Read Online The Ghost and Mrs. McClure by Alice Kimberly - Free Book Online

Monday for credit? No harm done?” asked Brainert.
    “Normally, yes,” I said. “But Salient House just instituted a new penalty policy.”
    “Oh, dear. I’d forgotten,” said Sadie.
    To discourage returns, the publisher now made bookstores pay a penalty when returning more than 50 percent of any order. Plus postage.
    “We’ll still come out ahead,” said Sadie.
    “Yes, but it’s a shame to lose any of the profit,” I told her. “We need every penny—”
    “Well, why don’t we at least refill the display?” she suggested. “Who knows, we might move a few copies over the weekend.”
    We unpacked exactly one box of Shield of Justice and wheeled the remaining nineteen into the back, where I rubber-stamped them with the “Property of Buy the Book” seal. But I knew that designation was only temporary.
    On Monday, the bulk of this shipment would surely go back to the publisher’s warehouse under the most dreaded designation in the book trade—a ghastly, horrifying word no bookseller, publisher, or author ever wished to utter:
    RETURNS.

CHAPTER 7
    Crime Scene
    Chandler began to wonder whether even hard-boiled murder stories were not going to seem “a bit on the insignificant side” . . . considering the publicity given to real-life urban homicide.
     
—Tom Hiney, Raymond Chandler: A Biography
     
     
     
    AS I RETURNED from the storage room, I noticed a crowd gathering on the sidewalk.
    Customers? Already?
    Buy the Book wasn’t supposed to open for another fifteen minutes or so, but now I considered opening early. I glanced briefly at the crowd and spied a familiar face: Josh, Shelby Cabot’s assistant from Salient House. I assumed he’d come to pay a courtesy call on behalf of the publisher. “We’re so sorry our author dropped dead on you and we stocked your business with an immovable ton of his unsigned books.”
    I was just calculating how many Shield of Justice cases he could haul back to New York City with him—thereby allowing us to dodge the penalty and postage—when the crowd spotted me at the door and began to surge forward. I reached to flip the CLOSED sign to OPEN when something slapped against the window and stayed there. A Rhode Island State Policeman had just announced his presence by smacking his gold badge against my window.
    The door opened and I jumped backward. A huge figure loomed in the doorway. Massive shoulders blocked out the sun. I saw a square chin covered with blond stubble, a bull neck, icy-gray eyes, and that big gold badge.
    Suddenly I felt queasy all over again.
    “Excuse me, ma’am. My name is Detective-Lieutenant Roger Marsh of the Crime Investigation Unit of the State Police. I have a warrant to seal and search these premises and any indoor or outdoor space attached to this address—”
    He dangled an official-looking document in front of me as a small bull-necked army of men—some in plain-clothes, with silver metal attaché cases, and some wearing gray uniforms with red trim and Smokey the Bear hats—filed into my store.
    “Why? Whatever could you want here?” Sadie demanded, rushing out of the stockroom. Lieutenant Marsh ignored her, his eyes fixed on me.
    “—And to confiscate any and all materials deemed relevant to the investigation,” he continued.
    “But—” I muttered.
    Lieutenant Marsh’s cold gray eyes shut me up. He studied me with such ferocity, I felt my cheeks burning with a sudden flush, realizing how disheveled I must have looked. Marsh noticed my discomfort immediately. I swear his eyes grew even more frosty.
    “What investigation?” I asked, finally regaining the power of speech.
    “The investigation into the events surrounding a suspicious death that occurred on these premises last evening,” Lieutenant Marsh replied, his eyes never leaving mine.
    “Suspicious death?” Brainert said with a snort. “Don’t you mean ‘mishap’?”
    The lieutenant’s eyes shifted to Brainert.
    “Who are you, sir? And why are you