Али Брэндон - Double Booked For Death

“Employee discount purchase,” he replied, his crisp tone unapologetic as he ran his American Express card through the reader, then, per policy, handed the receipt to her, along with a pen. “I do have my retirement to consider, if you would be so kind as to oblige?”

Darla stared at the slip of paper for a moment before sighing. “Sure,” she replied, aware she probably should put her foot down about such a ghoulishly opportunistic buy, but not caring. She had more to worry about than James making a few bucks selling books that more properly ought to remain store stock. Her bigger concern was how this was going to affect the shop’s business from here on out. She still had several hundred copies of Valerie’s new book in boxes and on display. Would people want to buy their books from the place that, for all intents and purposes, had been the site of the country’s most popular author’s death?

Then again, James was probably right. Darla could remember quite clearly how, the day after the Princess of Wales’s tragic death in Paris, she’d impulsively headed to her local bookseller to pick up one of those Diana coffee-table books as a memento. Everyone else in town apparently had had the same idea. By the time she got there, every Diana tell-all bio and picture book had been wiped from the shelves, along with every gossip magazine that might have contained a scandalous photo or two of the princess. Darla had counted herself fortunate to score a week-old copy of a news magazine with an article on Diana that she’d found stashed behind the napkins in the coffee bar area of the store. In fact, she’d been so stoked that she had not even bothered to ask for a discount to account for the coffee rings on the front cover.

Given that, chances were that Valerie’s books, even the unsigned ones, would fly off the shelves come Tuesday, when she opened again.

That was, if she decided to reopen the store at all, after what had happened.

Hillary broke the silence as she watched James’s transaction.

“Put a couple on eBay tonight,” the agent advised in a glum tone. “You’ll get the first wave of hysterical fandom that’ll be glad to bid away their entire college fund for a piece of Valerie.”

Then, when everyone else stared with faintly horrified looks at her choice of words, she gave an inelegant snort. “Oh, for Chrissakes, I don’t mean literally,” she clarified, seemingly channeling her dead client for a moment. To James, she went on, “Hang on to the others for later, and you’ll catch the serious collectors. If the books have tonight’s date along with her signature, so much the better.”

While James reviewed the title page of each and nodded in satisfaction, Darla rose. “I’ll check with Jake and see if they’re ready to take our statements now,” she told the others. “It’s almost eleven, so hopefully they’re about done out there.”

And, outside, things did finally seem to be winding down. The police appeared finished with photographing the scene and taking measurements, though the light show from the emergency vehicles continued on. The death van, as Darla morbidly found herself thinking of it, already had been loaded onto a flatbed wrecker. The wrecker, in turn, now idled impatiently as the police began removing the barricades still blocking off that lane.

She wondered what had happened to the driver who’d hit Valerie, until she noticed a handful of people who must have been that van’s passengers huddled near one of the police cruisers. Another figure—presumably the driver—was barely visible behind the officer who appeared to be questioning him. Darla felt sorry for the guy, for chances were he’d never even seen Valerie coming. Now, given her rabid fans, he might end up needing to change his name and leave town—heck, leave the country!—as soon as the law let him.

She glanced back to the action on the sidewalk. Reese was taking a statement from a final pair of black-caped girls, both of whom were gesturing with exaggerated animation. Jake stood removed from it all, leaning against one of the blue sawhorses still on the sidewalk. The red glow of her cigarette somehow seemed a fitting punctuation point to the night’s events.

Darla headed in Jake’s direction. “So what’s the word with my staff and Valerie’s people?” she asked as she settled on the wooden support alongside her.

“Reese or one of the other cops will want to get brief statements from them first, and then they’ll be free to go.” Jake took another deep drag on her cigarette, then exhaled an impatient cloud of secondhand smoke. “The police will be sticking around a bit longer. It’s never quick and dirty when it’s a pedestrian fatality.”

“I still don’t understand that part,” Darla protested. “Traffic was moving, but it wasn’t going that fast. How can she be dead?”

Jake flicked an ash and glanced Darla’s way.

“You don’t have to be hit by Speed Racer to be killed by a moving vehicle. Even if the van was going only thirty miles an hour or so, that’s still a pretty good smack. She probably flew at least fifteen feet. All it takes is landing headfirst on the pavement, and you’re dead on scene. We’ll know the exact cause later.”

Darla suppressed a shudder. “So has anyone figured out why she ended up in the street in the first place?”

“Since I’m not a cop anymore, kid, I’m pretty much on the outside here. They took my statement just like they did with your fan girls.”

She paused for another draw on her cigarette.

“Unofficially, from what I’ve overheard of our witness statements, it looks like Valerie decided to confront your Lone Protester, and the two of them struggled,” she went on. “Of course, at the time, no one realized it was Valerie herself doing the confronting. She was wearing the same hooded black cape that everyone else and their dog had on. As far as anyone who noticed that little smackdown knew, she was just another fan who didn’t like seeing her pet author being dissed. It seems Valerie managed to grab the sign, but lost her footing in the process and stumbled off the curb just as that poor SOB in the van was driving past. At least, that’s what our witnesses say they saw.”

Darla frowned. “What, do you think there’s more to it than that?”

“Like I said, I’m on the outside here. But from all the publicity I’ve read about her, I have to wonder why in the hell Valerie would’ve abandoned her adoring masses just to lay down the law to some kook. If it worried her that much, she could have sent her bodyguard out to do the old intimidation routine. I don’t even see how she knew that protester was out here.”

“Probably one of the fans mentioned it when she was autographing, and it ticked her off,” Darla reasoned. “So she made up the excuse about needing another smoke break, and instead she snuck out to deal with the girl.”

She was about to ask if the police had tracked down this unknown antifan who’d been the root cause of the tragedy. Before she could, however, the officer who had been interviewing the driver began herding all the van’s occupants away from the accident site and toward where Darla and Jake were leaning.

Darla, who had given the passengers only a cursory look before, now stared in surprise. While Valerie’s fans had all been dressed in black capes, this group was attired in white robes that billowed behind them as they walked and which gleamed beneath the artificial light. The effect was even more pronounced, given the crisp black precision of the officer’s tapered motorcycle breeches and tall boots.

“Must have been running late for a KKK meeting,” Jake observed with a snort as she stood and stubbed out her cigarette on one leg of the barricade. Flicking away the tobacco remains, she straightened and stuck the filtered butt into her back pocket.