CHAPTER 2
While von Bulow saved himself for an exclusive interview
with Barbara Walters, his mistress did a saturation
booking on the television shows . . . and told
friends she was writing a miniseries based on the trial.
Von Bulow made plans with his publisher for his autobiography
and, according to one friend, made arrangements
for a face-lift.
MY AUDIENCES AT Buy the Book could always be counted on to provide genial applause. But the intense emotions stirred by Angel Stark’s true tale of murder among the yachting class released a tide of screaming cheers and zealous hand-clapping I hadn’t heard outside of a rock concert.
I have to admit, the noise level startled me, and I resisted the urge to slap my hands over my ears. After all, I thought to myself, how would it look?
Pointedly ignoring the ghost, I put my hands together in a polite show of unity with my enthusiastic patrons.
Author Angel Stark blinked her animated brown eyes, then tossed her long copper hair behind her shoulders. Her full lips tipped slightly and she cocked her head in poised acceptance of the ovation. The din continued, loud enough it seemed to blow the elfin wisp of a girl off the small portable stage.
I turned to Brainert. He was applauding, but only mildly.
“Well,” I fished, “her delivery was certainly dramatic, don’t you think?”
“Dramatic?” Brainert replied. “Try indulgent.”
“At least you can admit that Angel Stark knows how to play to a crowd,” I argued.
Brainert frowned and shook his head. “Showmanship does not an author make.”
“On the contrary,” interrupted Fiona Finch, sitting directly behind us. “An author knows how to tell a story. And her story is quite fascinating.”
As the applause died, I could hear the metal chain on Fiona’s large falcon-and-falconer brooch clink as she leaned forward to speak in my ear. Fiona herself was a small, brown-haired, wrenlike person whose most memorable characteristic, besides her compulsion for eavesdropping, was her colorful collection of bird pins— hundreds of them were in her possession, and she was forever on the yard sale hunt for more.
“A wonderful choice for your author event,” she gushed with a sincere smile as she patted me on the back of my cream-colored linen pantsuit. (I usually dressed more casually for work, especially on a warm summer day like this one, but this was a major author event, so I thought looking the part of a co-owner appropriate.)
“A very interesting reading,” Fiona complimented.
Brainert snorted.
Fiona was also Buy the Book’s number-one purchaser of true crime books, so this event was right up her proverbial dark alley.
“Too many books about crime and criminals are written by journalists or police investigators,” Fiona continued. “It’s refreshing to have an eyewitness and friend of the victim write a book—much more intense and immediate. The excerpt she read was . . . fascinating.”
Brainert rolled his eyes and mumbled something about “book review adjectives.”
“Really, Fiona. Any good thespian should be able to read the phone book and make it sound
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,
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
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
