"Let's have the girls go one at a time," Sadie said. "When they're done, I'll take my break."
I nodded and turned to the register, started checking out customers. Sadie went to release Mina from the selling floor. That's when Seymour tapped me on the shoulder.
"You want me to stick around, Pen?"
"No." I held my palm up to the next customer on line and motioned Seymour to lean closer. "What I want you to do is stake out the Finch Inn," I whispered. "Keep an eye on Hedda, and call me if the woman or her granddaughter does anything out of the ordinary. And don't needle Fiona; she might throw you out."
"Aye, aye, Skipper. But what are you going to do?" he asked before heading off.
"For now, I'm going to stay and help Sadie," I said, turning back to the check-out line. And while that was true, I also wanted some time at the store to think things through.
I'd told Chief Ciders that Hedda was a murderer. She'd killed Irving Vreen sixty years ago. And she'd had the strongest motive to kill Pierce Armstrong and Dr. Lilly. But there were two pieces of the puzzle that still didn't fit, and I knew it.
So do I, Jack said in my head.
With a sigh, I had to admit: "If Hedda was behind the killings this weekend, then who set the trapdoor trap for her yesterday? I don't buy the theory that it was meant for Pierce Armstrong. Armstrong and Wendell Pepper both moved across that stage without falling through it. And why would Hedda have joined Dr. Lilly on stage Friday night if she knew it was about to rain audio equipment?" I shook my head. "I don't know, Jack. It doesn't make sense."
Then keep digging, baby. 'Cause if the pieces don't fit, the puzzle ain't solved.
AN HOUR LATER, Mina was back from her break. I put her on the register and spelled Bonnie for her lunch. Then I spoke with Sadie about the inventory.
"Our Film Noir Festival display is looking pretty anemic. Do we have anything in the back that we can bring out?"
"Not much. We've sold just about every last one of Hedda Geist's coffeetable book, which is excellent news because we really stocked up on that one. Maggie Kline's novels are sold out, too. I'm pretty sure we still have a dozen of her female sleuth encyclopedias in the back, though."
"Great, I'll go find them and put them on the display table."
"Oh! Take a look around back there for any more copies of Barry Yello's books. He had a fantastic turnout for his signing, and we sold through everything we brought up front. But people are still asking for it."
"Okay, I'll see if we have any straggler copies back there."
I moved through the archway that connected the two storefronts, cut through the now-empty Community Events space, and made my way back to our stock room.
We had a library-style cart on wheels for moving books back and forth, and I filled it with what I could find-Maggie Kline's Encyclopedia of Women Sleuths; more copies of Barry Yello's Bad Barry: My Love Affair with B, C, and D Movies; even Dr. Lilly's backlist film studies.
I considered the boxes of Irene Lilly's newly published book, Murdered in Plain Sight, but I decided against putting it out. Things were bad and getting worse. I didn't want to tempt
fate.
Instead, I scrounged some more of the backlist titles that we'd featured on our table this weekend. Most film noir fans were pretty savvy about source material. But some of the younger festival attendees were surprised to learn that their favorite noir films were based on novels-which is why I grabbed copies of Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain, The Big Sleep and Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler, and The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett.
As I packed up the cart, one of the books fell off. I picked up Barry Yello's trade paperback and placed it back on the stack. Now, as I pushed the cart along, Barry's round baby face was smiling up at me from the big color photo on his back cover. I noticed he was wearing one of his ubiquitous Hawaiian shirts. His long blond hair was caught in his signature ponytail. And then I noticed one more thing-an earring. Barry had a pierced ear. I'd forgotten about that.
On Friday night, when he'd introduced Dr. Lilly, Barry had worn a single gold loop through his earlobe. In this author photo, however, he was wearing a simple post: a circle of black onyx in a silver setting.
THE COMFY TIME Motel wasn't in the town of Quindicott. It was a short drive away on the highway and I remembered Barry mentioning to me on Saturday morning that he was staying there.
After pulling my Saturn into the crowded parking lot, I hurried into the motel's glass-enclosed lobby. "Hello," I said to the young clerk watching TV behind the counter. "Can you tell me if a Mr. Barry Yello is registered here, and where I can find him?"
"Sure," the guy replied. He tapped a computer screen with his index finger. "Mr. Yello is in Room 216."
I thanked him and went back outside, climbed the stairs, and followed the balcony until I found the right room. The door was wide open, and I peeked inside.
A plump woman was sitting in front of a flat computer screen, intently tapping the keyboard. The room was well-lived-in, littered with bags and papers. Fast food wrappers were piled up on the desk, the table, and spread out on the bed.
"Excuse me," I called.
The woman swung around in her chair and tugged small iPod earbuds out of her head. "Sorry!" she said brightly. "I couldn't hear you!"
"I'm looking for Barry Yello?"
"He's not here right now, but he'll be back soon. You can wait if you want." She gestured to a nearby chair.
"Thanks." I moved a stack of magazines off the chair and sat. "I'm Penelope Thornton-McClure, by the way, I co-own Buy the Book on Cranberry Street, and-"
"Wow!" she said, her smile genuine. "That's such a cool place. I checked it out on the first day we came. But I haven't had a chance to go back-stuck here, you know? Updating the site and posting Barry's blogs."
I detected a Chicago accent in the way she flattened some of her vowels. The woman rose and adjusted her loose dress. It was a cute retro style with big colorful 1960s'-esque polka dots.
"I'm Amy," she said, offering me her hand. "Amy Reichel. I'm Barry's Webmaster. Maybe I can help you. Why are you looking for him exactly?"
I hesitated, but Jack spurred me on. She's a source, baby. Pump her. Find out what she knows about your mark.
I paused, deciding on a line of questioning. I guessed her age at around thirty. She wore her black hair in a short cut, had a tattoo of what looked like an anime character on her upper arm, and a nose ring in her left nostril. She was heavy-set and wore no makeup. She didn't need to. She looked cute and fresh with porcelain skin, high cheekbones, wide blue eyes, and full lips.
"I didn't know FylmGeek. com had a Webmaster," I began, trying to sound casual and friendly. "I thought Barry did all that stuff himself."
Amy sat down again, threw her head back, and laughed. "That's funny. Barry can't even type, except with two fingers."
"You're kidding," I said, shocked that the star of an internationally poputar Internet site wasn't a computer whiz himself.
Amy shook her head. "He's a great guy, and really sweet, but he doesn't know his ass from an open-source software program!"
"I guess you've known Barry a long time, huh?"
"Like forever. I met him right after he dropped out of college, back when he worked for Pulse Studio."
"A studio? So Barry actually worked in a Hollywood film studio?"
"If you can call it that. It was low rent, you know? They made a lot of direct-to-DVD movies, that sort of thing. Barry's done a lot of things, but what he's always, always, always wanted to do was make movies. And it's finally going to happen for him, too. He's got one of his scripts at Paramount -and they told him they're actually going to make it. They're putting it into production. It's amazing, isn't it?"