The Chick and the Dead (25 page)

My words echoed back at me from the fog. At least I think it as my own voice I heard. It was hard to hear when my heart pounded in my chest and my blood rushed inside my ears. I stood there, wondering what I could do to change the course of the events that had happened so many years before, and even as I watched, a figure moved past me and toward Didi.

Man or woman? Honestly, I couldn't tell. The figure was as insubstantial as the fog that swirled around us, no more real than the shadows that hid its face and distorted its shape. A voice came from behind me somewhere.

"He's not coming," it said.

The voice shook Didi out of the spell that held her. Still perched high above the city, she turned. In the anemic yellow light, her face was radiant. "He will. He has to. He said he'd be here."

"He'll never leave her."

"He said he's coming for me."

"He didn't mean it."

"He wouldn't lie."

"Are you sure?" I heard a chuckle and the sound of something scraping against the concrete. The next thing I knew, the figure had closed in on Didi. It grabbed hold of the sleeve of her coat, holding her in place, keeping her from harm.

Didi took one more look over her shoulder at the panorama ofCleveland skyline and held out her hand to the figure, preparing to step down.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

Maybe things hadn't really happened the way Didi remembered them.

Maybe I wouldn't be forced to watch her die in the fog and the cold.

Maybe—

I saw the figure glance not at me, but at the person who stood somewhere in the shadows behind me.

"Go ahead," the voice said.

The figure nodded, tightened its hold on Didi, and pushed.

"
Why the hell did you tell me you committed
suicide?" Okay, so my question wasn't exactly tactful. And I wasn't precisely composed. How was I supposed to act when I had just witnessed a murder? Yeah, yeah. It was a fifty-year-old murder. But still…

Safely back in the present and right where I'd started out from, I sat on the edge of my bed, pulling in shaky breath after shaky breath, one hand pressed to my heart and the other swiping at the tears on my cheeks.

"You were murdered, Didi." I said it pretty loud, partly because it didn't seem to be sinking in with my resident victim. Mostly because I was so rattled, I couldn't help myself. "How did you not know you were murdered?"

Across the room, Didi stood with her back to me. Her head was tipped to one side.

"I know it sounds crazy but…" She turned to me, and when she did, she looked just like she had before we started our frightening little journey into the past. Pajamas. Turban. Green goo. "I never thought about it before. I didn't remember…" As if the fog still sat heavy on her shoulders, she shivered inside her flannel pajamas. "I remember being on the bridge. I remember that first step off into nothingness. It felt like I was flying. But I didn't know…" She shook herself. "I was so confused that night. I was out of my head! And, remember, I did leave a suicide note. I heard people talking about it at my funeral. What else was I supposed to think?"

I thought back to the scene on the bridge, and maybe this whole detective thing was finally starting to sink in. Instantly I saw the flaw in Didi's theory. "You left a note, huh? But you didn't have a pen. I know because I saw you looking through your pockets for one. Bet the person who pushed you didn't know that."

Didi's blue eyes widened. "I forgot. I mean about the pen. I didn't—" She shook her head as if she was trying to clear it. "First at my funeral, then over the years… I heard
suicide
so often, I really believed it. I thought I killed myself."

The enormity of the news settled in on me. "Shit," I grumbled.

"I'll say." Didi dropped down on the bed next to me. "Now what?" All right, I admit it wasn't exactly the right thing to do to inspire confidence in a client, but I shook my head, confused. "I guess we've got to wonder if your death had anything to do with the manuscript," I said. "That all depends on who pushed you." When Didi didn't say a thing, I tried a more obvious approach.

"Who pushed you?" I asked. "I couldn't see clearly. At least I couldn't see any more than shadows. You know, like a TV when the cable is out. Any chance it was Merilee?" Didi shot off the bed like it was on fire. "Don't be ridiculous. Merilee is my sister. My own sister wouldn't—"

"Steal your manuscript?"

"That's different."

"Is it? If she wanted the manuscript bad enough—"

"She didn't. All she ever did was make fun of my book. I'd tell her about it, and she'd criticize my research or tell me my characters wouldn't do the things they did, that they wouldn't talk the way I had them talking. She didn't want the manuscript at all. Not while I was alive. It wasn't until after I was dead that she realized it would never be published if she didn't—"

"Revisionist history!" I jumped up from the bed and faced off against Didi. "Listen to yourself. Suddenly you're excusing her."

"I'm not. But you said—"

"Hell, Didi, I just saw someone push you off a friggin' bridge. All I'm saying is that we have to figure out who it was."

"No. You're the one who doesn't get it. I'm dead. I've been dead longer than I was ever alive. I missed out on turning thirty. On seeing my daughter grow up. On holding my granddaughter. I never got to marry the man I loved." Her shoulders slumped. "I killed myself, Pepper. That's what everyone said, and they were so sure of it, no one ever even bothered to question it. Everybody just figured I was another unwed mother who couldn't face the humiliation. No one cared enough to even look into my death. Don't you see, after all these years of them not caring, I don't care, either." I couldn't exactly empathize with a lot of what Didi said. I'd never had a kid—heck, I didn't even know if I ever wanted one—so the whole maternal thing… well, that was foreign to me. But I wasn't completely heartless. I did understand what it was to be young and alive. I knew what it felt like to have dreams shattered and hopes dashed, too.

There was also the little matter of justice.

Would Didi understand about that?

I didn't know and I didn't mention it, because frankly, I wasn't sure I understood it completely myself. What I did know was that royalties or no royalties, name on a book or not, Didi's restless spirit was doomed to roam the earth as long as her murderer remained at large.

Call me a sucker.

I couldn't do that to a woman with green goo on her face.

The good news was that there was no lack of suspects.

The bad news?

See above.

The next day as I sat on my bed and made a list, I realized there were a whole bunch of people who might have wanted Didi dead.

Merilee, for one, and it didn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to figure out why. She knew about Didi's manuscript. If she saw the potential to cash in on what was sure to be a hit, she might have been more than happy to have Didi out of the picture.

Weird Bob because…

Well, as far as I could see, he didn't have a motive, but there was no doubt he
was
weird. Thomas Ross Howell was high on the list, too, though at this stage of the game, there was no way on earth I was going to mention that to Didi. Even after fifty years, she was obviously still in love with him. Sure, she must have known the truth: If her affair with Howell was exposed, it would have ruined his perfect life. There was no use in me pointing out something so obvious. Especially when it would hurt so much.

I continued with my list, writing down Howell's wife, Tammy, next. After all, she had a stake in this too. Susan Gwitkowski was there, too. No doubt when she worked with Didi, she'd seen the little black book. If she thought it was her key to riches, she might have been willing to kill for it. Was I missing anybody?

Probably, especially when I thought back to the scene on the bridge and considered the fact that there were two people present. Sure, one of them had pushed Didi. But the other had given the order. If only I knew where to begin.

I looked toward my dresser, where I'd hidden the little black book beneath the underwear in the middle drawer. "Heck," I told myself, thinking of all the names inside the book, "it could have been any one of them, and between now and the premiere… " I sighed. There weren't enough days in the weeks to talk to all the men listed in Didi's little black book. I wouldn't even know how to track them down. Unless…

I'd been so busy focusing on the news of Didi's murder and all that it meant in terms of my investigation, I hadn't allowed myself to relax enough to get my brain in gear. It kick-started back to life, and I jumped off the bed.

I yanked open the dresser drawer, scooped up the black book, and went to find what was left of the gala invitations.

There wasn't a lot more I could do until the day of the gala. At least not in terms of my investigation. Of course, that didn't mean I was living a life of leisure. Merilee kept me hopping. The dry cleaner's, the jeweler's, the florist, the seamstress.

It was no wonder Trish had been worn to a frazzle. Aside from being antisocial, cranky, and a super-duper pain in the ass, Merilee was one tough taskmaster.

But all was not lost.

Thanks to the never-ending demands, I had errands to run each day. And that gave me a lot of freedom. On the afternoon that I had appointments to pick up Merilee's gala gown and the necklace and bracelet a local jeweler was loaning her to wear with it, I took a detour to Garden View. Not much had changed since the last time I stopped by. There was still a bevy of reenactors roaming the grounds, and they still gave me the creeps. The good thing, though, was that not one of them looked like Dan the Brain Man.

I put the thought out of my mind and concentrated on my mission. I had a couple of reasons for my visit, one of which was Ella's birthday. It was coming up in just a few weeks, and for all she'd done for me (aside from signing me on as an indentured servant to the Queen of Mean), I wanted to get her something special. I'd gone through the list of usual ideas: bath gel, body lotion, blah, blah, blah. But somewhere between the dry cleaner's and the jeweler's, inspiration had struck like a blast from a Union artillery cannon.

Merilee the Meticulous would never allow anything tacky and modern in her office. If I was going to find the ultimate in birthday gifts, I needed the good, not-so-old-fashioned Internet. Lucky for me, Ella wasn't around, so I didn't have to explain myself. I said a quick hello to Jennine at the front desk, ducked into my office, turned on my computer, and got to work.

"
So Far the Dawn
memorabilia." I mumbled while I Googled the words, congratulating myself for being a genius and figuring I'd be done with my search in just a matter of moments. Like I knew there were so many crazy collectors out there?

I glanced at page after page of sites devoted to
SFTD
kitsch and, overwhelmed, decided the best place to start was at the beginning—sofarfrenzy. com, the home of Opal dolls, Palmer pictures, and what was purported to be the original front door of the house used in the scene where Opal first meets Charleton Hanratty.

Not a
So Far the Dawn
lunch box in sight.

"Shit." I hit the back arrow and went on to the next site, and then the one after that. I could have bought a replica of the nightgown Opal wore on her wedding night, a duplicate of the musket Palmer carried in the war, any number of porcelain figurines, collectible plates, and Christmas ornaments.

"You think there would be one damned lunch—"

My eyes scanned the screen, and my words dissolved into a gurgle of pure, unadulterated disbelief.
For sale. Newly posted
, the listing on dawn-dazed.com read.
Original. Valuable. First page from
original
So Far the Dawn
manuscript. Age authenticated. Some damage from writing on page. If
you're a serious collector, you've got to own it! Truly one-of-a-kind
.

"I'll say," I mumbled, and if I had a fifty, I would have plunked it down and bet it on the spot. That's how sure I was that I knew the identity of the lister who called himself msman. I didn't hesitate. Calling myself Numberlfan, I composed an e-mail, and in it, I just about begged for a look at the page. I told msman I was the most avid
So Far the Dawn
fan on the planet. I swore I admired Opal and confessed that I'd been in love with Palmer since the moment I'd first read the book. I'd seen the movie dozens of time, I said. I knew every line of dialogue by heart. I wanted that manuscript page, I told him, and I wanted it bad. Price (I made sure I said this in a paragraph of its own so there was no way he could miss it) was no object.

Some of what I told him was actually true. At least when it came to the part about how much I wanted to get my hands on the manuscript.

Most of it, of course, was bullshit.

Did I care?

Not even a little. After all, if msman was who I thought msman was and if the page was real…

My heart was beating fast, and when I hit the send button, my fingers were crossed.

I was so jazzed by the possibility of actually seeing an original manuscript page that wasn't one of the

"original" manuscript pages in the display case at the museum, I never did find a lunch box for Ella. I told myself I'd look again another day, and with hopes higher than they had been since the day Didi spooked her way into my life, I continued on with the second half of my reason for my visit to Garden View. Back in my car, I cruised over to the new section.

Lucky for me, when I got to the Bowman mausoleum, I saw that nothing had changed there. There were a few people hanging around, and Rick Jensen was still waiting for the perfect photo op. I parked my Mustang. "Hey!" I called to him, and lifted a cardboard box out of my trunk. "I've got a present for you."

When I opened the box and showed him what was inside, Rick's eyes lit. "My camera! Where did you—? How did you—?"

"It's kind of a long story," I told him, even though it really wasn't except for the part about how I never would have been in Weird Bob's workroom if it wasn't for a certain ghost. "Where I found it doesn't matter except that it might mean something in terms of who mugged you. I think I know who did it, but I can't go to the cops. Not yet. Not until I get you to confirm a couple of things for me. I want you to think really hard, Rick. I bet if you do, you'll remember seeing the person around here. Big, beefy guy. Kind of old. Long ponytail. He's always dressed in jeans and a grubby denim shirt." I'll give Rick credit. He tried. He stood quietly for a minute or two, his eyes closed, his forehead puckered as if he was going through a mental list of each and every person who'd visited the mausoleum. Finally, he shook his head. "Sorry. I don't remember ever seeing anybody like that, but then, there have been a lot of folks ogling this place. Damn, but I wish one of them had been that Merilee Bowman! If I could get just one good picture of her, I could really make a name for myself. But as far as the guy you're talking about…" He was deep in thought again.