The Ghost and Mrs. McClure

tonight’s event, Milner had come dressed as Jack Shield, the hard-boiled detective star of Timothy Brennan’s internationally best-selling series.

And I’d actually encouraged it.

From Providence and Boston to high-toned Newport and Greenwich, the newspaper ads I’d placed invited Brennan’s fans to come dressed as the famous hard-boiled detective. Every fan knew how Jack Shield dressed, of course, because Shield had been based on a real private investigator of the late 1940s named Jack Shepard. And Shepard’s chilling, anvil-chinned grimace appeared (in black-and-white) on the back flap of every Brennan dust jacket, right under the author’s own photo (in living color).

“You mean the hard stuff? Joy juice? Hooch?” asked Milner, nudging up the front brim of his fedora one-finger style, like Shield.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” cried Sadie. “Just get the bottle from under the register already!”

Milner brought over the bottle of whiskey and a few paper cups. Sadie poured shots all around. “After the shock of tonight’s events, I’d say we could all use a belt.”

I didn’t want to partake, but Sadie pressed the cup into my wringing hands. “Now, Penelope, honey, listen to your elder. Drink.”

I did. The liquid burned, but I trusted my aunt knew what was best at the moment—at least she seemed much calmer than I.

“Feel better?” asked Sadie.

“Don’t worry, Pen,” said Milner. “I overheard Eddie say there’s going to be an autopsy, because it’s a suspicious death. It’s just like a crime novel. Kinda cool, actually.”

“What killed him?” I said, noting that the room was both too bright and too dark. Was that possible?

Milner shrugged.

I took another swig from the cup. “What’s going to happen, do you think?” I asked. “Because of Timothy Brennan’s death, I mean. Do you think we should close the store? Forever?”

He shrugged again.

I took another swig.

Hard liquor was new to me. A glass of white wine or light beer once a month or so was my usual consumption rate. Whiskey, it would seem, sure hit faster than Chardonnay.

Linda and Milner were speaking, saying something like all this was in no way the store’s fault, and I should just go on as if nothing had happened. But their voices seemed as fuzzy as their faces. And then the room began a slow spin.

How could this have happened? I wondered. How?

I’d worked so hard to prepare. Just two hours ago, everything had been in perfect order . . . just two hours ago . . .

CHAPTER 2

The Author Arrives

[N]ice men often write bad verse and good poets can be monsters. . . . It seemed easier all around not to be able to put a face to a name, and judge solely on the printed page.

—A. Alvarez, The Savage God: A Study in Suicide

Two Hours Ago . . .

“How are things going?” I asked my aunt as she rang up—thank the ISBN gods!—four Shield of Justice purchases for one of the early guests now browsing the stacks. Timothy Brennan was scheduled to appear in exactly fifty-three minutes, and I was trying not to worry.

I had dressed with care in a crisply ironed black skirt, baby blue short-sleeved sweater set, nude stockings, and slingback heels. Sadie had made an effort, too. She’d actually brought out one of her few dresses—the belted, pine green number that matched her eyes and complemented her short gray hair, colored auburn and accented at Colleen’s Beauty Shop with “Shirley MacLaine” strawberry blond highlights.

“Hard to tell how things are going,” said my aunt. “Not many arrivals yet.”

“This event will bring us heaps of new business. You’ll see,” I told her.

“Well, if it doesn’t, look on the bright side. We can stack those three hundred hardcovers in the back room straight up to the part of the ceiling where it’s starting to droop and call it a literary pillar.”

“That’s not funny.”

“Okay. We’ll burn them for kindling, then. We haven’t used that potbellied stove on the back porch since my father was breathing.”

“Still not funny,” I said. “And you know very well we’d have to return them unsold or else pay the publisher fifty-four percent of each copy’s retail cover price.”

“So we’ll burn the invoices and overdue notices then,” Sadie said. “Either way, dear, if this shindig doesn’t bring in new business, we’re going to need something to keep us warm this winter.”

I inspected the floor display we’d unpacked and assembled hours earlier. The dump was typical corrugate from the publisher, with a big image of the book’s cover and the handsome author photo that appeared on every one of Brennan’s dust jackets. Space for twelve hardcovers also was provided—four face-outs, three deep.

One of the books seemed a tad out of line. I adjusted the angle, then fiddled with the life-size cut-out display of the handsome author. Timothy Brennan had sandy blond hair and a charming grin. His standee image looked about forty and very fit.

True, he had to be older than the photo, but some men aged very well, never losing their virility (I wouldn’t turn down a date with Sean Connery or Clint Eastwood, for instance), and I’m embarrassed to admit I’d developed a bit of a crush on Mr. Brennan.

“Have you actually seen Mr. Brennan yet?” I asked, resisting the urge to chew my thumbnail.

“No, dear,” said Sadie. “But I noticed—” Sadie paused to let out a little sneeze.

“Bless you,” I said.

“Thank you,” she said. “I was about to say—I noticed an older man who looked a little like Brennan. Maybe he was an older relative. He came in with three well-dressed people—” This second sneeze was so sudden her glasses fell from the end of her nose to dangle from the string of red beads around her neck.

“Bless you,” I said again.

A vile stench tickled my own nose. A cigar, I realized with a shudder. Obviously someone was ignoring the No Smoking signs posted all over the store.

I’d find the offender and set him straight, but I wanted to check on Spencer first. He was wandering around in his little gray Brooks Brothers pinstripes.

“You look very handsome,” I told him, my maternal pride gushing forth.

“Yes, Mother, you said that already.”

Spencer remained less than thrilled with our move up to Rhode Island. But I couldn’t blame him, really. His seven years on earth had been spent living in a luxurious Manhattan apartment. Our move forced him to live in six small, run-down rooms above an old bookstore with the looming prospect of public school—an institution his wealthy in-laws had convinced him mainly housed potential convicts.

Tonight, we’d actually argued about his coming downstairs. He insisted on watching TV. I insisted he get dressed and show some support of what was now our family business.

ACTUALLY, MY BOOKSTORE-OWNING days had started about three months ago. Standing in the marble lobby of my doorman building, I’d been reading Aunt Sadie’s periodic letter about the local goings-on in Quindicott when my gaze locked on her casual postscript: By the way, the store is about to go belly up and I’ll be closing the doors in a few weeks.

I’d phoned her that day, the modest check from the life insurance policy of my late husband, Calvin, in my hand, and proposed we go into business together.