The Ghost and the Femme Fatale (11 page)

Better to be a live coward than a dead hero.

—Key Largo,
1948

FIONA PUSHED THROUGH
the front door of the light house and we followed, entering a bright, tastefully appointed two-bedroom bungalow. The cozy living room had a working fireplace, the walls were lined with aged oak paneling, and a massive plateglass window overlooked the Atlantic shoreline.

A stiff breeze from an open side window brought in the tangy smell of ocean air, and I could hear waves splashing against the rocks below. It seemed the perfect hideaway for well- heeled vacationers who enjoyed privacy along with sweeping, dramatic views.

Just off the living room, near the door to one of the bedrooms, I noticed a circular wrought- iron staircase. “Does that go up to the light house beacon?” I asked.

“It’s a sunroom now,” Fiona explained. “Before you go, you simply must see the view. We even placed an antique brass telescope up there.”

Who needs a telescope in this joint?
Jack quipped in my head.
Nothing to spy on but seawater.

“I’m sure guests would enjoy looking at passing ships and seabirds.” I told him.

Seabirds?
Jack grunted.
The only animal I ever cared about watching through a telescopic lens had four legs
,
a jockey, and ran around a racetrack.

I turned to Fiona. “I’ll check out the scenery before we leave, but first I want to see what was disturbed by the burglar.”

Our first stop was the bedroom Dr. Lilly had been using. The room was lovely, with a Victorian flower pattern, and a large antique bed with a lace canopy, also Victorian. Pretty much everything was Victorian, including a large standing mirror set in an ornate frame. On the bed, the sheets were rumpled. Dr. Lilly’s robe hung on a wall rack beside a nightgown.

Adjacent to the bedroom was the bath; its tiled floor was littered with damp towels. On the basin I found a hairbrush, hair products, makeup, and a toothbrush.

I noticed a small jewelry box had been dumped on top of the dresser. A few necklaces made of hemp, beads, and other natural materials were scattered about, but little else. If there’d been any jewelry containing gemstone, gold, or silver, it had been taken.

While Fiona moved on to the next room, Seymour lingered to examine a framed painting of a sea battle. I was about to follow Fiona when I spied a piece of white paper on the nightstand. The corner of the paper had been deliberately tucked under the heavy Tiffany lamp, probably to prevent it from being sent flying by the brisk ocean breeze pouring through the open window. I tilted the lamp, pulled the paper free, and unfolded it.

“What did you find there?” Seymour asked.

“An invoice of some kind,” I replied. “Looks like a printout of a PDF file, the kind a company would attach to an e-mail.”

I saw the letterhead—San Fernando University Press—and realized that this was a confirmation for a shipment of Dr. Lilly’s new book, the ones that were delivered to Buy the Book earlier today. I noticed a box marked special instructions, and a block of text under it.

“Wait a minute!” I cried. “There are specific instructions here from Dr. Lilly to the publisher demanding that the shipment arrive on Friday morning—
this
morning, and
not
before.”

“Yeah, so?” Seymour said with a shrug.

“Don’t you remember what Dr. Lilly announced to the Movie Town theater audience last night? She claimed that the ‘late’ arrival of her new book was caused by an ‘error at the post office’?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right!” said Seymour. “Lilly even apologized to the crowd for the mistake.” He shook his head. “Blame the mailman! That’s
sooo
typical.”

“This must mean something,” I murmured.

“But what?” asked Seymour.

“Seems obvious to me,” said Fiona, overhearing us. “Dr. Lilly didn’t want anyone reading her book until today.”

“Yeah, but why?” asked Seymour. “What’s the big deal?”

“I’ve read a lot of true crime and stories of investigative journalism in my time,” Fiona said. “Believe me, there are plenty of books out there that can set off explosions.”

I frowned at Fiona’s choice of words, but in my head Jack became excited.

Your Bird Lady’s onto something, baby. When you get back to your shop, you better break open those boxes of Lilly’s books in your store room, and take a good, hard look at what the dead woman wrote in those pages.

“Perhaps the book Dr. Lilly just published is going to expose something or break some sort of news,” Fiona went on. “In that case, she might have wanted to control where and when it was released. What’s the book’s title, Penelope?”

“
Murdered in Plain Sight
.”

“My goodness,” Fiona said, “that does sound incendiary! Do you know anything about its subject?”

“I assumed it was going to be another film noir study. That’s what she’s known for . . .” I blinked just then, remembering the reporters showing up at my store.

“Pen? What is it?” Seymour asked.

“There are hundreds of film studies on the shelves already,” I said. “Those reporters showed up today for something more.”

“Reporters?” said Fiona, stepping closer.

I nodded. “They came to the store to cover Dr. Lilly’s lecture. When they saw she wasn’t there, they turned around and left.”

“What do you think her book’s about?” Fiona asked.

“Hey, wait a minute,” said Seymour, snapping his fingers. “Last night, didn’t Dr. Lilly say something about her book covering the details of Hedda Geist’s life and career like never before?”

I tensed. “Yes, that’s right . . . she did.”

Seymour scratched his head. “You think maybe she was going to expose something about Hedda’s involvement with the Pierce Armstrong trial?”

“A trial?” Fiona said. “You
must
tell me more. What’s that all about?”

As Seymour told Fiona about Irving Vreen’s untimely death at the point of a steak knife sixty years before, I continued searching Dr. Lilly’s bedroom. Unfortunately, I turned up nothing more. Seymour and I canvassed the living room next; and, in the middle of our search, Fiona called us into the second bedroom.

She pointed to a round table. A heavy porcelain vase had been slid to the side to make room for
something
but there was hardly anything there: just some small cassette cases and several pens scattered about. There was no laptop computer, no note pad or notebooks, and no tape recorder with which to play the audiotapes.

“She must have been using this desk for a workspace,” Fiona said.

I picked up one of the cassette cases and discovered it was empty. I moved to the next one, and the one after that. All five cassette cases were empty!

“Either the tapes are somewhere else in this cottage or they’ve been stolen,” I said.

Fiona and Seymour quickly tossed the room but came up empty.

I looked for a tape recorder, but that appeared stolen, too.

Anyone with peepers can see the dead dame was scribbling something,
Jack said.
Maybe that’s the something that got her iced.

I looked around. “Fiona, you said that you saw Dr. Lilly writing in notebooks, listening to tape recordings, and typing on a laptop. None of those things are here. So if there was a working manuscript among all that, it’s missing, too.”

Along with the jewelry
, Jack noted.
But I’m betting that was just a con to make it look like your average smash- and- grab burglary.

Fiona stepped up to me. “Try to remember, Penelope. Did Dr. Lilly bring any of those things with her to your store this morning?”

I closed my eyes, tried to conjure every detail. “Dr. Lilly arrived at Buy the Book on foot, with a small clutch purse and nothing else.”

“I don’t get it,” said Seymour. “What value could an unfinished manuscript have?”

Fiona threw up her hands. “If it’s an exposé, it could have plenty of value, even unfinished!”

“I’ve
got
to read
Murdered in Plain Sight
as soon as possible,” I said. “It might have clues to what ever you saw her working on. I’d better try to get in touch with Brainert, too. And if he doesn’t know anything, he might have contacts at Dr. Lilly’s home or at her university. Someone must know more.”

“That seems very logical to me,” Fiona said, “and I know you have to get going. But do take a quick look at the top of the light house before you leave. I doubt there are any clues up there, but it may be your last chance in a long while to see the view. We’re booked solid for months. I’ve even got people on a waiting list to take over Dr. Lilly’s remaining reservation time, now that she’s . . . well, now that she’s gone.”

I headed for the spiral staircase. Behind me, Fiona compulsively straightened up the pillows on the couch while Seymour studied the nautical paintings on the walls.

“Hey, Fiona, I actually like these. They remind me of the Hornblower series. Any of them for sale?”

Fiona exhaled with obvious annoyance. “It took me months to find exactly the right local artwork for this room. Why in the world would I want to sell it to you?”

“Name your price for the set.”

“All right, one million dollars.”

“Sounds fair for a set of paintings rendered by a
nobody.
So I’ll tell you what, how about I write an IOU?”

“An IOU from Seymour Tarnish! That’s rich. Why don’t you just lose the check and tell me it’s in the mail?”

Their voices grew fainter as I moved up the spiral staircase, one hand on the iron railing. At the top of the tower, I found a cozy space with wicker chairs and a matching table. The glass chamber was warm and stuffy, but I popped one of the windows and the stiff sea breeze quickly cooled things down. I looked around but found nothing. If Dr. Lilly spent time up here, she hadn’t left anything behind.

My elbow bumped something—an antique brass telescope on a swivel base. For the heck of it, I considered peering through the lens, but I really didn’t want to waste too much time, so I turned, ready to descend the spiral staircase again... and that’s when I caught sight of him.

A man was ascending the rocky steps that led from the shoreline below to the high bluff where the light house sat. When he reached the top of the cliff, he paused in surprise at the sight of our golf cart on the isolated trail.

The trespasser scratched his dark head, staring at the cart. He seemed puzzled for some reason.

Was it possible this man was our burglar, returning to the scene of the crime? Maybe Fiona’s maid had scared him away and he was hiding out until the place was deserted again. At the very least, he could be a witness to something that had happened here earlier!

The antique telescope was set up for a view of the ocean, which meant I had to kick- slide the heavy tripod across the floor so I could get a better look at the stranger. It was tough work, but by the time the man furtively crossed the trail, I’d gotten my first good view. I’d simply hoped to be able to describe the man to the police at some later date. I didn’t expect to
recognize
him!

It was Dr. Randall Rubino, carrying the same beige canvas backpack over his shoulder that he’d been holding in my bookstore earlier. He was wearing the same clothes, too—only now he was actually wearing his yellow J. Crew jacket, probably to ward off the stiffening wind coming off the ocean.

I took a closer look at his bag. It seemed more stuffed than ever—so stuffed it actually bulged.

I froze with a thought.

I hear you
, said Jack.
That pac
k just might be filled with cassette tapes and Dr. Lilly’s missing computer and manuscript.

As I spied on the doctor, he crossed the trail and entered the thick woods. He must have found an easy path into the brush, because Rubino quickly vanished from sight, even from my high vantage point.

But I couldn’t let him get away. If he was carrying the stolen stuff, I had to catch him red- handed. And this was my chance!

I bolted down the spiral staircase so fast my low heels set the wrought- iron structure to wobbling. Standing near the picture window, Fiona Finch grinned like a proud parent.

“So, how did you like the view? Spectacular, isn’t—”

I raced to the front door without a word, thrusting Seymour aside to get there.

“Yo! Pen? What’s up?”

“Follow me! Important!” I cried.

In seconds, I was outside and down the flagstone path. Once through the trellis, I ran to the spot where I thought Dr. Rubino had entered the woods.

“Slow down, Pen!” Seymour called, huffing and puffing far behind me.

I found a path immediately, right near one of the Finch Inn’s private property! no trespassing! signs that were posted all over the area, and followed it for perhaps twenty or thirty yards. Then it forked into two paths leading off in opposite directions.

Stymied by the fork, I looked for footprints, or any sign of Rubino’s passing. I saw nothing.

Then I heard Seymour again. “Pen! Where are you?”

“Over here!” I yelled back. “I’m at the fork, just keep following the trail!”

I couldn’t wait around for Seymour to catch up. Dr. Rubino already had a good head start. Even if I picked the right path, I’d have a hard time catching up with him.

“I’m going left!” I yelled to Seymour.
“you go ri
ght!”

Then I took a deep breath and plunged down the left- hand path. I proceeded along for five minutes. It was still, cool, and dark under the canopy of trees—a little too dark, I thought, looking up. Through a break in the leaves, I saw clouds gathering. The wind had picked up, too, swishing the branches over my head.

I pressed on. The path wound around a deep ravine strewn with fallen trees. There was another fork and I thought I saw footprints down the right- hand trail, so I took it.

“Seymour!” I yelled behind me. “If you can hear me, I’m taking the right path on the second fork!”

As I ran forward, I began to hear a rumbling vibration. It was faint at first, but it quickly grew louder. “What’s that?”

An engine, dollface,
Jack replied in my head.
A big one.