“Jack?” I called. “Jack?”
But all the ghost said was—
Then his whispering presence temporarily receded, back into the fieldstone walls that had become his tomb.
REMEMBERED
A moment gone, a moment captured
In this countenance displayed—
An image, bloodless, everlasting
An instant Death cannot dissuade.
Herein the goodly spirit,
Herein the sorrows woe,
Herein both truth and falsehood—
What will this likeness sow?
A thousand thoughts on paper
Captured by this hand
Inscribed for time eternal,
An amaranthine land.
Like stars hung in the Heavens,
Like books shelved on a wall,
Now you have made this monument
Even Death cannot befall!
’Tis true the image cannot tell
what secrets lie within—
If the heart of one is troubled
If the mind of one has sinned.
But perhaps the greater purpose
Of this new and valiant art
Is to keep the memory sweet
When another loses heart.
For a man who’s well remembered
In mind, in thought, in tale,
For him, life is eternal
And Death shall finally fail!
The Ghost and the Femme Fatale
After nearly a decade, Cranberry Street’s old Movie Town Theater is finally restored to its former glory. The grand opening “Noir Week” is the biggest event Quindicott, Rhode Island, has seen in years. Dozens of old films are scheduled for screening, along with a roster of special guests and lectures.
No sooner do the festivities begin, however, than special guests start dropping—from decidedly unnatural causes—and Penelope Thornton-McClure wants to know why “Noir Week” has taken a genuinely dark turn.
Penelope sets her sleuthing sights on eighty-something Hedda Geist. The ghost of PI Jack Shepard well remembers the dame (albeit a much younger version of her) from her years burning up the silver screen as a sultry, seductive femme fatale in 1940s crime dramas. Jack also remembers that Hedda abruptly left Hollywood at the height of her career, for some mysterious reason, retreating from the public eye until now.
Are the murders related to Hedda’s past? Or could the killer have a more modern motive? Perhaps the culprit is Quindicott’s own, local femme fatale? Or is Hedda herself really as deadly as her film persona?
Pen knows she’s over her head with this one. Good thing she can turn to her spectral gumshoe for help—even if he and his license did expire more than fifty years ago.
