Chapter 19

A few moments later the lounge was swarming with people, all of them shouting with excitement, drawn in from the shop to see what was going on. The giant video screen blared the news that the game’s first virtual coin, worth six million dollars, had been found in a small town in Germany. I saw Monica making her way to me.

“I guess this means Tommy’s company won’t be pulling the game,” she said.

I looked at the fevered crowd around us. “There would be rioting in the streets.”

I realized Kristy had disappeared in all the excitement. “Did you know Kristy was at the event in Palo Alto the day S died?” I asked Monica, raising my voice above all the noise.

She stared at me. “No! What?”

“She and S were soulmates,” I said, managing not to roll my eyes. I scanned the room for her. “Where’d she go?”

“There,” Monica said with some relief, pointing to the far end of the room. Kristy and the other employees were moving through the crowd, gently but insistently getting the patrons out of the lounge and back into the shop. Monica’s employees reminded me of sheepdogs, if all the sheep were high.

“Listen, I should get back to—” Monica began.

“Go,” I told her. “This is crazy.”

“Call me later if you want to play the game after all,” she said with a smile as she headed out of the lounge. “It looks like it might be worth it.”

“Kristy,” I approached the sales associate once order had been somewhat restored. She was still radiant with excitement. “We need to talk.”

“Sure,” she said. “But not right now. I’ve got to go. My shift is over in five, and my squad is gathering to play. There are more coins out there.”

“Wait.” I put my hand on her arm as she turned to go. “What about S?”

A flash of impatience crossed her face. “I told you what happened,” she said. “Tommy killed him. I saw him throw that bottle at S when they were fighting. He’s the only one who could have poisoned it. It had to have been Tommy.”

  

“I really didn’t think Tommy did it,” I said to Trixie. “But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he just played me.”

We were in the break room. I was making a pot of terrible coffee and telling her everything Kristy had said.

“Do you think that girl told the police what she saw?” Trixie asked. “Is that why they arrested Tommy in the first place?”

“He didn’t say anything about there being a witness,” I said doubtfully. “But, then, he wouldn’t.”

She perched on the table, her petite shoes on a chair, biting her lip in concentration.

“Well, let’s just think it through,” she said. “Why…?” She scrunched her face. “No, but how…” she tapped her forehead. “No, who!” She beamed. “That’s the question—if Tommy killed that other fella, then who killed Tommy?”

“And why?” I asked. “Who and why?”

“At least we know how,” Trixie offered helpfully.

“There’s that,” I agreed. “I have to talk to Kristy again. She said she saw Tommy throw the bottle at S. Did she see him open it? Did she actually see him tamper with it?” I shook my head. “Never mind why he’d just happen to have a lethal dose of bee pollen on him.”

“Don’t worry,” Trixie said. “You can talk to her again tomorrow, can’t you?”

I gave her a blank look.

“At the séance, silly!”

Oh, dear lord. I’d forgotten about the séance. Again.

  

I spent most of the day Monday in my office on the laptop, playing what felt like several rounds of whack-a-mole with lawyers.

First I set out to find Tommy’s personal lawyer. The latest news was full of information about his criminal defense team, but I assumed they were not the same bunch who would have handled his will. I kept sleuthing until, in an online profile from a few years back, I saw the name Marc Picco mentioned as Tommy’s longtime attorney. I found Picco’s website and sent him an email asking who the ownership of Tommy’s one quarter of the Palace would pass to now that he was dead. The lawyer might not tell me, but least I’d find out if he was the right guy to ask, and I’d be able to tell the other owners who they should get in touch with.

After that I searched through the small print of Tommy’s company website, looking for the name of his corporate law firm. I hoped they could answer the big question about Tommy’s presumed motive for killing S: With S out of the way, would Tommy make more money? I had no expectation that these lawyers would tell me anything about anything—why would they? So instead of asking them, I wrote to my very expensive team of lawyers down in LA and told them to find out whatever they could, hoping that a little attorney-on-attorney action might yield some information. You never knew.

And as long as I was writing to my lawyers, I took the opportunity to inform them that my supposedly bankrupt, almost-ex-husband Ted had enough money to buy a fortune in Hollywood memorabilia, in the form of famous movie gowns. Where had he come up with that money? And when, when, would I be free of him for good?

I did not send a text to Ted, asking what he needed me to do so much that he’d attempted to bribe me into doing it.

I did not send a text to Otis Hampton, asking whether his team of private investigators had come up with any leads on where Ted had stashed our life’s savings.

I did not send a text to Hector.

  

Lillian Gee, noted fashionista and amateur spiritual medium, showed up for Monday night’s séance fully looking the part. She wore a flowing black lace dress, ropes upon ropes of black jet beads, and tiny black silk roses in her thick wavy hair.

“If you say one word to mock her,” Callie greeted me in the lobby. She and her mother, as well as Albert, were already at the Palace when I got back from the walk I’d taken in an attempt to get into a séance-y mood.

“Never in a million years,” I promised. “What’s all this?” I looked at the half-dozen high-tech bags and crates surrounding her on the floor. “Spectrographs? Ectoplasm detectors? Ghostly voice recorders? And, by the way, I’m not mocking your mother. I’m mocking you. I didn’t even think you were coming.”

Lillian was out of earshot, talking animatedly with Albert on the far side of the lobby. I could tell the aged devotee of the Palace was almost as enthusiastic as Callie’s mom was.

Callie gave me a dark look. “It’s my camera equipment. I’m filming it. Didn’t she tell you?”

“Nobody told me anything.” Aside from Trixie, that is. But it was probably a little early in the proceedings for me to bring up my conversations with the Palace’s famous ghost.

Oddly enough, I hadn’t seen Trixie all day. I’d been in and out of the theater setting things up and banging out emails with not a peep from her. I hoped that her excitement over the séance hadn’t been too much for her. When things got to be too much for her, she had a habit of going poof—simply disappearing for some indeterminate length of time.

“Nora!” Lillian opened her arms and floated across the lobby when she spotted me talking to Callie. “I’m so excited! I can just feel the energy—can’t you?”

“I feel something,” I said, returning her hug. “Hi, Albert.”

“Nora,” he said with a smile. “I have a feeling this will be a night to remember.”

“We can only hope.” I knew Albert had seen Trixie. He’d known her in life, when he was just a ten-year-old kid and she was a bombshell usherette he and his friends had all crushed on. But he’d once told me that he’d also seen her since then, just glimpses over the years. I had a feeling the aged Albert was still half in love with her. And I had a feeling he suspected I knew more about her than I was saying.

“I put a table and chairs on the stage,” I told them. “How many are coming?”

“Well,” Lillian clasped her hands together. “The four of us, and your friend Monica is bringing friends.”

“Abby and Kristy,” I nodded.

“So that’s seven.” She turned to her daughter. “Calandria, dear, what about your colleagues?”

“Brandon’s off playing that game,” she said. “And I banned Marty from the building. I figured you wouldn’t want his negativity.”

“Exactly right,” she said, nodding sagely. “The spirits can sense an unbeliever.”

I knew one spirit who made it a habit to watch a movie from the projection booth with her favorite unbeliever at least once a week, but I wasn’t the expert here.

“Gabriela said she was coming,” I said. “With Hector.” I felt self-conscious saying his name, as if everyone would be able to sense something had happened just by the way the word “Hector” left my lips.

Would Hector show up? Would he act like no epic moonlit kiss had happened between us? And if he did, would I be able to refrain from bludgeoning him to death in frustration?

“I think that’s them,” Callie said, looking out the lobby doors to the sidewalk.

She was right. Hector’s car had pulled up. I watched as he got out and took Gabriela’s wheelchair from the trunk. It felt so weird to watch him opening her door and assisting her into the chair. So weird because it was so normal, when it felt like everything had changed.

Then Hector straightened and looked up the walkway to the lobby. Looked directly into my eyes, as if he knew I’d been watching. My heart stopped. He raised a hand, the expression on his face completely neutral. Then he got back into his car and drove away, and I miraculously managed to neither collapse on the lobby floor nor go running after him.

Albert held the door for Gabriela. “Good evening, my dear.”

“Hi Albert, hi everyone.” She looked at me. “Hector sends his apologies. He had something he couldn’t get out of.”

Which is right about the time I stopped feeling weird and self-conscious about Hector. I started feeling something different. I started feeling furious.