I needed a strategy. I needed to figure out what was going on. I had no idea where to begin. My words swirled incomprehensibly. I longed for clarity, but I sensed the foggy mind of my Lyme-diseased self taking over. Or was it just the stress of the moment? I tried to will it off. Instead, I found my way to the kitchen, poured myself some water, and sat down.
I reached for the pen and paper Justine had kept on the counter and doodled. Something solid for my fingers to do while my brain attempted to make sense of things.
“There’s nothing on that computer,” I said to Kate as she came up alongside me. “I mean, I read everything. There’s nothing that could possibly be of any value to anybody.”
“What about in her file cabinets?”
“No Harlow folders. I tried to make sense of what was there. But Justine had her own filing system. I’d just started going through each folder again before you came today. I figured it was the only way.”
“Do you think it all has to do with her murder?” Kate asked after sitting down across the desk from me.
“Yes,” I said. “The Harlow look-alike … what was she doing here?”
“A distraction. Obviously she’s working with someone. The person who took Justine’s computer.”
I nodded. “Yes, but she looked as if she was looking for something or someone. And how did she know we were going to be in the hallway then? It doesn’t seem as if she was merely a distraction for us. There’s something more going on there.”
“We need to find her,” Den said from the doorway. “I agree. Something more is going on with the look-alike. She might be the key to the whole case.”
I doodled. Fingers pushed the pen. Roses. Leaves. Jagged little thorns.
Eighteen
After several hours of questions, Kate and I pulled our things together and settled into a guest studio in L’Ombragé, which I would have been more than content to live in. The apartment building offered these apartments for their out-of-town board members and other business types.
After pouring herself a glass of champagne from the fully stocked refrigerator, Kate plopped down on the couch. “Well, I guess I can slum it here with you for a few days.”
I grunted in acknowledgement. I’d barely taken in the surroundings. My nose was in my phone, screen still cracked. I’d texted Natalie, and also Lucille, Justine’s editor, to inform them that my laptop had been confiscated by the police. I had no idea when I’d get it back, let alone be able to work on the Harlow manuscript. Another setback.
Thank the universe, I still had my cell phone and could field emails on it. I also had my briefcase.
“Here’s another email from a medium,” I snorted. “She has a message for me from Jean.”
Delete.
“Do you want champagne? It’s so good,” Kate said, as if she’d just had the best chocolate ever. “Let me get you some.”
“Okay,” I said with my nose still in the cell phone.
I read the note from a woman whose grandfather was a photographer and had “special” photos of Jean Harlow. Would I like to see them?
Delete.
Kate sauntered back into the room with a glass of bubbly for me. I sipped it. Not bad.
“Good, right?”
I nodded. “Shit, here’s an email from Chad Walters.”
“Charlotte,
I’m so sorry things went the way they did during our meeting. Please forgive me. You must understand I’ve been searching for the Harlow ring most of my life. I spoke to Justine about it and I know it’s in her possession. When things settle, maybe you’ll find it and keep me in mind should you wish to sell.
I know you have a better appreciation of these matters since antiques is your family business. Is it not?”
I shot up out of the chair, knocking it over.
“What the hell?” Kate said, sitting up and sending the latest issue of Vogue from her lap to the floor.
“He knows about Cloister Antiques!” I said, my voice a harsh whisper, air pressing down on my throat.
“Who? What?” She rushed over to help me lift the chair.
“That bastard Chad Walters knows about my family’s business.” I showed Kate the email. Her mouth dropped. “What do you think? Is he threatening me?” I didn’t recognize my own voice, which was almost shrill now.
She read it over carefully again.
“He seems nice. He’s apologizing. But you said he was combative in person, right? Then he’s letting you know he knows about your family. Maybe it is a threat.”
“I think I should let Gram know.” My voice was still quivering.
“You need to calm down first,” Kate said.
I nodded, then started pacing. “You know, this is crazy. Ever since we made the announcement that I’m writing the book, it’s been nuts. I knew it was a mistake.”
“You had no choice,” Kate said. “You want to finish it, right?”
Did I ever. But now I didn’t even have my laptop. And Justine’s had vanished. Plus her desktop computer was stolen, right out from under our noses.
“Yes, of course. But how can I with all these distractions, let alone now that my laptop is gone.”
“You’ll have that back in a few days. Is there anything you can do to move forward on the project without your computer? I think maybe it would help keep your mind off things.”
“First there was the Harlow look-alike, then Walters, then Hartwell. Now Justine’s place has been broken into. Does this really all have to do with the book? I have to know, because my name is going to be on the cover of it right next to Justine’s.”
Kate handed me back the phone.
“Drink your champagne, darling,” she said. “Then I’m going to call for a pizza. We’re having a PJ party, right?”
She was trying to get my mind off my situation, but it’s not what I needed. I needed to focus on it. Figure it out.
But I also needed to warn my grandmother.
I pressed the button to call her.
“Charlotte!” she said. “We’ve be been worried. How is it going?”
“I’m fine. I’m just busy. I’m sorry I haven’t called.” I sat down on the white velvet sofa near Kate. Images of Gram’s dusty old antique shop played in my mind and comforted me.
“I read about Justine. Someone killed her?”
“It looks that way.”
Kate handed me my champagne, which I’d left near the chair. Cool in my hand. I sipped from it.
“I’m surprised someone didn’t kill her years ago,” my grandmother said.
“Gram! I know you didn’t like her.”
“I don’t like how she treated you. I didn’t like how she paid you under the table. Crooked. The way you had to do all the grunt work for her. I’m sorry, you just don’t treat people who work for you like that.”
It was true, of course. Justine and I had our tense moments. And she insisted on paying me under the table, which is why I had problems with health insurance. But she’d been good to me in her own way.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m not calling you to talk about her.”
“When are you coming home?”
“I don’t know. I still have things here to do.”
“Are you still staying in her place?”
“Sort of,” I replied.
She paused. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I’m staying in the same building, but not her apartment. Listen, have you ever heard of Harlow’s sapphire ring?”
“Yes,” Gram said after a minute. “Why?”
“There’s a collector who’s hounding me for it. Said that Justine had it.”
“Did she?”
“Not that I know of,” I said. “I’d think she would have told me.”
Gram guffawed. “I don’t know about that. S
he was dishonest.”
I didn’t have the energy to go there. True, Justine had her own brand of honesty. It was her “code.”
“The thing is, the guy appears to be scouring the city seeking the ring. I was thinking he may head your way. Just keep an eye out and let me know,” I said, maybe with a somewhat lighter and softer tone than usual. I didn’t want to frighten my grandmother, though she was no shrinking violet.
“Is he the guy that killed Justine?” Gram said. She was too sharp for her own good.
“No. He’s a collector. You know how they are.”
After I gave her his name and a description, she hemmed and hawed. “I may have seen him the other day.”
My stomach clenched.
“Let me think on this.”
Walters had been to Cloister Island. Already. He was trying to scare me. And it was working. My knees quivered and sweat pricked at my forehead.
Kate looked up at me from Vogue, which hardly ever happened. Vogue was her Bible, like the dictionary was mine.
“I’m just not sure, but it may have been him,” Gram went on. “And he did seem to have a particular interest in my jewelry.”
“Okay, Gram, if he comes again, call me. Okay? No. Wait. Call the police. He’s got no business on Cloister Island.”
Kate sat the magazine down on the sofa next to her and her mouth dropped open.
“He’s a free man and can go where he wants to,” Gram said. “The cops won’t care. That’s why I have Bessie.” Bessie was the nickname she’d given her hand gun, which she kept behind the counter. As if that should make me feel any better.
“You know,” I said, after breathing in and out a few times, “you’re right. I’m probably making a mountain out of a mole hill, but just in case, I thought you should be on the lookout for him.”
After hanging up, I called Den and left a message for him to call me back. I needed his voice of logic right now. Did I need to be worried about my grandmother? Should I head back to Cloister? Then I called the police on the island. Couldn’t hurt.
Kate listened intently to my conversation.
“Maybe a trip home is in order,” she said.
Maybe. But maybe that was exactly what Walters wanted me to do. Get out of his way so he could ransack through Justine’s apartment or find a lockbox. Was he trying to divert my attention by going to Cloister Island?
“I’m second-guessing myself. That’s so unlike me,” I said. “I’m not sure what to do. I want to talk with Den first.” I yawned, then sipped my sparkling beverage.
“Looks like you’re ready for bed,” Kate said.
She was right. The meds I’d taken earlier were starting to kick in, and, right at that moment, the only thing I could do was close my eyes and fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Nineteen
O ne of the first tasks for me whenever Justine began a new book was to create a timeline, which is nothing more than a straight line with marks off to the sides indicating major events in the subject’s life, and also historical happenings. What was going on in the world when Jean Harlow was born? That would go on the timeline across from the mark where “Jean Harlow’s Birthday” resides. What songs and movies were popular? Books? It’s a simplistic exercise that can get complicated and often resembles a complex diagramed sentence. It can be time-consuming and mind-numbing, but it helps when actually plotting out the book. It’s the framework I helped Justine build the biographies on. A solid visual.
Thank goodness I’d placed it in my briefcase and had it with me. I placed the printed-out Jean Harlow/Harlean Carpenter timeline on the floor. The floor being one of my favorite spots to spread out and think. I propped myself on my elbows.
Kate leaned over me. She was working today from our cozy guest studio apartment. “ ‘Indian Love Call,’ hey?”
“Yes, it was popular in 1936. It was Jean’s favorite song, sung at her funeral by Jeannette MacDonald,” I replied as I studied the timeline more. There were just a few gaps in Harlow’s twenty-six years of life. After she became a star, almost every minute was accounted for.
Kate pulled up the song on her laptop and the lyrics came spilling out of the speakers. “Kind of spooky. I don’t know why,” she said.
“If you think that’s spooky, check out ‘Sweet Mystery of Life.’ Nelson Eddy sang it at her funeral. It’s so depressing,” I said.
“Nah, I think I’ll skip it,” she said.
I continued studying the timeline. There were branches of the timeline written in purple. Those represented her mother. We’d investigated Mama Jean as well, since their lives were so entwined. Mama Jean married Marino Bello years after divorcing Mont Clair Carpenter, Harlean’s biological father. To say Marino was no good would be an understatement. He scammed his famous stepdaughter on more than one occasion, bilking her out of thousands.
“Prick,” I said aloud.
“Thanks,” Kate said and burped.
“I wasn’t talking to you. I’m sorry. I was talking about Marino Bello, Harlean’s mother’s second husband.”
I was so glad Kate hadn’t wanted to leave me alone today. Such friends are hard to come by in this life. I glanced up at her. “I love you, Kate.”
“Why wouldn’t you?” she said with a broad smile.
I couldn’t imagine my life without Kate. It didn’t matter to me if she was Karl or Kate—the essence of her remained the same, no matter the gender. But her offer to take a trip to Cloister Island with me was fraught with difficulty. Even though it was a healing place for me, she really couldn’t go back, no matter how much she wanted to. Her family was unforgiving and unaccepting—it was a wound she still suffered. No matter the brave face.
After studying the chart a bit more, I phoned Den. “I need my laptop.”
“I know. I’m trying hard to get the ball rolling,” he said. “You might have it tomorrow. In the meantime, we recovered Justine’s stolen computer. Found it in the alley behind the apartment building. Thought you’d want to know.”
“So you’ve got her computer, but I can’t have mine back yet?”
Kate glanced up from her laptop and rolled her eyes.
“Two different units,” he said, breathing into the phone. I pictured his mouth next to his cell phone. “So anyway, the cybercrimes unit has made a few inroads with Justine’s computer. You available to answer some questions?”
“Well, since I’m not working because you have my laptop, yeah,” I said. “Why don’t you come over. You know where I am.”
Kate shot me a glare.
Did that sound more flirtatious than I meant it?
“How could I resist an invitation like that?”
After we hung up, Kate asked how it was going now that I was abstaining from my habit of sleeping with cops.
“Fine,” I said, trying not to snap at her. I’d gotten pinged several times by some of my favorite guys. What would the harm be? What was the harm, anyway?
“Maybe I was wrong to think you couldn’t do this,” she said.
I snorted.
“But maybe not. There’s still time. Can you honestly say you’re not just itching for a cop in the sack?”
I couldn’t lie to Kate. “I wouldn’t say itching, but I’ve thought about it.” I paused. “But you make it sound like I’d just screw any cop because he’s a cop. That’s just not the case.” I rolled the timeline into a tube. “He’s got to be hot.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “There’s plenty of hot cops in the city. I know. But can’t you date someone else? Hey, how about a firefighter?”
I chewed it over for a few seconds and shrugged. “Sure, find me one and I’ll date him. I’ve nothing against hot firefighters.”
“I’ve heard they do amazing things with their hoses,” Kate said and laughed.
When I opened the door to Den, he nearly took my br
eath away. As he stood there in his uniform, sex emanated from him. Tendrils of excitement raced through my lower regions. Calm down, woman.
His eyes smoldered and relayed he was feeling those same impulses. We stood, taking one another in for a few beats. Kate angled her way in between us.
“Sergeant Brophy, how lovely to see you,” she said. I could have smacked her, with her big boobs flaunting in his face. But he seemed unmoved.
“Ah, yeah,” he said. “Nice to see you too.” He smiled politely.
He was draped with several briefcases and bags. But in his arms, he held my laptop. When my eyes went to it, his mouth curled into a grin. “I had to pull a few strings.” He handed it to me.
“Well, Sergeant Brophy, aren’t you something,” Kate said and lead us both into the apartment.
“Thanks, Den. I could hug you for that,” I said.
“Hold that thought,” he said under his breath.
Twenty
Can you at least send me the first few chapters of the book?” Natalie asked over the phone as Den, Kate, and I set up Den’s laptop and a printer.
“Justine never would have sent them to you until she was further into the book,” I told her. “You’re asking me to do something she would not have liked.”
“Right,” Natalie said and paused. “But I need pages to show the publisher that you’re working on it. It’s extenuating circumstances.”
Justine hated the practice of sending the first few chapters along while the book was still in progress. So many times things changed. And then she’d have too many versions, which became confusing for her. But Natalie was right. The situation was odd. Justine had written the first half of the book. I’d yet to go over it. But delivering the first couple chapters couldn’t hurt. It would get Natalie off my case for a while.
“Okay, since I’ve just gotten my laptop back, I can send you the first few chapters,” I said, glad Justine had emailed me her latest version of the manuscript. “Justine wrote them, of course, and I’ve yet to fact-check or proofread them.”
The Jean Harlow Bombshell Page 9