The Ghost and The Haunted Mansion: A Haunted Bookshop Mystery

card inside—”
    “That’s right! The mother’s boyfriend was Frankie Papps. He bought her a pair of pearl earrings. The jeweler’s card was in the box.”
    “Broadway’s Best Jewelry,” he said as he pulled me along. “Shake a leg.”
     
    “THE GREAT WHITE Way” is a phrase supposedly coined in 1901 by an ad man named O. J. Gude, who foresaw the awesome possibilities of the electric display. It started with one sign on Broadway—an advertisement for an ocean resort. By the early twenty-first century, digital billboards half the size of skyscrapers were flashing real-time images from cable TV.
    At the moment, however, we weren’t that far in the future. We were in Jack’s time, mid-twentieth century, and the ads weren’t quite as massive in size, but they were plenty ubiquitous in scope. As we skirted crowds of pedestrians to cross the intersection of Broadway and Forty-second, a field of billboards urged me to chew gum, drink beer, and eat Planters Peanuts.
    Nighttime was always magic in Times Square, with the glow of theater and movie marquees giving everything a glittery, electric feel. Daytime wasn’t quite so spectacular—and right now it was high noon.
    The midday sun’s unforgiving spot exposed the dinginess of the old buildings here. The side streets appeared drab, the ticket offices tired. Grand hotel lobbies and theater entrances were dark; life swarmed instead around cheap lunch counters, cut-rate haberdasheries, and novelty concessions.
    Broadway’s Best Jewelers sounded like a glamorous shop, but when we arrived at the address—closer to Eighth Avenue than the actual Broadway—we found a dingy storefront with a faded sign. A bell clanged loudly above us as we pushed open the glass door.
    The place smelled of must and old wood with theater posters covering the paneled walls. There was a counter—not glass but scarred oak—and no jewelry of any kind was on display; no watches, rings, or pendants, just fat catalogs with plain covers. The shop ran deep. Behind the counter, a number of men and women were bent over craft tables, bright lights shining on their work areas.
    “I’m Dolly. Can I help you two?”
    A heavyset woman in a black suit and wearing horn-rimmed glasses approached us from the other side of the counter.
    “We’re private detectives,” Jack said. He showed her his license. “We’re looking for Frankie Papps. Know him?”
    Dolly shook her head. “I haven’t seen Frankie in weeks.”
    “Two weeks?” I asked.
    “Yeah, why? What’s it to you, miss?”
    “To me, nothing,” I said. “But there’s a little boy worried about his mother. She disappeared two weeks ago. Frankie gave her pearl earrings, which you sold to him.” I showed her the card we’d found inside the jewelry box.
    The woman frowned. “You’re talking about his girlfriend, then? The burlesque dancer? She has a kid, huh?”
    I exchanged a glance with Jack. “J. J. said his mother was a schoolteacher,” I whispered. “Do you have that photo J. J. gave you?”
    Jack pulled the picture out, showed it to the woman behind the counter. She shrugged. “Sorry, I never saw her. Just heard Frankie mention her a few times.”
    When she handed the photo back, I finally gave it a look. The picture showed a stunning platinum blonde no older than twenty. She wore a huge smile and a tight, low-cut sweater—very low-cut. The woman wasn’t built like any schoolteacher I’d ever known. She wasn’t dressed like one, either.
    “Did Frankie have more than one girlfriend?” I asked.
    “How should I know?” Dolly said. “He buys a lot of stuff from us, but it’s usually for the shows, not the showgirls.”
    “Shows?”
    “The shows!” Dolly gestured to the Broadway posters on the walls. Then, as if I were thick-headed, she rolled her eyes and shoved over one of the catalogs on the counter. “We make costume jewelry for the theater people—legit, burlesque, magic shows. You name it, we make it.”
    I paged through the catalog, seeing tiaras, fake strands of pearls, diamond chokers, even stage weapons—fancy swords and daggers.
    “Did Frankie ever have you make daggers for him?” I asked.
    “Oh, yeah. We made daggers for him, tiaras, costume jewelry—”
    I glanced at Jack. “Sounds like all the stuff that burglar was trying to steal from J. J.’s basement apartment.”
    “Did he pay you in cash or with some kind of check?” Jack asked.
    “He didn’t pay. He bought his stuff for