“Joanna?” the detective said. “Looks like you’ve already eaten.”
Half of her chicken fried steak was left on the platter. Howard had been right. The congealing gravy wasn’t the delight it had been half an hour earlier.
“Yes, but—”
“I guess I’ll be getting on with my day. Got a water heater acting up in unit sixty-two.” Howard stood and pulled the paper napkin from his collar.
“You don’t have to leave. You were telling me about Callie Rampton and the Big Sip.”
“Not much to tell there. Nice to meet you, Joanna.” He proffered a plump hand and shook Joanna’s fingers like a pump handle. Detective Roscoe stepped aside to let him leave.
There went her scoop.
“To tell the truth, I’m glad you already had a bite,” Roscoe said. He lifted his panama hat, smoothed his wild frizz, and clamped the hat back on. “Wife has me on a low-carb diet.” He pulled a sealed baggie of what looked like roast beef and nuts from his pocket. “She even packed my lunch. Would you mind walking while you fill me in? I have about twenty minutes before I’m due back at the office.”
Joanna paid her bill, passed up the peppermints at the cash register, and emerged onto the Pearl District’s hot streets. “Do you have a direction in mind?”
“How about toward Powell’s?” He pointed toward the bookstore three blocks away. “Now, what’s on your mind?” As they stepped off the curb, he rolled up a slice of beef and tucked it in his mouth.
“Have you had any luck finding Bradley Stroden’s memoir?”
“Not yet. We turned the house upside down but couldn’t find a paper copy. We have his computer, though. The techs are working it over. Why?”
Which meant no fingers pointing at Gene. At least, for the moment. “Last night I read the script for Starlit Wonder.”
“The movie you keep talking about. And?”
She paused at the intersection to let a Volkswagen bus pass. Thank goodness a few of Portland’s old hippies remained. “One of Mr. Stroden’s friends, Callie Rampton, said the movie reflected a real murder. In Fuller’s, I was just talking to a guy who says the screenwriter did it to avenge his sister, who was murdered by a producer, the same producer who funded Starlit Wonder.”
Roscoe pushed open the doors at Powell’s, letting Joanna enter first. She took a deep lungful of cool air.
“So, this producer might have got wind that Stroden was going to blow the cover on him?”
“That was my first thought.”
“Your first thought.” Roscoe tucked his hat under an elbow. Wet spots spread from his armpits. “What was your second thought, pray tell?”
“The producer died about twenty years ago,” Joanna said reluctantly.
Roscoe pursed his lips together. “So, that’s that. Was that all you had to tell me?”
“I thought it might help. Might give you some sort of lead.”
“Mind if I stop by the Sci Fi section?”
“No. Of course not.” Joanna’s interest was piqued now. She would have pegged him for military history or something like that.
They passed through one massive room lined with bookshelves and as large as most entire bookstores, climbed a few steps, and emerged into mysteries and science fiction.
“Thank you for the update, Joanna, but at this point, it doesn’t matter. Even if the producer were still alive, and even if we could find an old cold case that matched this movie, we don’t have the memoir. Without knowing that the memoir had a juicy section on this movie, we’ve got nothing. See?”
“But—”
“Think about it. What would a judge say? ‘Hi, your honor, there’s this movie, see, that was never released, that someone says might reflect a real murder that might have been in a memoir, we’re not sure, and might have been a motive for killing Bradley Stroden and his secretary.’”
Put that way, she had to admit it wasn’t very compelling. Yet every fiber of her body told her something was there. Too many people had secrets about that film. Stroden’s own sister thought so.
“Ah, here it is.” He pulled a fat novel with space ships on its cover firing orange-tailed missiles. ”Give me outlaws in space any day over the kind on the streets. Now, if that’s all, I’ll head back to the office.”
“Is there anything else I should know about the case?” If Roscoe didn’t take her information on Starlit Wonder and run with it, there was nothing she could do. Nothing but a little more research, that was. Before she went home, she’d check out the shelves of old fashion books upstairs. She’d been looking for a good overview on Balenciaga.
“Since you’re not on the case, the answer is no.” Roscoe shook her hand and turned for the cashier. He took only a few steps before turning to face her again. “Joanna. I almost forgot—I do have some news for you.”
“Yes?”
“We found the Greffulhe jewels’s owner, Aimee Miller.”
“Oh. That was fast.” Images of a half-drunk woman decked out in emeralds filled her imagination.
“It took no time at all. She’s in India, working for an organization that ministers to unwanted animals.”
“Was she happy to get her jewelry back?”
“Ecstatic. She told us to send it to her lawyer. She plans to sell it and donate the proceeds to the cats of Calcutta.”
At Tallulah’s Closet, Joanna went straight for the telephone.
“Mindy?” Joanna was surprised she’d answered. She had the idea that most people texted these days and might return a call after listening to the caller’s message—or not.
“I knew it was you,” Mindy said. “No one else would call. Even my mom texts.”
“Good for her. Listen, remember how I asked if you had time for more research?” Joanna smiled at a customer who’d wandered over from the cafe across the street with a box of leftovers. “I mean, if your mom says it’s okay.”
“She’s always trying to get me to work. Babysit, mostly. I’m not great with kids,” Mindy said.
Fancy that. “Well, you’re terrific with research, and I need a few people checked out.”
“Does this have to do with the stuff I brought you?”
“Exactly. I want to know what’s happened with the movie’s cast, director, and producer.” No one else was listed on the script. “Does that sound like something you could do?”
“I guess.”
The customer set her greasy box on a stack of pristine gloves. This was becoming way too common a problem. Thanks to the cord on the shop’s princess phone, this time Joanna couldn’t both talk and tactfully move the box to the counter. She tore her eyes away and prayed the box didn’t leak. “Does that mean yes?”
“Yes,” Mindy said. “We’re meeting at the library again today. The Book Bunnies, that is. I guess we could do some research for you.”
“When do you think you’d be finished?”
Mindy sighed, as if noting and dismissing Joanna’s desire for speed. “This afternoon, I guess. Is that soon enough for you?”
“That would be great.” They talked about an hourly rate for the Book Bunnies’ work. “Or, twice that for trade,” Joanna reminded her, trying not to be pushy. She’d get Mindy out of that coat yet.