Джеффри Дивер - The Sequel

The Pennsylvania State Police detective, a nice crew-cut young fellow named Brynne, decided it was the least he could do since Lowell was responsible for the information that led to the impending arrest.

Though, in fairness, it was Stoddard Goodwin’s comment, seemingly disparaging about Cedar Hills being “only” a book, that was the flash of brilliance that led to the unraveling of the mystery.

Why indeed did Lowell assume that the thief was after Anderson’s Hope ? Could he not have been after something else in the carton delivered to Asheville and forwarded to New York?

The answer was yes. And to learn who was behind the theft, one needed only to consider the one person he’d mentioned the sequel to who had no interest in it.

Dr. Samuel Coe.

Lowell had contacted New York City, Bucks County, and Pennsylvania State Police officials and reported that he believed Dr. Coe had stolen the carton because he was afraid it contained information about the death of his mother many years ago — a murder that the Sam Spade within Lowell now believed the doctor himself had committed. Detective Brynne decided to look into the case and reviewed the transcripts and witness reports from the original investigation. He tracked down family members and friends who were still alive. He discovered that while Mary Coe — herself a bit unhinged — did nag her mentally ill son a great deal, the pressure on Jon didn’t compare to the abuse she put her other children through.

“Tiger Mom on steroids,” was how Brynne described her. A family friend reported one incident in which she whipped young Samuel with a lamp wire for secretly listening to a ballgame in his room when he should have been studying for a test. His younger sister too endured much the same treatment.

The detective speculated that teenage Samuel had snapped and either talked his brother into killing the woman and then blamed him for it, or killed her himself and made it appear that Jon was responsible.

As for the theft of the manuscript, records revealed that Samuel Coe had traveled to New York City at eight p.m. on that day and took the last train back to Bucks County. Security cameras showed him arriving at Penn Station without a carton in his possession but leaving with one, which Lowell said looked much like the box that was stolen from the law office.

The implication was that Samuel believed the box, with its pages of notes on the crime, and possibly even the manuscript itself, contained information suggesting that Samuel — not Jon — had murdered their mother.

A warrant was issued in Pennsylvania to search Dr. Coe’s house and Frederick Lowell had practically begged Brynne to bring him along.

Lowell wasn’t permitted inside, of course, as the warrant was being executed. There might be gunplay, the police said, though Dr. Coe was in his late sixties and it didn’t seem he was much of a threat. Lowell waited in the car a half hour before the portly, balding doctor was led out in handcuffs, his face ashen. There’d been no resistance.

Detective Brynne joined Lowell beside the squad car. He gave a grin. “He confessed, sir. Got him cold.”

Lowell asked, “What happened? Did he talk his brother into the crime? Or kill her himself?”

“Did it himself. He stabbed her to death and then called his brother into the room and handed him the knife, started screaming, why did he do it? Jon was in a delusional state then and probably believed that he had killed his mother.” Brynne then nodded toward the house. “We’ve recovered what he stole. Could you identify it, please?”

“Be happy to,” Lowell said. This was, of course, the real reason he’d wanted to come. Not to watch the arrest but to talk the police out of one of the manuscripts of Anderson’s Hope. They probably wouldn’t need both of them for evidence.

They walked through the house and then out the back door. Brynne nodded to another detective, who approached with a small plastic bag in a blue-gloved hand. “Sir, is this the mailing label of the box that was stolen from your office?”

Lowell’s face fell.

“Sir?”

He whispered, “It is, but... my God.”

Inside the bag was a three-by-four-inch scrap of paper, scorched on all sides. Lowell looked behind the officer and found himself staring at the red-brick barbecue pit. He walked — staggered really — to it and looked down at the grill. “Is this...? Did he burn it? Did he burn everything ?”

The forensic cop said, “That’s right, sir. Some of the carton itself survived — like the label. But everything else, a couple of thousand sheets of paper, I guess, is gone. Sometimes the crime lab boys can find writing or images. Not with this. It’s as fine as flour.”

Staring at the gray mound in the barbecue, Frederick Lowell thought of a more appropriate simile: as fine as ash in a funeral urn.

Frederick Lowell’s life returned to normal.

No more secret manuscripts, no family drama, no ghosts from the past. He negotiated contracts, fought with publishers, made difficult or joyous calls to authors, kept an eye on the literary marketplace, and pestered countries in the eurozone for timely payments of royalties. Imprudent borrowing by the government was not, he emphasized time and again, his authors’ problem.

One interesting development was that he’d taken on a new client. Anna Goodwin had decided to take up her father’s fallen standard and write a book about the Coe murder — updated, of course, to include the recent developments.

One day, Lowell returned from a Midtown lunch with a publisher, sat down at his desk, and looked over a stack of contracts.

Caitlin appeared in the doorway.

“New ink?” he asked, eyeing her wrist.

She beamed. In Lowell’s father’s day a boss would earn points for spotting a secretary’s new bracelet or hair style. Now, it was a tattoo he was admiring. A tasteful butterfly.

“Like it?”

“Beautiful. Hurt?”

“Can’t begin to describe it. This just arrived.”

She handed him a package marked “Personal and Confidential.” No return address, though the postmark was Beverly Hills, CA.

He opened it up. And gasped as he stared down at a copy of Anderson’s Hope .

There was a note attached.

Franklin:

Way super chatting with you a month ago.

Read in the paper about that crazy f’er burning up those copies of that sequel you were interested in. Thought I’d check our archives. Seems that Goodwin sent somebody here a copy in the spring of ‘67. Found it.

Thought I’d plane it your way.

p. s. Shot the pages to my devel people here. They eyeballed it but decided it didn’t atmosphere. Wasn’t Shia or Tatum worthy. You know how it is. Sorry.

Lowell gave a breathless laugh. Oh, my God...

He put both hands on the manuscript, took a deep breath, and then flipped through it — in part to make sure it actually contained printed pages, rather than blank ones, a possibility that made no sense but wouldn’t have surprised him one bit.

But, yes, all 540 pages were filled with Goodwin’s prose, from the title to The End.

And then he shook his head ruefully at the producer’s decision to decline to make a movie sequel to Cedar Hills Road.

You know how it is.

Frederick Lowell had been selling, or not selling, properties to Hollywood for years. Yes, he knew how it was.

He called to Caitlin, “Cancel everything for this afternoon.”

“Sure, Frederick. You have a meeting?”

“No, I’ll be here. I’ve got some reading to do.”

Two weeks later, at around seven p.m., the huge form of Preston Malone settled into a couch in Lowell’s Seventh Avenue office. The two men had planned a celebratory dinner this evening.