The Ghost and Mrs. McClure (15 page)

“Me?!”

“The police haven’t called it a murder yet.”

Penelope took a deep breath. “Then what do I do next?”

Suddenly a
tap, tap, tapping
sounded on the store’s arched front window, and Penelope nearly jumped out of her skin. Jack didn’t have any skin, but the vibrations startled him, too.

Looks like you’ve got a visitor,
said Jack.
And a late one at that. So here’s my professional, expert opinion about what to do next—

“What?”

Somebody was nuts. I was nuts. Everybody was nuts.
None of it fitted together worth a nickel.

—Philip Marlowe, “Trouble Is My Business” by Raymond Chandler,
Dime Detective
magazine, August 1939.

 

 

 

OUTSIDE IN THE darkness, a trench-coated figure stood beyond the bookstore’s rain-splattered window. An open umbrella, tilted at an angle, masked the face.

“Who is it?” I whispered to Jack.

Tap, tap, tap
went the person at the window once more. I stepped around the counter and into a cone of light cast by the ceiling fixtures. The big black umbrella moved, and I recognized the pretty pert face and short, shiny, raven hair of Shelby Cabot, the publicist from Salient House. She caught sight of me and waved.

“What should I say to her?” I whispered to Jack. “I mean, to get her to say what she might know about Josh and Deirdre and Kenneth?”

“Okay,” I murmured, “wish me luck.”

I unbolted the door, and Shelby stepped in. “I know it’s late, Mrs. McClure,” she said as she shook the large umbrella, dripping water all over my newly restored plank floor. “I was strolling by the store and saw the lights on and, well—”

“Uh-huh,” I replied, frankly dubious that anyone would be “strolling by” on a night like this one.

Shelby pulled off her sopping raincoat and draped it over a nearby Shaker-style rocker. Dribbling water puddled in the cross-hatched seat.

“I heard sales were brisk today,” she said.

“Oh, yes.”

“How wonderful!” she exclaimed, though her forced grin gave me the impression she didn’t care in the least.

I turned to bolt the door, but something caught my attention: a man was loitering across the street, just beyond the dull beams of the streetlight on the corner. In my head, I whispered to Jack, “Who is that standing across the street?”

How should I know?
he said.

“What kind of response is that?! You’re supposed to be a private eye. Go on over and find out!”

“Why?”

Frustrated with Jack’s double-talk, I stared harder beyond the door’s pane, trying to make out the details of the dark silhouette, but I didn’t recognize the rain slicker, and the big hood was pulled up and around the man’s face.

I’d been peering through the window so intensely, I nearly jumped when Shelby spoke up behind me: “I don’t suppose you received that special order yet? The one I had sent directly from our warehouse?”

I turned to face her, noticing the woman’s gaze was not on me at all. She’d been looking at the figure across the street, too. When I answered, however, she immediately shifted her eyes to me.

“Actually, five hundred hardcovers arrived this morning,” I said.

“Isn’t it convenient the Salient House warehouse is just an hour away,” said Shelby. “Normally, an order like that would take much longer to fulfill.”

“Yes, I was surprised by the speed—but I was absolutely shocked by the amount of books in the order. I mean, last night, you said ‘a few’ more books would be charged to our account number. I can’t figure where ‘a few’ translates into twenty cartons.”

“Of course, Salient House will accept any returns—”

“To tell you the truth, when the delivery man rolled all of those boxes in this morning, I feared we’d never move so many copies. But we’ve already sold more than half the shipment. It turns out you were right to order so many.”

“I’m so glad,” Shelby replied. “I could see from the way you’d mismanaged the event room setup last night that you wouldn’t be on top of your inventory needs, either.”

Did she just take a shot at me? I wondered.

She aimed and fired, all right,
Jack said in my head.

“Well, as new releases go, I can’t say that I have any experience managing inventory for a circumstance like this one,” I said politely, evading an accusation that her large order did force us into a position where we appeared to be
exploiting
an author’s sudden death.

The implication didn’t seem to bother Shelby in the least. “Of course, it’s understandable how the whole thing was just beyond your abilities to handle,” she answered breezily. “Isn’t it fortuitous the way it all turned out—that I was able to do the right thing for you and your store? At Salient House, we’re often exasperated by the provincial attitudes of our unsophisticated vendors, especially those independent booksellers not based in major urban areas. So many such booksellers just aren’t willing to take full advantage of a
situation
.”

In typical “corporate speak”—polite, evasive, and nonspecific—I
guess
the tragedy of Timothy Brennan’s death could be called a “situation.”

“This store
is
impressive,” Shelby said, moving suddenly from insulting to ingratiating. “And
such
a responsibility.”

“We try,” I said.

“Well, don’t feel bad about not knowing quite enough about the publishing business yet.” Shelby Cabot’s eyes locked on mine. “Just as long as you rely on the help of people like me.”

Was this woman actually
trying
to provoke me? I wondered.

If you’re gonna imitate a doormat,
Jack barked in my head,
the least you could do is stretch out on the floor so she can wipe her feet.

“I admit, Mr. Brennan’s signing was this store’s very first,” I said. “But I have had plenty of experience in the publishing business.”

“Really?” Shelby replied. She arched an eyebrow skeptically, even as she brushed a wet ringlet of black hair away from her high, smooth forehead.

“Oh, yes,” I continued, naming the publisher I had worked for, and a brace of popular authors with whom I’d worked in my days as a “publishing professional.”

As I rattled off the names, I realized it
was
an impressive list, even if my dealings with some of those talents would be casually dismissed as “past history”—because, unfortunately, these days publishing operated on the “What have you done for me lately?” principle. The key, of course, being the post-dot-bomb era’s interpretation of the word “lately,” which used to mean over the past five years, but now meant over the past six weeks (the length of time chain stores gave a book to catch on before it was sent back to the publisher’s warehouse in a DDS truck).

Unfortunately, by the time I was finished reciting my résumé, I felt cheap and hollow. Suddenly I was having a flashback to my worst days in that badly managed New York publishing office, where the overall dynamic was vintage John Bradshaw dysfunctional family.

In my experience, lazy, bad managers were the ones most impressed by the slick self-promoters. The hardest workers, who tended to be boring nose-to-the-grindstone types, were subsequently overlooked. My problem was that I’d been brought up to believe self-promotion was
not,
in fact, a virtue. Bragging, I’d been taught, was a form of conceit not to be encouraged, respected, or admired. And it’s something I still believe, frankly.

However, when the vulgar endeavor of blowing your own horn becomes the quickest road to advancement in an office, you’re sunk if you keep your mouth shut.

Style over substance, lip service over true service, self-promotion for rank promotion: I shudder to think how many offices in America are managed with this philosophy. But, I fear, it’s an inescapable reality. Thus, boring, dedicated workers go unrewarded—while slick, pushy operators are put in charge.

I actually felt my stomach turn as these memories of office politics washed over me. I wanted to believe I was over all this, that I’d put it firmly behind me with my move north. But Shelby had dragged me right back, down to her level. A few minor insults and I’d stooped to bragging in my own defense.

Don’t be so hard on yourself,
said Jack.
I got dragged down plenty in back alleys. Sometime there’s nothing you can do about it. Just make sure your punches land.

Okay, maybe I did land a good one: Shelby’s smile became a little more plastic, a little more forced, and I felt that sickly familiar sense of satisfaction. But my victory was fleeting. Women like Shelby were far better than I at this game.

“Interesting bit of experience you’ve had,” she snipped with the sort of creepy cheeriness one usually only hears in a gothic melodrama. “Too bad it’s all behind you. Don’t feel too bad about it, though. Not everyone can hack the big leagues.”

My fantasy about wringing her neck was interrupted, thankfully, by my own private dick.
You’ve done a good job distracting her, doll. Now ask about Joshy boy.

Jack was right, of course—and he probably noticed that I’d done a good job distracting
myself,
too. Okay, I thought, back to business.

“It’s so very difficult to decide about people,” I said, trying hard to keep my delivery casual. “I mean, it takes a truly gifted manager to quickly judge who has the ‘right stuff’ and who is just going to be some total loser, you know? To judge right away who deserves your encouragement and help and who you should crush—for the good of the company, of course.”

“That’s
very
true.” Shelby’s eyes widened with glee.

Bingo! People like Shelby were fairly transparent. Nailing her “philosophy” on office politics wasn’t hard.

“I wonder, what’s your opinion of someone like
Josh?
” I asked. “Do you think
he’ll
make it?”

She flapped her hand. “Josh is a conniving little toady, if you want my unvarnished opinion.”

“Oh, by all means. Don’t hold back.”

“It’s nothing personal. I like him otherwise, you understand. He’s just typical of the kids coming out of college these days. Doesn’t want to listen to people above him—just wants responsibility handed to him. Like this very hot literary author the company’s putting on tour in January. Josh has got it in his head that he can direct the tour, take care of the author, and handle all the media appearances. Crazy. He’s been with the company less than a year, and he’s already lobbying me for a prime assignment like that. But I don’t trust him, frankly. And I think he’d do just about anything to get ahead.”

That gave me pause.

Okay, so I didn’t like Shelby, but I believed what she was saying where Josh was concerned—mainly because her summation was rapid-fire and not in the least forced. There was no sign of the plastic expressions or ingratiating fakeness of her previous exchanges. Nothing phony was present in her judgment of Josh; she’d meant what she’d said.

And what does that tell you?
asked Jack.

“It tells me that Josh has a motive for doing something risky, like helping Brennan’s killer,” I silently told Jack, “
if
the risk helps him advance his career. But I don’t see any connection between Brennan’s death and Josh’s advancement. Unless he’s helping Shelby, and she’s the killer, but what motive would she have for killing Brennan? Her glory was in directing his big book tour—and now that’s over. Shelby had no motive to kill Brennan. None that I can see.”

I was about to ask Shelby more about Josh when I heard footsteps outside. I turned to see a hooded figure lunging toward the door.

I screamed. Shelby Cabot screamed. And the figure recoiled back.

Then he lunged forward again and jiggled the door handle, but found it locked.

“Who is it?” I cried. “Who are you?”

The man pulled down the hood of his L. L. Bean rain slicker and pointed to the handle of the locked door.

“It’s Kenneth!” Shelby said to me. “Kenneth Franken.”

I looked again. It
was
Kenneth Franken, the late Timothy Brennan’s son-in-law—though right now, with his soaked-through rain slicker and drooping hair, he more resembled a half-drowned lobsterman just finished with his traps.

I unbolted the door. As Kenneth stepped in, the downpour followed him. Rain splattered everywhere.

“I’m sorry I frightened you,” he said.

“Come in and get dry,” I told him.

As he came through the doorway, Kenneth slipped on the wet floor and grabbed my arm to steady himself.

“Excuse me,” he mumbled.

Kenneth Franken’s hand was cold—very cold, and he was soaked to the skin. Obviously, he had been out in the night a long time. I glanced across the street, but that loitering man was gone. I knew then that he had been that man.

How odd, I thought. Why would Franken lurk about in the rain? Why not just knock?