Movie Palace Cozy Mystery Boxed Set: Books 1-3 Read online

  Praise for the Movie Palace Mystery Series

  “Edgy enough to push a timeworn formula from the basement up to the balcony. Dumas adds just enough zany to her mix to have readers lining up for more.”

  – Kirkus Reviews

  “Murder at the Palace has great characters, including Trixie. It’s a delightful book, and…the movie summaries just add to the appeal.”

  – Library Journal

  “Murder at the Palace is a downright hoot. Fans of classic films will love this smart tale of travail starring Nora Paige…Rest assured that although the films involved are old, the story is witty and fresh. Especially enjoyable is watching the thoroughly modern Nora attempt to explain computer passwords to ghostly Trixie, whose idea of modern is a Duesenberg Model X Boattail Roadster.”

  – Mystery Scene Magazine

  “This story immediately grabbed my attention…I could not put this book down…And Trixie…oh my goodness, I love her and…had me laughing on the subway…boy I’m excited for the next book in this delightful entertaining debut series.”

  – Dru’s Book Musings

  “Old movie buffs, fans of San Francisco, and lovers of well-done mystery series debuts will shout huzzah and encore at author Margaret Dumas.”

  – Criminal Element

  “Stands with the best modern cozy mysteries and reminded me a lot of the Lily Ivory series by Juliet Blackwell. I’m adding this to my list of must-read series. Recommended.”

  – It’s All About The Book

  The Movie Palace Mystery Series

  by Margaret Dumas

  Boxed Set

  MURDER AT THE PALACE (#1)

  MURDER IN THE BALCONY (#2)

  MURDER ON THE SILVER SCREEN (#3)

  MURDER AT THE PALACE

  A Movie Palace Mystery #1

  Margaret Dumas

  Copyright

  MURDER AT THE PALACE

  A Movie Palace Mystery

  Part of the Henery Press Mystery Collection

  First Edition | February 2019

  Henery Press, LLC

  www.henerypress.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including internet usage, without written permission from Henery Press, LLC, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Copyright © 2019 by Margaret Dumas

  Author photograph by Robin Clark

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Trade Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-463-8

  Digital epub ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-464-5

  Kindle ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-465-2

  Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-466-9

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Dolores. Of course.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I come from a family of movie people. That doesn’t mean actors or directors or screenwriters. It means people who love the movies. My mother was incapable of hearing the title Now, Voyager without emitting a sigh that sprang from the depths of her soul. She brought me up on musicals and “women’s pictures.” I knew Elizabeth Taylor and Bette Davis as well as I knew my own aunts. And Katharine Hepburn? Don’t even get me started.

  My dad loved musicals as well, but his heart belonged to the swashbucklers and sleuths of his childhood. Errol Flynn was a god in my house. I cannot count the number of times I saw The Adventures of Robin Hood. And Burt Lancaster? Humphrey Bogart? Please. They were obvious. Talk to me about Wallace Beery or Alan Hale. Then I’ll think you have an idea of the kind of people I come from.

  I didn’t realize until later in life how precious that legacy is. What a gift it was to be surrounded by people who conversed in movie quotes, who – in the case of my mother and her sister – would bust out a few bars of ‘People Will Say We’re In Love’ or ‘The Hills Are Alive’ at the slightest provocation. I thought everyone’s mother got them up in the morning doing Judy Garland’s greatest hits.

  So when the fabulous team at Henery Press asked me for an idea for a series, the world of classic movies was obvious. It was like going home. I owe huge thanks to Rachel Jackson, Maria Edwards, Art Molinares, Christina Rogers, Kendel Lynn, and a bunch of people I haven’t met yet who are all amazing and supportive and wonderful.

  Massive thanks as always to Denise Lee, Erick Vera, and Anne Dickson for your early and insightful comments, and to Claire M. Johnson and Michael J. Cooper for your sort-of-every-other-Thursday critiques and support.

  My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, my brothers thank you, and I thank you. (And if you know what movie I stole that line from, you must be a movie person too.)

  Author’s Note: Spoilers Ahead!

  I love the movies, and I hope you do too. This book is filled with references to movies, quotes from movies, and thoughts about movies. With all that going on, it’s inevitable that there also lurk some genuine spoilers about movies.

  Now, since most of the spoilers involve films that date from the 1930s and 1940s, I’m not going to apologize. If you haven’t seen Random Harvest yet it isn’t my fault. You should. Right after you read this book. Hopefully this book will make you want to see it, and a lot more. But if you’re the type who absolutely can’t stand a spoiler, here’s your fair warning. Proceed with caution if you don’t want twists revealed about Jezebel, The Awful Truth, Random Harvest, Double Indemnity, Gaslight, Sorry Wrong Number, Dial M for Murder, How to Steal a Million, Family Plot, or San Francisco.

  Proceed with caution, but proceed. And enjoy.

  When we are young

  We read and believe

  The most Fantastic Things.

  When we grow older and wiser

  We learn, with perhaps a little regret,

  That these things can never be.

  We are quite, quite wrong.

  Noel Coward

  Blithe Spirit

  Chapter 1

  It all started because of the séance scene in Blithe Spirit (1945, Rex Harrison and Constance Cummings). But before that it was because I got bonked on the head by that stupid light. But before that it was because I took the job at the Palace movie theater when Robbie offered it. But before that it was because Ted left me. So everything, ultimately, was Ted’s fault. For better or worse. Ha.

  But I should start at the beginning. Or at least one of the beginnings. So I’ll start with my first day at the Palace.

  I was walking at a brisk pace in the brisk October air, talking briskly on the phone with Robbie. Or at least I was listening as Robbie attempted to convince me, once again, that everything was going to be fine.

  “You’ll love San Francisco,” she enthused from her office, safely back in Hollywood. “You’ll make all kinds of friends, and people will get to know you as Nora, just Nora, not Ted’s-Wife-Nora, or—”

  “Or that pathetic wretch that Ted Bishop left for Priya Sharma,” I interrupted. “The woman twice voted most beautiful actress on the planet.”

  I heard Robbie take a patient breath. “Okay. One—that vote was by a stupid frat boy Internet site and has no standing in the Hollywood community, and two—” she continued quickly to hold off my reply. “The only person who refers to you as pathetic is you, and I th
ought we placed a permanent ban on that.”

  “We did.” I stopped to wait for the light at a crosswalk and took a deep breath. “Thank you. Again.”

  She knew I was thanking her not only for talking me down—again—but for whisking me away from the press and the paparazzi who had stalked me ever since the news of my husband’s madcap love affair with his gorgeous co-star had gone public. It had been a month of live-streamed humiliation and I didn’t know what I would have done without Robbie and the very few friends like her who had stuck by me despite Ted’s considerable fame and power.

  It was Robbie who had presented me with a getaway plan. I wanted to get out of town, but I needed more than that. Not just somewhere to go, but something to do. Something to keep me from going crazy.

  Robbie had figured it out. She’d offered me somewhere to go: San Francisco. More specifically, the cozy guest house behind her Presidio Heights vacation home. And she’d given me something to do: run the classic movie theater that she co-owned just a few blocks away.

  “Running it is really an overstatement,” Robbie had explained to me back in my Beverly Hills kitchen the week before. “It practically runs itself. I mean the staff is amazing. And it’s turning a nice little profit. So it’s really just something fun for you to do—no pressure—until you figure out your next step.”

  “It will keep your mind off things.” Robbie’s daughter Tia had said soothingly, handing me a cup of herbal tea. “And you’re the only person on the planet who knows as much about old movies as my mom.” She rolled her eyes in Robbie’s general direction. I’d known Tia since she was three years old. The eye rolling was new, but the underlying affection had always been there. In my current state I found it excruciating.

  “Classic films, please,” Robbie corrected her tolerantly. “You’ll be helping me out,” she told me. “Kate ran the place for years. Everyone thought she’d be there forever, and when she died in that accident it devastated us, obviously, but it also left us without a manager, so you would really be doing me a favor.”

  We both knew who was doing the favor. Robbie and I had been through a lot since we’d met in the writers’ room of a doomed sitcom a decade ago, when she had just ended her marriage and I’d just started mine. I’d given up writing as Ted’s career had taken off, but Roberta Prowse was now one of the most successful showrunners in TV, and she was offering me refuge and distraction 300 miles away from the public spectacle that had become my life.

  “You guys, I just…” My eyes welled up and before I knew it I was on an airplane.

  Now, about to make Robbie’s plan a reality, I summed up the situation. “Okay, so I’m crashing in my best friend’s guest house, about to start a job I know nothing about in a city I’ve never even visited, with people who are still grieving the beloved boss I’m about to replace. Is this my life now?”

  “I think you meant to say, ‘strong black queen of a best friend,’” Robbie said. “But aside from that, yes. At least for a while. Until you’re ready for whatever comes next.”

  What would come next would be a divorce, and I was, despite my misgivings, very glad not to be facing that under the unblinking eye of the Hollywood press and public.

  I hung up the phone, squashed an instant flare of panic, and kept walking.

  My first thought, rounding the corner at Sacramento street and getting a good look at the Palace, was that it was considerably less than palatial. It stood mid-block, between a boutique and a yogurt shop, and whatever remnants of its former glory it still possessed were largely obscured by the grimy wear of decades.

  The marquee, angled out over the sidewalk like the prow of a ship, advertised a double feature of Frankenstein (1931, Boris Karloff) and Young Frankenstein (1974, Gene Wilder and Madeline Kahn). Appropriate for mid-October, I thought, and probably a good indication of the schedule leading to Halloween. But also a little whimsical, pairing the James Whale directed classic with Mel Brooks’ loving and hilarious parody of it.

  If this was an indication of how the former manager’s mind had worked, I probably would have liked her a lot.

  On a closer look, there was much to like about the Palace. The marquee seemed to be original, surrounded by a border of large clear incandescent light bulbs. They weren’t lit this early in the afternoon, hours before the first show, but I imagined they’d look warm and welcoming on a foggy San Francisco evening. And the ticket booth was an actual freestanding booth, with dark blue velvet curtains behind the glass.

  A walkway with an arched roof and tiled walls funneled moviegoers past the booth to glass lobby doors. Posters of classic Universal horror movies were displayed on the angled walls. From a distance they looked original, but they couldn’t be. An original Frankenstein poster would cost more than the theater made in a year.

  I stood outside the lobby doors and fished around in my backpack for the keys that had been left for me at the cottage, then hesitated, not ready to use them yet. As long as I was still outside maybe I could still run away.

  Oh, right. I didn’t know where else to go.

  Someone quietly cleared their throat behind me and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

  “Oh, dear.” An elderly man regarded me from behind thick round glasses. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  He was bone thin, dressed in a gray suit and navy blue tie under a heavy wool coat, all of it somewhat rumpled and worn, and his expression was of benevolent curiosity. “I only meant to welcome you,” he said, stepping closer. “That is, if I’m correct in assuming you are the new manager?”

  He held out a hand, and although it was covered in age spots and gnarled at the knuckles, it was firm and somehow reassuring when I shook it.

  “Nora…Paige,” I told him. Not Nora Bishop. Not anymore. “And yes, I’m the… um…at least for a while…until we figure out a more, a permanent…”

  He saved me from what threatened to become a full-on babble. “I am Albert Lockhart. I work here.” He stood a little taller. “And have for the past twenty-one years.”

  “Oh!” Robbie hadn’t mentioned that the staff was as old as the movies. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

  He rubbed his hands together and nodded. “I had a feeling you might be early on your first day, and I was presumptuous enough to think you might like someone to show you around.”

  “Thank you.” I had thought to check things out by myself before anyone else showed up for work, but now that he offered…“I’d really appreciate a tour.”

  “Excellent.” He produced a set of keys from his coat pocket, but I held up the heavy and ornate key ring already in my hand.

  “I have these,” I said. “Although I’m not sure which one—” I stopped when I saw the stricken look on his face.

  “Ah,” he said, sounding a little strangled. “You have Kate’s keys.” He blinked several times, suddenly looking much, much older.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know Kate, but I’ve heard she was amazing.” I knew my words were feeble. But any words would have been, under the circumstance. “I can’t imagine how difficult this must be for you.”

  Albert nodded. “For all of us,” he said, pocketing his keys. “We are something of a family here.” He peered at me. “With all the blind loyalties and simmering jealousies that implies.”

  That was a little daunting. Robbie had talked me into this with the promises of seclusion and distraction. She hadn’t described the place as a hotbed of suppressed emotions. I had plenty of emotions of my own to suppress.

  “It’s the large silver one,” Albert said, eyeing the keys.

  “Got it.” I found the right key and turned to the doors. This was happening. This was my life now. At least for a while. For better or worse. Ha

  Chapter 2

  The doors opened to release the scent of magic. Or at least the scent of ninety-odd years’ worth of popcorn, sp
illed sodas, dust, sweat, and dreams. It was the scent of the movies and I took a deep breath.

  I loved old movies. I have since I was a kid, watching them with my mom. That love was one of the first things Ted and I shared together, way back before he got famous. I loved the black and white and silver of the images. I loved the strong, struggling characters from the golden age of Women’s Pictures—the Joan Crawford and Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck characters who didn’t let anything from murderous offspring to brain tumors get in their way. I needed to channel those women now as I started my life over. I needed to be as strong as they were. And, standing in the dim glory of the Palace lobby, I wanted to believe I felt their strength.

  “It’s quite a place, isn’t it?” Albert had slipped behind me to open a small metal panel on the wall next to the door. “Just wait.” He punched a code into a keypad and flipped a few switches to bring the Palace to life.

  Lights came on inside the long wood and glass counter of the concession stand, illuminating the display of everything from gumdrops to chocolate truffles. Then, the star-shaped pendants above the counter winked on, lighting the vintage popcorn maker and the wall of shelves behind the counter. Next, wall sconces lit the way up the sweeping staircase to the balcony, and finally a chandelier sprang to sparkling life in the center of the ceiling, turning the lobby into something much grander and more beautiful than Robbie had ever led me to expect.

  I turned around, looking up at the elaborately carved ceiling, down at the carpet—deep blue with a pattern of tiny gold stars—taking it all in. Then I caught Albert’s eye.