24

The next morning, Joanna was once again at Portland’s Central Library when its doors opened. This time, she walked past the information desk, waving at its occupant, to the area where middle schoolers prepared for the Story Challenge. She sat at a broad oak table where she had a view of the door.

As she waited, she thought about her next steps. She hadn’t heard anything from Detective Roscoe—a good sign as far as Gene was concerned. Either Roscoe hadn’t yet found another copy of the memoir, or he wasn’t focusing on the jewel theft aspect. While Roscoe pursued the memoir, she planned to see what headway she could make in finding Starlit Wonder.

Half an hour later, Mindy and the two other Book Bunnies trudged in and dumped their backpacks on chairs.

Joanna rose to meet them. Mindy wore the charm bracelet she’d given her. “Hi, girls. Want to make a few bucks?”

Pearl’s gaze sharpened. “How?”

“Remember when I first met you, how I wanted to find a movie script? I need some fresh ideas about how to get it.”

Mindy glanced at Pearl and Lucy. “Why us?”

“You did such a great job of tracking down Callie Rampton, and you seem to be good researchers.”

“And you’re clueless about computers,” Pearl said.

Joanna ignored her. “I thought maybe you’d be interested in earning a little money over summer vacation. It has to be better than babysitting.” Did girls even babysit anymore? She had no idea.

The other girls folded their arms, but Mindy asked, “What do you know?”

Joanna took a seat at the table they’d chosen. “You already know some of this. The movie’s called Starlit Wonder. It was filmed in 1955, but never released. Extra cash if you can find the film.”

“What else?” Mindy said.

Joanna drew an index card from her bag. “One of the actresses—not the lead—is Callie Rampton. The producer’s name was David Sipriano. Oh, and I don’t know if it will help, but the costumes were by Edith Head.”

The shy girl, Lucy, lifted her head. “Know anything about the story?” Her voice was as light and clear as a temple bell.

“Not much. It takes place in Hollywood, and the lead actress dies.”

“Really?” Pearl said. “That’s all?”

“That’s why I want the script. To find out more about it,” Joanna said.

“We could try the scriptwriter’s personal papers,” said Mindy. She’d already popped open her laptop. “A lot of screenwriters left their papers to UCLA. That might be a good place to start, that is, if they’re cross-indexed by script titles. What’s the writer’s name?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know that, either. How did you find out about the UCLA collection?” Joanna asked.

“You said we were good at research,” Pearl pointed out.

Mindy tapped at the keyboard. “Peter Blackburn.”

“What?” Joanna said.

“Peter Blackburn wrote Starlit Wonder, and his papers are at UCLA. Like I thought.”

This might actually be easier than she’d anticipated. “Can I order the script somehow?”

“Don’t know. It might not even exist anymore.” She looked over the laptop’s screen. “Anyway, you said you’d pay, right?”

“You get me the script, and you get a hundred dollars, or two hundred in trade at my shop. Plus costs for copying or overnight delivery or whatever it takes to get it to me right away.” She leaned forward. “Interested?”

All three of the girls looked alert. Which one would own up to wanting the job?

“I think we should do it. I want to buy some crutches,” Lucy said, finally.

“Are you all right?” From what Joanna could tell, Lucy’s legs were just fine.

“She’s all right,” Mindy said. “She just thinks crutches are cool.”

“Great.” Joanna stood. “Then it’s settled.”

“I guess we can work on it now,” Pearl said, letting a hank of black hair fall in front of her eyes. Mindy’s hands went to the keyboard again.

Joanna picked up her purse and stood. “I’m glad you’re taking it on. I don’t want to take you away from your studying, though. What about the Story Challenge?”

Pearl snorted. “Like we’re going to win that, anyway.”

Callie Rampton met Joanna at the door of Stamp Gurlz. “You decided to come back for a stamp of your shop’s address, didn’t you?”

Joanna hadn’t ginned up subterfuge for her visit. She’d been planning simply to ask Callie to talk some more about Starlit Wonder. But maybe the stamp idea wasn’t so bad. Apple seemed to be into them.

“Yes, and something else, too.”

“Well, come in. I was just cutting out some stamps. You don’t mind if I work while we talk, do you?”

Joanna followed Callie into the tiny living room-slash-showroom. A stack of boxes partially blocked the door.

“Sorry about that,” Callie said. “Big order for a scrapbooking convention in Ohio. Have a seat.”

Joanna took the other side of the couch—Callie’s side being obvious by its half-drunk bottle of cola, stacks of wooden blocks, and sheets of rubber. The television droned about tips for gardening without pesticides. Callie clicked it off.

“So, what are you thinking for your stamp? You do a simple address, maybe highlight the name of the boutique in a larger font.” Callie’s focus wavered as she thought. “Maybe with an opera-length glove underlining the boutique’s name?”

“I like that,” Joanna said. “Could you do a larger stamp for bags?”

“Do it all the time. You’ll need ink pads. Does the shop have a color scheme?”

“No. Not really.” Tallulah’s Closet was a magpie’s collection of things she liked, colors and patterns included.

“Got to think about branding, you know.” Callie picked up a pair of scissors and, keeping the scissors stationary, turned the rubber as she cut. “Don’t you find cutting things out relaxing? It’s so meditative. I could do it all day.”

“Scissors aren’t my thing, but I know what you mean. For me, it’s flipping through the racks at thrift stores.”

Thrift stores didn’t yield much these days, unfortunately. As Portland had grown, drawing hipsters from among the fifty states like a magnet draws straight pins, Goodwill’s booty had declined significantly. Just ten years ago, Joanna could hit a suburban thrift store and be sure of an armload of Pendleton skirts, Scottish cashmere, and a few good coats. Maybe even some Henry Waters Shoes of Consequence pumps. Today, she was lucky to find a Jantzen blouse. Every once in a while, though, she’d hit the jackpot, like last week when she’d stumbled on a late 1960s Gucci convertible bag. Unbuckle the bag’s outer blue leather sheath, and the inside made a satin evening clutch. But the looking alone was worth it. She’d done some of her best thinking at thrift stores.

“Did you hear that Bradley Stroden’s secretary died?” Joanna asked.

Callie set her project on the coffee table to give Joanna her full attention. “No. How did I miss that? Was the secretary murdered like Bradley was?”

Joanna nodded. “Sounds like it was cyanide, too. In his coffee.” Interesting that Callie jumped straight to murder.

Callie’s eyes widened. “I can’t believe it. It’s like on TV. I just hope this one won’t be on Unsolved Mysteries. Although Bradley might have enjoyed the drama.” She wrinkled her nose. “Or not. Considering.” She pulled an order sheet from the jumble of rubber stamp materials on the table.

“I didn’t come here just for a rubber stamp,” Joanna said. “I wanted to ask you about Starlit Wonder. Because of the murders.”

“What makes you think their deaths have anything to do with Starlit Wonder? That movie’s at least sixty years old, and it never even came out. Like I told you last time, it was no big deal.”

“It was something Mr. Stroden hinted at before he died.”

Callie raised an eyebrow. “Really? Why aren’t the police following up on it, then? No one has called me about it.”

“Not yet.” Joanna smoothed her skirt over her knees. “I was there when the secretary died, too, and I want to make sure they consider every angle.”

The older woman faced Joanna head-on. “I shouldn’t have let you in the door.”

Joanna froze. “Why’s that?”

Then she smiled. “You’d better hope I don’t keel over, too.”

Joanna laughed in relief. “You’re right. But, Starlit Wonder. You were on the set.” She remembered the Edith Head costumes, the row of stone hues in every texture. And that amazing gold evening gown. “Maybe you don’t remember a lot of controversy, but why not tell me about the story?”

“Hmm,” she said. “What do you want to know?”

“Mary Pat said she’d heard her brother mention something once about the movie.” She looked sideways at Callie. “That Starlit Wonder was based on a real life incident.”

“She said that, huh?”

Joanna nodded.

Callie fidgeted with her scissors, then set them aside. “Okay. I’ll tell you what I know.” She settled back into the couch and tucked her legs under her in a motion that she might have done since she was a teenager. “There was talk. Listen—”

The doorbell interrupted them. Callie opened the door to the brown-uniformed deliveryman. “Nothing for you today, but I saw your sign for a pickup,” he said.

“Hello, Arnie. It’s the stack of boxes to your left. You might need to bring in the hand truck for this one.”

At last, someone seemed able to tell Joanna about Starlit Wonder. So much mystery surrounded the film. If the Book Bunnies couldn’t get her the script, she’d still have Callie’s summary. She hoped.

Once the boxes were wheeled out to the delivery truck, Callie returned to the couch. “Where were we?”

Starlit Wonder.”

“Yes. Well, Starlit Wonder was a noir movie. Kind of dark, you see. It had to do with Hollywood and a murdered starlet.”

“Yes?” Joanna barely breathed.

“I don’t remember the details—it’s been a few years, you know—but the gist was that a movie producer had an affair with an actress, and when she threatened to tell his wife, he knocked off the mistress.”

“If the movie reflected real life, then the actress—the real one, not the actress who played the actress in the film—was murdered.”

Callie nodded. “I follow you.”

“So, who decided to stage the movie? Who wanted to get revenge on the producer? Did the actress have a steady boyfriend?”

“No, it was her brother.” Callie’s voice gained earnestness. “The grapevine had it that the actress’s brother wanted revenge on the producer. He was a screenwriter. He wrote Starlit Wonder.”

“Then why did the producer ever agree to fund the movie? Sipriano would have known the movie’s plot. He could hardly have been successful if he put his name on films he didn’t know anything about.”

Sunlight gleamed from the lenses of Callie’s Edith Head glasses, hiding her eyes. “I heard it from Howard. He’s a Portland boy who was on the set as crew. He said that after the screenwriter’s sister died, the screenwriter confronted Sip. Sip denied harming his sister. Sip must have felt bad for him, though, because he promised to bankroll his next screenplay.”

“Felt bad or guilty,” Joanna said.

Callie shrugged. “Could be.”

“So,” Joanna continued, “the movie was never released, because once the producer discovered what it was about, he didn’t want the story to go public. It implicated him.” If this were true, the murder—the real one—would have been in the papers. She’d find it.

“That’s what they said. No one could prove anything, though.”

“What do you think?”

Callie picked up her scissors and dug them again into the sheet of black rubber. “It was a long time ago. I barely remember.”

“You seem to remember quite a bit, actually. Maybe you just don’t want to talk about it.”

Callie let out a long breath. “Like I said, the Big Sip had a reputation for having an active casting couch. Look, I don’t know. He had lots of kids, seemed dedicated to his family. But he had a libido and the opportunity to indulge it whenever he wanted. That was Hollywood in those days. These days, too, probably. Maybe he had an affair with the actress. Did he murder her? I doubt it. He sure didn’t go to prison for any murder.”

Joanna looked at her a long minute. If Callie’s current pulchritude were a hint of her looks fifty years ago, she would have earned a lot of wolf whistles. “Mary Pat said she’d had an affair with Sip.”

“Poor Bradley,” Callie said. “We were tight friends at one point, then…” Her voice trailed off. She seemed to be thinking of something in particular. She shook her head. “Yeah, Sip and Mary Pat had something going on. It was after the affair that Bradley took Mary Pat back to Portland. She’d gone a bit batty and needed the stability.” Callie focused on her scissors. “At least, that’s what Bradley told me.”

Joanna considered this news. If Starlit Wonder mirrored a producer killing an actress, it would be the producer who’d want to keep Stroden’s memoir from being published. He’d be the man blackmailed, and the man who’d kill to cover up an earlier murder. The producer would have to be fairly old now, but it didn’t take youth to poison a man. She was on to something, she knew it. She needed to get to a phone.

“So, David Sipriano. The producer. Is he still in Hollywood?”

“Oh, no,” Callie said. “He’s been dead for years.”