The Sequel Page 3

  The story defined twentieth-century America. The novel itself defined fiction.

  Somewhere during the account of the Andersons’ move to Chicago, Lowell’s head dipped and he dozed off. An hour later, he started awake, his mind dotted with fragments of a vague dream.

  As he rose to go to bed, the copy of the novel flipped open to the dedication page.

  To the memory of the man who is Zeus in the Olympus of literature, Thomas Wolfe.

  Lowell sat down again and reflected: If Wolfe, the brilliant author of Look Homeward, Angel, was Goodwin’s Zeus, then you could say his home, in Asheville, NC, was a house of god.

  And few areas of the country are as idyllic as that small town in the southwestern portion of the state.

  Is that where Goodwin had gone to get away from Pittsburgh and the grim atmosphere of death row?

  Lowell walked to his desk, no longer the least groggy, and typed into Google: “Asheville, North Carolina,” “Hudson House,” “1967.”

  Within seconds he had his answer: an article from a local newspaper back then.

  The Hudson House Inn just outside of Asheville is a popular resort for people wishing to get away from the bustle of city life. The lovely rooms are appointed with local antiques and many a guest has come away from supper (which can be purchased a la carte or included in the price of a room), convinced he has had one of the South’s finest meals.

  Among the guests at Hudson House have been politicians, artists and—not the least—famed writers.

  Frederick Lowell found comfort in train travel. He’d looked into an Amtrak journey to Asheville but learned that while the price was right, the duration was not—fourteen hours to get to Spartanburg, which was still an hour away from Asheville by car.

  What would Sam Spade do?

  A private eye owes allegiance to his assignment, not his personal preference. So Lowell booked a flight and by noon was in the Asheville Public Library, where he spent the better part of the day browsing old newspapers for references to Goodwin—merely a few “spotted on the street” sorts of comments, but at least they confirmed that the author had traveled here.

  There were also plenty of tidbits on the Hudson House.

  From there he walked up the street to the courthouse and its public records department. He pieced together that the Hudson House Inn had ceased operation during the nineties. A local businessman had bought the dilapidated place, and filed papers to turn it into a museum, though the process, which involved a great deal of fundraising, was moving slowly.

  He called the man, Harold Wilkins, who immediately agreed to meet him. Wilkins was excited at the possibility that the inn might have been the site where the sequel to Cedar Hills Road had been written. This would add to the place’s museumability. Wilkins said that, yes, he’d carefully preserved all of the records of the ninety-year history of the place, though they weren’t stored in the unoccupied Hudson House itself; for protection from the humidity of the brutal North Carolina summers, and the risk of fire, they were in Wilkins’s air-conditioned garage.

  Twenty minutes later, the lawyer was at the modest brown clapboard house where the Birkenstock-wearing fortyish Wilkins and his wife lived.

  Unlike the Siblings, the enthusiastic Wilkins was a proper host, plying Lowell with tea so sweet it took his breath away. Lowell hadn’t known so much sugar could fit into a single glass. They stood in the kitchen, chatting about the museum. Wilkins didn’t much pause to allow the lawyer to speak, going on in his sorghum-thick accent about his plans. “We’ll have a lot more, of course, than the Thomas Wolfe house does, with all respect. We’re including the fire of 1937, the Biltmore, local wine, tobacco, and, of course, the battle of Asheville. April, 1865. Three hundred confederate troops repulsed Union General Isaac Kirby’s one thousand regulars. It was a glorious day.” Then, as if he suddenly realized Lowell was a Yank, he added, “There were only minor casualties.”

  Finally he led Lowell to the garage. The man had done a good job organizing and preserving artifacts. Boxes were labeled and stacked by year. Guest Registers. Correspondence. Business Records. Receipts. Tax Returns. Mementos.

  Lowell asked the obvious first question: Had anyone found a manuscript that a guest might have left behind years ago?

  “No, no.” A grimace. “I would have remembered that. Great exhibit in the museum. Just think about it. But feel free to browse.” Wilkins nodded toward the hundred or so boxes, and then retired to the corner where he began to lovingly polish a pair of antique candlesticks.

  Lowell started on the boxes for 1966 and 1967. He flipped open the lid and began rifling carefully through the papers.

  He learned that Edward Goodwin had indeed been a frequent guest there throughout the entire time that the sequel would have been written. He’d taken the same room, 2B, and paid in advance for several weeks at a time.

  Yet nothing suggested the existence of any manuscript he was working on or gave the names of people or places that might have helped in Lowell’s search. An hour later, his back aching, he was about to take a break when he glanced down at a carbon copy of a letter dated in the fall of ‘67.

  The letter from the then owner of the inn was addressed to Lowell’s own father.

  September 28, 1967

  Robert Lowell, Esq.

  751 Seventh Avenue

  New York, NY

  Dear Mr. Lowell,

  I was given your name as the attorney representing the estate of the late Mr. Edward Goodwin by his publishing company. First, let me offer my condolences upon the loss of Mr. Goodwin. He was a regular and revered guest here and we all feel his loss most deeply. May I say too that Cedar Hills Road was one of my favorite books and I am honored to have a copy he—most graciously—inscribed to me and my family.

  Now for the reason I’m writing: just after Mr. Goodwin passed, a large box arrived here, addressed to him. The return address was Statesville, Penn. As it was marked personal, we didn’t feel it proper to open the carton. I am forwarding it herewith, in hopes you will make certain his family receives it.

  Very truly yours,

  Hanley K.C. Beaumont, Proprietor,

  The Hudson House Inn

  Asheville, NC

  The address was the same building on Seventh Avenue where Lowell’s present office was located. He read the letter again. Why does Statesville sound familiar? He thought for a moment; it seemed to have to do with the Jon Coe story. He pulled out his phone and placed a call to Samuel Coe, the prisoner’s brother. He explained what he’d found and asked about the name Statesville. Coe confirmed that it was both the name of the prison and the small suburb of Pittsburgh where the place was located. Perhaps it was where Goodwin had stayed during the months of interviewing Jon. Lowell thanked him and disconnected.

  Keep going, Lowell prodded himself. What could be in the box? Notes from Jon Everett Coe for Goodwin’s true-crime story? Materials Goodwin had shipped to himself from Statesville? Or had the prison officials themselves sent something the author had left behind?

  He called his assistant. After Frederick had explained what he’d found, Caitlin said, “I’ll take a look at Mr. Lowell’s archives.” Frederick was “Frederick,” to Caitlin. Robert was and would forever be “Mr. Lowell.”

  Lowell waited for no more than three minutes when she came back on the line. “I think I’ve found something.”

  “Go ahead.” Taking more deep breaths.

  “In the fall of ’67 there are a half-dozen letters from your father to Stoddard Goodwin, reminding him he’d received a box of personal material from North Carolina and he wanted to forward it to him. He never responded and Mr. Lowell apparently gave up.”

  Just like the son didn’t care about any of his father’s other personal effects.

  Bad memories…

  Lowell said quickly, “Which means the box might be in the file room downstairs.”

  A pause. “You want me to go check?”

  “Would you mind?”


  “The basement,” she said.

  “Would you mind?” he repeated.

  The cellar was filthy, filled with dirt and dust far worse than the worst grit you’d find in the office proper.

  “I’ll put on my miner’s hat.”

  “You’re wonderful, my dear.”

  They disconnected.

  “A lead?” Wilkins asked.

  “Possibly.”

  Lowell spent the next hour continuing his search but found nothing else.

  He thanked Wilkins, donated one hundred dollars to the museum fund, and drove to the hotel where Caitlin had booked a room for him, wondering where he might get a good Southern meal for dinner—with bourbon and without sweet tea.

  As he proffered his credit card, the young clerk glanced at her records and told him he’d just received a fax. He took the envelope—the sender’s number was his own office—and ripped it open. The top sheet reported, in Caitlin’s handwriting:

  Frederick,

  Found the BOX. Pages and pages of notes about some crime, murder trial, witnesses, death penalty, etc. Oh, and at the bottom was something you might be interested in. A manuscript. 540 pages. I’m including the first page.

  —Caitlin

  p.s. I will NEVER get the dirt out from under my nails without an expensive manicure.

  Lowell read what followed:

  8/2/67

  Anderson’s Hope

  By Edward Goodwin

  Chapter One

  Jesse Anderson turned 18 in May, the age of majority, the age when he was free to make his own decisions, the age when he would soon learn how his anger, not his heart, would become his principal guide.

  The Anderson family had by then relocated moved from West Fullerton Street in the mad, teeming metropolis maelstrom of Chicago, to a burgh carved out of the plains forty miles north, not even in existence until five years before. And, though GEOGRAPHICALLY short, what a journey it was from Carl Sandburg’s city to the strange enclave of Miller’s Falls. Forty miles of new concrete highway, of new commuter train lines, of vistas of flat plains, land that had once sustained farms and was now in transition changing for the worse, betrayed by the government, by the market and the financiers. By greed. EXHAUSTED by greed. This was

  This move alone might seem to be the reason to engender fury within the soul of the youngest Anderson son (though it would soon be

  (page 1)

  The sequel had been sitting eighty or so feet directly beneath Lowell’s desk for half a century.

  “Sir? Are you all right?” The young clerk asked, staring at him.

  The lawyer looked at her blankly. Then nodded.

  He called Preston Malone, got his fax number, and told him to check out what he was about to receive. Lowell then arranged for the transmission and called back a few minutes later. The biographer—breathless and with quivering voice—said, “I’m sure it’s authentic.” He explained that he had one of the original typescripts of Cedar Hills and he confirmed that the typewriter typeface was similar to that of the first manuscript. The writing style was too, reflected in the strikeouts and the all-caps, which meant, Malone speculated, that Goodwin was wondering if it was the best, the most precise, the most lyrical choice of word or expression.

  After disconnecting, he walked in a daze to his room, actually feeling feverish with excitement. His face burned, his ears rang. He called Caitlin and told her what Malone had said.

  “Frederick, we found it!”

  “We did indeed.” He added that he’d be back first thing tomorrow. Then said solemnly, “Whatever else you do, make a copy.”

  “You bet, Frederick. I’ll do it now.”

  “Oh, and you know that manicure you mentioned? Add on a pedicure too.”

  “Yay!”

  An hour later he texted the Siblings, telling them that he’d found a copy of the sequel and would be reading it tomorrow. He chose not to call because he didn’t want to be drawn into a long discussion with Stoddard about how much money the book would generate.

  That night Lowell lay awake until five a.m., lost in a thousand thoughts, very few of which had to do with the business aspects of the find, the money, rights, licensing. Mostly he was wondering: What would become of Jesse Anderson, the whole world’s marvelous Everyboy in Cedar Hills Road.

  A few hours later, he was on the first flight to Charlotte, where he connected to LaGuardia.

  He was so eager to get back to the office he didn’t want to wait in line for a cab so he’d arranged for a car service to pick him up, an expense he otherwise wouldn’t have considered. The limo cooperated but the traffic did not. He sat in the back of the Lincoln, hugely impatient as the crush of rush-hour vehicles wormed its way toward Manhattan.

  Two blocks from Seventh Avenue, the limo at a standstill, he climbed out, handed the driver an extra tip, and trotted the rest of the way to the office.

  An elevator, naturally, was out of order and there was a queue for the remaining one. Lowell debated the stairs but the office was on the seventh floor and he was not in great shape. He knew the Stieg Larsson story. He waited in line.

  Finally he strode into the familiar, dim hallway and to his office, swinging the door open and smiling like a gold-medal Olympian.

  Caitlin looked up from her desk. And burst into tears.

  “It’s been stolen, Frederick. The copy too. They’re both gone.”

  Numb, but struggling to remain analytical, Frederick Lowell was playing detective once again.

  WWSSD?

  The door had been forced open sometime last night or early this morning with a crowbar or other tool. Nothing but the box with the manuscript and the copy from Caitlin’s desk drawer had been taken. The thief wanted only Anderson’s Hope. File cabinets and drawers had clearly been examined, though, probably to make sure there were no other copies.

  But who was the thief?

  Word that he’d been on the trail of the sequel to Cedar Hills might have spread but he couldn’t imagine a publisher stealing the manuscript. Any editor attempting to bring the novel out himself would get hit by a copyright claim—not to mention risk arrest for breaking and entering.

  It had to be for some other reason.

  But what?

  Absently stirring a dusting of grit on the windowsill, Lowell stared down at all that existed of Anderson’s Hope, the title and first few paragraphs of the novel.

  Was it possible that someone did not want the manuscript published?

  But this made no sense. It was in everyone’s interest to see the sequel in print. Everybody would make money, the name of Edward Goodwin would be perpetuated, the fans would be ecstatic.

  Lowell’s eyes locked on the fax of the sequel’s title page.

  And then he started, as if he’d been slapped.

  No!

  Impossible.

  In the upper left-hand corner was the date 8/2/67.

  August second.

  Two months after Edward Goodwin died.

  And suddenly a terrible scenario loomed: That someone else had written the sequel.

  Which raised the even more earth-shattering question: Was it possible that Goodwin had not authored Cedar Hills Road itself?

  Lowell felt within him dread, almost a physical illness, as a chilling question arose: Was the real author of the classic novel Jon Everett Coe, the man who had murdered and dismembered his mother?

  As horrifying a thought as this was, it made sense. The box containing the manuscript was shipped from Statesville, where the prison was located. Goodwin had never written a word of fiction until he’d met the prisoner. Cedar Hills—and the sequel—were written during the months when Goodwin was visiting Coe on a regular basis. And he hadn’t returned to his home in Chicago to write the book; he’d worked in Asheville, North Carolina, largely alone, away from anyone who might have noticed that he was perhaps not actually writing the book at all, but polishing words written by somebody else.

  As for Jon Coe, he’d been a savant, Lo
well recalled, who in his lucid moments wrote his own appeals and critically acclaimed poetry. And Goodwin had lent the man his typewriter—purportedly to write legal documents, but possibly also to help him pen the novels. Malone reported that the typewriter and the style of writing were consistent from one book to the next, yet Goodwin had never written any other fiction, so there was no other typescript for comparison. Goodwin also struggled with writer’s block. The sequel was delayed, he reported on a number of occasions, because Goodwin was waiting for his muse to speak to him. Well, apparently he did have a muse. One who just happened to be a murderer.

  But why would Coe write the novels? Was it his way of giving back to the man who regularly came to prison to see him, who spent hours and hours speaking with the killer, listening to him, treating him like a human being, despite the terrible crime he’d committed?

  Lowell sat back, eyes closed, still struggling to come to terms with his realization. My God. The author of one of the most beloved books in the history of the novel might in fact have been a psychotic killer.

  As for who’d perpetrated the theft, Lowell believed he had the answer to that too.

  The Siblings.

  Stoddard, most likely. Lowell had texted him last night about the find. If the sequel were published, revitalizing Goodwin’s career and a critical examination of the two books, it might come to light who the true author was and the publishing contracts would be cancelled. They’d receive no more royalties.

  Publishers might even sue them for refunds if it could be proven they knew that Goodwin wasn’t the author. And it wasn’t unlikely that Dr. Samuel Coe, as Jon’s heir, might sue for all the royalties the book had earned over the years. At the very least he might demand a huge settlement.

  Lowell hurried from the office.