Grave Secret - Charlaine Harris [72]
“It was on the news. About her book.” I looked at him questioningly. “Did you know Ms. Flores was writing a book? She didn’t tell you?”
“No,” I said, though Tolliver was silent.
“Yeah, it was going to be called Private Eye in the Lone Star State, and she had gotten an offer on it.”
“For real?” I was thunderstruck.
“Yeah, for real. Cameron’s case was the one that made her decide to quit the force and become a private eye. Her continuing search for Cameron is the big story in the book.”
I didn’t know what to think of that, how to react. There was no real reason I should feel betrayed, but I did. It’s particularly unpleasant to think that, for the price of a book, anyone who’s inclined is going to be privy to the most agonizing event in your life.
“Did she tell you this last night?” I asked Tolliver.
He nodded. “I was going to tell you, but then Rudy Flemmons came to get you,” he said.
“You’ve had time since.”
He hesitated. “I wasn’t sure how you would take it.”
“I wish I’d stolen a manuscript instead of the files,” I said, and Manfred’s eyes turned to me with interest.
“What files did you steal? Do the police know you have them? Who are they about?”
“I stole some files out of her trunk,” I said. “The police would probably make me into mincemeat if they knew I’d taken them. They’re about the Joyce family.”
“There’s not one on Mariah Parish?”
“No,” Tolliver said. “Should there be?”
“Actually, no,” Manfred said, “since I have it right here.” With a typical Bernardo flourish, he opened his jacket and pulled out a file. He’d carried his exactly like I’d carried mine, but he just had the one.
“Where the hell did you get that?” Tolliver sat forward on the couch. He was looking at Manfred as if Manfred had revealed he had a baby hidden in his coat, with a mixture of horror and admiration.
“Late last night, I went by her office, and the door was open,” Manfred said. “My inner sense had told me it was important to talk to her. But I was too late. I’m assuming this was before she was reported missing. I went inside, and I asked the spirits if there was something there I should find, something that pertained to . . . anyone I know.”
We were both gaping at him by that time, and not because of the “spirits” reference. “Victoria’s office had been rifled?” I said, thinking that was an unfortunate word to spring to my mind.
“Yes,” he said. “It had been searched really thoroughly. But not thoroughly enough.” He paused for dramatic effect. “I was drawn to her couch,” he said, and the moment was somewhat ruined by Tolliver’s snort. “Well, I was,” said Manfred, looking very young for a moment. “Someone had tossed the cushions off, but it was a sofa bed like the one I slept on at Grandma’s, and I pulled it up, and the file was stuck down in there. Like maybe someone had been knocking at the door, and she’d pulled up on the handle just a little and slid the file inside.”
“And I notice you had no trouble making off with it.” Tolliver’s voice was so dry it could have been toast.
“No,” Manfred admitted. He had a sunny smile, the only sunny thing about this day.
“We’ve robbed a dead woman,” I said, abruptly appalled at what I’d done. “And we’ve taken some clues away from the police.”
“We’re trying to save your life,” Manfred said.
Tolliver gave the psychic a hard, sharp look, and I thought he would say something, but he only nodded. “The more important question is, who was at her office door?” he said. “Manfred, can you help us with that?”
Manfred looked smug. “As it happens, I may be able to. While I was in her office, I took a nail file from her pencil caddy. That’s a personal thing, has some skin cells still on it. I’m going to use that for a reading, and see what I can get. May be helpful, may not. You can’t count on it; that’s why so often those of us in the business are less than honest.”
We didn’t disagree. Most “psychics” were frauds, even the real ones who had a genuine gift. Psychics have to make a living, and if you have to earn your money by sitting