The Ghost and Mrs. McClure Read online

  “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.”

  CHAPTER 17

  A Worthy Suspect

  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?!”

  The heckler shrunk back in terror. And the mass of people seemed to finally break and flow bac
k like ice on a thawing river. They might not respond to orders very well, but they all understood the meaning of the term “going postal.”

  “That’s more like it,” cried Seymour. “Now let’s form a nice, orderly, single-file line starting right over here. That way everybody will get in to see the pretty store.”

  While Seymour wrangled the crowd, Sadie unlocked the door and we slipped inside. Seymour came in behind us, but only after he issued a final warning to the college student.

  “I’m keeping an eye on you, bub.”

  Once through the door, I turned to Seymour. “Thanks,” I said. “We never would have gotten through that crowd ourselves.”

  “My pleasure,” he said. “I’ll stick around if you like. It’s Sunday, so I’ve got no mail to deliver, and my ice cream truck’s out of supplies till Monday.”

  “That would be really great,” I said.

  “We’ll pay you in trade,” said Sadie. “First dibs on any pulp magazines that come in for the next six months. And you can have the first two free.”

  Seymour gave her a thumbs-up.

  I jumped behind the counter and booted up the register, the monitor, and the computer. Sadie glanced at her watch.

  “Time to open,” she announced.

  I took a deep breath, then nodded. Sadie turned the sign around to read OPEN and unlocked the front door.

  As the crowd rushed in, I saw flashing lights at the curb. Officer Eddie Franzetti came rushing up to the doorway, his hand firmly on the billy club attached to his dark blue uniform’s utility belt.

  “Pen, you need help here?” he asked. “I would have been here sooner, but Rev. Waterman was crazed about setting up barricades to keep cars out of his church lot.”

  “No problem, Eddie. Seymour helped us out with the crowd control.”

  “Seymour? Seymour Tarnish?” Eddie’s dark brown eyes widened, the thick eyebrows rising. He lifted the hat off his short black hair and wiped his forehead with the same hand, scratching the back of his head before putting the hat on again.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “Seymour was great. And I’m sorry about the litter on the sidewalk. I’m getting a trash can first thing tomorrow. So let Pinkie—uh, I mean Councilwoman Binder-Smith—know that in case she calls you guys up to complain about us again.”

  “Aw, that woman complains on a daily basis. About everyone. Listen, I better go,” Eddie said. “The Embry lot is a mess. Someone ripped the chains down and it’s total anarchy.” He eyed the crowd warily. “But if there’s any more trouble here, you be sure to call me anytime. For anything, okay?”

  “Thanks, Eddie,” I called.

  “Save a copy of Shield of Justice for me, too,” he tossed back.

  “Will do! And tell MaryJo and the kids we’re getting the next Harry Potter in soon.” (So Harry Potter wasn’t technically a part of the mystery genre. So what? There were mystery elements—and no bookstore owner in her right mind would say no to stocking it.)

  I watched Eddie drive off, then started my own thrilling new installment of Adventures in Retail.

  “I FEEL A presence in this place. An unearthly presence. A spirit of the dead.”

  The speaker was a woman who’d been waiting among the throng. She was past middle age, with long, frizzy, gray hair. She stared at me through wide, unblinking green eyes.

  “You feel it, too,” she said.

  Okay, she looked like she’d stepped out of Central Casting, or one of those classic old Universal horror films featuring a band of singing and dancing Gypsies—right down to the long, flowing, multicolored dress and Birkenstocks. But what the hell . . . I was desperate. Maybe this woman could sense spiritual beings. Maybe she was channeling Jack Shepard. Maybe she had some answers.

  Nix on that, dollface.

  Jack had spoken inside my head for the first time today. I hated myself for it, but I felt my heartbeat quicken just a little bit.

  This battle-ax is one booze jag away from the drunk tank.

  “Thanks for the valuable input, Jack,” I said silently. “Good morning to you, too.”

  Seymour, at his post near the front door, pointed to his head and twirled his finger. Cuckoo! Then he silently mouthed something that looked like, “CNN really brings out the lunatics, doesn’t it?”

  “Oh, Seymour,” I thought to myself. “If you only knew what I knew.”

  I turned to the woman and asked, “Can I help you?”

  “The spirit is in torment. It cries out!” the woman said, loud enough for the other customers to notice. “The spirit demands justice.”

  This woman sounds sincere, I decided. My heart began to beat faster, wondering for a moment if Jack could be wrong.

  “Is this woman really a sensitive?” I asked Jack.

  Yeah, she’s sensitive, all right. said Jack. To bathtub gin and rotgut whiskey.

  The woman spun on her heels, her dress billowing.

  “Oh, yes,” she said, gazing at the ceiling. “It is the ghost of Timothy Brennan, cursed to haunt these premises until his murderer is punished.”

  Brennan? said Jack. Here for eternity? Look around, toots. There ain’t a barstool or bookie in sight. Why would Brennan bother to stay in this place?

  “I must listen for his voice!” she cried.

  Shut her up, would you? Jack told me. Or I’ll scare the hell out of her myself.

  “Don’t do that!” I silently warned Jack. “There are too many people around!”

  “Ma’am,” I said, touching her shoulder. She spun on me.

  “Do not touch a sensitive!” she screeched. I recoiled.

  That’s it! Jack cried.

  A moment later, the woman’s eyes bulged. Her jaw dropped.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Are you all right?”

  “J-J-ack . . . J-j-jack Sh-sh-shepard!” she stammered, pointing at me.

  “Great,” I thought. “Jack, what in the world are you doing?”

  I’m projecting, he said. On you.

  NOW GET THE HELL OUT OF MY STORE!

  The woman screamed and ran. No one seemed to be aware of Jack or me. Or the fact that he’d just screamed so loud in my head I’d automatically put my hands to my ears—as useless as that was. All eyes were on the crazed lady running for the door.

  “Well, that was certainly an education,” I told him.

  Ha! Didn’t think I had it in me, did you?

  “Actually, I didn’t.”

  Well, it’s not a piece of cake or anything, said Jack. But when I’m really worked up . . .

  “Remind me never to really work you up.”

  With a sigh, my gaze followed the trail of the exiting lady—and my body froze. I felt as though I’d seen a ghost—but not Jack’s ghost, more like the ghost of felons past.

  As the “sensitive” barreled through the front doorway, she jostled a familiar middle-aged woman. It was Anna Worth, the cereal heiress herself—returning to the scene of the crime, if Fiona Finch’s theory was correct.

  This time Anna Worth came with a solicitous-looking older man in tow. He looked like a professor, graying at the temples and wearing tweed, with leather patches on his jacket.

  Anna Worth, on the other hand, looked the height of fashion. Her sheer peach pantsuit was beautifully tailored, and pink-tinted sunglasses sat on top of her pale blond shoulder-length hair. I probably would not have recognized her had I not seen dozens of photographs of her at various ages not two hours ago. Seymour recognized her, too, and he casually moved toward the counter.

  Despite her elegant attire, Anna Worth gave the impression not of a regal heiress but of a mouse stepping into the home of a very hungry feline. The farther into the store she moved, the more noticeably her shoulders drooped, the more rapidly her eyes began to dart about. When they finally strayed in the direction of the community space, she visibly paled.

  The older man instantly reacted to her discomfort. He took her arm and steered the now nervous wreck of an heiress to the other end of the stor
e, seating her in one of the Shaker rockers. She sat, and he kneeled at her side, speaking softly into her ear.

  “Pssssst, Jack!” I thought as loudly as I could. “Be a help, would you, and eavesdrop on their conversation for me?”

  I received no reply, and just hoped he had already gotten the same idea and was preoccupied with his “surveillance work” already.

  Seymour leaned against the counter and said in a conversational tone, “Gee, maybe murderers do return to the scene of the crime.”

  “Shhhhhh!” I hissed.

  “Come on, you don’t really think this eighties flashback bumped off Brennan, do you? Fiona Finch has read one too many true crime books.”

  “Look, look, she’s moving again,” Sadie whispered from the corner of her mouth.

  Anna Worth had risen from the rocker and, with child-like baby steps, she began to move. Her companion followed her, rubbing his chin and eyeing Anna closely. The woman paused, and the man rushed to her side. Whispering, they moved through aisles of books, never once glancing at a title. Whatever they were doing here, they certainly weren’t here to purchase some light beach reading.

  Seymour grinned and poked my arm. “Here’s your chance,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “Follow them.”

  “They’ll see me.”

  “But you own the place,” Seymour insisted. “You’re practically help. And rich people like Anna Worth never notice the help. Ever. So go over and restock the shelves.”

  I must have had a blank expression on my face because Seymour didn’t wait for my reply. Rolling his eyes, he reached into my carefully arranged new-releases section and grabbed a handful of titles off the table—the new Patricia Cornwell paperback, a Janet Evanovich, a brand-new thriller by Ed McBain, a short fiction collection by James Ellroy—and thrust them into my arms.

  “Go restock the shelves,” he repeated, giving me a push.

  Resigning myself to the inevitable, I pushed my black rectangular glasses up my nose; took a deep breath; and, assuming an air of what I hoped was casual indifference, set off to put copies of my brand-new releases among the older titles. A retailing erratum, but I told myself I was doing it in the name of ratiocination.