The Big Brush-off

by Michael Murphy

  She sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of one hand. “At school, a month before he graduated, Alan stopped me in the hallway and told me I was pretty. He was a senior who drove a car! He dated Katie Caldwell, the most popular girl in school. It was a joke, it had to be, but a week later, he kissed me in the library and…pressed against me.”

  Laura and Ginger both stared at Nancy. The fear in Ginger’s eyes vanished, replaced by glistening tears.

  Nancy’s hand trembled as she touched her lips. “Alan was the only boy who ever kissed me.”

  I took another step forward; just a few more before I could take the gun from her without a struggle. I needed to keep her talking.

  “I didn’t want to go to prison, so I made Katie’s death look like a robbery.” Nancy’s voice quivered. “Then I went home and loaded my father’s old gun, the one he left when he ran out on Mama and me.”

  I took another step, two steps from grabbing Nancy’s .32.

  She glanced toward the doorway. Her eyes widened and her grip tightened on the gun.

  Sheriff Bishop aimed his pistol at Nancy. He stepped into the room and spoke in a calm voice. “Drop the gun.”

  Bishop’s presence changed everything. When a single tear slid down her face, she pointed the .32 at her chin.

  I lunged for the weapon and yanked it away from her face. A shot went off with a thunderous roar near my ear. We collided against the wall. Plaster fell on the back of my neck. The gun went off again.

  I wrestled the .32 from her hand and drew my .38. I could barely hear. My ears still rang from the blast in the small room that now smelled of gunpowder.

  As Nancy shrank into a corner and covered her face with both hands, Bishop holstered his weapon.

  I spun toward Laura and Ginger, cold sweat on my back. Had anyone been shot?

  Freddy dashed into his sister’s room. He skidded to a stop on the wood floors. He stared at the two guns I held and raised his hands. “Don’t shoot!”

  I slapped Nancy’s gun into Bishop’s hand and rushed to Laura and wrapped both arms around her. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, darling. So is Ginger.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief and handed Ginger a handkerchief to dry her misty eyes.

  Nancy stepped from the corner and pleaded with Bishop. “I didn’t come here to kill Ginger. I promise I didn’t. I just tried to scare her. Please believe me.”

  “I believe you.” Bishop unclipped the handcuffs from his belt. “Nancy Oldfield, I’ve wanted to say these words to someone for ten years. You’re under arrest for the murder of Katie Caldwell.”

  “No!” Nancy burst into tears.

  Bishop cuffed her. “We all heard your confession.”

  I couldn’t take her tears and “please believe me”s any longer. I’d been around plenty of murderers. They all had excuses, like Nancy, and some shed tears too.

  I stepped toward her to make sure she looked in my eyes. “Give it a rest, doll. You killed your best friend then shot her lifeless body. You took her life and ruined others—Mary Caldwell’s and men who spent a decade with this town thinking they were guilty. That includes someone you apparently cared for, Alan Tremain.”

  Life dealt her some tough breaks, but we lived in a country overwhelmed by tough breaks. Besides, what was a person supposed to say to a girl who killed her best friend and got away with murder for so long?

  As Bishop led Nancy toward the door, Freddy backed up. He collided with the wall as the young woman walked past, as if she had the plague.

  Still dressed in his clown costume, Edwin rushed into the room. He ran to Ginger’s side and wrapped both arms around her. “Princess, are you all right?”

  Ginger nodded and managed a smile. “Yes, Daddy.”

  Laura grabbed her hand. “I’m so sorry this worked out the way it did. I’m responsible.”

  Ginger shook her head. “You’re responsible for the capture of the person who murdered Katie Caldwell ten years ago. And thanks to you, I was able to help. It’s something I’ll always be proud of.”

  “I’m certainly proud of you, and I forgive you for kissing Alan.” Edwin hugged his daughter, leaving a smudge of white clown makeup on her face. “I could use a smoke. I don’t suppose you have any.”

  She opened a drawer on the nightstand and pulled out a pack of Camels. She handed him a cigarette then lit it.

  Edwin took a deep puff and let out the smoke. “I could use a drink, how ’bout you?”

  Ginger took a quick glance toward me. “A drink, Daddy? I’m only twenty.”

  “You’re a grown woman. It’s a shame it took something dreadful like this to make me realize it.” He slipped an arm around her and led his daughter from the room.

  Freddy stood in the doorway. “Ginger, Pop’s joking about the drink. Remember, he’s a clown!”

  A tear slid down Laura’s face. “I never should’ve put Ginger in danger like that. I should’ve gotten Alan to kiss me.” She cocked her head. “You don’t think I could have?”

  I wrapped my arms around her. “Of course, sweetheart, but the truth is, you kiss enough men filming movies.”

  “From now on, I swear I’ll leave the detective work to you.”

  I knew that was one promise she’d never keep, but I didn’t want her to. Taking on the town of Hanover wasn’t my first scrape and wouldn’t be my last. I could count on two people—Gino, who came whenever I called, and Laura, who was always at my side to help me out of a jam.

  I kissed her cheek. “Don’t beat yourself up. Katie Caldwell’s murder is finally solved. Tomorrow’s memorial service will be special. Thanks to you, Katie can finally rest in peace.”

  I glanced at the bullet hole in the ceiling. Where did the other one land? “We’re missing a bullet hole.”

  The three of us looked around the room but came up empty.

  Freddy studied the movie star pictures on the wall. “Over here!” He pointed to a picture of a movie star Laura and I knew well. The bullet grazed the man’s hair.

  I ran my hand over the photo. The slug slammed into the wall, entering the picture of Laura’s old flame, William Powell. “Is that fitting or what?”

  “Darling, he’s your friend as well as mine, and you have nothing to be jealous about.”

  Freddy stared open-mouthed at Laura. “You and William Powell? Wait till I tell Sarah and the fellas.” He dashed from the room.

  Laura’s face flushed. She held up both palms. “Aren’t you going to stop Freddy and tell him the truth?”

  I smiled and took her arm in mine. “It’s too late, sweetheart. The rumor’s already sweeping through Hanover.”

  Chapter 37

  Fifty Pencils

  NEW YORK CITY, TWO WEEKS LATER

  I paced Mildred’s office, waiting for her arrival to deliver my fate. I hadn’t heard a word since the no-news telegram in Hanover.

  I stopped and gazed over the New York skyline, so different from Hanover, where Laura and I had spent a week. Sitting in the chair facing my editor’s desk, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

  The day after Nancy Oldfield’s arrest, nearly everyone in town came to St. Catherine’s to pay their respects to Katie and to Mary, who’d waited so long for her daughter’s murder to be solved. The woman’s strength was fading fast. Her smile, however, was stronger than ever.

  Laura and I paid our respects to Mary then sat in the back row next to Ginger and Freddy. The service was for Mary and the town, not a couple of Hollywood outsiders. Father Ryan spoke of forgiveness and compassion, like a good priest should, and I suspected, in spite of his secrets and weaknesses, the man was a devout and compassionate priest. Speaker after speaker walked to the lectern and shared memories of Katie.

  The biggest surprise was Alan Tremain, who was attending his first memorial for Katie and, like everyone else, his last. In a shirt and tie and freshly shaved, he walked to the front of the church and stopped in front of Mary. He asked forgiveness for not attending previous
memorials. He spoke about his love for Katie, whose death he had yet to recover from.

  George Hanson addressed the crowded church, but for once, he praised someone other than himself. He shared a poem Katie wrote in his English class about Hanover. Sheriff Bishop didn’t speak but sat respectfully next to Rita, who took copious notes.

  We said our goodbyes. The next morning, Laura boarded a plane to Los Angeles, but she wasn’t alone. She’d purchased an additional ticket for Ginger. With pressure from Laura, Paul Sawyer managed to arrange a screen test for the young woman, whose best role would never be known outside of a handful of people in Hanover.

  The trip to Hollywood was Laura’s way of apologizing to Ginger for risking her life. Laura told me that after the test, she showed Ginger around Tinseltown, took the young woman to lunch at the Brown Derby, and introduced her to celebrities Ginger knew from movie magazines. A day later Ginger returned to Hanover. Even if her phone never rang, Laura made sure the young woman had been treated like a star.

  I returned to New York and took a room at a small hotel in Queens. While waiting to hear about Laura’s meeting with Selznick, I worked on my novel every day and lunched with Gino, the proud father of a new baby girl, Sophia.

  Laura called immediately after her meeting, sounding immensely better perhaps, in part, because her favorite makeup artist, Francois, had rescued her hair. Selznick, as I knew he would, liked Laura right away. He presented her with a contract for the film Tombstone: The Trial of Wyatt Earp. Her work on the picture would start in the fall, with location filming near Yuma in October.

  After Laura filled me in on her meeting with Selznick, I relaxed enough to call Mildred and let her know I was in town. Without so much as a hint, she scheduled a meeting to discuss the chapters.

  So, where was she? I rose as Mildred finally came in, carrying a small folder. A smile on her face seemed out of place in her office. Where were the chapters I sent?

  “Sit down, Jake. We’ve known each other too long for formalities. How ’bout a drink?” Was this a final drink together?

  “Why not?” I could use Laura about now, but she was more than two thousand miles away, tending to her career, as she should. I wiped damp palms on my trousers and licked dry lips. Thoughts of the past three weeks vanished. I leaned forward, focused on the future.

  Mildred buzzed her secretary, who came in with two champagne glasses and a bottle of champagne sitting in a bucket of ice. She set them on the desk and patted my shoulder.

  “Relax, Jake.” Mildred laughed. “I couldn’t believe you wrote four terrific chapters in three days.”

  I wasn’t sure myself. It wasn’t just leaving New York for the quiet town of Hanover, or the deck overlooking the peaceful pond. Perhaps Katie Caldwell’s unsolved homicide spurred my insight into writing a damn good murder mystery.

  I suspected it was all those things. The irony was, I needed to get away from the city to reconnect to Blackie Doyle’s bright lights and dark alleys. To top things off, when I returned to Queens, I was as prolific as I’d been in Hanover. But were the chapters enough to change my future with Empire Press?

  She gestured toward the bottle. “Will you do the honors?”

  I unwrapped the neck of the champagne, popped the cork, and filled each glass halfway. I handed her a glass and took one myself.

  “I loved your chapters, Jake. You and Blackie Doyle are back on top. Let’s drink to your future.”

  I held up my glass. “Our future.”

  She clicked glasses with me and sipped.

  I took a long gulp, enjoying the bubbles and the feeling that I’d recovered my career.

  Mildred flipped open the folder and slid a document toward me. “Empire Press would like to offer you a three-book contract for the continuation of your Blackie Doyle series.”

  I finished my glass and picked up the pages. I read over the document, relishing each sentence. When I finished reading, I signed on the line.

  She leaned back and let out a long sigh. “I got a new dog last week.”

  I slid the signed contract to her. “What’s his name?”

  “Her name is Agatha. She’s not a pup, but she requires a lot of work. I give her daily walks and special treats, and I haven’t been able to break her from sleeping at the foot of my bed.”

  I poured more champagne into my glass and took a sip, enjoying Mildred sharing life away from the office.

  “You should get a dog.”

  “Laura and I are thinking about that. Or a baby?”

  Mildred snapped forward in her chair. “Is she…”

  “Not yet. She has a movie coming up this fall.”

  Mildred breathed a sigh of relief. “Hot diggity! A baby might interfere with your writing.”

  I couldn’t help but chuckle at her devotion to her work.

  She slipped the contract into the folder. “I bet you were glad to leave Hanover.”

  I thought of the telegram inside my jacket pocket from Father Ryan that informed me Mary Caldwell had passed away. Her expression of gratitude when she thanked Laura and me for solving her daughter’s murder would last forever. “You might say that.”

  “And Laura’s in Hollywood?”

  I told her about Tombstone and the shooting schedule. With a signed contract, I could fly back to Los Angeles, finish my novel, and join Laura for what sounded like an exciting Western, but I had a stop to make. I planned to drive to Hanover for Mary’s funeral at the end of the week, then off to the City of Angels.

  “So you’ll have your manuscript to me before Laura’s location shooting starts in Yuma, am I right?”

  “October? You bet.”

  She finished her champagne. “You know how to make an old woman happy.”

  I rose and shook Mildred’s hand.

  She walked around the desk and hugged me, a first for Mildred. “I’m so damn proud of you. I wasn’t sure if you had it in you or not.”

  I surprised her with a kiss to her cheek. I grabbed my fedora from the hat rack next to the door and said goodbye until next time.

  When I left the office, Mildred’s secretary smiled. “Congratulations, Jake.”

  “Thanks.” I rode the elevator to the lobby, fighting the urge to pump my fist into the air like Dempsey used to do after scoring a knockout. Life was good, damn good.

  I stepped outside and slipped on dark sunglasses beneath the bright midday sky. Through a crowd, I noticed a young woman not much older than Ginger. From a strap around her neck hung what used to be a cigarette box. Now she had a collection of pencils for sale with a handwritten sign reading ONE CENT. She held up a yellow No. 2. I knew my writing tools. “Pencil, mister?”

  “Sorry, I don’t have any change.” I patted my pockets.

  She smiled and gave me a pencil. “Here. You look like you could use one sometime.”

  “How many do you have?” I peered in the box.

  “About fifty.”

  I grabbed my wallet and handed her two Lincolns.

  “Ten bucks!” Wide-eyed, she handed me the pencils before I could change my mind then folded the money and slid the bills in her shoe. “That’s a lot of pencils, mister.”

  “I’m a writer.”

  I stuffed the pencils in nearly every pocket.

  I couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel and pack and maybe write another chapter before leaving for Hanover. As cars went by, I stepped to the curb and raised my hand to hail a cab. “Taxi.”

  “You don’t need no taxi, Mr. Hollywood.” A familiar voice came from behind.

  “Gino.” I tossed him a pencil.

  “Thanks, I always wanted one of these.” He stuffed the pencil in his suit coat pocket and opened the door to a blue Plymouth with leather seats. “Your ride’s in this baby. Stella and me figured now that we got two kids, I better get some wheels.”

  As we drove off, something about the twinkle in his eyes aroused my suspicion. “Where are we going?”

  “I wasn’t sure if your meeting w
ould go so good or not. So while I waited outside your building, I picked a place where we went as kids when things went south, like report card day, or when we had something to celebrate, like that time I got to second base with the freckle-faced girl with glasses.”

  “Mary Anne Wilkins.”

  Gino snapped his fingers. “Yeah, her too. You guess where we’re going yet?”

  There was only one place that meant so much to the two of us growing up. The past weeks had been full of highs and lows and ended well for Laura and me. I had plenty on my plate the remainder of the week, but I couldn’t wait to spend the rest of the day with my lifelong friend, Gino. “Coney Island.”

  This novel is dedicated to Brian, Alex, Jack, Joseph, and Skye Murphy, five special and talented children who make me proud and bring laughter into our household nearly every day.

  BY MICHAEL MURPHY

  The Yankee Club

  All That Glitters

  Wings in the Dark

  The Big Brush-off

  PHOTO: © KIMBERLY DENHAM DP PHOTOGRAPHY

  MICHAEL MURPHY is a full-time writer and part-time urban chicken rancher. He lives in Arizona with his wife of more than forty years, and the five children they adopted recently. He’s active in several local writers’ groups and conducts novel-writing workshops at bookstores and libraries.

  mjmurphy.com

  Facebook.com/​mmurfy86

  @mmurfy68

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