Mystery Writer's Mysteries Box Set 1-3 Read online

  After an excruciatingly long time, I filled two mix-and-match craft beer six-packs with two different brands each of red ales, chocolate porters, summer lagers, IPAs, stouts, and a couple of hard ciders — the ultimate in non-decision making.

  I trudged up the sidewalk toward my apartment, six-pack in each hand. For a split-second, I expected to be ambushed by Peter O’Drool racing toward me like he had so many times in the past, tail wagging so hard his hind legs lifted off the ground. But just as quickly I remembered.

  Instead, I was ambushed by two men, one with a huge camera on his shoulder, the other with a huge microphone which he shoved in my face.

  “Are you Charlemagne Russo?”

  “Uh ...” He looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place him. He fell in step beside me as I continued toward my apartment. He kept the microphone thrust in my face, but it had turned and I now saw the Channel 29 logo. Ugh. Archie Cruz from the consumer Your Advocate segments. I picked up my pace.

  He did too. “Why did you steal all those people’s money from the event you held on Saturday? Was Rodolfo Lapaglia ever actually scheduled to appear? Was it some sort of bait-and-switch scam? False advertising? Embezzlement plot?”

  I stopped, dumbfounded by his allegations. I should have sprinted for my door without a backward glance. Instead, I allowed the cameraman to frame up the shot perfectly, probably with Archie Cruz centered next to me, microphone shoved in my face at a practiced angle which did not, unfortunately, obscure it. Cruz looked pompous and indignant on behalf of whoever had tipped him off to the fiasco on Saturday.

  I should have smiled enigmatically and sauntered away, impervious to his false allegations and insinuations. However, I chose a different strategy. “I never .... I didn’t .... You can’t just .... I have no idea ....”

  My statement was probably verbatim what all of his ambushees muttered, so he didn’t miss a beat. “Clearly, you have something to hide, Ms. Russo. Why are you wearing a disguise?”

  I looked down and saw my pregnant belly. Suddenly all the stares at the liquor store made perfect sense. But nothing else did. I looked up at Archie Cruz. I looked at the camera. I looked back at my belly. I looked at the six-packs in my hands. I looked at Archie. Camera. Belly. Beer. Camera. Beer. Belly. Archie.

  Then I did what any sensible, innocent person would do when confronted by a local TV news bully like Archie Cruz. I ran to my apartment, fumbled with my beer so I could find my keys, then slammed the door behind me.

  Twelve

  I left the beer on the floor by the front door, then thought better of it and placed the six packs in the refrigerator. Warm ale would never cure what ailed me now. I shimmied out of the pregnancy bodysuit, flung it across my bedroom, and stood under the hot, steamy pulse of the shower, silently begging it to wash away the memory of this morning.

  But it didn’t. All it did was crystallize all the things I should have calmly said to Archie Cruz and his cameraman. “No, Mr. Cruz, there was absolutely no bait-and-switch or any misappropriation of any funds for the writer’s event I was supposed to hold with Mr. Lapaglia on Saturday. The fact is, Mr. Lapaglia never showed up, something that worries me and our joint publisher very much, and should worry his fans. Your time would be better spent trying to help us locate him so we can find out what happened and offer reimbursement to everyone who signed up. And while this pregnancy suit and short blonde wig might be a disguise in the broadest of terms, it is not an attempt to dodge creditors, if that’s what you’re insinuating. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have no further comment. Good day to you, sir.” And then if he tried speaking again, I’d simply hold up my hand and say, “I said good day.” And then I’d glide serenely to my door where it would magically open so I wouldn’t have to fumble with the beer or my keys.

  I let the hot water try to massage the memory from my neck and shoulders, knowing full well that memory was etched there, perhaps forever. I consoled myself that it was just a brutal interview with only two witnesses, Archie Cruz and the cameraman. Since I didn’t really say anything, it wasn’t very compelling footage. Surely they wouldn’t actually run something so boring on the news.

  Feeling better after that insight and my shower, I went upstairs to tell Don and Barb that I saw Peter and he seemed safe and happy.

  They sat me down, offering tea and Barb’s homemade frosted sugar cookies. The TV was on in the background. Don lowered the sound.

  I told them what had happened. They were happy to hear about Peter, but worried about me, even though I downplayed the confrontation. I left out the fence completely.

  “Please don’t worry about me.”

  “And you called the police?” Don asked.

  “Yes. I left a message with the detective I’d spoken to about the Braid before.” That seemed to placate them. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that Ming thought I was a dingbat and probably didn’t even listen to the entirety of my message.

  Barb said, “Don had a good idea.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “He’s rereading all of the Rodolfo Lapaglia books, looking for some kind of clue.” She looked at Don with soft eyes. “He’s a genius.”

  He blushed. “Well, everybody knows that these books are thinly-veiled true stories about the mob. If this braid guy is involved somehow, maybe I can find some kind of reference and use it to track him down.”

  I stared at Don. “That’s kind of brilliant. You could be a detective. Have you found anything yet?”

  “Maybe. There’s a recurring character, I forget his name, but he has this mohawk haircut—”

  “And our guy has a long mohawk braid!”

  Don shuffled through the pile of books on the table next to him. “He’s mostly just a background character, but in this book”—he pulled one out and handed it to me—“they carry the subplot. I haven’t read it in awhile, but it was something about him screwing up. Mohawk needs to make things right with the mob, but his girlfriend, Taffeta, double crosses him.”

  “The character’s name is Taffeta?” I sat up straighter and flipped through the pages, remembering my conversation with Cecelia. “I heard someone mention velvet recently. Do you think that’s a name? Could it be our Taffeta?”

  Don shrugged. “Maybe. In the book Taffeta is killed.”

  “Oh. There goes that theory, admittedly not much of one.” I thought for a minute then slapped my palm on the open book. “Maybe the fictional Taffeta is our real Tiffany. Maybe the Braid killed Tiffany because she double crossed him somehow!” I felt my heart rate quicken.

  Barb blanched. “Do you really think the man who has our Peter is a killer for the mob?”

  “Now, dear, don’t get yourself all worked up,” Don said in a soothing voice.

  “Yeah, Barb, it’s just a theory.” Although I thought it was a pretty exciting one. “We need to cover all bases.” Even though I wanted to explore this further with Don, I saw that it upset Barb so I let it drop for now. I knew Don would keep at it.

  The conversation hit a lull. We all stared at the TV, listening to the quiet hum of the news anchor. My eyes glassed over while I munched a cookie and worried about Peter. Suddenly I snapped into focus when on the screen I saw the same photo of Tiffany Isaac that Detective Ming showed us at Union Station. I lunged for the remote and turned up the volume.

  “Denver PD continues to search for leads in the murder of Tiffany Isaac. If you have any information, you’re urged to call the number below. It’s also listed on our website.”

  I exchanged a glance with Don.

  The image faded and was replaced by Archie Cruz’s face and the Your Advocate logo. That was replaced by an even more disturbing image—me, a hunk of blueberry between my two front teeth, looking like a pregnant alcoholic and guilty as hell. The three of us watched the entire clip with mouths agape. I couldn’t process all of it, due to the way my brain squeezed down to a pinprick of computing power, but the gist appeared to be that he was looking into my “suspicious
behavior” and offering to help “all those affected by the cancelled event.” Presumably that did not include me.

  When the segment was over and they’d cut to commercial, Barb said, “Well, at least it was just a short segment on the 4:00 news. Only us old people watch that.”

  Even though I had ditched the pregnancy suit, Don pointed to my belly. “Anything you need to tell us, dear?”

  I blushed and shook my head. “No, nothing like that. Just ... um ... research for a book.” My standard excuse when caught doing something anyone might think was weird.

  “Then why didn’t you tell Archie Cruz that?”

  I stared at Don and let his perfectly reasonable question hang in the air.

  “I have absolutely no idea.”

  It didn’t take long before I was back in my apartment drinking a well-deserved red ale. Instead of calling the number on the Denver Police Department website, I called Detective Ming. He answered on the first ring and it surprised me so much I blurted, “My braid guy might have murdered Tiffany Isaac.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. It’s Charlee Russo.”

  “Of course it is. Who else would I know who has a ‘braid guy’ and wants to tell me about a murder?”

  Ming never joked, but this sounded kind of like a joke, so I was confused. “Let me start over.”

  “Be my guest.”

  “Rodolfo Lapaglia writes fiction about the mob. Have you read any of his books?”

  “No.”

  “Well, they’re eerily current. Like, the opposite of ‘ripped from the headlines.’ He writes stuff and then almost as soon as the book is out, the same stuff starts happening.”

  “Copycats. So?”

  “My point is, they’re very true to life. And a friend of mine has been rereading his collection of these books and he found this subplot in one of them with two characters—get this—one with a crazy mohawk hairdo, and the other, his girlfriend named Taffeta who he kills because she double crossed him!”

  “Now I don’t have to read it.”

  “It’s not a spoiler. It’s just like the Braid who has been bothering me, and I think his double crossing girlfriend is … was … Tiffany Isaac.”

  Ming was quiet long enough for me to become uncomfortable. But then he said, “Let me get this straight. You think Rodolfo Lapaglia wrote a book, however long ago, with a plot that follows real life within the last couple of weeks.”

  When he put it like that, no. No, I did not. “But there’s no other explanation!” I knew I sounded petulant, but if the shoe fit ....

  “Of course there is. Authors don’t put real life events, especially true crime, in their fiction. That’s just ridiculous. Never happens.”

  Was he kidding? “Always happens. Authors mine their own lives for all kinds of stuff.”

  “So, in your next book there will be a scene with a fake pregnant lady stuck in a fence at a construction site?”

  “You heard about that.”

  “I did.”

  “I can explain—”

  “I’m sure you can, because you have a very nimble imagination, but I don’t want to hear your stories. Around here we deal in facts and proof and evidence. Let me know when you have some of that. Goodbye, Ms Russo.”

  As soon as he hung up, my phone lit up with phone calls and texts.

  The first call was from AmyJo. “Any publicity is good publicity, eh?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh. You haven’t checked social media.”

  A little piece of me died. “What.” I said it like a thud, not a question.

  “Apparently you were on the four o’clock news.”

  “That I knew.”

  “The clip is all over Facebook, probably Twitter and Instagram, too.”

  Another little piece of me died. “Who posted it?” I scrambled for my computer.

  “Let’s see ... nobody I know ... nine, ten, eleven ... people—”

  “Eleven people posted it? On my page?” Every few seconds my phone beeped with an incoming call or text. This was bad. So very bad. Everyone I knew was going to see this. Friends, colleagues, fans. Ohmygosh, my mom!

  “Let’s see ... nope, fourteen, fifteen ... and they’re getting comments. Hiding something ... bait-and-switch ... stealing our money ... financial shenanigans. They all seem to be from people angry about the event on Saturday. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Geez, Charlee, didn’t you give anyone their money back yet?”

  I felt a tightness across my chest and had trouble breathing. “I don’t have any money, AmyJo. And I can’t find Lapaglia, and Penn & Powell won’t help and ... and ...” I took big gulping breaths, trying to jumpstart my lungs.

  “Hey, I didn’t mean to spring this on you. I assumed you would have seen it already. Get off the phone and start deleting those posts. You’ve got to do some damage control. I’ll see what I can do on my end.”

  I knew there wasn’t a thing AmyJo could do, but I thanked her and hung up. She was right. I needed to do some damage control. I scrolled on my computer, deleting what Facebook posts and comments I could, but they kept popping up faster and faster. I realized I had to lock down my profile, kept public to remain accessible to my fans. Look what that got me. Nobody was sticking up for me. Before I switched pages to change all my privacy settings, my stomach dropped through my shoes. So many of those posts had already been shared—eight times in five minutes—once by a prominent and prolific blogger with a huge following in the mystery community.

  There was no way to get this genie back in the bottle.

  I silenced my phone and finished locking down my personal Facebook profile and my author page, then moved on to my Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest pages. Next I disabled all comments on my website pages and posts. And finally I shut down everything I could think of on my Goodreads account, short of deleting it completely. I knew it was only a matter of time, though, before the various online communities would start seeing posts and sharing them directly. Locking down my accounts was busy work, completely ineffective to contain the damage.

  Goodbye funny videos and hilariously snarky memes my friends and fans sent me. Goodbye inspirational quotes about writing and life in general. Goodbye adorable pictures of babies and animals. Goodbye book reviews. Goodbye photos of my books in the wild sent to me by fans. Goodbye links to interesting articles. Goodbye delicious recipes I’ll never make.

  Goodbye digital life.

  I peeked at the calls and texts on my phone. My heart sank and I wanted to turn it off completely but couldn’t because like an excessively helpful dummy, I put my phone number on the Lost Dog flyers instead of Barb and Don’s. I had to listen to each message from complete strangers to make sure they weren’t calling about Peter. I also expected Martina McCarthy to call me when she got the note I sent her. And what if Lapaglia or my editor at Penn & Powell called? Or my agent?

  I listened to and blocked at least thirty voice mails and texts. None were about Peter. How were these crazy people getting my number?

  I needed some friendly words of encouragement, so I read texts and listened to voicemails from my friends.

  First, Heinrich Gottlieb from my critique group. I pressed play and heard him take a big drag from his cigar. His words traveled through the smoke, something I’d seen in person a million times. “Ach, liebling. Don’t let the idioten get you down.”

  Next I listened to Cordelia Hollister-Fiske, also one of my critique partners. “Charlee, I don’t know if you’re aware, but people are saying all sorts of things about you online. Call me if you’d like details.”

  Thanks, Cordelia, but I have all the details I need. I switched over to text messages.

  From AmyJo, “I’m deleting everything I can and the rest I’m telling people none of this is true and to Snopes it. Lock your accounts down!” Then she added the Scream face emoji.

  Exactly how I feel too, Ames.

  From Jenica Jahns a simple, “People suck.
”

  More scream emojis from AmyJo.

  None of this was helping.

  Just as I considered flinging my phone across the room, a call from my mom popped up. I grabbed it before it could go to voice mail. “I’m not pregnant, Mom!” I yelped.

  “I figured. I have faith that you would have told me before you were ready to pop. What was with that outfit, anyway? Research?”

  “Something like that.”

  “What’s all this I’ve been seeing on Facebook about you?”

  “Oh, Mom.” I honestly didn’t know where to start so I kept it simple. “You know that big event I was doing last Saturday with that author, Rodolfo Lapaglia?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He never showed up.”

  “Oh no! What happened to him?”

  “That’s what I want to know. He kept all the money, but I put all the costs on my credit card and—”

  “Do you need money, Bug?”

  “No. Yes. Maybe. I don’t know, Mom. I’m still trying to figure out what’s going on. But since that smarmy Archie Cruz ambushed me and put me on the news, I’m really going to have to figure it out.”

  “How?”

  “Good question.” I snuggled into the corner of the couch. Mom’s voice had relaxed me a teensy bit. “Even if I come up with the money, I don’t even know who I should give reimbursement to. Everyone who signed up just brought their receipt as their ticket to show AmyJo to get in. I thought I had everyone’s email address, but now I don’t think I do. The registrations went through Lapaglia and I don’t think AmyJo kept any of the confirmations from people.” I started having trouble breathing again. “Mom, I honestly don’t know what to do.”

  “Give me your bank account number. I’m transferring money right now.”