Eight Perfect Murders(18)
“That’s the way I got it, Mal,” he said, meaning the condition of the book. The borrow policy for employees meant they could take any book home to read just so long as they didn’t add any extra wear to it.
“No, it looks fine,” I said.
“Yeah, it does,” Brandon said, then shouted, “Emily,” in three equally accented syllables. She came out from the back, and Brandon hugged her, something he occasionally did if it had been more than a day since he’d last been in the store. He only hugged me at the holiday party, and at the few occasions when we’d close up the shop then grab a quick beer at the Sevens. I am not a natural hugger, even though it is now standard greeting protocol among men of my generation. I can’t get the movements down, especially if the hug involves one of those manly backslaps. Claire, my wife, when I told her about this particular anxiety, started to practice with me. For a while there we’d greet each other at home with a man hug.
Brandon followed Emily into the back room where he took the mail order list and began to assemble piles of books for shipping. A huge advantage of having the same employees here for so long is that I hardly ever have to tell them what to do. Because of their loyalty, I pay them far more than I suspect other retail places offer. I don’t need the store to make a big profit, and I don’t think Brian Murray cares that much, either. He’s just happy to be able to call a mystery bookstore his own, or half his own.
I listened to Brandon tell Emily the entire plot of The Hunter while I updated New Releases. Four more customers came in, all alone: a Japanese tourist, a regular named Joe Stailey, a twentysomething guy I knew by sight who always browsed through the horror section and never bought anything, plus a woman who had clearly come in only to escape the cold outside. I checked my phone for the weather. The snow was done now, but temperatures were dropping over the next few days into the teens. All the snow that had fallen was going to harden into piles of ice, black with city grime.
I went back to my computer to check on emails, then glanced again at the blog site, still on the “Eight Perfect Murders” list. A sort of byline at the bottom of the list said that it was posted by MALCOLM KERSHAW, then gave the date and time of the post, then indicated that there were three comments. I remembered there being only two, so I clicked through to read them. The latest comment was posted less than twenty-four hours earlier, at three a.m., from a user named Doctor Sheppard, and read, I am halfway through your list. STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, done. THE ABC MURDERS, finally finished. DOUBLE INDEMNITY, kaput. DEATHTRAP, saw the film. When I’m finished with the list (it won’t be long now) I’ll get in touch. Or do you already know who I am?
Chapter 8
That night I cooked myself the pork chop that was in the refrigerator, although I was still shaken, and I overcooked it. Its sides curled up, and it was as tough as jerky.
Since late afternoon, and through until our closing time of seven, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that third comment on the “Perfect Murders” blog post. I must have read it thirty times now, parsing every word. The name used by whoever had written the post—“Doctor Sheppard”—nagged at me until I finally googled it. It was the name of the narrator in Agatha Christie’s famous novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. That was the book that put Christie on the map, so to speak. Written in 1926, it is most famous for a very clever plot twist. The book is told in first person, from the point of view of Sheppard, a country village doctor, and a neighbor of Hercule Poirot’s. Honestly, I don’t remember anything about the crime itself, except for the name of the victim, obviously. What I do remember is that at the end of the novel it is revealed the narrator is the actual murderer.
When I got home, I went immediately to my bookshelf and found my copy of Christie’s book. I owned the Penguin paperback edition, one from the 1950s, with the simple green cover, and no artwork. I flipped through to see if it would somehow jog my memory as to the actual plot, but it didn’t, and I decided I’d read it that night.
Was it possible that whoever posted the comment was really only a reader, working his or her way through my list? I’d think it was a possibility, a very slim one, except for the fact of the books mentioned as having been read. They were the books for which there had already been a crime. The A.B.C. Murders, Double Indemnity, and Deathtrap. Strangers on a Train, as well, although Gwen Mulvey doesn’t know all about that one yet. I do. And someone else does, as well.
If these words are ever read, then I am sure that the reader might have already guessed that I have more to do with these crimes than I’ve been letting on. It’s not as though there haven’t been clues. For instance, why did my heart beat faster when Gwen Mulvey first began interviewing me?
Why didn’t I immediately tell her that I knew who Elaine Johnson was?
Why did I only eat two bites of my sandwich the night after I was visited by the FBI agent?
Why do I dream of being chased?
Why did I not immediately tell Gwen about the comment from Doctor Sheppard?
And a really astute reader might even have noticed that my name, shortened, is Mal—French, of course, for bad. That’s taking it too far, though, because that really is my name. I’ve changed some names for the purposes of this narrative, but not my own.
It is time to tell the truth.
It is time to speak of Claire.