Who Killed the Pinup Queen?

by Kelner, Toni, L. P.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’m trying to figure out what happened to this woman. The information I found says she committed suicide by drinking ethylene glycol, and I was wondering if there’d be more information about the circumstances of her death in the records of the hospital where she died. Maybe who it was who brought her in, or why they decided it was suicide. Anything really.”

  “Possibly.”

  “Cool. I’ve got the name of the doctor who signed her death certificate, and I’m pretty sure the hospital is still open. It’s in New York, and I remember your saying you had family working in a lot of the New York hospitals, so I wondered—”

  “Are you seriously asking if I’ll get one of my relatives to go snooping through hospital records?”

  “I wouldn’t have said snooping, but that’s what I’m asking. Would that be a violation of medical ethics?”

  “Yes,” he said flatly.

  “Fair enough.” She took a bite out of her chicken. “It was like fifty years ago, if that makes a difference.”

  “It doesn’t make any difference to me.”

  “Okay, I get that. Never mind.” She decided that she really had crossed the line when she tried to bring his family in and shouldn’t blame him for being offended. So instead of arguing her point further, she concentrated on her chicken while speculating about police records. She was nearly finished eating when Quentin spoke again.

  “Why do you want to know more about the circumstances of that woman’s death anyway?”

  “I don’t think it was suicide.”

  “Don’t tell me you think it was murder!”

  “Actually, I do.”

  “Tilda, you’re starting to scare me. Have you always had this obsession with murder?”

  “Obsession?”

  “First there’s that woman you found.”

  “Who was murdered.”

  “Granted. But Miss Barth’s death was an accident, and apparently this other woman killed herself. It happens every day. It’s tragic, but it happens.”

  “People get murdered every day, too, and for a murderer to get away with it is more than tragic.”

  “Why are you so sure Miss Barth and this suicide victim were murdered?”

  “I can’t tell you. You’ve got medical ethics—I’ve got journalistic ethics.”

  “What is this, payback for not helping you snoop?”

  “Did you get ‘snoop’ off your word-a-day calendar?”

  “Fine. Is this payback for not helping you investigate?”

  If he’d also held his fingers in mock quotes around the word investigate, Tilda would have walked out on him. “It’s not payback for anything. I know I shouldn’t have asked you to look into private records—I acknowledged that. And I hope you’ll acknowledge the fact that I often receive information off the record which I’m honor bound not to reveal. Just like doctors.”

  “It’s hardly the same thing. There’s a bond between a doctor and his patients.”

  “There’s a bond between a reporter and her interview subjects, too.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I just did!”

  Deciding she’d had enough of her food, Tilda pushed her plate aside. Quentin made a go at finishing his, but as the uncomfortable silence continued, he gave up, too. When the waitress came by to ask if they wanted dessert, both refused. After glancing at their faces, she dropped off the check without saying anything else.

  When Quentin picked up the check, Tilda said, “I’ll pay for mine.”

  “No, you don’t have to do that,” he said, sounding abashed. “I asked you out.” He ventured a small smile. “With the successful fund-raiser, I’m getting a raise.”

  Tilda relented enough to say, “Congratulations.”

  “Not that I expect to get rich this way—I’d make a lot more in private practice—but this is important work.”

  “I’m sure those Sticky parents and kids I saw at the Hillside would agree with you.”

  There was another bout of quiet while the waitress took Quentin’s credit card and returned with the receipt for him to sign, but it wasn’t nearly as awkward.

  Finally Quentin said, “Look, I’m sorry if I was out of line. I’m just worried about you. The bad dreams you’ve been having aren’t just when you’re with me, are they?”

  “No.”

  “I’m not surprised. I mean, you’ve had two traumatic experiences in a short period of time, and either one of them would have knocked most people for a loop. But you’re hanging in there, working, starting a new relationship. I just want to make sure you’re okay.” He smiled again, and those adorable dimples made their first appearance of the night.

  It was the dimples that ensured that Tilda spoke tactfully. “I appreciate that, I really do, but I’m not freaking out. I have reason to believe what I believe. And the only way I can get past the nightmares is to investigate the best way I know how. If I can’t find the answers I’m looking for, then I’ll let it go.”

  He smiled, she smiled, and the storm ended. Since the bill had already been paid, they couldn’t very well stick around, but they did walk over to the Cold Stone Creamery a few doors down for ice cream, and talked about nothing consequential for a while, which Tilda found reassuring. Still, when Quentin asked if she wanted to come over to his place to end the evening, Tilda begged off. Partially she was uncomfortable with how vehement he’d been about her investigation, but mostly she wasn’t willing to risk him witnessing another one of her bad dreams.

  Colleen descended on her the second she stepped in the door. “Do you know how many times the phone has rung while you’ve been gone?”

  “Seventy-two?”

  “What? No, not that many, but it was enough. Some man is trying to get in touch with you. He called like four times!”

  “Did he leave a message?”

  “No,” she said, and Tilda could tell from her tone of voice that that’s what was really bothering her. “He wouldn’t tell me who he was, either, but he expected me to tell him when you’d be back. As if it was any of his business!”

  “If he wouldn’t leave a name or number, he was probably just soliciting for donations. If it’s important, he’ll call back. Anybody who knows me would have called my cell.” As Tilda said that, she was reaching for her phone to check the charge, and realized she had several calls on it, too. “Whoops. I guess he did call my cell. I had it turned off for my date.”

  “Date? Where did you go? How was it?”

  “Very nice,” she lied, “but I better check my messages now. Sorry you were bothered. I’ll answer the landline myself if it rings again.”

  She was in her bedroom with the door closed before Colleen could object, but as it turned out there were no messages, just a blocked phone number that had tried repeatedly to call her. That would be awfully persistent for a charity—even her alma mater didn’t usually try that hard. Maybe it was somebody else . . .

  Great. Now she was afraid of a phone call. Well, if the killer was calling, he could either leave a message or wait until he had a chance to threaten her personally.

  After getting ready for bed, Tilda checked e-mail and found twenty messages in the queue for her new address. Most of the responses were wastes of time: spam, answers to the wrong questions, and one guy who swore the picture was of Howard Hughes. Tilda barely skimmed them—her attention was on the note from PhotoFan.

  I think it was Arthur Wilson, but it’s been a long time. I don’t remember much about him—no address or anything like that. He was in the same camera club as me in Queens for maybe a year, but quit coming not long after this shoot. That’s all I know.

  Then she went onto the bulletin board for Joe’s Lost Pinups, and amidst the junk, found a post from a guy who eschewed clever pinup-related turns of phrase to go by the name of Mark:This looks like a guy I ran into a couple of times at New York shoots. He wasn’t in my club, though. His name was Art. I can’t remember his last name, but I t
hink it started with W.

  Arthur Wilson, Art W. Tilda looked at the photo of the guy. “Well, Arthur, I finally know your name. I don’t know anything else about you, but I am going to find you.”

  Despite her concerns about spending the night with Quentin, her night was nightmare-free once again.

  Chapter 37

  Speak your mind, but ride a fast horse.

  —OLD COWBOY SAYING

  TILDA was up bright and early the next day so she could check e-mail messages and bulletin board posts, but it didn’t take long to go through the night’s crop. More spam and more dumb answers, but no more mentions of Arthur Wilson, so all she had to go on was the name and camera clubs in Queens. It was not a promising prospect—a quick estimate of links led to the conclusion that she would probably be Louise Silberblatt’s age by the time she found the guy.

  Sighing, she plotted her attack on the Web, hoping for another e-mail with a link to the GPS tracker on Wilson’s car. The phone rang before she could get started.

  “Another deadline achieved,” Cooper said.

  “Truly you are a copyediting deity.”

  “Don’t mock—we were making changes right up to the last minute. Oh, about your piece about Miss Barth . . .”

  “What about it?” she asked sharply.

  “Well, space was tight . . .”

  “Did you cut part of my piece? Why the hell didn’t you call me and let me do it?”

  “Psych! Didn’t touch a word.”

  “Prick.”

  “Bitch.”

  “Wanker.”

  “Bitch.”

  “Schmuck.”

  “Bitch.”

  “Is ‘bitch’ all you’ve got?”

  “I could use the c word, but if I did, you’d snatch me bald.”

  “Damn straight.”

  “Anyway, your piece was good. The Ambrose brothers were moved to manly tears.”

  “What were they doing there?”

  “They were in a kerfuffle about the resort and whether they can keep it going without Miss Barth. Apparently she was providing a big chunk of the operating capital, plus the star power, such as it was. So the investors needed to confer, and Jillian let them use the videoconference stuff here. That meant that the Ambrose brothers were here all damned day, which was just what we needed in the middle of deadline.”

  “That explains why I haven’t been able to get in touch with them,” Tilda said. “I wanted to ask them about the photo, but now I might not need to.”

  “What? Why were you letting me blather if you’ve figured out who he is?”

  “Because I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.”

  “Bitch.”

  “Don’t start that again!”

  “Sorry.”

  She briefly sketched out how she’d gotten the name Arthur Wilson. “I was kind of hoping for a name I’d heard before, or failing that, something a little easier to track down.”

  “Think of it as a hobby to keep you busy during the evenings once you’re working here full time.”

  “Has Jillian said anything to you?”

  “No, but I heard her talking about it with Bryce. Unfortunately, they noticed me eavesdropping and clammed up.”

  “Then until that comes to pass, I still need to make a living. Has there been any decision about the articles I wrote about the guest stars?”

  “Not that I’ve heard.”

  “Well, I know Jillian won’t totally stiff me. Worst-case scenario, I could rewrite most of the pieces for other markets.”

  It wasn’t a cheery thought, though. Entertain Me! paid well and had a higher profile than most of the magazines she sold to. Maybe the full-time job was coming at just the right time. She hung up the phone, and tried not to brood about it, and went back to Arthur Wilson. An hour later, the phone rang again, and having spent that hour searching fruitlessly, she grabbed it gratefully.

  “Tilda Harper.”

  “Honey, did anybody ever tell you you’re one tough filly to rope?”

  “Not in those words. Mr. Ambrose?”

  “Didn’t I tell you to call me Tucker?”

  “Sorry. Was that you trying to get me last night?”

  “That’s right. I think that gal you live with was right put out when I didn’t leave a message, but I don’t like spreading my business around, if you know what I mean.”

  When it came to Colleen, she knew exactly what he meant. “What can I do for you?”

  “We’ve been talking, Hoyt and me, and we realized there was one interview you hadn’t done yet. You haven’t talked to the two of us.”

  “I’m sorry, Jillian didn’t mention—”

  “Oh, I’m not talking about the magazine necessarily. That’s all kind of up in the air right now, what with what happened to poor Miss Barth. In fact, it was losing her that got Hoyt and me to thinking. The Cowboy Kings have had a good run, but now that we’re getting toward the end of it, we might better tell our tales while we’re still here to tell them. You just don’t ever know what’s coming, do you?”

  “That’s true,” Tilda said, “but I’m not sure I understand what you want me to do.”

  He chuckled. “I never was good with getting to the point. The thing is, we don’t just want an article. We want us a book. The way all them celebrity books are selling, I bet we could make a pretty penny. Only Hoyt and me don’t know nothing about making books. That’s where you’d come in.”

  “You want me to write a book about you?”

  “That’s right. We’ve been reading those pieces you’ve been doing, and they’ve all been mighty good, but it was that article you wrote about Miss Barth that convinced us that you’re the right gal to tell our story. Now I know we’ll have to talk money and contracts and suchlike, but we know some people in publishing, and we figure we can work it all out. If you’re willing, that is.”

  “I’d sure be willing to talk about it,” she said, “but I have to tell you that I’ve never written anything that long before.”

  “Shoot, I figure it’s like riding a horse. If you can stay on for half an hour, it ain’t that much harder to ride all day long. Tell you what, if you’ve got some free time today, why don’t you come over here to the hotel and we’ll start making some plans.”

  “When do you want to meet?”

  “How about four?”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  “One other thing,” he said. “Do you mind keeping this all under your hat for now? Hoyt says once word gets out we’re doing a book, other people might want to try to get one written ahead of us. We don’t want anybody rustling our stories.”

  “Wild horses wouldn’t drag it out of me.”

  He let loose with one of his belly laughs. “Wild horses! We’ll make a cowgirl out of you yet!” He was still laughing when he hung up.

  Tilda didn’t want to get too excited about something that might not pan out, but she was intrigued. The job of ghostwriting a book was just the right carrot to wave in front of a freelancer whose latest series of articles might be spiked at any moment.

  After pouring an extra-large glass of Dr Pepper, she started making calls and hitting the Web. She had a whole lot of research and preparation to do and not much time. As it was, she came close to being late, but managed to be outside the Ambrose brothers’ suite at four o’clock on the dot.

  The door opened, and Tucker greeted her with a big smile. “Hey there, little lady. Come on in.”

  She looked around as she stepped into the suite, but saw nobody else. “Is your brother not here?”

  He gave an exaggerated sigh. “One of our investors for the resort is fixing to bolt, and Hoyt had to get himself over there to lasso him into place. I thought he’d be back by now, but I expect he’ll be along shortly.” He waggled his eyebrows. “I’m not fussing. It’s been many moons since I’ve had a pretty thing like you alone in a hotel room.”

  Tilda laughed dutifully, but made sure to sit on a chair, and not on the sofa whe
re Tucker might be tempted to get too close. Slugging him would not be a good way to start out the meeting.

  After offering to take her blazer, which she preferred to keep, and then to get her a drink, which she turned down with thanks, Tucker planted himself on the sofa. “Let’s go ahead and get started and not wait on Hoyt. This is how we’re picturing the book.”

  The first part of the spiel wasn’t bad, but he got more and more vague as he went on, and it didn’t take Tilda long to figure out that he really hadn’t given the idea of a book much thought at all. But she nodded in the right places and scribbled down notes while waiting for him to wind down.

  “So,” he finally said, “what do you think?”

  “Well, you’ve certainly got plenty of material,” Tilda said. “Good stuff, too. But I do have a question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Are you two going to keep claiming to be from Texas, or come clean about where you’re really from?”

  He went for the belly laugh again, though Tilda didn’t think it quite rang true. “I should have known a smart gal like you would work that out. I guess it all depends on which would sell more books. Which way do you think we should go?”

  “I think it’s time for the truth. It’ll look a lot better if you confess rather than having to be found out.”

  “You think?”

  “Absolutely. So, Arthur, is there anything else you want to confess to?”

  He kept the jovial mask on, but Tilda could tell it was an effort. “Well, now, that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.”

  “Didn’t Miss Barth call you Arthur? Or was it Art? She’s the only one who knew, right, other than your brother?”

  “That’s right.”

  Tilda nodded, and then, as if it were an afterthought.

  “Oh, and Sandra Sechrest must have known you by that name, too. Back from when you were in the camera clubs?”

  “Who was that again?”

  “It’s like I said before, Arthur, I think it’s time for the truth.”

  “Yeah, Sandy knew. She’d known all along.” He shook his head. “I never would have figured her for a blackmailer, but when I got that letter asking for money or having the whole story told, I knew it had to be her.”