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“Why not? Isn’t it what you people call mates rates?”
“If you were a plumber.”
Mac stood. “I’m curious now, anyway. Even if you were to tell me to mind my own business, I’d probably nose around of my own accord.”
“I suppose private eyes can’t help themselves,” Theo said innocently.
Gus grinned.
Mac sighed. Clearly, he didn’t have a chance against both of them. He surveyed the mess. “At the moment, you need a maid service more than an investigation agency. Come on—I’ll help you clean up.”
CHAPTER 16
Theo felt vaguely unfaithful working at Aimee’s Café, but the thought of writing alone in Benders was not yet bearable. She’d entered the establishment tentatively. After all, Aimee’s already had writers. Perhaps the incursion of one more would upset the creative balance, particularly at this time of year when it was too cold to work at the tables in the muralled courtyard out the back.
She didn’t have her laptop with her that day—because the police had confiscated that too—just a large notebook into which she was trying to recapture the notes that had been seized. Gus had promised to do what he could to have them returned quickly, but until then she was starting from scratch.
Larry looked up from his laptop and smiled a welcome before returning to his screen. Theo relaxed a little, the acknowledgment like a grant of refugee status. She ordered coffee and a breakfast burrito.
She began the task of trying to remember the details that had come to her in a burst of spontaneous inspiration, ideas of the moment that were a struggle to recollect and recreate, particularly when competing with thoughts of what had happened since.
Mac had recommended a security system, which they’d had installed the day after Burt Winslow’s body had been discovered. She and Gus had fought over who would pay for the system until she threatened to move out if he didn’t allow her to do so. Theo was excruciatingly aware that she had brought this trouble into his life, however inadvertently. Once before, Gus had paid dearly for trying to defend her, and it seemed it was happening again. She knew having his sister questioned in connection to two murders was awkward for Gus’s practice. Lawrence was not large enough that the murders would not be the subject of general conversation, and as much as Gus was trying to protect her, Theo knew that unless the killer was found quickly, there would be rumors that could embarrass him professionally.
Theo had overheard Gus arguing with his partners on the phone. Clearly, they believed the potential scandal would impact business. It tortured her that this was hurting Gus.
Mac Etheridge was helping them clean up more than the house. She wasn’t quite sure of the nature of his relationship with Crane, Hayes and Benton, but he seemed to have influence with Gus’s elderly partners. And so Theo had all the more reason to be grateful to him. And she was.
Mac had also kept his word about looking into Dan Murdoch’s death. He’d started by looking into his life, though he had not found a great deal apart from sanitized social media posts that read like they’d been drafted by publicists. Theo was not surprised. Dan had been a very private man. His public biographies said nothing about where he’d been born, or raised, where he’d attended school…or why he’d been alone. Mac had questioned Theo about everything she could remember, casual comments about the past that might give him some clue as to where to look.
She’d remembered the story Dan had told when they’d lain together in his living room. She hadn’t looked at Mac as she recounted it, somehow afraid he would see the context in which it had been told. “Dan had a dog once. A Saint Bernard called Rocket who ate three pairs of socks and a watch that had to be surgically removed.”
“That might actually help.” Mac hadn’t taken any notes. Theo noticed that he never made notes.
She was becoming increasingly intrigued by Mac Etheridge. He was so polite, almost genteel, and yet he seemed to have a ludicrously incongruous past. The Australian in her was shocked, the storyteller fascinated. He took teasing about his mother shooting him in good humor, but surely it couldn’t have been funny at the time. Secretly, guiltily, she wanted to meet Mrs. Etheridge.
Mac had also ascertained that no one at the Sandra Djikstra Literary Agency knew Dan Murdoch, though they had heard of him, and they had not received Theodosia Benton’s manuscript. The revelation disturbed Theo. Had Dan been lying when he wrote he was sending the manuscript to a friend at Sandra Djikstra’s? The thought hurt; it undermined her memories of him. She pushed the notion away. Dan had died less than twenty-four hours after she’d given him her manuscript. That he’d read it before he’d died was amazing. Expecting him to find the time to send it on as well was ridiculous.
So it was with her mind and her heart full of all these things that she was trying to recapture the details of the plot she’d written at the kitchen table. It was like grabbing for a life preserver while being tossed in a dark sea. Theo was doing her best not to panic, but death seemed to be clustering around her for some reason she could not fathom.
She worked through the morning. Larry dropped by her table at midday to ask how she was doing. They drank coffee, talked about his novel and the weather and, eventually, Dan.
“You know,” Larry admitted. “I had no idea he was that Dan Murdoch until he died. I’ve known him for three years, and I didn’t connect it. He was such a regular guy.”
Theo nodded. She hadn’t ever thought Dan was regular. She’d always been a little in awe of him, but she had begun to realize that it was only with her that he’d ever spoken of being the Dan Murdoch. Was it just humility? Dan had never lorded his success over her, but then he didn’t need to. Theo had afforded him that deference from the first. It had been so easy to fall in love with a man in whose presence she felt honored to be, who seemed to be giving her something by just being who he was.
In the lonely early hours since his death, Theo had begun to analyze her feelings with an eye that was made critical by grief and fear. Had she been drawn to Dan Murdoch because he embodied the success she wanted for herself? Had she loved him for reasons that were ambitious? It horrified her to think of it, filled her with a loathing of herself that was only surpassed by how much she missed him.
Once Larry had returned to his own table, a woman approached her. She was about Theo’s age, blond and very pretty. Her hair was cut short, nearly shaved on one side, and her clothes had an air of edgy chic. Theo had noticed her speaking to Larry earlier, silently admired her style. She introduced herself as Mary Cowell. “Jock from Benders mentioned that you knew Dan Murdoch… I’m an old friend from New York. I came as soon as I heard. I was hoping I could buy you a coffee and talk to you about him.”
Theo stuttered. “Yes…of course. My condolences for your loss.”
“And mine for yours. You knew Dan well?” Mary sat down.
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
Theo swallowed. “He died…he was murdered.”
