She Walks in Beauty
It was only when Eleanor Deeds celebrated her fortieth birthday that she began to question the choices she had made when she was younger. By the age of thirty-eight, the workaholic reached every goal she had set for herself. As CEO of a Fortune 500 company, she had nowhere else to go. She had climbed to the top of the corporate ladder and was standing on the top rung. For the first time in her life, there was no course to navigate, no port on the horizon.
"If I were you," her sister, Trisha, a paralegal and mother of two, said when they gathered together for Thanksgiving dinner, "I'd retire early. You've been on the fast track your whole life. Why don't you kick back and enjoy the rest of it?"
"And what would I do with my time?" Eleanor argued. "Take up golf?"
"You could travel. That's what I would do. I'd take a cruise around the world."
"I have traveled. Last year alone, I went to Tokyo, Sydney and Stockholm."
"Those were business trips," Trisha pointed out. "Did you do any sightseeing while you were there?"
"I didn't have the time. There were meetings I had to attend."
"I rest my case."
"Rest your case, indeed! You're not a lawyer. You're only a paralegal."
Unlike the majority of the employees who worked for her, Eleanor did not the following day hunting for Black Friday bargains. Instead, she went to her office as usual. She remained at her desk till 9:00 p.m. There was no need to rush home. She never married and never had children. Except for Eleanor herself, her Beacon Hill brownstone was devoid of life. No dog, cat, bird, goldfish or plant shared her domicile.
At 9:30, moments after she had unlocked her front door, Eleanor's cell phone rang. She looked at the screen, which identified her sister as the caller.
"Hey. What's up?" Trisha said.
"Nothing much. And you?"
"I'm going to start my Christmas shopping on Sunday. Wanna come along?"
"You know I do all my shopping online."
"Ah, come on! It'll be fun. I know of a quaint little town, half an hour's drive from Boston. They've got the cutest shops."
"I don't ...."
"I'll treat you to lunch," Trisha offered, hoping to tempt her sister with the promise of food.
Eleanor wanted to refuse since she preferred working to shopping, but she did not want to disappoint her closest living relative.
"What about your family?"
"Tyler is taking the kids to his mother's house for the day."
With a sigh of resignation, she agreed.
"Great! I'll pick you up sometime between ten and eleven."
* * *
"Where to first?" Eleanor asked as her sister pulled into a parking spot on Essex Street.
Trisha glanced up and down the street, taking note of the signs above the shops.
"Sweet Indulgence. I imagine that's either a bakery or a candy store."
The sisters walked to the corner of Essex and Gloucester and, upon entering the shop, were overwhelmed by the aroma of chocolate. The paralegal closed her eyes and inhaled the heady scent.
"Welcome," a beautiful African-American woman called to them. "My name is Desiree. Can I help you find anything?"
"Thank you, but we're just looking," Eleanor replied.
"Perhaps you would like a sample of my latest creation, a dark chocolate key lime truffle."
"It's delicious!" Trisha exclaimed after taking a bite.
"I got the idea for it when I tried a frozen pie bar at Kermit's Key Lime Shop in Key West."
"Is that where you're from? I thought I detected a Southern accent."
"No. I'm originally from New Orleans."
"I'll take a pound—no, make that two pounds—of these truffles. And while I'm here, I'll buy a few Christmas gifts. After all, who doesn't like chocolate?"
As her sister browsed the delectable sweets, Eleanor found an assortment of chocolate-covered gingerbread men. When she carried the Christmas tree-shaped box to the check-out counter, she felt as if an icy hand had traced its fingers down her spine. She turned quickly to see if the door had opened; it hadn't.
She shivered and told the shopkeeper, "It's chilly in here."
"It's an old building," Desiree contended. "It needs new insulation."
Once Trisha paid for her candy, the sisters walked down Essex Street toward the Common. Along the way, they stopped at Treasure Hunt Antiques, where Eleanor purchased a vintage handbag for her administrative assistant, and her sister bought a baseball autographed by Jonathan Papelbon for Tyler.
"Where do you feel like eating?" Trisha inquired, checking the time on her watch. "There's an Irish pub, a colonial-themed inn, a Chinese restaurant, a tea shop ...."
"A tea shop? Do they serve cream teas?"
"I imagine so."
"Let's go there, then. I developed a love for cream teas in Bath, England."
As she neared her car, Trisha reached into her purse for her keys. She stopped, having seen The Quill and Dagger just ahead.
"Wait a minute," she told her sister. "I want to get a novel from my mother-in-law. She loves to read."
"I'll wait out here for you."
"Don't you want to get a book?"
"I haven't read a novel since I was forced to suffer through Moby-Dick in my senior year of high school."
"What about when you're on a plane or waiting in an airport? Don't you read anything, if not for enjoyment, then at least to pass the time?"
"I prefer working to reading."
"You're hopeless," Trisha laughed. "I'll be right back. Then we'll head over to Victoria's English Tea Shoppe."
Eleanor watched through the window as her sister headed directly for the selection of new releases. Her eyes were then drawn to a poster taped to the window, advertising a book signing to be held on January 9. The CEO's eyes widened when she saw the name of the author: F. Donelson.
Can that be Frank?
She took out her cell phone and googled the name Frank Donelson. Since that resulted in more than 1.6 million results, she narrowed the search by adding the word author. None of them was her former sweetheart. Like Captain Ahab, she was not one to give up a quest easily. She entered the store and found Rebecca Coffin, the proprietor, stocking Anthony Horowitz books on the shelf.
"Excuse me, do you have any books by F. Donelson?"
"Yes. If you're looking for She Walks in Beauty, there are several stacks of them on that table. All other books are arranged alphabetically by the author's last name."
"Thank you."
Eleanor picked up a copy of Donelson's latest release and searched for the author's biography. There was no photo and only a brief blurb on the inside flap of the dust jacket, which read, "Boston native F. Donelson has written five previous novels, all of which have appeared on The New York Times Best Seller List."
Frank was born in Boston. It has to be him!
Although she hadn't read a book since 2001, she headed to the checkout with a hardcover copy of F. Donelson's new release.
"Do you know about the book signing in January?" Rebecca asked when she returned Eleanor's Visa card.
"Yes, I do. I saw the sign in your window."
"If you're in the area, why don't you stop by and have this book signed?"
"I might do that."
* * *
After Trisha dropped her off at her brownstone, Eleanor poured herself a glass of wine and settled into her Chippendale chair to read. The book began predictably with a quote from the poem by Lord Byron, from which the novel took its title:
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes
The first line of Chapter 1 caused Eleanor's stomach to flutter: "She came into my life while I was attending college."
Frank and I dated all four years we were at the university. Did I inspire this book?
Except for a short break in which she made herself a salad and a bowl of soup, she did not put the book down. By midnight, she was nearly halfway through the five-hundred-page novel. Like many works written in the first-person point of view, the narrator is never identified by name. What she found unusual is that the heroine is referred to only by the pronouns she and her. Nevertheless, many of the details in the text confirmed her suspicion that Frank was the author F. Donelson.
If the book was based on actual events in Frank's life, who was the mysterious woman? We dated for four years. Could he have been seeing someone else on the side? No, that's impossible. The character must be one he made up in his mind.
Since she had to work the next day—she didn't HAVE to work; she WANTED to work—she closed the book and went to bed. As she lay her head on the pillow, she idly wondered why The Quill and Dagger, a bookshop that specialized in mysteries and thrillers, would sell a romance.
The following morning, as she was heading out the door, she picked up the novel and put it in her briefcase. She doubted she would find the time to read, but she would have it with her just in case. The opportunity arose when Darla, her administrative assistant, went to lunch.
"Would you bring me back a sandwich?" Eleanor asked, handing her a twenty-dollar bill.
When Darla returned with a tuna wrap, her employer closed her office door and took the novel out of her briefcase. By the time she finished her lunch, she had read sixty pages and revised her opinion about the plot.
The heroine of the story may not be a fictional character after all. The places the narrator takes her, many of the clothes she wears and some of the things she says. She has to be based on me. She wears the same perfume as I do, likes the same foods, the same music. I can't be imagining it. Frank must have based that woman on me.
The buzz of the intercom interrupted her reverie.
"Cullen is on line one," Darla announced. "And Mr. Hilsop is waiting for you in the conference room."
Reluctantly, Eleanor closed her book and returned it to her briefcase.
* * *
Eleanor rose the next morning and experienced an urge she had never known. She picked up her phone, contacted her office and called in sick. Darla was flabbergasted. Her boss had never taken a day off. Even during the pandemic, she defied government mandates and recommendations and continued putting in ten- to twelve-hour days. The administrative assistant had believed nothing short of bubonic plague would keep her out of the office.
Darla would be further amazed to learn that her employer was not sick at all. She took the day off to finish reading her book. She remained in her pajamas and drank several cups of coffee. Page after page, chapter after chapter.
Now I know what people mean when they say they can't put a book down.
Had Herman Melville been as good a writer as Frank Donelson, maybe she wouldn't have had to struggle so much to read Moby-Dick.
What Eleanor did not quite understand was why, given his fascination with the heroine, the narrator never acts upon his infatuation. He never kissed her, never took hold of her hand. Their relationship was purely platonic. With only one chapter left to read, she formed numerous theories in her mind. The heroine could be married, possibly to a friend or relative of the narrator. Maybe the heroine did not return the narrator's affections. Perhaps he loved her from afar in a Cyrano de Bergerac way.
Half an hour later, the book lay open in her lap. Eleanor, mouth agape, eyes staring ahead, was mystified by the ending of the book.
She killed him! she muttered with both disbelief and disappointment. I don't get it. If this book is a murder mystery, how did she do it? What weapon did she use? What was her motive?
It then occurred to her that the narrator's death might be a metaphor, not an actual death, merely an ending of some sort.
"Of course! It must refer to when we broke up after graduation."
She picked up the book and reread the last line: "It was at that moment she killed me."
Had Frank been devastated by their breakup?
I never knew he cared that much. He must have really loved me!
The questions Eleanor had been asking herself since turning forty suddenly had answers. She was wrong to have devoted all those years to her career, forsaking a fulfilling personal life. Marriage to Frank and the children they might have had would undoubtedly have made her happier than a corner office on the top floor, a brownstone on Beacon Hill and the millions of dollars she had invested in stocks, bonds and money markets.
I wonder if Frank ever found someone else.
Again, Google failed to provide her with pertinent information about him. Social media sites were also useless. She could not even find his address or phone number, so she had no way of contacting him.
"But I know where he'll be on January 9," she declared, smiling with satisfaction.
* * *
"Good morning, Miss Deeds," the receptionist greeted her when Eleanor arrived at the office. "Here are your messages."
"Thank you."
The CEO glanced at the names on the While You Were Out slips as she made her way across the lobby to the elevator. Her hand reached out to press the button for the top floor, but she let it fall to her side. She stared out at the lobby as though seeing it for the first time. The main entrance was the same as it had been the day she began employment with the company. The décor of the lobby had not been updated in twenty years. Beige walls, brown carpet and black styleless furniture. Nothing had changed.
No, that wasn't true. Something had changed. She changed!
Eleanor pressed the button, got off the elevator on the top floor, walked into her office and sat at her desk.
How many times have I acted out this same pantomime? Why do I suddenly feel as if Paul McCartney wrote the song "Another Day" about me?
It was not to be "just another day," however. She turned to her laptop to check her email and caught a glimpse of her reflection in the screen.
When did I become so frumpy-looking?
She recalled a time when she was pretty. In college, she cared about things like hairstyles, makeup and fashion. Why had she exchanged her colorful dresses and lacy blouses for somber pantsuits? Did she think more masculine attire would give her an advantage in a man's world of corporate finance? Would she have become CEO if she had dressed like a Barbie doll?
She thought about Frank's book. She wore feminine clothes. She styled her hair and was never seen in public without eyeshadow, mascara and lipstick. She wore a seductive scent. That's why Frank had loved her, because "she walked in beauty." Hadn't he always commented on Eleanor's appearance when they were in college? Sometimes, he made quite a fuss over her clothes, hair and makeup.
"And now look at me!" she sighed.
As Eleanor opened her mail program and began weeding out the junk mail, she idly wondered if Frank had changed since the last time she had seen him. Had his thick, wavy brown hair thinned? Had his hairline receded? Had his well-toned abs become a flabby beer belly? Were his piercing blue eyes now hidden behind thick eyeglasses?
It didn't matter to her how he looked. After reading his book, she understood how much he had loved her. She was sure, given time, he would love her again. The past was behind them, but the future lay ahead. While she was too old to have children, she wasn't too old to get married. She and Frank could take that cruise Trisha mentioned. They might travel to Paris. Enjoy cream teas in England. Sunbathe on a beach in Tahiti. If he were fat, bald and half blind, she would still quit her job, give up her Beacon Hill home and settle down with him.
* * *
Two days before the book signing, Eleanor visited one of Boston's top-rated beauty salons where she had her hair cut, colored and styled. From there, she went to Bergdorf Goodman and purchased a Carolina Herrera dress, Christian Louboutin shoes and Yves Salomon coat. Lastly, on the morning of Friday, January 9, before driving to Puritan Falls, she returned to the salon to have the finishing touches to her makeover.
"I'm afraid I've let myself go," she confided to the makeup artist who was reshaping her eyebrows.
"Don't worry," the young woman assured her. "I'll have you looking like a movie star in no time at all."
Afterward, Eleanor got into her Mercedes and drove to Puritan Falls. The designer clothes and salon treatments may not have made her look like a celebrity, but they did boost her self-confidence.
"Frank's books must be popular," she assumed, given the lack of parking spaces in front of The Quill and Dagger.
She drove to the corner of Essex Street and Hawthorne Boulevard, turned right and parked on Hawthorne. Then she walked back up Essex to the bookstore. The shop was filled to capacity, so several people had formed a line outside the door. Most of them carried copies of She Walks in Beauty; others brought one of Donelson's earlier novels to be signed.
Eleanor shivered from the cold. Had she known she would have to walk so much, she would have worn winter boots instead of high heels. Thankfully, a group of women left the shop, and those waiting outside entered. Eager to see what changes time had brought to Frank's appearance, she craned her neck over the crowd to see the author seated at the signing table.
What the ...?
F. Donelson was a woman!
It's not Frank, after all! Damn it! I spent all this money on a makeover, and it's not even him!
She was about to turn and leave, but then she thought better of it. She had taken a day off from work and driven all the way to Puritan Falls; she might as well make the best of it. Even if Frank hadn't written it, she had enjoyed the novel.
I'll get it signed, and then I'll drive to that teashop before heading back to Boston.
Ten people were ahead of her, then nine, eight, seven. She thought about the scone with the clotted cream and strawberry jam that awaited her. Six, five, four.
What type of tea should I get? she wondered.
Three, two, one.
Maybe Earl Grey or that Casablanca I tried when Trisha and ....
Eleanor froze. The woman standing in front of her picked up her signed book and walked away. The author, F. Donelson, was patiently waiting for the next person in line.
"I'm sorry," the CEO apologized, and placed her book on the table.
"No problem."
The writer lifted her head and smiled. The hair was not the same. Many of the facial features were altered. The body was definitely different! But the piercing blue eyes were just as Eleanor remembered them.
"Frank!"
"I go by Fran now."
When Eleanor left the bookstore, she headed to Hawthorne Boulevard and got into her car. Her craving for a cream tea had vanished. In fact, she had no appetite at all. For more than two hours, she sat in her Mercedes, brooding and staring out the window at a Snoopy inflatable that, unplugged, was nothing more than a deflated polyester balloon. Funny, that lawn decoration, left over from Christmas, symbolized how she felt.
He doesn't love me now. He didn't really love me then either.
This realization took away not only her hope for the future, but it also robbed her of the cherished memories of the past.
The sound of approaching footsteps interrupted her painful reveries. She glanced in her rearview mirror and saw a woman, bundled in a mink coat, walking along Hawthorne. As the pedestrian neared her car, Eleanor recognized the face beneath the stylish fur hat. She opened her car door and stepped outside.
"Ellie! How good to see you again after all these years," Fran exclaimed.
"I wish I could say the same."
The author could not understand why her former friend was so bitter. Their relationship had been nothing more than a friends-with-benefits arrangement. Hadn't Eleanor made it clear from the start that once they left college, there was little likelihood that they would keep in touch?
"Sorry you feel like that. I'd say from the way you're dressed and the car you drive, you've done well for yourself. I'm glad."
"And you. You haven't done too badly either. Six bestsellers. Quite an accomplishment, Frank. Oh, no, sorry. It's Fran now."
"I get it. You're mad because I'm a woman. You needn't be. It has nothing to do with you. It's not like I suddenly decided to switch sides after dating you."
Fran's laughter, so much like Frank's, drove Eleanor over the edge. She got back into her Mercedes and turned on the ignition. Her only thought had been to get back to Boston as soon as possible. But as she saw Fran walking toward a late-model Lexus, which was parked in front of Puritan Falls' dog park, her rage exploded. She reached into her glove compartment, took out her Maglite flashlight and ran after the unsuspecting author.
* * *
On Saturday morning, Martha Prescott, seeing the snow on her lawn, put on a wool hat and matching mittens and set out with her greyhound, Sebastian, for the dog park located on Hawthorne Boulevard. Along the way, she was joined by real estate agent Jacqueline Astor and her poodle, Fifi.
"Is it spring yet?" Martha joked.
"I wish!" Jacqueline laughed. "Wouldn't it be nice to be in the Caribbean right about now?"
"You can say that again!"
"Aren't you sorry you left Los Angeles?"
"Not really. This freezing weather aside, I love it here in Puritan Falls."
The two women chatted as their dogs sniffed the ground, looking for the perfect place to pee.
"What's that?" Jacqueline wondered, pointing to what appeared to be a bundle of clothes on the ground ahead of them.
"I don't know," Martha answered. "It looks like ...."
She quickly reached into her pocket and took out her cell phone. Jacqueline took two steps forward and stopped. Her gloved hand went to her mouth to stifle a scream.
"Hello, Shawn. This is Martha. I'm in the dog park. You'd better get over here quick. There's a dead body lying on the ground."
Jacqueline Astor, who refused to get any closer to the corpse, was nonetheless curious as to its identity.
"Is it anyone we know?" she asked Officer McMurtry, who was waiting for the detectives to arrive.
"No one from the village," Shawn replied. "But I know who she is. It's Fran Donelson, the writer."
"Wasn't she at The Quill and Dagger yesterday, signing books?" Martha inquired.
"Yes. I guess Stan and Phil will want to talk to Rebecca."
Later that morning, Detectives Stan Yablonski and Phil Langston visited The Quill and Dagger to question Rebecca Coffin. Shawn, a frequent customer of the bookstore, followed them inside. None of the lawmen was aware that on the corner of Essex and Gloucester, chocolatier Desiree LeFleur received an unexpected visitor to Sweet Indulgence.
"Can I help you?" she asked when the well-dressed, middle-aged woman entered the shop.
She received no response, nor was she likely to receive one.
In the stockroom doorway, the spirit of Saoirse O'Meara materialized. The teenager, an Irish immigrant who worked as a maid, died in 1924, a time when the chocolate shop was a pharmacy. Desiree, the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, had been born with a gift: she could see ghosts. Shortly after opening her candy store, Saoirse appeared to her.
"And it looks like I've got another one now," the New Orleans-born woman observed, gazing into Fran Donelson's piercing blue eyes.
* * *
Abigail Cantwell heard the bell above the door of the Bell, Book and Candle ring and looked up to see who had entered.
"Desiree," she greeted the chocolatier with surprise. "What are you doing here?"
"I need help, and I'm hoping you can give it to me."
"If I can. What do you need?"
"Remember when I told you about my gift?" Desiree began.
"How could I forget? You came into the shop and went all Haley Joel Osment, I see dead people, on me," Abigail laughed. "Why?"
"Not long after that author's body was found in the dog park yesterday morning, she came into Sweet Indulgence."
"You mean Fran Donelson?"
"Fran Donelson's ghost, to be precise."
"That will make things a lot easier for our two stalwart detectives!"
"How so?"
"She can tell you who killed her. Then all Stan and Phil have to do is find evidence that will support a conviction."
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," Desiree admitted, frowning. "I see ghosts; I can't speak to them. Or, rather, they can't or won't speak to me."
"I see. But there are other ways to communicate with the dead. Why not hold a séance?"
"I tried it before, when I still lived in New Orleans. It doesn't work. When I first encountered Saoirse in my shop, I tried everything I could think of, even a Ouija board. Nothing worked. I can see her as plain as I see you, but she never speaks, and neither does Fran Donelson."
"If verbal communication is out, what about some other form? Knocking on a table, for instance."
Desiree shook her head.
"How about asking them to blink their eyes, one for yes and two for no?"
"Been there. Done that."
"I'm sorry, but I don't know what to tell you."
"Thanks anyway."
Disappointed, Desiree stood to leave. Hoping to cheer her up, Abigail proposed they go across the street to The Quill and Dagger for a hot drink at the bookstore's coffee bar.
"What about your shop?" the chocolatier asked.
"I'll close it temporarily. In this weather, I haven't had a customer all day, anyway."
Rebecca Coffin, whose store was also slow because of the snow, sat down in a booth with her two fellow shopkeepers.
"Cheese Danish?" she offered after pouring out three mocha lattes.
"Do I ever refuse?" Abigail laughed. After taking a bite, she asked, "Have you heard any news about the author that they found in the dog park?"
"Shawn was in here this morning."
"What did he have to say?"
"That Stan and Phil are baffled."
"So, they don't know who the killer is."
"Worse! They don't know who the victim is!" Rebecca exclaimed.
Desiree was stunned.
"You mean it wasn't Fran Donelson, the writer who was here for a book signing?"
"It was, and it wasn't."
"What does that mean?" Abigail cried.
"Anson Miner from Burgess Publishing, her editor, drove here from Boston to identify the body. He confirmed it was the writer. But when the detectives tried to contact her next of kin, they couldn't find any mention of Fran Donelson prior to twenty years ago. No birth certificate, school records, bank statements, motor vehicle records. Shawn claims it was as though she popped up out of thin air!"
"Perhaps Fran Donelson is a pen name," Desiree theorized. "What does her publisher say?"
"Not much. They're not in the habit of doing background searches on their authors."
"That must be so frustrating for the police," Abigail assumed.
"It certainly is. Apparently, the crime scene techniques found fingerprints, hair and fibers, but they can't match them to any on record. Their only hope of solving the case is to discover the motive for the murder and hope it leads to the killer. But since they don't know who she really is, they have no clue as to the motive."
Desiree returned to Sweet Indulgence to find Saoirse O'Meara gazing out the display window at the falling snow.
Although she did not expect an answer, she asked, "What happened to Fran? Is she still here?"
Saoirse turned in her direction, but didn't speak. Instead, her eyes went toward the counter. Standing behind the cash register was the ghost of the dead writer.
"Who are you?" the chocolatier asked, giving one more try at communicating with the dead author. "The detectives are trying to find the person who killed you, but they are stymied by the lack of records for you before 2005. I wish I could help you, but I don't know how. If only you could talk!"
Fran's piercing blue eyes, which death had not dimmed, told of her misery.
"I find it hard to believe someone from Puritan Falls killed you."
As Stan Yablonski, Phil Langston and Shawn McMurtry had done, Desiree tried to come up with possible theories for the author's murder.
"It must have been someone from out of town who came here for the book signing. You might have had an enemy. It could be someone you offended in one of your books. Or, like John Lennon, you could have been killed by someone you didn't even know. Celebrities attract stalkers and deranged fans. And then there's always the possibility of a jealous lover. Were you in a relationship?"
Desiree sighed. Questioning the ghost would get her nowhere.
The snow was coming down harder than before, and few cars drove along Essex Street. There were no lights on in Treasure Hunt Antiques, and both Abigail Cantwell and Rebecca Coffin had closed their shops early. The chocolatier decided to do the same. She locked the door, and went upstairs to her apartment. After popping a frozen pizza into the oven, she picked up a James Patterson mystery from the coffee table in her living room.
Cleopatra, her Siamese cat, pranced into the room and rubbed against her leg.
"I know. You want to eat. Come on, I'll feed you."
As she put her book on the kitchen table, it occurred to her that the answer to Fran Donelson's murder might be in one of her novels. It was a long shot, but she was willing to give it a try.
* * *
Patience Scudder, the librarian, had put aside copies of all of Fran Donelson's novels for Desiree. When the chocolatier walked into the library, ten minutes before closing time on Monday evening, she picked up the books and handed her a box of sea salt caramels from her shop.
"Thank you, but you don't have to do this," Patience pointed out.
"As I understand it, there's a limit to the number of books you can withdraw at one time. If so, I've exceeded it."
"Don't worry. I only enforce the rule with people who have a bad habit of returning books late."
While eating a packaged Caesar salad, Desiree opened the first of Donelson's novels, a murder mystery set in Savannah, Georgia. A fast reader, she finished the book before midnight. An avid reader, she often identified the killer in mysteries roughly halfway through the book—and sometimes sooner—but this one kept her guessing until the last chapter.
She then read the synopses on the back of the other novels before deciding which one to read next. The second one involved a murder investigation set in San Francisco, the third featured a serial killer in Las Vegas, the fourth was about a school shooting in Ohio and the fifth dealt with a cold case unit solving a twenty-five-year-old death. It was the sixth novel, Donelson's latest release, that intrigued her most.
It was past her usual bedtime, but she hoped to read at least the first chapter. She took She Walks in Beauty to bed with her, and with her cat curled up by her feet, she began to read. It was after two in the morning when she forced herself to turn off the light above her bed and go to sleep.
The following day, Tuesday, it was snowing again. Desiree woke at seven and took her book to the kitchen to read it over her morning cup of coffee. Because she had slept only five hours, she made herself a second cup. Before putting the book down and getting dressed for work, she had managed to read four more chapters.
It's nothing like her first book. This one is more like a romance. The narrator seems besotted with the woman he calls "she."
As yet, there was no physical relationship between the two, not so much as a chaste kiss. But the narrator praises everything about her: the way she walks, talks and dresses. He praises her hairstyles, her shoes, her makeup and her jewelry. It was like he was critiquing a work of art rather than describing a mere human.
Before going downstairs to open Sweet Indulgence, she put fresh food and water in Cleopatra's bowl.
"Here you go, girl. Bon appétit."
The shop had been open for more than an hour when her first customer walked through the door, wiping his books on the welcome mat and shaking the snow off his parka.
"Good morning, Shawn. This isn't the best weather to be out shopping."
"I know, but I've been so busy lately that I almost forgot to get something for Penny's birthday."
"You don't want to do that!" she laughed.
"Lucky for me, Doug had a nice pair of sapphire earrings that he let me have at a discount. So, since I was at Treasure Hunt Antiques anyway, I figured I'd walk over here and get her some candy, too."
"What a sweetheart you are! I hope your wife appreciates you."
As Desiree was wrapping the gift with Happy Birthday paper, Shawn noticed the book on the counter.
"You're reading that?" he asked, surprised.
"Yeah. Have you read it? You like mysteries."
"Not yet."
"It's a shame what happened to her," the chocolatier observed.
"I don't suppose you're aware of what the autopsy revealed," Shawn said, lowering his voice despite there being no one else in the candy store.
"No, I'm not. Why? What did you find out?"
"Fran Donelson was not born a woman. She had gender-affirmation surgery at some point. The coroner thinks at least a decade ago, probably longer."
* * *
When Desiree closed Sweet Indulgence early, it was not solely due to the inclement weather. Frankly, she was motivated more by her desire to go upstairs and finish She Walks in Beauty.
After a quick shower, she got into her warmest pajamas, fed Cleopatra, made herself a tuna sandwich and a bowl of tomato basil soup, and continued reading. It was almost nine when she read the last line: "It was at that moment she killed me."
Unlike Eleanor Deeds, whose comprehension had been clouded by emotions and memories, Desiree immediately understood the author's intended meaning.
"This book isn't a murder mystery; it's the story of the narrator's journey of self-discovery. In the end, he realizes he is a she."
From there, she connected the dots: She Walks in Beauty was Fran's story. The chocolatier turned back to the first chapter and reread the first line: "She came into my life while I was attending college."
College.
"Nine o'clock," she observed, glancing at her watch. "I hope Shawn is still up."
When McMurtry answered his phone, Desiree told him about her theory. While he was not fully convinced the novel held the answers the detectives sought, he knew their investigation was going nowhere at the moment.
"I'll run this by Stan and Phil. If nothing else, it might help them discover the victim's real identity."
* * *
"Eureka!" Phil exclaimed when he and Stan encountered Shawn McMurty at the Puritan Falls police station. "That tip your friend at the candy store gave us really paid off."
"How so?"
"We discovered a Frances Joseph Donelson graduated from Princeton in 2006," Stan explained. "Shortly after that, Frank (as he preferred to be called) seemed to have vanished. We couldn't find any records for him from that point on. Coincidentally, it was about that same time that Fran Donelson got a driver's license in Massachusetts and began appearing in public records."
"In other words, his paper trail ends at the same time hers begins," Shawn concluded.
"Precisely. The woman found dead in our dog park was born Frances Joseph Donelson. As his brief bio claimed, he was born in Boston, but he went to college in New Jersey."
"I think this calls for a celebration," Phil laughed. "What do you say we stop at Charlie's Bar at the end of Shawn's shift?"
"You might not want to pop the cork yet," his partner advised. "We know who the victim is, but we've yet to discover who killed her."
"What are you going to do now?" Shawn wondered.
"Princeton is going to send us a list of all people who attended the university during the four years Donelson was there. He might have made some close friends who can give us more insight into our victim's personal life," Stand said. "Hopefully, Fran knew her killer."
* * *
After three weeks of phone interviews—on the department's budget, it was impossible to have Stan and Phil travel around the country to speak with all the people on Princeton's list—it was brought to the detectives' attention that Frank dated a woman named Eleanor Deeds the entire time he attended Princeton.
"We're in luck, Phil," Stan said with a smile. "The woman lives in Boston."
"I'll get my coat and meet you in the car. Maybe we can stop for lunch on the way there. It's after eleven already."
An hour later, Darla informed her boss that two detectives from Puritan Falls wanted to talk to her. Eleanor fought her mounting panic and told her assistant to show them into her office.
"How can I help you?" the CEO inquired.
"We have a few questions for you about the death of Fran Donelson."
"The author? I don't know if I can help you. I didn't know her. I read one of her books, but I never met her."
Having interrogated guilty suspects before, Stan and Phil knew the woman was lying. When Stan asked if she would submit to a polygraph test, the distraught woman broke down in tears.
"I didn't mean to kill him!" she sobbed.
"You mean her, Fran Donelson, correct?" Phil asked, wanting to clarify her statement.
"No. I mean him, Frank. He made me so angry, I struck him with my flashlight."
"And in so doing, you bashed Fran's brains in," Stan uttered softly while Phil read Eleanor Deeds her rights.
* * *
Rebecca Coffin was hesitant to plan another book signing after what had happened to Fran Donelson. Abigail convinced her she was being foolish.
"What are the odds of having two such murders?" the owner of the Bell, Book and Candle laughed.
"What's so funny?" Shawn asked when he entered The Quill and Dagger with Desiree LeFleur.
"Nothing," Rebecca answered, not wanting to seem insensitive to the writer's death. "Are you here to look for a book, Shawn?"
"No. I want to buy Desiree a coffee and a pastry. If it weren't for her, I doubt Stan and Phil would have solved this case."
"I heard you connected Fran's latest book to her identity at birth," Abigail said.
"That's not all. She also suggested that Frank began his journey to becoming Fran during college. Once it was discovered that he attended Princeton, it was only a matter of questioning former students until we found someone who knew him. That led us to his killer."
"And she confessed," Rebecca noted.
"She did. And we've got physical evidence to back it up. Her fingerprints were on the murder weapon, and several of her hairs were found on the body."
Despite the praise that her friends heaped upon her, Desiree modestly insisted it was the detectives, not her, who solved the case. After she finished eating her chocolate croissant and drinking her cookie butter latte, she thanked Shawn and walked down the street to Sweet Indulgence. She unlocked the door and turned on the light.
Saoirse O'Meara left her post at the front window and disappeared into the storage room. The shopkeeper searched the candy store, but the author's ghost could not be found. In fact, there had been no sign of her for the past three days.
Now that her killer is behind bars, I guess we've seen the last of Fran Donelson.
Noticing several tourists coming up Essex Street toward her shop, Desiree turned her sign from CLOSED to OPEN and prepared for another day of selling chocolate.
Salem joined me at a book signing once. I would sign my name, and he would add his pawprint.
