Free The Ghost and the Femme Fatale by Alice Kimberly

sharing the spotlight.”
    Seymour struck a diva pose and assumed a falsetto. “Get me another punch, dear! I don’t care for this ballpoint they gave me; find me the one I brought to sign autographs! I need my wrap from the car!”
    Seymour lowered his voice. “I’ll give the girl this: She never back- talked her grandmother. Just scampered around and did the woman’s bidding. Me? I would have told the old bag to go jump in the duck pond.”
    “Maybe Harmony simply respects and admires her grandmother. And Hedda’s probably used to speaking to Harmony like a child—”
    “More like an employee,” Seymour said. “Which would be more accurate, because Brainert told me that Harmony isn’t just a relative, she works full- time as Hedda’s assistant. And, boy, does Hedda work it!”
    Now the mail carrier’s got me wondering...
    “What Jack?”
    When Grandma Hedda’s finally six feet under, what sort of inheritance will Little Miss Harmony get?
    “You’re saying you suspect her of something?”
    I suspect everyone of something, baby. The little miss I suspect of having a motive to off her grandmother. Last night’s “accident” with the falling speaker almost flattened Hedda Geist — a dame who treats this girl like a servant, which must chafe, even if the girl doesn’t let on. And didn’t you just notice Harmony talking to one of Bud’s employees?
    “Yes, but there’s no way Bud Napp could be involved with a murder plot. Not Bud.”
    Maybe not your auntie’s boyfriend, but how well do you know the kid working for him?
    “I don’t know Dixon at all, except to see him behind the counter at Bud’s store.”
    Well, Harmony seems pretty chummy with him.
    “Or it’s simply an innocent flirtation—like the big, blond guy who drove up on the black motorcycle.”
    Either way, I’d say the girl had a motive, and her little friend had the opportunity.
    “To do what, Jack?”
    To rig that speaker to fall smack on the old diva’s noggin, that’s what! Pay attention, doll!
    “I am paying attention, but nobody’s saying that speaker was rigged to fall. We’d need evidence for that.”
    So go get it. Talk to your aunt Sadie’s Buddy boy about it, if you trust him that much. Napp will give you the scoop whether something was hinky.
    “Hey, look at that!” Seymour interrupted (not that he kne w he was interrupting). He was pointing out a poster on the next block. “C’mon, Pen, let’s get a move on. I want a look at that poster.”
    We strode quickly up the block and Seymour rushed toward a poster that someone had just put up. It advertised the screening of an old Gotham Features movie, Mike O’Bannon of the Sea Witch .
    “Sweet!” Seymour said. “I’m a big fan of the Fisherman Detective! What about you, Pen?”
    My brow wrinkled. “The what detective?”
    “It’s a series of movies from the forties, starring stunt- man-turned- actor Pierce Armstrong. He plays a private detective who’s also a fisherman.”
    Fisherman detective? Jack snorted. The gumshoes I knew only had one thing in common with fish — they drank like them.
    “Rumor has it Pierce Armstrong’s going to be one of the surprise special guests this weekend,” Seymour said excitedly. “At least, according to Barry Yello’s Web site this morning—”
    “Armstrong?!” I couldn’t believe it. “Pierce Armstrong is still alive? And he’s coming here . . . to Quindicott?”
    Quick, baby, ask Dizzy Dean what he remembers about Act Two of the guy’s life.
    “Yes, of course!” I turned to Seymour. “Wasn’t Pierce Armstrong mixed up in the death of Irving Vreen, the own er of Gotham Studios?”
    “Brother, is that an understatement!” Seymour declared.
    “Tell me what you know.”
    “He stood trial for manslaughter, and they sent him to prison for five years.”
    Lucky he didn’t get a dime , Jack said. Judges and the public liked red meat back in the day . . .
    “I’m sure the district attorney would have