The Ghost and the Dead Deb (5 page)

I was concerned enough to comply, but was interrupted by the amplified screech of our public address system. Angel Stark was trying to speak, but her words were lost in electronic distortion. I turned from the dagger-staring blonde and rushed toward the microphone box to fix the problem.

Bud Napp’s nephew, Johnny, who’d just joined a local band and understood the vagaries of feedback, moved to my side after a few seconds of my own inept adjustments and helped me fix the mike to eliminate the screech. When the sound was stabilized, Angel smiled at Johnny’s big brown eyes and dimpled chin, then nodded. Finally, she faced the crowd.

“Well, the critics have spoken, and I can only say that a certain inscrutable reviewer at the
New York Times
was far less kind. My conclusion therefore is simply this—that chick needs to have her meds adjusted!”

There was a burst of laughter, and a ripple of applause. Still, an undertone of nervous tension remained in the room. Angel simply tossed her long copper hair.

“Any more questions?” she asked breezily.

A dozen hands shot into the air. Angel pointed to someone who proceeded to compare Angel’s previous book to the work of the number-one purveyor of gonzo journalism, the late Mr. Hunter S. Thompson himself.

“Well, unlike Mr. Thompson, I don’t travel armed.”

More laughter followed, and as the debate continued, Angel seemed to enjoy the comparison.

Satisfied that order had been restored, I moved toward the exit again. On the way, I searched for the statuesque young blonde with the pointy chin and ice chip eyes who’d glared at me from the side of the room. But like the mysterious heckler and her companions, the stranger was gone.

In the main store, I could sense the “emotional fallout” from the coed’s outburst had reached the checkout area. Aunt Sadie had witnessed the trio’s exit, but she didn’t appear bothered. She smiled and chatted up the customers as if nothing were amiss. By her side, however, Mina seemed tense as she rang up purchases and bagged them.

Outside, the streets were dark, but the summer heat had not dissipated. Seymour came through the front door and approached me.

“They’re gone,” he said quietly. “All three of them piled into a black sedan and drove away. That girl seemed pretty upset with your author.”

“Did you speak with her? Find out who she was? Why she was here?”

Seymour threw up his hands. “Hey, you’re talking to a confirmed bachelor. I wasn’t going near her. Women’s tears scare the heck out of me.” A sudden burst of applause from the events room interrupted him. When the cheers died away, Seymour shrugged and added. “Anyway, I’ve got to admit, this was the most exciting author appearance since Timothy Brennan croaked at your podium last year.”

I’m a lousy writer; a helluva lot of people have got lousy taste.

—Grace Metalious (author of
Peyton Place
, the blockbuster best-seller that spawned television’s first prime-time soap)

 

 

 

AFTER ANOTHER HALF-HOUR of questions and answers, Dana led Angel Stark to a chair and a table stacked with copies of
All My Pretty Friends
. Her fans lined up to have their purchases autographed. To my surprise, Brainert had taken up a position near the end of the autograph line, one copy of Angel’s hardcover tucked under his arm and another wide open in his hands.

“I thought you weren’t impressed,” I said.

Brainert looked up from thumbing through the book’s pages. “Fiona had to get back to the Inn. Apparently your guest is lodging there. Anyway, she asked me to get her copy autographed.”

“That explains one copy. Who’s the other copy for?” Brainert raised his eyebrow. “Guilty,” he replied. “Actually I thought tonight’s intermission was more exciting than the main event. Exciting enough to get me curious, so I started breezing through it.”

“Speaking of curious, did you notice a tall, blonde Paris Hilton clone standing along the side of the room. I think she’s gone now, but—”

Brainert nodded and began flipping pages. “Right here,” he said, holding the book open. My eyes skimmed down the page, past two small before-and-after photos of Bethany Banks—in one, she was smiling and alive at the New Year’s Ball, waving her gloved hand. In the other, she was lying on a dingy floor, a belt around her neck, her arms at her sides, fingers bent in rigor mortis. I shuddered and my eyes continued down the page. The photo at the bottom depicted the woman in the audience.

“Katherine Langdon,” said Brainert. “Kiki to her friends . . . One of the principals involved in the Bethany Banks murder.”

“I wonder what she was doing here?”

I also wondered why she was staring at me, though I didn’t mention that to Brainert.

“That got me wondering, too,” Brainert replied. “From some of the passages I’ve read, I doubt that Kiki Langdon and Angel Stark are on speaking terms, let alone friends.”

“Maybe she came here to confront Angel also, and that other girl beat her to it. Any clue as to the distraught coed’s identity?”

Brainert shook his head and snapped the volume closed. “Not yet. But I haven’t really read the book, just began to skim it.”

I noticed that Sadie was alone at the counter and I excused myself to help her check people out.

“Where’s Mina?” I asked.

Sadie peered over her glasses at me, then jerked her head toward the couches and stuffed chairs I’d placed at the other end of the store. Mina was there, next to Johnny Napp. They were holding hands and speaking in whispers, their heads nearly touching.

“Ahhh, that’s sweet.” Aunt Sadie sighed as she slipped a copy of Angel’s book into a plastic Buy the Book sack and passed it to the customer. “You remember what it was like to be young and in love, don’t you, Pen?”

“No,” I replied, ringing up the next purchase.

 

 

ANGEL HAD FINISHED signing books and was chatting with a few holdovers—specifically a pair of enthusiastic female fans who couldn’t tear themselves away from their favorite author. It was nine—our usual Friday night closing time.

Aunt Sadie and Mina were still ringing up customers, and I stood in the corner wringing my hands. With a theatrical sigh, Dana Wu sidled up to me.

“Rough night?” she asked.

“At least nobody was murdered,” I blurted out, remembering our store’s first ever author appearance, the one Seymour had mentioned, which the author hadn’t survived.

Dana stared at me blankly for a moment—clearly it wasn’t a response she’d expected.

“Oh my goodness,” I told her instantly. “Please forget I said that.”

“Why?” she said. “It’s pretty much how I feel about most of my author tours.”

Now it was my turn to stare—until we both burst out laughing.

I’d liked Dana from the moment I’d met her. Now that I’d seen her in action, I was also impressed. I invited her to sit down in one of the comfortable corners set up in the main bookstore.

“Wow, you’ve really transformed this place,” said Dana, pausing to study a framed picture of the old store hanging near the register.

“Thanks,” I said, trying not to beam too much.

I truly was proud of saving this old store, which my aunt had run for decades and was about to close when I’d swept in the year before. Using the money from my late husband’s life insurance policy, I’d revitalized the inventory, done away with the ancient fluorescent ceiling fixtures and old metal shelves, and brought in an eclectic array of antique floor and table lamps and oak bookcases. I’d had the chestnut-stained wood plank floor restored, and throughout the stacks I’d scattered overstuffed armchairs and Shaker-style rockers to give customers the feeling of browsing through a New Englander’s private library.

“Can I get you something? Coffee, tea—bottled water?” I shuddered ever so slightly at the mention of the bottled water, considering its role in Timothy Brennan’s death the year before.

“No thanks . . .” said Dana, scanning the nearly empty Angel Stark display and table. “It looks like you sold most of your books.”

“We did. We’d ordered a lot of copies, but I was afraid we’d run out before the end of the night.”

“Don’t worry about that when I’m around. I have fifty copies in the trunk of my car, just in case.”

“God, you are amazing,” I gushed, remembering some of the high-handed publicists I’d had to deal with when I was a publishing professional. In my experience, most were primarily good for forgetting to wear bras when chaperoning male authors to television appearances, cutting cakes for executive birthday parties, and planning their weddings on company time, before giving notice that they were quitting to marry that investment banker who made high six figures. “How did you ever get hooked up with a character like Angel Stark?”

Good God, I’d just insulted her author, I thought, the second I’d said it. Now I was two for two. “No offense . . .” I quickly added, deciding maybe I was too hard on those braless publicists. From the way I was sticking my foot in my mouth, I could probably use one.

“No worries,” Dana said with a wave. “Actually, I’m a freelance publicist these days, and Angel only belongs to me until her book tour ends next month.”

“You don’t work for Angel, or the publisher?”

“I’m the go-to girl when the hard cases come along.”

I must have looked confused, because Dana kept on explaining things.

“When a publisher has a problem client—like a certain beloved children’s writer who had to be reminded to bathe and be
nice
to the little children, or the world-famous literary author with the obnoxious trophy wife—I get the job. But I have to admit, Angel is a special client to me.”

“You
are
brave.”

“It’s nostalgia, mostly,” said Dana. “I was a publicist at Saul and Bass when Angel published her first book. I had just been promoted from ad assist to junior publicist, and my first assignment was Angel. I wouldn’t have gotten the job except that nobody thought her book had a chance, and absolutely nobody thought it would end up on the bestseller list for nineteen months.”

Dana sighed. “Angel was a pill—and if you read
Comfortably Numb
, you know she
took
a lot of them, too. I’m pretty sure she’s cleaned up her act since then, though—at least on that score—but Angel is still careless. . . .”

“Careless? What do you mean?”

Dana shrugged. “Angel is careless in the way a lot of wealthy people are careless. The way John F. Kennedy, Jr. was careless when he got into that airplane. Their money cushions them from the true impact of things, and sometimes their judgment is off where real consequences are concerned.”

“I follow. You mean, careless like Jay Gatsby’s Daisy. Yes, I’ve actually had some experience with people like that myself.”

“Well, sometimes it’s more than just careless. Sometimes, I think Angel’s simply mean.”

I knew something about that, too, but I didn’t say it. Of course, in my head, Jack said it for me—

You’re thinking about that rummy late husband of yours. The overeducated, over-pampered, trust-funded depressive who found fatherhood and husbandhood a bore, verbally abused you, stopped taking his medications, and threw himself on the mercy of the Upper East Side concrete
—
from thirty stories above it.

“Right,” I silently replied. “Now be quiet, Jack. Please.”

Dana rubbed her eyes. “I shouldn’t say that . . . She’s never been mean to me. Or cruel to her readers . . .”

I saw my opening, and took it.

“That scene tonight . . . Does that kind of thing happen often?”

Dana laughed. “Last week, actually. A pill-pushing New York doctor she practically named in her book is facing charges now—he confronted Angel at a bookstore on Fifth Avenue. Turned out to be a lot of yelling and screaming, that’s all.”

Then Dana grinned as her professional instincts took over. “It wasn’t a total downer. Got a nice mention in the
New York Post
.”

On the other side of the room, Angel finally stood up and shook hands with her two remaining fans—Goth girls in black lace skirts, black midriff T-shirts, and matching navel rings. When they exited, she stretched and yawned and headed for the front door.

“Girlfriend,” Dana called to Angel, “can I get you anything?”

Angel shook her head. “I signed all the books in the store. I’m just going outside for a smoke and some fresh air.”

“Don’t get lost,” Dana said, rising. I stood up, too.

“God,” Dana whispered. “In the old days, when Angel said the word
smoke
, I had to check to see if there were any policemen around—there were states in this country I couldn’t take her back to when she was using. Felony states like Texas. Now you know what I mean when I say careless. Fortunately she can afford people like me to take care of things when they get out of control.”

“So . . . any clue who that girl was who confronted Angel tonight?” I asked quickly, before Dana got away.

“I think it was someone from Bethany Banks’s family. So far, the Bankses have been pretty quiet—but just between you and me, the publisher fully expected to fight a lawsuit. And the press has been stirring the pot, trying to start a feud between Angel and the Banks family. In the end, though, all publicity is good publicity because it’s good for the bottom line . . .”

I was about to ask Dana another question, but I never got the chance. From outside, we heard angry words, a loud scream, then the squeal of tires on pavement.

“Gee-zus. Not again,” Dana Wu cried as she raced to the door.

I shall tell you a great secret, my friend. Do not wait for the last judgment. It takes place every day.

—Albert Camus