The Architecture of Snow Page 5

  “Death?” I could barely say the word.

  “The county fire department found his body in the embers.”

  My legs were so unsteady that I feared I’d collapse. I reached for something to support me. Becky’s shoulder. She held me up.

  “The police caught the two guys who did it,” the constable said.

  I wanted to get my hands on them and-

  “Bob came to see me after you drove back to New York,” Becky said. “As you know, he needed an attorney.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Becky looked puzzled. “You aren’t aware he changed his will?”

  “His will?”

  “He said you were the kind of man he hoped that his sons would have grown up to be. He made you his heir, his literary executor, everything. This place is yours now.”

  Tears rolled down my cheeks. They rolled even harder an hour later when the firemen let Becky and me onto the property and showed us where they’d found Wentworth’s body in the charred kitchen. The corpse was gone now, but the outline in the ashes was vivid. I stared at the blackened timbers of the gazebo. I walked toward Wentworth’s gutted writing studio. A fireman stopped me from getting too close. But even from twenty feet away, I saw the clump of twisted metal that was once a typewriter. And the piles of ashes that had once been twenty-one manuscripts.

  Now you know the background. I spend a lot of time trying to rebuild the compound, although I doubt I’ll ever regain its magic. Becky often comes to help me. I couldn’t do it without her.

  But The Architecture of Snow is what I mostly think about. I told March and Sons to go to hell, with a special invitation to my assistant, my boss, and the head of marketing. I arranged for the novel to be privately printed under the name Peter Thomas. A Tipton artist designed a cover that shows the hint of a farmhouse within gusting snow, almost as if the snow is constructing the house. There’s no author’s biography. Exactly as Wentworth intended.

  I keep boxes of the novel in my car. I drive from book store to book store throughout New England, but only a few will take the chance on an unknown author. I tell them it’s an absolutely wonderful book, and they look blank as if “wonderful” isn’t what customers want these days. Is there a serial killer or a global conspiracy?

  Wade has dozens of copies in his store. His front window’s filled with it. He tries to convince visitors to buy it, but his tourist customers want books that have photographs of ski slopes and covered bridges. He hasn’t sold even one. The townspeople? The waitress at Meg’s Pantry spoke the truth. She isn’t much of a reader. Nor is anybody else. I’ve tried until I don’t know what else to do. I’m so desperate I finally betrayed Wentworth’s trust and told you who wrote it. Take my word-it’s wonderful. Buy it, will you? Please. Buy this book.

  FB2 document info

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  Morrell, David

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