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“I suppose he meant sending my manuscript to Sandra Djikstra or Day Delos.”
Mac’s brows furrowed. He turned the envelope over in his hand slowly.
“What if it wasn’t? Could there have once been something else in this envelope? This fella, Winslow, had already opened it, right?”
Theo nodded, a little shocked. It had never occurred to her that the envelope had contained something else…but it was possible. And she remembered what Veronica had said about Dan’s missing manuscript. But why would he have sent her a hard copy when he could just have emailed the digital file?
Mac pointed out that the envelope bore several postage stamps, but no postmark.
“So what does that mean?” Theo asked, confused.
“Well, first, there’s an excess of postage on the envelope…much more than would be required for just one letter…which corroborates the notion that there was something else in the envelope when Murdoch stuck the stamps on it.”
“I see.” Theo did see now, and she was impressed that Mac saw it from the outset.
“As for the missing postmark,” he continued, “it could be a number of things. The post office might just have missed marking it, which does happen, but it’s very unusual. It’s more likely that it was not delivered via the postal service.” Mac tapped the envelope on the coffee table as he contemplated. “He might have delivered it himself, but why would he apply postage stamps if he was going to do that…and why wouldn’t he just come in and talk to you if he was going to walk out here?”
“Gus,” Theo offered.
“That’s true. He might not have been ready to meet your protective older brother…but it wasn’t delivered here, remember. It was delivered to 277. Was Murdoch likely to have made that mistake?”
Theo shook her head. “I don’t think so. He dropped me home after…a couple of days before. He’d been here before.”
“So it’s more likely he gave the letter to someone to post, and that person decided to hand-deliver it instead.”
“Maybe…does it matter?” Theo was more than a little fascinated with the systematic logical manner in which Mac Etheridge’s mind worked.
“Possibly not.” Mac’s eyes narrowed like he was homing in on some unseen thing. “Dan Murdoch wrote this letter, gave it to someone to post, then changed his mind, and sent your manuscript to Day Delos and Associates a few hours before he died.”
“It’s possible.”
Mac conceded that. “Yes, of course it is. I wonder what made him change his mind, though.”
“And why didn’t he tell me that he had?” Theo said quietly. Surely Dan had known how much his support had meant to her.
Mac paused. “Perhaps he intended to surprise you or something equally stupid… Men in love can be idiotic.”
Theo looked up. “I don’t think he was in love with me.”
“I don’t see why he wouldn’t be.”
Theo thought about it. “No. Even if he was in—even if he was, Dan wasn’t some giddy teenager. When I asked him to introduce me to Day Delos, he was adamant that he would not, that they were not the right agents for me.” Haltingly, she told Mac how she had begged Dan Murdoch to take her manuscript to Day Delos and Associates, how he would not be moved on the subject. “Something must have happened for him to change his mind.”
Mac shrugged. “And maybe that something is related to why he was killed.”
“So, you’ll take the case?” Theo cringed inwardly as the words left her mouth. When did her life become a pulp fiction?
“I’ll talk to Gus about it.”
“Gus?” Theo ignited. “What on earth for? I don’t need Gus’s permission to—”
“Of course, you don’t, but I’m afraid I do,” Mac said calmly into her indignation. “Not only is Crane, Hayes and Benton a client, Theo, but Gus is my friend.”
“But—”
“I will help, Theo, but you can’t actually hire me. And I have to let Gus know in case it gets awkward.”
For a moment Theo said nothing. “Yes,” she said in the end, embarrassed by her own prickliness. “I’m sorry—kid sister syndrome. I should speak to Gus, too. I owe him at least that.”
