The Ghost and the Femme Fatale

by Alice Kimberley

  "Then how'd she get into the movie business?" Seymour asked.

  I continued skimming the text. "Seems Hedda's two older sisters were known to make, uh…'dates' with men for money. They encouraged Hedda to do the same."

  "That's a libelous accusation!" Brainert cried.

  "Dr. Lilly claims it was one of Hedda's 'boyfriends' who got her a break at sixteen, a bit part in a Gotham Features film that was shooting exteriors near Hedda's neighborhood. Apparently, Hedda worked hard after that first break. She took speech lessons, dance lessons, and kept on moving up the Gotham ladder of players until she finally landed a leading lady role at twenty. You know the rest."

  Brainert frowned. 'The rest is an unsubstantiated charge of cold-blooded murder. And I still don't believe it."

  I exhaled, trying to puzzle out a next step. How could I or anyone else prove-or disprove-Dr. Lilly's theory of Irving Vreen's death? Irene Lilly herself was dead, so we couldn't ask her to back up her accusations. And the crime happened so far in the past, pretty much everyone connected to the crime was dead. Everyone except Hedda and-

  "We could talk to Pierce Armstrong!" I exclaimed.

  "And ask him what?" Brainert demanded.

  "We can ask him if Dr. Lilly's charges are true!" Seymour replied. "That's a great idea, Pen!"

  I vigorously nodded. "If Pierce Armstrong was railroaded, then he has a powerful motive for wanting to see the truth about the past come out and Hedda Geist brought to justice."

  "I suppose so… " Brainert reluctantly admitted.

  "It would also prove that Hedda Geist had a reason to want Dr. Lilly out of the way," Seymour said.

  Brainert frowned. "Surely you're not suggesting that frail old woman murdered Dr. Lilly?"

  "Okay, maybe she didn't do it herself," said Seymour with a shrug, "but she is rich enough to buy an accomplice."

  "Or keep it inside the family by using someone like her granddaughter, Harmony," I noted.

  Seymour shook his head. "So sad to think that a hottie like that could actually be a hellion. But I guess rotten apples don't fall far from the tree."

  Brainert tightly folded his arms. "I don't like this."

  "Then there's something else you won't like," I said and informed Brainert about the break-in at Dr. Lilly's rented bungalow. "Her laptop, tape recorder, and a number of audio cassettes appeared to have been stolen. I'm betting Dr. Lilly had damaging evidence in her possession-all the more reason we should speak with Pierce Armstrong as soon as possible."

  Brainert nodded. "I suppose Mr. Armstrong could shed some light on all this. He'll be at the festival sometime this weekend. He's a surprise guest, you know. It was my colleague who arranged his appearance."

  "Which colleague?" I asked.

  "The dean," said Brainert. "Dr. Wendell Pepper."

  Seymour blinked. "Dr. Pepper? The man named after the soft drink that uses prunes for flavoring?"

  Brainert exhaled in disgust at Seymour 's relentless needling.

  "We should strike while the iron is hot," I quickly suggested. "Has Armstrong even arrived in Quindicott yet?"

  Brainert nodded. "Oh, yes," By now he should be here.

  "Great!" I said. "Where's he staying?"

  "With Dr. Pepper," said Brainert. "He has plenty of room. He owns a very large house on Larchmont Avenue and-"

  "He's the most original soft drink ever in the whole wild world-"

  "Stop it, Seymour!"

  Seymour laughed. "It's just too easy to get a rise out of you, Parker. So, Pepper lives on Larchmont, eh!" Seymour clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "Man I'd love to see the inside of one of those giant old mansions. Ring Dean Soda Pop up and get us an invite."

  Brainert wrinkled his nose at Seymour 's disheveled postal uniform, now stained with grass and dirt. "Shouldn't you go home and change your clothes?"

  "That's a great idea. I want to look my best when I meet Pierce Armstrong-Big Mike O'Bannon-in the flesh," Seymour said, grinning. "Lucky for me, I don't have to go home. I have civvies packed in the trunk of my car."

  "But don't you still have mail to deliver?" Brainert pressed.

  "I already called in a favor, asked a colleague to finish my route for me," Seymour replied. "I'm free to pursue this case for the rest of the weekend. I'll just run along and fetch my clothes, and we can be off."

  Scowling, Brainert pulled his cell phone from the pocket of his blue blazer. Before he could dial Dr. Pepper's number, however, Aunt Sadie stuck her head through the stock room door.

  "Sorry to interrupt," she said softly.

  "Aunt Sadie!" I approached her with a copy of Murdered in Plain Sight. "Do me a favor. Is Spencer home from his Little League clinic?"

  "Yes, he just got back. He headed upstairs to play a video game, but he asked for permission to go to his best friend Danny's house tonight for dinner and a sleepover in Danny's new tent. Sounds like fun. Apparently, Mr. Keenan just set it up in their backyard."

  "A sleepover in a tent…?" I frowned, my mind shifting gears to mother mode. I couldn't help worrying about everything Spencer might need for an outing like that-PJ's that were warm enough for a May evening, his sleeping bag, toothbrush, underwear. It might get pretty chilly so he'd need extra blankets, a sweatshirt. And all of that would be hard to carry. I checked my watch and shook my head. I couldn't drive Spencer over to Danny's house! My Saturn's battery was still dead, and-

  You're being a real Killjoy Jane, you know that?

  "Excuse me, Jack," I silently told the ghost, "but this doesn't concern you-"

  That kid's no infant. He can carry his own kit across town, for cripes sake. What's the problem? He got an invite from his best friend. Let him play Davy Crockett for a night if he wants to.

  "The problem is…" I started to argue, but then I stopped myself. "Wait. Did you just say he got an invite from his best friend?"

  Wake up, Wanda.

  I blinked. Spencer never had a best friend before. Oh, he'd been friendly with classmates back in the city, but he'd been so shy and morose when Calvin was alive-wilting in his father's depressive shadow.

  Things were different now. And Spencer was different, too. He'd been in the same class with Danny Keenan for the past year, but it was only lately, since Little League had begun, that the two had become really tight. I hated to admit it, but Jack was right. This invitation was important. And it was exactly the reason I'd moved back to Quindicott, so Spencer could get away from his worries, make friends, enjoy the world around him, enjoy living.

  I faced Aunt Sadie. "Do you think Danny's mother or father could pick Spencer up? My car's battery is still dead."

  Sadie smiled. "I'm sure they'd be happy to do that."

  "Well, if not… I can always ask Seymour to help out and drive him over. Either way, it's okay." I nodded. "Tell Spencer he's allowed to spend the night at Danny's.

  Nice call, baby.

  "Thanks, Jack," I whispered to the ghost-and then I remembered Dr. Lilly's book in my hands. "Oh! Aunt Sadie, one more thing: Ask Spencer to run this book over to Fiona Finch. She'll know what to do with it."

  Overhearing me, Brainert groaned. "You're not bringing Fiona into this?"

  "She's already involved, Brainiac," Seymour informed him.

  "And she's a true-crime expert," I added. "I want her opinion of what Dr. Lilly's written."

  "Good idea," said Aunt Sadie, taking the book from my hands. "But the reason I came back here wasn't to tell you that Spencer was home."

  "What's up?"

  "I wanted to let you know that Ms. Hedda Geist-Middleton has just entered the bookshop with her granddaughter, Harmony."

  CHAPTER 13. Once a Diva

  She was the greatest of them all. In one week she received seventeen thousand fan letters. Men bribed her hair-dresser to get a lock of her hair. There was a maharajah who came all the way from India to beg one of her silk stockings. Later he strangled himself with it.

  – Sunset Boulevard, 1950


  I HURRIED ONTO the bookshop's selling floor. Hedda Geist-Middleton was standing near the front door, surveying the crowded aisles with the regal mannerisms of a minor monarch.

  "I'm ready for my signing," she announced after I introduced myself.

  And her close-up, Jack quipped in my head. I see the old broad's returned to the scene of the crime.

  "If she's guilty."

  True… if…

  Jack's jaundiced tone made me take a closer look at Hedda. As I shared pleasantries with the former actress-asking about her stay at the Finch Inn, explaining how our signings work-I tried to assess what the woman was capable of.

  Despite her advanced age, Hedda Geist still glowed with charisma and energy. She was tall, lean, and didn't appear particularly delicate or fragile. Mostly, she projected class and elegance. Her silk blouse of emerald green perfectly matched her famous catlike eyes. Her cream-colored crepe slacks draped like filmy curtains; a wide belt of hand-tooled leather cinched them fashionably at the hip. Her silver-white hair was neatly pinned back to show off platinum earrings.

  Even her perfume was unique and elegant-a distinctly delicate scent of orange blossoms. I'd never smelled a scent like it.

  It was hard not to admire the elderly lady. Her confidence was magnetic and she spoke with eloquence and power.

  "Could Brainert possibly be right?" I quietly wondered.

  Right about what? Jack suddenly challenged. Spill, baby…

  "It's true that Hedda was reckless when she was younger. She threw over her actor boyfriend for the married head of her studio, and when the two men confronted each other, she was caught in a horrifying position. But that doesn't necessarily make the woman a murderer, does it?"

  Go on…

  "What if the real femme fatale here isn't Hedda Geist? What if Brainert's right? What if it's Dr. Lilly?"

  "What if" don't pay the rent, baby. You've got to sell me.

  "Think about it, Jack. For years Irene Lilly's been living in the academic shadows. Her backlist film studies were never big sellers-there are hundreds of books like them, carrying the same sorts of essays and retrospectives. Perhaps Dr. Lilly wanted to come out of the shadows for once in her career, not to mention make certain her retirement nest would be well feathered."

  You're saying Dr. Lilly was peddling pabulum and knew it?

  "A PhD at the end of your name doesn't grant you a halo. Publish or perish is an academic credo, and I know for a fact that stress can drive some professors to rather unethical ends-"

  Just a guess, baby, but I'm thinking my idea of "unethical ends" may be a tad different than yours.

  "I'm talking about professors who hire professional writers to ghost their papers, even entire books. And I'm not saying Dr. Lilly did that. I'm simply saying she might have chucked academic honesty out the window. Maybe she never had any evidence about Hedda Geist's past. Maybe Irene Lilly simply wanted to use that dark moment at the Porterhouse restaurant to gain media attention for an otherwise ordinary biography."

  So you think our dead Lilly just wanted big headlines?

  "Today's news business is a pretty hungry monster: 24/7 cable news, thousands of Internet sites globally. Leveling sensational charges would have gotten the book some sort of attention, even if the charges were ultimately unsubstantiated."

  I flashed back on the image of what Jack had showed me at the Porterhouse. When Irving Vreen had fallen on that steak knife, the young Hedda's horrified reaction appeared real enough to me. She seemed genuinely shocked that she'd stabbed the man.

  Sure she did, baby, Jack whispered in my head, but then Hedda was one of the best actresses around, wasn't she?

  "True."

  Appearing as anything the script called for was her specialty. Just like now…

  "What do you mean?"

  Queen Hedda of Newport, daughter of old money. It's an act, baby, just another part. Remember what you read in that book about her childhood? The broad wasn't born the daughter of royalty or privilege. Back in my time, the dame grew up with a fishmonger's accent, in the shadow of those Long Island City smokestacks we drove by.

  "True… Dr. Lilly did bring up some pretty ugly details from her youth. With Hedda and her family trying so hard to maintain the upper-class image, the book could prove embarrassing…"

  Yeah, baby. It could.

  I swallowed uneasily, seeing a brand-new motive for Hedda to want Lilly killed-along with the book's publicity.

  But could Hedda have done away with Dr. Lilly all by herself? Brainert had characterized Hedda as frail and old. While her age was obvious, I wondered how "frail" she really was.

  Time to go fishing, sweetheart.

  "Right," I told Jack. Then I turned to Hedda.

  "We have quite a lot of customers queued up for your signing in the Events room, Ms. Geist. How's your strength? Do you feel up to this?"

  Hedda waved her hand, flashing more platinum on two diamond rings. "I still ride two hours every day on my horse farm," she said with a proud little smile. "I think I can handle scribbling my name on a few books."

  She gestured to someone behind me. I turned to find her granddaughter, Harmony, standing there. The young woman looked as stunning as ever in a belly-baring white tank and a low-riding skirt of designer denim. Her layered blonde hair was loose, her pretty feet at the end of long, tanned legs, were manicured with pink nail polish and caressed by sandals of Italian leather.

  I greeted her, counting at least three small groups of young men who were either gaping openly in her direction or glancing furtively at her backside while whispering among themselves. I didn't see Dixon Gallagher among the admiring males-and none of them looked big enough to be that Darth Vader biker who'd run me down in the woods near Charity Point.

  Ignoring the lump that still throbbed high on my forehead, I clapped my hands and brightly suggested, "Shall we move into the Events room?"

  Both women followed me into the large space, where a crowd had been marshaled into a civilized queue, thanks to Seymour Tarnish. "Don't push, people! There are plenty of Hedda's books available. I said, don't push! That means you, buster!"

  The fans were all ages and they began to applaud and whistle when they saw Hedda enter the room. The old actress smiled, obviously pleased, and gave her adoring fans a royal wave. I showed her where to sit.

  She took her time settling herself into the padded armchair behind the polished walnut table. "Is there water, Mrs. McClure?"

  "Yes, of course." I presented her with a sealed bottle. She eyed it with a frown of obvious disapproval. I got the hint, opened it, and poured it into a paper cup.

  Hedda took a sip and cleared her throat. "Now… where are my special pens? Harmony!"

  Harmony stepped up and provided them. "Here you are, Grandma."

  "Thank you, Harmony. You're such a dear! Enjoy yourself now, darling. Why don't you select some books for your summer reading. My treat."

  Harmony smiled, nodded at me, and wandered off toward the selling floor-the eyes of just about every male in the room watching her leave.

  The signing went fairly smoothly after that, with the exception of a plump older man in a sports jacket who attempted to monopolize Hedda with gushing tales of his fandom.

  "…and I have every poster on my wall and a signed photograph from the publicity department of Gotham Features. Oh, how I treasure that photo. I can't believe I'm here talking to you. To finally smell your perfume is a thrill for me." The man made a show of inhaling the air. "Ah… that delicate orange-blossom scent. I read in your book how a French admirer sent you a bottle of Vouloir from Paris, and it's the only perfume you've ever worn since. Your signature scent. I can finally smell it for myself. Intoxicating! Now, let me ask you about playing opposite Pierce Armstrong in-"

  "Okay, buddy!" Seymour shouted. "Hedda signed your book. Now move along! Give someone else a chance!"

  As the crowd dwindled down, I stepped up to Hedda.

  "More water, Ms. Geist?"
r />   "Yes… unless you have a good bottle of California Sauvignon Blanc handy?" She smiled. "My late husband had friends who owned a vineyard in Napa. I'm a sucker for a good Sav."

  "Sorry, no wine," I said. "We tried serving alcohol once at a signing but our local councilwoman fined us for not having a liquor license."

  "What a shame."

  I opened a fresh bottle of water and cleared my throat. With the signing almost over, I knew this was the best chance I had to ask the former actress a few more questions.

  "I was wondering, Ms. Geist," I began, as I refilled her cup. "Did you hear about Dr. Lilly?"

  "Terrible business…" Hedda shook her head, but her eyes remained down, focused on the table and the book she was signing. "A tragic accident to be sure…"

  "Just like last evening," I replied. "That large, heavy speaker falling onto the stage."

  "Oh, yes!" She straightened immediately and met my eyes. "I was quite put out. It could have killed me!"

  "Or Dr. Lilly," I noted.

  "Oh, no!" Hedda frowned. "You're mistaken, Mrs. McClure. Dr. Lilly stepped aside to let me speak. She was completely clear of danger when that speaker careened toward the stage and nearly finished me!"

  With wide dramatic eyes Hedda stared at me a moment, then she turned back to the crowd, her expression instantly transforming into a warm smile as she waved the next customer forward.

  "Come, come!" she said brightly. "Step up!" "Okay," I silently told Jack, "that was weird." Jack snorted. Once a diva, always a diva. "Or drama queen… "

  A rose by any other name… still wants the spotlight.

  Clearing my throat, I stepped closer to the former actress. "I was wondering something else, Ms. Geist," I said quietly as she signed the next customer's book. "Did you know about Dr. Lilly's new publication?"

  "What's that, Mrs. McClure? You say Dr. Lilly had a new book?"

  "Yes, but it wasn't a film study like her other titles. This book was a biography of your life and career, and it made quite a few rather sensational charges at the end of it."