Alice Kimberley - The Ghost and the Femme Fatale

Seymour 's bulging eyes had been bugged out in awe since he entered the living room. "Mind if I have a look around?" he asked.

"No problem! Enjoy," Maggie replied.

Seymour wandered off-I presumed in pursuit of any Fisherman Detective memorabilia-and Maggie continued to chatter away.

"Wendell's so proud of his movie mementos. He tells me his ex-wife would only allow them in certain rooms. Now that she's gone, he's put things all over the house. It's wonderful! Reminds me of when I was growing up. My father was in the movie business. It was so exciting. He saved every poster his studio ever put out. Unfortunately, it was all lost after he died.

Anyway, there aren't many folks in this area who really appreciate the scope of a collection like this. Things would be different on the West Coast-"

"Excuse me," Brainert finally interrupted, "but you meni tioned that Wendell took Pierce Armstrong to the Movie Town Theater?"

"That's right."

Brainert scratched his head. "I wasn't aware that a talk was scheduled for this afternoon."

"It wasn't. It's kind of a last-minute thing," Maggie explained. "Pierce agreed to a lengthy appearance on stage tomorrow, as well as an autograph session. But when he found out there was a screening of one of his short-subject films today, he expressed an interest in seeing it. So Wendell suggested an impromptu Q &A after the showing. I'm sure it will be quite a shock for the audience to see the Fisherman Detective in the flesh. But then Pierce is supposed to be one of the weekend's special 'surprise' guests." Maggie laughed. "Surprise!"

Maggie's face fell after that. She touched Brainert's arm. "Frankly, I think Wendell wanted to cheer the old man up. Pierce took the news of Dr. Lilly's death very hard."

I blinked. "Pierce Armstrong knew Dr. Lilly?"

Maggie nodded. "Dr. Lilly taped an extensive interview with him for her next book."

"Her next book," I repeated. "Not the one that was just published?"

"That's right," said Maggie.

I stepped closer. "Did Pierce Armstrong say what the unpublished book was going to be about?"

"Haven't a clue." Maggie removed her red-framed glasses and cleaned them with the edge of her T-shirt. "He claimed Dr. Lilly's project was top secret. Funny, huh?"

"More like puzzling." Brainert frowned. "Dr. Lilly's current book is about Hedda Geist's life and her career at Gotham Features. I wonder why she didn't interview Pierce Armstrong for that one?"

"That I can tell you," said Maggie, popping her glasses back on. Apparently, Dr. Lilly caught up with Pierce only a few months ago. He was living incognito in a Florida retirement community. That's how he got on board with your film festival-through Dr. Lilly. I have to admit, I was shocked to learn the man was still alive and kicking. There are very few actors of his generation still breathing."

"Did you say Pierce Armstrong was living incognito?" Brainert asked.

Maggie nodded. "At the time Dr. Lilly found him, he was living under his given name, which is Franklin Pierce Peacock. He changed it to Pierce Armstrong for his Hollywood career, but there's nothing unique about that. In Hollywood, people's names are about as authentic as your average anorexic starlet's C-cup breasts."

My mind was racing. "Jack?" I silently called. "Are you hearing this?"

Yeah, baby. I always pay attention when the conversation turns to women's breasts. "Are you joking?" Jack laughed. "What's gotten into you?"

I don't know. An entire house dedicated to pretend stuff sort of strikes me as funny.

"Well, I'm not laughing. I'm thinking about all those missing tapes in Dr. Lilly's bungalow."

I know, baby. If your friend Maggie here is right, then Dr. Lilly has been secretly interviewing Pierce Armstrong, which means those tapes are probably the ones that are missing. In fact, I'd be willing to bet the ranch… if I had a ranch.

"Pierce could be the key, Jack. He could be the reason Dr. Lilly was working on a second book. He could be providing proof that the allegations made in her first book are true."

Not necessarily, doll. Our dead Lilly could have been working on a simple biography of his life. Just like she wrote of Hedda's-only at the end of the book, she could have lowered the boom on Pierce, just like she did with Hedda, making him look like a heel. After all, he did time for manslaughter, but if Lilly charges that he'd planned the murder with Hedda, then he'll come off as a cold-blooded killer who should have gotten the gas chamber.

"Oh, my god, Jack, I hadn't thought of that. But it's exactly what Truman Capote did to get his story for In Cold Blood. He duped the murderers into trusting him, so he could get the inside story of their crime from their point of view."

I blew out air and gnawed my thumbnail, pretending to admire the one- sheet for Out of the Past while considering Jack's theory. "Dr. Lilly could have duped Armstrong into giving her interviews, pumping him up with tales of glory. But her ultimate goal might simply have been to publish another sensational biography about a scandalized actor."

And if Pierce got wind of that new book of Lilly's, Murdered in Plain Sight, he might have figured that out. And he might not have been too happy.

"So Pierce could be the one who killed Dr. Lilly, or had her killed, and her tapes stolen… "

It's a possibility. And although I'm no fan of Queen Hedda the Diva, I have to tell you, Pierce has the strongest motive for offing her next. Hedda was the one who put the nail in his coffin by testifying against him, right?

Suddenly Seymour cried out. "Hey, in here! Come quick. You've got to see this!"

Brainert, Maggie, and I immediately dashed off in the direction of Seymour 's call. We raced down a hallway filled with more film memorabilia and found him in the house's large dining room. The space was dominated by a huge tropical fish tank.

"Check it out," Seymour said, pointing above the tank.

I followed his gaze, hoping for some sort of clue about Pierce from the Fisherman Detective series, but the framed one-sheet on the wall featured another actor, from an entirely different decade. Three action-packed images were punctuated by a blurb that read "Look up! Look down! Look out! Here comes the biggest Bond of them all!"

"This is an original Robert McGinnis poster for Thunderball!" Seymour exclaimed. "There's Sean Connery with the famous jet pack on top; beneath that he's battling thugs under-water. At the bottom, he's surrounded by the signature Robert McGinnis babes."

"Who's Robert McGinnis?" Brainert asked.

"Who's Robert McGinnis?" cried Seymour in outrage. "Only one of the greatest illustrators of the 1960s. Not only did he paint a slew of James Bond posters, McGinnis also did the poster art for Barbarella and practically all the paperback covers for the Mike Shayne mysteries."

"Mike who?" Brainert asked.

"Mike Shayne," I replied. All eyes turned toward me. I shrugged. "Shayne was the star of those old hard-boiled detective novels written by Brett Halliday. Aunt Sadie knows the rare book market, and she always said it was the cover art that made them collectable."

"And look at this!" Seymour exclaimed, pointing to a narrow sideboard.

In my experience, dining room sideboards were used to display soup tureens and crystal vases. But this narrow cabinet of polished mahogany was completely dedicated to displaying what looked like a strange-looking long-barreled weapon.

"What is that?" I asked, not quite trusting my eyes.

"It's an original speargun prop from the Thunderball movie!"

Seymour 's eyes were bugging. He carefully lifted it off the metal display stand. "Wow, it's heavy, too. Must be at least seven pounds."

He aimed it at the fish tank.

"Man, think of it: one of Largo 's men actually pointed this spear gun at James Bond in the big underwater battle, just like this!"