Chapter 29

Back in the office, I thought long and hard about calling Detective Jackson. Did he already know that Kate had been living under a false identity? Did he know her real name, or her husband’s? Because Monica didn’t. Kate had never told her, and Monica had believed the past should stay in the past.

But what if it hadn’t? What if the past had gotten Kate killed? Because if I was right about the cryptic list of movie titles she’d left, husbands killing their wives had been on her mind. Had Kate’s husband finally found her?

“Allora,” I muttered, pulling out my phone to call the detective. “Allora, allora, allora.” I was stumped. And admitting it felt better in Italian.

“Now you sound just like Kate.”

Once again Trixie’s sudden appearance just about made me jump out of my skin. She was as bad as Marty’s early-morning overture. I didn’t know if I’d ever get used to either of them.

Trixie was standing near the door. “She used to do just that,” she said. “Sit in front of the contraption and talk to herself. On a good day it was “Fa bene, fa bene, fa bene.”

I’d seen enough Italian movies to know that fa bene meant something along the lines of “it’s all good” or “everything will be fine.” I hoped Kate had had a lot of those days.

“But on other days it was allora.” Trixie came over and alighted in one of the chairs facing the desk.

“Say that again,” I said, something clicking in my mind.

“Allora?” Trixie asked. “You had it right. Your accent is a little—what are you doing?”

I was opening the laptop. Because I had a crazy idea. Kate had muttered to herself in Italian while working on her laptop. Kate had muttered to herself in Italian.

I clicked on the email icon and was presented with the login prompt. I typed Kate’s email address as the user name, and then held my breath as I typed “allora” in the password box.

Nope.

“Allora.” Capital “A.”

Nothing.

This was stupid. Even I knew that most passwords required a number or some sort of special character somewhere. But, since I’d come this far, I tried “fabene.”

The email opened. I was in.

  

An hour later, rethinking everything, I went looking for Marty. I found him in the projection booth, scrolling through his phone while onscreen, in Dial M, Grace Kelly struggled for her life with the man her husband had blackmailed into attacking her. The struggle, I knew, would not end well for him.

“Hey.” I stood in the doorway, hugging Kate’s laptop to my chest.

Marty jumped at the sound of my voice. “Don’t do that!” He put the phone down in disgust. “And you know that blog I told you about? Don’t bother. He hasn’t updated it in weeks.”

What? I hadn’t thought anything could distract me from my news, but this did.

“He?” I said. “I thought you told me the blogger’s name was Sally.”

“Did I? Well, not that it matters now, since he’s obviously given it up, but that had to be a fake name—Sally Lee?” The look he gave me was a now-familiar challenge to my classic film knowledge.

I shook my head.

“That was Eleanor Powell’s character in Broadway Melody of 1938,” he said smugly. “Eleanor Powell, who Fred Astaire said danced like a man?’” He raised his eyebrows, his case made.

“Cool,” I said, not pointing out that Astaire had meant that as high praise. I had other things to discuss. “So, do you want to know what I found in Kate’s emails?”

He goggled. Which I have to say I enjoyed.

“How did you…?”

I put the laptop on one of his tall tables and opened it. “I’ll give you the highlights,” I told him. “I didn’t find any Swiss bank accounts or stashes of Bitcoin. We’re still no closer to figuring out what Kate bought. But I did find out something else.”

I paused, mainly to irritate him. Which it did.

“What?” he finally demanded.

“Todd Randall was telling the truth.”

  

Hi Kate,

 

My name is Todd Randall and I’m writing because I’ve heard that you’re the go-to person in San Francisco if I want to put on a classic film festival. I’m tentatively targeting early next year, and since this is my first attempt at something like this, I’d love to get the thoughts of an expert. Would you mind letting me pick your brain sometime?

 

Best,

Todd

 

Marty stared at me after reading this first of many emails that Todd and Kate had exchanged. “That isn’t possible,” he said.

I showed him the whole thread. “He first wrote about six months ago. It started out all about the festival, but he was charming and flirty, and it was clear that she liked him. Over time the emails get more personal.”

Marty had started shaking his head almost as soon as I spoke. “No,” he insisted. “She would have told me if she was planning a film festival.”

“Not if he asked her not to.” I found an email from near the beginning of their exchange.

 

Dear Kate,

 

I’m sure your staff is amazing, and I’m looking forward to meeting them (though not as much as I’m looking forward to meeting you). But for now, do you mind keeping this under your hat?

 

I hope you don’t think I’m being too presumptuous, but I can’t help feeling that I’ve found a kindred spirit in you. And maybe something more…? This festival feels like our baby right now. Do you mind if we keep it just ours for a while longer?

 

With affection,

Todd

 

“She’d suggested introducing you to him,” I explained when Marty had finished reading. “And this is how he convinced her to keep it a secret.”

“Kate was no fool,” Marty said. “She would have looked up that bogus website. She would have found him out in five minutes.”

“She was no fool,” I agreed. “But he had answers for everything.” I opened another email. “Here. He asks her to forgive the state of his website. His web designer’s kid had just been diagnosed with cancer, and Todd was giving him all the time he needed, because as much as he cared about his business, he cared about people more.”

“Ugh,” Marty snorted. “So he isn’t a liar and a fraud. He’s a humanitarian.”

“And here,” I clicked again. “When he said something about Edward Everett Horton in Topper—”

“Ah ha! That was Roland Young!” Marty exclaimed, breaking his cardinal rule about no raised voices in the projection booth.

“I know. And when Kate called him on it he said…” I scanned the email. “‘Of course! How silly of me. I’ll never be able to match your encyclopedic knowledge. This is why I need you so much. Why I’m so glad you’ve come into my life.’”

“Pardon me while I throw up.” Marty shoved the laptop away, a pained look crossing his face. “How can Kate have fallen for this schmuck?”

“He’s got a good line,” I said. “If I hadn’t caught him in the office, I might have fallen for it myself.”

Todd had set off my warning bells when he’d flirted with me in the lobby the other day, but I’d chalked that up to my newly-maybe-available jitters. But with time, if he hadn’t broken into the office? If he hadn’t confronted me in the break room? Who knew?

With Kate he’d taken the time he’d needed. He’d let her keep her distance, which would have been crucial for earning the trust of someone with her abusive past. He’d made her feel safe and appreciated. And then he’d reeled her in.

“He’s clearly a con man,” Marty had gone back to the emails. “And, by the way, I don’t see any mention here of him giving Kate a deposit for anything, so that was a lie. But what was he after? It’s not like Kate had—”

He broke off from the screen to stare at me.

“The MacGuffin?” I said.

“How could he have known?”

I shook my head. “No idea. But a con man doesn’t string someone along like this without a goal in mind.”

He sank onto a stool, squeezing his eyes closed and rubbing his forehead. “How did I not know? How could I not have noticed? Was this guy wandering around the theater for the past six months without me even—?”

“No,” I said. “It all happened over email. He said he lived in Chicago.”

Marty looked confused. “Are you saying they never met?”

“He planned a trip out here,” I said. “They made a date.”

Marty looked at me sharply, hearing something in my voice.

“It was for the day after she died.”