Lee Child - First Thrills

Malloy was struck by the word, “with.” He wondered if Reilly felt bad, defensive maybe, that his contribution to the literary world was embodied in that preposition.

And if so, did he feel bad enough to kill the man who’d bestowed it and relegated him to second-class status?

“That’s one of my favorites.”

“So you’re a fan, too.”

“Yep. That’s why I volunteered to come talk to you. First, I have to say I really admire your work.”

“Thank you.”

Malloy kept scanning the bookshelves. And found what he’d been looking for: two entire shelves were filled with books about guns and shooting. There had to be something in one of them about rifles that could be broken down and hidden in small suitcases. They were, Malloy knew, easy to find.

“What exactly can I do for you, detective?”

Malloy looked back. “Just a routine matter mostly. Now, technically John Prescott was a resident of the city, so his death falls partly under our jurisdiction.”

“Yes, I suppose.” Reilly still looked perplexed.

“Whenever there’s a large estate, we’re sometimes asked to look into the death, even if it’s ruled accidental or illness related.”

“Why would you look into it?” Reilly asked, frowning.

“Tax revenue mostly.”

“Really? That’s funny. It was my understanding that only department of revenue agents had jurisdiction to make inquiries like that. In fact, I researched a similar issue for one of our books. We had Jacob Sharpe following the money-you know, to find the ultimate bad guy. The police department couldn’t help him. He had to go to revenue.”

It was an oops moment, and Malloy realized he should have known better. Of course, the co-author would know all about police and law enforcement procedures.

“Unless what you’re really saying is that you-or somebody-think that John’s death might not have been an illness at all. That it was intentional… But how could it be?”

Malloy didn’t want to give away his theory about the crooked doctor. He said, “Let’s say I know you’re a diabetic and if you don’t get your insulin you’ll die. I keep you from getting your injection, there’s an argument that I’m guilty of murder.”

“And you think somebody was with him at the time he had the heart attack and didn’t call for help?”

“Just speculating. Probably how you write books.”

“We’re a little more organized than that. We come up with a detailed plot, all the twists and turns. Then we execute it. We know exactly how the story will end.”

“So that’s how it works.”

“Yes.”

“I wondered.”

“But, see, the problem with what you’re suggesting is that it would be a coincidence for this ‘somebody,’ who wanted him dead, to be up there in Vermont at just the moment he had the attack… We could never get away with that.”

Malloy blinked. “You-?”

Reilly lifted an eyebrow. “If we put that into a book, our editor wouldn’t let us get away with it.”

“Still. Did he have any enemies?”

“No, none that I knew about. He was a good boss and a nice man. I can’t imagine anybody’d want him dead.”

“Well, I think that’s about it,” Malloy said. “I appreciate your time.”

Reilly rose and walked the detective to the door. “Didn’t you forget the most important question.”

“What’s that?”

“The question our editor would insist we add at the end of an interrogation in one of the books: Where was I at the time he died.”

“I’m not accusing you of anything.”

“I didn’t say you were. I’m just saying that a cop in a Jacob Sharpe novel would’ve asked the question.”

“Okay. Where were you?”

“I was here in New York. And the next question?”

Malloy knew what that was: “Can anyone verify that?”

“No. I was alone all day. Writing. Sorry, but reality’s a lot tougher than fiction, isn’t it, detective?”

“ Yo, listenup,” the scrawny little man said. “This is interesting.”

“I’m listening.” Malloy tried look pleasant as he sat across from Lucius the snitch. Before they’d met, Ralph DeLeon reminded him how Malloy had dissed the man earlier. So he was struggling to be nice.

“I followed Reilly to a Starbucks. And she was there, Prescott’s wife.”

“Good job,” DeLeon said.

Malloy nodded. The whole reason to talk to the co-author had been to push the man into action, not to get facts. When people are forced to act, they often get careless. While Malloy had been at Reilly’s apartment, DeLeon was arranging with a magistrate for a pen register-a record of phone calls to and from the co-author’s phones. A register won’t give you the substance of the conversation, but it will tell you whom a subject calls and who’s calling him.

The instant Malloy left the condo, Reilly had dialed a number.

It was Jane Prescott’s. Ten minutes after that, Reilly slipped out the front door and headed down, moving quickly.

And tailed by Lucius, who had accompanied Malloy to Reilly’s apartment and waited outside.

The scrawny snitch was now reporting on that surveillance.

“Now that Mrs. Prescott, she’s pretty-”

Malloy broke in with “Hot, yeah, I know. Keep going.”

“What I was going to say,” the snitch offered snippily, “before I was interrupted, is that she’s pretty tough. Kind of scary, you ask me.”

“True,” Malloy conceded.

“Reilly starts out talking about you being there.” Lucius poked a bony finger at Malloy, which seemed like a dig, but he let it go-as DeLeon’s lifted eyebrow was instructing. “And you were suspecting something. And making up shit about some police procedures and estate tax or something. He thought it was pretty stupid.”

Lucius seemed to enjoy adding that. DeLeon, too, apparently.

“And the wife said, yeah, you were making up something at her place, too. About a memorial ser vice or something. Which she didn’t believe. And then she said-get this. Are you ready?”

Malloy refrained from glaring at Lucius, whose psyche apparently was as fragile as fine porcelain. He smiled. “I’m ready.”

“The wife says that this whole problem was Reilly’s fucking fault for coming up with the same idea he’d used in a book-bribing a doctor to fake a death certificate.”

He and DeLeon exchanged glances.

Lucius continued, “And then she said, ‘Now we’re fucked. What’re you going to do about it?’ Meaning Reilly. Not you .” Another finger at Malloy. He sat back, smugly satisfied.

“Anything else?”

“No, that was it.”

“Good job,” Malloy said with a sarcastic flourish that only DeLeon noted. He slipped an envelope to the snitch.

After Lucius left, happy at last, Malloy said, “Pretty good case.”

“Pretty good, but not great,” the partner replied slowly. “There’s the motive issue.”

“Okay, she wants to kill her husband for the insurance or the estate and a younger man. But what’s Reilly’s motive? Killing Prescott’s killing his golden goose.”

“Oh, I got that covered.” Malloy pulled out his BlackBerry and scrolled down to find something he’d discovered earlier.

He showed it to DeLeon.

Book News.

The estate of the late J.B. Prescott has announced that his co-author, Aaron Reilly, has been selected to continue the author’s series featuring the popular Jacob Sharpe character. Prescott’s widow is presently negotiating a five-book contract with the author’s long-time publisher, Hutton-Fielding. Neither party is talking about money at this point but insiders believe the deal will involve an eight-figure advance.