I didn’t want to think about what all this would mean for the manuscript. What were the ethics on the situation? Thanks to the ease of mobile deposit, I had put the check Maeve gave me into my account the day I got it. I’d already used some of it to pay bills. I thought of what she’d said about snags. She couldn’t possibly have foreseen this. I had left my messenger bag untouched. I needed to give everything a little time to sort out.

  Sara came upstairs looking for a cup of sugar. Even though she actually did need the sugar for something she was baking, she stayed awhile. Ben hadn’t been as stealthy as he’d thought and she’d figured he came up to my place when he claimed to be leaving to go home. She was relieved to hear that I’d tried to get him to continue with the workshops. But she really lost it when she talked about his situation.

  ‘Quentin doesn’t want to hear about it anymore,’ she said, referring to her taciturn husband. ‘He urged me to come up here and vent. He was so desperate to get me to go, he offered to turn off the game he was watching and sit with Mikey while he watched kids’ shows. How can my brother let that woman back into his life? I call her Assleigh for a reason. She’s a real pain in one.’ Sara gritted her teeth as she shook her head.

  Sara seemed so upset, I felt as if I had to smooth things over for her even though I was pretty much in the same place. I didn’t know Ashleigh’s personality first hand, but it seemed to me if she’d left him without any explanation, she couldn’t have really cared that much for him. Despite the cool professional air I’d tried to put on with him the previous night, I was upset too. I’d liked Ben and it was nice to have a plus one and to actually go on a date. But what I’d told him was true. I had thought ahead to something like this happening and vowed not to let it interfere with him being in the group.

  It was useless to try to calm Sara, so I let her continue to vent. ‘I never liked her from the first time I met her. You should hear her voice. She always sounds snippy. Her nails are like decorated claws. And she has sharp features like a ferret and those eyebrows …’ she said, looking skyward. ‘Doesn’t she know when to stop with the tweezing?’

  I asked Sara if she wanted some cooking wine. ‘I know it’s kind of early,’ I said, leaving off that she seemed a little wound up.

  ‘Yes, thank you. How different is that than having a mimosa with your brunch?’

  ‘Sorry, I don’t have anything in the brunch department to offer. I do have apple slices with peanut butter.’ She surprised me by taking the food offer. I guess she needed some sustenance to keep up her energy to trash Ashleigh. Quentin sent her a text finally telling her to come home.

  I gave up on my plans to do a big shopping and went to the little grocery store around the corner. It was expensive but convenient. I grabbed some fresh bread, more peanut butter, a few cans of soup and some frozen food to keep me going until I could do a real shopping. I heated one of the cans of soup and lost myself in an old Thin Man movie on the TV while I ate it. When I saw Myrna Loy’s thin eyebrows I thought of Ashleigh, and Sara’s rant. I laughed at how far Sara had gone in trashing the woman. I hoped I’d never get on her bad side.

  It was back to reality on Monday. In all the ups and downs with Maeve, I’d neglected to look over the pages the group had left the previous week. After having them read aloud to the group, they left their work for me to give them a second read and make comments. I took the pile into the living room, planning to go through them, when my landline rang. Most of the calls were trying to sell me some ‘sure thing’ investment opportunity or threaten me with arrest if I didn’t pay up some back taxes with money put on gift cards, so unless I recognized the number I let it go to voicemail. When I checked, there was a message from someone named Fredricka Stanhope and she asked me to call her on an urgent matter. The name sounded vaguely familiar, so I returned the call.

  ‘Fredricka Stanhope,’ an efficient-sounding woman announced when she answered the phone.

  I explained getting a message and gave her my name.

  ‘It’s so sad about Maeve,’ she said in a somber voice. The comment caught me off guard and then I realized why the name was familiar. I’d seen her name on the contract that Maeve had given me. She was the publisher.

  ‘Yes, it’s terrible,’ I said, wondering what was coming next.

  There was a little throat-clearing on her end and, when she continued, her tone had changed from sympathetic to business-like. ‘Regarding the book you were working on with her,’ she said. Here it comes, I thought. She’s going to say they’re canceling it and they know that Maeve paid me out of her advance so they’ll be asking for the money back.

  ‘I don’t mean to be cold, but we’ve invested a lot in the project already. It’s a change for our publishing company. We’ve only done art books rather than those about the artists until now. Everybody loves the Scotty dog paintings and, with the award nomination, we found there was a lot of interest in the person behind it all. Actually, we already have a commitment for copies to be distributed to the whole audience at the award event.’ She stopped for a breath. ‘My point is that we want the manuscript.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, surprised.

  ‘We understand that it won’t be exactly as we’d originally agreed on, but I believe that Maeve gave you a rough draft.’ I thought about what I’d seen. Calling it a rough draft was too generous. There seemed to be some beginning entries and then random notes and a journal. ‘We want you to finish it on your own. Do whatever you have to, to flesh it out. Interview people and, if need be, take some poetic license. Maeve said you were an experienced writer, so I’m sure you can figure it out.’ She stopped talking and it was my turn to say something. There really wasn’t anything to say. To be crass, I needed the money, and didn’t even have all of it to give back anymore. I felt a sense of commitment to Maeve since she’d seemed so determined that the manuscript be completed. And there was a part of me that loved a challenge.’

  ‘OK,’ I said finally. I wondered if I should tell her that Maeve had mentioned a surprise ending and that she would give me the details when we got there. But what was the point, since it wasn’t going to happen? Something else Maeve had said floated through my mind. That I might be able to figure it out on my own. It might be true, but I didn’t want to promise something I might not be able to deliver, so I said nothing and let Fredricka continue on and remind me about the deadline before she ended the call.

  I had to take a deep breath and let it settle for a while as I thought over what had just been laid in my lap. At least, I didn’t have to keep it a secret anymore.

  I fought the urge to dive back into the stack of papers from Maeve; I owed it to the group to finish going over their work. I’d left Ben’s for last. It was only two pages and wasn’t even a complete scene. The last line seemed to be more of a note to himself and read: Oh, s—t.

  I was considering how to comment when my landline rang again. I might have just ignored it and let it go to voicemail, but I thought it might be Fredricka calling back and went to check the screen. When I saw it was Michael Angel, I felt my stomach clench as I clicked the green button.

  I let him identify himself even though I knew who was on the phone. The first thing I did was offer my condolences. I barely got the words out before he launched into the reason for the call.

  ‘I’m trying to make sense of it all,’ he began. ‘Tell me what happened.’ It wasn’t surprising that he should ask. The police had rushed to keep us separate and, other than a few comments when he first arrived, he had no idea of my story. There was no reason not to tell him, so I recounted what had occurred from my arrival to when I called the paramedics. I didn’t offer any extra comments about my feeling that there was something more to what had happened.

  ‘And you were there because of a writing project with my wife,’ he said. ‘I am shocked that she didn’t tell me about it.’ I was surprised that he knew. Then I realized that Suzzanna must have filled him in, based on what I’d told her the first time I’d gone to the house.

  ‘She meant it to be a surprise,’ I said, hoping that would smooth it over.

  ‘What exactly was it? Tell me the details,’ he demanded.

  ‘She was calling it a memoir, but the plan was that it was really about you and your art.’ I wondered if I should tell him how much I personally loved the Scotty paintings, but I wanted to keep the conversation impersonal, so didn’t mention it.

  ‘Well, you can consider the whole thing cancelled now,’ he said. ‘You can keep whatever you were already paid.’

  ‘It’s not quite that simple,’ I began, before explaining that Maeve had a publishing deal for it and there was a contract which committed me to finish it.

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ he said, and demanded to know the name of the publisher. I gave him Fredricka’s number. ‘I’ll deal with them directly.’ He didn’t even say goodbye before he ended the call.

  His call made me glad that I hadn’t rushed into working on the pages. He’d sounded determined to end the project and I didn’t know if he could manage to get Fredricka to bend to his wishes.

  I’d barely made it to the kitchen to make myself some lunch when the landline rang once more. I rushed to grab the phone and saw it was Michael Angel again.

  ‘I understand that you have a rough draft,’ he said in an angry tone. ‘I’d like to see it.’

  ‘You talked to the publisher?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, and she’s refusing to stop the project.’ He sounded upset, probably on a lot of levels. I could even understand his request, but there was no way I was going to agree. I remembered Maeve’s comment that she was concerned family members would want to make changes, which I was sure was correct. I had to somehow sell him on the idea of the book and tell him no to seeing what Maeve had given me, without actually saying it.

  ‘You do understand that it’s all about you and how wonderful your art is. The publisher told me how they already have marketing plans for the book. It can only help broaden your presence.’ I was throwing in verbiage that sounded good. ‘You’ll be able to make appearances at art museums and galleries to sign books, since you are more important than the writer.’

  ‘Hmm,’ he said, seeming to be softening.

  ‘I’d appreciate it if I could meet you in person. You could give me the story from your perspective,’ I said.

  ‘And you could hand over the draft you have,’ he said. His insistence made me think of another possibility. Once he saw that most of it was handwritten, he could literally rip it up in front of me and make it disappear.

  ‘It’s not in any form to let you read it,’ I said. ‘Maybe just before I turn it in to the publisher.’ I wasn’t refusing him, just holding off. If I did actually let him look at it at that point, then I would have it on my computer and he could rip up all the papers he wanted to and not make it go away. But why would he anyway?

  He didn’t sound happy with my answer, but he seemed to realize there was nothing he could do. I was glad that he backed off on his demand. I didn’t want to have to get tough and say that he had no claim to the pages. Everything was between Maeve, me and the publisher. He agreed to meet in person and wanted to do it right away, but I got him to push it to the following day. I tried to get him to agree to a neutral place, but he insisted on our meeting being at the house. He said he wanted to show me his studio.

  ELEVEN

  Once again, I was going to the Victorian house on Harper. There had been so much strangeness connected with going there, the meeting with Michael Angel fit right in. I wished he would have agreed to meeting in a public spot. His almost threatening manner about the writing project had made me feel uneasy. To be on the safe side, I’d made a copy of the draft I had and left it hidden away at my place. There’d been no delay in him answering the bell and we’d stopped in the entrance hall.

  He was unshaven and appeared distraught. I’d repeated my condolences and he’d said he was doing the best to hang in there. It was a non-contentious moment, but then he went right back to being adversarial. ‘I still don’t understand how you got in the house,’ he said in a hostile tone.

  I repeated that while I’d gone to the kitchen door before, I’d gone to the front door this time. ‘I rang the bell and no one answered. The door slipped open.’ I stopped there rather than explaining the rest, that I’d gone up to the attic and then down the back stairs. I didn’t want to relive the whole thing again, particularly when I was in the location where I’d found her. I did what I could to get him to move on. ‘You were going to show me your studio,’ I said.

  He led me through the living room to a doorway into what had probably been built as a sun porch. With all the exposure, the light was wonderful. ‘Is this your work in progress?’ I said walking over to a big easel with a partially done canvas. This time the Scotty was wearing a beret in a garden of flowers with the Eiffel Tower in the distance.

  ‘It’s not the Mona Lisa, but people seemed to love the Scotty,’ he said. I moved on to taking in the whole room. Since the room had windows on three sides, the back wall was the only place to hang anything. I noticed a couple of landscapes and a still life. The landscapes all had a nude woman rather randomly placed in them. There was a moveable stand with trays of art supplies, and a number of places to sit. It seemed to me that either Maeve had said – or I’d seen it in the notes – that he liked to entertain in his studio.

  ‘As soon as I finish a Scotty picture, it goes right to a gallery,’ he said. He offered me a seat on an unusual-shaped sofa that was covered in chartreuse suede with colorful throw pillows. He slid into a tall director’s-style chair that I gathered he used when he was painting.

  He seemed to have lost some of the hostile attitude and I sensed that he was trying to be more like the person I’d seen at the reception. ‘I don’t know what’s with the police. At a time like this, you’d think they would show some compassion, instead of asking me the same questions over and over. It’s almost as if they think it was more than it was.’

  ‘Did they say why?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ he said in a tired voice. ‘I’ve been nothing but cooperative with them. I don’t understand why they sent people out from the medical examiner’s office to investigate.’ He looked at me directly. ‘Why can’t they settle that it was an accident and release her body so I can arrange the cremation? Anybody who looks at those stairs can see they’re dark and steep. I warned Maeve about them from the day we got this house,’ he said, sounding frustrated.

  ‘The medical examiner usually investigates an unattended death, particularly in someone young and in good health,’ I said. But what I didn’t say was if the investigation was as intense as he said it was, it was because something didn’t add up. They had the advantage of knowing what seemed out of place, while I had only a vague feeling. I didn’t share any of that with him. Since he had brought up the incident, I decided it was my turn to ask some questions.

  ‘Then you weren’t home Saturday afternoon?’ I said. ‘I suppose the police asked you to account for your time.’ It was a nice way of asking if he had an alibi.

  ‘I don’t know why it should matter,’ he said, still in the tired voice. ‘I left in the late morning. Maeve probably told you that we’re doing a short documentary; there was a brunch with some of the first people who recognized the value of my art. The filmmaker wanted to get some comments.’

  ‘I’m sure a lot of people saw you, so you don’t have to worry,’ I said.

  ‘Why would I have to worry?’ he said as his eyes flashed anger. ‘Do you think I had something to do with what happened to Maeve?’

  ‘No,’ I said, quickly. ‘I was thinking about the police. In case they determine there was foul play. You must know that the first person they look at is the spouse.’

  ‘I thought the point of you coming here was to discuss things for the book.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ I said, hoping to calm his flare of anger. ‘Why don’t you begin?’

  ‘What did Maeve tell you about us?’ he asked.

  I didn’t want to tell him that I’d barely gotten past their first meeting. ‘She certainly was in awe of your talent,’ I said.

  ‘She really said that?’ he peered at me, seeming surprised.

  ‘Maybe not exactly, but in so many words,’ I said.

  ‘All couples have their moments,’ he said. ‘She probably said some negative things about me, about our relationship.’ He seemed to be trying to be cordial now. ‘The sudden success might have gone to my head a bit.’ He looked at me expectantly. So, he was hinting that things hadn’t been exactly perfect between them. I had nothing to pass on to him since I’d only met with her briefly and had only given her notes some cursory examination. Even if I’d known what he was hinting at, I certainly wouldn’t have told him and given him the chance to squash it. When he finally spoke again, it was all about the Scotty paintings. ‘The paintings make people smile. That’s far more important than anything about Maeve and me,’ he said.

  He talked on a bit after that, mostly about how much the nomination for the award meant and his hopes that he would win it. It was on the boring side, and the only way I could use it in the manuscript was if I needed to talk about how pompous he’d become.

  I felt unsettled when I got home. The way the police had repeatedly questioned Michael, and the fact it hadn’t been ruled an accident yet, made me believe I was onto something with my feeling that something hadn’t added up. I’d read a book once about how a judgment made in the blink of an eye was often more correct than one made after a long study. Maybe I was right. I tried going back over the moments when I found Maeve. I remembered that I hadn’t thought it was a person first because all I’d seen was the pattern of the kimono jacket she’d been wearing. I’d expected her to be OK. But why? And then an image appeared in my mind and I knew what felt wrong. I started to do research and then I had an a-ha moment as I realized something startling. I wanted to check it out and there was only one person who could help – Ben.