Джон Гришэм - Camino Winds

Noelle said, “I’m not sure you should tell this story, Bruce.”

“I will not tell everything. So, in the course of events, some people came to suspect me of having possession of the Princeton manuscripts. Again, don’t ask. A very talented operative working for Lindsey’s firm set up this elaborate plan to infiltrate my home, business, and circle of friends. The plan was to get really close to me, and snoop. They zeroed in on Mercer Mann and offered her enough money. She was broke and a good target. She also had a history with the island. Mercer showed up at her grandmother’s cottage on the beach, said she would be here for six months to finish her novel. It was a great story, a great cover, and it worked perfectly. Until it didn’t. She became a delightful friend of ours and she sat at this table many times. We adored Mercer, still do. A writer with enormous talent.”

“Did she find the manuscripts?” Polly asked.

“No, but she got close enough to send in the FBI. They were a bit late. Barely. Some money changed hands and the manuscripts eventually made it back to Princeton. In the end, everybody was happy.”

“And that’s enough of that story,” Noelle said.

“Indeed it is.”

“Am I supposed to be impressed, or comforted?” Polly asked.

“Impressed,” Bruce said. “Lindsey’s firm is not cheap and it’s worth the money we’re paying.”

8.

Jean-Luc finally died the week before Thanksgiving. Noelle seemed to take it well, though Bruce left her alone. If she was grieving he certainly didn’t want to know about it. She was subdued for several days but put on her game face and did not mention her longtime boyfriend. Bruce had some business in New York and left the island for a week.

The more he left home, the more he thought about escaping. The island was frazzled and his neighbors were weary. Leo hit three and a half months earlier and with time it was becoming apparent that the recovery would take years. It was there every day, staring you in the face. A stretch of fence to mend or replace. An old tree with debris still stuck in the limbs. A leaky roof that no contractor had time to fix. An abandoned house too damaged to repair. A drainage ditch choked with garbage. A city park filled with FEMA trailers and desperate people sitting in lawn chairs around them, waiting for something. In the woods nearby, people even more desperate still living in tents.

For a spell, Bruce considered closing the store, taking a year off, running away to some exotic place with Noelle and doing nothing but reading all the great books he had neglected. He had no debts, plenty of money in the bank. He could call it a sabbatical or whatever and reopen at some time in the future when the island was whole again and the tourists were back. But the moment passed. Bay Books was too important to the island, and Bruce could not imagine life without it. That, plus he was loyal to his employees and customers.

The Christmas season was at hand, and one-third of all book sales took place during the holidays. He and his staff decided to decorate the store even more than usual, and keep longer hours, and offer more discounts and giveaways, and throw some parties. The island needed its bookstore to hold things together and remind everyone that life was returning to normal.

Bruce spent most of December at his desk reworking Pulse. He had always enjoyed editing the works of other writers, and he read so many popular novels that he could always tweak here and there and improve them. For the first and perhaps only time in his life, he now had the chance to fiddle with an entire manuscript. Bruce paid a typist to produce a clean draft, and when it was finished he coerced Bob Cobb into reading it. Bob was not that impressed with the writing or the story, but then he was often too critical of other writers. Nick was home from Venice, and Bruce shipped him a hard copy in Nashville. He read it in two days and said it would sell.

The first week in January, Bruce went to court with the probate lawyer and got himself appointed as the executor of Nelson’s literary estate. The old judge had never heard of such a position, but was happy to sign the order nonetheless.

The following day, he sent the book to Nelson’s former editor at Simon & Schuster. They had been discussing it for a month and its arrival was no surprise. Nelson had become unhappy with the editor for some vague reason that no longer mattered. Bruce, on behalf of the estate, was not looking for a fat contract. The book did not deserve one, and no publisher would be willing to overpay a dead writer who couldn’t promote the book, let alone follow it with a sequel. And money was not an issue. Nelson’s estate would eventually be a windfall to Polly and her parents, and they were not greedy people.

Left unsaid was the fact that Bruce didn’t want a big contract. More money meant more publicity, especially when the word “murder” got tossed around, and Bruce was not looking forward to the attention. Ingrid was out there somewhere, and if not her then probably someone else. Lindsey Wheat was adamant in her belief that those responsible for Nelson’s murder were not that smart and would not strike again, but then she worked in the shadows and few knew her name. Mr. Cable had been appointed by the court, with all the details available online.

A week later, the editor called and offered $250,000 for all rights—hardback, e-book, paperback, and foreign. The money was about half of what the book was worth, and had Bruce been a tough literary agent he would have stormed off and threatened an auction. But he was not, and since he was earning nothing from the transaction he pondered it for a day, pushed for $300,000 and got it.

In fact, the contract was perfect. It was generous enough to be fair to the estate but low enough not to raise eyebrows. Bruce emailed the editor a press release he had worked on for hours. It read:

THE LAST NOVEL OF POPULAR SUSPENSE WRITER NELSON KERR HAS BEEN PURCHASED BY SIMON & SCHUSTER, HIS LONGTIME PUBLISHER. THE NOVEL, PULSE , WILL BE RELEASED NEXT YEAR WITH AN ANTICIPATED FIRST RUN OF 100,000 COPIES. MR. KERR’S THREE PREVIOUS NOVELS— SWAN CITY, THE LAUNDRY, AND HARD WATER —WERE ALL PUBLISHED BY SIMON & SCHUSTER AND BECAME BESTSELLERS. HIS EDITOR, TOM DOWDY, SAID: “WE ARE DELIGHTED TO RECEIVE NELSON’S LATEST, THOUGH WE ARE STILL DEVASTATED BY HIS DEATH. HE TALKED ABOUT THIS NOVEL FOR YEARS AND WE ARE CERTAIN HIS MANY FANS WILL ENJOY IT.”

MR. KERR WAS A RESIDENT OF CAMINO ISLAND, FLORIDA, AND DIED UNDER MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES LAST AUGUST DURING HURRICANE LEO. HIS DEATH IS STILL BEING INVESTIGATED BY THE FLORIDA STATE POLICE. HIS FRIEND AND BOOKSTORE OWNER BRUCE CABLE HAS BEEN APPOINTED AS HIS LITERARY EXECUTOR AND HANDLED THE SALE TO SIMON & SCHUSTER. MR. CABLE WAS NOT AVAILABLE FOR COMMENT.

THE ESTATE IS OFFERING A SIZABLE REWARD FOR INFORMATION REGARDING MR. KERR’S DEATH.

CHAPTER SEVEN THE FICTION

1.

For the ambush, Lindsey Wheat wore a pair of loose-fitting jeans, white sneakers, and a beige blouse under a navy jacket. Dressing down was not easy for a woman who cared about her appearance, but slumming as she was, she still felt overdressed for the early morning crowd eager for chicken biscuits. She recognized Vera Stark the moment she walked in the door and glanced around as if guilty of something. She was twenty-six years old, black, married, a mother of three, and for the past four years had worked as an orderly at the Glinn Valley Retirement Center. Her husband drove a truck. They lived in a neat trailer in a park just outside the town limits of Flora, Kentucky, population 3,600.

Lindsey had called her cell phone an hour earlier as she was dropping her kids off at her mother’s house for the day. Quite naturally, Vera was suspicious and didn’t want to talk to a stranger. Lindsey, using an alias, had offered her $500 cash for ten minutes of her time, plus coffee and a biscuit.