The Jean Harlow Bombshell

by Mollie Cox Bryan

  “Oh, that’s fine. I just need to see words on the page.”

  Den sat at the kitchen table, with Kate on one side of him and me on the other. “I don’t understand the techno speak and all that,” he said, “but here’s the gist. The cybercrimes unit loves having the computer, because before, they’d just copied all the files onto a jump drive. But until they got their hands on the computer, they didn’t see the other stuff.”

  “Other stuff ? What do you mean?”

  “Well, they say nothing is ever deleted. I guess it’s not, and Justine had a lot of trashed files. Most of it was trash; you know, spam emails. But the unit was able to recover some very interesting emails she’d deleted.” His lean fingers clicked over his keyboard. “I’m going to print these out to make notes on actual paper. I’m hoping you’ll recognize some of these folks and we can find something. I don’t know … a pattern. Maybe you can help make sense of all this.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I said.

  As the printer spit out the paper, Kate cleared her throat. “Can I get you coffee? Water?”

  “I’d love some coffee,” he said. “Thank you.” His attention turned back to me, his chin angled up. “We need to talk about that ring.”

  “Ring? Jean Harlow’s sapphire ring?”

  He nodded. “It seems like a lot of the emails are about a valuable star sapphire ring.”

  Adrenaline zoomed up my spine. “Like I told you at Charley’s, that ring was lost years ago. Most people assume she was buried with it.”

  “Evidently it’s resurfaced, and your boss did know something about it.”

  “What?” My heart thrummed. So Chad Walters was correct? “No way,” I said out loud. “Justine would have told me. We discussed the ring. We talked to someone who knew her jeweler. We interviewed a sapphire specialist who said it really wasn’t worth anything as far as gems go.”

  Den shrugged. The printer spit out emails. He stood and sorted through the papers. “Sometimes people surprise you. Maybe she learned more than what you think and she never got a chance to tell you.”

  Kate walked back into the room with a cup of coffee. “Cream? Sugar?”

  “No thanks, Kate,” he said.

  “So this Chad Walters might be on to something?”

  “I don’t know,” Den said. “Let’s not rule it out. There are several lines of inquiry here. The ring is just one of them. I looked into Chad Walters,” he went on. “Let’s just say he’s not a person you want to mess with.” He handed me a file.

  I read through it while he splayed papers out on the table.

  “Rape charges? Murder charges?” I gasped as I read over the information. My heart thudded as I considered my grandmother. A man like that wouldn’t think twice about killing someone.

  “Yeah, he got out of those, barely. Hired a kick-ass expensive lawyer both times,” Den said. “But look at these newspaper clippings.”

  There was an article about the underground Hollywood collector group called Hollywood Cartel Collections. Chad Walters’ name popped up in the story as a source, not as a member. Another passage mentioned Chad and his art collection—most of which was illegal. He’d been busted twice for owning illegal antiquities.

  “Jesus,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Den said. “No wonder he said money’s no object. He’s like something out of a movie. I didn’t know guys like this actually exist.”

  I set the file down and looked at the papers on the table.

  “I’ve taken the liberty of choosing the emails I found most relevant. If you want to examine them later to see if anything else jumps out at you, that’s fine. But to start, check these out.”

  I hovered over the papers and picked up the first one. My hands slightly trembled.

  “J.

  If such a ring were to exist, the bidding would open at 1.7 million.

  So, my offer of 2 million is more than generous.

  C.W.”

  Chad Walters.

  He’d been telling the truth. He had been in contact with her.

  “Dear C.W.

  I told you once before that I don’t know anything about the whereabouts of the ring.

  J.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Walters contacted her, and she claimed she knew nothing about it.” My stomach settled. Thinking of Justine keeping such a huge secret from me rankled me.

  Then:

  “J.

  My sources say you have the ring. They are never wrong.

  C.W.”

  “C.W.

  Screw your sources. You are wasting my time. Bugger off.

  J.”

  I smiled. Justine.

  “J.

  Make no mistake, Justine, I’m not going anywhere. And will do anything for that ring.

  C.W.”

  “Sounds like him, “ I muttered. “He’s a serious collector.”

  “Here’s more,” Den said, handing me a few other emails from Hollywood collectors. Some of them I recognized. Some were more threatening than others.

  Gregory Horvath, a member of Hollywood Cartel Collections, that mysterious group of Hollywood types seeking authentic memorabilia, was a bit threatening in his notes as well. He too assumed Justine possessed the ring. Why?

  “He’s one of the people who was on my list, remember?” I said to Den.

  He nodded. “But he has a solid alibi. His mother passed away and he was at her funeral.”

  I crossed Horvath off my list of possible killers.

  “So all of these people believed she had the ring?” I said.

  “And where there’s smoke there’s fire,” Den said.

  I took him in. The tilting of his chin, the crooked pursing of his lips, the knowing look in his eyes. “You think she hid the ring somewhere.”

  Kate harrumphed. “I’d not put it past her, Charlotte.”

  “Why wouldn’t she tell me?” I was trying to tamp down the feeling of betrayal. “Justine told me everything. I’m the only person she trusted to clean her house. I’m her assistant. Um. Was.”

  I mentally sorted through the weirdness of the circumstances of Justine’s death and all that had happened afterward. All the people contacting me. But only one had approached me about the ring, even though several collectors had connected with Justine.

  “If she had the ring and didn’t tell you, she may have been trying to protect you,” Den said.

  A cool breeze brushed across my skin. I shivered. A soft and powdery scent tickled my nose. Was it a real whiff, or a memory?

  Was it Cotillion, or just a smell reminding me of it? Was Kate wearing something similar? Was Den?

  “I’m not sure I accept any of it,” Kate popped off. “If I had a jewel like that, one the love of my life gave me, I’d be buried in it.”

  “But she didn’t have any say about her burial,” I found myself saying. “That would have been left to her mother.”

  Mulling over the horrible last days of Harlow’s life, I recalled she was swollen to at least twice her size. If she’d had the ring on her finger when she was sick, it would have had to come off at some point. Otherwise it would have dug into her finger. So maybe she wasn’t buried in it. Perhaps either her mom or someone at the hospital took the ring.

  Pure conjecture.

  “There’s no way of knowing if she’s buried with it unless we have her body exhumed,” I said.

  Den guffawed. “You wouldn’t believe the paperwork. Two states. And Hollywood? Jesus. What a field day. Exhumation is the last resort. Trust me.”

  I sat down on a kitchen chair. Still chilled. Could it be Justine knew something about this ring? That she was killed because of it?

  “I don’t know where Justine was the last few weeks of her life,” I said, more to myself than to Den or Kate. “It was obvious she hadn�
�t been living in her apartment for a while. Was she hiding? She wasn’t easily frightened. I can’t imagine her hiding from someone. But then again, she really wasn’t herself. She was more on edge.” I drew in a breath. “But I knew Justine. Maybe better than anybody else. She wasn’t interested in money—not so much that she’d be running for her life. She was well off. Old money. She had quite enough. If she did have the ring and was keeping it a secret, there was good reason for it. And it had nothing to do with money. So these collectors were barking up the wrong tree.”

  A look of respect came over Den’s face. Or newfound admiration. He liked the way I thought, which was a whole new experience for me. Most men didn’t appreciate it when I used my mind.

  “Okay,” he said. “But listen. The ring and all that goes with it is just one possibility.”

  “What? What else can there be?”

  “That’s what I’m hoping you can help me with.”

  He handed me more printed-out emails. My hands trembled as the papers slid into them.

  “More?” My voice was a throaty whisper.

  Twenty-One

  After taking a few gulps of water, which Kate brought me as I studied the next batch of emails, my hands stopped trembling. But my heart still raced and my stomach jumbled.

  “Who is this person?” I asked as I read.

  “Please, please help me. You have to understand. Once the Harlow book comes out, my life will never be the same. I’ll need to go into hiding.” It was dated six weeks ago, way before Justine died.

  “There’s two people,” Den said as he directed me to the next email—which I’d seen before.

  “I swear if you go public with this I’ll kill you,” it said.

  I nodded. “I’ve read that one. Are these two related? Did they come from the same place?”

  “They’re from two different individuals. That much we can tell. The cybercrimes unit is working hard to get a lead on where they came from. Who these people are. But it looks like some emails were sent from the New York Public Library. So,” he said and shrugged, “it’s easy for people to sign it with fake names and such. It could be the same person using different aliases. I’ve got guys checking into it. But we’ve been down this road before, with other cases. It probably won’t go anywhere.”

  “That tells me that whoever sent it wants to be anonymous,” Kate said. She was now standing next to me, looking over my shoulder.

  “Yet asking for help.”

  “And look at this email,” Den said.

  “I can’t stay with you without placing your life in jeopardy. I gave you my story. If he identifies you, he will kill you. I need to leave the country. I am certain he knows I’m here. If he finds out I’ve been working with you, he’ll kill me as well.”

  Stunned into silence, Kate and I looked at one another. Her eyebrows were drawn into a V. “What the hell?” she said.

  “This doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the ring,” Den said after a moment. “So do you have any idea what this is about?”

  Dumbfounded, I shook my head. The room silenced once again.

  “Did Justine run all of her sources by you?” Kate asked.

  “Usually,” I managed to say. “And I fact-checked them. It doesn’t make any sense. I don’t think this person is a source. This is something different.”

  “But it says ‘Harlow book’ right there. It does have a link with the book,” Den said.

  I bit my lip. The Jean Harlow tale was straightforward. Nothing new had resurfaced in recent years, unless you were counting her medical records, eventually released because the appropriate amount of time had passed. Was there a secret in her records? I’d reviewed them myself. Did I overlook something?

  But even so, it still made no sense. There was nothing earth shattering, no juicy story, in the working manuscript. At all.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “I have no idea what this person is talking about. I’m sorry. I wish I could be more helpful.”

  Den placed his hand on my shoulder. It heated where his hand lay. “I get the feeling this is hard on you, and I’m sorry.” He paused a few beats. “Remember how you said Justine called you to that meeting at Layla’s, saying she had something important to tell you? Could it be that she had some new scoop about Harlow’s life?”

  I drew in a breath. “It’s possible. But the Harlow story is not complicated. I have no idea what this person is talking about. I’ve looked over Justine’s files. I’ve read almost everything on her computer. I haven’t seen anything leading me to conclude there was a new twist to the story.”

  No Loretta Young–Clark Gable secret love child story lurked. Nor even a Mommie Dearest tale. The only whiff of scandal in Harlow’s life was the suicide of her second husband. Which, when all was said and done, did not have much to do with Jean.

  “But what about Justine’s laptop?” Kate said. “You said you haven’t been able to find it.”

  “Yes,” I said, “she had a laptop. It might be wherever she was staying the last few weeks of her life. I have no idea where that was. I wasn’t even aware she wasn’t living in her apartment.”

  “Okay,” Den said, removing his hand from my shoulder, leaving the spot tingling with faded heat. “We can pull financials. She had to pay for wherever she was staying, right? Hotel? B and B? Food?”

  He reached into his pocket for his cell phone and then, standing, walked to the other side of the room.

  Kate sighed. “What the hell do you imagine Justine had gotten herself into?”

  I shrugged. “I have no idea. Nothing like this has happened before. I mean we’ve had lawsuits, threats of lawsuits. But never death threats or desperate pleas for help.”

  “Let’s hope the cops can locate Justine’s laptop. It might have just what you need.”

  “It’s not that simple,” I said. “I’m supposed to deliver the completed manuscript to the publisher in six weeks. Usually it wouldn’t be a problem, but if the story is changing, it’s going to be a huge dilemma. But how do I know? How do I finish the book knowing there may be more to the Harlow story?”

  “Can you get an extension?”

  “I already did.”

  “Damn,” Kate said.

  We sat for a few minutes, each in our own reflections. “I can’t imagine anything about the Harlow story that could get Justine killed. If anything, the murder must have to do with the ring. It must have resurfaced. That’s all I can think.”

  “If it did, where would it be?” Kate said in a low voice. “I mean, if Justine had the ring.”

  “I’ve no idea if she had a safe, or a safe deposit box or lockbox, like Chad Walters said, or a secret … place …” My eyes met Kate’s. One of her well-drawn eyebrows lifted.

  The secret room.

  “Okay,” Den said as he walked back into the room. “We’ll start looking into her financials. Maybe it’ll lead us to her laptop. Thanks. That might be a great lead.”

  “I’ll need the laptop when you find it,” I said.

  “You can certainly have it when we’re done with it.”

  “I have a book to finish.”

  “But first we have a killer to catch.”

  Den’s voice was full of confidence and authority. And who was I to argue? As if I could, with the molten heat forming in my lower regions.

  One thing at a time.

  Twenty-Two

  I was itching to return to the book, but Den stayed longer. I confess, I couldn’t have written a word if I wanted to—not with all that maleness in my space.

  “Hey, ah, I got your message about your grandmother,” he said, spreading his arms across the back of the couch. I want to slip right in there between his arm and chest. But not under the watchful eye of Kate. He caught me checking out his arms and his eyes lit up.

  “And?” Kate said, inter
rupting the silent exchange.

  “Well, I called the chief of police on Cloister Island and talked with him a while. They’ll be on the alert for Walters and it’s not necessary for you to go back to the island. Besides, you’ve got work to do here, right?” His eyebrow lifted.

  “I can do my job most anywhere,” I said. “My mom sent me most of my stuff, so I’m set. And there’s this ongoing murder investigation …”

  “All that and we’re still waiting for the actual will reading,” Kate said. “Do you believe it?” Her mouth puckered and twisted. “Some people.”

  “A little problem with Justine’s relatives?”

  “No, the law firm lost the updates to her will.” I sat on the chair next to the couch.

  “That’s a first,” Den said. “Losing a will?”

  I nodded. Just then my phone buzzed. “Excuse me,” I said, looking at the number. Damn, it was Lucille. I allowed it to go to my voicemail. Did I need another call from her checking on the manuscript? I’d just spoken with her yesterday about the extension. What was the problem? Did she not trust me? Did she not know I’d done a lot of Justine’s work before she passed away?

  “I can let it go,” I said waving my fingers.

  “Listen, I’m about ready to head back down to Layla’s,” he said.

  “What for?”

  “I’m checking in there with the staff I haven’t gotten a chance to interview before. I keep feeling there’s something we overlooked. It might help if you come with me. We can walk you through what you saw and heard.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Kate said. “I’ll come too. Let me get my purse.” She walked to the dining table, where her purse was flung across a chair.

  Den grinned and shrugged. “It’s fine with me.” Then he twisted his hand around and gestured as if to say, What gives?

  I shot him my best Who cares? smile.

  ∞

  It had been a full week since I’d been at the scene of Justine’s murder. From the minute I walked in, I tried to tamp down the darkness creeping into my chest. The scent of jasmine, orange, and saffron would forever remind me of death. And of losing Justine.