“Really, Fiona. Any good thespian should be able to read the phone book and make it sound fascinating,” Brainert said. “And Ms. Stark certainly is a capable show-man, as I graciously conceded. As for the quality of her prose . . .”
Brainert raised one brown eyebrow above his straight brown bangs and shook his head in the perfect expression of an underwhelmed English professor. As the applause finally died completely, Brainert leaned toward me. “Shouldn’t you get up there and introduce the question-and-answer session?”
“No, the author’s instructions were quite specific,” I whispered. “Angel’s publicist is handling everything beyond my introduction and a nice send-off at the end of the event. So I get to sit this one out and enjoy the show.”
“What is there to enjoy?” huffed Brainert.
Even as he spoke, an elegant, thirtyish Asian woman, wearing a tailored, pinstripe suit with a surprisingly high hemline, approached the podium, clapping like the others and beaming a big smile to her client. This was Dana Wu, Angel Stark’s publicist.
Angel took a step backward as Dana stepped before the microphone.
“Ms. Stark has graciously agreed to answer as many questions about her new book, All My Pretty Friends, as she has time for . . . so I give you Angel Stark.”
When Dana stepped back and Angel moved forward again, I relinquished my seat to one of the many standing-room-only audience members and moved through the thick crowd to the back of the events space. The book signing would begin soon, and I wanted to make sure our copies of All My Pretty Friends were on the floor because it looked to be a sellout crowd.
On my way to the exit, I surveyed the audience. I was disappointed that one of our most loyal customers, Bud Napp, owner of the town’s hardware and plumbing supply store, whose favorite sleuth, surprisingly enough, was Miss Marple (whom Sadie said he’d discovered while trying to get his mind off his wife’s fatal cancer a few years ago), hadn’t made the reading, although I noticed that his handsome nephew, Johnny, was seated in the back wearing his typical outfit of baggy jeans and black T-shirt.
I’d only met Johnny once or twice, and he seemed like a nice young man—quiet and very intense with a muscular build and the kind of dark good looks that could have cast him in a Rat Pack movie—big brown eyes and a dimpled chin. I doubted that Bud’s nephew was here for Angel Stark—more likely he came to meet our clerk, Mina, for an after-work date.
I was also pleased to note that this was a very different demographic from the usual attendees of Buy the Book’s author events. For one thing, this crowd was much younger—college-aged and decidedly female, by a margin of about ten to one. And this was an affluent audience, too. Many drove in for this event from Brown University or the Rhode Island School of Design, and as far away from Yale and Harvard, if the decals and bumper stickers on the Volkswagens, BMWs, Volvos, Jaguars, Saturns, and Accords parked along Cranberry Street were any indication.
The visitors had been assembling since late afternoon, grabbing all the rooms at the Finch Inn—Quindicott, Rhode Island’s, only bed-and-breakfast, run by Fiona Finch and her husband, Barney—and filling the Comfy-Time Motel, which had opened up recently on the highway. They’d been tying up traffic and jostling the locals off the sidewalks since early afternoon, gathering in clumps around the diner, and crowding the commons in the center of town.
Yet few Quindicotters complained, because these visitors were also spending lots of money—at the Seafood Shack, Cooper’s Bakery, Koh’s Market, Franzetti’s Pizza, Gilder’s Antiques, and, yes, our bookstore. It was the kind of economic activity unknown in these parts just a year ago, and I was proud of my own small part in revitalizing this formerly sleepy little Rhode Island rest-stop of a town.
As I tried to push through the packed aisles to the back of the room, I nearly collided with another Buy the Book regular. Seymour Tarnish, avid collector of pulp magazines, was moving through the crowd, searching in vain for a seat, even as he surveyed the audience. By day, Seymour was our local mailman. On evenings and weekends, Seymour became a purveyor of frozen treats, dispensed from an ice cream truck he’d purchased a few years back with part of the money he’d won on Jeopardy!
“Hey, Pen, good crowd,” Seymour said, grinning. “If you told me the title of Angel Stark’s book was All My Pretty Young Half-Naked Friends, I might have gotten here sooner!”
As he spoke, Seymour scanned—wide-eyed—the sea of attractive, college-aged young women packed into Buy the Book.
“Not funny,” I said to the forty-year-old avowed bachelor who lived in his late mother’s house with a middle-aged male roommate and their huge collection of valuable pulp magazines.
Seymour noticed that I was wringing the life out my hands—one of the nervous habits I sometimes exhibited during author signings. My aunt Sadie has always maintained that nerves of steel were essential commodities in the always-volatile book business. Lacking same much of the time, I relied on my aunt, and co-owner, Sadie to keep an even keel.
Me? I did all the fretting—more than enough for both of us.
Seymour continued to relish the view. “Wow! I haven’t seen this many navels since I got a bag of oranges from my retired uncle in Miami.”
“Didn’t you volunteer to work store security tonight?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Your aunt gave me the night off. Says your author has a publicist that’s handling everything. But I’m here to help out if you need me.”
“Stick close,” I replied. “I don’t anticipate trouble, but this is the largest crowd we’ve drawn in quite a while—and the youngest.”
Seymour spied a space between two young women—twins—with curly, honey-gold hair. When he was gone, I looked up in time to hear the first question from the audience, posed by a heavy-set young woman who rose when she spoke, even though she was clearly nervous. Despite the warmth in the crowded room, the questioner wore a long-sleeved Brown University shirt.
“How has Bethany Banks’s murder affected you and your friends?” the coed asked shyly and quickly sat down again.
Angel nodded to acknowledge the questioner, then stepped close to the microphone to answer.
“In Comfortably Numb I spoke about emotional fallout—a term I coined—and how toxic such fallout can be. I wrote my first book to purge myself of toxic emotional fallout caused by my abusive home, my clinical depression, my promiscuous behavior, and my dependency on illegal drugs.”
This is still a tough pill to swallow, Jack complained. You’re telling me this dame wrote this dirt about her own life. Wrote it herself and wanted it published?
“Yes, Jack,” I silently informed him. “It’s quite common. These days it’s encouraged, often celebrated.”
Jack grunted his dismay.
“Bethany’s murder caused a ripple effect,” Angel continued. “Georgette LaPomeret took her own life, for example . . .”
There goes suspect number one.
Angel paused, gazing out at the audience. “Was it emotional fallout that drove her to suicide? Was it a kind of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder response to the murder?”
Brainert leaned toward me and whispered, “Or did she kill herself because of your book?”
I scowled. Not from Brainert’s comment but at the idea that the comment itself could be on the mark.
“Or,” continued Angel, “perhaps Georgette knew something about the killing—a secret that has gone to the grave with her. I wrote in my book that I believe Georgette was secretly in love with Bethany’s fiancé, Donald Easterbrook. This, of course, is understandable, because Donald was Newport’s leading lothario and he’d secretly been sleeping with some of Bethany’s closest friends.”