The Ghost and Mrs. McClure

mirror above the large fireplace and the bay window, where streaming sunlight washed the hanging baskets of flowers.

Seymour, meanwhile, banged open the large armoire, meant to tastefully hide the entertainment system. Remote in hand, his thumb began to bounce up and down on the buttons faster than I thought a human digit could move. Images flew across the screen like a wildly spinning roll in a slot machine. Finally the images slowed and landed on a grinning woman holding a box of plastic food storage bags.

“That’s the jackpot?” I teased Seymour. “You want us to switch brands of Baggies?”

“CNN Headline News has the heaviest rotation,” he explained. “Maybe after these commercials.”

Sadie and I watched an ad for Caribbean cruises, and another for a phone service plan. Seymour pulled up a cane-backed chair, facing us, not the television.

“I want to see the look on your faces!” he said.

Fiona breezed into the room with a tray of ice tea. Under her arm was a bundle of papers.

“Here you are,” she said as she put the papers on the coffee table. Then she handed everyone a tall glass of homemade ice tea with a sprig of mint in it. Fiona glanced at the commercials and put her hands on her hips. Scowling, she faced Seymour.

“Now, what is this all about?”

“Here it is!” Seymour cried, sloshing ice tea as he pointed to the television screen.

I found myself watching a videotape of a crowded room, the audience members packed into row after row of padded folding chairs, all facing a carved wooden podium.

“Good lord, that’s our store!” Sadie cried.

“Oh, no,” I murmured, guessing what was coming next. “Oh, no . . .”

There he was, big, florid Timothy Brennan interrupting his lecture to take a long swig of bottled water—just seconds after I stepped into camera range and handed it to him. A deft edit, and the screen revealed Brennan choking, then collapsing. The announcer’s solemn voice summed up Brennan’s long career as the visuals switched to a black-and-white clip of the old Jack Shield television show, then the cover of Shield of Justice.

“It had to be those two dudes doing the camera work,” Seymour said. “They were probably freelancers, and they didn’t strike me as all that sharp. I bet some agent approached them, brokered a deal for the networks.”

“Howie Westwood,” I murmured, suddenly feeling nauseated.

“Who?” asked Seymour.

“A man came to the store yesterday posing as a reporter for Independent Bookseller magazine. He wasn’t.”

“He wasn’t?” asked Sadie. “How do you know?”

“I know,” I said. “Because everything about him was fake.” As Jack Shepard’s ghost pointed out, of course, but I didn’t want to believe him at the time.

“But that doesn’t prove anything,” said Sadie.

“Believe me, he was the agent,” I said. “His eyes lit up like July Fourth fireworks when I mentioned the event had been taped.”

“He must have made a killing,” said Seymour. “Considering the tape’s news value.”

“What news value?” Sadie asked, outraged. “Authors are like everyone else. They keel over and die every day.”

“That’s not why they’re playing it. Listen!” Seymour pointed at the television.

On the screen, the image of Timothy Brennan’s final moments were replayed, but this time a tinted circle highlighted the water bottle in Brennan’s hand.

“. . . Authorities will neither confirm nor deny that foul play is suspected in the death of this best-selling mystery author,” the announcer said. “Though no suspects have been identified, CNN has learned that the Rhode Island State Police crime lab has conducted a toxicology study on the contents of the bottle, which the local police impounded the night of Brennan’s death.

“An anonymous source tells us there is evidence the bottle had been tampered with. Meanwhile, first-edition copies of Shield of Justice with the unique stamp authenticating its purchase at the bookstore where Brennan died are now going for as high as $300 a piece on eBay. In other news . . .”

“It’s on every channel,” Seymour crowed. “I saw it this morning and came to warn you.”

My shoulders slumped, and I held my head. Yesterday had been bad enough. If every news channel was carrying this story, then who knew what was coming next? Sure, I wanted Buy the Book to be profitable, but praying for rain doesn’t mean you welcome a hurricane!

“The police suspect murder,” Sadie murmured, her face pale.

Well, I had tried to warn her, but Sadie had chosen to ignore the signs. I reached out and took her hand. With the other, Sadie lifted her glass and swallowed some ice tea, all the while staring at the television screen.

My own reaction could best be described as muted. Given my conversation with Jack, the syringenapping by Josh, and the conversation I’d overheard when I’d eavesdropped on Shelby and Kenneth, I wasn’t all that surprised at this development. The hidden syringe had obviously played a part in corrupting the water bottle. But what had been in that syringe?

“What did they mean, ‘the bottle was tampered with’?” Sadie asked.

“Poison!” Fiona Finch said, her cheeks rosy with exhilaration. “I’ll just bet the cops found traces of deadly poison in that water bottle.”

“The problem is, I don’t see how that’s possible,” I said. “I randomly selected the bottle myself from over a dozen set aside especially for Brennan.”

“Did you set them aside?” asked Seymour.

“No. It was Linda Cooper-Logan who told me they’d been set aside. She started helping me with the refreshments after some of the guests started swarming the table.”

“You’re not suggesting Linda murdered Brennan,” said Seymour.

“Of course not! None of this makes any sense. How could the killer have known which bottle I’d grab of the dozen? And if they were all poisoned, then why didn’t anyone else get sick and die? After Eddie and his partner arrived that night, they took the bottle I’d given to Brennan as evidence, but that’s all they impounded. We were all cooped up in the store for hours giving statements, and there were plenty of people who ended up drinking from those reserved bottles of Brennan’s—even me. And, like I said, none of us got sick or died.”

“You know, Pen . . . that’s pretty incriminating,” said Seymour, lines furrowing his forehead.

“What’s ‘pretty incriminating’?”

“Well . . . you said it yourself: You were the one who handed the bottle to Brennan—which would be opportunity. And your store is profiting from his death—which would be motive.”

“I know, I know. I’ve thought of that already,” I said.

But Sadie wouldn’t hear of it. “Don’t be ridiculous, Seymour! Penelope is not responsible for anyone’s death!”

An image suddenly came over me: my hand on the polished knob, the door swinging open, my late husband’s pinstriped pajamas, arms raised like wings on the fourteenth-floor ledge. I winced.

“Sadie, calm down,” said Seymour. “Pen didn’t kill Brennan. I know that. I’m just saying it doesn’t look good. That’s all. And I just think Pen should be ready for the State Police to question her again.”

“Well,” Fiona said with a self-satisfied smirk, “I don’t know how one bottle could have been tainted and not the others. But I do know one thing . . .” Fiona tapped the papers on the coffee table.

“If it is murder, then I’ve solved the crime!”

Sadie and I gaped at Fiona. Seymour slammed down his ice tea, sloshing liquid onto the coffee table—much to Fiona’s annoyance. She snatched up the papers before they were saturated.

“Are we ready to pay attention now?” Fiona asked. We all nodded like schoolchildren.

“On the night of Timothy Brennan’s death, Mr. and Mrs. Franken returned to the inn and had a huge argument. Why, they were so loud you couldn’t help but hear every word.”

“And if you couldn’t hear every word you could always place an empty glass against the wall,” Seymour quipped.