The Ghost and Mrs. McClure

“Was it Mr. Franken doing the arguing?” I asked.

“No,” Fiona replied, glaring at Seymour. “It was Mrs. Franken. She was screaming about some woman.”

“Ah,” said Seymour. “Entree la femme.”

“Huh?” said Sadie.

“Enter the woman,” Fiona translated.

“How do you know it was a woman?” Seymour asked.

Sadie and I nodded. Good question.

“I heard her name,” Fiona replied, not a little indignant that her eavesdropping skills were being questioned. “It was Anna.”

“Anna? Are you sure?” I asked, surprised. I’d expected her to say “Shelby.”

But Fiona seemed certain. “Mrs. Franken kept repeating that she knew all about this Anna, and how dangerous this Anna was.”

“Obviously Mrs. Franken suspected foul play,” said Seymour, scratching the back of his neck.

“Darn right,” Fiona replied. “Mrs. Franken kept repeating that this Anna person killed her father. But I also got the distinct impression that she thought her husband was somehow involved in her father’s death, too. They argued for a while, then things got very quiet. When I made up their room in the morning, I discovered that Mr. Franken had spent the night on the love seat.”

“Anna Worth,” I murmured.

“Who?” asked Seymour.

“Oh, Anna Worth!” cried Sadie. “Of course! She was there in our store the night Brennan died.”

“And she is?” asked Seymour.

“The cereal heiress,” said Sadie. “Worth Flakes and Nuts. She’s the one got herself in all that trouble for shooting her bodyguard’s gun at her boyfriend in front of that New York nightclub.”

“Why, Sadie Thornton,” said Fiona, “I’m impressed that you remembered that whole Anna Worth scandal!”

“Of course,” said Sadie with a wave of her hand.

“Okay,” said Seymour, “so she was there the night Brennan was killed. That doesn’t mean she killed him.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “Despite what you overheard about some ‘Anna,’ if Brennan was murdered by Anna Worth, we need a motive. Can you connect the dots between Anna Worth and Timothy Brennan?” Connect the dots, I repeated silently to myself—if only Jack could hear me now!

“There’s no connection,” said Seymour. “I’ll bet Anna Worth didn’t even know Timothy Brennan.”

“You’d lose that bet, mailman,” said Fiona. “Look!”

Fiona thrust the pages from the top of the pile into my hand—microfiche copies from archived magazine pages. The ads and the styles of clothing indicated that these clippings were nearly twenty years old. Sadie leaned forward and studied the pages. Seymour read them over my shoulder.

“Where did you get this stuff?” I asked.

“First I spent a few hours on the Internet,” Fiona replied. “Then I called Robby Tucker to let me into the library early this morning.”

Fiona smiled again, as smugly as before. “These clippings clearly establish a connection between Brennan and Anna Worth—and Anna Worth’s motive for murder,” she declared.

“Maybe you better explain this to us rubes?” Seymour said somewhat skeptically.

Fiona glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was lurking about. Not satisfied that we were alone, she bit her lip, rose, went to the heavy parlor doors, and slid them shut. She returned, but when she spoke again, it was a whisper.

“It was Gossip magazine that kept Anna Worth in the public eye for months after the nightclub shooting two decades ago,” Fiona continued. “If you look at those articles, you will see that every single story about the heiress and her troubles had the same byline. All of them were written by Timothy Brennan.”

“That’s right!” Seymour said, snapping his fingers. “Brennan was a New York reporter, and he kept writing for magazines, even after the Shield series was published. That’s in his bio.”

Fiona showed us a three-page story with photos of Anna Worth, clad in disco finery, partying with several well-known celebrities from that hedonistic era in New York City social history.

“According to the first story, published less than a week after the scandal, Brennan claims he actually witnessed the shooting while on a date at the nightclub where it occurred.”

Fiona faced me. “Obviously Brennan sold his exclusive tale to Gossip magazine. So he’d single-handedly made this relatively minor incident a national story—to the point where Johnny Carson was making jokes about Anna Worth on the Tonight Show.

“The public obviously loved reading about her, so the magazine hired Brennan to file ongoing reports about Anna Worth. Brennan gathered statements from victims and witnesses that contradicted Anna Worth’s version of the events, which tainted her defense at the trial.

“In the weeks and months after, Brennan published stories about Anna Worth’s past. About her friends. About her father’s efforts to get his daughter cleared . . .”

As she spoke, Fiona turned page after page. Each one featured a photo of Anna Worth—and the byline Timothy Brennan.

“Anna’s father hired high-priced lawyers. Then he tried to pay off the injured bystanders, and he’d even botched an attempt to bribe a New York City judge—which led to charges against him, too.

“And Brennan was on it every step of the way. Of course, by that time there were plenty of other journalists involved, not unlike the O. J. case, but it was actually Brennan who’d started it all, because he’d been an eyewitness. He was even the one who’d first labeled Anna as ‘the most dangerous party girl in Manhattan.’ ”

As Fiona spoke, I leafed through the photocopies. I did remember the scandal, but not all these details—and certainly not the fact that Brennan had been the one to start the ball rolling.

“Later articles show that Brennan continued reminding the public of Anna well after the incident,” continued Fiona. “He was right there with a photographer to record her release from jail. And in a more recent piece—in a special edition Gossip magazine titled ‘Where Are They Now?’—Brennan updated the public on Anna’s subsequent brushes with the law, including bizarre incidents of shoplifting, as well as her repeated attempts to kick her cocaine habit.”

Fiona sighed. “If it was murder, there’s the motive.”

I had to agree. “It looks like Brennan deliberately set out to ruin Anna Worth’s life.”

“Well, the woman did have a little something to do with that herself,” Aunt Sadie replied.

“Nevertheless,” said Fiona, “you can see why Anna Worth would carry a grudge.”

“But did she hate Timothy Brennan enough to poison him?” Seymour asked. “And how the heck did she manage to poison him and no one else?”

Fiona shrugged. “I don’t know how she did it. But if Brennan made my every mistake public, I’d have killed him myself.”

“Remind me never to get on your bad side,” said Seymour. He was about to drink from the glass in his hand, but set it down instead.

I raised an eyebrow. “Don’t worry, Seymour, I didn’t touch your glass.”

Seymour stared at me a moment; then he burst out laughing.

Aunt Sadie and Fiona Finch laughed, too. So did I. It felt good—a wonderful release of tension.

And then I swear I heard a fourth woman laughing in the room, right there with us. With a little shiver, I remembered the twelve portraits of Harriet still hanging in the place.

“Aunt Sadie,” I said quickly, “let’s get back to our store.”

CHAPTER 17