Ghostwriter Anonymous

by Noreen Wald

  “Tell Ben what?” My mother appeared in my doorway, holding a metal tray awash with cosmetics and gold.

  “Oh, to warn his father that Maura O’Hara’s both a busybody and a bossy broad.”

  “Well, forewarned is foreplay or something like that.” My mother smiled. “Now, do you like these gold shells or the small hoops? And hurry up, I just looked out the window. Both Dennis and Ben are double-parked, and Gypsy Rose and Mr. Kim are waiting in the Rolls.”

  “Go ahead on down, Mom. Tell Ben I’ll be there in five minutes.” I struggled as I pulled the sheath on and smoothed it over my hips, then pointed to the gold shells. “And which one of these lipsticks is that coral color I like on you?”

  My mother handed me a Revlon tube and the earrings. “Darling, I know you’re sad. God, it’s all so sad. But we’ll get through this, Jake. You’ll see. Life will go on.”

  Giving her a hug, I thought: From your mouth to God’s ears.

  God may not have gotten an earful, but during our ride to Queens, via the Triborough Bridge, Ben certainly did. Too tired and too frightened to edit creatively, I spilled my guts. Ben listened, asked the right questions, promised to put the heat on Jonathan, Patrick, and Kate Lloyd Connors, and showed concern while remaining calm. Stoic, almost. Somehow his attitude was contagious. My insides ceased churning and my heart rate slowed down.

  “Now what?” I asked. We were exiting the bridge, approaching Queens Boulevard. The Friday evening traffic crawled.

  “Now it’s my turn at bat.” Ben took his eyes off the road for a second and looked into mine. “You’re retired. Close the book on Nancy Drew, Miss Marple, and Jessica Fletcher. Your career as a detective is finished. And why can’t you quit your job? I don’t want you at Kate Lloyd Connors’ madhouse.”

  I bristled. “No way. I can’t give up the ghostwriting, but maybe I can work at home more often.” Was that really a possibility? Or just a placebo for Ben’s agitation?

  He gripped the wheel and swerved to the right, easing an inch ahead of where we’d been stuck, only to become trapped in another lane. “If I can get an officer assigned to you, starting tonight, I will.”

  “Don’t you dare. Use all your manpower to find the killer. We know my nosing around has made him nervous. Maybe he—or she—will try something else to scare me.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of, Jake. You could be scared to death.”

  A horn from behind us distracted Ben. Then he seized the small opening ahead of us to return to our original position in the left lane.

  We arrived at Conway’s Funeral Home on Northern Boulevard and 83rd Street in Jackson Heights at seven o’clock sharp. Totally amazing. Finding a parking spot would be another story. I’d forgotten that my driver was an NYPD detective. We parked at a fire hydrant.

  Jackson Heights was five miles and light years away from Midtown Manhattan. Quintessential Queens. Once home to judges, doctors and movie stars—the old Astoria studios’ location was only a short limo ride away—as well as sundry lower middle-class Irish, Italian, and Jewish white and blue-collar workers, living side by side with upper middle-class, old-guard WASPS, Jackson Heights had undergone a cultural metamorphosis.

  Famed as “A Garden in a City” from the twenties to the fifties, now it reigned as the most ethnically diverse neighborhood in America. A small town whose residents spoke forty different languages and came from seventy different countries, offering as many national dishes and cooking odors—an area regarded by its denizens as either a multicultural mecca or a third-world country. The young professionals snatching up its condos and two-family homes considered it the former, while the elderly WASPS who’d remained in their lovely Tudors and huge co-ops considered it the latter. Most of the Irish, Italians, and Jews were long gone to the suburbs.

  All seven continents were represented in the faces of its residents strolling along the tree-lined streets. Seventy-Fourth Street, from Roosevelt Avenue to 35th Avenue, had become the sari center of the United States. The smell of curry and incense filling the air and the racks of clothes lining the sidewalks made me feel like a character in a Rumer Godden novel. The drug deals on Roosevelt Avenue contrasted with fine dining around the corner. Argentina may boast a better steak house than La Portena, but Jackson Heights is only a twenty-minute subway ride from Carnegie Hill. Mr. Kim and Dennis frequent a Korean restaurant on 37th Avenue, and they have cousins by the dozens in the neighborhood.

  I found Jackson Heights exhilarating and exciting; my mother found its crowded street scenes somewhat disturbing and dangerous.

  The old Boulevard movie theater across the street from Connolly’s was now a Pentecostal church, its marquee advertising redemption in lieu of double features. I pointed the landmark out to Ben. My mother had spent every Saturday of her childhood at this theater, devouring Bette Davis flicks and White Castle hamburgers, and had told me, “Of all the changes in Jackson Heights, the death of my favorite movie house upset me the most.”

  As Ben and I scanned the crowd in Connolly’s largest viewing room, I spotted Kate, Caroline and Mrs. Madison in the second row, right side. Dennis Kim chatted with Bill Bernside and Jonathan Arthur in a far corner on the far side of the room. Ivan knelt in front of the closed casket, head down, weeping loudly enough to be heard in Chicago. Ginger sat with Mom and Gypsy Rose in the row in front of Kate. They were comforting a sobbing Linda Rogers. Mike Rogers and Mr. Kim stood in front of Emmie’s picture. Tears swept down Mr. Kim’s face, and Mike put his big arm around the slim shoulder of his daughter’s old friend. Modesty had distanced herself from the living, flitting from bouquet to bouquet, reading the cards attached to the wreaths and flower arrangements. Mrs. McMahon, who’d left her zip code far behind to attend this wake, waved the largest set of rosary beads west of the Vatican, jabbing the cross in Too-Tall Tom’s chest. They sat in the last row on the left, not far from Dennis Kim’s little group. Patrick stood in the center of the room, almost backed into the wall by his admirers. Several ghostwriters, including Jane, were among them.

  Now this was a Jackson Heights scene I did find somewhat disturbing and dangerous.

  Twenty-One

  The cachet of a murdered ghostwriter’s Manhattan me­morial service at Campbell’s apparently hadn’t extended across the East River to another murdered ghostwriter’s Queens wake at Connolly’s. No hordes from Flatbush or Staten Island danced in attendance. The outer bor­oughs—other than the one we were in—were repre­sented only by Emmie’s twin cousins from the Bronx, Dale and Roy Rogers and their mother, Em’s Aunt Ve­ronica, widow of Mike Rogers’ brother and lover of singing Westerns. And no strangers had arrived unin­vited from out of state.

  I kissed Mom, Gypsy Rose, and Linda, giving Em­mie’s mother an extra hug. Tonight, she looked as frail and frightened as I felt. Ginger gestured toward Jane, starstruck at Patrick’s side. “Someone ought to expose that phony sweet potato. Why don’t you go for parts therapy, Jake? You may discover all kinds of zesty emo­tions wasting away under your kneecaps.”

  Ben laughed but said, “Jake’s keeping a low profile with Connors and company.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that, Ben,” my mother said. “God knows she won’t listen to me.”

  “Mom,” I began.

  Mike Rogers’ booming baritone drowned me out. “Father Doyle is here to lead us in the Rosary.” On the last syllable, Mike’s voice broke. The crowd grew quiet as people settled down. Ben and I found two seats in the last row.

  Jim Doyle, pastor at St. Joan of Arc’s, had officiated at Linda and Mike’s marriage, baptized their only daughter, Emily Bronte Rogers, and would offer her Mass of Requiem tomorrow. He spoke about the Rogers family—Emmie had three younger brothers—with love and admiration. At least half the assembly was in tears, including me. I knew I had tissues in my bag. Where had I stashed it? I thought I’d shoved it under my seat; now I couldn’t find it.
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  Father Doyle had segued from his sob-evoking eulogy to the Sorrowful Mysteries. The Catholics knelt and re­cited the Hail Marys, Glory Bes, and Our Fathers along with him. The rest of the mourners bowed their heads, some joining in to say the Lord’s Prayer that introduced each decade. I, however, was on my hands and knees, squirming under my chair.

  “What are you looking for?” Ben asked.

  “My bag. I need a tissue.”

  Ben reached into his pocket and passed his handker­chief down to me. Why have I always been dependent on the kindness of others to blow my goddamn nose? And where had my tote disappeared to? I’d had no time to change from my working writer’s oversized tote to my chic, mock-croc clutch. The copy I’d made of Jon­athan’s letter from the National Enquirer as well as the printout of my email murder threat were in that bag. Two pieces of hard evidence. I’d forgotten all about them. Now that I’d remembered, I desperately wanted to find out where the bag had gone. I eased past Ben as Father Doyle droned on through another decade, the Ag­ony in the Garden.

  Since most of the mourners’ eyes were downcast in prayer, I moved through the room without much notice. Circling the room, I peered under each row of chairs. In the first row, my mother, Gypsy Rose, and Linda held hands, crying more than praying.

  Directly behind them, Caroline clutched her rosary beads—I’d have bet that she was Church of England—loudly dropping her haitches throughout the Lord’s Prayer. Mrs. Madison, looking grim as the Reaper, stared straight ahead at the casket. Her right hand grabbed hold of Kate’s left elbow in a viselike grip, as if supporting her in her grief. Ivan had squeezed into their row, no doubt stealing someone’s seat when he’d gone to the john. The sounds—borderline bellowing—coming from Ivan could only be described as keening. If he didn’t cut it out, Mike Rogers might throw him out of here; Mike would welcome any excuse to do so since he’d never liked Ivan from day one. Mike himself stood stoic with his three sons next to Father Doyle.

  Dennis, Bill, and Jonathan had remained standing. All three were mouthing “Forgive us our trespasses,” as if they meant every word. Mrs. McMahon had shared the world’s largest rosary with Too-Tall Tom, and both were deep in prayer. Modesty, Ginger, and Jane, united in sad­ness, sat huddled next to Too-Tall Tom.

  Dozens of flower arrangements lined the walls of the room, and as at Barbara’s memorial, there was no es­caping their scent. As Father Doyle began the Crowning with Thorns decade, I fled to the foyer. I had to pass right by Patrick, who still lounged against the same cen­ter wall, surrounded by a basket of roses on one side and a vase filled with lilacs on the other. His eyes were closed; so were his lips. Did his New Age spirituality preclude participating in the Lord’s Prayer? Or did he mourn Emmie too deeply to speak? Or was he planning which area of whose body he’d uncover in his next repressed emotions, parts therapy treatment/seduction? His chiseled profile and rugged good looks were even more striking in repose. I tried to sneak by, but the space between the last row and where he stood in silence was small. I jostled his reverie. His blueberry eyes flew open, then he gave me a broad smile and a bold wink. The man infuriated me.

  I found my bag propped against the banister at the foot of the staircase going down to the restrooms. The tote had been turned inside out, its contents spilled over Connelly’s slightly worn carpet. And, no surprise, the copies of both the letter and the email were missing. I’d never left the viewing room. Who’d pinched my bag? With all the milling about, handshaking, lining up to say a prayer at the casket, heading outside for a smoke or downstairs to the restrooms and lounge—where a mourner can sit and relax for a while in a room without a corpse—it wouldn’t have been too difficult for some­one to have walked off with my bag. Especially if the murderer were a woman. However, the weather-beaten, old leather bag was sexless. Its austere lines, more like a briefcase than a tote, could just as easily be carried by a man. As I tried to scoop up my belongings, the terror that had subsided to a nagging nervousness sent me reeling. I swayed, then flopped on the bottom step, my scat­tered possessions at my feet, my violated bag in my lap, listening to Father Doyle’s drone wafting down the stairs, dead certain that Emmie and Barbara’s killer was, at this moment, completing the Sorrowful Mysteries. I wondered what book would enjoy fifteen minutes of revisited fame when used as my murder weapon.

  Considering the dramatic transformation that most of Jackson Heights had undergone, 87th Street hadn’t changed a whole hell of a lot since Mom and I had moved away twenty-five years ago. Its stately trees and English Tudors brought back warm and fuzzy memories. My mother and Linda Rogers had grown up on this block, and after her parents had moved to Florida, Linda and Mike had raised their family in her childhood home.

  Every Christmas Eve for the past quarter of a century, Mom and I and often Gypsy Rose, like the Three Wise Men, had traveled east. The Rogers’ tree would be decorated with silver and red balls as well as Emmie’s and my handmade Christmas cards from first through third grades at St. Joan of Arc, where we would all attend Midnight Mass.

  Gypsy Rose had dubbed this past Noel “the dead celebrity Christmas,” based on the gifts that all of us necrophile fans of the deceased rich and famous had ex­changed. I’d given Emmie yet another commem­orative, limited edition Princess Diana plate—all proceeds going to her charities; my mother had given me The Last Will and Testament of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Emmie had given her mother the movie Diana as well as two recent biographies of the princess. Mike, much to my mother’s chagrin, had given Linda an audiobook of The Dark Side of Camelot, and Gypsy Rose herself had a touch of the ghoul, presenting Emmie and me with the Women Writers calendar. Nary a live one among the twelve calendar girls.

  Tonight, I returned to 87th Street for Emmie’s wake.

  “You didn’t tell me you had a copy of Jonathan’s letter in your bag.” Ben pulled into a No Standing spot on 34th Avenue, around the corner from the Rogers’ house. He sounded totally annoyed.

  “Jesus, Ben, I’d just had a death threat; I guess it slipped my mind. Last Friday night, I stood Emmie up at Elaine’s; tonight, one week later, we’re at her wake. So don’t you dare raise your voice to me!” I screamed.

  “Okay, okay. I’m sorry, Jake.” Ben turned the ignition off and took me in his arms. I pressed my cheek against his starched blue collar, inhaling the aroma of Irish Spring, and wept. Wailed. Ben patted my shoulders and rubbed my back, murmuring, “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

  Somehow, we shifted positions and his lips were on my forehead, bestowing small kisses that tickled. I angled my head back, settling myself into his arms; now his lips were on mine. This kiss didn’t tickle, it tingled all the way down to my...I opened my mouth to protest and his tongue moved in...If this kept up, we’d be making love in the front seat of an unmarked NYPD sedan. I shut my mouth and pulled away.

  Linda, Ginger, Too-Tall Tom, and Jane were on the sun porch, going through the Mass cards that the Connolly staff had stuffed into two large shopping bags, with bold, black letters advertising the funeral home. I joined their sad circle.

  “We can all attend this announced Mass at St. Pat’s,” Too-Tall Tom was saying. “Of course, it’s not ’til next March fifteenth at seven o’clock in the morning.”

  Jane groaned, but Ginger smiled. “No problem. I’ll cook up an Ides of March breakfast for all of us after the Mass.”

  “And what would that be? Blood sausage and hemlock on toast?” Modesty had arrived.

  Dennis and Mr. Kim were mixing cocktails and pouring wine. The twin cousins from the Bronx, Dale and Roy, were drinking Manhattans as fast as Dennis could pour them.

  None of the Connors crowd had come to the wake. I’d watched them all get into a limo as we left Connolly’s. Bill Bernside had said his goodbye too, saying he’d see me at the funeral in the morning and he’d be leaving directly from there for Philadelphia. Patrick had passed, hailing a cab, and while he tried to convin
ce the Pakistani driver to take him to Manhattan, Mrs. McMahon convinced Patrick to drop her off in Carnegie Hill.

  Gypsy Rose waved me over. “Jake, darling, there was an overwhelming presence of evil at that viewing, and I’m afraid you’re in danger. I want to channel my spirit guide so she can contact Emmie and Barbara’s guides. Then we’ll try to summon the shades of Emmie and Barbara on my Ouija board, and we need to do it as soon as possible. Maybe after the funeral tomorrow. You have to be there.”

  My mother appeared and took Gypsy Rose’s arm. “Come help me arrange the fruit platter.”

  Ben overheard. “Is she the biggest flake in a blizzard?”

  ‘”I believe that she believes. Besides, Gypsy Rose has some very successful contacts within the world beyond. Some of her channelings have produced amazing results.”

  “And some not so?”

  “Yeah, well that too. But when her spirits are hot, you can bank on what they say.”

  Ben looked skeptical. As a less-than-born-again believer in Gypsy Rose’s psychic prowess, I resented playing the role of her apologist. New Age was old hat as far as I was concerned, but Gypsy Rose had me convinced that sometimes she did chat with the dead.

  Modesty, after three red wines, quoted T. S. Eliot: “The most heinous offense a writer can commit is dullness—all the other vices result in lesser offenses.”

  Jane and Ginger wanted to know if that included murder.

  By midnight, most everyone had gone home. Jane, Ginger, and Too-Tall Tom had departed about a half hour earlier in Modesty’s ghostmobile, a 1964 Beetle. Dennis had driven the tipsy twins to the Bronx, then returned to collect my mother, Gypsy Rose, and Mr. Kim. Ben and I had stayed and served on the cleanup committee with the three of them. Linda had gone to bed, but Mike and his boys sat nursing beers and reminiscing. I was wiped out and weepy when we all finally left around twelve thirty.