“Why would anyone even think—let alone voice—that, especially now that she’s passed on?” he asked. His voice had gone cold, too.
Tricia was glad to turn her gaze back to the road ahead of them. “Her background. Her lack of interest in fiction. Her lack of interest in much of anything, really.” She risked a furtive glance at the man, but he’d turned away, and was staring out the passenger window.
“It would be—” He paused. “—disrespectful of me to even dignify that question with an answer.”
“Mr. Hamilton,” she tried again, trying to sound as respectful as possible, “as you pointed out, Zoë’s dead. Whoever wrote those books probably killed her. He—or she—deserves the credit. And they—him or her—deserve to pay for the crime as well.”
He sighed, still refusing to answer.
“If you don’t know who wrote them, do you know who did the rewrites?”
“Rewrites?” he repeated dully.
“Yes. I’ve never heard of an editor who accepted a manuscript without making a few single-spaced pages of editorial suggestions.”
“You’ve worked in publishing?” he asked, sidestepping the question.
“No, but I’ve talked to enough authors to gain a good deal of insight into the process.”
Hamilton sighed, still refusing to meet her gaze.
She tried again. “Kimberly Peters told me the original manuscripts were written on an old manual typewriter. She never actually saw her aunt write the books.” Okay, that was stretching the truth a bit, but it might be what it took to get answers. “Kimberly said she keyboarded some of the manuscripts into a computer.”
Hamilton still said nothing.
“She never actually called the books her aunt’s, always referring to them as ‘the manuscripts.’ Like they were separate entities. Not really a part of Zoë, but something foreign. Did you ever have that same feeling?”
Hamilton seemed to squirm in his seat. He didn’t answer.
Tricia’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, and the silence went on for more than a minute, until she thought she might want to scream from the almost palpable tension. Hamilton sighed again. “I did the rewrites on the first three novels,” he admitted, voice low, almost embarrassed.
Trisha exhaled a whoosh of air, finally able to breathe once again.
“Mind you, Zoë never came right out and admitted she didn’t author those manuscripts. She just made it clear that she was not open to rewrites or promotion.”
“So you took them on because they were almost good enough for publication?”
He nodded. “Just reading her correspondence convinced me Zoë wouldn’t know a verb from an adjective. She couldn’t talk about the research necessary to pull off a historical novel. She had no knowledge of punctuation.”
“And yet you represented those books.”
“They were good. I was new to the business, but I knew I could sell them. At the time that’s all I—and Zoë—cared about.”
“Would you have made a different decision today?”
He didn’t answer.
Tricia’s grip on the steering wheel tightened once more as she thought about everything he’d said. “Who did the rewrites on the last two novels?” She thought she knew the answer before he even spoke.
“Kimberly Peters.”
Aha!
“Kimberly has an English degree. She’s written a couple of novels—women’s fiction. I’ve read her work. It’s good. It’s publishable. But Zoë wouldn’t hear of it.”
“Why not?”
“She thought one author in the family was enough.”
Which would seem to be a motive for Kimberly to get rid of her dearly “beloved” aunt.
“Why didn’t you do the last two rewrites?”
“No time. Thanks to Zoë, my agency is one of the top twenty in New York. Kimberly offered to take over the rewrites, and she was good at it. She also took over Zoë’s correspondence. She approved the cover copy and worked with the publisher’s publicist. Zoë hated any kind of promotion, but Kimberly talked her into a Web site. She put the whole thing together—coordinated the updates. She answered the fan mail. She made Zoë at least appear to be accessible. Somehow she even convinced Zoë to go on tour for the last book, coaching her all the way.”
“Kimberly did all that for Zoë, and then the woman more or less disinherited her?”
“Zoë was not a logical woman. She rarely asked me for advice.”
“Kimberly said that until recently you were named the executor of Zoë’s will. Did you know that?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know why she changed her mind?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“It’s none of your business.”
Touché. Time to try another tack.
“You knew there’d be no more Jess and Addie Forever novels. What’s to stop you from helping Kimberly get published now?”
He exhaled loudly. “While Zoë was alive, it made sense to placate her. I now represent her estate. Those books will sell for another five, maybe ten, years. It wasn’t like I totally ignored Kimberly’s aspirations. I gave her a few of my colleagues’ names, but I don’t think she’s yet found representation.”
“I take it that you haven’t spoken to Kimberly about her own manuscripts since Zoë died?”
He shook his head. “She did phone me, but that subject didn’t come up.”
“Would you consider representing her now?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“She’ll be at the dedication tomorrow. I’m sure you two will have a lot to talk about.”
“Possibly.”
They rode in silence for a good five minutes before Hamilton spoke again. “Ms. Miles—”
“Tricia,” she insisted.
“Tricia, please don’t talk about this to anyone. It would be—”
“Bad for business?”
“As you said, Zoë’s dead. What good would it do to drag her name through the mud?”
“I’ll make you a deal. I won’t talk about this until after this weekend. It wouldn’t do to embarrass my colleagues in the Chamber of Commerce, but if the real author of those manuscripts killed Zoë, eventually it will come out. You do see that, don’t you?”
He shrugged, sounded resigned. “If it happens, it happens. I’ll deal with it later.”
By denying everything, Tricia thought bitterly. She pulled onto Route 101, steering toward Stoneham and the Brookview Inn. She’d be glad to be rid of Hamilton. And yet . . . for some reason, she didn’t think he could be as cold and calculating as he’d come across. Or, despite his part in concealing the truth about Zoë’s books, was she just hoping she’d see a better side of him?
Long minutes of silence later, she pulled into the Brookview’s drive and stopped the car by the inn’s welcoming front entrance. She popped the trunk as Hamilton got out, then retrieved his suitcase. He walked up to the driver’s door. Tricia hit a button, and her window slid down and out of sight.
“Thank you for the ride, Ms. Miles. And thank you for giving me some time to—” He hesitated. “To come up with a plausible explanation for my actions. I hope I can be as creative as the person who wrote Zoë’s books.” With that, he turned and walked up the steps and into the inn.
The Cookery had been closed for more than an hour by the time Tricia made it back to Main Street. Dodging the goose droppings, she ended up in front of her sister’s store. After the long day, she wanted nothing more than a glass of wine, a soak in a tub, and to escape into an Agatha Christie story. That wasn’t likely to happen. At least Bob’s car wasn’t parked at the curb, so she’d only have to contend with Angelica tonight.
She unlocked the door, trailed through the darkened store with only the dim security lamps overhead to light the way, and headed up the stairs. She got to the top and opened the door Angelica had left unlocked. “Hello!” she called.