The Innocents Club. Taylor Smith
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That’s the main reason I jumped on the place when the offer came up. I need some one-on-one with Lins, though. You know, kind of a mother-daughter-bonding-healing thing.”
“I thought as much,” he conceded, “otherwise I’d have gone all cantankerous on you. How’s that little copper-haired honey of mine doing these days?”
“Oh, Lord! She’s fifteen. Need I say more?”
“No, I guess not.” Chap had raised sons, not daughters, but he had a good imagination. “What about Mom?”
“Day by day. Isn’t that the conventional wisdom?” Mariah hesitated before confiding, “You know that assignment I mentioned? It’s at the Arlen Hunter Museum—the opening of the Romanov exhibit. I’m supposed to help baby-sit the Russian delegation.”
His heavy exhalation whistled down the line. “Oh, boy. I’ve been seeing ads for that show, and I thought of you. So? Is Renata going to be there?”
“I’m not sure. I imagine it’s a strong possibility, though, don’t you?”
“Probably. How do you feel about that?”
Good question. “Hard to say,” she said truthfully. “I was under a lot of pressure to take this thing on. In the back of my mind, it occurred to me there was a good chance I’d run into Renata there, so I thought about digging in my heels and refusing. But you know what? Somehow I couldn’t muster up the will. It’s like morbid fascination with a car wreck or something. Part of me, I admit, is sick at the thought of seeing her after all these years. But another part of me is dying to get a look at the old witch.”
“Facing your demons, huh?”
“Maybe. Either that or pure masochism.”
Chap fell silent for a long moment. “Talk about timing,” he said finally. “Did you get the package I sent you?”
“Package?”
“I overnighted it. I wanted you to see it as soon as possible. It should have gotten there today.”
“I’d probably left by the time it arrived. What was it about?”
“Your dad’s manuscript. You know,” the old man said thoughtfully, “it’s a shame the press found out about those papers so soon.”
“I know. I’m really sorry about that. God knows, I didn’t mean for it to get out. I was at a dinner with Paul Chaney. He was the only other person in the world besides you, me and Lindsay who knew they existed. He let it slip. We were in a roomful of reporters, so needless to say, the word spread like wildfire.”
“This Chaney—I’ve never met him, but he seems like a pretty savvy guy, at least on TV. And I thought the two of you were pretty close. Seems odd he’d do something so indiscreet, doesn’t it?”
Mariah’s free hand twisted the phone cord around her fingers until it began to cut off her circulation. “Funny you should say that. In my charitable moments, I try to convince myself it was an inadvertent blunder, but there are times when I think he did it on purpose. He had to know what a feeding frenzy the news would set off, and that I’d be forced to acknowledge the manuscript and journals existed.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Strangely enough, to try to be helpful. He thinks I should be making more effort to come to terms with Ben’s memory. And I have, to some extent, Chap, mostly to satisfy Lindsay’s curiosity. We went to visit Ben’s grave in Paris, after all. I’d never done that before. But Paul thinks it would be therapeutic if I went further—got involved in promoting this new stuff, for example. I’ve tried to explain that there’s a limit to how far I’m prepared to go with this father-daughter reconciliation, but he just doesn’t get it.”
“I’ve been getting nipped by this media feeding frenzy myself,” Chap said.
“I noticed you’d been quoted a few places. You seem to be holding them at bay pretty well.”
“I thought it best not say anything publicly until you and I had a chance to talk. But I got a letter from a prof out here at UCLA not long after the press reports started. His name’s Louis Urquhart. He’s working on a biography of your dad that’s supposed to come out in time for Ben’s sixtieth-birthday celebrations next year. By the way, I told you what the publisher’s planning for the occasion, didn’t I?”
“Repackaging and reissuing his whole collection?”
“Exactly. This Urquhart’s not the only one interested in Ben’s work these days. Might as well brace yourself, kiddo, because we’re going to see a spate of books and articles about Ben over the next little while. He seems to be in vogue all over again with a new generation of readers.”
“I know,” Mariah said. “Lindsay’s English class studied Cool Thunder this year. So, what did this Urquhart have to say for himself?”
“It’s a little complicated to go into over the phone, but he’s making some pretty serious allegations. That’s why I decided you’d better see his letter.”
“You’re making me a little uneasy here, Chap.”
“Did you really not go through these papers of Ben’s yourself, Mariah?”
“Not really. Skimmed a couple of chapters of the manuscript to see if it was something new or just an earlier draft of a book that had already been published. I told you, the only reason I even opened the box is that the rental locker where I’ve been storing my excess junk since I sold the house got flooded during the heavy rains this spring. I’ve been carting those papers around for years. When I realized they’d gotten damp, it was either chuck the whole lot or see if you thought anything should be done with them. I didn’t have time to do it myself.”
Or the inclination, she could have added. She’d looked just closely enough to see that there was some sort of work in progress there, as well as more personal papers. She hadn’t the competence to judge the fiction, she’d decided, and she certainly hadn’t the stomach to read Ben’s self-absorbed journal ramblings.
“I appreciate the trust it took for you to send these to me, Mariah,” Chap said quietly.
She felt her eyes tearing up, and hated herself for it. “I know you’ll do the right thing with them. Whatever you decide is fine with me.”
“Thank you, sweetie. But I’m afraid it’s not that simple. We may have a bit of a problem on our hands.”
“How so?”
“Look, maybe the best thing would be for us to get together with Louis Urquhart while you’re out here.”
“Oh, Chap, no. Lindsay and I are supposed to be on vacation. I don’t want to waste it hanging out with Ben’s adoring public.”
“I know how you feel, but this is not something we can ignore.”
There was something in his voice, graver than Mariah had ever heard. “Okay, now I am worried. What could possibly be so all-fired important that—”
“Urquhart thinks the manuscript of the novel was stolen from someone else, Mariah. And he thinks Ben was murdered.”
She answered with stunned silence.
“Now, I’m not saying I buy it,” Korman added quickly. “I admit, there were a few surprises in those journals of Ben’s, and the novel is unlike anything else he wrote. But it’s a big leap from there to what Urquhart is alleging. Bottom line, though? Urquhart could have blindsided us by taking his allegations public, but he didn’t. So I think it’s only fair to hear the guy out, and then we’ll decide together where to go from there. Okay?”
“But this is crazy, Chap! Murdered? We know how he died. At least, I always thought we did. Don’t we? Wasn’t my mother told that the French authorities did an autopsy when his body was found, and that he’d died of hepatitis?”
“She