Who Killed the Pinup Queen?

by Kelner, Toni, L. P.

  “It’s not your fault. I slipped and fell,” Tilda said, not ready to accuse anybody for what was likely an accident. “Are you okay?”

  The woman gave a shaky grin. “Yeah, thanks. Are you sure you don’t need an ambulance?”

  Tilda shook her head. “Just bruised my dignity.” The woman insisted on giving Tilda her business card, just in case she needed medical care later. It was only when Tilda went to stick the card in her satchel that she realized she was no longer holding it. “Cooper, do you see my bag?”

  “Here,” he said, handing it to her. “Somebody picked it up for you. Come on, let’s get out of the street.” As they stepped back onto the sidewalk, the bystanders dispersed and traffic started flowing again.

  Cooper said, “I don’t know about you, but I need a drink.”

  Tilda looked at the cups in the street. “I spilled your coffee.”

  “Screw that. I mean a drink. Come on.” He led the way down to the closest bar, which turned out to be the Pour House, and got her inside and seated at a table in minutes. Cooper ordered a beer, but when Tilda did the same, he objected.

  “You shouldn’t drink if you have a concussion.”

  “I can’t get a concussion on my knee.”

  “I guess not,” he relented, “but I’m getting some cheese sticks, too. You shouldn’t drink on an empty stomach, especially not after that.”

  After the waitress went to get their order, Tilda caught Cooper staring at her eyes and realized what he was checking for.

  “Are my pupils the same size?”

  “I think so.” Then, almost accusingly, he said, “Jesus, Tilda, you scared the hell out of me!”

  “I am so sorry, but it’s not like I asked to get pushed into the street.”

  “Are you shitting me? I thought you just slipped. Somebody pushed you?”

  She thought about it, then nodded. “Yeah, I think somebody did.”

  “On purpose?”

  “No, of course not. You saw how crowded it was.”

  “What an asshole! Not you, but the asshole who pushed you and then didn’t even stick around to see if you were okay.”

  “Maybe he did,” Tilda said. “There were a bunch of people helping me up—maybe he just didn’t want to admit it.”

  “It’s a good thing he didn’t,” Cooper said. “I’d have had a few words for him.”

  Tilda grinned. “You’re a good friend, Cooper.”

  “Damned right I am! You think I’d go coat shopping for just anybody?”

  “Hell, I forgot all about the coat! Gimmie!”

  “Are your hands clean?” he asked, holding on to the bag. “Are your pants dry? I don’t want you getting stains on it if you don’t like it—they won’t take it back if it’s stained.”

  Tilda dutifully went to the bathroom to wash up and brush her clothes as free of contaminants as she could. Then she came back to the table and displayed her clean hands. “I’m clear.”

  With the air of a magician about to produce the finest rabbit in history, Cooper stood up, reached into the bag, and pulled out the coolest coat Tilda had ever seen. It was black wool, nearly as soft as cashmere, double-breasted with a vaguely military feel, like something a British officer would have worn in World War II. Tilda took it from him, and slid her arms into it.

  “How does it look?” she asked anxiously.

  “It fits like a dream, it’s stylish as hell, and it still has the Tilda edge we know and love.”

  “Cooper, if you and Jean-Paul ever decide to have children, I will bear them for you.”

  “When you see the rest, you’re going to want to throw in free babysitting.”

  The waitress arrived with their beers and cheese sticks, and Tilda realized that she’d actually stepped back to make sure nothing got spilled on her. Then Cooper pulled out a pair of deep purple gloves, a purple paisley silk scarf, and an honest-to-God black fedora.

  “Okay, babysitting, too.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Cooper said.

  Tilda took the coat off, and laid it carefully over the back of an empty chair. Only when it was safely out of range, did she reach for her beer and grab a cheese stick.

  “Am I good?” Cooper said.

  “You’re the best. I don’t care if I have to pay on that credit card for the rest of my life. Speaking of which . . .” She held out her hand.

  “Damn, so much for my nefarious plan,” he said, reaching into his pocket for the card. “You’re probably too close to the limit for me to be able to go to Vegas on it anyway.”

  “I wasn’t, but I probably am now.”

  “The receipts are in the bag, and you know I never overpay.”

  It was only when Tilda reached into her satchel to get her wallet to replace the credit card that she realized something was missing. “Hey, my pictures are gone!”

  “What pictures?”

  “I used the good printer at the office to print out a batch of head shots of the Cowtown guest stars. They were in my bag.” She looked through her bag more thoroughly. “Nothing else is missing.”

  “Are you sure they were in there?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Jeez, Cooper, I only had one beer, and my pupils still match.”

  “Maybe they fell out on the street.”

  “Maybe,” Tilda said doubtfully, “but I think we would have seen them.”

  “We’ll go check after we finish.” Then Cooper caught a look at the clock. “Hell, I’ve got to get home!”

  They finished up and paid the check, and Tilda carefully put her coat back into the bag, ignoring Cooper’s snicker at her caution. She didn’t want to get it dirty tromping around the slushy streets.

  Then they went back to where Tilda had fallen, but there was no sign of the thick photo mailer in the street or in the gutters nearby. They walked half a block in either direction, just in case it had been blown around, but there was nothing. The Dunkin’ Donuts cups she’d dropped were still there, though considerably flatter for having been driven over. Tilda tried not to think about that too much.

  “Shit,” she said. She checked her watch, and saw it was well after six, so the office would be closed. “Now I have to reprint them. This has been one sucky day. I went to a funeral, then I had to put up with Nicole being an asshole, then some other asshole pushes me into the street, and then yet another asshole steals my pictures.” Not to mention the epiphany with Cynthia Barth, but she wasn’t going to discuss that on the street.

  “What if it was the same asshole?” Cooper asked. “It was part of Nicole’s evil plan to make sure you had a sucky day. After annoying you in her usual clothing, she disguised herself to push you into the street and steal your pictures.”

  “I’m sure she would have if she’d thought of it.” In fact, Tilda was fairly sure she hadn’t looked behind her, so even if Nicole had been wearing a black cape and top hat and twirling a mustache, she wouldn’t have noticed.

  After Tilda assured Cooper once again that she was fine, and that she would call him if she suddenly started showing meaningful symptoms, he started walking toward his place while she headed for the T.

  From that piece of Boylston Street, she could have picked up the Green Line at either Auditorium or Copley, but then she’d have the annoyance of changing subway lines in mid-rush hour. Or she could go back through the Prudential Center and then through Copley Place and pick up the Orange Line at Back Bay Station. Deciding that it wouldn’t hurt to walk off her beer and make sure she had no lasting effects from the fall, she picked Back Bay Station.

  Normally Tilda enjoyed people-watching as she walked through the Pru Mall. Most of the shops were upscale, so there were a lot of people with too much money, but it was attached to the convention center, which meant tourists. Plus there were office workers and urban dwellers on their way home, and street people looking for somewhere to warm up. But this time she was too preoccupied.

  She’d just passed the food court when a thought occurred to her. What i
f it really had been the same asshole? Not Nicole—Nicole was a bitch but had no real motive to push her into the middle of Boylston Street. She’d have pushed her down the stairs at the office instead. But what if some other person had pushed her? Miss Barth, for instance, who had apparently been horrified that Tilda had discovered her hidden past. Could she have resorted to such drastic measures to make sure Tilda didn’t tell anybody?

  Tilda tried to shake off the thought—the idea of that elegant lady pushing her underneath the wheels of a car was ludicrous. She wouldn’t even cuss! Then again, Cotton Mather and the other guys up in Salem had been God-fearing men, too, yet still managed to hang a bunch of accused witches.

  As she stepped onto the elevated walkway that connected the Prudential with Copley Place, she started wondering about the missing pictures. Why would anybody steal pictures? Sure, if she’d had baby pictures of some celebrity’s offspring, they might be worth something, but not head shots of old TV actors.

  The whole idea that somebody had attacked her to get a batch of pictures was crazy, but when she got to the bottom of the escalator just before the Copley Place exit door, she hesitated. Normally she would have taken the tunnel that led under the street to go the rest of the way to the T station. The poorly lit, long, lonely tunnel. There was no good reason to make her way across the slushy courtyard, in the cold, and then have to wait to cross a busy street. She continued to tell herself that as she crossed the slushy courtyard, in the cold, and waited to cross the busy street.

  The rest of her way home, Tilda alternated between watching the people around her with suspicion and trying to imagine how those photos could have made her a target.

  Chapter 19

  Don’t never interfere with something that ain’t bothering you none.

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

  THE evening was not pleasant. It started out all right, with Tilda heating up a can of tomato soup as a follow-up to the cheese sticks she’d shared with Cooper, and trying to eat while watching the episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer when it is revealed that Oz is a werewolf. Then Colleen came home, intent on interrogating Tilda about Sandra’s funeral.

  It wasn’t that Tilda didn’t have her own morbid streak, as demonstrated by her addiction to a show about vampires, but she had limits. Colleen, as far as she could tell, did not. When Tilda finally lost her temper and snapped at her, she got wounded puppy dog eyes and even a sniffle.

  Of course, Tilda could have gone to her bedroom and barred the door, but this was her apartment and she had a right to watch her own TV in her own living room. So she ignored her moping roomie, watched Buffy without enjoying the banter, and forced down her soup. As moral victories went, Tilda reflected, it was pretty pathetic.

  The phone rang as she was washing out her bowl. Colleen answered it and handed it to her. “It’s for you. I didn’t ask who it is because it’s none of my business.” She flounced away.

  Tilda gave her back a one-fingered salute, and said, “Hello, this is Tilda.”

  “Hi, Tilda. This is Lil Sechrest.”

  “Lil, hi. How are you holding up?”

  “Okay, I guess. It’s still so hard to believe Aunt Sandra’s gone, and I don’t know what I’m going to do about her things and her condo.”

  “I can only imagine. I remember when my grandfather died, my mother was just drowning in paperwork. At least you’ve got some family in town to help you.”

  “Not for long. Everybody is heading off early tomorrow, so the rest is up to me. Anyway, one thing I’ve got to deal with is the Website, and I know this is an imposition, but I need to put up something about what happened, and I just can’t get the wording right. Do you think you could—?”

  “I’d be glad to take a look at what you’ve got. Whatever you need.”

  “I’ll pay you.”

  “You will not,” Tilda said firmly.

  “But—”

  “Look, people are supposed to bring over food when there’s a death in the family, and I’m a lousy cook. Let me do this.”

  “Thanks. I can’t even get to my computer right now—there are two cousins sleeping in my bedroom, where my desk is. But I’ll be going to Aunt Sandra’s place tomorrow to get things moving, and I can use hers. I haven’t been able to get over there since . . .” She stopped for a second. “Anyway, I need to get to her computer to update the Website. Could I send you a draft tomorrow?”

  “Absolutely.” Then something occurred to her. “Lil, you’re not going to Sandra’s place alone, are you?”

  “Well, yeah. Like I said, everybody is heading home.”

  “Haven’t you got a friend you can take with you?”

  The silence was answer enough.

  “What time are you going? I’ll meet you there.”

  “Tilda, I didn’t expect you to—”

  Afraid that Lil was about to get emotional, Tilda cut in. “What time?”

  “About ten? I’ve got to drop people at the train station first.”

  “I’ll be there.” Tilda hated to lose part of a Saturday, but she just couldn’t let Lil go to the scene of Sandra’s murder by herself. Besides, it had to be better than spending the day with a cranky Colleen.

  Chapter 20

  A cowboy must help people in trouble.

  —“THE COWBOY CODE” BY GENE AUTRY

  BETWEEN the funeral and the possible attempt on her life, Tilda expected a whole parade of bad dreams, so she did something she shouldn’t have. She took a dose of NyQuil before bedtime. It was a mistake. Sure, she slept through the night, but that only meant she couldn’t escape from the nightmares as they came. Instead she’d stir just long enough to fall back into another horror movie. She was relieved when her alarm went off and pulled her fully out of sleep.

  Apparently Colleen was still miffed, because she didn’t even bother to complain about how noisy she must have been. Tilda took that as a bonus.

  After a hot shower, a brisk walk through the bright but chilly morning to the T, and a stop at Dunkin’ Donuts for milk and a chocolate chip muffin, Tilda made it to Sandra’s building a few minutes ahead of Lil.

  “Hope you haven’t been waiting long,” Lil said when she saw Tilda on the sidewalk.

  “Just got here,” Tilda said, noting that Lil looked as tired as she did.

  Lil let them into the building with a key, stopped to get a bundle of mail out of her aunt’s mailbox, and led the way to Sandra’s door. Then she hesitated long enough for Tilda to wonder if perhaps she should have waited a couple of days.

  “Are you up for this?”

  “No, but better now than later.”

  Tilda patted Lil’s back awkwardly, wishing that either Cooper or June were there. They were a lot better at comforting than she was.

  Lil finally got the door open, and went just far enough inside for Tilda to step in beside her. Both of them stared at the spot where Sandra’s body had been. Tilda had been expecting to see bloodstains, and was intensely relieved that it had all been washed off the shiny floor—even the spatters were gone.

  “The police helped me get in touch with a company that specializes in this kind of cleanup,” Lil explained. “I didn’t think I could handle it.”

  “Smart,” Tilda said. Lil didn’t move for a long time, and Tilda again asked, “Are you sure you’re ready?”

  “It’s got to be done and I’m the only one who’s willing. What I said about my family having to get back home wasn’t completely true. The fact is, they didn’t approve of Aunt Sandra.”

  “Because of the photographs?”

  “Because of the photographs, the Website, the attitude.” She shook her head. “Mostly it was because she wasn’t like them. They live in a small town in New York State, and they don’t do anything to cause talk or make waves. Aunt Sandra made waves.”

  “That she did.”

  “They also aren’t happy about her leaving everything to me, which is another reason they wouldn’t stay to he
lp.”

  Tilda nodded, but was feeling wildly uncomfortable. She was learning far more than she wanted to about Lil. Not that she wasn’t nice, but she was just barely more than a stranger. Plus the fact that Lil had inherited everything made her a dandy suspect for Sandra’s murder. “Well, since they bailed, what do you want me to do?”

  Lil seemed to pull herself together. “First, I need to see what orders have come in—we’ve had a lot of orders since word hit the Web about Aunt Sandra. Then we need to get the orders ready for shipping.”

  The next hour or so was taken up with the mundane task of putting together packages of T-shirts, photos Sandra had signed before her death, and books that included shots from the Sandy Sea Chest photo layouts. Conversation was limited to what was needed to get the job done.

  Finally they’d taped up the last padded envelope. “I’ll drop these off at the post office on Monday,” Lil said.

  “What next?”

  “I need to update the site itself with the news about Aunt Sandra.”

  “Do you have a draft for me to work on?”

  “Not exactly. I had some notes, but I think I left them at my place.”

  Tilda could tell where this was heading. “Lil, do you want me to write something for you?”

  “Would you?”

  “Hey, it’s what I do.” Tilda understood intellectually that some people had a horror of putting words to paper, or to disk, though she’d never understood why. “Mind if I use the computer?”

  “No, go ahead. I’ve got plenty of other things to do.”

  It didn’t take Tilda long to pound out a brief account of Sandra’s death, making it informative but not overly graphic. Then she added links to the Boston Globe article and Sandra’s obituary. Lil was working in the bedroom, and Tilda made sure to ignore the sniffling she heard. Writing was easy—comforting a mourning niece wasn’t. Once she’d gone through the piece a couple of times, she called out, “Lil, do you want to put up a particular picture of Sandra?” Words might be her life, but on the Web, every picture’s value was inflated to at least two thousand words.