A Breath of Dead Air (The Mysteries of Bell & Whitehouse Book 8) (5 page)

“
S
o
? What do you think?”

Alice was eyeing her fiancé with a jaundiced eye. She didn’t approve of Reece lavishing attention on other women, especially when those women had made it their purpose in life to seduce married men into committing adultery.

“I think you need to nip this thing in the bud, honey,” Fee replied with just the right blend of decision and compassion.

“My thought exactly,” Alice grumbled. She took a firm grip on the apron her friend had fitted her out with and tore it from her slender person. When going toe to toe with the likes of Jezebel Baskerville, decked out in designer garb from head to foot, she needed to look her very best, and an apron practically announcing here strode a Bell’s Bakery Belle simply didn’t cut it.

She crossed the floor to the corner booth where Reece and Miss Temptation Island were ensconced and halted in front of the woman, planting a hand on her hip. The reality show host looked up with annoyance, but Alice gave her her best glare in return. Jezebel Baskerville was a tall beauty and usually clad quite provocatively. Today, however, she’d opted for a more subdued style, dressed in simple designer jeans and a crop top, displaying her signature diamond navel piercing. Apart from her long raven hair, now tied back in a high ponytail, her expressive dark eyes and full lips were her most distinguishing features.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Alice asked gruffly, striking the right opening note. “For your information, this is my fiancé.”

She was pleased to see the woman’s fake eyelashes fluttering disconcertedly. “I beg your pardon?” Jezebel huffed, pressing a gel-nailed hand to her large chest. “You have some nerve!”

Visibly flustered, Reece half-rose and cleared his throat. “Um, babe? I want you to meet my new colleague and co-host Jezebel Baskerville.”

Alice’s jaw dropped. “Co-host? You can’t be serious!”

Quite insensitively, Reece decided to use this moment to display a proud grin from ear to ear. “Yep. I’m going to be presenting Temptation Town. Can you believe it? Celebrity host for at least three seasons! Yee-hah!”

Yee-hah? Yee-nah! Alice couldn’t believe what she was hearing, but was determined not to let her perturbation show, as Jezebel was watching her intently. “But what about your movie career? What about your fans?”

Not to mention his fiancée, she might have added. She could just see Reece whooping it up with Jezebel Baskerville in any number of possibly enticing circumstances. Each time Reece went off to shoot a movie she was afraid he was going to fall for his co-star. And now he would be spending weeks, possibly months, in close quarters with this painted hussy? No way.

Reece raked a hand through his dark mane, his eyes clouding. “I was going to talk to you about that. There’s been a setback on the movie front.”

“A setback?”

“A hack, actually.”

“A hack? Who got hacked?”

“The film studio. Their entire email correspondence of the past decade was published on WikiLeaks, reams and reams of the most embarrassing stuff.” For a moment, he couldn’t suppress a grin. “Seems their main shareholder didn’t like being called a goose-stepping squiggly-eyed Nazi. He kicked the entire management team to the curb, going for a clean sweep.”

“Clean sweeps are good, right?” she asked uncertainly.

His face clouded again. “Wrong. Clean sweeps bring in new regimes. And new regimes don’t like to be associated with the movies of the old regime. The new CEO decided to wipe the slate. No more
Crunch Time 4: The Stiffening
. No reboot of
The Graduate
. And no more
Dracula: The Teething
.”

“Oh, no!”

“Oh, yes.”

The Crunch Time movie franchise was Reece’s bread and butter. Those silly action blockbusters had made him a household name across the globe.

“So you see—I need this Temptation Town gig to tide me over, babe.”

Alice could see, all right. And since she was a dutiful future wife, she wavered. But then she caught sight of La Baskerville’s jutting bust and was strong again. And so she said the only thing a future dutiful wife could, which was: “You’re not doing it, Reece. No Temptation Town for you. Uh-uh.”

Reece’s response was both immediate and eloquent. “Huh?”

It was one of those reality show moments, Alice saw. Where cast, crew and viewers alike are stunned by the shock revelation that the goody two shoes middle child is pregnant with the daughter of the ex-boyfriend of her brother’s new girlfriend. Jezebel, however, seemed to take the whole thing in stride, her face not betraying a single emotion. Which Alice took as proof she was probably a botoxee.

“But, babe,” Reece implored, his noble brow puckering, “can’t you see I have to do this? Just think about the exposure!”

“It’s the exposure I’m most worried about,” Alice riposted, directing a scathing look at Jezebel.

“I need this, babe,” Reece went on. “My career needs this.”

“But what about all those other movies you made? They must bring in a pretty penny. And it’s not as if your career is over. There’s plenty of other studios, other movies you can make.” She took him by the shoulders. “You’re Hollywood’s darling, babe. Their number one star. You have to protect your brand. Not associate yourself with this…” She gestured vaguely in Jezebel’s direction. “This tawdry Temptation Town turkey.”

“Hey! I’m right here!” Jezebel cried. Even though she was used to people casting aspersions on her, it rarely happened they had the gall to do so to her face. Most trolls preferred to hang out on Twitter or Instagram, hardly ever venturing out into the real world to spread their particular brand of vitriol.

“Look, Temptation Town is the biggest hit of the season,” Reece explained. “The brand might be tawdry, but that doesn’t stop it from reaching millions of viewers. Besides, everybody is doing television these days.”

That was true enough. Even The Rock was doing HBO. The fact of the matter was that she didn’t feel she could trust Reece around Jezebel Baskerville. Though she didn’t know the woman very well—she’d seemingly popped up out of nowhere—she’d seen her show and knew her reputation.

“I need to keep on working, Alice,” Reece continued. “Sooner or later the Crunch Time franchise will be revived. They’re not going to kill the chicken that lays the golden eggs—”

“Goose.”

“Whatever. But until they do, I have to keep my name out there. The moment you’re out of the limelight for even a couple of weeks or months your career is over. That’s the reality of the business.”

He was right, of course. She plunked down on a chair. This whole thing had taken her by surprise. So not only was she out of a job, it looked like Reece was, too. But how had this suddenly happened? Only a couple of weeks ago he was on top of his Tinseltown world, and she and Fee had a nice thing going with their wraith wrangling gig, chasing ghosts all over the place. And now suddenly she was reduced to begging her best friend for a job while Reece was co-hosting a reality show. How much lower could they go?

She placed a hand on Reece’s arm. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

He gave her his best puppy-eyed look. It had worked wonders for him in
Crush Hour
, where he’d played a goofy cop alongside Will Smith. “I need to keep my name out there, babe. You know how fickle this celebrity thing is. One day you’re hot to trot, and the next you’re delivering a speech at the GOP National Convention, heaping praise on their presidential candidate.”

“All right. I’ll let you do this. But on one condition only.”

“Anything,” he said, his fabled lopsided grin making a sudden comeback.

“I’ll be second co-host.”

“Done!” Reece boomed, high-fiving her.

“What?!” Jezebel cried, visibly horrified. “You can’t do this! You can’t just foist some…” She looked Alice up and down. “Snooty baker on me.”

“Hey. That’s my fiancée you’re talking about,” Reece warned her.

“And I’m not a baker. For your information, I don’t even bake,” Alice snapped. “I’m actually an ex-gun store and ex-funeral home employee.”

“You don’t know the first thing about hosting a reality show!”

Neither do you, Alice wanted to say, but she decided to keep her mouth shut for once, and let Reece do the negotiating. He was, after all, the prize Jezebel wanted to bag. The fact that he came with a caveat in the form of a pesky fiancée was something she’d have to take in stride. Didn’t all celebrities have their list of demands when they were doing a gig?

“She’s a fast learner,” Reece assured Jezebel. “Aren’t you, babe?”

“Sure am,” Alice responded, perking up. She was killing two birds with one stone here, she saw: keeping a close eye on Reece, so he didn’t accidentally wander into Jezebel’s ken and launching herself into a new career. If women like Jezebel Baskerville could become rich and famous simply by strutting their stuff in front of a camera, so could she. “So when do we start?”

Jezebel rolled her heavily made up eyes. “Oh, God!” she groaned.

“
I
t’s really not necessary
, sir. I washed the car myself last week.”

The raggedy bum leered at him, then decided to ignore him.

“No, you don’t understand,” Elroy protested when his assailant sloshed some kind of sludge on the windshield, then proceeded to smear it across, turning what was a reasonably clean windshield into a dirty mess. “I really don’t need my windshield washed, or any part of my car, for that matter.”

Elroy Pomace, a smallish middle-aged man with thinning mane and a particularly nervous disposition, had been idling at the red light on the corner of Colbert and Loy when seemingly out of nowhere this seedy bum appeared, armed with tin bucket, squeegee and sponge, and proceeded to attack his car with steely determination etched on his otherwise vacant map.

The man looked old, too, with his shaved head and long, flowing white beard. He might have been Santa Claus, if not for the dirty smudges on his face, his torn and tattered clothes, and generally unkempt appearance.

“Not a problem, sir!” the bum croaked, dragging the squeegee across the sludge, detaching the goo from one spot and expertly attaching it to another. “I’ll have this car of yours clean in no time! I might even manage before that darned light goes and changes on me again!”

“But I don’t want my car cleaned!” Elroy cried out with pretty petulance, helplessly observing how the light turned red again for the third time, his Volvo now a great deal dirtier than before this Santa wannabe’s intervention.

Finally, the deed was apparently done, his windshield now resembling a finger painting executed by a not very talented three-year-old. “You’re welcome, sir!” the old-timer croaked, sticking out his hand in the gesture universally known to everyone who’s ever been accosted by a person or persons intent on transferring the burden of their livelihood onto them.

“Oh, all right,” Elroy muttered angrily and pressed a dollar bill into the man’s hand. “Here you go. And don’t spend it all on drink now, you hear?”

The bum eyed the money disdainfully, the corners of his mouth curling down in disapproval. “Never heard of inflation, sir?” he grumbled. Then he patted his chest, where a careless hand had haphazardly sewn a patch of some kind onto his frayed shirt. Elroy thought he recognized it as the NASA emblem. “Fought for my country, if you hadn’t noticed,” the bum declared proudly. “Yes, sir. Vietnam vet as I live and breathe. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you Vic Gulley put his life on the line so the likes of you could sleep safely in their beds at night.” He crinkled the dollar note, lowering his head and giving Elroy a nasty look. “Yes, sir. Safe and sound in the comfort of their warm beds.” He crinkled the note some more, hoping this would induce his victim to fork over more dough.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Elroy mumbled, and took another few notes from his wallet, then handed them to the old-timer. This time, it appeared as if the amount met with the man’s approval, for he smiled, displaying the few surviving teeth of what had no doubt once been a complete set.

“Thank you, sir,” Vic Gulley said, tipping an imaginary cap. Then he stepped back, removing his tin bucket from the hood of the car, and finally releasing Elroy from the dubious pleasure of his company. “And may I officially bid you welcome to Happy Bays, the greatest town in the world!”

As Elroy rode into this greatest town, he was surprised to find Happy Bays remarkably pleasant-looking, the storefronts cheerfully inviting and the houses and streets perfectly spotless. Someone had gone to the trouble of attaching overflowing floral displays in a riot of color to all the streetlamps, lending the whole an uplifting quality. In fact, the entire town looked like it might have been painted by the hand of the illustrious Norman Rockwell.

Quite possibly no giant superstore had descended upon this small town yet, allowing the local baker, butcher, grocer, and barber to ply their trade in peace and prosperity. Time and the relentlessly churning wheels of big commerce had clearly forgotten about Happy Bays. And as Elroy steered his car into town square, he watched as the American flag billowed atop Town Hall, and how the benches dotted about the square, pleasantly surrounded by perfectly coiffed trees, were all occupied by old-timers busily playing games of chess or generally shooting the breeze with others of their ilk.

Yep, it looked as if he’d just stepped into a time machine and had been whisked back to the fifties, an era when life was lived at a less relentless pace.

He heaved a deep sigh, for even though Happy Bays tried its darndest to lift his spirits, it failed miserably. It might have worked on others, but Elroy Pomice’s soul was weighed down with the weight of woe—two hundred thousand woes, in fact—and no picture-perfect small town could change that.

Only one man could, and that man was Rick Dawson.

He circled the square and rode on until his GPS told him he’d arrived on Lake Street. He exited the vehicle and shielded his eyes from the blazing sun, glancing across the street at the establishment he’d singled out for this visit.

Bell’s Bakery & Tea Room was apparently one of the best places to buy fresh pastry, its bakery goods known far and wide. Unfortunately, he wasn’t in the market for bakery goods, or any other wares for that matter. And as he set his teeth, and balled his hands into fists, he just hoped that the man he’d come here to find was in attendance. If not, he was prepared to wait until he was. He was going to give Rick Dawson a piece of his mind, whether he liked it or not.