“So she knew the specs of his desktop.”
“Again, we’re guessing at this point, but my answer would be yes. She and her pal had probably been inside Nelson’s condo. Did he have home security?”
“Yes, there was an alarm system. There was a camera at the front door and another looking at the rear patio. Both were destroyed in the storm. The police think they may have been disabled beforehand.”
“Where is his computer?” she asked.
“Police. They’re supposed to hand it over, along with other personal effects, next week. Polly McCann will meet with them and take possession. I’ve been pushed out of the investigation, which is fine with me.”
“What day next week?”
“Wednesday.”
“I’d like to be there.”
“Come on down. I’ll give you the grand tour.”
“We really need to look at the hard drive. If it’s a dummy left behind by the killer, that’s a clue, though I’m not sure what we can do with it. If it’s the real hard drive, then it could be a treasure trove of information.”
“Assuming it can be accessed.”
“Yes, but didn’t you say in your notes that his sister has the passcode for the thumb drive?”
“She does.”
Lindsey flashed a knowing smile and said, “That’s all we need. Our guys can get in with that.”
“I’m drowning here. This is way over my head.”
“Mine too. We’ll let the experts worry about it.”
“So you’ll need the thumb drive?”
“Of course. I want to read the novel, and we’ll use it to try to penetrate Nelson’s hard drive.”
“I’ll bet you don’t find much. He was secretive and didn’t trust the Internet, hated the cloud, refused to shop online, said nothing important in emails, ignored all social media, paid cash for most of his purchases. I doubt if Nelson left too many footprints behind.”
“And the condo is on the market?”
“Oh, yes. It’s been scrubbed, painted, emptied, as good as new. The police released it three weeks ago. The market is very soft, though.”
“And you can arrange a meeting with Polly McCann?”
“I’d be delighted. I have nothing else to do. No one’s buying books on the island and I’m bored to death.”
The middle-aged man had the jaded and shaggy look of a veteran reporter. He stopped by the bookstore, found Bruce bored at his desk, and helped himself to a chair. He said he was a freelancer for Newsweek and tossed over a card that was supposed to verify this. Bruce examined the card. Donald Oester. Washington address.
Oester was sniffing around trying to put together a story about the death of bestselling author Nelson Kerr. He had done the legwork that one would expect. He had examined the file in probate court but found little. The inventory of assets and liabilities wasn’t due for several months. He had pestered Carl Logan, Santa Rosa’s police chief, but got nowhere. He had made contact with Captain Wes Butler of the state police, but was told that there was nothing to discuss because it was an ongoing investigation.
“Aren’t all homicide investigations ongoing until they find the killer?” Oester asked with a laugh.
Bruce talked, cautiously, about Nelson and his time on the island, and his books, but he was careful not to say anything about the crime scene or anything else. Several days after Nelson died, there were brief stories in a few newspapers about his death during the hurricane. An online publishing magazine mentioned the police involvement but revealed nothing. The Jacksonville daily ran a short obituary, then followed it with a slightly longer article about the investigation. Before Oester, no reporter had contacted Bruce.
“Was he working on a novel?” Oester asked.
“Don’t know about that,” Bruce replied. “But most writers are usually working on something.”
“I chatted with his ex-editor at Simon and Schuster, guy said Kerr was jumping ship, looking for a new house, and working on something big.”
“I believe he was still looking. To my knowledge, Nelson was not under contract when he died. He was also between agents.”
“How much do you know about his past, his old days as a lawyer?”
“How much do you know?”
Oester laughed again, nervously. “I tracked down a former colleague out there but the guy said it was ten years ago. Not much, really. I tried his ex-wife, a tough one.”
“Never met her.”
“Is it fair to call him a ‘bestselling author’? I mean, I know that gets thrown around all the time, but did he really sell that many books?”
“He did. All three of his novels hit the lists, the Times and Publishers Weekly. And each book did better than the last. I encouraged him to write more, but he enjoyed travel, sportfishing, life on the beach.”
“A hundred thousand copies each time out?”
“I’d guess. You can find his numbers online.”
“I’ve looked, and I’ve been told those numbers are not that accurate. Did you sell his books?”
“I did. Nelson had a following.”
“You think he was murdered?”
“I’m not saying anything that you might want to print. The state police are investigating, that’s all I can say.”
“Fair enough. Do you know his sister, Polly McCann?”
“I do.”
“Would you ask her to talk to me? She’s hung up twice.”
“No, sorry. Don’t know her that well.”
Oester jumped to his feet and headed for the door. “I’ll be back. Give me a call if you hear something.”
Don’t bet on it. “Sure.”
The boredom ran on unabated as the days finally cooled. The week after his trip to D.C., Bruce welcomed Lindsey Wheat and Polly McCann to Bay Books. They met in his newly renovated office on the first floor, in his First Editions Room, the walls lined with hundreds of autographed books. It was a Saturday morning and for a change the store was busy as young mothers brought in their children for story time upstairs in the café. Normally, Bruce would have been up there among them, sipping cappuccino and flirting with the ladies, but he had important business at hand.
The day before, Polly had met with Wesley Butler at the crime lab and received yet another useless update. Little progress had been made. Indeed, so little that she could not remember anything new. Butler did hand over Nelson’s laptop, desktop, cell phone, and two leather briefcases. He admitted that their tech people had been unable to penetrate the encryption codes Nelson had used. Again, he did not have the presence of mind to ask Polly if she knew anything about her brother’s novel-in-progress. He gave every indication that he wasn’t sure what to do next and was generally not that concerned with solving the crime. And, he made a point of letting her know that he did not want Bruce Cable calling again and sticking his nose into the investigation.
Bruce took this news well. As far as he was concerned, the state police were not a factor and he had already wasted too much time with them.
Lindsey took the thumb drive from Polly, plugged it into her laptop, entered its encryption passcode, and sent its data to her technicians at the home office. She gave it to Bruce and asked him to print three hard copies of the manuscript for their evening’s reading. They were in agreement that it was time to read Nelson’s last masterpiece. The ten-page treatment written by Thomas and Mercer had been useful, but the full story was now needed.
An hour later, Lindsey received a phone call from her office with decoding instructions. She opened the desktop, entered the codes, and, to no one’s surprise, found the two hard drives secured by another layer of encryption. As she expected, Ingrid had stolen the two real ones at about the same time she murdered Nelson and had replaced them. She and her gang had no way of knowing that Polly had a thumb drive with a passcode and the finished novel. They rightfully assumed the police would be unable to log in to Nelson’s computer and the search would end there.
As for his laptop, there were no passcodes and all access was blocked. Lindsey agreed to take it back to the office and let the techies have a go, but she was not optimistic.
They spent two hours, with endless cups of black coffee, plowing through Nelson’s notebooks and random files. At lunchtime, Bruce ordered takeout and they continued working in his office. A clerk delivered sandwiches and iced tea, and as she left Bruce asked if she had seen any customers that morning.
“Only the kids,” she said with a laugh.
Lindsey, the professional and the one being paid by the other two, had gently assumed control of the conversations. Bruce and Polly were happy to trust her and follow along. As they ate, she said, “I have an idea for a plan that we have discussed back home at the office. We can agree that Nelson showed no interest in nursing homes at any point in his life, until the end. So, someone approached him. Someone with the story. Someone on the inside. An informant, a whistleblower, though whispering to an author is not exactly blowing the whistle the way the FBI sees things, but you get the picture. This person chose not to go to the police for whatever reason, so he found Nelson. He read his books and knew that he wasn’t shy about using his fiction to expose some nasty people and their businesses. All names changed to protect the guilty, of course. This person is crucial to our success.”
Bruce was nodding along as he ate his sandwich. He’d heard this before. Nick Sutton had predicted months ago that an informant was involved.
Lindsey continued: “We have to make it easier for this person to come find us. This person is probably watching the probate file, it’s all public and online, and looking for a way to contact us. Step one of the plan is to appoint Bruce as the executor of Nelson’s literary estate. Step two is to sell the novel to a publisher and make sure it’s reported. Bruce, this is your territory and you’ll do a better job at it than Polly can do out in California.”
Bruce said, “I’m not sure I want Ingrid back on the island.”
“You can forget her. She’s gone.”
Polly said, “We discussed this, months ago. Remember, Bruce, I asked you to handle his literary affairs?”
“Yes, of course I remember. Do you remember why I said no?”
“No. Things were a blur back then.”