CHAPTER 10. A Babe in the Woods

FIONA PUSHED THROUGH the front door of the lighthouse and we followed, entering a bright, tastefully appointed two-bedroom bungalow. The cozy living room had a working fireplace, the walls were lined with aged oak paneling, and a massive plate-glass window overlooked the Atlantic shoreline.

A stiff breeze from an open side window brought in the tangy smell of ocean air, and I could hear waves splashing against the rocks below. It seemed the perfect hideaway for well-heeled vacationers who enjoyed privacy along with sweeping, dramatic views.

Just off the living room, near the door to one of the bedrooms, I noticed a circular wrought-iron staircase. "Does that go up to the lighthouse beacon?" I asked.

"It's a sunroom now," Fiona explained. "Before you go, you simply must see the view. We even placed an antique brass telescope up there."

Who needs a telescope in this joint? Jack quipped in my head. Nothing to spy on but seawater.

"I'm sure guests would enjoy looking at passing ships and seabirds." I told him.

Seabirds? Jack grunted. The only animal I ever cared about watching through a telescopic lens had four legs, a jockey, and ran around a racetrack.

I turned to Fiona. "I'll check out the scenery before we leave, but first I want to see what was disturbed by the burglar."

Our first stop was the bedroom Dr. Lilly had been using. The room was lovely, with a Victorian flower pattern, and a large antique bed with a lace canopy, also Victorian. Pretty much everything was Victorian, including a large standing mirror set in an ornate frame. On the bed, the sheets were rumpled. Dr. Lilly's robe hung on a wall rack beside a nightgown.

Adjacent to the bedroom was the bath; its tiled floor was littered with damp towels. On the basin I found a hairbrush, hair products, makeup, and a toothbrush.

I noticed a small jewelry box had been dumped on top of the dresser. A few necklaces made of hemp, beads, and other natural materials were scattered about, but little else. If there'd been any jewelry containing gemstone, gold, or silver, it had been taken.

While Fiona moved on to the next room, Seymour lingered to examine a framed painting of a sea battle. I was about to follow Fiona when I spied a piece of white paper on the nightstand. The corner of the paper had been deliberately tucked under the heavy Tiffany lamp, probably to prevent it from being sent flying by the brisk ocean breeze pouring through the open window. I tilted the lamp, pulled the paper free, and unfolded it.

"What did you find there?" Seymour asked.

"An invoice of some kind," I replied. "Looks like a printout of a PDF file, the kind a company would attach to an e-mail."

I saw the letterhead-San Fernando University Press-and realized that this was a confirmation for a shipment of Dr. Lilly's new book, the ones that were delivered to Buy the Book earlier today. I noticed a box marked SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS, and a block of text under it.

"Wait a minute!" I cried. "There are specific instructions here from Dr. Lilly to the publisher demanding that the shipment arrive on Friday morning-this morning, and not before."

"Yeah, so?" Seymour said with a shrug.

"Don't you remember what Dr. Lilly announced to the Movie Town theater audience last night? She claimed that the 'late' arrival of her new book was caused by an 'error at the post office'?"

"Oh, yeah, that's right!" said Seymour. "Lilly even apologized to the crowd for the mistake." He shook his head. "Blame the mailman! That's sooo typical."

"This must mean something," I murmured.

"But what?" asked Seymour.

"Seems obvious to me," said Fiona, overhearing us. "Dr. Lilly didn't want anyone reading her book until today."

"Yeah, but why?" asked Seymour. "What's the big deal?"

"I've read a lot of true crime and stories of investigative journalism in my time," Fiona said. "Believe me, there are plenty of books out there that can set off explosions."

I frowned at Fiona's choice of words, but in my head Jack became excited.

Your Bird Lady's onto something, baby. When you get back to your shop, you better break open those boxes of Lilly's books in your store room, and take a good, hard look at what the dead woman wrote in those pages.

"Perhaps the book Dr. Lilly just published is going to expose something or break some sort of news," Fiona went on. "In that case, she might have wanted to control where and when it was released. What's the book's title, Penelope?"

"Murdered in Plain Sight"

"My goodness," Fiona said, "that does sound incendiary! Do you know anything about its subject?"

"I assumed it was going to be another film noir study. That's what she's known for…" I blinked just then, remembering the reporters showing up at my store.

"Pen? What is it?" Seymour asked.

"There are hundreds of film studies on the shelves already," I said. "Those reporters showed up today for something more."

"Reporters?" said Fiona, stepping closer.

I nodded. "They came to the store to cover Dr. Lilly's lecture. When they saw she wasn't there, they turned around and left."

"What do you think her book's about?" Fiona asked.

"Hey, wait a minute," said Seymour, snapping his fingers. "Last night, didn't Dr. Lilly say something about her book covering the details of Hedda Geist's life and career like never before?"

I tensed. "Yes, that's right… she did."

Seymour scratched his head. "You think maybe she was going to expose something about Hedda's involvement with the Pierce Armstrong trial?"

"A trial?" Fiona said. "You must tell me more. What's that all about?"

As Seymour told Fiona about Irving Vreen's untimely death at the point of a steak knife sixty years before, I continued searching Dr. Lilly's bedroom. Unfortunately, I turned up nothing more. Seymour and I canvassed the living room next; and, in the middle of our search, Fiona called us into the second bedroom.

She pointed to a round table. A heavy porcelain vase had been slid to the side to make room for something but there was hardly anything there: just some small cassette cases and several pens scattered about. There was no laptop computer, no notepad or notebooks, and no tape recorder with which to play the audiotapes.

"She must have been using this desk for a workspace," Fiona said.

I picked up one of the cassette cases and discovered it was empty. I moved to the next one, and the one after that. All five cassette cases were empty!

"Either the tapes are somewhere else in this cottage or they've been stolen," I said.

Fiona and Seymour quickly tossed the room but came up empty.

I looked for a tape recorder, but that appeared stolen, too.

Anyone with peepers can see the dead dame was scribbling something, Jack said. Maybe that's the something that got her iced.

I looked around. "Fiona, you said that you saw Dr. Lilly writing in notebooks, listening to tape recordings, and typing on a laptop. None of those things are here. So if there was a working manuscript among all that, it's missing, too."

Along with the jewelry, Jack noted. But I'm betting that was just a con to make it look like your average smash-and-grab burglary.

Fiona stepped up to me. "Try to remember, Penelope. Did

Dr. Lilly bring any of those things with her to your store this morning?"

I closed my eyes, tried to conjure every detail. "Dr. Lilly arrived at Buy the Book on foot, with a small clutch purse and nothing else."

"I don't get it," said Seymour. "What value could an unfinished manuscript have?"

Fiona threw up her hands. "If it's an expose, it could have plenty of value, even unfinished!"