The Ghost and the Bogus Bestseller

by Cleo Coyle

  “Emma Hudson’s pet parrot.”

  “And how are we supposed to find a dead woman’s pet bird?”

  “Easy!” Seymour grinned. “At the moment, he’s perched in my living room.”

  CHAPTER 49

  The Unusual Suspects

  I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.

  —Groucho Marx

  WE OUGHT TO be giving Waldo the third degree right now, Jack complained an hour later. As goofy as it sounds, bracing that stool pigeon makes more sense than greeting gawkers and passing out dead wood.

  Our bookshop was filling up fast. Sadie and I were waiting for all the ticket holders to arrive before we locked the shop doors. Until then, the register would remain open for last-minute buys, and Bonnie would continue to ring up purchases.

  “Sorry, Jack. This book signing takes precedence. I do have a business to run.”

  Your business is murder, baby, and you can take that two ways! We’re looking for a dame, not a wheezy old professor.

  Jack was right about that.

  Evidence pointed to the third writer as a woman. And because of that vintage folder, Brainert concluded that she was a senior member of the faculty.

  I wasn’t so sure.

  What if this female writer found those vintage folders in a forgotten supply closet, or a faculty office she’d inherited from a retiree? The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced there were better suspects right here at this signing.

  So instead of enjoying an event that I’d been looking forward to for weeks, I found myself acting like Jack Shepard in the flesh, suspiciously scanning each female faculty member in the crowd, wondering if one of them could be the mystery ghostwriter of the biggest bestseller of the season.

  Helen Frye was a candidate. Her course on human sexuality was as popular as it was controversial. At the moment, the attractive thirty-something doctor of applied psychology was perusing our true crime section.

  Another possibility was Donna Copeland. The no-nonsense economics professor shopped our store for used romance novels—the racier the better, she said. From experience, I knew that many women who read romances also aspired to write them. Did Donna dip her toe in the perfumed pool and produce the erotic scenes?

  There were others—Marta Simone, an education teacher whose tastes ran to the most extreme and sadistic thrillers. Jennifer Strawn, of the Women’s Studies program, who wrote a thesis on Story of O. Mina Goldberg, whose course on the French Revolution tipped a hat to the Marquis de Sade.

  While I considered those suspects and more, my aunt appeared at my shoulder. “Have you seen Dr. Leeds?”

  “Ichabod Crane with muscles? Not yet.”

  “He is quite fit for an older man, isn’t he?” Sadie remarked. She sounded a bit smitten, but then everyone here was giddy with excitement. “Did you know Dr. Leeds went to Columbia University on an athletic scholarship? He mentioned it on NPR.”

  I glanced at my watch. “I hope he gets here soon.”

  “Don’t fret,” Sadie said. “We’re selling a lot of books in the meantime. In fact, Bonnie seems a bit frazzled. I’m going to open the second register.”

  “I can think of worse fates,” I said absently.

  “Will you be able to handle the door alone?” Sadie asked, and I nodded.

  “Spencer finished the sound check, with Amy’s help,” she added. “They make a cute pair, don’t they?”

  “I know your proclivity for matchmaking, but I’m not ready to be a mother-in-law just yet.”

  Sadie laughed, eyes sharp. “Don’t worry, dear. I can think of worse fates.”

  “Good evening!” Shirley Anthor greeted me with enthusiasm.

  As I took her ticket, I couldn’t help adding her to my suspect list. The petite, vivacious, and outspoken fifty-something taught medieval history at St. Francis. I remembered Brainert mentioning her film series lecture comparing the Arthurian tropes in Excalibur with Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

  “Is the store section still open for business?” she asked, tossing her frosted curls.

  “Only until our event begins.”

  “Great! I’m looking for a replacement. It’s an out-of-print book I loaned and have no chance of recovering.”

  I nodded. “We hear that all the time. Was it part of your film lecture at Professor Parker’s theater? I always enjoy Arthurian stories. I’m sorry I missed it. How did it go?”

  “Oh, it was a great success, but this book’s quite different, a history of weapons in the Middle Ages. I read choice passages to my freshmen class about how they sliced and diced one another on the battlefield. It gives them a sense of medieval brutality in ways they won’t easily forget.”

  “Sounds like your course should come with a trigger warning,” I joked.

  “It does,” Shirley said flatly. “My next lecture is on campus this Friday, if you’re interested.”

  “I might be. What’s the subject?”

  “Feminist Jurisprudence and the Malleus Maleficarum!”

  I cleared my throat. “Well, if you don’t find the book you’re looking for, leave the title with Sadie. I’m sure she can locate a copy for you.”

  “Why, Shirley, you’re looking lovely tonight.”

  We both turned to find a grinning Dr. Wendell Pepper, dean of communications at St. Francis University—and Brainert’s partner in the Movie Town Theater.

  Pepper was looking dapper this evening in his tailored suit and favorite burgundy tie, the one bearing the coat of arms for Lodge House, Quindicott’s exclusive country club.

  Since his recent divorce, I noticed the “salt” had disappeared from the dean’s formerly salt-and-pepper hair. Like Brainert, he’d shed a few pounds, too. But unlike my friend, he’d replaced that fat with muscle.

  “Are you alone tonight, Shirley?” Pepper pressed. “It so happens that I am, too. We could certainly find a cozy spot together.”

  “That would be nice,” Shirley replied. “Right now, I’m looking for a used book—”

  “Splendid! Perhaps I can help!”

  “You can certainly do the hauling,” Shirley said, looking him up and down. “You’re fit enough.”

  “Tennis at the country club has done wonders for my waistline—as well as my energy,” he replied, eyes sparkling. “Perhaps you’ll join me for doubles at the club, or at my practice court at home, as long as you don’t mind spending time with my new Yorkie.”

  “A Yorkie?” Shirley replied, her own eyes sparkling. “And here I would have guessed an Irish wolfhound.”

  They both laughed. Then together they headed off.

  Meanwhile, my mind raced. So, Pepper has a Yorkie? A new Yorkie, at that. Is that a coincidence, or is Brainert’s business partner the one who tried to off him today?!

  A moment later, my aunt reappeared. “I’ve closed the registers, and Leeds is waiting. We should begin moving people to the event space.”

  Herding a hundred chattering, book- and phone-distracted people into the event space was a logistical challenge that took ten minutes to overcome, even with help from an enthusiastic Amy and Spencer.

  Just when everyone had taken their seats, the man of the hour tapped me on the shoulder.

  “I see someone has brought an infernal dog to this event.”

  Dr. Roger Leeds followed his rude remark with a noisy honk into a well-used handkerchief. He swiped his prominent nose and tucked the cloth behind his lapel.

  “You’re allergic?” I asked, forced to look up to meet the six-foot-five professor’s lofty gaze.

  “Terribly so, Mrs. McClure. Please see that the beast is nowhere near the front row, or I shall be unable to give my lecture.”

  The doctor’s haughty tone took me aback. Just six months ago, at our first signing, Dr. Leeds seemed polite, though distant.
At that event he spoke for over two hours, and stayed another hour to answer audience questions.

  Brainert was right. As usual!

  The professor’s attitude really had changed since he went from Bentley Prize nominee to winner. Now Dr. Leeds scanned the room with an expression of hostile impatience.

  “I’ll give them the short version tonight. My full lecture would be lost on them. And signing all of their books and fielding the same puerile questions will be trying enough.”

  What’s gotten into him? I thought in disgust.

  I’ll tell you what’s gotten into him, Jack replied. The big time. Because of some pumped-up piece of paper, he’s become a very large wheel on a narrow little road.

  That very large wheel just ordered me to move Mrs. Hiller and her Seeing Eye dog to the back row!

  That’s the way the world works, baby. Dare to get in a big wheel’s way, and you might just get run over.

  I approached Mrs. Hiller and apologetically explained the situation. She graciously traded seats with a grad student in the fourth row. I returned to Dr. Leeds with the good news. He didn’t bother thanking me. He merely signaled to Sadie that he was ready, and she introduced him.

  “One last dance,” he muttered as he approached the podium.

  As the Bentley Prize winner took the stage to enthusiastic applause, I returned to the bookstore, deciding I’d rather tally the registers than listen to anything this disdainful man had to say.

  CHAPTER 50

  A Little Bird Told Me

  When the murders are committed by mathematicians, you can solve them by mathematics. Most of them aren’t and this one wasn’t.

  —Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man

  “WELCOME TO TARNISH Mansion!”

  It was after ten P.M. when I arrived at Seymour’s house, a grand Victorian on posh Larchmont Avenue. Ever the lucky duck, Seymour had inherited the estate from the town’s eccentric spinster, Timothea Todd, who’d taken a shine to her friendly mailman before departing the earthly plane.

  My blunt, socially backward best friend, the geeky Jeopardy! champ and part-time ice cream truck entrepreneur, was now an official resident of Quindicott’s most exclusive lane; his neighbors were among the town’s most accomplished, uber-educated elites.

  Brainert had yet to get over it.

  “He’s still decorating in late-American garish,” the professor sniffed in my ear as I entered the large living room.

  The Victorian furnishings Miss Todd bequeathed Seymour, along with her portrait, framed in silver, were still in place, along with the flat-screen TV. His lava lamps were still slowly undulating, the gobs of neon goop rising and falling in glowing color.

  But since I last visited, Seymour had added life-size cardboard standees of the original Enterprise crew from Star Trek, and landscape paintings had been replaced with framed portraits of the Universal monsters—Karloff as Frankenstein, Lugosi as Dracula, and Chaney as The Wolf Man.

  He’d emptied the glass display cabinet of Miss Todd’s Dresden dolls, and replaced them with resin statues of the tripods from H. G. Wells’s War of the Worlds, a scale model of the Time Machine, and an action figure–sized Claude Rains as the Invisible Man.

  A massive, lighted replica of Jules Verne’s Nautilus from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea dominated an entire shelf, and below that stood an army of vintage Star Wars figures.

  In a cage flanked by cardboard cutouts of Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock, Waldo the parrot proudly preened his blue feathers and warbled happily.

  “Beam me up, Scotty! Beam me up! Squawk!”

  “We’re in luck!” Seymour grinned. “Waldo is in a talkative mood tonight.”

  When I first explained to Brainert that Waldo was a witness to Emma’s life, as well as her death, and he might give us a valuable clue, he stared at me as if I were crazy. But Seymour took my side.

  “It’s not that crazy. Whenever I delivered PetMeds to Mrs. Hudson, the bird always greeted me by name. And this mystery ghostwriter must have known Emma, at least well enough to swipe an old photo.”

  “And, Brainert, you still believe the ghostwriter is a member of the St. Francis University faculty, right?”

  “Yes, Pen. Those vintage folders are a dead giveaway. No one else is likely to have them.”

  “So it makes sense.” I turned to Seymour, who’d been looking after the bird for days. “If Waldo hears a woman’s name that he recognizes, he’ll likely repeat it, right?”

  Seymour nodded, but Brainert still voiced doubts.

  “Oh, come on,” I coaxed. “I know you have a copy of the faculty directory on your mobile phone. You can read the women’s names out loud and see if Waldo responds to one of them.”

  “I still think it sounds crazy.”

  “Yeah,” Seymour cackled, “about as crazy as a few stuffy professors writing the hottest erotic thriller of the year!”

  “Speaking of which, I had an encounter with Dean Pepper tonight that made me think he might be the secret writer we’re looking for. While he was hitting on Shirley Anthor, he mentioned he’d just acquired a Yorkie—”

  Brainert raised a hand to stop me.

  “Sorry, Pen. I don’t know where he got the Yorkie, but there is no way he’s our mystery writer. The man’s literary ability is limited at best. He insists on writing the movie descriptions for our features, and I always revise his pedestrian prose before the public sees it. He’s a fine teacher and administrator, but Wendell could never have made those flamboyant contributions to Shades of Leather.”

  “But didn’t you say it was Dean Pepper’s office where you saw those vintage folders?”

  Brainert frowned. “That’s true . . .”

  Seymour clapped his hand. “So why don’t we start Waldo out with the dean’s name? What do you say?”

  Despite his misgivings, Brainert loudly recited Dean Wendell Pepper’s name to the caged bird. Waldo gave no reaction.

  “I told you, Pen, we’re looking for a woman.”

  Turning to his phone, Brainert began reciting female names from the faculty directory. Twenty minutes later, he’d only reached the letter F.

  “Tracy Anne Fritz, Ph.D. Department of Biological Sciences.”

  Waldo whistled, squawked, and looked away.

  “Come on, Brainert. Hurry it up! You don’t have to read their degrees and departments, just the names.”

  Seymour’s tone was exasperated, and I sympathized. At this glacial pace, we’d be here for another hour.

  Worse than that, Waldo showed no interest, never mind a reaction.

  “Kay W. Frolla, Ph.D. Department of Computer Science.”

  Waldo chewed his feathers and dipped his beak in the water dispenser—a sure sign he was bored, according to Seymour.

  “Go faster, Brainiac. He’s waiting for the next name.”

  “How do you know what he’s waiting for? Are you a bird whisperer?”

  “Guys, will you stop bickering!”

  “Very well, Pen.” Brainert leaned back in one of Seymour’s massive lounge chairs. “Helen Frye, Ph.D. Department of Psychology.”

  Seymour covered his ears. “You’re a psycho if you keep reading their credentials.”

  “You’re a psycho!! You’re a psycho!” Waldo cried.

  “See! Now you’re confusing him!”

  “Me!” Brainert was incensed. “You’re the one who called me a psycho!”

  “Read the next name,” I begged.

  “Mary Frances Giordano.”

  “Wait,” Seymour whispered. “He seemed to react to that name. Read it again.”

  “Mary Frances—”

  Waldo bobbed his head and dropped a fresh one on the Quindicott Bulletin lining the bottom of his cage.

  Brainert blew his stack. “The only reaction I get is bird guano!”


  “Technically, bats drop guano,” Seymour said. “If it’s from a bird, it’s just crap. Or if you prefer the vulgar plain old birdsh—”

  “Next!”

  “Anupama Gupta—”

  “Gupta! Gupta!” Waldo cried.

  “Eureka!” Seymour jumped to his feet. “Read it again, but slower this time.”

  “Anu . . . pama . . . Gupta.”

  “Sanjay Gupta! Sanjay Gupta. Squawk!” Waldo’s voice dropped an octave. “This is CNN.”

  Seymour sighed. “Sorry, guys. Waldo always watches the news with me.”

  Brainert grit his teeth and went back to reading.

  “Henrietta Hollister, Ph.D. Department of Mathematics—”

  “Yeah, sure, a mathematician is going to write bestselling erotica,” Seymour cracked.

  “Caroline Linden has a Harvard math degree,” Brainert sniffed. “And she writes romance novels.”

  “Okay, you got me,” Seymour said. “But do her books have naughty bits? And how naughty are they?”

  “For the last time, Seymour, let him read!”

  “One last dance! One last dance!” the bird cried.

  I blinked. “Where did I just hear that phrase? I know! Dr. Leeds said those words tonight, as he approached the podium.”

  “Except we’re looking for a woman,” Seymour said.

  “And that arrogant ass is about the last man on earth who’d participate in putting together a potboiler,” Brainert added.

  “Jealous, much?” Seymour goaded.

  “It’s not jealousy. It’s pure dread. Can you imagine what that Bentley Prize winner will do to me if he finds out I’ve cowritten a piece of literary trash?”

  “Stop being so dramatic,” I told him. “Plenty of people are enjoying the book, and it’s certainly helping our shop’s bottom line.”

  “That won’t help my case in the department.”

  “I think you’re selling your colleagues short.”

  “Not Leeds. At departmental meetings, he routinely ridicules choice passages from New York Times bestsellers—as a form of amusement.”

  “Amusement is right,” Seymour snorted. “’Cause if he read ‘choice passages’ from his idea of literature, he’d put the room to sleep!”