Eight Perfect Murders(55)

I pulled out the paperback edition of The Sticking Place. It was the fifth Ellis Fitzgerald book and the one that won the Edgar Award. For fans, it was either their favorite book in the series, or their least favorite book. For me, it was my favorite, at least it had been when I’d first read it as an adolescent. At the end of the previous book in the series, Temperate Blood, Ellis’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, Peter Appleman, is killed by a member of the Boston Mafia. In The Sticking Place, Ellis gets her revenge, carefully and brutally murdering everyone who had been remotely involved in Appleman’s death. The book has very little in common with the other books in the series. There are no buffoonish clients, or Ellis witticisms; it has more in common with one of Richard Stark’s Parker novels.

I took The Sticking Place, along with a fresh bottle of beer, with me to my sofa. The book had been read so many times that some of the pages were slipping away from the cracked binding. The creased cover was black, with an image of a revolver, its cylinder cracked open to reveal six empty spaces where the bullets had been. I opened to the title page, not surprised to see my mother’s name, in her handwriting, in the top right corner. Margaret Kershaw, and the date she’d bought the book. It had been July of 1988. So, I’d been thirteen years old, and it was almost certain that I’d read this book as soon as I could get my grubby hands on it, probably immediately after she’d finished. I think I remember her telling me it was very violent. I’m sure that made me all the more eager to read it for myself.

The book was dedicated to Brian Murray’s first wife, Mary. I’d never known her, but Brian told me once that the reason he dedicated almost all his books to her was because she’d sulk for days if he didn’t. He told me that divorcing her was good for many reasons, but mostly because he was now free to dedicate books to other people in his life.

I began reading the book and was instantly hooked. It opens with Ellis meeting with the head of the Boston Mafia at the bar at the Ritz and handing him a list of names. “Either you’ll punish them, or I will. It’s up to you.” He scoffs at her, tells her that she needs to forget it and move on. The rest of the book is her single-minded pursuit of those responsible for her boyfriend’s death. It’s suspenseful and violent, and Ellis comes across as slightly psychotic. After each killing, she applies lipstick and kisses the dead man on the cheek, leaving an imprint. The book ends with her at the Ritz again, drinking chardonnay with the Mafia head, who apologizes for underestimating her, and together they agree that balance has been restored. She’s gotten her revenge. He does ask her about the lipstick. “I thought it would give the police a kick,” she said. “Nothing they like more than some killer with a trademark. Makes them think they’re in a Clint Eastwood movie.”

I finished the book at just past midnight, kept thinking about trademarks. Ultimately, that was what Charlie’s murders were about, leaving a mark of a kind, a signifier that told the world that the murderer was more important than the victim. Charlie might have been inspired by a sense of revenge, or justice, when he’d asked me to kill Norman Chaney. But now it was about him. And about my list. And about me, too, I guess. What kind of person puts himself above his victims? What kind of person becomes obsessed with a list of books?

One of Brian’s writer’s tips he shares is that when you can’t figure something out in the plot of your book, go to bed, and let your subconscious pick at it. I decided to do that, to try and finally get some sleep, and maybe even some answers.





Chapter 23




I spent the next morning flipping through all my Brian Murray books. I even speed-read his latest novel, Die a Little, in which Ellis Fitzgerald solves a gang murder at a local high school. The novel was so dated that it was a little embarrassing. Brian hated research, and I got the feeling that all he did to prepare for writing his latest book was watch a double feature of Boyz n the Hood and whatever that Michelle Pfeiffer movie was where she taught inner-city kids.

At just past noon I got a phone call from Agent Perez reminding me that I hadn’t yet provided my whereabouts and movement for the times of the murders.

“Sorry,” I said to her. “I got busy. Can we do them right now? Give me the dates and I’ll see if I know where I was when they occurred?”

“That’s fine,” she said.

I opened up my calendar on my laptop and we started going over dates; first, she asked me about Elaine Johnson.

“I sent that information to Agent Mulvey,” I said. “I was in London when she died. September thirteen, right?”

“That’s right,” Agent Perez said. Then she asked me about Robin Callahan, who had been shot on August 16 of 2014. My calendar had nothing that week except for the fact that I would have been at work that day. I told Agent Perez that, and she asked if anyone could vouch for me. August 16 had been a Friday, so I told her that both of my employees had probably worked that day, and that she was more than welcome to question them. Next, she asked me about Jay Bradshaw, the man who was beaten to death in his garage in Dennis on the Cape. It turned out that that had happened on August 31.

“I flew to London on that Sunday,” I said.

“What time?”

“The flight was at six-twenty so I probably left for the airport at three.”

“That’s pretty early,” she said.