The Ghost and the Femme Fatale

CHAPTER 19. Bombshell

BY THE TIME I drove us all back to the bookstore, Aunt Sadie had just finished hosting another film festival author signing: Barry Yello and his trade paperback Bad Barry: My Love Affair with B, C, and D Movies. He was gone by now, but the aisles were still crowded with high-energy customers. They were aggressively browsing, asking questions, and buying, buying, buying (thank goodness).

I was also thankful that Mina Griffith was here again today, along with our newest hire, Bonnie Franzetti.

Eddie's little sister had jumped at the chance to work somewhere other than her family's pizza place, and she'd shown up at our store within an hour of Sadie's call this morning.

I felt guilty asking Sadie if she'd had a chance to look through the book about Gotham Studios, but I mentioned it anyway.

"Heavens no, I haven't had a moment," she told me as she rang up another customer's purchase. "But things should settle down in an hour or so, when the festival's matinee begins."

"Well, I'm here to help," I assured her, taking over behind the check-out counter. "You haven't had lunch. And neither have Mina and Bonnie. Do you want to go first or shall we spell the girls?"

"Let's have the girls go one at a time," Sadie said. "When they're done, I'll take my break."

I nodded and turned to the register, started checking out customers. Sadie went to release Mina from the selling floor. That's when Seymour tapped me on the shoulder.

"You want me to stick around, Pen?"

"No." I held my palm up to the next customer on line and motioned Seymour to lean closer. "What I want you to do is stake out the Finch Inn," I whispered. "Keep an eye on Hedda, and call me if the woman or her granddaughter does anything out of the ordinary. And don't needle Fiona; she might throw you out."

"Aye, aye, Skipper. But what are you going to do?" he asked before heading off.

"For now, I'm going to stay and help Sadie," I said, turning back to the check-out line. And while that was true, I also wanted some time at the store to think things through.

I'd told Chief Ciders that Hedda was a murderer. She'd killed Irving Vreen sixty years ago. And she'd had the strongest motive to kill Pierce Armstrong and Dr. Lilly. But there were two pieces of the puzzle that still didn't fit, and I knew it.

So do I, Jack said in my head.

With a sigh, I had to admit: "If Hedda was behind the killings this weekend, then who set the trapdoor trap for her yesterday? I don't buy the theory that it was meant for Pierce Armstrong. Armstrong and Wendell Pepper both moved across that stage without falling through it. And why would Hedda have joined Dr. Lilly on stage Friday night if she knew it was about to rain audio equipment?" I shook my head. "I don't know, Jack. It doesn't make sense."

Then keep digging, baby. 'Cause if the pieces don't fit, the puzzle ain't solved.

AN HOUR LATER, Mina was back from her break. I put her on the register and spelled Bonnie for her lunch. Then I spoke with Sadie about the inventory.

"Our Film Noir Festival display is looking pretty anemic. Do we have anything in the back that we can bring out?"

"Not much. We've sold just about every last one of Hedda Geist's coffeetable book, which is excellent news because we really stocked up on that one. Maggie Kline's novels are sold out, too. I'm pretty sure we still have a dozen of her female sleuth encyclopedias in the back, though."

"Great, I'll go find them and put them on the display table."

"Oh! Take a look around back there for any more copies of Barry Yello's books. He had a fantastic turnout for his signing, and we sold through everything we brought up front. But people are still asking for it."

"Okay, I'll see if we have any straggler copies back there."

I moved through the archway that connected the two storefronts, cut through the now-empty Community Events space, and made my way back to our stock room.

We had a library-style cart on wheels for moving books back and forth, and I filled it with what I could find-Maggie Kline's Encyclopedia of Women Sleuths; more copies of Barry Yello's Bad Barry: My Love Affair with B, C, and D Movies; even Dr. Lilly's backlist film studies.

I considered the boxes of Irene Lilly's newly published book, Murdered in Plain Sight, but I decided against putting it out. Things were bad and getting worse. I didn't want to tempt

fate.

Instead, I scrounged some more of the backlist titles that we'd featured on our table this weekend. Most film noir fans were pretty savvy about source material. But some of the younger festival attendees were surprised to learn that their favorite noir films were based on novels-which is why I grabbed copies of Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain, The Big Sleep and Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler, and The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett.

As I packed up the cart, one of the books fell off. I picked up Barry Yello's trade paperback and placed it back on the stack. Now, as I pushed the cart along, Barry's round baby face was smiling up at me from the big color photo on his back cover. I noticed he was wearing one of his ubiquitous Hawaiian shirts. His long blond hair was caught in his signature ponytail. And then I noticed one more thing-an earring. Barry had a pierced ear. I'd forgotten about that.

On Friday night, when he'd introduced Dr. Lilly, Barry had worn a single gold loop through his earlobe. In this author photo, however, he was wearing a simple post: a circle of black onyx in a silver setting.

THE COMFY TIME Motel wasn't in the town of Quindicott. It was a short drive away on the highway and I remembered Barry mentioning to me on Saturday morning that he was staying there.

After pulling my Saturn into the crowded parking lot, I hurried into the motel's glass-enclosed lobby. "Hello," I said to the young clerk watching TV behind the counter. "Can you tell me if a Mr. Barry Yello is registered here, and where I can find him?"

"Sure," the guy replied. He tapped a computer screen with his index finger. "Mr. Yello is in Room 216."

I thanked him and went back outside, climbed the stairs, and followed the balcony until I found the right room. The door was wide open, and I peeked inside.

A plump woman was sitting in front of a flat computer screen, intently tapping the keyboard. The room was well-lived-in, littered with bags and papers. Fast food wrappers were piled up on the desk, the table, and spread out on the bed.

"Excuse me," I called.

The woman swung around in her chair and tugged small iPod earbuds out of her head. "Sorry!" she said brightly. "I couldn't hear you!"

"I'm looking for Barry Yello?"

"He's not here right now, but he'll be back soon. You can wait if you want." She gestured to a nearby chair.

"Thanks." I moved a stack of magazines off the chair and sat. "I'm Penelope Thornton-McClure, by the way, I co-own Buy the Book on Cranberry Street, and-"

"Wow!" she said, her smile genuine. "That's such a cool place. I checked it out on the first day we came. But I haven't had a chance to go back-stuck here, you know? Updating the site and posting Barry's blogs."

I detected a Chicago accent in the way she flattened some of her vowels. The woman rose and adjusted her loose dress. It was a cute retro style with big colorful 1960s'-esque polka dots.

"I'm Amy," she said, offering me her hand. "Amy Reichel. I'm Barry's Webmaster. Maybe I can help you. Why are you looking for him exactly?"

I hesitated, but Jack spurred me on. She's a source, baby. Pump her. Find out what she knows about your mark.

I paused, deciding on a line of questioning. I guessed her age at around thirty. She wore her black hair in a short cut, had a tattoo of what looked like an anime character on her upper arm, and a nose ring in her left nostril. She was heavy-set and wore no makeup. She didn't need to. She looked cute and fresh with porcelain skin, high cheekbones, wide blue eyes, and full lips.

"I didn't know FylmGeek. com had a Webmaster," I began, trying to sound casual and friendly. "I thought Barry did all that stuff himself."

Amy sat down again, threw her head back, and laughed. "That's funny. Barry can't even type, except with two fingers."

"You're kidding," I said, shocked that the star of an internationally poputar Internet site wasn't a computer whiz himself.

Amy shook her head. "He's a great guy, and really sweet, but he doesn't know his ass from an open-source software program!"

"I guess you've known Barry a long time, huh?"

"Like forever. I met him right after he dropped out of college, back when he worked for Pulse Studio."

"A studio? So Barry actually worked in a Hollywood film studio?"

"If you can call it that. It was low rent, you know? They made a lot of direct-to-DVD movies, that sort of thing. Barry's done a lot of things, but what he's always, always, always wanted to do was make movies. And it's finally going to happen for him, too. He's got one of his scripts at Paramount -and they told him they're actually going to make it. They're putting it into production. It's amazing, isn't it?"

I gave her a weak smile. "Amazing…so is that what he did at the other studio? Did he write screenplays? Do you think he ever worked with some older actors and actresses?"

I was fishing again, trying to find a link between Barry and Hedda-or even Pierce Armstrong. But Amy shot that down.

"Oh, no," she said. "He didn't do anything like that. He was just a grip at first, and then he built sets. He used to come home covered with paint."

Clearly, Amy and Barry had been a lot closer than employer and employee. "I guess that was a dead end for his career then? Or did Barry meet people there who helped him?"

"Oh, people helped him." Amy nodded. "Barry learned a lot from the special effects people. In like, a year, he became the studio's main pyrotechnics guy. It paid pretty well, too, gave him enough money to launch the Web site. Now he makes his living on that. People know his name now, so he can sell books, too. He's got another one coming out this fall. You should make sure to stock up on it at your store. I'm sure he'd come back here for another signing-"

"I'm sorry, Amy, back up a second. You said something about pyrotechnics?"

Amy's head bobbed. "Special effects. Fires. Squibs. Barry

did it all." "Squids?"

"Squibs," Amy corrected. "Little explosive bags filled with fake blood. A tiny controlled explosive detonates them to create bullet holes."

"Controlled explosives?" I repeated. "Barry knows about explosives?"

"Oh, you bet!" Amy grinned. "You haven't celebrated Independence Day until you've been to one of Barry's Fourth of July parties!"

My mind was racing now. Bud had told me that the falling speaker that had almost killed Dr. Lilly must have been triggered by a small explosion!

Bingo, baby. You found your crooked Boy Scout.

I glanced around the room, trying to think of what else to ask. I noticed Amy's laptop, and I saw Barry Yello's image peeking out from behind a sprinkling of program icons. He was laughing, eyes crinkled, blond hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. His head was tilted, so he was almost in profile, and once again I spied that black onyx earring on a silver post.

The earring, baby! You should ask Betty Boop here about the-

"Right!" I reached into my purse and showed the earring to Amy.

"Oh my god," she cried. "Where did you find it? Barry came home last night and told me he'd lost it at the block party. I was so sad. I bought that for him in Mexico, back when were going to get…"

Amy's voice trailed off. "Can I have it?" she said. I shook my head. "I'll give it to Barry myself-just as soon as I find him."

"Well, like I said, he'll be here soon. He's at the Movie Town Theater now. He didn't want to miss Double Indemnity." I blinked. "Did you say Double Indemnity?"

"Yeah."

I cleared my throat. "Amy, I'm confused. Barry told me that he was going to the showing of Double Indemnity on Saturday morning. He said that was the film's one and only showing this weekend."

"No," said Amy firmly. "It's playing right now. Right now is the one and only showing. I should know. I post the schedule every day on his Web site."

He lied, baby, Jack whispered in my head. He didn't want to get tied down to signing books for you. So he came up with a fast excuse. The question is, why? What was he doing Saturday morning if he wasn't watching Barbara Stanwyck play Fred MacMurray like a cheap violin?

"Oh, my god, Jack… didn't Seymour say he thought the door to the lighthouse bungalow was blown open with a small explosive?"

Yeah, doll. He did.

"Barry must have been the one! He blew his way into Dr. Lilly's bungalow. He stole her tapes, laptop, and manuscript!"

My thoughts exactly. Which means you better blow out of here fast, doll.

"Thank you," I said to Amy, quickly rising to my feet. "You've been a real help."

"A help? With what?" Amy asked. "I don't understand… "I hurried out into the motel parking lot, my mind still spinning.

"Barry has to be the culprit, Jack. All of the pieces of the puzzle are there. All except one."

Same problem I had with the Vreen case. A motive.

"What did Barry Yello have to gain from all of this mayhem?"

A payoff, doll. Yello's working for somebody. All you have to do is find out who.

"And how am I going to do that?"

Go to the source. You've got to find Barry and brace him. "Brace him!"

Yeah, put the squeeze on him, like I did with Egbert.

"I can't put the squeeze on a guy like Barry. He's big. He's tall. He's young. What do I do, beat him up with strong language?"

You can put the fear of the law into him, baby, that's what you can do. Just call that cop friend of yours, Freddie-

"You mean Eddie… Officer Franzetti?"

Sure, You've got the goods, and the badge can provide the muscle. Between you and the cop, Yello should give up the ghost… and I'm not talking about yours truly.