him for fifty thousand dollars. I assume she asked you for considerably more.”

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  “She did.”

  “What was the deal? You were supposed to send the money to a mail drop in Chicago, and she would send you the manuscripts?”

  “She wanted me to buy them one at a time,” Hifflyn said. “A hundred thousand apiece. She thought I’d be more willing to go along that way. I wouldn’t have to send all the cash at once and then hope I’d get the manuscripts.”

  “Is that the way it worked? Did you decide to give her what she wanted?”

  Hifflyn skimmed the sole of one of his shoes over the grass. He nudged the withered roses, then bent to pick one up.

  “I know you think I did,” he said. “That’s the only way your theory makes sense.”

  “My theory?”

  He held the stem of the rose in two hands. “Your theory of the crime,”

  he said. “The murder of Tom Kristoll. Tom and I are being blackmailed, and I decide to pay. But Tom balks at paying fifty thousand. Or he develops a conscience and decides he has to go to the police and tell them everything. But I can’t let him do that, because if the truth comes out about Sean, my reputation will be ruined. So I go to Tom’s office and knock him out and push him through the window. Is that the story?”

  “That’s part of it,” Elizabeth allowed.

  “What’s the rest?”

  “Adrian Tully.”

  “Sure,” Hifflyn said. “Adrian knows about Sean’s death, and he’s a suspect in Tom’s murder. So I get him to drive out to the middle of nowhere one night, and I shoot him in the head. I make it seem like a suicide. Sean’s death remains a secret, and you assume that Adrian shot himself out of remorse. So you can stop looking for Tom’s killer.”

  He touched a petal of the rose and it broke free and drifted in the wind.

  “But I’m still not done,” he said. “David Loogan and Michael Beccanti 2 6 0 h a r r y

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  won’t let things rest. Beccanti starts to poke around in Tom’s office. So one night I follow him to Loogan’s house and stab him. And now you’ve found me out, because Sean Wrentmore got a tattoo.”

  He plucked at another petal and it crumbled between his fingers.

  “Is that about right?” he said. “Is that your theory?”

  “More or less,” she said.

  “Shall I tell you what’s wrong with it?”

  “Go ahead.”

  He drew out a petal and set it loose on the wind. “I never responded to the blackmail letter.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “I never talked to Tom about it. We never argued.” Another petal took flight. “I never paid Valerie Calnero a dime. Put yourself in my place. One day I found out Sean was dead. A few days later I received the letter. I didn’t know it was from Valerie. It was signed with a pseudonym. But whoever wrote it knew that Sean was dead. I assumed it was from Adrian Tully.”

  “When did you realize it was from Valerie?”

  “I started to wonder earlier this week,” he said, “when she suddenly left town. I wasn’t sure until you confirmed it just now. But the letter had to be from Tom or Laura or Adrian—or from someone they confided in. Adrian seemed to be the likeliest candidate. And if the letter came from him, it was a bluff. He wasn’t going to carry out his threat. If he revealed that Sean wrote my Kendel books, people would go looking for Sean. Sooner or later they’d find out he was dead. Adrian couldn’t risk that, since he was the one who killed him.”

  He plucked the remaining petals all at once and tossed them away. “But even if the letter wasn’t a bluff, it wasn’t worth paying. The deal I made with Sean wasn’t illegal. It used to be a common practice: An author would originate a character, and others would come in and continue the series under the same byline. My agent knew about Sean. So did my publisher.

  “I’m not ashamed of my arrangement with Sean,” Hifflyn said. “I didn’t pay ransoms to keep it secret. I certainly didn’t kill anyone.” He dropped b a d t h i n g s h a p p e n

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  the stem of the rose on the ground. “If you really thought I was a killer, why would you meet with me out here alone?”

  “We’re not alone,” said Elizabeth. “You brought your lawyer.”

  “You didn’t know he’d be here.”

  She nodded toward Shan, who had walked to the cemetery fence. “My partner’s here too. He’s been keeping an eye on you.” She smoothed a strand of hair that the wind had pushed across her forehead. “But the reason I asked you to come here is simple,” she said. “I was hoping you’d confess.”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

  She looked thoughtfully at the gray stone that marked Tom Kristoll’s grave. “The story you’ve told isn’t bad,” she said to Hifflyn. “You never paid off Valerie Calnero. You might be able to stick with that and get away with it. It will be difficult to prove either way, unless we get a chance to talk to Valerie. You’re a resourceful man—I think you’re capable of paying off a blackmailer without leaving a paper trail.”

  She turned away from the stone and stepped closer to Hiffl yn. “But you’re not invulnerable,” she said. “I think you regret what happened between you and Tom.”

  His brow furrowed. “Nothing happened between me and Tom.”

  “With the others—Tully, Beccanti—you did what the logic of the situation required,” she said softly. “You weren’t attached to them. But Tom was your friend. Never mind what happened twenty years ago—he stole Laura away from you. That was in the past. Or maybe not. Maybe that made it easier.

  “I’m sure you didn’t go to his offi ce intending to kill him. You thought he’d be reasonable. Both of you would pay and Sean’s death would remain a secret. Then suddenly Tom tells you he wants to go to the police. I’m sure you tried to talk him out of it. But at some point it became clear he was se rious. And then things happened fast. You hit him—it was a spur-of-themoment decision. Maybe you hit him harder than you meant to. Then he was on the floor. And there was the window. You did it without thinking, 2 6 2 h a r r y

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  and you regretted it as soon as it was done. I think you’ve been obsessing about it ever since. You’ve been trying to figure out just how it went wrong, and whether there was something you could have said to him to change his mind.”

  “It sounds like I’ve been tormented,” said Hiffl yn dryly.

  “And now you’ve got your lawyer. You’ll try to ride it out. You think there’s no possible advantage in confessing. Maybe you think it’s all or nothing: If you admit to killing Tom, you’ll be charged with killing the others—Tully and Beccanti. But that’s not true. No one’s going to make
a case against you for killing Tully, not with the evidence as muddled as it is. Tully looks like a suicide. You could argue he killed himself because Laura Kristoll rejected him, or his mother didn’t love him, or the world never gave him a chance.”

  She softened her voice further. A tone for sharing confidences. “As for Beccanti, he got stabbed in David Loogan’s house, and Loogan disappeared the same night. Any public defender could get reasonable doubt out of that. Rex Chatterjee could do it with the sun in his eyes. So put Beccanti out of your mind, and Tully too. Focus on Tom. You were friends, you had an argument, it spun out of control. A situation like this, it’s what plea bargains were made for. There are people in the prosecutor’s office who’d be glad to work out a deal, just to have some resolution. They’d be willing to make allowances. You wouldn’t have to say what you and Tom argued about. You could leave Sean Wrentmore out of it. The books he wrote, the blackmail—

  none of that would have to come out.”

  Hifflyn frowned. “I told you, I don’t care if that comes out.”

  “Of course,” she said. “You’re not ashamed of your arrangement with Sean Wrentmore. It used to be a common practice. But these days you never know how readers are going to react, do you? They might decide they want their money back. If you really didn’t care, you’d put out a press release, get out ahead of the story. But I think you’re still hoping to keep your secret. Maybe you still can.”

  He locked his eyes on hers. “If I confess to a crime I didn’t commit.”

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  “No,” she said. “I would never advise an innocent man to confess.”

  “But you don’t believe I’m innocent.”

  She put on her best neutral expression and said nothing at all. They regarded each other, and if it was a contest of wills, she was the victor. He turned away first. He paced to the foot of Tom Kristoll’s grave, rubbing the hair at the nape of his neck.

  “Suppose I could offer you an alternative theory of the crime, and a new suspect?”

  This was something she hadn’t anticipated. “Who would that be?”