“Were you serious?” I asked.
He gave me a semi-smile. “I guess I was at the time. I thought the piece was going to really kill my business. But you know, almost every reaction I got was sympathetic. In the next couple of days, I’ll bet seven or eight people called me, including three of my writers, and they all said Charles was an ass, or words to that effect. And obviously I’m not angry anymore, especially after what’s happened. But I do have to call Vinson and apologize for what I said to him.”
“Did you lose any writers because of the article?”
Ott stared at the pencil in his hand. He seemed to be wondering how it got there. “Can’t say for sure,” he replied unconvincingly. “Agents are always gaining and losing clients, and we don’t always know the reason. Hell, I got two new ones just last week — one of them a young woman you’re going to hear plenty about in the next few years, believe me. Sorry I can’t tell you what she’s working on, but she’s a winner, and just three months out of college.”
“Uh-huh. How good a writer was Childress?”
“Not as good as he liked to think. Oh, he was what I would call workmanlike, and he did a decent job — not perfect, but decent — of adopting Sawyer’s characters and style. His dialogue was actually quite good, very lively, but his plots occasionally were a problem, although I always felt Keith Billings made too big a deal out of that. He — Keith — is full of himself.”
“Childress blasted Billings in that article, too, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, not by name, but like with me, everybody knew exactly who he was crucifying.”
“Do you think Childress killed himself?”
Ott pitched forward abruptly and rested his elbows on the desk, cupping his chin in his hands. “It wouldn’t surprise me. In the few years I’d known him, he must have had at least three or four really bad depressions that I was aware of. He broke down and bawled once right here in this office — for no apparent reason. It would have broken your heart to see it. He was telling me about an idea he had for a new detective, a character he wanted to develop, and in the middle of a sentence, he just covered his face with his hands and started sobbing.”
“Did he ever do anything with that new detective?”
“Not that I know of, but that was only a few months ago.”
“Had he been in one of his depressions lately?”
Ott threw up his hands and shook his head. “I hadn’t seen him since we had our set-to and he fired me or I quit, however you want to term it. That was over a month ago. But as I said earlier, he was really upset about the money he’d been offered for the two new Barnstable books, the one giving him the fifteen-percent increase. I understand that he accepted it, though, sans agent.
“Also, he was terribly thin-skinned about criticism. All in all, he’d gotten some fairly decent reviews on all three of his Barnstable mysteries, although as you probably know, the stuff Wilbur Hobbs had written in the Gazette bedeviled him. Then there were the Barnstable faithful — the people who’d been religiously reading the books since Sawyer started the series more than forty years ago. A lot of them are ferocious about detail. In fact, there are clubs of Barnstable fans in cities all over the country. They call themselves PROBE, but I forget exactly what the acronym stands for. Something with ‘Barnstable Enthusiasts’ in the title, I think. By and large, they applauded him and were glad that Barnstable was back. But they also caught him in all sorts of minor errors, things like the color of the pickup truck Barnstable drove or the kind of rug he had in his living room. Charles got a number of those letters, and this irked him when it should have pleased him that these folks, all of whom were polite, took the time to write.”
“Hardly worth shooting yourself over,” I observed.
“Agreed. But Charles was wound tight. I warned him before his first Barnstable book came out that every word he wrote would be scrutinized with a magnifying glass. I also said I thought it was a small price to pay for getting to continue a character so many people loved. But you know, I don’t think he ever fully appreciated the opportunity he was getting. To Charles, it was basically a way to raise his visibility fast — and to make money. I don’t think he ever looked beyond the next hill.”
“Did he have many close friends?”
“Not that I knew of,” Ott replied. “I’m sure you’re aware he was engaged — to a young woman at one of the TV networks. In public relations, I think. I never met her. Then there was a writer he was friendly with, named Patricia Royce.”
“I’ve heard of her,” I said. “What was their relationship?”
“I have no idea. Mr. Goodwin, I rarely if ever socialize with my writers. No particular reason, except that my wife and I aren’t big for the cocktail-party circuit or the Hamptons. Oh, I do go to some literary functions, but only because it’s de rigueur in this business. And in fact, I did meet Patricia Royce once, at some book party, I forget where. She recognized my name, said she knew I was Charles’s agent.”
“But you’ve never worked for her?”
He shook his head. “She didn’t ask me to when we met. And I’ve never taken on anyone in that genre — the romantic historical novel — although I did read one of her books sometime back, and I was impressed; her characters are nicely drawn and her plots are particularly solid and well-constructed. But I don’t even know who represents her.”
“Can you suggest anyone who might want to kill Childress?”
“With that personality of his, anybody who ever came within half a mile of him. No — scratch that last comment,” Ott said sharply, twisting in his chair. “It was gratuitous, and I had no business coming out with it. Mr. Goodwin, let’s just say Charles was an egotistical, moderately talented, immoderately unpleasant young man. I’d be a hypocrite if I told you his death deeply saddened me. But I didn’t rejoice when I heard about it, either. Do I think he was murdered? Oh... probably not. Based on what I had seen of him over the last four years or so — and I hope that this doesn’t sound callous — suicide seems consistent with his overall behavior. The man was a nut case. Sorry, but there it is.”
“Did you know that he kept a gun in his apartment?”
“No, but I can’t say I’m surprised. I was only in his place once, several months back, while I was still his agent and we were on relatively good terms. I belong to a small club down on Gramercy Park, and I’d been having lunch there with a friend. Because I was nearby, I stopped by to see Charles after lunch and dropped off copies of the German edition of one of his Barnstable books which had just come in. He was all wrought up about one of the apartments in his building having been burgled or vandalized, or both, and he told me he was going to buy a ‘piece’ — that’s the word he used, ‘piece.’ Ever the crime writer.”
“Do you know if he had drawn up a will?”
Ott spread his arms. “I have no idea, but I really doubt it. Charles was weird about money. On the one hand, he seemed obsessed with making it as fast as he could. On the other, he didn’t seem to care about what happened to it once he got it. Possessions didn’t seem to be a high priority with him. And his apartment — well, as I said, I was only there once, but the furnishings looked like they came from a resale shop.”
I nodded, then paused a beat. “Mr. Ott, where were you a week ago Tuesday from, say, late morning to late afternoon?”
“That was really quite well done.” He nodded and smiled. “I wondered how long you’d wait to spring it. You did a damn nice job of pulling information out of me before you got to the part that figured to make the atmosphere tense, and which might cause me to ask you to leave. Except that I won’t do that. Your question is legitimate.”