Mint Julep Murder (2 page)

“You aren’t selling, Jimmy Jay. That’s the bottom line. The returns on your book are running around eighty percent. You’re lucky they’re even willing to talk a new contract. And Buzzy’s not positive he can get it by the editorial board even if your advance is cut in half.” A thoughtful pause. “Truth is, things go in cycles in publishing, Jimmy Jay. Limbaugh. Grisham. Nobody could believe
their
sales figures. Outer space. So everybody started publishing down-home think pieces and lawyer books. Limbaugh and Grisham are still at the top of the charts.”

Jimmy Jay waited.

But his agent didn’t go ahead to say the obvious: The clones weren’t coming through. Readers wanted the real thing.

Jimmy Jay’s mean little mouth closed in a tight hard line. He couldn’t trust himself not to fire Harold on the spot.

But Harold was one of the best literary agents in New York.

If Harold couldn’t get him a new contract …

“Talk to you later.” Jimmy Jay slammed the phone down. It wasn’t his fault. He was just as good as Limbaugh. Better. Because he
really
laid it on the line. He didn’t bother to try and be cute. He told it straight out, and if people didn’t like it, they could take a flying leap.

If his book wasn’t selling, well, the asshole, knee-jerking liberals would laugh themselves silly if the word got out. Jimmy Jay knew they hated him for telling the good old unvarnished truth, like what a joke it was for the bleeding hearts to moan about poor little mamas on welfare. The bleeding hearts squealed like stuck pigs when he said it was time to cut those ladies off the dole if they kept on having babies. Look at it: If those sorry broads didn’t want Uncle’s check every month, they’d sure as hell figure out what made babies. It wasn’t like it was a state secret. And all this crap about AIDS. As far as he was concerned, it was time to worry about ordinary, everyday Americans, not rejects who played Russian roulette in their sex lives.

But
The New York Times
had sure had it in for him ever since
Straighten Up and Fly Right
came out.

He’d mailed a copy of the bestseller list to
The NYT Book Review
for twenty-three weeks and circled his title on it.

No answer, of course.

Christ, he couldn’t let those Yankees have the last laugh.

But he had an empty feeling in his gut. He aimed at the wastebasket. Tobacco juice splattered the side and dribbled onto the rug. So let the maid earn her salary.

Yeah,
Straighten Up
made the bestseller list for twenty-three weeks.

But that was based on titles shipped, not sold. His publishers had gambled that he could sell like Rush and Grizzard
and Howard Stern. So the sales reps leaned on booksellers, gave special discounts to entice them to up their orders. The pub effort was great—radio spots across the country, a drive-by radio tour, signings in sixteen cities.

But none of that mattered if Harold was right. Returns around 80 percent. The book was not selling.

They’d toss him out like yesterday’s headline.

Alan Blake hummed as he shaved. (“Oh, What a Beautiful Morning.”) Then he stopped and grinned. Green gel dripped from his chin. Sometimes he couldn’t believe his own instincts. Jesus, that was
perfect.
Corny but lovable. The right touch for his upcoming
Parade
interview. He’d have to remember to tell the reporter in a half-chagrined way how he always hummed when he shaved. “A Day with Alan Blake.” His readers would love it. He smiled at his reflection in the steamy mirror. An engaging smile. Good, white, even teeth. Steady blue eyes. Wavy chestnut hair. A manly chin with just the hint of a cleft. He carefully eased the razor over his upper lip. A few more strokes and he was done. He heard the telephone above the rush of water. He patted his face with a washcloth and reached for the bathroom extension.

His eyes admired the luxurious bathroom—a whirlpool, mirrors with lights that could brighten or dim, the heated towel rack—as he picked up the receiver.

“Hi, Alan. Long time no see.”

He felt like a boxer hit in the kidneys.

“You there, Alan?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t believe—”

“Come off it, man. We had a fun time in L.A. We’ll have to get together. Talk about old times. I read in the paper you’re gonna be at that book deal in Hilton Head. I’ll look you up, man.”

Blue Benedict’s back ached. Carefully, she bent her knees, keeping her lower back muscles straight, as she hefted another box of books into her Jeep Cherokee. She couldn’t, absolutely could not, have back trouble now. She picked up another box. There were dozens more boxes yet to be transported to the booth. And more boxes for the signings at the hotel. Oh, Lord, had she remembered to call and see if the book room was open today? Okay, that was—

The startled half-scream brought Blue sharply around. The box thudded to the ground. Pain flared in her back.

“Mother!” Ginny’s voice rose in a panicked squeal.

Blue Benedict scrambled through the open back door, skidded around stacks of boxes, plunged into the rear of the bookstore.

Ginny was blundering down the middle aisle, her hands held out in front on her. “Mother!” Her voice broke into a sob. “I can’t see. I can’t see! The box blew up.”

White powder covered Ginny’s face, speckled her black hair.

Blue reached her daughter. “This way. Into the John. Let’s wash it off.”

“I can’t
see!”
Her daughter’s voice shook with fear.

Blue didn’t hesitate. She grabbed an empty vase and filled it with warm water. “Hold your breath, Ginny.”

Blue splashed the whole of it into her daughter’s face, then gently dabbed her eyes.

Ginny blinked. “I—it’s smeary—but I can see. I can. I can.”

Blue was trembling by the time she reached the front of the store and the pile of mail that Ginny had been opening. She looked grimly at the small ripped-open package. The still-hot flashcube inside it accounted for Ginny’s sudden blindness. It was clever enough: The flashcube exploding as the lid was lifted. And the now uncoiled spring had flung up whitish powder.

Blue dampened a finger, touched it to the powder, gave a delicate lick.

Flour.

Flour pure and simple. A practical joke.

But there was nothing funny about the message in all capital, cut-out letters:

Annie nosed her Volvo behind the dumpmaster in the alley. She gazed at the back door to Death on Demand—the finest mystery bookstore this side of Atlanta—with wariness, trepidation, and deep yearning.

If she could survive this weekend, her store would once again be her pride, her joy, her refuge, and her delight.

But the Dixie Book Festival would have to be history before Annie’s life was once again predictable.

As predictable as life could ever be….

She glanced at an ornately decorated square of shiny cardboard lying in the passenger seat atop a haphazard stack of files, packets, and notes to herself
(Tomorrow pick up the hotel keys FIRST, Stop by liquor store, GAS, Cleaners, Sugar? MAX?)
, and sighed. In ornate script, the card held this legend:

Despite Annie’s intense effort to discipline her mind, she immediately envisioned a majestic eagle, its imperious head held high, its magnificent wings spread wide.

And, dammit, it gave her a surge of energy.

Maybe her spacey mother-in-law was on to something.

“Come on,” Annie muttered. “Don’t lose it now.” She absolutely was not going to get roped into the collective insanity on the part of Laurel and her fellow conspirators, Henny Brawley and Miss Dora Brevard. Just because Annie owned a bookstore and somehow had been persuaded to serve as an author liaison to this year’s Medallion honorees at the Dixie Book Festival on Hilton Head Island, that did not—emphatically did NOT—mean that Annie had entree to the world of publishing, as in the ability to find publishers for the proud authors of three distinctly varied manuscripts.

Annie slid out of the car. “No,” she said aloud. “No, no, no.” She gave a hunted look over her shoulder. The three hopeful authors had bombarded her with ideas for finding publishers that ranged from the absurd (Miss Dora, imperiously:
Simply inform them our books
must
be published)
to the sensible (Henny, briskly:
I’ve surveyed the lists of publishers who are coming and Mint Julep Press is perfect. Extremely aggressive marketing.)

Annie completed her survey of the alley. The coast was clear. Still, she ducked in the back door of Death on Demand like a fugitive. Jean Valjean had nothing on her.

Annie had learned to her dismay that entrapment could come so unexpectedly. Miss Dora didn’t even live on Broward’s Rock, but she’d turned up on the ferry that morning, and Annie had been trapped for a twenty-minute discourse on the originality and superiority of Miss Dora’s cookbook.

Annie stood tensely in the storeroom. But there was no sound beyond the partially open door. She tiptoed across the floor, peered into the bookstore, her wonderful, dear store, full of fabulous mysteries from the newest (the delightful debut of Gar Anthony Haywood’s Dottie and Joe Loudermilk series) to the oldest (leather-bound copies of
the
Collected Edgar Allan Poe).
Reassured, she pushed the door wider.

“Dear Annie.”

Annie froze.

Laurel Darling Roethke uncurled from the petit point sofa in front of the fireplace. It was a new acquisition to make readers feel quite at home. Just as cozy as the nooks and crannies in Denver’s Tattered Cover bookstore. Though, of course, the Death on Demand hearth was cold now. South Carolina was much too balmy in May for a fire.

Agatha rose, too, stretching and hopping down to twine around Laurel’s ankles.

Annie ignored a pang of jealousy. But it was irritating for her very own cat, the pampered prima donna of the store, to treat Laurel with such affection, especially since Agatha had ignored Annie for the past three days. That, of course, was why the sleek black cat was so ostentatiously pirouetting about Laurel. The message couldn’t have been clearer.

To be fair, Annie understood. Nothing in the store was quite on schedule, despite Annie’s best efforts. And nothing would be on schedule until the Festival was over. Agatha despised change. Or any other aspect of life that didn’t suit. Too much wind. An unaccustomed frost. As far as Agatha was concerned, Annie was responsible. Period.

Annie crossed her arms and regarded her mother-in-law gravely. And tried hard not to let her mouth curve into a grin. She pressed her lips together. God, she mustn’t
encourage
Laurel.

Laurel beamed. “Dear Annie,” she caroled.

Annie’s lips quivered.
Steady
, she warned herself. Laurel must not detect any softening of Annie’s refusal to cooperate. No way did Annie intend be outmaneuvered by her silver-tongued, crafty, incredibly determined mother-in-law. Absolutely no way.

No matter how appealing Laurel looked in her simple white cotton blouse and beige linen skirt.

Anyone else would look like the class nerd in a Fifties
movie. Laurel, of course, looked sublimely elegant and as gloriously and agelessly beautiful as ever, her hair as softly gold as moonlight, her patrician features touched with warmth, her vivid blue eyes merry with laughter and a hint of childlike expectation that bordered on the otherworldly. Bordered, hell. Crossed over, in Annie’s opinion.

Laurel clasped a hand to her chest. “The Sun Shines.”

Annie waited.

“Don’t you think, my dear,” Laurel’s distinctive husky voice rose slightly, “that says it all?”

Now those beautifully manicured hands—shell-pink polish—were clasped soulfully to her chin.

A smooth, wrinkle-free chin, Annie noted acerbically. But Laurel insisted she’d never had cosmetic surgery.

Yeah.

Those deeply blue eyes continued to regard Annie patiently.

Annie realized a response was expected. “Uh … yes. Yes, I guess that sums it up pretty well.”

Laurel darted to her, gave her a swift embrace. Annie felt the whisper of lips on her cheek, smelled a faint hint—Annie’s nose wrinkled—rose? Hmm. Usually Laurel preferred the scent of lilac. Out of long experience, Annie wondered sharply what the change in fragrance augured. That it augured something, she didn’t doubt. Oh, of course. Laurel’s latest enthusiasm, the theme of her book:
Simplicity.
She was probably gathering up roses, drying them, squashing them, and making her own perfume. Were roses more easily obtained than lilac blooms? Who knew? Who
cared?
That was harmless enough. If only Laurel would confine her activities to similarly socially harmless pursuits. But, unfortunately—

Annie felt a piece of paper being tucked in her skirt pocket. Then Laurel wafted past her into the storeroom.
“Dear
Annie. Thank you, thank you, love. For everything. For your sweet nature. For your support.
The Sun Shines.
That shall be the opening truth. Page one. Oh, Annie, I can’t wait until tomorrow.”