Eight Perfect Murders(7)

“Well . . .” I said.

“Right. Everyone has enemies now. But to answer your question, I think it’s a possibility that everyone who has been killed so far was a less-than-stellar person.”

“You think that someone read my list of murders,” I said, “then decided to copy the methods in them? And they wanted to make sure that the people they were killing somehow deserved to die? Is that your theory?”

She pushed her lips together, making them even more colorless than they already were, then she said, “I know it sounds ridiculous—”

“Or you think that I wrote this list, and then decided to test out the murders for myself?”

“Equally ridiculous,” she said. “I know it is. But it’s also unlikely, isn’t it, that someone would copy a plot line from an Agatha Christie novel, and at the same time someone would stage a train murder from a . . .”

“From a James Cain novel,” I said.

“Right,” she said. My desk lamp has a yellow-tinged bulb, and in the glow from it she looked like she hadn’t slept in about three days.

“When did you make the connection between these crimes?” I asked.

“You mean, when did I find your list?”

“I guess so. Yes.”

“Yesterday. I’ve already ordered all the books, and I’ve read all their plot summaries, but then I decided I’d come directly to you. I was hoping you might have some insight, that maybe you’d be able to connect some other unsolved recent crimes to your list. I know it’s a long shot . . .”

I was looking down at the printout she’d given me, reminding myself of the eight books I’d picked. “Some of these,” I said, “you couldn’t exactly copy the murders from them. Or you could, but they’d be hard to spot.”

“What do you mean?” she said.

I scanned the list. “Deathtrap, the play by Ira Levin. Do you know that one?”

“I do but remind me.”

“The way the wife gets killed is that she’s scared to death and has a heart attack. It’s set up by the husband and his boyfriend. It’s a perfect murder, of course, because you could never prove that someone who’s had a heart attack was actually murdered. But let’s say someone wanted to replicate it. First of all, it’s pretty hard to give someone a heart attack, and it would be even harder for you to figure it out. I don’t suppose you’ve found a suspicious heart attack victim, have you?”

“I actually have,” she said, and for the first time since she’d arrived at the store, I saw a gleam of self-satisfaction in her eye. She really did believe she was on to something.

“I don’t know much about it,” she continued, “but there was a woman named Elaine Johnson from Rockland, Maine, who died of a heart attack in her home last September. She had a heart condition, so it looked like a natural death, but there were signs that her home had been broken into.”

I rubbed at my earlobe. “Like a robbery?”

“That’s what the police decided. Someone broke into her home to rob it, or to assault her, but she had a heart attack as soon as she saw the housebreaker. So they took off.”

“Nothing was taken from the house?”

“Right. Nothing was taken from the house.”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Think about it, though,” she said, moving a little forward in her chair. “Let’s say you wanted to murder someone by causing a heart attack. First of all, you pick a victim who’s already had one, which, in this case, Elaine Johnson had. Then you sneak into her house, where she lives alone, put on some sort of horrifying disguise, and leap out at her from a closet. She drops dead, and you’ve committed murder, just like in your book.”

“And if it doesn’t work?”

“Then the murderer bolts from the house and she can’t identify them.”

“But she’d report it?”

“Of course.”

“Did anyone report something like that happening to them?”

“No. At least not that I know of. But that only means that it worked the first time.”

“Right,” I said.

She was quiet for a moment. I heard the ticking sound that meant Nero was coming toward us along the hardwood floor. Agent Mulvey, who heard it as well, turned and looked at the store cat. She let him sniff her hand then expertly rubbed his head. Nero sunk to the floor and flipped onto his side, purring.

“You must have cats?” I said.

“Two. Does this one go home with you or does he just stay in the store?”

“He just stays here. For him the entire universe is two book-lined rooms and a series of strangers, a few of whom feed him.”

“Sounds like a good life,” she said.

“I think he does all right. Half the people who come in here just come to see him.”

Nero stood back up, stretched out his hind legs, one at a time, and walked back toward the front of the store.

“So what is it that you want from me?” I said.

“Well, if someone really is using your list as a guide for committing murders, then you’re the expert.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“I mean, you’re the expert on the books on your list. They’re favorite books of yours.”