Fadeaway Girl

Table of Contents

 

 

RICHARD JURY NOVELS

OTHER WORKS BY MARTHA GRIMES

POETRY

VIKING

Published by the Penguin Group

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80 Strand, London WC2R oRL, England

 

First published in 2011 by Viking Penguin,
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

Copyright © Martha Grimes, 2011 All rights reserved

 

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint excerpts from the following copyrighted works:

 

“Imagination,” words by Johnny Burke, music by James (Jimmy) Van Heusen. © Copyright 1939 (renewed) Marke-Music Publishing Co., Inc., Reganesque Music Company, Pocketful of Dreams Music Publishing, My Dad's Songs, Inc. and Bourne Co. All rights for Marke-Music Publishing Co., Inc. administered by WB Music Corp. United States rights for My Dad's Songs, Reganesque Music Company and Pocketful of Dreams Music controlled and administered by Spirit Two Music, Inc. (ASCAP). All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission.

 

“Tonight You Belong to Me,” words and music by Billy Rose and Lee David. © 1926 (renewed) Chappell & Co., Inc. and C & J David Music Co. © 1926, Published by C & J David Music (ASCAP) and Anne Rachel Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

 

“When the Red, Red, Robin (Comes Bob, Bob Bobbin' Along),” by Harry M. Woods. © Copyright 1926 by Bourne Co. (copyright renewed). All rights outside the United States of America controlled by Bourne Co. © 1926, Published by Callicoon Music (ASCAP). All rights reserved. International copyright secured.

 

Publisher's Note

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Grimes, Martha.
Fadeaway girl : a novel / Martha Grimes.
p. cm.
Sequel to: Belle Ruin.

eISBN : 978-1-101-47563-8

1. Graham, Emma (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Missing children—Fiction. 3. Cold cases
(Criminal investigation)—Fiction. 4. Summer resorts—Fiction. 5. Hotels—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3557.R48998F34 2011
813'.54—dc22 2010035332

 

 

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To the memory of two of my favorite writers,
Gary Devon
and
Stuart M. Kaminsky
So long, Lew.

 

 

W
e were talking about the kidnapped baby.

Me, Emma Graham, age twelve, standing in my great-aunt's room with a tray under my arm; her, Aurora Paradise, who never left the fourth floor, probably wouldn't even if someone shouted “FIRE!”

The fourth floor of the Hotel Paradise is made up of only four rooms. These are her domain. One is her bedroom, but I've never actually seen her in it. Maybe she never goes to bed; maybe she sleeps in her chair; or maybe she doesn't sleep. She's so stubborn.

Aurora Paradise stirred the straw around in what remained of her Rumba, a drink I had fashioned from rum and banana. It was five o'clock, the cocktail hour, a time that was held in as high esteem as Sunday communion with wine and wafers, only here it was rum, gin, and whiskey. I was the chief drink maker.

“What baby?” She clicked her fingernail against her nearly empty glass. That was to let me know she was due another drink before she'd talk, but I wasn't having it.

“You know what baby. The Slade baby, Baby Fay. The one kidnapped from the Belle Ruin twenty years ago.” Then I added, cleverly, “When you were around fifty.” My great-aunt Aurora was ninety if she was a day. Back then, she would have been seventy.

Aurora shut her eyes as if she were pondering the kidnapped baby, which she wasn't. She was probably remembering herself at the Belle Ruin balls.

I moved my small round tray from under one arm to the other. She never invited me to sit down, even though I was the chief rum supplier. Her drink was one-third Myers's rum.

“I'm not making another Rumba till you tell me why you said Miss Isabel Barnett was lying about seeing the baby.”

For a moment she pouted and adjusted her black crocheted mittens with the pearl buttons. Aurora was dressed for a ball a lot of the time, a ball of fifty years ago. Behind her was her steamer trunk spilling out gorgeous gowns. It was a stand-up trunk with drawers and everything, the sort people used to take on ocean voyages.

When she saw I wasn't budging, she sighed and said, “Isabel Barnett is about as dependable as a firecracker in the snow. She'd say anything to get herself noticed. You seem to forget she's a klep-tomaniac.” Aurora smirked as if this disorder pleased her.

It was true Miss Isabel took little items from McCrory's Five-and-Dime, but she always paid them back. Since Miss Isabel was very well-off, no one could figure out why she stole twenty-five-cent Tangee lipsticks. “That's got nothing to do with the baby.”

“I'm saying Isabel Barnett is barmy. You can't depend on anything she says or does. She's lived all by herself for so long she probably talks to the walls. I know she's got a parrot and they probably sit up half the night jawin'.” She stiff-armed her glass at me. “It happened over twenty years ago; why would she remember what this infant looked like even if it had solid gold teeth? Now get me another Rumba, if you please!”

I knew I couldn't make her say more, and maybe she'd said all that she could, anyway. “It'll have to be something else. The rum's down to a ghost of itself.”

“Just something sweet. Make up one of your Count of Monte Cristo at Miami Beach drinks.”

I set the glass on my tray, deciding there was nothing more to be gained by further drink blackmail. So I left, still wondering about Miss Isabel Barnett. The trouble was that one of my theories about this baby that disappeared from the Belle Ruin years ago was that there never had been a baby at the hotel, for no one had actually seen one, not even the babysitter, Gloria Spiker. I figured maybe the baby had sickened and died and for some reason Imogen and Morris Slade, the mother and father, didn't want anyone to know. It probably had to do with a big inheritance or something. I also had a theory that the Slades had arranged the kidnapping so they could collect the ransom. But no ransom demand had been made.

Then Miss Isabel Barnett claimed to have looked into the carriage when the Slades were in La Porte, getting medicine for the baby. She had seen the baby, she said.