The Ghost and Mrs. McClure (27 page)

I ran my hands through my copper curls. I’d used an iron to add some bounce, put contacts in for the night, and makeup, too—Linda even helped me find a shade of peach lip gloss to match my new silk blouse. Still, I was truly surprised to see men turn their heads as I walked by.

I walked back to the events room, where the crowd—sans Jack Shield costumes, thank you very much!—had become restless. My old friend Brainert waved me to the reserved empty chair next to him in the front row.

I wasn’t sitting a minute when the room exploded with applause as they greeted Kenneth Franken, who entered with Deirdre by his side. The author and his wife walked together to the podium, then Deirdre took the reserved seat next to me in the front row. Fiona Finch, Bud Napp, and the Logans were seated right behind us.

George Young, the store’s longtime Salient House sales representative, back from his cruise, introduced Kenneth Franken as the ghostwriter for the last three Jack Shield novels—and the author of record on
Shield of Fate,
a new Jack Shield novel due to hit stores next fall.

During a second round of cheers, Deirdre took my hand and squeezed. She and Kenneth hadn’t stopped expressing their undying gratitude to me since Shelby Cabot was arrested. . . .

 

 

THE DAY AFTER I’d provoked Shelby into a confession, the Frankens had insisted on taking me out to Newport for an extravagant dinner to celebrate Deirdre’s release. We’d become fast friends ever since.

According to the Frankens, Shelby had been a college student of Kenneth’s back in the days when he’d been a teacher. She’d always had a terrible crush on him, even made aggressive passes during that period. But Kenneth had rebuffed her.

Years later, they met again, through Shelby’s work for Salient House and Kenneth’s work for Timothy Brennan. In Kenneth’s words, he felt demoralized by his father-in-law’s treatment, so he’d been stupidly vulnerable to Shelby’s advances. He slept with Shelby for about four weeks and then, as he put it at our dinner that night, “I came to my senses.”

He said he realized that he loved his wife “deeply and utterly.” As he put it, “I realized I was throwing away something lasting for something ephemeral.”

But Shelby didn’t see it that way.

She began to plead with him, stalk him, and even threaten him. Kenneth thought ignoring her was the best way to handle it. And by the time the six-week promotional tour came up for
Shield of Justice,
Kenneth honestly thought Shelby was over him. Instead, Shelby had hatched a plan she thought would get her everything she wanted—Kenneth, riches, prestige, professional acclaim.

“Things didn’t exactly work out the way she planned,” I noted that night at our Newport dinner.

“No,” said Deirdre. “Now she’s facing the murder charge I was facing.”

“If there’s anything I can ever do for you, Mrs. McClure,” said Kenneth, “you let me know.”

“Let
us
know,” said Deirdre.

 

 

AS THE APPLAUSE died, Deirdre released my hand, and I gave her a nod and a smile. She nodded back at me, then gazed up at her husband, who returned her gaze with what looked to me like abiding love.

I’d never seen anyone look at me that way, not even my late husband. And I couldn’t help wondering about Shelby Cabot—the pain she must have felt in seeing the object of her adoration giving his love to someone else. It must have been like looking into the abyss, I thought.

“Why, Jack,” I whispered in my thoughts, “I didn’t know you knew the meaning of the word ‘existential.’ ”

“Rule number one: Don’t haunt the customers.”

“The last I’d read of her, she’d hired a high-priced New York City criminal defense attorney. And according to
Gossip
magazine, the attorney is planning a lovesick twist on the infamous “Twinkie defense” that got off Harvey Milk’s killer—”

“I’ll tell you later. Just trust me that it’s a stretch. The attorney wants to argue that Shelby couldn’t help killing Brennan because she’d been driven temporarily insane by loss of love.”

“Which part?”

“I don’t know. Sounds like a cheap rumor to me. Then again, I’ve certainly heard of stranger things under the sun. Namely you.”

“But the bottom line is, although juries in this country sometimes do deliberate irrationally—they seldom do it in the commonsense state of Rhode Island. So, frankly, I’m glad I’m not in her shoes.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, it wasn’t fun times for
this
hick, I can tell you. I got the impression you rather liked the excitement, though. Remind you of the old days, did it?”

There was no answer to that, and I sensed Jack receding. He did that from time to time, on a whim. What was I going to do about it, search the databases for a book on teaching your ghost manners?

Frankly, I’d take on all the ghosts in Rhode Island before I’d want to see Shelby Cabot’s stone-cold eyes again. What really sent the shivers through me was the realization that Shelby never thought what she’d done was wrong. She’d gotten so used to rationalizing unethical behavior in the name of big-time business for the “biggest publishing company of fiction in the English-speaking world” that murder just became one more tool in her box of tactical tricks.

It was that realization more than anything that made me feel differently about leaving those hard-nosed city offices behind. I used to feel bad—like I’d failed somehow. But now that I’d faced down the monster that environment had helped produce, I realized how lucky I was to escape. I mean, this woman didn’t think twice about committing murder—while I drew the line at being rude to people. Sorry, but one of these things is just
not
like the other.

“What, Jack?”

“Rule number two: Don’t insult the customers. They’re what’s keeping this life raft afloat. And you know very well that it wouldn’t be half as much fun to haunt a vacant building. Or worse, a hardware store.”

That was a subject I had actually taken seriously over the past four weeks: finding the reason Jack was trapped here in the first place. I’d been reading books, hitting the Wendell University chat room, visiting the library. In the process, I’d made a few deductions.

“Your own murder is still unsolved,” I silently told him. “That’s my best guess. But whatever the reason, I’m glad you’re here. You know that, Jack. Don’t you?”

The moment passed with no response.

“Listen,” I silently continued, “since I have one murder case under my belt, maybe I can take on another—yours. We worked so well together—”

“It’s not no good reason. You could be trapped here because of it.”

“But in your current condition, don’t you think there might be a distinct advantage to having a partner who’s actually alive? One who can leave the building?”

Jack was quiet for so long I wondered if he finally
did
leave the building.

“Come on, Jack,” I mentally pleaded, “don’t give me the brush. I’m on the level here. With your brains and my—”

“Okay, with your brains and my . . . gams, I think we can go far.”

The silence felt long and empty as I waited for his reply.

All right,
he said at last.
But only because you ain’t hard to look at, and you’re learning the lingo, too. But get wise to one thing, kid—you’re working the charm school stuff. Leave the hard thinking to me.

My smile was so wide even Brainert noticed.

“Pen, whatever are you grinning about?” he asked.

“Nothing really,” I answered with a shrug. “The ghost of a thought . . .”

 

 

 

JACK NEVER DID like crowds, or blowhard scribblers, so with one last tantalizing breeze around Penelope’s perfumed skin and copper curls, he rose up through the first-floor ceiling and into the second-floor air.

Near the window in Penelope’s bedroom, the night wind brought him the scent of salt. He could almost see the gale whipping up waves, lashing boats and rocks. The sweet summer air was gone, replaced with the stink of dying leaves, the acrid smell of fires burning all over town.

Life, then death, thought Jack. Death, then life. And the wheel keeps turning.

Laughter and applause leaked up from downstairs. Jack was surprised to find he could actually take some pleasure from it—only because he knew Penelope was part of it, too. Yeah, thought Jack, maybe this cornball town wasn’t so bad after all.

“I’ll see you in your dreams, baby,” whispered the ghost. Then he faded temporarily away, back into the old fieldstone wall that had become his tomb.

 

 

 

 

Rule number one: don’t haunt the customers.
Buy the Book
’s owner Penelope Thornton-McClure has laid down the law for her resident ghost—a hard-boiled private eye named Jack Shepard, who was shot dead in her store fifty years ago. “Don’t scare away the customers!” But Jack’s not resting in peace when a parade of angst-ridden teens in cut-off t-shirts and baggy jeans flock to Pen’s store to meet their latest poster child for Prozac. Angel Stark had been best friends with a young murdered heiress, and she’s written an instant book billed as “true crime.” Her story recounts the night debutante Bethany Banks disappeared from a charity ball, full of well-heeled young people, and never returned. Bethany’s body was found, strangled to death, the next morning—and the police have yet to catch her murderer. Though more than a bit self-indulgent, Angel’s true crime tale,
All My Pretty Friends
, is full of the sort of juicy details that incriminate a number of young men. So when Angel herself ends up strangled in the same manner as her murdered friend, Pen is on the case—which means Jack is, too, whether he likes it or not. Rule number two: a ghost detective never sleeps!