Miranda James - Murder Past Due

I saw the glint in her eye. “You know who did it, don’t you?”

Kanesha regarded me for a moment. “I do. I have a few more things to check, however, and I don’t want you getting in my way again.”

“I won’t, I promise,” I said.

“Good.” Kanesha stood and made her way out of the pew. She disappeared through the door into the meeting room.

I sat there, thinking about our conversation. Kanesha seemed awfully sure she knew who the murderer was. Was that because of what Julia and I had told her about Willie? Or had she known already?

Perhaps that meant Willie wasn’t the killer.

Not knowing was going to annoy me to no end. I had a sudden suspicion that was why Kanesha had told me she knew the killer’s identity. If so, I supposed it was adequate payback for the annoyance I had caused her.

It was time to head back to the reception. I would have to be careful about what I said, and to whom, though. I had pushed Kanesha far enough.

I stood in the doorway and looked around, searching for Julia. After a moment, I spotted her in the far corner to my right, talking to someone, but I couldn’t see who it was. As I moved closer, I could peer through the crowd, and I recognized Godfrey’s agent, Andrea Ferris.

At the same time I also spotted one of the campus blowhards, an elderly English professor named Pemberton Galsworthy. Many suspected the name was his own invention because it was so pompous sounding. But in that respect it was apt. He was a self-important windbag who never had an opinion he wasn’t willing to share with anyone within hearing distance.

I almost turned away, knowing that I could be stuck there for an hour if I joined the group. Galsworthy never had conversations. He performed soliloquies.

But Julia caught sight of me, and I couldn’t ignore the plea in her eyes. I didn’t know why she thought I could do anything to stop the deluge of words. We had suffered through Galsworthy’s sophomore literature course together, and she knew him as well as I did.

I moved forward and sidled up next to Julia.

Galsworthy noticed me—in itself noteworthy—and interrupted himself to acknowledge my presence. He peered at me. “Harris, isn’t it? Librarian, aren’t you?”

Without waiting for an answer, he resumed his peroration, peering now at Godfrey’s agent. “Contemporary literature has obviously been bastardized to the point of utter banality. Crass commercialism, naturally. Publishing was once the profession of gentlemen—educated, sophisticated, cultured—who chose works for their literary merit and their ability to enlighten and transform. Not because they would sell in the millions and cater to the tastes of the lowest common denominator, so sadly low these days, one fears for the intellectual survival of the species.”

He had more to say in that vein, but I tuned him out for a moment, though I faced him with a rapt expression. I had learned to do it in his class, and thankfully it was a skill I hadn’t completely forgotten.

I sneaked a glance at Andrea Ferris, dressed smartly in a dark suit and spike heels that made her stand about five-two. She had that glazed look common to anyone in Galsworthy’s presence for more than ten seconds.

Julia nudged me, and I looked at her. She frowned and bobbed her head in Galsworthy’s direction. I knew what she wanted, but short of clapping my hand over the man’s mouth and shoving him into a closet, I didn’t know how to shut him up. We could simply have turned and walked away, but generations of Southern grandmothers would spin in their graves if we behaved so rudely. That was the curse of being raised to have good manners and to treat one’s elders with respect—no matter how irritating they were.

I tuned back in at the sound of Godfrey’s name.

“. . . a sad example of a young man with a good mind—a good mind, you understand, not a fine one—but, yes, a young man with a good mind who could have accomplished something more lasting than such ephemera as he chose to create. Then there is his appalling portrayal of females in his work. One has little doubt that a psychiatrist could have helped the poor boy work through his obvious feelings of hatred toward women. Yet I have no doubt that his female readers little suspected his opinion of them.”

I exchanged amused glances with Julia. Galsworthy had obviously read some of Godfrey’s work, though one wondered why he had allowed his intellect to be sullied by entertainment of such dubious value to mankind.

Galsworthy blathered on, but I could see that Andrea Ferris was about ready to pop. She cut him off suddenly in mid-sentence.

“I’ll be delighted to share your observations of contemporary publishing with my colleagues in New York,” Andrea said, her tone deceptively sweet. “I have little doubt they will respond immediately by pulping anything that smacks of lowbrow entertainment and instead start printing—in huge quantities, of course—works that cannot fail to enlighten and transform . This will revolutionize publishing around the world, and your name, professor, will be on everyone’s lips.”

After his initial shock at being interrupted, Galsworthy appeared delighted to have his opinions received so well. But Andrea’s tone altered as she spoke, becoming more waspish by the syllable, until even Galsworthy had to recognize the sarcasm.

“Good day to you, young woman.” Galsworthy glared at Andrea, and so upset was he that he failed to include Julia and me in his farewell.

Julia and I both sighed audibly as he stalked off.

“What a pretentious snot,” Andrea said. She sniffed. “If I had a dollar for every one of his kind I’ve met, I could retire.” She turned to me and stuck out her hand. “Andrea Ferris, the late Godfrey Priest’s agent.”

“Charlie Harris,” I said. “Archivist here at the college. Like Mrs. Wardlaw, I went to school with Godfrey eons ago.”

Andrea nodded, her eyes on Julia. “You’re the mother of his son, aren’t you?”

Startled, Julia nodded. “I asked Godfrey to keep it to himself for a while, but obviously he didn’t.”

“Oh, Godfrey told me everything,” Andrea said. “He was my biggest client, you know.”

Had Godfrey really told her everything, I wondered? Did Andrea know about the ghostwriter?

“I’m not surprised,” I said. “Godfrey made millions.”

“He sure did.” Andrea’s smile was smug. “No complaints there.” She cocked her head to one side, thinking about something. “But you know, the old windbag did have a point about something.”

“What was that?” I said, though I knew what she meant.

“The bit about Godfrey’s treatment of women in the books,” Andrea replied. “That always bothered me, because Godfrey liked women. No doubt about that. I never could figure out why the tone of the books was so antifemale.”

“Did you ever ask him about it?” Julia seemed intrigued by the question, too.

“I did, early on,” Andrea said. “I wasn’t his agent for his first few books. I took him on on the strength of Count the Cost , his first bestseller.” She frowned. “I went back and read one of his earlier books, and the tone was very different.”

“What was Godfrey’s response when you asked him about it?” I said to get her back to the point.

“He just shrugged and said that was the way the book came out. He claimed most thrillers were like that anyway, so why should his be different?”

“And that made sense to you?” Julia didn’t sound convinced.

“As much as anything else,” Andrea said. “Frankly, he started making so much money for both of us, I didn’t really care.”

I decided to risk a question. “Did you ever think someone else might have written the books? I mean, because the tone was so different.”