Ink-Slinger Murder Page 6

  The shop front itself was easy to pass by if you weren’t expressly looking for it. Not that it was anonymous, with its plush green and gold frontage, although it did its best to hide away between the larger buildings on either side. It was more that there were so many other distractions elsewhere that it was all too easy to simply walk past. The festival had brought a lot of people into town and it was uncommonly busy, even for this time of year when tourist trade was high. Even so, the masses seemed to ignore it, or not even register it was there, as if it had been deliberately obscured from them, which in many ways it had. There was no way of knowing that this little place was a bookstore unless you ventured inside, but once you had crossed the threshold, it was like entering a whole new world.

  Cassy had only been there one time before, and the dry musty smell brought her immediately back to that time in her childhood when she’d gone in only to get out of the rain and had encountered a dazzling, if somewhat dark and confined, world of delights. Archibald Swaile had lost none of his abrasive demeanor from all those years ago, and as far as Cassy could tell, he hadn’t aged a single day either. He was still a gray-haired old man with a craggy face like a well-weathered mountain top. His wiry frames sat on his nose cradling thick lenses that made his eyes appear large, almost cartoonish.

  “What do you want?”

  Not “How may I help you?” or even a good morning. Cassy wouldn’t have had it any other way.

  “Books,” said Cassy. “Do you have any?” There wasn’t an inch of wall that wasn’t covered with the yellowing pages of some obscure text, or leather-bound classic. Even the floor was a maze of stacked books that had to be navigated carefully lest you cause an avalanche of words. That would be quite a way to go, thought Cassy, buried under a forest’s worth of pages. Her sarcasm did not go unremarked upon.

  “I hope you amuse yourself, young lady,” said the small man who barely came up to Cassy’s shoulders.

  “I’m sorry—I couldn’t help myself,” she said apologetically. “I’m actually here for a very specific book. In fact, several books.”

  “If you want the latest Dan Brown, you’ve come to the wrong place. Try the big store on Main Street. They’ll have what you need.” He returned to a kind of booth hidden among the books. It was like a fortress within the confines of the shop. A small TV was propped up on a stack of aging magazines. Racehorses ran, muted, in its flickering light.

  “I want Frowd,” said Cassy, deciding to get to the point at last.

  “Well, I hear he’s emerged from his self-imposed exile to grace us with his beatific presence. If you want Frowd, you should line up and get him to sign one of his over-rated books.”

  Just delightfully grumpy. Cassy could see the attraction.

  “It’s his more underrated works that I need. If you have them, I want all of his early work.” Cassy wracked her brain for the titles. “Hex, and Devil, Rise and all the others.”

  The little man had become engrossed in the race but tore himself away from the screen. He balled a betting slip in his palm and tossed it to the floor. He looked at Cassy askew as if seeing her in a new light.

  “They’re widely available, you know. You could order them online. You could have them in a few days. Bright, shiny and new. And you won’t have to put up with the likes of me.”

  “I need them now though.”

  “Need them?” He hopped off his perch and reentered the shop proper. “Autograph hunter? In town to track your hero down?”

  Cassy balked at the implication. She was not the fame-seeking type in either her own life or vicariously through others. There was power in the written name and she was reticent to take that from people.

  “So you have them then?”

  “I might have a copy or two lying around. Don’t know what shape they’re in.”

  “As long as I can read them, I don’t mind,” said Cassy becoming impatient now. “If you can just point me in the right direction, I’m happy to find them myself.”

  For some reason, this provoked a kind of halting laugh. “You know what the Dewey decimal system is?”

  Cassy replied in the positive.

  “Well, I don’t, so you’d better follow me.”

  The bookshop was a lot larger than Cassy had initially thought, and a couple of times as Archibald led her through the winding maze of moldering paper, she lost sight of him only for him to poke his head out from a tower of thick tomes and implore her to keep up. Soon, they reached some lost and dusty corner, an ancient part of Archibald Swaine’s domain that had at one time been ordered and proper. There were signs that some kind of system had at some time in the past been in place. Shelves were visible, and they carried neatly aligned books in some kind of order. As the shop spread out from there, clutter invaded and before long it had succumbed to the kind of chaos only the diminutive man had a chance of understanding. He rifled through a few books, his fingers skimming the outward turned spines as if reading braille. His hand halted suddenly; swiftly, he plucked three titles from the shelf and handed them to Cassy.

  She looked at the dog-eared pulp novels with cheap yet lurid covers. Under the bold depictions of a distressed woman running from indescribable (and apparently un-drawable) things, there was printed in very small letters the name Max Frowd.

  “Hex, Devil, Rise and the best of his early work, in my opinion, Under a Steel Sky.”

  She turned them over and over. They were all things considered unremarkable objects, with covers like so many others from that era. To think that one of the country’s most revered authors had produced them didn’t seem to fit.

  “Why do you want them?” asked Archibald. He seemed genuinely interested, his demeanor having warmed to Cassy.

  “I think there are answers inside,” she said. He liked the answer and smiled.

  “Then they’re yours.”

  “I’ll pay for them,” said Cassy reaching for her purse only to have Archibald’s hand stay her own.

  “They need a new home and I think they’ve found it.”

  Chapter 13

  The Havenholm Weekend of Words soldiered on despite the high-profile setback. It wouldn’t be long until national press arrived on the scene; as the word spread, international news crews would show up. One of the ideas behind the festival was to raise Havenholm’s profile. In some twisted way, it had succeeded.

  Over tea with Dot, the ever faithful but more than a little absent-minded (some would say out to lunch, but they would be considered rude) and very close friend of hers, Cassy reviewed her latest acquisitions.

  “Oh, I don’t like this,” said Dot around a mouthful of cake. She held the treat in one hand and skillfully both held a book and turned the pages with the other. “It’s all a little gruesome for me. Murders and cults and all kinds of dreadful things. Who in their right mind would want to read this let alone write it? And to think that lovely old man did this. I thought he was meant to be, you know, respected.”

  Cassy topped up her cup from the teapot and placed it carefully back on the hotplate that sat on the counter at the Spicery. It was an essential indulgence considering just how much of the drink they got through in a single day.

  Patty hadn’t come into work that day at Cassy’s insistence. The poor young girl had been shook up by the news of her favorite author’s untimely demise. It was rendered all the more personal when Cassy informed her that she was now in possession of the very final book that Caroline Cuthbert had ever signed.

  “It’s not so bad,” said Cassy. She was leafing through Devil, Rise! and had found the passage that mirrored the author of the Bogsnatchers series’ demise. “It’s well-written, you have to give it that.” If a little over the top. The scene depicted in unnecessary but compelling detail the final moments of a housewife sometime in 1950s New York. Brian Vidor had been right to call out the parallels. It was certainly more than coincidence. It was as if whoever had killed Caroline had taken this book as a blueprint.

  “Just listen to thi
s,” squirmed Dot holding her book away from her body like a soiled diaper. “She tore open his shirt then introduced the blade to his skin. The metal was quick, flashed in the moonlight, and wedged between his ribs where it turned and… Oh gosh, it’s just too much.” The book fell to the polished wood surface with a slap. Cassy slid the paperback back to Dot who reluctantly picked it up again.

  “Just what are we looking for?”

  “Clues,” said Cassy. “There are answers in here somewhere. There’s something about the books that the killer finds—” Cassy struggled for the right word, “essential. Inspirational even.”

  “You’d have to be pretty messed up to read these in the first place. And to think that they were published sixty years ago.”

  “People have always loved reading about murder and mayhem, Dot. If it’s on the page, then somehow it’s not part of their own existence. It’s a way of controlling the bad things. It’s a kind of magic in a way. A way to ward off evil.” Except that wasn’t true for at least one person. Somebody had connected to the work of Frowd and had made it part of who they were. She’d have to take the books to their author for further insight. Though the recent upset had no doubt made him retreat even further into solitude.

  The bell above the shop door rang but didn’t get Cassy’s attention. It was only when the latest customer coughed loudly that she looked up from the book.

  “Chet!” It was the very last person that she’d expected to see.

  “Miss Dean,” said the writer. As always he was immaculately dressed though the air of removed superciliousness (a word she’d just read in one of Frowd’s books and had had to look up) was gone. He looked tired and a little worn out. “I’ve just come from a long and very intense interrogation from our good friend the Sheriff and his lackeys. All very small town; out of their depth. Quaint were it not for the pall of death surrounding it.”

  “Not the happy sort, are you?” Dot pointed out. “Maybe you’d like this then.” Dot waved the yellowing paperback in front of him.

  Chet snatched it away from and pored over it, eyes alive once more. “Oh my. Where did you get this? Beautiful.”

  “They have these things called bookstores,” said Cassy.

  “Sarcasm will get you everywhere,” said Chet as if reciting a well-rehearsed line. “The horror boy,” he said referring to Brian Vidor, “has one just like this. Seems to think it’s important to the case somehow. He’s gone all amateur sleuth if you can believe it. The poor fellow thinks we have a serial killer on the loose copying the murders from old Frowd books.”

  “He’s right,” said Cassy. She pointed to a passage in the book she was holding. “It’s here word for word just like I saw it.” Chet read the description then stood back satisfied.

  “Corny,” was his one-word appraisal.

  “Not a fan?” said Dot “I don’t think they’re all that either.”

  “No, no—the books are beyond reproach. They show a skill with the language that would only grow in his later work. No, it’s not that I’m talking about. What I mean is copying the deaths from a work of fiction? I mean, come on—that’s so overplayed. Ever heard of Theatre of Blood, that old Vincent Price movie? Good old-fashioned pillar-box red blood and scenes culled from the bard himself, who was no stranger to the gorier and visually evocative murder scene. Whoever is doing this has very little imagination. It’s almost as if they’ve had to resort to a text to fill in the blanks of their own psychopathic incompetence.”

  “You almost sound like you think that the bigger crime is not coming up with anything original,” said Cassy.

  “Not just that. This is plagiarism taken a step too far if you ask me,” said Chet with a flourish of his hand. “I would say throw the book at him, but he’d only pilfer it for ideas.”

  He was particularly pleased with his little joke and became consumed with a smug smile. Finally, he was back to his usual self and coinciding with that, Cassy remembered that he’d always made her feel uncomfortable.

  “Why did you say serial killer?” said Dot. “Don’t you have to kill more than one person for that?”

  Cassy looked to Dot who echoed her curiosity, then to Chet. Before he’d even had time to respond, Cassy knew what he was going to say.

  “There’s been another, hasn’t there?” Cassy whipped round the counter with such speed that Chet had to back off a couple of steps.

  “No one’s told you?” The question didn’t need to be answered, so Chet continued. “Some poor guy. Part of Cuthbert’s entourage. Grisly. Cops are there now. I thought you already knew.”

  Cassy took the book back from Chet. If her instincts were right, she was going to have to read through these again; she just hoped Frowd’s devious mind hadn’t come up with anything too bad this time round.

  Chapter 14

  This time around there was no attempt made at withholding any information from the public. Long before she even got there, Cassy had perused the social media feeds that overflowed with gossip, conjecture, wild speculation and the occasional nugget of truth.

  “What are they saying?” said Dot, peeking over Cassy’s shoulder at the screen in her hands.

  “Keep your eye on the road, would you,” said Cassy, incredulous. Dot was bad enough driver as it was, without being distracted by shiny things. Cassy pocketed her phone; she would have to make her own impressions once she got to the scene of the crime.

  It wasn’t long before they had to abandon the car as the festival crowds filled the street. There was a new spectacle in town and a few writing workshops, and a lecture from a non-fiction editor didn’t have the same pull as an ongoing murder investigation.

  “I’ll find somewhere to ditch the car,” said Dot straight-faced. “You get out here.”

  Cassy agreed. She got out of the car and watched as it drove erratically away. Once it was safely away from the crowd, Cassy turned and pushed her way through. A perimeter had been set up at the end of Baker Street. At the very edge, with a crowd extending all the way from sidewalk to sidewalk, Cassy could see Sheriff Noyce and his deputies, including James. They were too far for her to call out. Besides, the din of the crowd, a hushed chatter that rose to thunder, would have masked anything she’d said. But these were out-of-towners and didn’t know the streets as well as she did. They’d congregated at the point where there was a clear line of sight of the crime scene. Cassy knew that if she went round to London Road, up Endcliffe, she’d find a narrow shortcut (disturbingly called Stalker’s Walk) that would take her closer.

  The high walls of Stalker’s Walk, wedged as it was between two apartment blocks, shielded Cassy momentarily from the outside world. It gave her a moment to think, to place the pieces in some kind of order.

  The killer had gone to great lengths to recreate a scenario from one of Frowd’s books, which meant a not only a familiarity with the text but a kind of reverence toward it. They connected with it in a way that was personal to them. If she was right, this latest death would follow a similar impulse. She then considered what Chet had said—this wasn’t someone with a great deal of imagination. The murders were secondhand. Either they were a kind of honoring of Frowd, or a way of trying to get his attention. Perhaps both. Either way, it displayed a lack of independent thought. Cassy still had her copy of ‘Beneath A Steel Sky’ in the pouch pocket of her skirt. She touched it now through the material. The killer would also have a physical copy. An e-book just didn’t have the same tactile connection that they would be seeking. This was somehow personal to them.

  She cast her mind back to the discovery of the initial murder, reliving her experience step by step. She’d gone through the fence but had been unable to gain entry to the house. It was only when James had arrived that they’d managed to get in. The house had been locked tight which meant that the killer had already been inside or had somehow had ready access. Alternatively, and most likely, it had been someone that Caroline knew.

  She emerged into the sunlight well behind the police cor
don. Technically it was a crime to cross into a crime scene, but she’d seen no barrier to entry from where she’d come.

  “Cassy, can you come over here?”

  It was Noyce, his strong voice implacable despite the scene in front of him. Involuntarily, Cassy’s hand went to her mouth as she approached. She recognized the murder; the awkward positioning of the body mirroring an image in her mind’s eye. She’d read this murder just a few hours ago.

  “You know it’s an—” started Deputy James Jones.

  “An offense to be here. I know,” said Cassy. “You should make sure you put up tape everywhere. It’s called a perimeter for a reason.”

  “It’s okay, Jones, I trust Cassy with just about anything.”

  If the circumstances hadn’t been so dire, Cassy might have felt buoyed by the statement.

  The victim was the man Cassy knew only as the Henchman. Caroline’s personal security guard.”

  “Who is he?” she said. The man’s body had been laid out on the ground, the main joints on each of his limbs had been broken allowing it to be arranged into a crude swastika. It was a recreation of an early chapter from Beneath a Steel Sky. In the book, it had been part of a pre-second world war intimidation tactic to spread fear among German Jews. The book was troubling and more than a little tasteless.

  “Leonard Lightner,” said Jones, reading from his notepad, “a long-time associate of Carline Cuthbert. Used to be her manager, now more of a security guard.” Then he added, “As far as I can tell, he wasn’t a Nazi.”

  Cassy wasn’t sure if Jones was flippant or not, but then she saw that he was legitimately bewildered. It wasn’t overstating things that this was more than a little strange.