Kate Carlisle - If Books Could Kill

I stood outside by the valet station and wondered which way to go. I knew there were other hotels in the area where I could get breakfast. I flipped a mental coin and headed east. A short block away, I found the Monarch Hotel and ventured inside. The lobby was elegant in a slightly shabby, old-world sort of way, much like an elderly woman who still wore her 1950s-era Chanel suit to entertain her luncheon guests, but her lipstick was a bit smeared and her hair was thinning.

I took the elevator up to the cozy rooftop restaurant. The hostess led me to a small table by a wide bay window, and as I sat down, a waitress hurried over with a pot of coffee. As she poured, I thanked her profusely, pitifully grateful for the caffeine. Then she took my order for French toast, a side of bacon and a glass of orange juice and scurried away. Things were looking up.

As I waited for breakfast to arrive, I pulled out my notebook to study my workshop presentation. But instead of practicing my workshop spiel, I found myself thinking about Kyle. Or more precisely, his killer.

I flipped to a blank page, where I began to list all the possible murder suspects I could come up with. It was silly, really. Derek was right: I should’ve learned my lesson in San Francisco last month. I had no business sticking my nose in an ongoing police investigation. But I couldn’t help myself. It wasn’t just about Kyle. Someone had gone to a whole lot of trouble to frame me, so the way I saw it, I was already involved.

And judging from Detective Inspector MacLeod’s warning last night, it didn’t seem as though the police needed anyone besides me on their suspect list. Ipso fatso, I had no choice but to do their job for them. That was my story, anyway.

The problem was, I could come up with only a few names-and mine wasn’t one of them. I knew I wasn’t the killer. And I knew Helen wasn’t the killer, either, but I put her name on the list anyway. She was possibly the least likely murder suspect I’d ever met, but she’d insisted that Kyle was going to marry her, so what if he’d turned her down or pissed her off? Who knew how she might’ve handled it? A woman scorned and all that.

What if Helen had seen Kyle greeting me on the street with a big hug and a kiss? She might’ve been following him. If she’d been spurned and was jealous and obsessed, seeing me in Kyle’s arms would give her plenty of motivation to implicate me in Kyle’s death.

I fiddled with my pen as I stared at Helen’s name, then crossed her name off the list. It was ridiculous to think she could be a cold-blooded killer. I was better off suspecting that asinine husband of hers, Martin. Now, there was a logical murder suspect if I’d ever met one-and I had.

I wrote his name down, just because it felt good. And because he had the oldest motive in the world for killing Kyle: jealousy, pure and simple.

But why would he implicate me? That was the million-dollar question. Yes, I was sure he despised me, but honestly, we barely knew each other. My only connection to Martin was the book fairs we both attended once or twice a year. And even then, I rarely ran into him. His bookstore specialized in more contemporary works than the books I dealt with. We did have Helen in common, but I hadn’t seen her in two years.

No, I believed this killer had to be someone who knew me. And furthermore, I knew in my gut that Kyle’s death had something to do with the Robert Burns book.

Now, how could I connect those dots?

I stared at the next name on my list. Minka. Of course, Minka was always on my suspect list. She hated me, and vice versa. I didn’t know if she even knew Kyle, but she was always up for throwing me under the bus.

Then there was Perry McDougall. Besides threatening Kyle, he’d threatened me yesterday in the hotel store. Did he storm out of the hotel store and go directly to my hotel room and steal my tools?

Thinking of that scene with Perry, I took a sip of coffee and wallowed in embarrassment. What had I been thinking, throwing a fit like that? I chalked up my reaction to a combination of jet lag, two beers, and my recent bout of melancholy. I felt as though I’d lost control of my life, and Perry showed up to make me feel even worse. Naturally, I opened up a can of whoop-ass on him, as my dad would say.

But was that any reason to frame me for murder?

I sat back in my chair, glanced around the restaurant and thought about Perry. What had turned him into such an angry man? I’d heard he was living off a family trust fund, so he was apparently wealthy. He couldn’t use lack of money as an excuse to behave badly.

Well, he could, but he shouldn’t. I know money can’t buy happiness, but still, shouldn’t wealthy people be grateful they weren’t living in a cardboard shack?

Maybe he’d been an abused child. That would explain a lot. Or maybe he was dying of something and it pissed him off. But that didn’t make sense. He’d been a cranky-pants for years. Maybe he had a vindictive wife or a crazy mother-in-law. Whatever the reason, he was one mean sucker.

And if that weren’t enough, he’d hired Minka the Dimwit to assist him this week. He had to be tweaked in the head to do a thing like that.

So, to summarize, Perry was a malicious son of a bitch and a bad judge of character. But did that make him a killer?

I took another slug of coffee and pondered my puny suspect list. Kyle had told two others about the history and secrets hidden within the Robert Burns book. Once the book fair began, it would be easier to track down the booksellers and collectors who’d had relationships with Kyle. Maybe there were a few who didn’t think he was the darling some of us believed he was.

But again I came back to the real question: How did I fit into the puzzle? Whom had I pissed off so badly? Who wanted to see me hang for murder?

The waitress arrived with my breakfast and I pushed the notebook out of the way, picked up a fork and began to systematically devour the beautiful stack of thick, fluffy French toast sprinkled with powdered sugar and slathered in butter and warm maple syrup.

I took a sip of coffee between bites and stared out the wide bay window at the lovely view of the ancient rooftops and chimneys that seemed to cascade down the steep hill toward the New Town. Billowy clouds drifted across the blue sky. Small puddles of rainwater collected on the rooftops and reflected the sparkling sunlight. I had another urge to get out and walk around the city, as I’d planned to do yesterday before I was so rudely interrupted by darling Kyle.

Unbidden, tears filled my eyes.

“Oh, great,” I muttered, and grabbed for a tissue in my purse. I still couldn’t believe Kyle was dead. I couldn’t wrap my brain around it. What had he done to deserve such a cruel fate? It seemed impossible and unfair that the secrets inside one small book could lead someone to kill another human being. But how else could I explain it? Kyle had told someone about the book and it had cost him his life. I rarely saw him more than once a year, but I missed him terribly now that he was gone.

I sighed, then slowly turned from staring out the window to finish my breakfast-and shrieked.

“Hello, love.”

Derek Stone was sitting across from me. He snagged a piece of bacon from my plate, broke off a chunk and popped it into his mouth.

“Where did you come from?” I demanded.

“ Cambridge, originally.”

“Very funny.”

“I thought so.” He grinned, reached for my small glass of orange juice and took a sip. Then he looked around. “Nice place.”

“I like it.” It was lucky I’d already swallowed my coffee or I would’ve choked when I saw him. “What are you doing here?”

“I might ask the same of you,” he said. “There’s a perfectly decent restaurant in your hotel and yet you’re eating here, all by yourself. Seems a rather desperate move. Are you avoiding someone?”