Though I dreaded this moment, I knew it was time to tell Bud what really happened to Johnny last night— that he’d hooked up with Angel Stark, and may have left with her after the author appearance and the ugly scene on the street.
“Damn!” Bud yelled when I delivered the bad news. “Johnny should have been smart enough to stay away!”
Just then there came a persistent knocking at the front door. My aunt hurried to answer it, leaving me with the task of calming Bud.
“How could you invite that woman to your store? How could you set up Johnny like that?”
“Bud,” I said evenly. “I didn’t know—you and Johnny were hiding the truth. There’s no way I could have known.”
Bud slumped down in his chair, the wind out of him, his demeanor sunken with defeat. “I’m sorry . . . I don’t really blame you, Pen. It’s just that I don’t know what to do or where to turn. But it sounds to me like Johnny skipped his parole and ran off with the Stark girl.”
I heard a sharp intake of breath behind me, then sobs. I whirled around to see Mina in tears. Obviously she’d heard Bud’s last statement, which did nothing to improve the poor girl’s day.
CHAPTER 9
The revelation that life simply isn’t easy . . . is one of the most distressing aspects of the quarterlife crisis.
AFTER MORE TEARS and my aunt’s comforting attentions, Mina wiped her face, brushed her hair, and declared herself fit to face the workday. Bud Napp departed soon after that, already late in opening his hardware store.
“We’ll talk again tonight, at the meeting,” Bud told me at the front door. He was referring to the monthly meeting of the Quindicott Business Owners Association, scheduled to assemble in our store’s Community Events space tonight, right after closing.
“We might actually be laughing about this situation by then,” I said hopefully. “When you find Johnny at the store selling pipe stems, and Angel turns up sipping coffee at the Cooper Family Bakery.”
Bud smiled weakly, but I could see he didn’t share my optimism. With a final wave, he hurried into the bright, blue summer morning. My son soon followed as his ride to day camp pulled up. With a kiss, he was out the door, trilling how he was all ready for his next swimming lesson.
Despite the fact that it was a Saturday and the weather outside was lovely, warm and sunny, yet comfortably breezy—the reason the moneyed classes of New York and Philadelphia have made New England summers by the sea a tradition for over a century—Sadie, Mina, and I were already emotionally drained by the time we opened Buy the Book, which meant we were totally unprepared to greet the public. Fortunately, there wasn’t much of a public to greet, just two women in their twenties looking for beach reading.
After selling them Janet Evanovich’s entire Stephanie Plum backlist, I sought forgetfulness in other work. I booted up the computer to check the inventory, answer some e-mail queries, review publishers’ catalogs, and made a note to order more James Patterson and Dan Brown books, dusted the counter, and assembled the display for the new Dennis Lehane hardcover—and after all of it, I still felt restless. Or perhaps
“Easy for you to say,” I silently told my ghost. “What would you do if you were me?”
“The shoe I’ve got? . . . Yes, of course!”
I dialed quickly, and the call was answered on the first ring, as I knew it would be. “Professor Parker,” I said, “I have urgent need for your literary expertise.”
“Indeed,” was Brainert’s reply, and I could almost see that inscrutable, Holmes-like eyebrow of his arch.
“Did you happen to read Angel Stark’s book?”
There was a pause. “Last night, I had two choices: read Ms. Stark’s tome, or grade the papers from my summer school class. Now the only students more dismal than the usual bunch are those so pathetic they have to repeat classes during the summer . . .”
“So you read Angel’s book.”
“Actually, no. In my opinion, my summer school students are better writers.”
“Come on, Brainert. It can’t be
“Why don’t you call Fiona. She swore she was going to devour the thing when I delivered the autographed copy to her last night. And knowing Fiona, she’s probably already read the entire book twice and posted her copy for sale on eBay.”
“I might just visit Fiona, now that you mention it,” I replied. “But I still need you to read Angel’s book before the meeting tonight.”
Brainert moaned.
So I told Brainert about Johnny vanishing, about Angel’s disappearance, and the fact that Johnny Napp was really Giovanni Napoli—a material witness and possible suspect in the Bethany Banks murder. I could tell his interest was sparked, but not stoked enough to fuel his intellectual fire, or delve into “Miss Prozac-Girl-Interrupted- in-a-Bell-Jar’s” book.
“If I do read this thing, what, exactly, do you want me to look for?”
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “Connections.”
Brainert agreed to do it, but still sounded skeptical about the whole project.
“Look,” I said. “The only two things Angel Stark and Bud’s nephew have in common are Bethany Banks’s murder—and the fact that they both vanished on the same night. You have in your hand a just-released copy of a book written by Angel Stark about that very murder. Surely it’s possible that you’ll discover some pertinent fact if you read it. You are a genius, remember?”
“So I am.”
“And please, keep everything I told you a secret for now, though I suspect the cat will be out of the bag before much longer. I’ll see you tonight at the Quibblers’ meeting.” (Among some of its members, the Quindicott Business Owners Association has come to be referred to as the Quibble Over Anything gang—or “the Quibblers” for short.)
After I turned Brainert loose on the problem, I felt a little better. But I still didn’t feel I’d done enough.
Though offensively put, Jack’s—more specifically,
“Oh, really, and I thought you were already dead.”
I cleared my throat and called to Sadie, “Hold the fort. I’m going over to Fiona’s inn for an hour or so.”
Aunt Sadie surprised me by stepping out from behind the counter.
“You’re thinking of breaking into Angel Stark’s room, aren’t you?” she said. My silence was answer
