A Dark and Stormy Murder (A Writer's Apprentice Mystery) by Julia Buckley

pale in the late-day sun. “Shot? Have they caught whoever did it?”
    “No,” Camilla said. “Doug Heller is investigating.”
    West looked about as happy to hear Heller’s name as Heller had looked to hear West’s. It seemed as though he was about to say something regarding the policeman, but then he bit it back. Instead, he said, “It’s a shame. I’m sorry to hear it.” He directed a look at me that seemed to have special significance, but I couldn’t imagine why.
    “In any case, we’re hoping to put this terrible thing behind us. Have a good evening, Sam.”
    “You, too.” West lifted a hand in a brief wave as Camilla and I made our way to the red staircase. I looked back to see that he had wandered closer to the scene and was watching the crime scene team do their rapid work before they lost the light of the sun.
    Camilla led the way up, and I was surprised by her agility; I wondered how many times a day she walked up or down the bluff.
    Reaching the top of the stairs for the second time that day, I felt as though my legs had turned to wet noodles. “How do you make this climb every day?” I panted as we moved inside and shut the door. “Adaptation,” she said.“Wonderful exercise for a senior citizen.” She was gazing out the window with a rather melancholy expression. I followed her gaze and saw a little figure on the sand, wearing a brown jacket. It was Sam West, standing alone in the rain.
    “That poor man,” she said. “There’s something about him you should know, Lena, before the town gossips try to bend your ear.”
    “Oh?”
    She turned to me and sighed. “Apparently, about a year ago, Sam’s wife went missing. The police are presuming foul play and perhaps murder. Sam, for the longest time, was their prime suspect, but they had no body and no evidence. So they let him go. He was in New York then, but he left soon after, and came here.”
    “Oh my gosh. And his wife was never found?”
    “No. Neither alive nor dead. The more obnoxious people in Blue Lake have taken to calling him ‘the murderer.’ I don’t believe it for a second.”
    “No, of course not.” But I was remembering the way Sam West had looked at me when he thought I was an intruder—how he had scowled and seemed ready to strike at me.
    I had been vaguely afraid of him, and perhaps for good reason. If Sam West were indeed a murderer, could he have killed Martin Jonas? This thought troubled me until it was replaced with a more sinister one.
    If Sam West had killed his wife but had not killed Jonas, then there were two murderers in Blue Lake.

4
    She was introduced to Frau Albrecht when she arrived at the inn; the older woman was not particularly warm, and yet Johanna longed for her affection as one yearns for sunshine, and when the Frau indulged in a brief smile, Johanna’s spirit lightened and flew of its own accord around the high-ceilinged room.
    —from
The Salzburg Train
    I NSIDE THE HOUSE Camilla murmured that she had some correspondence to see to, and she blended quickly into the gloom of Graham House. I ascended the stairs alone and took another quick, hot shower, then changed into some sweats. I really would have to ask Camilla about how to do laundry for myself, I mused as I hung my second wet outfit over the shower rail.
    I found Lestrade sitting in the same large window, watching the leaves fall from a big elm in the backyard. I sat on the bed and felt a burst of exhaustion. Lestrade jumped off the ledge and onto my pillow. He meowed at me, clearly annoyed by my absence, but he allowed me to pet him, and, after I provided a good massage, he settled down.
    My predominant thought, even after discovering amurder in the backyard, was that I was sitting in Camilla Graham’s house. A memory came back to me in a sudden, random flash. I was thirteen again and had finished my first Graham novel. I was in that state of detachment where a part of me was still inside the book and another part of me was