Chapter Thirty-One
Istared at the screen, my mind ticking over this latest piece of information. “What you’re saying is that either Danny’s ghost did it, or someone else accessed Danny’s computer.”
“They’d have to know Danny’s passwords,” Morrie said. “They’ve logged in as Danny. I can’t detect any hacking attempts. It had to be someone he trusted.”
“And someone who’d have access to his computer in his suite at the Argleton Arms,” I added.
Morrie and I turned to each other. “Penny Sledge,” we both said at exactly the same time.
“We know there was no love lost between them,” Morrie ticked off the facts, his face lighting up with excitement. “Danny’s infidelities and other shameless deeds had been well documented in the media. Penny put up with it in order to share in his money, but perhaps when Beverly Ingram walked into the reading, she saw a way that she could finally be rid of him. She knew that Danny was trying to get his rights back and that he stood to make a huge profit from self-publishing. But she didn’t know the reversion hadn’t gone through yet.”
“Yes,” I cried. “She watched Beverly throw her scarf at Brian and grabbed it off the street on the way home. She called down to the front desk pretending to be Angus, and snuck out of the hotel. But then, how did she overpower him? Jo said that the killer was most likely a man…”
“Jim Mathis,” Morrie said, his eyes glinting. “She hired Jim Mathis, a crook-turned-assassin.”
“That’s it! She probably met up with Jim that morning, gave him the scarf, and told him to catch up with Danny. But how did she know Jim? Wouldn’t he hate her if she was Danny’s wife? And it doesn’t explain how she could call him at the funeral if you were watching her the whole time.”
“She went to the kitchen!” Morrie cried. “While you were gone, she ducked into the kitchen to check the brand of the coffee they used. Apparently, it didn’t meet her standards. I couldn’t follow her without arousing suspicions. She was only gone a few moments, but it was long enough to make a quick phone call.”
“So that’s it. Jim called Penny. He was having second thoughts because of the attention on Danny. But she insisted. So Jim came back, lured Brian into the Bible Study room, and garroted him.”
“I bet Jim took great pleasure in garroting Danny,” Morrie exclaimed, relishing the gory details of the case. “And then turning up to the writer’s workshop afterward to gloat over his deed.”
“But what’s her motive for Brian?”
“He read the manuscript, so he knew the truth about her,” I said. “She intended to silence him.”
“You’re so hot when you’re unraveling a sordid murder,” Morrie’s lips grazed mine. I collapsed against him, allowing the kiss to deepen.
The air around us charged with electricity. Reluctantly, I pulled away and turned back to the computer. “If all this is true, then why delete the memoir? There must’ve been something in it Penny didn’t want anyone to see. Some evidence that will convict her. Can you retrieve any of it?”
“Doesn’t look like it…” Morrie pounded the keys. “No, wait… I can restore an earlier version. It won’t have some of his recent edits, but there might be something.”
I waited with my heart pounding as Morrie pounded at the keys. His leg jiggled with excitement. A few minutes later, he yelled in triumph. His eyes flickered across the page. “It’s a memoir, all right… I can’t wait to devour this. Danny Sledge has had a sordid life of criminal misdeeds, just my kind of fella… hang on. I’ve found something.”
Morrie tapped the screen. “Danny’s describing a girlfriend of his. ‘I met Penny in the summer of that year, what was to be one of the most important years of my life. She was sixteen, but she dressed and talked like she was twenty-five. I was utterly smitten with her airs and graces. Jim was, too. We fought over her, like we fought over all the girls. Unlike Abigail, who didn’t want to choose, Penny chose me. I won, haha. Take that, Jimmy!’”
“So Penny met Danny back when he was a crook,” I breathed. Suddenly, it came to me. I reached into my pocket for the newspaper article, but it wasn’t there. I remembered that I’d read it downstairs yesterday. I’d probably left it on Heathcliff’s desk. “I bet you anything that article was about her. And she knew Jimmy, too. She would have recognized him at the event, even if Danny was too distracted to notice—”
Morrie nodded as he kept reading. “It’s all here. All about Penny going down for dealing drugs. When she came out of the young offenders institution, Danny had turned over Jim and was going straight. He says Penny’s parents were rich toffs who paid a lot of money to keep her name out of the papers and make sure her crime didn’t end up on her permanent record.”
“That’s what was going on here,” I breathed. “Penny must’ve read Danny’s memoirs. She knew that if he published it, her secret would be out. You’ve seen how much she cares about the ‘airs and graces.’ She’d be mortified if all her literati London friends knew she used to be a drug dealing delinquent. She killed Danny to stop the memoir, and Brian, because he had read it.”
“Danny said that he usually showed his work to Angus, as well,” Morrie pointed out.
“That means that Angus is in danger, too.” I grabbed up my coat and tote bag. Morrie stood up, but I was already running for the door. “Call the police,” I cried.
“And where do you think you’re going?”
“I’ve got to go see a woman about a scarf.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
“Ineed that newspaper article,” I called out as I clattered down the stairs.
“Hello to you, too.” Heathcliff shot back as I rushed into the main room.
“No time for hellos.” I shuffled through the stack of papers and paperbacks on the desk.Where is it?“I need to find that article and get it to the police.”
