Mugshots of Manhattan

Book 2: Snapshot of NYC Mystery

by Christin Brecher

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Cozy Mystery; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

Liv Spyers hits the big time when she lands a photography assignment with Grammy Award-winning pop star, the one and only Bisa. A huge fan, Liv is extra thrilled that her new boyfriend, Harry, will escort her to the glamorous premiere of Bisa’s debut movie. But when Bisa’s estranged sister, Courtney, threatens to turn the photo-op into a PR disaster, Liv goes after her—only to turn the camera lens on herself when Courtney winds up dead. With all eyes on Liv, her star-studded career is suddenly on the verge of being cancelled... Bisa is leaning hard on Liv to catch her sister’s killer—while she and her flirtatious entourage are wreaking havoc on Liv’s relationship with Harry. Now the best Liv can hope for is that her most famous photo doesn’t turn out to be her own mugshot. And that she can save herself—and Harry—before the killer strikes again...

Release date: August 22, 2023

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

Click

“Over here! Over here!”

Flash

“Felix, what was it like working with Bisa on her first film?”

Snap

“Ben Goldfarb! Any comments on future movies for Bisa?”

Zoom

“Dev! Dev! Hey, Dev! How do you feel about your girlfriend crossing over from music to film? Dev!!”

As a photographer for Regina Montague Studios, New York City’s premier events photography company, I don’t do paparazzi. At least, that is, not like the dozens of celebrity photographers who were screaming questions and taking photos around me. Admittedly, I stood close by them, with my camera hanging from my neck, and a full day of shooting A-list stars ahead of me. I was walking a fine line.

Balanced on a pair of strappy heels, I stepped through the slit of a store tags-just-removed, pale gray silk dress and onto a red carpet to start work at the highly anticipated, three-day extravaganza hosted by Grammy-winning, superstar, diva-extraordinaire. . . Bisa. My elegant outfit for an eleven o’clock brunch reflected my first how do I nail this job? conundrum. My invitation–or the invitation I’d received in a packet of detailed materials for the most exciting job I’d ever landed–said Dress Casual. I breathed a sigh of relief that I’d gone Casual Festive instead. One how-do-celebrities-celebrate? decision down, with loads more to go, and I was looking forward to every nuanced challenge ahead. In that same spirit, my entrance was timed well behind those ahead of me, and way before the next limousine arrived.

The flashes and clicks and snaps and zooms spontaneously died in the welcome to my arrival on the red carpet. Not unexpected, given the excitement around Oscar-winning Felix Montgomery and the rest. It would’ve been fun to be mistaken for a guest, but I found the silver lining in my obscurity. I indulged in a full-blown grimace over the burning, quarter-sized blister on my left foot.

Granny had been right about the shoes.

“You’ll be sorry,” she’d said last night, shaking her thick, black, eighty-year-old hair. She wore her I’m not saying anything, but all I’m saying is . . . expression.

“They’re perfect,” I answered, reaching into an Old Threads: New Life shopping bag for the mate of the nonreturnable vintage shoe I’d just put on.

We were in my small studio, Liv Spyers Photography, which is in the two-steps-down, sidewalk storefront of my grandparents’ West Village brownstone. I also live there. My lifelong best friend, Maria Ricci, was in my bedroom, looking for earrings for me, while Granny arrived from upstairs to offer food and moral support.

I’m a twenty-eight-year-old, and it might sound too cozy to live below my grandparents, but the setup works well for us. About two years ago, my grandparents decided to move their business, Carrera Locksmiths, to the first floor of their “original charm” townhouse to bring in some rent and we all believed we’d hit the jackpot. Amidst the neighborhood’s polished homes and chic stores of my new neighborhood, I threw my hat into the ring to make it in New York. And my aged grandparents were able to call me anytime to help at the store, change a lightbulb, and take out the trash.

As a woman of Italian descent on my mother’s side, from a family that loves its heritage, I belted out Old Blue Eyes’ “New York, New York” when Maria and I drove a U-Haul over the bridge from our hometown in New Jersey almost two years ago. By the end of my first week, I’d turned my grandparents’ old key store, which hadn’t been updated since they’d bought the building back when the Village’s real estate was unimaginably affordable, into my business’s headquarters. Their former stockroom became my private residence, consisting of a single bed, two jam-packed closets of clothes, and a bathroom you pretty much need to climb over the bed to reach. It also has a window with iron bars across it, so I can safely see daylight when I wake up.

Truth: Things hadn’t been looking all too good for me at first. Then, I met the queen of event photography, Regina Montague, a few months ago and scored a bona fide, career boosting job as a junior photographer for her. The gig spiraled into all sorts of trouble, but when you give me a chance, I don’t give up easy. I pulled it together and earned Regina’s respect. While keeping my studio active to build my private portrait business, I’d been covering the summer’s wedding season as one of Regina’s stable of photographers. Work is work, and I never take my career breaks for granted.

Maria popped her head around the divider between my one-room workspace and my bedroom door. She eyed my shoes approvingly.

“Don’t worry, Granny. They’re Manolos,” she said, as if the brand is known for its comfort. She held a pair of dangly earrings from my dresser toward me, navigating tissue paper and shopping bags that littered my floor. “I still can’t believe you’re working for Bisa.”

“Maria, carina, you’ve said that six times since I walked in five minutes ago. Eat while it’s still hot,” said Granny. She stood at the small red Formica counter of my Pullman kitchen, along the length of one wall of my studio, over a steaming platter of chicken parmesan she’d brought from upstairs. The inviting aroma was torture given that I was doing a fashion show of my purchases and could not risk dripping cheese onto the gold dress I was wearing, but which we’d all decided was a no-go.

“They were talking about Bisa on NY1 this morning,” Granny said, handing Maria a plate of heaven. “Pat Kiernan reported that these little mini-concerts she’s going to do on Thursday were sold out less than three minutes after they went on sale this morning. Pat has aged so nicely, don’t you think? He went so gray, but he has such nice white teeth. He said Bisa arrived today to a mega mansion she’s built at the tip of Roosevelt Island, where they filmed the movie. They showed pictures of the house. It’s stupendous.”

“Yeah, she tried to begin building while they were filming the movie but construction was too loud, so she hired like hundreds of people afterward to make sure it was finished on time,” Maria said as she settled into my desk chair to enjoy her small feast. “She’s named the place Todo Amor. That means All Love in Spanish, Granny. Perfect, don’t you think?”

“Like the name of her movie, All About Love,” Granny said, nodding approvingly.

“And Bisa’s donating her new building to the City as a music school after this weekend,” Maria said, fist pumping in appreciation of her idol.

“Livia, do you know all of these details?” Granny continued. She knew I would never go into my gig blindly, but, like most New Yorkers, it was hard to resist talking about the days ahead. “She’s having two days of parties with, they’re saying, all of Hollywood invited. Traffic is going to be terrible. And, she’s performing in three pop-up concerts on Thursday afternoon, which is apparently the new Saturday? What does that even mean? I’ve also never heard of a pop-up concert, but what do I know? And then Friday is the premiere of All About Love at Radio City Music Hall. The movie looks sweet, which impressed me because she’s so va-va-voom. We’ll see if she can act, but I tell you, Bisa can sing.”

“This is delicious, Granny,” Maria said, dabbing tomato sauce from her chin. “If they had pop-up concerts for chicken parm you’d be the next Bisa.”

“I should be so lucky.”

I got a kick out of the fact that Granny was a newly minted Bisa fan considering she only requested Alexa play hits from the old Rat Pack. Dean, Sammy, Frank. Now she was following the pop singer’s epic takeover of New York City. In fact, I’d heard her listening to Bisa’s song “Eyes on the I” while she was cooking upstairs earlier. And singing to it, too.

I had no doubt even Granny’s adulation was part of Bisa’s plan. After all, the superstar had top billing in her first sure-to-be blockbuster movie, opposite none other than Felix Montgomery. Plus, she had written and performed three songs for the film ahead of her upcoming Diamond Blue Tour. Hence, the inspiration behind the three pop-up concerts. She was going to drop one single at Liberty Island, the South Bronx, and at the scene of her first screen kiss on Roosevelt Island. New Yorkers are a passionate group of people and don’t share their space with just anyone, yet somehow this town was about to be no more than Bisa’s stage for three days. And no one could get enough of it. Bisa Mania had swept the City.

Even Roosevelt Island, which has never been a Manhattanite’s idea of sophistication or glamour, was now a hot topic of conversation. The small sliver of land nestled between Queens and Manhattan in the East River was on fire. The New York Times reported real estate, developed on the ruins of prisons and hospitals, rose four percent in the months after Bisa announced she would headquarter herself there for the premiere and concert celebrations. That’s where things stood in New York.

“Can you at least score me a ticket to one of her shows?” Maria said.

“I wish, but I can’t get you a ticket to anything,” I said. I rose from the guest chair across from my small desk to test my new strappy sandals. “At least not yet. Maybe once Bisa and I are besties she’ll do me a favor.”

“Really?” Maria beamed at me like I was Santa. At that moment, I honestly thought she’d be fine if I dumped her as a bestie for Bisa, assuming I got her the tickets.

“Seriously, you are breaking my heart, Maria. I would crash any party, endure any sample sale, and fall on my face out of an Uber at three in the morning with you, but I was kidding. Bisa isn’t going to speak one word to me. Tomorrow morning, I’m taking photos at a small breakfast before the all-night kick-off party, the Diamond Corazón. The concerts follow the next afternoon so I don’t think I’ll have time to become besties with Bisa tomorrow.”

“Diamond Corazón means Diamond Heart,” Maria said to Granny, as self-appointed translator after four years of high school Spanish.

“Wednesday and Thursday, from start to, my finger will be glued to my shutter button,” I said. “That’s it.”

“Fine, but I will be on your stoop, waiting for details when you return home,” my dear friend said.

“You can wait in our living room. It’s safer. And take a photo of Mateo DeLuca. Tell him I say hi,” my granny said with a twinkle in her eye for her favorite young Italian star. She’d gone straight to the theater to see him in Lady Duff’s Crossings, unable to wait for it to stream on Netflix. “Poppy won’t mind. We’re all allowed a celebrity crush, right?”

“Except I won’t be chitchatting with anyone,” I said. “My job is to photograph Bisa and other celebrities at the parties and backstage at the concerts. My instructions are for stylish images rather than the usual step-and-repeat media shots. Regina says Bisa wants to own the story of these next few days rather than have the paparazzi take over. And then, she’s going to sell them to whichever media outlet will pay her the most with extra royalties to us when they sell. It’s a big job.”

“If it’s such a big job, why did they hire only one photographer?” Maria said.

I shrugged. I’d wondered the same thing, but hadn’t gotten much of an answer from Regina when I’d asked. In her defense, she’d been laid up on painkillers after falling off her bike while lighting a cigarette and pedaling up Sixth Avenue last week. With a cast around her left arm, I’d landed the job of a lifetime.

“I’ve heard Bisa doesn’t like photographers in her space,” I said, giving my best guess. “Bisa knows Regina, so there was some trust there. I hope she’ll trust me too.”

“Regina picked the right person for the job,” Granny said. She motioned to the wall behind me where I’d hung a few street-life portraits I’d snapped around town.

We were all now congregated around my kitchen counter and I gave Granny’s soft, wrinkled cheek a kiss for calming my nerves with food and moral support. The photos she admired were, in fact, the images that initially inspired Regina to hire me.

“Plus, there’s a perk. Regina got me and Harry tickets to the opening of All About Love. She knows I haven’t seen him in two weeks, and that I had to cancel his welcome home dinner tomorrow night because of the job,” I said, delighted with Regina’s completely unnecessary but welcomed bribe. “When Harry left for his business trip, I made rezies for the night of his return at Ai Fiori. Instead, I spent my dinner funds on this week’s wardrobe.”

“I wish things were as rosy with my Hinge dates as they are with you guys,” said Maria, rinsing her dish in the sink.

“You were going to take Harry to Ai Fiori? It should be Ai Fortune,” said Granny, never afraid of a pun. She reached her hand over Maria’s sponge to fill my espresso machine’s water canister. “Harry’s the one with the money. He should be taking you there.”

“She’s thinking about the L word,” Maria said over the faucet.

“Ahhh.” Granny broke into a mischievous smile and dropped her eyelid in a slow, impish wink.

“I’m not thinking about the L word,” I said, but I was aware of our proximity and how much experience these two had in reading my face. I headed to my room to take off the dress.

“Yes, you are,” Maria called to my retreating figure.

“Stop!” I said, my retort muffled as I slipped the gold silk over my head.

“And why not?” said Granny. “You’re a beautiful woman. Especially when you put on some lipstick.”

“And maybe a little more mascara.”

“I’m a power babe,” I said, returning in my next outfit, which got some applause, but I was having none of it. “I’m starting a history class in a few weeks to try out college again. With that, and my work, and Harry’s work, who knows how much we’ll see of each other? I’m not getting hooked on some guy. I only wanted a nice dinner. And whatever comes with dessert.”

Honestly, I woke up and fell asleep with the name Harry Fellowes on my lips. The uptown man to my downtown life whose career as an art appraiser for an insurance company was a cover for his real work as an agent for the secret ACU. That’s the Art Crime Unit. And yes, this was my boyfriend. A bad ass, international crime-buster disguised as a mild-mannered, albeit independently wealthy, insurance agent. I knew Maria and everyone else saw Harry as a good guy, but a trust-fund kid. They were nice about it and I kept my lips sealed about the rest. I’d promised.

As exciting as my impending job with Bisa was going to be, Harry was on assignment somewhere in Japan, tracking down the Cardinal, a thief who was almost as larger-than-life as Bisa. With a flair for drama that rivaled Bisa, the Cardinal left a red silk scarf hanging in the place of the paintings he stole all over the world to remind everyone that he could fly in and out before anyone could catch him. Of course, he hadn’t met Harry yet.

The flip side of having a secret-agent boyfriend, however, was that from the moment Harry left for his assignment, we had not been able to contact each other. I felt bad that he’d be landing tomorrow night to a text that I was now going to be MIA. There were times I wished I had less of a work ethic, but I knew our night at Bisa’s movie opening would make up for our missed dinner date.

“Looking good, ladies!” a man yelled at us from the sidewalk outside my studio’s picture window.

“Watch your mouth!” my grandmother shouted loud enough for the block to hear. It was an impressive bark, made more so by the fact that a coffee mug covered her face. She looked over her rim as the guy hightailed it in alarm.

I took a step forward to pull a red, silk privacy curtain across the studio’s display window.

“Vertebrae stretched; clavicles dropped . . .” Maria said as I lifted my foot.

“Head balanced.” I finished her motto for a well-lived life on heels. She wore them every day as a paralegal at a law firm, and every night on the town after work. Even now, she wore platform sandals with her shorts.

Me? A simple black combat boot is my go-to. Someone once told me a pacifist has to dress defensively and I think they were onto something. Once, I wore my Doc Martens under a gown to shoot a wedding at the main branch of the library on Forty-Second Street. I’d wanted a perfect shot of the bride’s spectacular train and decided to climb Patience or Fortitude, one of the enormous lion statues guarding the entrance of the monumental limestone building in Midtown Manhattan. Regina had grabbed my wrist as I’d readied myself to rock climb in a long, formal dress.

“Don’t go for a Pulitzer,” she said, leaning toward me with a genial smile pasted toward the crowd before I’d gone too far.

Working for Regina is a fine line between being both invisible to your clients while also going for the most original perspective a space has to offer. It’s the opposite of what the paparazzi do.

I could tell their jobs were to holler and scream for the shot, given the scene around me as I now stood before the acclaimed Todo Amor, which was even more impressive in person than in photos. A Grecian-styled building with a subdued but regal limestone facade, its columned doors, at the end of the red carpet, were as stately as those at the Forty-Second Street library. The palatial structure was at the southern end of the island, and I’d arrived via the Roosevelt Tramway, the one that Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man hangs from to save both Mary Jane and other trapped citizens. The view of Manhattan’s skyline was stunning on the short walk over, but the air-conditioned limousines that passed me looked more appealing as I pulled a rollie bag filled with equipment, some clothes, and emergency supplies across a brick sidewalk, arm jiggling behind me.

The hike was not long, but due to the heat, I arrived as if to a mirage in the desert and sucked in the humid, afternoon air, glad Granny had sprayed my hair three times this morning. The first thing I noted about the grand house was how it appeared from afar to be a century old due to the recent planting of large, mature trees whose long limbs shaded entrance to the estate. These are the sorts of details I try to notice as a photographer. To succeed in any job, I needed a good sense of my surroundings as much as my subjects.

As I studied the house and channeled my foot pain into the universe, a man with a clipboard and an earpiece approached me.

“Staff is this way,” he said, blocking my path. In a black suit, black shirt, black tie, and black sunglasses, he appeared as if he was trained to give his life to our president, but his attitude suggested he deemed Bisa to be more important than the commander in chief.

“I’m on the guest list. Liv Spyers,” I said to clear up the confusion.

“I don’t think so,” the guy said.

“Really?” I’d tried being polite, but we were getting nowhere. I put my hands on my hips to signal I meant business, but I was getting anxious about the unceremonious welcome. “You assume I’m not on the list, just like that? You’re not even going to check?”

“Exactly,” he said. “And don’t start with some big story. I’ve been sending fans like you home all day. I’ve been doing this job for twenty years. I don’t need to check a list.”

“This is crazy,” I said, and pulled out my phone to call Regina.

I didn’t like the direction of things between us. Regina definitively stated that I should be inconspicuous, but one or two paparazzi were looking our way.

“Don’t make me ask again,” he said.

“It’s OK, Alfonz.” A woman with platinum-white hair pulled into a tight bun, and wearing a cropped blue pantsuit, arrived beside me. She was a bit older than I, with winter-pale skin in the dog days of summer. A minimum of three phones protruded from her belt bag, and she gripped an iPad as if her life depended on it.

Alfonz, the security guard, stepped aside without further debate. I couldn’t tell if his sudden indifference was a reflection of her or me or the stress he was feeling from the day.

“I’m going to guess by the camera around your neck and the fact that you’re not clustered with the media over there that you’re Liv Spyers” said the woman.

I nodded.

“I. . .