Who Killed the Pinup Queen?

by Kelner, Toni, L. P.

  For the first time, she was wondering what it would be like to come to work at Entertain Me! every day. It definitely wasn’t the work environment she was used to.

  The main office was a long, narrow room. Since Jillian was eternally feuding with managing editor Bryce, their desks were at opposite ends, facing each other. This maintained maximum distance between them and provided the opportunity to spy on one another.

  One of the long walls between them was lined with windows that overlooked Newbury Street. That made it bright and cheery when the weather outside cooperated, and when it didn’t, there were vertical blinds to conceal the gloom. The other wall was covered with framed covers of some of the more successful issues of Entertain Me!

  The middle of the room was filled with two rows of four desks each. Staff editors Nicole and Shannon sat nearest to Jillian. Then came Cooper’s desk. The one next to him belonged to the rarely seen ad manager, who was usually out selling the ads that kept the magazine afloat. Then came desks for the just as rarely seen production editor and art director, who spent the majority of their time on the floor below in production. Of the two desks remaining, one was a catchall for stacks of magazines, press kits that nobody cared about, and unwanted swag from unpopular movies and TV shows. The other was the freelancer desk.

  Tilda supposed it wasn’t a bad place to work, really, but for the time being, she was glad to have a bit more privacy. Nobody was scheduled for the conference room for the rest of the afternoon, so she could use it to make phone calls in peace.

  The first call was to check in with Detective Salvatore. Since she was going to have to talk to Nicole, she wanted to know the latest about Sandra’s murder. Unfortunately, there was nothing he was willing to tell her, but at least he didn’t need her to come in for more questions. Reluctantly, she asked about her belongings, apologizing for even thinking of them in the midst of a murder investigation, and got a mixed response. She could come by the station to pick up her camera, now that Lil had verified that it hadn’t belonged to Sandra, but he wanted to hang on to her clothes for a little longer. Tilda decided that a shopping trip was definitely called for. She couldn’t keep wearing Cooper’s old coat and boots for the rest of the winter.

  After she hung up, she tackled her assignments from the meeting. First she wrote up a brief announcement about the upcoming fund-raising event, keeping it vague while details were worked out, but making sure it was enticing. Then she sent it to the freelancer who maintained the Entertain Me! Website and posted it herself on half a dozen Websites and blogs for TV Western fans. Given the way the Web worked, the news would be cross-posted to a ludicrous number of related sites before the day was out. Some of the posts might even be accurate.

  Next was the job of getting more celebrities to attend to draw attention. Though she would have loved an excuse to talk to Rex Trailer, Jillian had said she had a connection for approaching him herself, so Tilda would have to content herself with getting in touch with some of the more easily found Cowtown guest stars instead. She went through her list, and picked the working soap opera actress to try first. Her show was filmed in New York, so she might be willing to make a quick trip to Boston.

  Tilda had had some dealings with the publicist from A Life Worth Living, and it didn’t take long for her to get Louise Silberblatt on the phone.

  “Ms. Silberblatt?”

  “Call me Louise,” the woman said, her voice sounding just as sultry as it had when she’d played a voluptuous half-breed named Anna Silver Leaf on a Cowtown two-parter.

  “Hi, I’m Tilda Harper, from Entertain Me!, and I’d like to discuss a couple of projects with you. First off, we’re going to be interviewing some of the more illustrious guest stars from the show Cowtown, and of course your name came up.”

  “That’s lovely, but I was only on the show for two episodes. I never even worked with the major cast members—I was only in flashback scenes, so we weren’t on the same set.”

  “I realize that, but those episodes are consistently listed as two of the favorites by Cowtown fans.”

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely. Would you be willing to set up a time to talk to me? And of course, I’ll put in a plug for your lo ng-running role on A Life Worth Living.”

  “Long-running, and underused,” she said with a laugh. “But yes, I’d be happy to talk to you.”

  “Wonderful. The other projects are related. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s a plan to build a Cowtown-themed resort in western Massachusetts.”

  “A Wild West town in New England? Don’t tell me—the Ambrose brothers are behind it. The Cowboy Kings ride again!”

  “That’s it exactly. They want to know if you’d be interested in making promotional appearances once the resort is complete.”

  “Possibly, but anything like that would have to be cleared through the network.”

  Soap opera contracts could be restrictive, and few actors wanted to risk upsetting the source of their regular pay-checks, particularly not an older, underused actress.

  “I’ll tell the Ambrose brothers, and let them take it from there. One other thing. As an early promotion, the Cowtown resort is sponsoring a fund-raising event for the Stickler Syndrome Foundation here in Boston. I’m afraid it’s short notice, but they’d love it if you could come.”

  “Again, I’ll have to clear it with the network. What’s the date?”

  Tilda told her.

  “You weren’t kidding about the short notice. Let me get back to you about that, Tilda. I’m tentatively planning a trip to Boston in the next week or so anyway.”

  “Maybe I could interview you then.”

  “That might work, though I may not be in the best mood for an interview. I’ll be coming to town for a funeral.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Tilda said awkwardly.

  “Thank you. A very old friend of mine passed away. Unfortunately, I don’t know when the funeral will be. There are some complications with the arrangements.”

  Tilda’s story spider-sense started tingling. A funeral at an undetermined time, in Boston. Two such funerals would be a statistical anomaly. “Was your friend Sandra Sechrest?”

  There was a long pause. “How on earth did you know that?”

  “One of those odd coincidences. I interviewed Sandra a few months ago, and then again on the day she died.”

  “Oh?” the actress said, her friendly voice suddenly frosty. “Miss Harper, are you telling me the truth?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Do you really want to interview me about Cowtown? Or did you have something else in mind?”

  “What else would I have in mind? I mean, I’d be happy to talk to you about some of your other work, but—”

  “What other work?”

  Tilda desperately checked her notes to see if she’d listed any of the actress’s other appearances. “Your stage work, your roles in early live TV?”

  “What about my modeling?” she asked, still sounding suspicious.

  Tilda had a split second to decide between slinging bullshit and telling the truth—she decided on truth, which at least had the advantage of being unexpected. “I apologize for my inadequate research, but I didn’t realize you’d done any modeling. I’d be very happy to learn more.”

  “Oh, no, that was a long time ago,” Louise said, her voice friendly again. “Nobody would be interested in a bunch of clothing ads, and for a local department store at that.”

  “Whatever you think,” Tilda said, glad to have saved the interview even if she wasn’t sure how it had nearly slipped away from her. They arranged to talk again later that week, when both Sandra’s funeral arrangements and plans for the fund-raiser were more definite, and Tilda hung up, relieved but confused.

  She drummed her fingers, trying to figure out what had just happened. As soon as Tilda mentioned Sandra, Louise had gotten suspicious and mentioned modeling. Could Louise have been a pinup model herself? Sandra had said something about getting
in touch with other models who didn’t want their former career known. Could Louise Silberblatt have been one of those?

  Tilda had to know more. She booted up her laptop and logged onto the office network to get to the Web. Her first stop was Louise’s IMDb page, but there was nothing there about pinup work. Next she looked at Louise’s personal Website, and while there was no mention of modeling, there were dates from New York stage work Louise had done early in her career. The years just happened to match the years when Sandra had done her modeling, which had also been in New York. That wasn’t conclusive, of course.

  Her next stop was Joe’s Lost Pinups site. The bulletin board was still filled with posts about Sandra’s murder, but as far as she could tell, no real information had been added. She did, however, pause at one exchange. Page-Boy was still sold on the idea of a serial killer with a taste for old pinups, and somebody named Pinup_King wrote in claiming that Page-Boy was correct, and that Pinup_King himself was the killer. He then went on to describe in nauseating detail how he’d killed several of the pinups Joe had on his list of missing models.

  She didn’t know about those other women, but Pinup_ King’s account of Sandra’s death definitely didn’t match what Tilda herself had seen, so she was fairly sure that he was just a sicko troll. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to let Detective Salvatore check him out. The card he’d given her had included his e-mail address so she copied the descriptions of the murders, added the URL for the Website, and sent it to him. If nothing else, having the police question him might make Pinup_King think twice before airing his sick fantasies.

  With that done, she checked Joe’s most recent list of missing pinups. He was currently on the lookout for information about nearly fifty pinups, and each name was linked to a page of information about the missing woman, including a selection of pictures. Tilda looked through the names, hoping for an obvious clue like someone named Louise, but of course, that would have been too easy. All she could do was work her way down the list. So much for the glamour of entertainment reporting.

  An hour later, she had five strong possibilities, women whose ages and appearance matched well enough for a closer look. Unfortunately, the screen on her laptop wasn’t huge or of the best quality—buying a replacement was high on her wish list. Making a comparison would be a lot easier with hard copy, so she sent a current headshot of Louise and the best pictures of her five possibilities to the office printer.

  Once she had the photos in hand, she carefully examined the first three, but it was obvious that none of those women could have aged into Louise Silberblatt without the aid of CGI technology. But the fourth . . . Tilda spent a solid minute looking at the picture of dignified Louise made up as the brunette matriarch of the Pearson family on A Life Worth Living side by side with the photo of a platinum-haired vixen with an impish smile holding her hands over her presumably bare breasts. Then Tilda smiled, her expression not unlike the vixen’s. She was sure. At one time, Louise Silberblatt had been known as Fanny Divine.

  Tilda basked in the glow of discovery for a moment—finding this kind of factoid was the best part of her job. Of course, she wasn’t actually planning to use the information, though it would have violated no journalistic ethics to do so. Louise hadn’t told her about it, let alone asked her to keep it off the record. But from her behavior on the phone, she clearly didn’t want the story made public, and Tilda had no reason to go against the woman’s wishes. Then she remembered Jillian’s reaction at that morning’s meeting, and knew she would expect Tilda to bring the information to her attention.

  She drummed her fingers on the table again, trying to decide if she owed it to the magazine. A long moment later, she decided that she didn’t. She was still a freelancer, which meant that the information had been found on her time, using her own resources. Okay, she had used the printer, but surely a dollar’s worth of Entertain Me! supplies didn’t compare with Louise’s peace of mind.

  Of course, she didn’t know what she’d do if a similar situation came out once she was officially on the payroll, but she could wrestle with her conscience when the time came.

  Tilda was about to tuck the pictures away in her bag when another thought occurred to her. What if Louise had another reason for wanting her connection with Sandra hidden? Or rather, what if her desire to keep her former career hidden was so strong that she’d go to great lengths to keep it secret? Was it important enough to her to want to kill?

  Tilda shook her head as if contradicting someone. There was no way that old woman could have bludgeoned somebody to death. But she looked at Louise’s head shot again. She was in good enough health to work full time, and in better physical shape than Sandra had been. How hard would it have been to crush her skull with the weapon that had been right there on the coffee table? One blow would have been enough to stun Sandra, and once she was down on the floor the rest would have been easy. The murder hadn’t required a strong arm nearly so much as a strong stomach.

  This was a little tougher to work out than journalistic ethics, or giving up an Internet troll. Now Tilda had to decide whether or not she needed to give Detective Salvatore another suspect to investigate.

  Chapter 11

  You could tell the girls who were shy about the size of their bosoms by the way they posed. Look at Bettie Page and Virginia Pure. They’re always arching their backs, pushing out what they’ve got. I never had that problem. They didn’t call me Sandy Sea Chest for nothing.

  —SANDRA SECHREST, QUOTED IN “QUEEN OF THE PINUPS” BY TILDA HARPER, NOT DEAD YET MAGAZINE

  BEFORE Tilda could make up her mind, Nicole appeared at the doorway. “I’m waiting.”

  Tilda glanced at her watch. It was twenty minutes after four, which explained Nicole’s irritation. She suspected the other woman had been purposely delaying their interview, just to make a point, and had been expecting Tilda to get riled over the wait. Instead, she’d been so distracted she hadn’t even noticed.

  “Do you want to talk in here or at your desk?” Tilda asked.

  “At my desk, of course,” she snapped, and stood tapping her foot as Tilda packed away her laptop.

  The pictures she’d printed were still on the table, and Nicole grabbed them. “You’re looking at porno? Can you say ‘inappropriate for the workplace’? Can you say ‘sexual harassment suit’?”

  Tilda snatched them back, and pushed them into her satchel. “Those are classic pinup photos, and are considerably less revealing than the photos of Madonna and Britney that Entertain Me! published in the last issue.”

  Nicole’s eyes narrowed. “Did you print those here? I saw you getting something from the printer.”

  Tilda rolled her eyes. “You caught me. I printed six pictures—I must be punished. Beat me, hurt me, make me write bad checks.”

  Nicole sniffed. “I bet most of your checks are bad.”

  “Oh, snap!” Tilda held up the head shot of Louise. “This happens to be one of my interviewees for the Cowtown series.”

  “What about the porno?”

  Tilda wasn’t about to explain the connection to Louise. “I got bored waiting for our appointment, so I printed out some whacking material. Would you like copies?”

  Nicole was momentarily speechless, so Tilda took the opportunity to walk past her and into the main room, where she demurely seated herself at the guest chair by Nicole’s desk. A moment later, Nicole stomped over and threw herself down into her own chair.

  “Let’s get this over with,” she snarled. “Tell me what happened with the dead stripper.”

  Tilda was sorely tempted to make Nicole drag it out of her, monosyllable by monosyllable, but with Jillian in the room, she decided to play nice. So she told Nicole everything from her interview with Sandra, to going back to retrieve her camera, to finding the body, to her dealings with the police. To her credit, Nicole kept it businesslike, asking only a few questions as they went along. It was only when Tilda was finished that she asked, “Did you get your camera back?”

&nbs
p; “Not yet, but Detective Salvatore says I can come by the station any time to pick it up.”

  “Do you have pictures of the old woman on it?”

  She nodded. “Cooper took a bunch while I was talking to her.”

  “What about when you went back?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Didn’t you take any pictures of the body?”

  Still trying to keep it civil, Tilda swallowed several responses before saying, “Even if I’d thought of it, which I did not, I knew better than to touch anything in the apartment. It was a crime scene. Besides, the police would have wiped them off the memory card anyway.”

  “Doesn’t your phone take pictures?”

  That was it. “Are you shitting me? No, I did not take a fucking photograph of a dead woman!” She realized her voice was louder than it should have been, and that the other people in the office were looking at her. Nicole was smirking, and Tilda wanted to smack herself for playing into her hands. Nicole was obviously willing to do a lot to keep Tilda from getting a full-time job at Entertain Me!, and Tilda would be damned if she’d let her get away with it. She took a deep breath and in a normal tone of voice said, “Any other questions?”

  Nicole looked at her notes, and Tilda hoped she was disappointed that Tilda hadn’t continued her rampage. “I need some background on the stripper.”

  “Pinup model.”

  “Whatever. Give me what you’ve got on her.”

  “Of course. I’ll be happy to send you my interview. Would you prefer it electronically or as hard copy?”

  “Both. Send me your notes, too.”

  “I’m so very sorry, but I no longer have any notes. Hard disk problems.” That part was a lie, of course, but there was no way Nicole could prove it, so she was going to have to eat it. Besides, she didn’t need Tilda’s notes—the article itself would give her more than enough background.