Free Murder Actually by Stephanie McCarthy Page A

said roughly, and stood and waited for me to get my bag.
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    * * * * *
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    We drove out to Black Birches in silence. There was a squad car waiting in the driveway and I nearly groaned when I saw Chief Liddell’s SUV.
    â€œWhat’s she doing here?” Liddell demanded.
    Sergeant Jack grabbed my elbow and pulled me close. “She’s with me.”
    Liddell raised a brow. “Is she an honorary police officer?”
    â€œWe were on a date.”
    He snorted. “Some date. Alright, let’s go.” He motioned towards the door of the studio and then turned back abruptly. “Don’t touch anything,” he barked.
    I assumed the last remark was directed at me, but with the looks Jack had been giving my neckline, I wasn’t sure.
    â€œWe sealed the studio and left Officer Montgomery out here,” Liddell jerked his head towards a shame-faced youth with appalling acne. “He fell asleep. When he woke up he noticed the door was open and someone had gone through the papers on the desk.”
    Liddell shot the hapless Montgomery a final glare, and I followed him and Sergeant Jack inside.
    The studio, a former barn, had been extensively remodeled into Jasper’s version of a traditional country house library and it looked like a set from Masterpiece Mystery with polished wood panels, heavy dark furniture, and gleaming brass fixtures. The floors were covered in rich expanses of cherry and a large oak desk took up nearly one wall. Behind the desk, long sets of bookshelves ran from floor to ceiling.
    I noticed a loft above the office space, and Liddell followed my glance up the ladder. “According to his wife, Jasper practically lived in here. He usually slept in the loft.”
    Liddell and Jack started examining the papers on the desk and I walked over to the bookcase. Jasper’s tastes were what I expected: The Death Dealers, A Day of the Guns, Tomorrow I Die, Survival…Zero! My Gun is Quick, Love My Big Guns and The Big Kill. There was also a copy of Who’s Who in Publishing and Bartlett’s Book of Familiar Quotations . Only one book struck me as out of the ordinary and I pulled it from the shelf: A Case of the Mondays: Self-Help for Daily Life.
    I flipped through the book and saw an inscription on the title page: To my darling Jasper, all my love, SE. Tucked inside was a receipt from Captain Swift’s Inn in Quammy-on-Hudson. It was dated the day of the murder.
    â€œLook at this,” I thrust the paper at them excitedly.
    Liddell examined it and grunted. “Bag it, Jack.”
    I looked over the desk as Jack packaged the receipt and book. I noticed an invoice from Ware Realty marked ‘Pinnacle’ and a real estate brochure. In the center of the space was an old typewriter, and I recalled Jasper’s repeated assertions he could only create his work on an antique 1942 Remington Monarch. At the time I thought it was just another one of his affectations, but apparently he’d been serious.
    â€œWhere’s all his writing?” Liddell demanded. “Aren’t you typewriter monkeys always at it?”
    I glanced over the desk. There were no signs of any manuscript or editing; no indication of any work whatsoever except that one line in the typewriter.
    I’ll let you in on a little secret: writers are ego-driven freaks of nature. We spend the majority of our lives hunched over laptops, notebooks, journals or typewriters, plugging along and doggedly writing, writing, writing. We write on napkins, letters, notes, and greeting cards. We jot down ideas on old receipts, book covers and church bulletins; anything we can get our grubby little hands on when we need a fix.
    Jasper had been producing at least one mystery a year since 1999, yet there were no signs of industry in the room. He had an assistant, so there wasn’t any need to send his work out for editing, and I remembered Jasper told me that he couldn’t stand for anyone to