Kasey Michaels: High Heels and Holidays

"Bryon and Gates. But where, I wonder, did they find the rats?"

"Are you kidding? In this dump? All he'd have to do would be set some traps at night. But now we have to ask ourselves the biggie, Alex. Two biggies. Did they send the rats? And, if they did, why in hell did they send one to Jonathan? I have a theory about that second part, but only if the answer is yes to the first part."

"Shh, sweetings, I believe the man is about to rehearse his prepared speech."

George Gordon Bryon, a pair of horn-rimmed reading glasses now perched on his nose, cleared his throat as he held up one of the file cards. "And so, in closing, allow me to most humbly and heartfeltedly proclaim—old Jonathan West was the very, very best. And the very, very best was he. Lesser talents betrayed him, they mocked and dismayed him, but never a better will we ever know."

Maggie spoke before Saint Just could warn her to silence. "Ever know? Alex, did you hear that? That should be ever see. See rhymes with he. Bryon wrote those poems. He is Rat Boy. And heartfeltedly isn't even a word, for crying out loud. Oops. Alex, stop him!"

Saint Just was already on the move, however, as Maggie's voice had risen in tandem with her joy of discovery and Bryon had heard her, seen them, and taken off at a full run for the door below the Exit sign.

"I know you. George and I talked about you and your friend—and your lies. You shouldn't be here," Valentino Gates told Maggie as he grabbed her by one shoulder and whirled her around to face him.

"Oh, yeah, right, I'm scared," Maggie said, shrugging out of the man's grip. She'd really had a long week, and she wasn't in the mood for dramatics unless they were her own. "You send dead rats and lousy poetry to people, trying to frighten them. But that doesn't exactly make you and Bryon frightening. It makes you pathetic."

"You ruined Jonathan West's life," Gates shot back at her, although he didn't try to touch her again.

"Wrong, buster. Jonathan ruined Jonathan's life. He wrote a couple of pretty great books, and then he went wacko with his own importance. The plot, the premise, the gang of contributing authors—everything about that stupid book was his idea. The characters were his idea. He wouldn't let anyone else edit anything. He rewrote all of our chapters until we didn't even recognize them anymore. That was Jonathan's book—our names were just on it with him. He dug his own hole, Valentino, with his own inflated ego."

Then she stopped, ran the lines of what she'd said past her mental eyesight one more time. "Wow, that was almost profound, wasn't it?" She shook her head. "Look, Valentino, I'm sorry, but if Jonathan lost his edge—whatever—after the book tanked, it wasn't because of anything the rest of us did. Nobody likes to blame themselves, so Jonathan blamed us. Hey, and don't look now, but none of us exactly got a big career boost from that bomb. I had to change my name and start over from scratch. But that's the thing, Valentino—I started over. Jonathan quit."

"He published more books. But the critics were against him."

"Wrong again, Valentino. He dusted off two old manuscripts that should have stayed in the drawer and made Toland Books publish them. It was the only way they could get him to fulfill his contract and hope to get back any of the advance money they'd poured all over him. They shouldn't have done it, but they did—well, Kirk did, Bernie tried to talk him out of it. But no matter what, Valentino, Jonathan West never wrote another word after No Secret Anymore. Not until he—never mind."

"Having a pleasant coze with Mr. Gates, my dear?"

Maggie turned to smile at Alex, who was urging Bryon ahead of him at the point of his sword cane. "Put that thing away. Remember, Alex, you promised to use your powers only for good. Hey, Lord Bryon, you lost one of your magic slippers."

"I want you people to leave. Coming in here uninvited, accosting me in my place of business," Bryon said, dusting off his costume. "I'm going to go call the police."

"Saving us the trouble, thank you," Alex said, sheathing his sword stick. "Or would you rather simply tell us why you sent dead rats and atrocious rhyme to Miss Dooley here and others?"

"It was his idea."

Unfortunately, both Gates and Bryon uttered the same accusation at the same time, and it was some moments before Alex could physically separate the two men.

"It's never pretty when thieves fall out," Alex said once everyone was seated on four of the folding chairs in the room. "Now, gentlemen, decide between you which of you is going to tell us what we want to know."

It was Bryon who spoke, recounting his and Valentino's admiration for Jonathan West. When West happened into Bryon's Book Nook one fine day, they'd all three of them formed a friendship that had, over the ensuing years, gone all the way to the point where Jonathan was mentoring Valentino, inviting the two of them to his apartment for drinks and conversation—all that good stuff meant to have the two fans all but worshipping at West's shrine.

As Jonathan fell deeper into the bottle, many of his conversations with the men had to do with Toland Books and, most especially, the ungrateful authors who had ruined his career.

"We begged him to forget all of that and write another book," Valentino told Maggie. "He didn't want to do it, but then, about a year ago, he outlined a plot idea to us. Just last month he even read us bits and pieces of what he'd written—didn't he, George? And it was brilliant! We were so honored!"

"He talked about a plot with you? He read you something?" Maggie grinned at Alex in triumph and not a little relief. It would be tricky to maneuver the timeline, but at least now there was a way to prove what she and Alex believed, without landing Alex in the slammer for absconding with evidence—Steve would go along with them; he always did. "So, if you were asked, you'd be able to say that Jonathan West read you a portion of his new novel? You'd recognize those portions if someone read them to you again. Do I have that right?"

Both men nodded furiously.

"But he said he'd never publish it. He'd never open himself up to such vitriolic criticism and humiliation again. We begged, and we begged, but he wouldn't do it. And we knew why," Valentino said. "It was because of you—you and the others who ruined him. A bright light, gone from the literary world because of hacks, no-talents."

"Literary world? Oh, come on. He wrote mystery novels. I write mystery novels. See? That was Jonathan's problem. He wanted to be the critics' darling. I hate when a writer becomes ashamed of what he or she does well, just because it isn't literary."

Bryon's upper lip curled rather effectively. "We decided that Jonathan would never agree to be published again until the greedy vermin that had eaten away at his literary soul were punished, were given a good scare, even." He subsided against the back of his chair. "So we sent you all the rats. We thought that would make Jonathan feel better, maybe even make him want to publish again."

"You forgot Kimberly Lowell D'Amico," Maggie told him.

"No, Valentino couldn't find an address on her," Bryon explained. "He sent half, I sent half, but he couldn't find her address."

"Let me take a wild stab at something here, just for my own satisfaction," Maggie interrupted. "One of you gift-wrapped your share of the dead rats, yes?"

"Valentino did, for some ridiculous reason, yes. But it was all for naught, because when we told Jonathan what we'd done—sure he'd be pleased to have had some revenge—he told us we were incompetents, idiots, and banned us from his apartment. He even threatened to call the police to tell them what we'd done." He then angrily whirled on Valentino Gates. "But that was no reason for you to kill him, you fool!"