Micro Industry's Arc

Chapter 6 of 14

Willa's words stuck with Silas all night. Someone at her agency had read Wren's stories for years. Someone had known the murder before it happened. But he had no name, and guessing wrong would warn the guilty one. He needed a way to find the reader without asking a single question. So at first light he went to the Hoosier Boarding House lobby. Marko Celly sat in her chair by the window, knitting. She never left it, yet every crime in town got solved her way. Silas dropped into the seat across from her. Coffee sloshed over his notepad as he set it down. "Someone at the agency's been reading Wren's stories," he said. "For years. I need to know who. But I can't ask around. If I do, they'll bolt." Marko's needles clicked. She didn't look up. "Then don't ask people, Inspector. Ask the paper." She nodded at his stained notepad. "Wren writes her books. Books get borrowed. Borrowed things leave a record." Silas straightened. "A borrowing record." "The agency keeps a file on Wren. Someone signs that file out. Someone reads those manuscripts before they're published." The needles stopped. "Find the checkout log. The name signs itself." Silas went straight to the Harborview Detective Agency. The little storefront sat quiet behind its faded striped awning. Willa was out at the harbor. Silas told the clerk he came for Willa and asked to see Wren's file while he waited. The clerk, half-asleep, waved him back. The file was thick. Twelve manuscripts, each stamped with a checkout card. Silas ran his finger down the dates. One name repeated on every card, going back six years. A visiting consultant. Someone with a key to the evidence room and a habit of reading Wren's fiction before the ink dried. He copied the name onto his coffee-stained notepad. His hand shook. This was the reader. This was the person who turned Wren's stories into real murders. Silas closed the file exactly as he found it. He walked out slow, calm, waving to the sleepy clerk. He did not warn anyone. He did not slip. The guilty one still thought no one knew. He caught Willa at the harbor an hour later. He showed her the notepad, one name written under a ring of dried coffee. "Same signature. Every book. Six years," Silas said. "Your reader." Willa read the name. Her face went white, then hard. "I know this person. I trusted this person." She folded the notepad closed. "You found the reader, Inspector. Now we have a killer with a key to my evidence room, and they don't know we're coming."