Chapter 21

“I just can’t get over these computer things,” Trixie said, following me down the hall to the office. “You say just anyone can write their own newspaper articles?”

I’d said something like that. It wasn’t easy to explain the Internet to someone who hadn’t ever used a telephone without a switchboard operator to connect her call.

“People can write their own articles,” I told her. “And record their own music, and even make their own movies and put them on the computer so everyone else can see them.”

She stared at me. “Why, that’s just…unnatural.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But it’s also pretty egalitarian. Back in your day you’d have to convince one of the handful of old white men running the major studios that your idea was good enough to turn into a movie. Now you don’t have to.”

She wrinkled her brow. “Then how do you know it is good enough?”

Wow. Times had really changed.

“I guess you just have to believe it yourself.” I told her. I sat at the desk as she curled up in a corner of the couch. “Does that make sense? What do you think?”

She gave the laptop a suspicious look. “I think there must be a lot of terrible pictures on that contraption.”

I laughed. “Oh, there are. But some pretty good ones too. And even some of the great ones, from your day.”

Her eyes widened. “You mean like with Clark Gable? And everybody? Right there in that thingy?”

“More or less,” I said, not having any desire to get into the specifics of cloud-based content servers with a hundred-year-old ghost.

“Gee,” she marveled. “Clark Gable. Right there whenever you want to see him.” She shook her head in wonder. “Well, that’s different. Just imagine.” She looked at me. “It kind of makes you think anything is possible, doesn’t it?”

It hadn’t, until I saw it from her perspective. But now…“It kind of does,” I agreed.

  

The next morning I woke to the sound of an incoming text from Robbie.

 

Happy week anniversary. I’ll call with Naveen at 2.

 

Good. At least one part of the Palace puzzle might be revealed by her financial expert. I sank back onto the pillow, having a hard time believing I’d only been in San Francisco for a week. One week, two murders, and a ghost. Two Murders and a Ghost. That sounded like the title of a movie Jack Benny might have made. Or maybe Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. It would be a comic thriller. I’d want Ann Sheridan as the fast-talking female lead and we’d set it in a castle in Scotland with Gale Sondergaard as the sinister housekeeper.

This is how I usually spent my sleepless hours. Casting imaginary movies or thinking up ways to adapt my favorite classics for a modern audience without ruining them. At least that’s how I’d spent my sleepless hours before they’d become filled by the hideous imaginings of what inventive new ways Ted would find to enjoy the many delights of Priya Sharma. Maybe it was a good sign that I was casting imaginary movies again.

I looked at the clock. Five a.m. Robbie must have had an early call. I told myself it was way too early to get up and go to the theater.

Then I got up and went to the theater.

  

There was a light on in the office. I noticed it as soon as I turned the corner in the hallway. It was too dim to be the ceiling light. Probably the desk lamp. I’d probably forgotten to turn it off when I’d left after closing up the night before.

That’s how clueless I was. It never occurred to me to be alarmed about a light in an empty office. It never dawned on me to be afraid. Not until I breezed into the room and saw Todd Randall going through the desk drawers.

I froze. He’d spilled the contents of a drawer onto the desk and was running his hand along the underside of it, as if looking for a secret compartment. He froze too when he saw me.

I had a flash of primal certainty that I had to be the one to unfreeze first.

I spun around and started for the lobby stairs.

“Nora! Come back! I can explain!” I heard him pounding after me and knew he’d catch up before I got downstairs and out to the street. So instead I flung myself into the break room and slammed the door behind me. I flipped the lock, just a flimsy button on the doorknob, and threw my weight against the door.

“Nora,” Todd said through the door. “I’m so sorry I startled you.” He was breathless but reasonable, apologetic, his voice overly patient. “Please. Come out. Let me explain.” He paused. “I didn’t want to say anything to you before, because I honor Kate’s memory, but the truth is she owed me money.”

I half listened while I dropped the laptop bag to the floor and ransacked my backpack for my phone, glad that he was arrogant enough to think he could reason with me instead of kicking down the door with one try.

“You see, I’d given her a down payment for the film festival,” he said.

Where was my phone?

“And I found out she’d spent it on something else. An investment, she called it. She said it would triple my money.”

My fingers hit the blessed rectangular shape and I pulled the phone out, my hand shaking so badly it took three tries to unlock it.

“But then she died, and I just want my down payment back,” Todd was saying. “I don’t know what she bought, but she used my money, and I need it to get my website up and running. You understand, don’t you? I should have told you, but I didn’t want to damage Kate’s legacy.” His voice was plaintive, and if I had been the trusting sort I might have fallen for his story.

But two people had been killed in this theater, and that meant I was no longer the trusting sort. So I dialed 911 and backed away from the door, speaking loudly enough for Todd to hear me.

“My name is Nora Paige and I’m at the Palace Theater on Sacramento street. There’s an intruder and I need you to send the police. The intruder’s name is—”

With that the door came crashing open. I screamed, and the operator said something, but then Todd grabbed the phone out of my hand and threw it against the wall. He turned to me, the imploring look on his face in direct opposition to the violence he’d just exhibited.

“You didn’t have to do that. We could have settled this between us.”

I swallowed and backed up until I felt the counter behind me. “The police are on their way.”

He advanced on me. He expression was still pleading, but there was something simmering underneath it. Then I heard a cry behind me and Trixie appeared, rushing at Todd. “You keep away from her!” she yelled.

She was amazing, and completely ineffective. Todd was oblivious to her presence as she swished right through him, her fists flailing. I grabbed the only thing handy, the empty coffee pot, and raised it like a club. “You’ve got about two minutes until the cops show up, Todd. Is this really how you want to spend it?”

“Nora, you’re overreacting.” His voice was calm and infuriatingly patronizing. “I really want what’s best for you. What’s best for the Palace and Kate’s memory.” Then he hesitated, noticing the laptop bag on the floor between us. His glance shot from it back to me, and recognition dawned. “Is that Kate’s computer?”

“No.” I lowered the coffee pot.

“It is.” He made a grab for it as I dropped the pot and did the same. Glass shattered. He swept the bag into his grasp and backed away from me, toward the door, his eyes locking on mine.

“No,” I repeated, my shoe crunching on glass as I took a step toward him.

“Trust me, Nora. This is what Kate would have wanted.” And he was gone.

I’d reached the door in pursuit when Trixie’s voice, sounding dazed, stopped me.

“Nora?” She was on the floor where she had fallen after heroically throwing herself at—through—Todd. “I don’t feel so well.”

I turned back to her.

“I think…” she said.

Then her eyes fluttered and I found out that ghosts can faint.