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“I’m sure your readers wouldn’t have seen it that way,” said Odelia gently. “They would have seen it for what it was: a writer not afraid to confess he made a mistake.”

Rockwell smiled. “You’re too kind, Miss Poole. But I doubt that in this social media age people would have taken my side. Pretty sure the pitchforks would have been out and a very public tarring and feathering would have ensued. My fans can be pretty darn vocal.”

“So let me get this straight,” said Gran. “You never went inside the library?”

“Oh, I went inside, all right. But the moment I did my gut told me it was all wrong. So I turned around and walked right out again.”

“Without talking to Ackerman?”

“Without talking to Ackerman.”

“He wasn’t going to be happy about that.”

“No, I’m sure he wasn’t. But that couldn’t be helped. My integrity means more to me than selling a few more books. And as it happens it was probably a good thing that I walked. I would have gotten embroiled in this whole murder business if I hadn’t.”

“Oh, you’re embroiled whether you want to be or not, chickadee,” grunted Gran.

“Did you see anyone else when you were at the library?” asked Odelia.

“Well, I saw Malcolm Buckerfield,” said Rockwell. “Ackerman’s publisher? I told him I couldn’t go through with the reading and he said he understood. Then again, he wasn’t Ackerman’s publisher anymore. Chris dumped him and negotiated a new deal with Franklin Cooper. Very lucrative, too, or so I heard.”

“What was Buckerfield doing there?” asked Odelia.

“Probably trying to convince Chris to stay with him. Malcolm was desperate. Ackerman was his biggest author. Losing him would mean losing a big chunk of change.”

“Would it be accurate to assume that losing Ackerman meant losing the business?”

Rockwell thought about that for a moment. “I doubt it. For one thing, Chris’s entire backlist stays with Buckerfield Publishing, and those books will continue to sell. So to answer your question, losing Chris was a big blow, but it wouldn’t have jeopardized the business.”

“But don’t you agree that Chris Ackerman’s death benefits Mr. Buckerfield greatly? That backlist will be worth even more now.”

“That’s true,” Rockwell acknowledged. “Every time a writer dies the value of his backlist suddenly goes up. But that’s only a short-term effect. Eventually people forget. New authors arrive on the scene and the old guard is forgotten. Who remembers Harold Robbins or Sidney Sheldon or Arthur Hailey? Those guys were million-sellers. So unless the publisher hires a ghostwriter, like in Robert Ludlum’s case, and continues to churn out the more lucrative blockbuster series into perpetuity, those sales are going to dwindle and die.”

“Chris Ackerman never signed that deal with Franklin Cooper,” said Odelia. “Which means he’s still a Buckerfield author, and new books will be published by his old publisher.”

It was obvious from the expression on her face that she was thinking hard. This was obviously a new line of inquiry. And a most interesting one at that.

“If you put it that way,” Rockwell admitted, “Malcolm had a lot to gain from Chris’s death. Though any deal he wants to make will have to be made with Chris’s heirs.”

“Angelique and Trey Ackerman,” said Odelia slowly.

Yup. The plot was definitely thickening. Like molasses.

The conversation continued for a while, and I actually started to nod off. In my defense, it had been a long night and half a day, and as everyone knows cats need their eighteen hours of sleep if they’re going to function at maximum capacity. I’d just started dreaming of some nice Cat Snax when all of a sudden a sharp yapping sound woke me up.

When I searched around for the source of the noise, my eyes finally settled on a tiny dog. In fact it was the tiniest dog I’d ever seen, no bigger than a teacup. Which made Rockwell Burke’s next comment very apt indeed.

“Don’t mind her. That’s Paris, my teacup Yorkie. She’s adorable, isn’t she?”

Adorable was not the word that sprang to mind at the sight of the lilliputian long-haired mutt. The thing kept barking furiously, so finally I decided to take matters in hand by shouting, “Hey! What’s the matter with you?”

This seemed to startle the dog to the extent that it gave two more halfhearted yaps then shut up and sat staring at us, its little pink tongue lolling.

“We better have a chat with her,” said Dooley. “That’s what we’re here for, right?”

Dooley was right. And even though having a chat with a miniature dog was the last thing I wanted to do, I dragged my weary body from the floor and strode towards the window, which had been opened a crack.

“You,” I told the dog, not in the mood to mince my words, “come here.”

And lo and behold. Paris, the teacup Yorkie, came there.

Chapter 24

“Who are you guys?” she asked the moment we’d set paw out on the balcony.

“My name is Dooley,” said Dooley, enunciating slowly, as if talking to a toddler. Or a dog. “And this is Max. We’re here to ask you some questions about your human. First question. Are you a living dog or an undead one? Think hard before you respond, dog.”

“My name is Paris, and of course I’m not an undead dog. Why would you even ask such a stupid question?”

Dooley appeared taken aback by all this backtalk. “All right, all right,” he muttered. “Don’t bite my head off. I was just asking you a perfectly intelligent question.”

“An undead dog! There’s no such thing.”

“Second question,” said Dooley. “Have you always been such a tiny fuzzball?”

For a moment I was afraid Paris would blow her top. Instead, she snarled at Dooley for a moment, bearing surprisingly sharp teeth. Dooley immediately jerked back to a safe position well out of toothshot or even scratchshot. I didn’t blame him. Then again, it’s not very gentlemenlike to call a lady a tiny fuzzball. I wouldn’t like it either. I’ll bet not even Lassie, notoriously a very kind and sweet dog, would let such a slur slide without payback.

“Forgive my friend,” I said, deciding to strike the conciliatory note. “He’s an idiot.”

“He sure is,” said Paris, still glaring at Dooley.

“The thing is, someone killed a writer last night, and seeing as your human is also a writer, we figured we’d better get to the bottom of this thing fast, before it spreads.”

I let that sink in for a moment. Finally, she got it. “You mean there’s a serial killer on the loose who targets writers? That’s horrible! That’s dreadful! How many has he killed?”

“One, but you never know how fast a thing like that spreads.”

Paris looked appropriately concerned. “I mean, Rockwell was supposed to meet this Ackerman fellow last night.”

“You were there?”

“Of course I was. Rockwell doesn’t go anywhere without me. I was tucked away in his man purse as usual, my head sticking out, and we hadn’t even entered the library before he seemed to change his mind and walked out again.”

“Just like that.”

“Just like that. He muttered something to himself about not being a sellout and that was that. He got back into his rental and drove back to the hotel. He spent the rest of the evening in the hotel bar getting seriously plastered before coming up here and passing out.”

“So he never met Ackerman?”

“He met a fat man—a publisher. Which suited me just fine. I heard Ackerman liked Rottweilers. I don’t like Rottweilers. Rottweilers eat dogs like me for breakfast.”

“I don’t like Rottweilers either,” said Dooley from behind a wicker patio chair.