The Ghost and the Dead Deb

The cool air suddenly got decidedly colder. I shivered as a mini whirlwind swirled around my thin sleeveless cotton blouse and bare shoulders, seemed to whisper at my ear. You remember that dream I gave you last night? There’s a case file in those boxes that’ll finish the story. Look for the file marked “Stendall.”

I shook my head. “I don’t have the time for that right now.”

Make the time, baby. The files are five feet away.

Jack was right, of course. After his still-unsolved murder here in 1949, one of Jack’s acquaintances, a young reporter named Timothy Brennan, took possession of his files—and created an internationally best-selling series of books featuring the hard-boiled private detective Jack Shield. On every dust jacket, Brennan boasted that the Shield stories were based on Jack Shepard’s case files (a boast Jack wasn’t exactly keen to learn about).

After Brennan was also murdered here a year ago, his son-in-law, who subsequently took over the writing of the still-popular series—and owed me the favor of a lifetime—agreed to let me keep the original files here for him in storage. His only condition was that he first review them himself so he could Xerox “selected files” that interested him. I assumed the ones selected would be precisely the ones his late father-in-law hadn’t yet gotten around to exploiting for his fictional Jack Shield book series.

A week ago, the promised boxes finally arrived, and I had been hoping for the time to go through them—a part of me even fancying the idea that I myself might be able to puzzle out some theories about who might have killed Jack and why. But finalizing the Angel Stark appearance had left me with very little free time to peruse the files. And now that she was dead and Bud’s nephew the prime suspect, I really didn’t have the time.

“Couldn’t you just give me the shorthand on that case?” I asked Jack as I gathered and stacked on a handcart an array of hardcovers and paperbacks that made up the most recent releases by various publishers.

The shorthand is that this Johnny was obviously framed for the Bethany Banks murder. Legal technicalities can throw out confessions and incriminating statements, but if he’d really done the deed, there would have been enough physical evidence on the body for the DA to put him on trial. What seems more likely here is the frame didn’t stick—the locals didn’t have the stomach to look hard at the sons and daughters of any powerful, well-heeled families and the deb’s real killer got off. Except now your authoress was trying to keep the case alive in the public eye—so she gets bumped and once more Johnny gets blamed.

“You’re saying the person who killed Angel also killed Bethany?”

That’s the bet, honey. Not a sure thing, but if it were a horse, I’d give it pretty decent odds.

“Who then?” I asked.

Who were the people around Angel last night, who were also around Bethany the night she was murdered? Besides the old man’s nephew, of course.

“Kiki . . . she was at the reading. And she was staying at Fiona’s inn last night, too, which is where Angel was staying.”

Who else?

“Let’s see . . .” I grabbed a box cutter from the desk near the door and slit open a carton of All My Pretty Friends. I piled five books on the handcart and flipped through the sixth until I got to the color photo insert.

“Angel claims there were plenty of people at the party but only a small circle who had strong motives to kill Bethany. Bethany’s fiance, Donald Easterbrook, was one . . .”

I studied the photo, which looked like the typical candid shot found in any photo album of a young man hanging out on an athletic field. Sporting jeans, a rugby shirt, and effortless posture, Easterbrook was tall and muscular with short, dark hair, blue eyes, a strong, square jaw, and a broad, easy-going smile. According to the caption, Easterbrook was the offspring of an aristocratic, polo-playing father and a wealthy Brazilian mother. The combination had produced a strikingly handsome young man.

“He’s described in the caption as a ‘young prince of Newport,’ ” I murmured. “Hmm . . . very JFK, Jr.”

Who?

“John Kennedy, Jr.?” I replied impatiently.

Baby, I need more.

I winced, realizing to whom I was talking. “Sorry, Jack—before your time. JFK, Jr. was the famously good- looking son of a famously charismatic president who was assassinated in 1963, an event that gave their family legendary status in America ever since. The son died in a tragic small-plane accident—”

Collision?

“No, he wasn’t instrument rated, but he tried to fly through overcast skies at night anyway. Refused to change plans even though he got a late start and the weather warned of visibility problems. Apparently, he lost his bearings and flew right into the ocean.”

Got it. He’s what we’d call a victim of the carefree, careless class. They like to roll the dice, take their risks, for an entirely different reason than the street punk, but fate often gives them the same outcome.

I sighed. “Well it was a national tragedy, I can tell you. JFK, Jr. was a charismatic young man, and the country loved him almost as much as his father . . . It looks to me like Easterbrook has the same features as the late president’s late son, who was very popular with the ladies, too, by the way. Easterbrook’s also engaged to Kiki now,” I noted. “And Kiki is apparently also my cousin, through marriage, but let’s not go there—”

You may not want to go there, doll, because it’s another motive for Kiki to have killed Bethany—if she was in love with this super stud Easterbrook and wanted him for herself. Did you see Easterbrook at the reading?

“No. But it doesn’t mean he couldn’t have been around Quindicott.” I flipped another page. “Another of the circle Angel mentions is a young woman, Georgette LaPomeret, but she committed suicide after this book was published.”

Next.

“There’s a young man named Hal McConnell.” The photo of Hal depicted a typically preppie young man in a polo shirt and khakis. Brown hair brushed neatly back, good-looking face with regular features, and hazel-green eyes. He was shown laughing with Bethany on the deck of a yacht, an almost tender expression of affection on his face. “I didn’t see him around either.”

What’s his motive?

“I do believe he was in love with Bethany. Unrequited.” I looked down at the book again to find I’d reached the end of the photo section. “That’s it.”

What about the little girl who blew a gasket at the big show?

“You mean Victoria Banks? Bethany’s little sister.”

Hold the phone. That little girl was Bethany’s little sister?

“Yes . . . Oh! And I forgot to tell you, I learned from Officer Eddie Franzetti, on the way to Fiona’s, that Victoria Banks’s friends reported her missing around midnight. She’d left their motel room for a soda and never came back.”

Is Banks, the younger, in that book?

I flipped through the book some more, went to the index. “No. Nothing on Victoria Banks. What makes you think she might have killed Angel?”

You’re kidding, right? Angel smeared her late sister’s name in that book you’re holding, revealed all kinds of trash. And Victoria threatened Angel in public. You heard her yourself, sweetcheeks.

“Don’t call me that.”

Why not? You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of, baby—they’re a luscious pair. Aces.

Despite my having been exposed to Jack for some time, my face flamed. “Stop it, Jack.”

Male laughter filled my head and I felt the room’s cool air grow icy for a moment, enough to raise goosebumps. The ghost was playing with me again. “Jack. Stop it.”

He laughed once more, but the chill receded.

Okay, Miss Priss, he finally said. Set me straight, then. What’s your big