Who Killed the Pinup Queen?

by Kelner, Toni, L. P.

  “Tilda,” Hoyt said, “I want you to meet Dr. Quentin Beaudine. He’s with the Stickler Syndrome Research Foundation. We’re sponsoring their annual fund-raiser this year, and I just know it’s going to raise barrels of money. Quentin, this here is Tilda Harper, who’s going to write about the shindig for Entertain Me!”

  That was the first Tilda had heard about the assignment, but she certainly wasn’t going to turn it down. The doorbell rang again, and Hoyt left Tilda and Dr. Beaudine looking a bit stunned.

  “I have no idea what’s going on,” Tilda said conversationally. “How about you?”

  “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “My boss usually handles fund-raising, but he’s out of town, so I got drafted—I’m just a researcher.”

  That explained the suit. “Researching Stickler Syndrome, I take it.”

  He nodded.

  “Then I’m two for two. I don’t know what that is, either.”

  He smiled, and Tilda was delighted to see that he had dimples. She’d had a fondness for dimples ever since the third grade, when she’d harbored a secret passion for a sixth-grade love god named Stevie Thatch.

  “It’s a genetic condition caused by mutation in the collagen system.”

  “That sounds bad.”

  “It can be. It can affect the eyes, ears, joints, bones, and often causes cleft palates.”

  “I’m surprised I haven’t heard of it before.”

  “It’s such a concatenation of symptoms that it’s not always diagnosed, and not everybody who has it is affected strongly. A big part of the research is trying to determine if it really is one syndrome, or several. Also, it’s not fatal—fatal diseases tend to get more attention, and therefore more research dollars.”

  “Is it disfiguring? Everybody loves a good disfiguring disease.”

  “No luck there, either. Sticky kids are as cute as buttons.”

  “Sticky? Do they leave sticky notes for each other?”

  “I suppose they should.”

  “In fact, that’s what you should use for your signature piece. Instead of pink ribbons, you could get your supporters to wear sticky notes on their tuxes and gowns at the Oscars.”

  He smiled even wider, and Tilda admired his dimples once again. She would have kept talking, hoping to maintain that smile, but she saw Jillian arrive with Nicole in tow, and Shannon following Nicole. Technically, the buxom blond staff editor was the same rank as Nicole, but somehow Shannon ended up with the scut work every time. Which explained why she was carrying a heavy tote bag.

  Tucker said, “I think that’s everybody now, so if y’all will get settled, we’ll get this show on the road.”

  The dining room table, like everything else in the suite, was enormous and highly polished. Tilda maneuvered a seat next to Quentin, just in case those dimples made another appearance, and saw that Nicole grabbed the chair on the other side of him. Some women were so competitive, Tilda thought disdainfully, secure in the knowledge that she’d seen him first.

  Tucker called the meeting to order, and explained what they were there for. Tilda was pretty sure they all knew that already, but she listened politely and even took notes. She continued to listen as the question of venues for the fund-raiser was discussed, though she quit taking notes when Nicole went into rapturous details about Boston’s swankiest restaurants and clubs, each more ludicrously expensive than the last. Finally, she’d had as much as she could stand.

  She waited until Nicole took a breath in the middle of waxing poetic about the appetizers at Le Snob Appeal, and said, “Can I make a suggestion?”

  Nicole glared at her, but Tucker said, “You bet.”

  “What about going with someplace more thematic?”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Cowtown was a Western family show, and the Cowtown resort is aimed at families, too, right?”

  Miss Barth nodded.

  “Then how about the Hillside Steakhouse in Saugus?”

  Nicole rolled her eyes. “With that giant neon cactus? You have got to be kidding.”

  Tilda ignored her, instead focusing on Jillian, Miss Barth, and the Ambrose brothers. “What Nicole is talking about is their sign, which is a fifty-foot cactus—it’s a local landmark. The place is so big it’s broken into dining rooms, and each dining room has a different Western motif: Kansas City, Sioux City, Dodge City. Any one of those rooms would be big enough for a benefit, and they’ve got function rooms, too. Now the food is plain—steak, baked potatoes or fries, tossed salads—but it’s good, and the prices are reasonable. So you wouldn’t be spending all of your profits on the party—it would go to the foundation. Best of all, it wouldn’t look like every other benefit for every other foundation.”

  Jillian nodded, probably attracted by the cheapness, and Miss Barth said, “It sounds perfect, like a modern-day Cowtown Saloon.”

  Nicole looked disgusted, but since she could see the wind was blowing against her, she kept quiet.

  “What do you think, Quentin?” Hoyt asked.

  “I like it,” Quentin said. “It’s much more appropriate for our foundation, which isn’t a big-bucks operation.”

  Tucker said, “Tilda, I think you’ve got something there. Nothing highfalutin’, just good food and good times.”

  Quentin grinned. “And I won’t have to rent a tux this year.”

  “I think you’d look wonderful in a tux,” Nicole purred.

  “But maybe even better in a cowboy hat,” Tilda said. “We could ask people to wear Western clothing.”

  “Terrific photo ops with that,” Jillian pointed out. “The Boston Globe has got to be tired of running pictures of men in suits and women wearing little black dresses.”

  Miss Barth actually clapped her hands. “This is starting to sound like such fun!”

  Hoyt started scribbling figures. “We’ll make some money on ticket sales, but we’ll want to give people a chance to give more, so I want some speakers to get them fired up. Quentin, you can speak for the foundation, right? Slide show, pull on the heartstrings, that kind of thing.”

  “My boss is much better at that,” Quentin said, looking alarmed, “but I’ll give it a shot.”

  “Nothing long and drawn-out,” Tucker said. “Just enough to convince people to pony up the money.” He chuckled. “Pony up! We can use that.”

  Hoyt rolled his eyes. “How about some special guests, too, to attract people? Miss Barth, of course.”

  She nodded modestly.

  “Maybe Rex Trailer,” Tilda said hopefully. To the out-of-towners, she explained, “He’s our most famous local cowboy. He used to host a kids’ show, but he’s still quite popular.”

  “Sounds like our kind of cowpoke,” Tucker said. “Tilda, see if we can get a couple of the guest stars you’re tracking to come, too. We can give them a few cue cards about Sticker’s Syndrome—”

  “Stickler’s Syndrome,” Quentin corrected him.

  “—and let them pass the hat. A ten-gallon hat, of course. That ought to get us a few dollars.”

  “How about a silent auction?” Tilda said. “We could see if any of the guest stars have any memorabilia to donate, or get them to sign copies of the Cowtown companion book that came out a few years ago. Or we can print out a bunch of stills for them to autograph. Maybe set up photo ops with the stars. Stuff like that would get the Cowtown fans enthused.”

  “Now you’re talking!” Hoyt said.

  After that, the discussion got more into details than Tilda cared about, and she started wishing she’d had more sleep the night before. It would be awfully embarrassing if she dozed off in the middle of the meeting. There was a bit of controversy about the date, which spiced things up a bit. The foundation had already scheduled their annual fund-raiser, and though Quentin got his boss on the phone to agree to switching venues so that the Cowtown crew could get involved, he couldn’t change the date. Since that date was less than two weeks away, there was some concern that arrangements couldn’t be made. After a cer
tain amount of dithering, Jillian announced that it could be done and would be done. Very few people argued with Jillian when she used that tone.

  Then it was back to persnickety details like open bar versus cash bar, and Tilda had to work hard to look interested as she wondered if long, boring meetings were a regular part of the full-time Entertain Me! experience.

  Finally enough of the decisions had been made to parcel out the rest, and Tilda tuned back in enough to get her own assignments, which wereto continue her guest-star roundup, see if anybody was willing to attend the fund-raiser, and let the Cowtown fan community know about the event.

  The meeting broke up into smaller conversations after that, and Tilda was happy to stand and stretch. She noticed Quentin looked a little stunned.

  “Is this not what you were expecting?” she asked him.

  “All my boss told me to do was to sit in on the meeting, but now I feel as if I’ve been sucked into some sort of tornado.”

  “Don’t worry. I think it’s going to raise a lot of money, and Tucker may even learn the actual name of the syndrome before it’s all said and done.”

  He smiled, though not quite enough for dimples. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that you people are willing to go to so much trouble. But wouldn’t it be easier to just send out a letter and ask for money? Do we need all this?”

  “Quentin, are you familiar with the concept of positive reinforcement as a teaching tool?”

  “Of course,” he said, sounding impressed.

  She saw no reason to tell him she’d heard about it from her sister during an overly detailed discussion of potty training. “People need to be taught to give to charity—it doesn’t come naturally. Picture this. I’m sitting in my living room, paying bills, which is tedious and reminds me of how little I make. Mixed in with those bills are charity solicitations, but I deal with them last, after the bills that have to be paid. Except by the time I get to them, I’ve added up how little I’ve got left in checking, and I can’t possibly give to all of them. Even if I do write a check or two, I’m doing it out of guilt, and I’m hoping none of the checks bounce before my next paycheck arrives. In other words, giving to charity that way is no fun.

  “Now picture me at a party where I get to meet my favorite TV star of all time. I shake his hand, and my friend takes our picture as he tells me what a fine thing I’m doing by helping out. The room is filled with people working for the charity, so you’ve got that whole group dynamic happening. That’s fun. And the next time I get something in the mail from that charity, I’m going to see that picture of myself and Mr. Beefcake and remember how much fun it is to give to charity. See? Positive reinforcement, with a bit of Pavlovian conditioning thrown in.”

  He still looked doubtful. “Does it have to be fun? Doesn’t anybody give from the goodness of their heart?”

  “Can’t it be good and fun?”

  “I guess.”

  “Well, in case you think this effort is entirely altruistic on anybody’s part, I’ll remind you that both Entertain Me! and the Cowtown resort are going to get plenty of publicity, too. But I honestly think your foundation will benefit.”

  “I think so, too.” He smiled again, and this time the dimples were present and accounted for. “I like the way you look at things.” He checked his watch. “I’ve got to get going, but maybe you and I could get together sometime. I mean, in a social way.”

  “That sounds like just what the doctor ordered.” They exchanged phone numbers, and he left to say his good-byes to the Ambrose brothers.

  Jillian was giving Nicole instructions, but when she saw Tilda was alone, waved her over.

  “Good participation, Tilda. You added value to the meeting.”

  “Thank you. I really appreciate being—”

  But Jillian, having given her own version of positive reinforcement, was moving on. “So what’s this about the dead stripper you found?”

  “You mean Sandra Sechrest? She was a pinup model, not a stripper.”

  “Whatever. Why did I have to read about it in the Globe when you were there on the scene?”

  “Cooper was there—”

  “Cooper is a copyeditor, not a reporter, and he’s not the one who found the body.”

  Tilda could have said that the police had asked her not to discuss the case or that she’d been too upset, but the fact was, she just hadn’t thought about it. “Since you didn’t want the story on Sandra I pitched before, I didn’t think you’d be interested.”

  “That’s not your decision. She was local, and we had the inside story. You should have given me the details and let me decide. If you want to come on full time, you need to be with us full time. You got that?”

  “Got it,” she said, gritting her teeth.

  “Good.”

  “Do you want me to write something up? I can get it to you by—”

  “No, Nicole is handling it.” Nicole smirked as Jillian went on. “I want you to give her what she needs to finish.”

  What Tilda wanted was to remind Jillian that she wasn’t her employee yet, but that would be one way to guarantee that she never was. So she just nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  Jillian nodded back, and left the two of them, one still smirking and the other one still gritting her teeth.

  “When do you want to talk?” Tilda asked.

  Nicole made a show of checking her iPhone. “How about four?”

  Tilda looked at her watch. It wasn’t even eleven. “Can we make it sooner? Otherwise I’ve either got to make the trek to Malden and back, or kill time here in Boston.”

  “Sorry,” Nicole said unconvincingly. “If you hadn’t sat on the story, I wouldn’t be squeezing it in, but that’s my only available slot.”

  “Fine. I’ll meet you at the office.”

  Nicole continued to smirk as she scanned the room. “Now I think I’ll snag that hunky doctor for a little private examination.”

  “Sorry,” Tilda said in exactly the same tone Nicole had used with her. “He already left.”

  Tilda made the rounds to say good-bye to everyone except Nicole, then headed downstairs to the lobby to find a quiet corner where she could make a phone call.

  “Cooper? Tilda. I just got out of the Cowtown meeting, and thanks to Nicole, I’m stuck in town until four. Are you free for lunch?”

  “Of all the people in the world you could have chosen to kill time with, you called me. I’m speechless.”

  “As if. But if you’re busy, I’ll go eat by myself. It’s a shame, too, because I wanted to tell you about the hunk I met at the meeting.”

  “You bitch! Charley’s at eleven thirty.”

  Lunchtime conversation consisted of five minutes about the meeting, since Cooper would get the official word back at the office; ten minutes of kvetching about Nicole, because it was traditional; and talking about Quentin Beaudine. No detail was too small for Cooper’s vicarious pleasure.

  “Your own Dr. McDreamy, only with lighter hair,” Cooper said with a happy sigh when he’d squeezed out every last bit of information she had about the man. “And it’s about time you got back on the horse.”

  “That’s a particularly crude way of putting it.”

  “What? No, not that. Not that a large dose of ‘that’ wouldn’t do you a lot of good. I meant that you need to be dating again, and not moping over that bodyguard.”

  “I have not been moping over Nick.” It was true that she hadn’t been pleased when Nick Tolomeo, her most recent boyfriend, got a job accompanying Orlando Bloom during a three-month shoot in Prague, and even less so when she found out that it might turn into a six-month gig. Even if the set hadn’t been declared a no-press zone because of the director’s desire to keep the script a secret, she and Nick had been too early in their relationship for him to ask her to come along. They had been keeping in touch via e-mail, and he’d even shipped her a set of nested dolls and a gorgeous hand-painted Easter egg, but it was hard to know if they’d still have a viable
connection by the time he got back. “You know we aren’t exclusive. I just haven’t met anybody worth dating.”

  “Until now?”

  “Until now,” she confirmed. “Quentin is definitely worth dating.”

  “My little girl dating a doctor,” Cooper cooed. “I never thought I’d live to see this day.”

  “Keep it up, and you won’t live to see the end of the day.”

  With lunch over, Cooper had to get back to Entertain Me!, but Tilda was feeling at loose ends.

  Cooper said, “Why don’t you come back to the office and work there until time for your meeting? The freelancer desk is open.” Since the magazine used quite a few freelance writers, they maintained a work area for them in case it was needed.

  “I’ve got phone calls to make.”

  “Use the conference room.”

  “Are you sure nobody is using it?”

  “Tilda, you’ve made phone calls at that desk a dozen times, and you’ve used the conference room before, too. What’s the problem?”

  “It’s different now. Jillian talking to me as if I was already under her thumb threw me, not to mention Nicole bossing me around.”

  “Sweetie, Jillian talks to everybody on the planet as if they’re under her thumb, just like Nicole tries to boss everybody around. Nothing’s changed.”

  Tilda weighed the unexpected awkwardness of working at the office versus the even greater awkwardness of trying to work at some random Wi-Fi zone versus the annoyance of wasting an hour making the trip to Malden and back. She concluded that Cooper was right.

  Chapter 10

  Workin’ behind a plow, all you see is a mule’s hind end. Workin’ from the back of a horse, you can see across the country as far as your eye is good.

  —DON’T SQUAT WITH YER SPURS ON! BY TEXAS BIX BENDER

  IT took Tilda a while to put her finger on why the Entertain Me! office looked different that day. It was the same experience she had had when she moved to Malden. She’d been in the area plenty of times while dating a guy who lived there, and had become fairly familiar with the town. But once she made the decision to move there, suddenly the place looked strange. There was a shift in perspective between visiting a place and moving in.