Alice Kimberley - The Ghost and the Femme Fatale

The fourth book in the Haunted Bookshop series, 2008

Sincerest thanks to Wendy McCurdy, executive editor, and John Talbot, literary agent. Like Jack, they are entities unseen, yet absolutely vital to the existence of this book.

Although real places and institutions are mentioned in this book, they are used in the service of fiction. No character in this book is based on any person, living or dead, and the world presented is completely fictitious.

The Empire Theater 42nd Street, Manhattan April 16, 1948

THE SPRING EVENING was cool, the 950-seat movie house was packed, and Jack Shepard was on the job, watching a too-young chippy enjoy a night at the pictures with her paramour.

The doll was no raving beauty, more like the girl next door, with a pert face and dimpled chin, mustard yellow dress with a cutesy lace collar, curls the color of Cracker Jack, and young- seventeen, eighteen, if that.

Planted next to her was the sugar daddy: thinning brown hair, Errol Flynn mustache, face like a flushed baseball. Not fat, but a torso plump enough to annoy the buttons of his three-piece suit. Hired cars and steak dinners every night would do that to an Alvin, not to mention downing case after case of prime tonsil paint.

It was the sugar daddy's wife who'd hired Jack for this tail. Just a few days earlier she'd invited him up to her East Side penthouse…

"I'VE SUSPECTED NATHAN of stepping out on me before," the wife said, "but he always denies it…" "And now?" Jack asked.

"And now I've finally made the decision. I want out of this marriage, and I need help proving his infidelity."

Jack had taken dozens of cases like this, with one exception: None of the cheating Charlies had been anywhere near as powerful as Nathan Burwell. Building a case against the District Attorney for the City of New York wouldn't be any private investigator's first choice of assignments. Jack would have preferred taking drags off a lit stick of dynamite.

"I wonder, Mrs. Burwell, how many private dicks did you try hiring before me?"

"Twelve," said the DA's wife. She lifted her porcelain cigarette holder-a favorite relic of an aging flapper-inhaled deeply, and blew a smoke ring. "You're lucky thirteen."

Jack already knew he was pretty far down the food chain, not that his office didn't have a charming view of the Third Avenue El. Maybe he was crazy for even considering taking the case, but his current list of clients had more than its share of deadbeats, his rent was coming due, and Mrs. Nathan Burwell was offering three times his usual rate. For that kind of lettuce, Jack figured even a turtle would consider sticking his neck out.

Besides, reasoned Jack, he'd never had any great affection for the DA. The man's greasy thumbprints were all over the dismissal of charges against a Fifth Avenue brat accused of sexually assaulting a young waitress in an alley during a night of carousing. "Not enough evidence," old Burwell had claimed. 'Course the young man's daddy also happened to be one of the state's biggest contributors to the DA's political party.

Yeah, thought Jack, putting the screws to ol' Burwell wouldn't exactly be torture.

"All right, Mrs. Burwell. Guess thirteen's your lucky number."

"Good." She blew another gray, hazy ring. "Nathan doesn't want a divorce, you see." "Because…?"

"When I met him, he was a struggling lawyer. It was my inheritance that kept us living high, got him where he is now, and I intend to take it with me-the fortune, I mean. He knows it, and he's in a powerful position to oppose me."

"So you need evidence to get out. I see."

"Not that I want any of it to be made public, you understand? I just want Nathan to be made to see that it's in his best interest to let me, and my twin daughters, and my money go. And-"

"And that's where I come in. I get you, Mrs. Burwell."

LESS THAN A week later, Jack was tailing Nathan Burwell and his chippy to Forty-second Street and taking a seat behind them in the packed Empire Theater. With nothing much to spy on but two heads watching a movie, Jack glanced up to do the same.

Black-and-white B pictures like Wrong Turn were a dime a dozen, made on the cheap and frustrating to watch. There was always a rube taken in and destroyed by some too-slick dame. Jack expected no less from this lengthy roll of lamplit celluloid. In fact, he was set to be bored stiff-but then something interesting happened.

As the treacly music pulsed and swelled, a real knockout entered the picture. Hedda Geist, the female lead, raced forward onto a deserted road, waving at a passing car.

"Stop, please!" she called.

The actress was young and beautiful, with waves of gold flowing over shoulders as creamy smooth as a marble statuette. She looked scared and vulnerable running along in bare feet, wearing a silver gown that cut like moonlight through the evening mist. The garment was ripped at the shoulder and she held it up with one hand while waving at the car with the other.

Behind the wheel was some regular Joe, on his way home from a long day of lousy sales calls. One look at Hedda and his tires were squealing.

Don't do it, buddy. Jack thought. I've seen enough of these pictures to know where she's going to take you…

In the next row, the DA's young paramour began bouncing up and down in her seat, obviously excited about the appearance of Hedda Geist on screen. She pointed and whispered to Burwell, pantomimed a clapping of her white-gloved hands.

The picture played out much as Jack expected, and he watched the two couples-the one on the screen; the other in the audience. Eventually, the credits rolled and then the A picture played: a sappy romance with songs, no less, a real snoozola. Then Jack's payday got up with the crowd and vacated their chairs. Jack tailed the two, careful to keep his distance.

The DA and his date strolled down Forty- second Street's crowded carnival of noisy marquees and greasy eateries, legit theaters, and burlesque houses-exactly the direction Jack figured on-toward Hotel Chester, the quiet inn near Bryant Park where Burwell had seen the girl a few nights before.

Just before crossing the intersection of Broadway and Seventh Avenue, with its railed streetcars and blinding billboards, they approached a concession booth. PHOTOS WHILE U WAIT! TAKE A PICTURE WITH YOUR DATE!

Jack moved carefully ahead of the DA and his mistress, signaled the photographer that he'd paid earlier in the evening. The photographer nodded and pulled out his assistant, made like he was taking her picture on the Times Square sidewalk, but as the flash lit up the DA and his chippy, the focus was on them. Now Jack would have a picture for the Mrs. B. file.

More evidence.

Jack trailed the couple to the Chester. Burwell followed Miss Innocent inside, and Jack loitered outside. As the minutes ticked by, Jack surveyed his surroundings, noticed a gull gray Lincoln Cabriolet idling in the shadows across from the hotel. He couldn't see much inside the car, just a male driver and a woman in a wide-brimmed hat. He waited for someone to exit the vehicle, but no one did. No one entered, either. They just sat there, burning gasoline.