The Ghost and Mrs. McClure (19 page)

“I know, I know. I’ve thought of that already,” I said.

But Sadie wouldn’t hear of it. “Don’t be ridiculous, Seymour! Penelope is not responsible for
anyone’s
death!”

An image suddenly came over me: my hand on the polished knob, the door swinging open, my late husband’s pinstriped pajamas, arms raised like wings on the fourteenth-floor ledge. I winced.

“Sadie, calm down,” said Seymour. “Pen didn’t kill Brennan. I know that. I’m just saying it doesn’t look good. That’s all. And I just think Pen should be ready for the State Police to question her again.”

“Well,” Fiona said with a self-satisfied smirk, “I don’t know how one bottle could have been tainted and not the others. But I do know one thing . . .” Fiona tapped the papers on the coffee table.

“If it
is
murder, then
I’ve
solved the crime!”

Sadie and I gaped at Fiona. Seymour slammed down his ice tea, sloshing liquid onto the coffee table—much to Fiona’s annoyance. She snatched up the papers before they were saturated.

“Are we ready to pay attention now?” Fiona asked. We all nodded like schoolchildren.

“On the night of Timothy Brennan’s death, Mr. and Mrs. Franken returned to the inn and had a huge argument. Why, they were so loud you couldn’t help but hear every word.”

“And if you
couldn’t
hear every word you could always place an empty glass against the wall,” Seymour quipped.

“Was it Mr. Franken doing the arguing?” I asked.

“No,” Fiona replied, glaring at Seymour. “It was
Mrs
. Franken. She was screaming about some woman.”

“Ah,” said Seymour.
“Entrée la femme.”

“Huh?” said Sadie.

“Enter the woman,” Fiona translated.

“How do you know it was a woman?” Seymour asked.

Sadie and I nodded. Good question.

“I heard her
name,
” Fiona replied, not a little indignant that her eavesdropping skills were being questioned. “It was
Anna
.”

“Anna? Are you sure?” I asked, surprised. I’d expected her to say “Shelby.”

But Fiona seemed certain. “Mrs. Franken kept repeating that she knew all about this Anna, and how dangerous this Anna was.”

“Obviously Mrs. Franken suspected foul play,” said Seymour, scratching the back of his neck.

“Darn right,” Fiona replied. “Mrs. Franken kept repeating that this Anna person killed her father. But I also got the distinct impression that she thought her husband was somehow involved in her father’s death, too. They argued for a while, then things got very quiet. When I made up their room in the morning, I discovered that Mr. Franken had spent the night on the love seat.”

“Anna
Worth,
” I murmured.

“Who?” asked Seymour.

“Oh, Anna Worth!” cried Sadie. “Of course! She was there in our store the night Brennan died.”

“And she is?” asked Seymour.

“The cereal heiress,” said Sadie. “Worth Flakes and Nuts. She’s the one got herself in all that trouble for shooting her bodyguard’s gun at her boyfriend in front of that New York nightclub.”

“Why, Sadie Thornton,” said Fiona, “I’m impressed that you remembered that whole Anna Worth scandal!”

“Of course,” said Sadie with a wave of her hand.

“Okay,” said Seymour, “so she was there the night Brennan was killed. That doesn’t mean she killed him.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “Despite what you overheard about some ‘Anna,’
if
Brennan was murdered by Anna
Worth,
we need a motive. Can you connect the dots between Anna Worth and Timothy Brennan?”
Connect the dots,
I repeated silently to myself—if only Jack could hear me now!

“There’s no connection,” said Seymour. “I’ll bet Anna Worth didn’t even
know
Timothy Brennan.”

“You’d lose that bet, mailman,” said Fiona. “Look!”

Fiona thrust the pages from the top of the pile into my hand—microfiche copies from archived magazine pages. The ads and the styles of clothing indicated that these clippings were nearly twenty years old. Sadie leaned forward and studied the pages. Seymour read them over my shoulder.

“Where did you get this stuff?” I asked.

“First I spent a few hours on the Internet,” Fiona replied. “Then I called Robby Tucker to let me into the library early this morning.”

Fiona smiled again, as smugly as before. “These clippings clearly establish a connection between Brennan and Anna Worth—and Anna Worth’s motive for murder,” she declared.

“Maybe you better explain this to us rubes?” Seymour said somewhat skeptically.

Fiona glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was lurking about. Not satisfied that we were alone, she bit her lip, rose, went to the heavy parlor doors, and slid them shut. She returned, but when she spoke again, it was a whisper.

“It was
Gossip
magazine that kept Anna Worth in the public eye for months after the nightclub shooting two decades ago,” Fiona continued. “If you look at those articles, you will see that every single story about the heiress and her troubles had the same byline. All of them were written by Timothy Brennan.”

“That’s
right!
” Seymour said, snapping his fingers. “Brennan was a New York reporter, and he kept writing for magazines, even after the Shield series was published. That’s in his bio.”

Fiona showed us a three-page story with photos of Anna Worth, clad in disco finery, partying with several well-known celebrities from that hedonistic era in New York City social history.

“According to the first story, published less than a week after the scandal, Brennan claims he actually witnessed the shooting while on a date at the nightclub where it occurred.”

Fiona faced me. “Obviously Brennan sold his exclusive tale to
Gossip
magazine. So he’d single-handedly made this relatively minor incident a national story—to the point where Johnny Carson was making jokes about Anna Worth on the
Tonight Show
.

“The public obviously loved reading about her, so the magazine hired Brennan to file ongoing reports about Anna Worth. Brennan gathered statements from victims and witnesses that contradicted Anna Worth’s version of the events, which tainted her defense at the trial.

“In the weeks and months after, Brennan published stories about Anna Worth’s past. About her friends. About her father’s efforts to get his daughter cleared . . .”

As she spoke, Fiona turned page after page. Each one featured a photo of Anna Worth—and the byline Timothy Brennan.

“Anna’s father hired high-priced lawyers. Then he tried to pay off the injured bystanders, and he’d even botched an attempt to bribe a New York City judge—which led to charges against him, too.

“And Brennan was on it every step of the way. Of course, by that time there were plenty of other journalists involved, not unlike the O. J. case, but it was actually Brennan who’d started it all, because he’d been an eyewitness. He was even the one who’d first labeled Anna as ‘the most dangerous party girl in Manhattan.’ ”

As Fiona spoke, I leafed through the photocopies. I did remember the scandal, but not all these details—and certainly not the fact that Brennan had been the one to start the ball rolling.

“Later articles show that Brennan continued reminding the public of Anna well after the incident,” continued Fiona. “He was right there with a photographer to record her release from jail. And in a more recent piece—in a special edition
Gossip
magazine titled ‘Where Are They Now?’—Brennan updated the public on Anna’s subsequent brushes with the law, including bizarre incidents of shoplifting, as well as her repeated attempts to kick her cocaine habit.”

Fiona sighed. “If it
was
murder, there’s the motive.”

I had to agree. “It looks like Brennan deliberately set out to ruin Anna Worth’s life.”

“Well, the woman did have a little something to do with that herself,” Aunt Sadie replied.

“Nevertheless,” said Fiona, “you can see why Anna Worth would carry a grudge.”

“But did she hate Timothy Brennan enough to poison him?” Seymour asked. “And how the heck did she manage to poison him and no one else?”

Fiona shrugged. “I don’t know how she did it. But if Brennan made my every mistake public, I’d have killed him myself.”

“Remind me never to get on your bad side,” said Seymour. He was about to drink from the glass in his hand, but set it down instead.

I raised an eyebrow. “Don’t worry, Seymour, I didn’t touch your glass.”

Seymour stared at me a moment; then he burst out laughing.

Aunt Sadie and Fiona Finch laughed, too. So did I. It felt good—a wonderful release of tension.

And then I swear I heard a fourth woman laughing in the room, right there with us. With a little shiver, I remembered the twelve portraits of Harriet still hanging in the place.

“Aunt Sadie,” I said quickly, “let’s get back to our store.”

O. Henry wrote of crime, but he seldom wasted precious words on the dry-as-dust business of questioning stupid witnesses and hunting—through endless pages—for clues that mean little or nothing when found. . . . He wrote about real people—and the reader suffered and rejoiced with them, in direct proportion with their reality. . . .

Opening statement by “The Editor,”
Detective Tales,
August 1935

 

 

 

“EXCUSE ME, LADY, but you’re cutting the line.”

“Excuse
me,
” Aunt Sadie shot back, “but I’m trying to open my store!”

Cameras clicked and lightbulbs flashed. A microphone emblazoned with the letters of a local television station was thrust into Sadie’s face.

“Who do you think committed the Bookstore Murder?” a pretty young blond demanded. Behind her, a cameraman with a backward baseball cap tried to film us over the heads of the crowd.

“Er . . . ah,” Sadie stammered.

“No comment,” I said in a clipped tone, channeling every suspicious politician I’d seen accosted by the press for the past decade.

But the reporter wouldn’t quit.

“Do you feel it is right to profit from this crime?” she asked, moving the mike from her face to mine so fast I got it on the chin.
Yow!

“You heard the lady. No comment!” shouted Seymour. As I rubbed the bruised skin, he quickly stepped in front of me. “If you want to get into the store, you have to get in line like everybody else.”

I appreciated the fact that Seymour had taken point, but if there
was
an actual line to get into Buy the Book, I couldn’t see it. Just about a hundred people milling around, blocking the front of the bookstore and the other business fronts along the block—most of them mercifully closed on a Sunday. There were dozens of cars parked—and double-parked—up and down Cranberry Street, and I saw a few satellite vans as well. More journalists were no doubt lurking about, waiting to spring.

Horns blared as people ignored the bumper-to-bumper traffic and ran across the street in front of moving cars.

“I can’t believe this,” I said with a moan.

Seymour shook his head. “It’s the insidious power of the mass media.”

Seymour, Sadie, and I again tried to push through the crowd, but we might as well have been trying to part the Red Sea. The sidewalk was packed and people were spilling over into the street, sitting on cars, the curb, even in the doorways of other Cranberry Street businesses. Clearly, these folks had been here awhile—the sidewalk was littered with paper cups, crumpled wrappers, and empty bags. I made a mental note to buy a steel trash can and plant it in front of the store—soonest.

Bud Napp, the sixtyish owner of the town’s hardware store, cruised by in his truck, which was crawling along with the rest of the traffic. “Someone tore down the chains the city council put up around the Embry lot!” he crowed through his open window, giving a clenched-fist, power-to-the-people, up-with-the-revolution arm gesture. “Now the lot is jammed with parked cars!”

“Pinkie’s gonna love
that,
” said Aunt Sadie.

The traffic began to move and Bud drove on, whistling tunelessly.

So the news was not
all
bad. Bud was positively ecstatic (he’d been pushing to make that abandoned lot a parking area for as long as anyone could remember), and I spotted a long line of folks waiting to get into Cooper’s Bakery for coffee and pastries. There was a long line in front of Koh’s Grocery, too. Mr. Koh, who was restocking fruit on the outdoor stalls, saw Sadie and me trying to negotiate the crowd. Smiling, he bowed to us. I bowed back and he actually beamed!

We got another positive wave from Joe Franzetti, who was throwing pizza dough in his store’s window. His booths and tables were full, and the sidewalk was jammed with customers waiting for a slice.

In front of our own store, Sadie impatiently pushed against the crowd again. Like a living thing, the throng pushed back.

“Folks, you can’t get into the store if we can’t open it,” I pleaded.

The mob moved a little, but there were angry cries as people were crowded off the sidewalk. Suddenly I heard the sound of breaking glass as a bottle hit the concrete.

“That’s it!” Seymour roared. “What the hell do you people think this is, a mosh pit?!” To my surprise, the crowd drew back as people scrambled to get out of Seymour’s way. “Make a hole! Make a hole!” he shouted.

I turned to my aunt. “Make a hole?”

“Navy term,” she told me. “He’s obviously flashing back to those four years when he was an enlisted man.”

“Bite me, asshole!” someone shouted from the crowd.

Seymour whirled to face the heckler, who wore faded Levi’s, a St. Francis College sweatshirt, and a red bandanna around his head.

“I’m a
postal worker,
buster!” Seymour cried, a vein bulging on his forehead. “Do you really want a piece of me?!”