Bound for Murder, page 21
“I see your point,” I admitted reluctantly.
“And when I talk to them about anything to do with the Jeremy Adams case, they always shift their eyes so they aren’t looking directly at me. Like they’re ashamed of something. I’m pretty sure they have something to hide. Of course, they won’t confess anything, because they don’t want to involve me.” Sunny blinked away the tears that had welled in her eyes. “They want to protect me.”
“Look,” I said, reaching out to clasp her hand. “There’s no point in making yourself sick over what-ifs. Just be honest with the authorities about what you know, and allow your grandparents the freedom to make their own decisions. I’m sure, knowing them, that they’ll make the right choice in the end.”
I was glad, at that moment, that I hadn’t shared the CD containing Jeremy’s demo reel with P.J. and Carol. At least that was one thing they wouldn’t have to lie about.
“I suppose you’re right,” Sunny said as I released her hand. “I just don’t want to see them go to jail. They could be charged as accessories after the fact if they actually covered up a murder.”
“It won’t come to that, I’m sure,” I said, although I wasn’t certain of anything. “Now—let me take these notes over to Mr. Scott before he has to leave. He said he only had an hour free for his research today.”
“Okay. I’ll hold down the fort here,” Sunny said, giving me a wan smile. “And I’ll try not to worry.”
“Good, but maybe”—I cast her a speculative glance—“you should warn Carol and P.J. about the possibility that someone is tracking down people who might know anything about Jeremy’s death. Just to be safe, you know?”
“Trust me, I will,” Sunny replied fervently.
As I crossed behind the desk, clutching the paper containing my notes to my chest, I made a mental note to ask Kurt—who I was convinced was keeping tabs on me, as well as probably Richard and my aunt—to have some of his associates also keep an eye on Carol and P.J. Fields.
* * *
After sharing a light supper with Aunt Lydia, I headed upstairs to my bedroom to read over the photocopies of Emily Moore’s earliest poetry.
I sat on my bed, popped in my earbuds, and scrolled through the music player on my phone until I reached the file containing Jeremy Adams’s songs. A perfect accompaniment to Emily’s poems, I thought, especially considering they were created around the same time. Although, to be precise, I reminded myself, Jeremy’s music must’ve been written at least a year or two before the publication of Emily’s first book. Which didn’t mean she hadn’t written the poems earlier, of course. Perhaps even during her stay on the commune.
I glanced over the note the librarian had sent along with the photocopies. It outlined what I’d already learned through my own research—Emily Moore, then called Daisy, had moved directly to New York City after the commune at Vista View had closed its doors. She’d immediately been taken up by Andy Warhol’s crowd, and had lived at the Factory off and on for a few years. It was during that time that several unnamed artists had created illustrations to go along with her poems, prompting Warhol to have the slender volume of poetry and art published by a private press.
Even though the book had been distributed primarily through hand-selling at concerts and other events, it had developed a cult following that propelled Daisy—under her Emily Moore name—to fame. Only a year after the release of her first book, she acquired a literary agent and a prestigious publisher and began a career that had continued to the present day.
I set aside the explanatory document and settled back against the pillows I’d piled up against my headboard.
Jeremy’s voice reverberated through my headphones. Despite his gravelly tone, his clear pronunciation of the lyrics allowed me to understand all the words.
“Definitely a true talent,” I said, as if Jeremy were sitting in the room with me. “Such a shame you died so young, before everyone could appreciate your work.”
I focused on the pages of poetry. Almost immediately I could see why it would’ve appealed to the flower-power generation. Mystical, cryptic, yet somehow hypnotic, it evoked the mysteries of nature as well as an obviously drug-fueled exploration of consciousness.
But I could also see why Emily Moore had not bothered to have this particular volume reprinted. It was an artifact of its time. Today it seemed naïve and almost embarrassingly revealing.
As I picked up another page, Jeremy sang something about stars and fireflies, and how both filled the night with flickering light.
I blinked and stared down at the paper in my hand.
The same words—in my ear and on the page. The very same.
I sat up, pausing the music. After pulling a pen from my nightstand drawer, I scrolled back to restart the file containing Jeremy’s demo reel.
Song by song, I matched Jeremy’s lyrics to the poetry. There were more poems than songs, but every lyric on Jeremy Adams’s demo reel was one of the poems in Emily Moore’s first book.
As the final song concluded, I pulled out my earbuds and dropped the player on top of the scattered photocopies that blanketed the bed. Jumping to the floor, I paced around my bedroom.
There were only a few conclusions I could draw from my discovery. Emily could have collaborated with Jeremy while he was writing his songs—willingly supplying him with the lyrics. Or conversely, Emily could have taken Jeremy’s lyrics and presented them as her own work.
I gnawed on the nail of my little finger. The poetry was different enough from Emily’s later style to make that a possibility. Perhaps she’d worked with Jeremy on his music, then taken the lyrics and used them to ignite her own career. Without giving Jeremy any of the credit.
But the reverse could also have been true. If Emily, who Dean claimed had been “tight” with Jeremy, had shared her poetry with the young musician, maybe he’d used the poems as lyrics without obtaining her permission.
I gathered up the pieces of paper from my bed, stuffed them back into the manila envelope, and carried it over to my dresser. Glancing at the wall clock, I decided it was too late to call Brad over something so tenuous. But I would call him tomorrow and share what I’d discovered. Perhaps he’d think the poems were as peripheral to his investigation as the demo reel CD I’d already given him, but I still had to share this discovery.
Because, while I had no absolute proof of anything but a collaboration between the musician and the poet, it certainly seemed—from the lack of attribution on both the demo reel and the book of poetry—that one or both of them had used the other’s work without giving their co-creator proper credit.
Which is, I thought, as sadness filled my chest, as good a motive for murder as I have ever stumbled across.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The next day I was grateful for the county fair, which seemed to have drawn everyone away from Taylorsford. Or, at least, away from the library. Even though it was a Friday, I’d given Sunny the day off so she could help her grandmother prepare for the next day’s baking competition.
My aunt was also busy baking, but I knew she’d prefer that I stay out of the kitchen while she worked, so I’d volunteered to cover the library with only one volunteer. On a normal Friday, that could’ve meant chaos, but we ended up seeing so few patrons that, when Denise left at four o’clock, I wasn’t worried about managing the library on my own.
In fact, it was quiet enough that I was able to use the last hour to do some research. Diving deeper into any information I could unearth on Emily Moore, I finally discovered an article that had been digitized from a now-defunct literary journal. It was an interview with Emily, conducted right after the Factory had published her first book of poetry.
Overlooking the new-age mysticism threaded throughout the interview, I discovered that Emily had credited another artist at the Factory with the discovery of her poetic talent. This individual, who’d gone by the name Aqua, happened to be an old school friend of Stanley Owens. While traveling between Florida and New York, she’d used this connection to secure a bed at Vista View for a couple of nights, where she’d heard Emily read some of her poems.
Aqua had then convinced Emily to share copies of her poetry. When Aqua had shown them to Warhol and others at the Factory, they’d issued an invitation for Emily to join their community in New York City.
I mulled over this information, considering how it shed light on the time frame surrounding Jeremy Adams’s death. Emily Moore had not headed north simply because of the collapse of the commune. She’d known about Warhol’s interest in her poetry prior to leaving Taylorsford. Which meant that she would’ve had a compelling reason to call Jeremy Adams back from LA before she left Taylorsford. If the Factory had promised to publish her work, she wouldn’t have wanted him shopping around his songs, with her uncredited lyrics, at the same time.
I tapped a pencil against the top of the circulation desk. Whether or not he was willing to give her credit, if Jeremy had refused to change the lyrics to his songs, I could imagine an ambitious young woman snapping and striking him in anger. Perhaps she’d had no intention of murdering him. He could’ve hit his head against something when he fell, or she could’ve accidentally hit him with some object that caused more damage than she’d anticipated.
But even if it was unpremeditated, it would still be murder.
I sighed and circled behind the desk. It was almost five—time to make a last check for patrons before closing up the library. Walking through the quiet space and seeing no one, I locked the front doors. As I strolled back across the main section of the library, I pondered my latest theory. If Emily had killed Jeremy, someone had helped her hide her guilt. She was unlikely to have been able to drag his body, let alone bury him, on her own. And wherever the murder had occurred on the farm, it was certain to have resulted in a significant loss of blood. Someone, or perhaps several people, had to have been involved in cleaning up—and covering up—the crime.
Which led me back to Carol and P.J. and their reluctance to talk about Jeremy Adams or anything related to that period of time.
I double-checked the children’s room before heading to the back of the building. Flipping through my key ring, I didn’t notice the shadow moving behind the frosted glass of the back door.
When I glanced at the door, I realized that the emergency alarm was turned off. That was a breach of library protocol. For fire safety reasons, the back door had to remain unlocked when patrons were in the building, but we were supposed to keep the alarm on so that people couldn’t leave the building with materials they hadn’t checked out.
As I made a mental note to remind the volunteers that the door should remain armed unless they were taking people to the archives, the door opened. On the stoop, her face shadowed under the hood of a dark raincoat, stood Emily Moore.
My inclination was to slam the door in her face, but Emily stepped inside before I could reach for the doorknob.
“Amy.” When Emily pushed back the hood of her coat, the static caused strands of her dark hair to fly up and surround her face like Medusa’s snakes. “I’m sorry to accost you like this, but I tried the front doors and they were already locked. Then I walked around the building and noticed that your car was parked in the lot and thought perhaps I could still catch you before you left.”
“It’s closing time,” I said, gripping the key ring in my palm, with one of the keys poking out between two of my fingers. It was an instinctive gesture, honed by years of walking alone as a woman on campus and elsewhere.
“Yes, I know, but I had to tell you …” Emily moved forward, forcing me to step back. “That is, I wanted to warn you to be careful.”
“What do you mean? Careful about what?”
“All this digging around in the past.” Emily took a deep breath. “It might not be worth the danger.”
“Is that a threat?” I thrust my free hand into the pocket of my jacket. If I could reach my cell phone …
Emily’s dark eyes widened. “You think I’m threatening you?”
“Aren’t you?”
“No, I’m simply warning you.” Emily swept the back of her hand across her forehead. “I feel threatened myself, and your research into the past isn’t helping my sense of security.”
“Why might that be?” My fingers curled around my phone.
“Someone is stalking me. Oh, you can say I’m paranoid, but I’m sure of it. It’s been getting worse over the last week or so.”
I slipped my hand, holding the phone, out of my pocket. “Excuse me? You think you are being followed?”
“I know I am.” Emily grabbed my arm.
I instinctively jerked my arm away, which caused my grip to fail. My phone fell onto the carpet. “Don’t you come any closer,” I said, waving my fist clenching the keys in Emily’s face. “I’ll stab you in the eye if I have to.”
“Good heavens, Amy.” Emily took two steps back. “You needn’t act as if I’m the culprit. I only came here to alert you to the possibility that someone might be watching you.”
“Like you, perhaps? Don’t pretend you’re trying to do me any favors. I’ve been caught in this type of situation before.”
Lines creased Emily’s forehead. “Me? Why would I wish to harm you?”
“Because I know about you and Jeremy Adams. I know that you wrote the lyrics that he used for his original songs. And I suspect he didn’t want to give you credit, leading to a confrontation between you.”
Emily worked her mouth as if searching for the right words. “Yes, that is true. How did you …?” She narrowed her eyes. “I suppose it doesn’t really matter. If you know, you know. Yes, Jeremy and I worked together on his original songs, and he used my poetry as the lyrics. At first I didn’t care. I thought it would be cool. I even had this foolish notion that maybe I could make a name for myself if he got a record deal. But then”—she clenched her fingernails into her palms—“I heard from Ruth that he was claiming to have written the lyrics as well as the music.”
“So you called him back to Taylorsford to settle the matter.”
“I asked him to return, but only after I found out that the Factory wanted to publish my poems.”
“Yeah, I already figured that out.”
“Very clever, but you don’t have everything right …” Emily thrust her hands into the pockets of her raincoat.
A gun, you idiot, I thought, frantically considering my best avenue for escape. She probably has a gun. Just like the others you’ve confronted in similar circumstances.
I knelt down for my phone, leaping back to my feet as soon as I grabbed it. “I have the sheriff’s office on speed dial,” I said as I turned on the phone. “So don’t try anything.”
Emily reached back and kicked open the door with her foot. “I don’t know what’s going on here. I just came here to warn you, that’s all.” She gave her glasses, which had slipped forward, a fierce shove up to the bridge of her nose. “Stop messing around with things you don’t understand.”
“I think I understand only too well, and trust me, I intend to share my thoughts with the sheriff’s department.”
Emily lowered her head until I couldn’t see her eyes. “You’re very clever, Amy, but perhaps not quite as astute as you think. Your assumptions could place you in grave danger, as I believe they have in the past. Think about that, why don’t you, after I leave.”
My cell phone lit up. I held it out, my finger poised over the screen. “You’d better get going, then. Because I’m just about to call the authorities.”
Emily shot me a fierce glare before she turned away and headed outside, her shoes striking the back steps like gunshots.
I waited until she reached her car and drove away before I slammed the door and locked it. Leaning against the hallway wall to steady my trembling legs, I called Brad.
He didn’t answer, so I left him a message to call me urgently. I considered calling 911, but with Emily gone, the situation didn’t seem to merit such a drastic response. As I ran back to the workroom to grab my purse, I reviewed the encounter in my mind. Sadly, I had to admit I didn’t really have any damning evidence to share with Brad or anyone else. I realized Emily’s words could be interpreted in many different ways. She hadn’t directly threatened me, and I hadn’t actually seen a gun. I paused at the staff door in the workroom and tapped the phone against my palm.
Perhaps she really was simply trying to drive me off the case. Another warning, like the anonymous letter, the graffiti, and the gunshots in the woods. In the last two instances, the perpetrator could’ve easily hurt me, but they hadn’t. Maybe it really had been Emily, or someone she hired, simply trying to frighten me off. Even if she’d murdered Jeremy, it was possible it had been an accident, or at worst manslaughter. She might not be a true cold-blooded killer like some I’d encountered. She might be determined to protect herself without murdering anyone else.
But the information about her connection to Jeremy’s songs, and her confession confirming that she’d asked Jeremy to return to Taylorsford, were still facts I’d need to share with Brad. Maybe they’d persuade the authorities to question Emily Moore more thoroughly, even if they weren’t enough to lead to an arrest.
Staying in the shadow of the large forsythia bushes as I crept to the back of the library, I peeked around the corner of the building and confirmed that my car was the only vehicle in the lot. I stepped out under the parking lot lights, sweeping my gaze from side to side as I made my way to my car. I kept my phone gripped in one hand and my keys in the other, ready to call for help or defend myself. When I was finally seated in my vehicle with the doors locked, I released a gusty sigh of relief. I was safe, at least for now.
A rap on my side window made me jump and drop my keys into the cup holder between the front seats. Turning to face the window, I recognized a familiar face.
Kurt Kendrick spun his hand in a circular motion. I stared at him for a moment, considering whether I should honor his request to roll down my window, or instead grab my keys, start the car, and speed off.
