Swan Song by Judith K Ivie Read Free Book Online Page B

kids crammed into her little house, eager to learn how to make bat houses, bake pumpkin cookies or whatever else Granny May might have in store.
    This particular evening the six of us distributed ourselves around May’s living room to enjoy pizza in front of her gas fireplace before settling down to the task at hand. Although we all had copies of Lizabeth Mulgrew’s letter, May read it aloud to refocus our attention:
     
    Friday, February 19 th (very, very early)
     
    Maybelle –
     
    What a hag you and your companions must think me, and how right on the money you are. I was feeling distinctly hag-like yesterday evening, but I should not have taken it out on you. In my defense I can only say I’d had a bit of a bad day, primarily involving unpleasant test results from the doctors who are determined to delay the inevitable (and prolong my misery) by carving me up and subjecting me to various other indignities over the next year. I said, “No, thank you” as prettily as I could, but still they pouted, which put me into my cups rather earlier than usual. Do please forgive me.
    Having recovered my wits and my customary good humor (Ahem!), aided by a great deal of water and several hours’ sleep, I am spending the wee hours rethinking my plan to shock the Mysteries USA members with the truth about the writing and publishing biz. On second thought, why should I bother? They will learn it for themselves soon enough. At this stage of their naively optimistic quest, they wouldn’t believe me anyway, clinging all the more tightly to their misguided hopes. So I shall leave them to it and invent a family emergency to cover my hasty dawn departure.
    I candidly advise you to do something similar to avoid the awards dinner Saturday evening. You’re not going to win. I have it on the best authority that Jessica Price will take top honors this year, thanks largely to my superb editing of her latest cozy manuscript, not that she would ever acknowledge my contribution. Without my hard work—unremunerated, of course—she wouldn’t even be in the running. Her ego would never allow for that possibility, but then, I don’t have to tell a publisher colleague about that, do I? Wait until next year, when I’m not around to clean up her sloppy prose, and see how she fares. At any rate, her title is the political favorite this time around, and the totally unbiased judges have gone along, so my advice is to come down with a convenient case of the flu and spare yourself the charade.
    You’ll be delighted to know I’m about to get to the point of this rambling diatribe, which has a lot to do with how I wish to be remembered by one of my favorite people. No, I am not going to leave you my publishing company. I wouldn’t burden you with it, as it’s on its last leg. Nor will I saddle you with the three dozen authors currently under contract who will throw hissy fits of impressive proportions when they get the news. I shall simply set my little flock free to make their own way in the world—all, that is, except my single greatest asset, the final manuscript of W.Z.B. Trague.
    As you (and everyone else) know, W.Z.B.’s thrillers have been published by Random House, but a few years ago I was lucky enough to land the ebook rights to his backlist, which is substantial and has been lucrative enough to keep my little business afloat. Over time W.Z.B. and I formed a unique bond. To cut to the chase, growing disenchantment with agents and major publishers resulted in W.Z.B. specifying in his will that I would receive the publication rights to his final manuscript, not his agent and not Random House. When he passed on just before Christmas, I received a special delivery package containing a flash drive on which is the manuscript of the mystery world’s next best seller: Swan Song by W.Z.B. Trague. You could have knocked me over with a feather. Ingenious of him, eh? Such a tiny device, so easy to hide, and that’s precisely what I did before I left