Eight Perfect Murders(24)

“Cut him off,” I said.

“What?”

“Write him back and tell him that we’ll accept whatever returns he has but that he can’t order through us, anymore. I’m done with him.”

“You serious?”

“Yes. Would you rather I write the email?”

“No, I’m happy to do it. Should I cc you?”

“Sure,” I said. Banishing Popovich would probably hurt our bottom line in the end, but for the moment I didn’t care. And it felt good.

Before calling Gwen back I sent an email to a publicist at Random House that I’d been ignoring and confirmed a date for her author to come and give a reading in March. Then I opened up the glass case and got our first edition copy of Strangers on a Train, bringing it back with me to the phone. Its cover was deep blue, garishly illustrated with a close-up of a man’s face and a sickly-looking woman with red hair.

Gwen picked up after one ring.

“Hi, Gwen,” I said, and her first name sounded strange coming out of my mouth.

“Thanks for calling me back. So, this book.”

“What did you think?”

“Bleak. I knew the story, because of the movie. But the book was different. Darker, I thought, and do both the men commit murders in the movie?”

I tried to remember. “I don’t think so,” I said. “No, definitely not. I think the main character in the movie—the tennis player—almost kills the father but doesn’t. That probably had a lot more to do with the production code than with what Hitchcock actually wanted to do. I don’t think they were allowed to have characters get away with murder.” I hadn’t read the book in many years, or seen the movie again, but I remembered both of them pretty well.

“The Hays code,” she said. “If only it was that way in real life.”

“Right.”

“And he’s not a tennis player in the book.”

“Who?”

“Guy. The main character. He’s an architect.”

“Oh, right,” I said. “Was reading the book helpful?”

“You mentioned in your list that you thought it was the very best example of a perfect murder,” she said, ignoring my question. “What exactly did you mean?”

“It’s a perfect crime,” I said, “because when you swap murders with someone else, a stranger basically, then there is no connection between the murderer and their victim. That’s what makes it foolproof.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking about,” she said. “What’s clever about the murder in the book,” she continued, “is that the person committing it can’t be connected to the crime. It has nothing to do with the method.”

“What do you mean?” I said.

“Bruno kills Guy’s wife at an amusement park. He strangles her to death. But there’s nothing clever about that. I’ve been thinking about Charlie’s rules again. So, if you were Charlie, just humor me, then how would you commit a murder based on Strangers on a Train?”

“I see what you mean. It would be very hard.”

“Right. You could just go strangle someone at an amusement park but that wouldn’t be following the philosophy of the crime.”

“He’d have to find someone else to commit a murder with him.”

“That’s what I thought, but not necessarily, really,” she said. “If I were Charlie, if I were trying to copy Strangers on a Train, then I would select as a victim someone who is already likely to be murdered. My mind is going blank right now, but suppose someone just went through a bitter divorce, or . . .”

“Who’s the guy in New York, who stole everyone’s money?” I said.

“Bernie Madoff?”

“Right, him.”

“He’d work, but there are maybe too many people who want him dead. I would pick one-half of a bad divorce, I think. Something slightly public, then I would wait until the spurned spouse was away, and I would commit the murder. I think that would be the best way to honor the book.”

“That makes sense,” I said.

“I think so too. Worth looking into. How about you, did you have any new thoughts last night?”

“I was pretty tired last night, after staying up the night before. So, no. But I’ll keep thinking about it.”

“Thanks,” she said. “You’ve been helpful.” Then she added, in a slightly different tone of voice, “Don’t forget to send me your flight information for the trip you took to London this past fall.”

“I’ll do that today,” I said.

After I hung up, Nero came clicking along the hardwood floor to settle himself down by my legs. I watched him, in a slight daze, thinking about the phone conversation I’d just had.

“I did it,” came Emily’s voice, and I turned around; she was coming toward me, a rare grin on her face.

“Did what?”

“Sent the email to Popovich. He’s going to be in shock.”

“You seem very pleased.”

“No, I’m . . . you know how much he drives me crazy.”

“It’s fine. Honestly, I think he needs us more than we need him. The customer isn’t always right, you know.”