Still chewing over Gene’s problem at the end of the day, Joanna was headed to the door to pull in the Tallulah’s Closet sandwich board when the Book Bunnies arrived, galloping like colts to the entrance.
“Are we too late?” Mindy said.
“You’re here,” Joanna said, surprised.
“That’s kind of obvious,” the one with the short black hair and equally black attitude said. Pearl.
“I mean, it’s six o’clock. Shouldn’t you be home at dinner or something?”
“I thought you wanted background info on the list of people you gave me,” Mindy said. As a concession to the heat, she’d undone her topcoat button.
“Well, yes. You already have it pulled together, huh?”
“Child’s play,” the third girl, Lucy, said.
“As for dinner, we thought you might buy us nachos at Dot’s,” Mindy said. “I told mom we were working for you. She thinks we’re ironing or something.”
Joanna looked at the girls. They stared back earnestly. Lucy had a laptop under her arm.
“Okay. Let me leave a message with my husband not to expect me home right away.”
A few minutes later, they filled a booth at Dot’s. The 1970s amber pendant lights shone dim against the black-flocked wallpaper hung with knock-offs of Margaret Keane’s saucer-eyed urchins. Scrawny guys with beards played pool in the bar to a soundtrack of Heartbreak Hotel. A waitress in a T-shirt covered with pastel-colored cat heads ambled over.
“Two orders of nachos, please,” Joanna told her.
“Three,” Pearl said.
“They’re huge,” Joanna said. “One order could feel a whole family.”
“Three is good,” Mindy told the waitress. “And fries.”
Joanna sighed. “And a martini. A big one.”
“I wish they had bubble tea here,” Lucy said.
“Yeah,” Pearl agreed.
“Well, they don’t.”
“Then we’ll take milkshakes,” Mindy said. “Two chocolate, right, Pearl? And a strawberry.”
When the waitress left, Joanna laid her palms flat on the table. “What did you find?”
Mindy turned to Lucy. “You read the notes.”
Lucy opened the laptop, illuminating her fair skin with a bluish glow. “This was kind of an old movie. We had to, like, find super old newspapers.”
“Online,” Pearl added.
“Lots of obituaries.”
“Of whom?” Joanna asked.
“Hold on. We saved it all.” Pearl held up a small plastic thing on a short cord.
“What’s that?” Joanna asked.
“See, I told you,” Mindy said. “She’s hopeless.” Then, to Joanna, “Don’t worry. I printed it all out for you.”
Joanna relaxed. These kids were all right. Give her an honest nerd any day over one of the made-up teens turning their insecurity into tight jeans and a blasé affect—or, as in the case of Athena’s Warriors, attitudes of superiority.
“Did you get your crutches, Lucy?” Joanna asked.
“Not yet. Mom said I can have a wrist brace in the meantime, if I want.”
The waitress slid a martini in front of Joanna. “Food will be up in a moment.”
“What about the milkshakes?” Lucy said.
“Hold your horses, hon.”
“First, the actors,” Mindy said, reading the laptop’s screen. “The main guy, the one who played the producer?” Mindy continued. “Dead. Along with the movie’s real producer. I already gave you that obituary.”
“What about the one who played the starlet?” Joanna asked. “The murder victim.”
“Dead.”
“And the one who played the brother—the murderer—who killed the producer for killing his sister?”
“Whoa.” The waitress appeared with a pitcher of water. “Heavy conversation for a bunch of kids.”
“Not as heavy as this food will be in their stomachs.” When the waitress left, Joanna asked, “The brother, then?”
“Dead,” Mindy said.
“Basically, they’re mostly dead or living in retirement homes except Callie Rampton and one more person,” Pearl said. “The guy who was best boy. Whatever that is.”
“Howard. I met him yesterday, actually,” Joanna said. “He told me something interesting about Callie Rampton that you might not have followed up on—”
“That she used to be married to the producer?” Pearl said. “The gossip columns ran a notice when they divorced. He took up with an actress, Meredith Hamm, and married her out of the blue. The columnist said something about a ‘Hamm sandwich.’ What do you think that means?”
“Ask your mom.” Joanna filed that information away. Callie seemed to be the “live and let live” type, but she might still harbor bad feelings toward Sipriano and his family. And, potentially, Mary Pat.
The nachos arrived, taking up most of the table space. Mindy snapped the laptop shut and tucked it beside her to make room. The girls busied themselves scooping tortilla chips into guacamole and sour cream.
“Mom never lets us have these at home,” Pearl said.
“Make sure you get lots of fiber tomorrow,” Joanna said. She leaned back and sipped her martini. Cold and dry. Perfect.
“Basically, we copied everything, except for the stories about the producer’s wife’s garden. She won a lot of prizes for her roses.”
“What did you find on her? She’s still alive?”
“Meredith Hamm Sipriano,” Mindy read. “We looked her up like you asked. When her husband died, she tried to sue everyone.” She looked up. “Gossip columns. She’s married to a Lutheran minister now. Lives in Santa Barbara.”
The pastilles that killed Bradley Stroden were mailed. They could well have been mailed from California. “Do you know what the widow is doing now?”
“I told you, she’s living in—”
“No, I mean right now. As in today.” The Book Bunnies seemed to have amazing research powers, but this might be asking too much.
Pearl pulled the laptop to her. “Let me do this.” She wiped her fingers and went to work on the keyboard while Lucy and Mindy hoovered their milkshakes with straws. “Got it.”
“Facebook?” Lucy asked. “Old ladies love Facebook.”
“Watch it, there,” Joanna said.
“What?” Mindy said. “My aunt uses Facebook, and she’s almost forty.”
“Here she is. Meredith Caldwell. That’s her name now,” Pearl said. “She even posted a video. Look. She’s at some kind of spa in Arizona.”
Pearl turned the screen to Joanna. A woman reclining on a patio lounger waved her arms and talked. The sound was too low to hear, but it didn’t matter. She wore large sunglasses and a floppy-brimmed hat, and Joanna caught the edge of a bandage near her temple.
“That sure is green grass for Arizona,” Pearl said. “And look at the flowers.”
“You don’t go to an Arizona spa for the desert,” Joanna said.
Joanna’s martini wasn’t even half finished, but the platters of nachos now showed nothing but a few loose strands of cheddar, and the milkshakes were mostly drained. These girls could teach locusts a thing or two.
So, the Book Bunnies had uncovered nothing she could use. No new leads at all. She looked at the girls over the rim of the cocktail glass. Mindy was buttoned up tight in her coat. For her sake, Joanna was grateful for the air conditioning at Dot’s. Pearl had forgotten her world-weary sneer and was pulling a piece of cheese off the nacho platter. Lucy had attempted lipstick. The center was worn off from their labor over the nachos, and the edges had never been straight. Maybe all would not be lost.
“The Story Challenge is tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah,” Pearl said.
“Still thinking about something to wear?”
“All right,” Joanna said as she locked the door behind them. “Tallulah’s Closet is closed for business—except for you. What looks good?”
Without waiting to hear the rest of what Joanna had to say, Pearl went straight for a rack of blouses. “Why did you want all that information, anyway?”
“Because of that dead guy on the hill, dope,” Mindy said. “Bradley Stroden.”
“It’s true. I was there when he died.” Would Mindy take off her coat at last? She didn’t seem too interested in looking at clothing.
“Can I have these?” Pearl held a zebra-print T-shirt with dolman sleeves, leopard pants, and a wide cheetah-print belt that would sit low on her hips. Joanna had hung all three items in different corners of the store, but like a beagle going after a liver snap, Pearl had unearthed them in seconds.
“You don’t think they’re a little, oh, Heather Locklear in Dynasty?” Joanna asked.
“Who?” Pearl said.
“Never mind. Go try them on. The dressing rooms are in the back.”
Lucy had edged toward the floor-length evening gowns. A curious choice for a library literary contest. “But, why all the investigating? You’re not the police.”
Joanna still wasn’t used to Lucy’s bell-like voice. “True. I guess I’m just—curious. The man who died was writing his memoir, and he mentioned that Starlit Wonder had been controversial, that he had a few secrets to reveal about it.”
“So you thought someone killed him because of a movie? They were afraid he’d tell on them?” Pearl yelled from behind the dressing room curtain. She emerged looking hip enough for a Vogue spread—not 1980s divorcée at all. “What do you think?” She turned to the mirror. “I could put gel in my hair and wear boots. You don’t have any boots, do you?”
“Not anything rock ’n’ roll,” Joanna said. Now she got where Pearl was going with her outfit. She had a good eye, that one.
“You saw him die?” Lucy asked. She held a 1970s wedding gown with an empire waist.
“You want to try on a wedding gown?” Joanna said. “It might be long on you.”
“I don’t care.” Lucy’s burgeoning curves would fill it out fine, but the persistent smudges of dirt on her face and hands and serious demeanor hardly said “bride.” “Miyoka wears one like this.”
“Anime,” Mindy said before Joanna could ask.
Lucy took the gown to the dressing room opposite Pearl’s. “It’s so pretty. Anyway, tell us about the dead guy.”
A woman rapped on the door’s glass window. Joanna pointed at the “Closed” sign and waved her away. “He clutched his heart and collapsed right in front of me. We called 9-1-1 and tried CPR, but it was too late. He died at the hospital.” Her hands chilled, and she sat on the red velvet bench in the store’s center. “The police said he’d been poisoned.”
“Gruesome,” Mindy said. For a moment, none of them spoke. Unlike the other girls, Mindy had stayed put near the tiki bar, clutching her hands in front of her.
“Is there anything here you’d like to try on, Mindy?”
“I’m not sure.”
Encouraging. Not a “no.” “Just look around. Really. If anything tempts you, give it a try.”
Lucy emerged from the dressing room. As Joanna had expected, the wedding dress was a bit long, but otherwise a good fit.
A smile broke over Lucy’s face when she caught herself in the mirror. “I love it! It’s so pretty.”
“I don’t suppose you want a veil, too?” Joanna said, hesitating.
“No. That’s ridiculous. Who do you think I am?” Lucy said. She patted the lace bodice. “Can I have this one?”
The dress was priced too high to fall within the girls’ research budget, but what the heck. It had been in the shop a while. It would do better out in the world where it could make Lucy happy. “Sure. Change out of it, and I’ll wrap it up for you. You’re really going to wear it at the Story Challenge?”
Lucy shrugged, but she kept her gaze on the mirror.
Pearl yanked a red knit ensemble from a rack. “How about this, Mindy?”
It was a vivid red coat and dress set by Mamselle Knits that Joanna had despaired of ever selling. She and Apple jokingly called it a “Tallulah’s Closet favorite” since it got a lot of commentary, but no one even dared to try it on. The dress had a white yoke and, bizarrely, a red bow tie. Its full-length matching coat had cuff links and wide lapels. It looked like something a circus conductor might have worn during the Nixon administration.
Then Joanna got it. The coat. Mindy liked the coat.
Mindy took her time getting to the rack, but with each step she showed more interest. The bow tie was witty, Joanna had to admit. Maybe the ensemble had been destined for a middle-schooler all along.
Mindy held the hanger to her chest and turned to the mirror. She nodded. “I’ll see what it looks like.”
While Mindy tried on the red knit dress, Joanna slipped Lucy’s wedding dress into a garment bag. Lucy watched her every move and lovingly hugged the package to her chest. Joanna folded Pearl’s various animal print items into a shopping bag, now all stamped by Apple with a red Kelly-style handbag.
“So,” Lucy said, “Say the old man really was murdered. And his secretary. What are you going to do if the murderer finds out you’re looking into it?”
“How’s he going to find out?” Joanna asked.
“You’ve been asking a lot of questions. If we know you’re investigating, why wouldn’t he?”
Mindy pushed aside the dressing room curtain and strolled out, hand on her hip. The red knit coat was buttoned tight. She was probably the only middle-schooler in the county swaddled in bright red double knit polyester. “I’ll take it.”
“Sold,” Joanna said. But her brain was working on Lucy’s comment. The girl was right.