The Tinseltown Murderer Read online

  ALSO BY MAUREEN DRISCOLL

  THE REMINGTON MANSION MYSTERY SERIES

  THE TYCOON MURDERER

  THE JASMINE COTTAGE SERIES

  WHERE LOVE GROWS (BOOK 5, EMMA)

  WHERE SOULS EMBRACE (BOOK 4, LILY)

  WHERE LIGHT SHINES (BOOK 3, DAPHNE)

  WHERE DREAMS MERGE (BOOK 2, GRACE)

  WHERE HEARTS MEET (BOOK 1, ARABELLA)

  THE EMERSON SERIES

  NEVER AND ALWAYS (BOOK 6, LETTY, VIOLET AND ANNA)

  ALWAYS FOREVER (BOOK 5, ROSE)

  ALWAYS BELIEVE IN LOVE (BOOK 4, NICK)

  ALWAYS HAVE HOPE (BOOK 3, WINIFRED)

  ALWAYS TRUE TO HER (BOOK 2, JAMES)

  ALWAYS COME HOME (BOOK 1, COLIN)

  THE KELLINGTON SERIES

  NEVER TURN AWAY (BOOK 6, JOSEPH)

  NEVER DENY YOUR HEART (BOOK 5, LIAM)

  NEVER RUN FROM LOVE (BOOK 4, HAL)

  NEVER WAGER AGAINST LOVE (BOOK 3, ARTHUR)

  NEVER MISS A CHANCE (BOOK 2, LIZZIE)

  NEVER A MISTRESS, NO LONGER A MAID (BOOK 1, NED)

  THE POLITICAL SATIRE

  DATING GEORGE CLOONEY

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To my mom. I love you forever and always.

  CHAPTER ONE

  McConnell, Oregon, Present Day

  “I still don’t know why you need three hundred channels of television, when only a dozen or so show anything good,” said David Remington, as he flipped through one channel after another with the remote. The Wall Street tycoon of the 1920s had only been living in the Twenty-First Century for a few weeks but was quickly catching on.

  He was seated in the former ballroom of a Victorian mansion which was in the process of being renovated. His wife, Josie Matthews, reached over to take the remote from him. “That’s how TV comes,” she said. “You can’t just get the channels you want.”

  “Whoever invented this business model probably made a fortune,” said David as he kissed her before taking back the remote and changing the channel again. “Did you know you can watch baseball games without ever leaving the house?”

  “I know that in theory, though I rarely put it into practice.” Josie studied the man who’d come to mean so much to her in such a short amount of time. He’d gone down in history as the Tycoon Murderer, accused of murdering two people in this very house in 1929, before disappearing forever. It was only through Josie’s accidental trip back in time that they’d been able to clear his name before he followed her back home. And now, here she was, thirty-three, and in love with a… “How old are you, again?”

  “I was thirty-five when we met a month ago, and I don’t feel like I’ve aged a bit. I still look the same.”

  “A two-year age difference is good.”

  “I agree,” he said, as he kissed her again. “But I was born in 1894.”

  “Okay, that is super creepy if I think about it too much.”

  “Then don’t think about it too much. Did you know there are women on television who call themselves ‘real housewives,’ but I’ve never seen them do any housework?”

  Josie marveled at how well David had adapted to modern society and just how good he looked in jeans and a t-shirt, though she missed seeing him in his linen suits. There had been an elegance in her brief foray to 1929, and she sometimes wished she could’ve brought some of the good parts of that era back to the present. But, fortunately, the very best part of that trip back in time was sitting next to her on the couch. “What else is on?”

  David changed channels until he landed on a World War II documentary.

  “Is this real?” he asked, as they watched black and white footage of Japanese planes bombing U.S. ships in the Pacific.

  “Yes. It’s from the second World War.”

  “The second? I thought the Great War was supposed to end all wars.”

  “Unfortunately, the world is really great at coming up with more wars, though now we don’t bother claiming they’re going to end anything. Japan and Germany are now steadfast allies of the U.S., but for a while they controlled most of the world.”

  They watched the show in silence for a few moments as Josie once again thought about how her life had changed so much. She’d found the love of her life after a tough divorce just a few months earlier. They now had the means of fixing up their home, given the fact that David had been able to get his money out of the stock market before the Crash in 1929. For the first time in years, Josie felt an optimism about her life which had her looking forward to the future. There was even a chance she might start writing again, something she hadn’t done since leaving Hollywood earlier that year.

  “What was that?” asked David.

  Josie turned her attention back to the TV to see the mushroom cloud of an atomic explosion. “That’s an atom bomb. One was dropped on Hiroshima and the other on Nagasaki. It’s a really sad part of history, but they did end the war.”

  David shook his head. “The caption said it was dropped on Anchorage. Alaska is a U.S. territory, right?”

  “It’s now a state, but there wasn’t an atomic attack on Anchorage.”

  “It said the Japanese dropped an atom bomb on Anchorage in 1947.”

  “Impossible,” said Josie, taking the remote and rewinding the TV, only to see horrifying footage of an atom bomb being dropped on Anchorage. “This isn’t right.”

  She grabbed her phone with a sinking feeling that something was very wrong. Even worse, she feared it was her fault. Her trip in time had altered history in a relatively minor way. Two people who’d originally died in 1929 had been saved, while four others had been killed. She couldn’t imagine how that could’ve changed history, but what else would explain what she’d just seen?

  “How many people died from these atom bombs?” asked David.

  “Hundreds of thousands in Japan, including those who died of radiation poisoning in the weeks and months afterward, not to mention the suffering of the ensuing years.” Josie stared in disbelief at her phone. “Oh my God. Anchorage.” There were pictures of the mushroom cloud of the attack, as well as the devastation of both the people and the land. She searched entry after entry, only to find the same information in all of them.

  “Is it possible there’s a mistake on that internet thing?” asked David.

  “The internet is basically a collection of false information and angry rants, interspersed by a tiny bit of truth, but this is everywhere I’m searching.” Josie’s stomach clenched and she felt she might be sick. “Something is terribly wrong. This isn’t the way it really happened. It can’t be. The history I know is that the U.S. was late to enter the war in December 1941, after Pearl Harbor. We were almost too lat
e, given the fact France and much of Europe had already fallen to the Nazis, and England was barely hanging on. But thanks to fierce fighting by the Allies and Germany taking a fateful overreach in Russia, the war in Europe ended in May 1945 and Japan capitulated in August.”

  “What was Pearl Harbor?”

  “It was a Japanese attack on Hawaii, which killed thousands of people. It was the event which finally convinced an isolationist America to step up and enter the war. But according to this…” Josie stared at yet another article in disbelief. “Pearl Harbor never happened.”

  “That’s a good thing, right?”

  “Well, yes, for all the folks in Hawaii. But according to this, we didn’t get into the war until the end of 1943, which strengthened the Japanese-German alliance. The war dragged on until 1949 – four years after it should’ve ended. A hundred million people died in the war, which was about forty million more than in my time. This has to be wrong.” She dialed her phone. A moment later, her best friend Janice picked up.

  “Hey,” said Janice. “How are you and Gatsby doing?”

  “He’s fine and you’re on speaker. This is a really weird question, but when was World War II?”

  “You called to ask me that? Is Google broken or something?”

  “I think it might be. Humor me. When was it?”

  “We got into the war in 1943 and it ended right after we retaliated for Anchorage in 1949. Everybody knows that.”

  Josie couldn’t believe this was happening. “What about Pearl Harbor?”

  “What about it? It’s in Hawaii, right? I think we drove past it on our last trip.”

  “You don’t remember it being bombed?”

  “When was it bombed?”

  “December 7, 1941? The ‘day that will live in infamy?’”

  “Are you drunk? David, are you there? Is she drunk?”

  “I’m here and she’s sober.”

  “And you’re not joking about any of this?” Josie asked Janice, while finding it difficult to breathe.

  “Of course not. Josie, what’s wrong?”

  “I have to call you back.”

  Half an hour later, Josie came to the conclusion that history had definitely changed. And she had a terrible feeling it was all her fault.

  David took her hand. “Did I somehow change history when I followed you back here?”

  “I don’t know what happened, though it’s my fault, not yours. I never should’ve travelled back in time in the first place.”

  “You didn’t even mean to do it.”

  “I don’t think that matters.” Finding herself back in time had been one of the bigger surprises of Josie’s life. She’d tried desperately to return to her own time, but now had to wonder if she’d inadvertently killed millions of people while doing so. “I don’t think this had anything to do with you, because you disappeared in 1929 and haven’t done anything in this time period except collect your money and watch a lot of TV.”

  “That’s not all I did,” he said with a slow smile. “We did get married.”

  “You’re sweet, but we have bigger issues to discuss. What else did we change in 1929?”

  David considered it. “A con woman and a U.S. Senator died, the real murderer was brought to justice and Kurt Franklin lived.”

  Kurt Franklin was a silent screen star who’d been having a tough time making the transition to sound. Originally, he’d been one of the victims at the party. But because of Josie’s visit, he’d survived. “I don’t see how Kurt Franklin could’ve changed the war.”

  “You mean because he was so nice?’

  “Mostly because he was so dumb. I mean, he was really nice, and I can’t imagine he would’ve helped the Nazis, but I don’t think Kurt Franklin would ever be smart enough to influence American foreign policy. I’m not sure he knew what foreign policy was.”

  “Kurt Franklin was one of the most famous silent picture stars in the world. I don’t know how it is today, but celebrities used to influence people all the time back then.”

  “We’re doomed,” said Josie, as she handed a tablet to David while she searched her phone.

  David clicked on an article about Franklin. “He was in a lot of movies in the ‘30s and early ‘40s but joined the Marines when the war started. After returning home, he more or less stayed out of the public eye, despite being a decorated war hero. I wonder why that was.”

  “I think I may know,” said Josie, as she showed David a picture of Kurt and a beautiful blonde woman from 1936. “This is Greta Schatz, the niece of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister. I can’t believe Kurt Franklin fell in love with a Nazi. He really was the dumbest person ever. And I used to work in Hollywood, so I know plenty of dumb people.”

  “Do you think there’s a connection between that and the start of the war?”

  “According to this article, Kurt believed her when she said Germany didn’t want war with the U.S. Most Americans were so isolationist they were eager to believe Kurt. When Pearl Harbor didn’t happen, the U.S. stayed out of the war for another two years and forty million more people died.”

  There was a moment of silence as they thought about the enormity of what had occurred. Finally, David said, “What are we going to do about it?”

  “We’re gonna go back and separate Kurt from his Nazi girlfriend.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “I don’t remember seeing this before,” said David, as he and Josie stared at a yellowed newspaper at the bottom of a trunk. They were in the dusty attic which ran along the length of the top floor of the house. The room was filled with various trunks dating back to when the house was built in the late Nineteenth Century by an inventor who, unbeknownst to the rest of the world, had discovered the secret to time travel.

  A secret Josie and David were still trying to figure out.

  David picked up the fragile newsprint and carefully spread it out. It was a picture of David and Josie at a nightclub, wearing evening clothes.

  “I don’t remember taking this picture,” said Josie. “I don’t even know where it is.”

  “It’s the Cocoanut Grove in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. It was the hot spot in Hollywood in the ‘20s. Don’t people still go there today?”

  Josie shook her head. “The nightclub closed a long time ago and the hotel was never the same after the assassination of Bobby Kennedy.”

  “Joe Kennedy’s son?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why would someone kill him?”

  “He was running for President.”

  “Really? I’m surprised Joe Jr. didn’t run.”

  “He was killed in the war.”

  David frowned. “What about the other son, John?”

  “Also assassinated. Look, we can’t get into a discussion about the Kennedys right now because that would take a while. Suffice it to say that family has had some rotten luck.”

  “I always thought Joe made a deal with the devil.”

  “And you wouldn’t be the first to say that, but, again, that’s a topic for another day.” She stared at the picture. “What are we doing at the Cocoanut Grove with Lawrence, Dora and…is that Clark Gable in the background?”

  “Who?”

  “Gable? Rhett Butler? It Happened One Night? The hottest man in Hollywood in the 1930s?”

  “I missed a few years, remember?”

  “Suffice it to say that had I been in the same room with the man, I would’ve remembered.”

  “You do still remember you’re married, right?’

  Josie kissed her husband. “Yes, but…Gable. How do you think we ended up in this picture? And how did it end up at the bottom of this trunk?”

  David searched the trunk to see if there was anything else they hadn’t previously noticed. “We somehow must’ve brought it back to send a message to ourselves of where to go. The date on the article is 1936, and it’s obviously Los Angeles. That’s our next destination.”

  “Apparently we planned for the trip,” said Jos
ie, as she showed him the contents of another trunk. “We’ve got clothes and appropriate money for the era. Now we just have to see if our theories about time travel are true.”

  Half an hour later, Josie and David were dressed for the 1930s, carrying two small suitcases. Josie watched as David arranged a circle of volcanic rocks from Mount Hood. Their earlier trip back in time had been linked to a series of volcanic eruptions in the Cascade Mountains. Since they couldn’t count on those, they’d decided to use the rocks to see if they would have the same effect. When David was done, they silently contemplated the task ahead of them. “This might not work, you know,” he said. “We might just be two people dressed up like the 1930s standing in a circle of rocks.”

  “Or,” she said, taking her husband’s hand, “we could get sent back in time without the ability to come back again.”

  David indicated the newspaper article he was holding. “This makes me think we made it there and back.”

  “All I know is forty million people died. We have to try to save them.”

  “I agree.” He kissed her. “Shall we go?”

  After a nod from Josie, they both stepped into the circle at the same time, carrying their luggage. Then they waited.

  “Has anything happened?” asked Josie.

  “I don’t think so.”

  They waited another moment.

  “What about now?”

  David shook his head.

  “I kind of feel like an idiot. At what point do we…” Josie stopped talking as they watched the rocks around them heat up and glow. “That’s weird, right?”

  “Yeah,” said David, as the room started to vibrate, then shake. He held Josie, trying to shield her from anything falling on them since the house was shaking so violently it seemed like the roof might cave in.

  Josie thought about how ironic it would be if, after waiting a lifetime to find her soulmate, it all ended so soon after meeting. She held on to David just a bit tighter.

  Then, as abruptly as it had started, everything came to a halt. The rocks were back to their normal black color, though they looked like they’d shrunk a bit.

  “Yay! We’re not dead!” said Josie as she looked around, but everything in the attic seemed just as it had been before. “Do you think we went anywhere?”