Miranda James - The Silence of the Library

Other than a few bit parts in summer stock and off-Broadway productions, though, Electra Barnes found little success on the stage. She married a young actor named Ellsworth Cartwright when she was twenty, and three years later published her first book, The Mystery at Spellwood Mansion . There were few details in the article about her early life as Mrs. Ellsworth Cartwright, other than the fact that her husband was only slightly more successful on the stage than she had been. Mrs. Cartwright quickly became the breadwinner of the family, and Ellsworth faded into the background. The final mention of him in the article was an obituary notice in 1947.

All this was interesting, but I wasn’t sure it was helpful. Ellsworth Cartwright certainly could have little to do with the present situation since he’d died more than sixty years ago. I moved on to the section that covered her writing career and the brief flirtation with Hollywood. I didn’t find anything particularly exciting or helpful, but the article did name the hopeful starlet who was supposed to portray Veronica Thane in the film.

Her name was Marietta Dubois, and I had never heard of her. Curious, I put her name in the search engine and found a few pages of results. Her career in Hollywood was short-lived, according to one resource. She had minor roles in minor films, and her one chance at a starring role was the proposed Veronica Thane film. Shortly after that fizzled, Marietta married a businessman from her hometown in Iowa and went back there to be a housewife and mother. There were three images of her, and she did fit my mental image of Veronica. Dark hair and eyes, lovely face, enigmatic smile—too bad she hadn’t been able to bring Veronica to life.

Funding for the production never materialized, and news of Warner Brothers’s plans to bring Nancy Drew to the screen killed the idea completely.

That trail really didn’t lead anywhere useful, I realized, but it was interesting. A good example, though, of how easy it was to get distracted and go haring off in one direction when you really needed to be going in another. Back to Electra Barnes Cartwright.

After her disappointment in California, Mrs. Cartwright returned to Connecticut and kept on writing. She gave birth to her only child, Marcella Ann Cartwright, two months after the death of her husband from a heart attack. She never remarried.

In addition to the Veronica Thane books, she wrote thirty-one other titles for children and young adults. Her sales were consistently good, but Veronica was her best-seller. Sales began to drop off in the mid-1960s, and the series ended in 1970 with the thirty-sixth book in the series, Peril for Veronica Thane .

Other than information about her books, there was no further mention of details about Mrs. Cartwright’s life. She faded into near-obscurity, except among children’s mystery series enthusiasts. Even they didn’t realize, however, she was still living, much less that she had left Connecticut twenty years ago to share a home with her daughter and grandson.

Now I knew the basic outline of Electra Barnes Cartwright’s life. Had I learned anything that shed light on the murder of Carrie Taylor? I couldn’t see even a hint of a connection from these basics to the woman who had been killed.

I pondered the next step in my research strategy. Perhaps the best tack for now would be to dig into the history of Carrie Taylor’s newsletter. As I recalled, Carrie had never met Mrs. Cartwright face-to-face until this past week, nor had she talked to her directly. She had had contact, however, with Marcella and with the agent, Yancy Thigpen. If issues of the newsletter were available online, scouring through them might yield something useful.

“Melba, I have a question for you.”

She looked up from her notes and yawned. “I think I’m pretty much done. I’ve been racking my poor old brain for every little thing, and I can’t think of a blessed thing more.” She laid the pen and paper aside. “Whatcha want to know?”

“I’m going to check to see whether Carrie put the issues of her newsletter online. If they are, great, but if they’re not, I may need to get hold of paper copies. Did she give you any of them? Or do you think she had spare copies in her files?”

“She gave me a couple now and again.” Melba frowned. “I didn’t keep them, though, because I couldn’t work up much enthusiasm for all that girl detective stuff.” She paused. “I know she did keep copies, and of course some of them are probably on her computer. When she started, they were all typed on her electric typewriter. She finally broke down about six years ago and got a computer. I helped her learn to use it.”

Her voice choked up on those last two sentences, and I reached over and patted her hand. She sighed deeply. “I still can’t believe it. But that’s not helping anything right now. I got off the track a little. You wanted to know if there were copies in her files. She had print copies of the ones she did on the typewriter, I believe, but maybe not of the ones she did on the computer. I think any paper ones were part of the files that were taken, though.”

While she talked, I did a search on the laptop and pulled up a website for the newsletter. “Thanks, honey. I found her website.” I skimmed the page. “Looks like it’s basically a one-screen site. There are no links, just information about subscribing, and an e-mail address for inquiries.”

That was frustrating. The newsletter might lead me down a completely blind alley, but I had to get a look at the issues. The question was how quickly could I find someone who had copies?

When the answer hit me, I felt like banging my head on the table. I probably had at least several years of them in the house, because I was sure Aunt Dottie would have subscribed.

I hadn’t gone through everything in the house after she died, and I definitely would have noticed them. They were probably still here.

Where had she kept them?

THIRTY-THREE

Again, the answer was obvious after barely a moment’s consideration. If Aunt Dottie had copies of the Veronica Thane newsletter, where else would she keep them but in the same room with the books themselves? They were probably in a box in the closet. I couldn’t recall ever having gone through that closet, though I’d bet Azalea knew exactly what was in every closet in the house.

Before I dashed up the stairs to check, however, I had a couple more questions for Melba—bits of things that had surfaced from somewhere in the beehive of my brain.

“Got another one for you. Talking about her computer reminded me,” I said. “Did they take Carrie’s computer from the house?”

“They sure did.” Melba nodded three times. “Just like they do on television crime shows. Said they were going to check everything on it.”

“I figured they probably would.” I hoped they would go through her e-mail in particular. The clue we sought might be lurking in a message. I was happy to leave that particular job to the professionals. In addition to her mail, whoever did the work could go through all the newsletter issues. I would do what I could on my end, especially if Aunt Dottie had copies of the precomputer issues.

“I’m done, Charlie,” Melba said as she pushed her chair back and stood. “And I checked the clock. It’s almost nine thirty. I have about enough time to run home and freshen up before church, so I’m going to head out now. Will you see that Kanesha gets my notes?”

“Of course,” I said. “You can leave them on the table.”

Diesel had evidently been sound asleep, because I hadn’t heard a peep from him in quite a while. Melba’s stated intention to leave—and the noise of the chair scraping on the linoleum—woke him up. He started muttering and butting his head against her legs, telling her not to go. She laughed and scratched his head and along his spine.