File M For Murder

I deplored the murder of poor Damitra Vane, but I was happy that Kanesha didn’t consider any of us a suspect—and that the thumb drive was clean, so to speak.

I didn’t look forward to telling Laura about the death of her erstwhile colleague and former rival. She hadn’t liked the woman, but I knew she would be badly upset by the news.

I glanced at the clock. It was nearly two, and I didn’t expect Laura—and Sean—home until after five. The news could wait till then. I doubted they would hear it from another source before they came home.

Before they left this morning Sean told me he had finished printing the contents of Lawton’s files and left the papers in the den for me. I decided now was a good time to delve further into them for more evidence. With Damitra Vane out of the picture—I winced at the unintentional pun—Ralph and Magda Johnston were definitely center stage.

“Come on, boy.” Diesel crawled out from under the table and gazed up at me. He meowed, and I patted his head. “I know, sweet boy, things were tense there for a while. But she’s gone now, and we can go have some nice quiet time to ourselves.”

I realized he still wore his harness, and I removed it before we headed for the den. He chirped to thank me.

The den, the room next to the living room and down the hall, was as much my personal library as anything. Bookshelves lined all the walls. A few of them were in place before I moved back to Athena. The rest I added—or rather, my contractor classmate’s crew did. This room was my refuge, and I came in here when I wanted to surround myself with the warm and contented feeling my books gave me.

Diesel liked the room as much as I did. He had his special place here—an old afghan, knitted by my late wife, spread on an old leather sofa. He would stretch out and snooze at one end while I sat at the other, my feet on a hassock, and read or—increasingly often, I had to admit—napped.

While Diesel rooted around in the afghan and arranged it to his satisfaction, I turned on a couple of lamps and then went to the desk to examine the stacks of paper Sean had left.

One pile appeared to contain more letters and probably e-mails as well. A second one was obviously the play Lawton was working on when he died. A third group, and much the smallest, seemed to be notes on various things. I glanced at them, but they didn’t catch my interest.

Suddenly I recalled what Laura had revealed about Lawton’s strange comment to her. “The play’s the thing.”

How could I have forgotten that?

I carried that stack to the sofa with me. Diesel was settled in, already stretched out, drowsing, when I got comfortable on the bit of sofa left for me and began to read. Diesel’s hind feet and tail twitched against me from time to time, but I was used to this. It stopped when he fell asleep.

I read for perhaps half an hour, trying to make sense of the play. Though the scenes and acts were labeled in sequence, they seemed disconnected to me, almost as if Lawton had been writing two plays rather than one. The quality of the writing was erratic as well. In some of it I saw the brilliance that Laura kept insisting Lawton possessed. In other parts, well, the kindest word I could think of was dull. How Lawton got from dull to brilliant I had no idea.

The brilliant scenes captured my attention for an even more important reason than their quality. If Ralph or Magda Johnston had read any of this, they might well have killed Lawton to keep the play from ever being read, let alone produced.

THIRTY-ONE

There were echoes of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in Lawton’s untitled play, but the characters Rafe and Maggie were distinctly their own and not pale imitations of George and Martha. This was distinctly a roman à clef, however. I easily recognized Ralph and Magda Johnston from Lawton’s vicious portrayal of them and their turbulent relationship, and I hardly knew them.

Had the playwright seriously thought he would be able to produce this play? Without being sued for libel?

Lawton was arrogant, as I well knew, but this was arrant stupidity.

Plus it was a solid motive for murder.

There were unflattering portraits of minor characters as well, including Sarabeth Conley, thinly disguised as Sally Conway, but Lawton directed most of his vitriol at the main characters.

Surely once Kanesha read this she would concentrate her investigation on the Johnstons. What more compelling motive could she find?

Then I remembered Damitra Vane.

What reason could the Johnstons have for killing her?

The obvious answer to that was that Damitra Vane either had known or seen something that could directly implicate either Ralph or Magda.

Had the Johnstons worked together on the murders? I figured Ralph would have to have killed Damitra Vane. I didn’t think Magda would be strong enough to cut Damitra’s throat, not without significant resistance.

Another sickening image forced itself into my head—Magda Johnston assisting her husband as he savagely wielded the knife.