Samantha giggled. “Well, Lydia is certainly no saint, but it’s just impossible to think she could be involved in any serious crime such as murder. She’s been too busy with her agency and her own writing — I take it she mentioned to you that she recently sold her own first romance after years of selling them for others?”
“Actually, no. How recently?”
Samantha’s eyes widened and she aimed an entreating gaze at Reno. “Oh, don’t get me wrong! It was sold several months ago, but it was definitely her writing. I adore her, but she’s not a first-rate talent when it comes to writing fiction. I read the entire manuscript, and it simply can’t match this writing you brought tonight. In fact, Lydia sold her book to a fairly obscure publishing house for a very modest advance.”
Samantha fell silent, watching her visitor. “Did you speak,” she finally added, “with the other contest judge?”
“There are two?”
“Until last year, yes. A former client of Lydia’s helped out.”
“But D’Antoni’s submission was sent to your agent,” Reno pointed out.
“They all are, to keep things simple. Lydia gave half of them to Susan Gray. She lives up near Riverbend. She no longer writes.”
“Burnout?”
Samantha’s heart-shaped lips pressed into a frown. “No, legal distractions. She’s had recent difficulties with the IRS, something about hiding assets, as well as two civil suits for plagiarism.”
“She’s a romance writer?”
“That’s debatable,” Samantha replied. “I know my claws are showing, but I’ve never liked her. She likes to ‘set off whispers,’ as they say, and her on-the-make husband would seduce a Vestal Virgin. She’s more flashy than talented, and the male love interests in her fiction are too much like her real-life husband James: solitary men with cold manners. Her ‘love’ scenes are mere mechanical descriptions devoid of warmth or feeling.”
“How recently was she still a client of Lydia’s?”
“Until last spring. Susan fired her after a royalty dispute. I don’t know any details.”
Upstairs a child cried. “Thanks for your time, Mrs. Maitland,” Reno said as he stood up. “I’ll let myself out.”
New Orleans was called the Crescent City because it was situated on the first of two large bends in the Mississippi River. The second bend formed the suburban Riverbend area, and Reno noticed signs of old money everywhere. But the fine old houses and crumbling slate curbs had the patina of faded glory.
James and Susan Gray lived on Panola Street in a two-story house of vine-covered stone. Neglected crape myrtles languished in the strip of side yard. Based on what Samantha had told him last evening about the couple’s legal troubles, Reno had decided on a drop-by instead of a phone call. He eased into the crushed-shell cul-de-sac out front and was halfway across the lawn when the front door opened.
A tall, broad-shouldered man in a seawater-blue silk robe bent to scoop up a newspaper. He had a handsome but despotic face under a thatch of unruly, sand-colored hair.
“Mr. James Gray?” Reno inquired.
“Since birth. Who and what are you?”
“The name’s Reno Sloan. I’m a private investigator. I wonder if I might speak with your wife?”
“Ahh, the fog lifts. You’re here about the so-called plagiarism charges—”
“I’m not. No charges are involved. Is your wife home?”
His mouth curled into a sneer. “You’re out of luck, shamus. She’s disporting herself abroad. We take separate vacations.”
Reno glanced past him. All he could see was a short hallway with a large Chinese vase on a teakwood base.
“I can’t invite you in,” Gray added. “I have company downstairs, and at the moment she’s in dishabille.”
“You pick odd times to read the paper.”
“Bottle it, Sloan. Unlike a lowly security guard, you don’t even have a badge.”
Reno spread his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I just have a few questions. Maybe you could help me?”
“Normally I’d just toss you, but I’m curious to know what Susan has done now. That woman can ride out any scandal, but I worry about the legal costs. Fire away.”
“I understand your wife used to be one of the judges for a local writing contest?”
“Writing contest? Hell, she paid a Tulane grad student to read that dreck.”
“Did she ever have dealings with a man named Peter D’Antoni?” Reno asked.
“She’s had dealings with plenty of men, so I can’t say no. First I’ve heard of him, though.”
“Has she ever employed a ghostwriter?”
“Possibly. She’s a lazy wench. If so, she kept it secret from me.”
Reno suddenly felt weary. James Gray’s sneering attitude boiled down to one word: whatever.
“Well,” he told Gray, “back to the salt mines. Thanks for your time.”
The second time Reno stopped by the Maitland residence, in the middle of the afternoon two days after his first visit, a young black woman with stiffly sculpted hair answered the door.
“May I speak with Mrs. Maitland?” he inquired. “My name is—”
“Hello, Mr. Sloan!” Samantha’s voice called from the hallway. “It’s all right, Yolanda, please let the gentleman in.”
The maid disappeared into the bowels of the big house while Samantha led him into the side parlor. She wore matching white khaki shirt and shorts and a rose-colored sun hat.
“I notice you didn’t answer the door yourself this time,” Reno observed as he sank into the soft leather chair. “Is there a secret hall porter, too?”
Her playful tone implied he was a naughty thing. “Did I ever once say I don’t employ a maid? She’s off at five P.M.”
A mechanical smile was the best he could muster.
“Was your visit with Susan Gray productive?” she asked.
“I didn’t talk to her.”
“You didn’t—? But why?”
“Because you were using her as a smoke screen to throw me off and buy a little time — maybe to leave the country.”
An ugly constriction of her mouth transformed her into another woman. “I should throw you out, but I confess I’m curious to hear your ‘evidence’ for such a conclusion.”
“To begin with, no one has ever confused my mug with Fabio’s. Yet you and Lydia both came on to me. And both of you were dressed to the nines to receive a lowly keyhole peeper.”
Her confidence was back. “What did you expect — a riding crop and handcuffs?”
“Both you and Lydia,” he pressed on, ignoring her, “were too willing, and quick, to see me. Nobody has to talk to a private dick, and in my experience it’s often the guilty parties who are most eager to cooperate and create the illusion of innocence.”
“This isn’t evidence!”
“Not in court, but it works for me. Another thing — within thirty seconds of meeting me, you described yourself as ‘paperwork rich but pocket poor.’ If that were true, you’d hardly parade the fact — especially as a writer with a public image to maintain.”
“Good luck proving anything in court,” she lashed out. “All this is so thin it’s not even circumstantial.”
“This is a bit more damning,” Reno replied, pulling a paperback titled Cypress Nights from a back pocket and flipping it open. “My ex is one of your biggest fans, she loaned this to me. Here’s what first caught my eye: ‘Hers was a more subtle, sloe-eyed beauty that left glowing retinal afterimages when he closed his eyes.’ ”
He looked up at her. “I figure he mailed all the tablets to you, but he must have copied one for proof. The first forty pages of Cypress Nights are almost verbatim from Pete’s composition book. His handwriting can be factually established, and it will do no good to say he copied it from your published book — forensics can date the drying of ink to within a few days.”