St. Just had once sat through an interrogation training course in analyzing facial expressions. Looking about, he saw nearly the whole gamut arrayed before him: Fear, guilt, puzzlement, annoyance, anger. Pretty much everything but joy and lust.
"This would have been a simple case to solve if so many of you hadn't lied about so many silly things," he reiterated. "Stolen books, love affairs-none of the secrets some of you have been hiding holds a candle to murder. Even in the case of Donna Doone, who has a sadder connection with Kimberlee. But Ms. Doone, we needed to have heard about that from you."
Donna nodded miserably. "She killed my brother. She was directly responsible for his death."
"And there is a case to be made that she was. Unsubstantiated allegations, cleverly worded-that poisonous type of writing was Kimberlee's specialty."
"I never knew," said Donna slowly, "what it was like to actually want to kill someone. But that's how I felt about Kimberlee. For a very long time. But I'd put it all behind me for the most part-I have my writing, you see. That helps me forget."
"Donna," said Winston. "You really shouldn't say any more." St. Just was more than a little surprised to see a look of stricken tenderness on his face. When had this connection sprung up between them?
She shook her head, returning his look with one of deep affection. "It's all right, Winston." She turned her eyes to St. Just. "When she came here, it just stirred it all up for me again. I hated the sight of her face. Hated… And then-she didn't know who I was, you see-I showed her my book, she asked to see it, and she laughed-"
"Donna," said Winston again. "Please. You need to take advice."
"But you didn't kill her, did you." This, also gently, came from St. Just.
"No," she said sadly. "And I guess you'll just have to take my word for it."
"Ms. Doone, I think I can do better than that." He turned again to the rest of the room. "Now, others here have far less serious secrets they've been at pains to hide. For example, this staged animosity toward Kimberlee…"
His eyes were on Magretta now, who gave him her patented "Who, me?" look of innocence.
"That really worked against you once she was killed, Magretta, when it became a dangerous game-for you. You should have helped us get a clearer picture from the start. The whole thing was a publicity stunt, wasn't it?"
"We-e-ell, not the whole thing," she said. "Kimberlee and I discovered by accident that press about bad blood between us made sales figures for both of us go up. You can track this kind of thing online these days, you know. Any newspaper article we could engineer, debating the worth, or not, of chick lit books-making it look like a spitting feud, you know-that caused quite a spike in both our online visitors and sales. So we went about deliberately stirring things. As Oscar Wilde said, 'There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.' It certainly worked to my advantage over time-if they, the press, mentioned Kimberlee, it got so they almost had to mention me. It was harmless."
"Let's let me be the judge of whether or not it was harmless, shall we?"
"How did you guess?" she asked.
"Partly because you overdid it. You overacted-how did B. A. King put it? You chewed the scenery. Yes. I gather that was the stamp of your previous career in the theater."
"Well, really," huffed Magretta. "I-"
"And you-" St. Just added, turning, "-you might also have told me, Quentin, that you were in on this little scheme. So much for high journalistic standards. You did nothing but create more little lies for us to clear away, before we could begin to see the larger truth."
"It's got nothing to do with anything… I told you, Kimberlee was going to give me a blurb. What was the harm? One hand washing the other."
"Yes, I wondered at that, Kimberlee promising you a blurb. She had to be getting more out of it than what you let on. The open-handed gesture was never in her repertoire, according to all of you, and your history with her hardly suggests she would be nursing some wistful nostalgia for an old friendship. Why on earth would she go out of her way to help you-unless there was something in it for Kimberlee? Let's see, who else? Oh, yes, Winston Chatley."
"Me?" His gaze flitted automatically toward Donna.
"It was B. A. King who suggested to me Winston had blackmailed Easterbrook, in order to get his books published. He implied Easterbrook had been having an affair and since it was his wife who happened to control the wealth… But I didn't believe a lot of what B. A. King told me, and I certainly doubted this. If Winston was such an excellent writer, as I've heard, why would blackmail be necessary to get published?"
The writers looked at him, stunned.
"You must be joking," said Magretta. "Haven't you learned anything in the past few days? Writers would kill to get published-just using a figure of speech there, of course," she added. "But would they stop at a spot of blackmail? No. Heavens no. Talent or a lack of it has nothing to do with getting published. That's why we're such desperate creatures."
They all nodded their heads in agreement.
"Yes, you've already told me the lengths you, personally, would go to in order to get what you wanted. B. A. King told me he heard a loud splash-something being thrown out of Kimberlee's room. I tended to dismiss that-he was so busy implicating everyone and dragging red herrings about the place. Plus, he was drunk and rambling half the time."
"Look here, that's uncalled f-"
"But by your own admission, Magretta, you did throw the computer out of Kimberlee's window. It would just fit through the medieval arrow slit, wouldn't it? It's almost as if the stonemasons had planned for future technology. You had found Kimberlee dead when you went to the bottle dungeon, wandering about, maybe a little drunk. You stole Kimberlee's purse, with her key, from the crime scene. This was, of course, how you knew you had the free run of her room. Kimberlee was dead."
All heads turned to Magretta.
"What?" she said. "I had my reasons. He knows."
"Perhaps what you really wanted, Ms. Sincock, was to end the reign of Kimberlee and her pink handbags. Did you imagine killing her would put an end to the chick lit trend?"
"That's preposterous. Of course not."
"Yes," said St. Just. "I do tend to agree. Be all that as it may, B. A. King told the truth about the splash he heard. But he got the wrong angle on the blackmail, didn't he? Winston wasn't the blackmailer. According to Annabelle, that was Tom Brackett, a much more likely scenario. He was holding Easterbrook's feet to the fire so he could get expensive publicity and more promotion for his 'spy' books."
This earned Easterbrook a few reproachful stares, and a few wistful ones as well: Why didn't I think of doing that?
"Of all the nonsense…" began Tom. But he stopped on seeing the look on Easterbrook's face.
"You can find yourself a new publisher now this has all spilled open," Easterbrook told him. "That little game is over."
St. Just continued, "King did get a couple of things right. You see, it's so hard to tell when you're dealing with someone who deals in half-remembered gossip and innuendo. He also claimed to have seen Magretta skulking about when she claimed she was asleep or in communion with her Muse."
"I don't skulk," said Magretta. "I told you what I was doing. I helped your investigation, remember?"
"After first sabotaging it almost beyond repair, yes. Thanks so much. But let me come to the point. Someone here at the castle is not what they say they are.
"And that someone would be you, Desmond, the 'devoted husband.'"