Paperwhite Narcissus Read Online Free Page A

retrieved from Colley’s wastebasket. “Colley got this in the mail today.”
    Casey examined the note. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
    “He thought I’d written it,” said Victoria, sitting forward. “It looks to me like a threat.”
    “It’s not.” Casey flicked her fingers against the note. “This may be somebody’s idea of a joke, but it’s not a threat in the legal sense. He got his tie caught in the press and someone’s making a joke out of it.”
    Victoria sat forward. “It’s not a joke. It’s a threat.”
    Casey sighed. “Even if it were a threat, Jameson lives in Edgartown, not West Tisbury. The Edgartown police have jurisdiction, not me.”
    Victoria retrieved the note and got to her feet. “I see I’m wasting my time here, too.”
    “Where are you going?” Casey pushed herself away from her desk.

    Victoria zipped up her jacket. “To see William Botts.”
    “What does William Botts have to do with this?”
    “He’s the editor of the West Tisbury Grackle , of course.”
    Casey looked confused. “The what?”
    “West Tisbury’s newspaper. A competitor to the Island Enquirer .”
    Casey laughed. “Oh, that .”
    “I wouldn’t dismiss the Grackle, if I were you,” Victoria said stiffly, as she headed for the door.
    “Wait,” said Casey, getting up from her chair. “I’ll drive you there. It’s about to rain and I need to check on something out that way.”
     
    William Botts, founder and editor of the West Tisbury Grackle , was in his office in what had once been the hayloft of a barn. He was a gnomelike man with disheveled gray hair and a puckish expression. The Grackle was a one-page sheet Botts ran off on the library’s copying machine and sold for ten cents a copy from boxes posted outside the senior center and Alley’s store. He was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when Victoria mounted the rickety stairs that led up from the horse stalls. He looked up as she hoisted herself onto the floor of the loft.
    Botts, who was at least twenty years younger than Victoria, set the remains of his sandwich on the rim of his coffee cup, wiped his hands on his tan pants, and arose from his editorial seat. “Mrs. Trumbull,” he said. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”
    Victoria perched on the edge of an overstuffed chair, avoiding a broken spring that showed through the upholstery. “I wanted to talk with you.”
    “Sorry about that chair.” He tugged a brightly colored Mexican serape out from under a large graying black dog, who moaned and got unsteadily to his feet. William shook out the blanket and laid it over the seat cushion behind Victoria.
    “Thank you,” she said.

    Botts returned to his seat behind the desk, which was piled high with paper. “So that egomaniac fired you, eh?”
    “That’s what it amounts to,” said Victoria. “I’m here to apply for a job on the Grackle .” She settled back in the overstuffed chair with its now-covered spring and waited.
    Botts folded his arms on top of his piled-up papers and eyed Victoria over his half-frame glasses. He, too, waited.
    Finally Victoria said, “Colley got an obituary in the mail this morning. Reporting his death.”
    “His own?” Botts raised his shaggy eyebrows.
    Victoria nodded. “The obituary said he was found in the newspaper morgue, hanged by his prep school tie.”
    “I heard you saved him yesterday.”
    “He thought I’d caused the accident. Now he’s convinced that I sent him the obituary.”
    Botts leaned forward. “I don’t suppose you did?”
    Victoria peered at him through half-closed eyes and ignored his question. She fished the note out of her cloth bag and handed it to Botts, who studied it, then looked over his glasses at her.
    She waved a knobby hand at the note he held. “That letter is clearly a threat. Yet neither Colley nor our chief of police seems to be taking it seriously.”
    “I must say, Victoria, I agree with them.” Botts handed the note back