Poison Pen: A Claudia Rose Novel

Book 1: Claudia Rose Forensic Handwriting Mysteries

by Sheila Lowe

Genres: Crime & Mystery; Suspense

Synopsis

Sheila Lowe “wins readers over with her well-developed heroine and the wealth of fascinating detail” (Booklist) in this captivating mystery set in Hollywood, where forensic handwriting expert Claudia Rose knows that despite the words it forms, a pen will always write the truth.

Can handwriting be faked to make murder look like suicide? That is the question facing forensic handwriting expert Claudia Rose. When powerful Hollywood agent Lindsey Alexander is found dead, police are all too willing to believe it's Lindsey's handwriting on the scrap of paper they're calling a suicide note. But not everyone is ready to accept this easy conclusion. Claudia knows first-hand the publicist's ruthlessness and cruelty, so when Lindsey's business associate begs her to prove the suicide note a fake, her instincts scream at her to run the other way. She hasn't forgotten how it felt to be humiliated by the best. But Ivan leans hard, and when she accepts the case, Claudia becomes trapped in a far darker scenario than she bargained for.

Release date: February 22, 2021

Publisher: Write Choice Ink

Print pages: 332

Content advisory: some profanity

Sample

CHAPTER 1

 

Forest Lawn Memorial Park

 

 

From the crest of the manicured hillside, she could hear them yelling out to the endless procession of limos – the paparazzi and fans milling outside the cemetery gates. Braving the heat with beach chairs and umbrellas, phones ready to snap pictures of their favorite celebs. The only thing missing was Ryan Seacrest and a set of bleachers. Hollywood cliché. Where else would burial plots be named Babyland and Graceland?

The contrast between the people on the street and the luminaries attending the funeral was downright stark, thought Claudia Rose, squinting at the eager crowd below. Both made her feel antsy—the fans’ indecent focus on the mourners rather than the woman they had come to bury; The mourners themselves, sharing air kisses and crocodile tears. She glanced at her watch. The graveside ceremony was already fifteen minutes late. Classic Lindsey Alexander; she had always made everyone wait so she could make an entrance. Death had not changed that.

Like a splinter under the skin, Claudia could feel the irritation pricking at her. If she had just worn a hat, the sun would not be beating on her bare neck like an angry drummer. Stupid weather for a funeral. Half-moons of sweat dampened the pits of her navy silk dress, adding to the overall wretchedness. Didn’t a funeral call for dark clouds, a little drizzle, black umbrellas? What had she been thinking, coming here? It wasn’t as if she had the tiniest shred of affection for Lindsey.

Someone bumped up against her, jostling her out of her thoughts. An actor she thought she recognized from a cancelled sitcom, muttering excuses as he stumbled away. Wasted, Claudia guessed, glancing down at the grave marker he had knocked her onto: ‘Myra Tannenbaum, beloved mother and grandmother, 1932-1998.’ In California, earthquakes made standing headstones rare. Lindsey would have one, of course, a large, ornate one, not a plain bronze plaque in the ground like Myra Tannebaum’s. With a silent apology to Myra for the little divots her heels were digging into the grass, Claudia edged away, scanning the crowd for Kelly Brennan. In typical Kelly fashion, her friend had wandered off, no doubt in search of someone famous to hook up with.

As if she had heard Claudia’s mental summons, Kelly appeared at her side, looking smug. “This is better than Tinder.”

Claudia shook her head in awe. “Who goes to a funeral and walks out with a date?”

“Take a lesson, grasshopper. So, what have you been doing? Exhuming memories better left buried?”

“That’s about right.” Claudia’s gaze raked the Hollywood elite; the ‘smart set.’ She had read the Forest Lawn brochure. More famous folks buried here than anywhere, yada yada. “Remind me again why we came? Besides you trolling for men.”

“Because we wanted to make sure she was really dead?”

“Don’t say that. Even if it’s a little bit true.”

A low murmur went up then, moving through the mourners like a wave, their attention turning to the white Cadillac hearse that had stopped at the curb. Six matching hunks hefted the gleaming casket—also white—onto muscular Armani-sheathed shoulders. Kelly gave Claudia a nudge, her eyes staying glued to the hunks. “Lindsey was an evil bitch, but I have to admit, she had an eye for dudes.”

Funeral as screen test.

Claudia felt a spurt of sympathy for the pallbearers. “They must be melting in those suits. It’s hot as hell out here.”

“And how appropriate is that?” Kelly countered. “Lindsey wouldn’t be caught in hell without her entourage.”

Appropriate. An odd word to use in the same sentence with ‘Lindsey,’ who wouldn’t know appropriate if it smacked her in the face. But then, Claudia thought, Kelly had an iffy relationship with that word, too.

A hush fell over the crowd and they stepped aside, making way for the pallbearers’ slow and steady march to the gravesite. But the moment they had passed by, the buzz of chatter started up again and a snippet of conversation going on behind her made Claudia’s ears perk up.

“—suicide.” The woman spat the word as if it tasted bad. A West Indies lilt colored her accent. Jamaican, maybe. “I do not believe it. Lindsey would never—”

Claudia half-turned, darting a surreptitious glance at the speaker. Striking looks, café au lait skin tones, an athletic frame that rocked her casually elegant Louboutin suit. The younger woman she was addressing—girl, really—was all Walmart in low-slung jeans and a brief top that showed off a pierced navel. Her black hair was cut short and spiky and a colorful tattoo decorated her upper chest: seven daggers thrust into a bloody heart.

“Stop it, Des, I’m scared.” The girl’s whimper dashed a naïve assumption that her tears were for Lindsey. She grabbed at the other woman’s sleeve. “You’re scaring me. I’m freaking out.”

“You should be freaking out, and all,” the woman she called ‘Des’ hissed, making Claudia listen harder. How the girl had made it through the tight security was a mystery. She wondered how she was connected to Lindsey. Presumably, an aspiring actress.

The girl continued to argue with her friend. “But everyone was tweeting out that she killed herself.” Her voice went up on a whine, almost made it to a plea.

‘Des’ made a sound of derision. “And I am tellin’ you, girl, before she come to dis earth, dat one, she make a deal with God how she go out. Not suicide. No.”

“Maybe it was an accident,” the girl pressed hopefully. A muddy trail of mascara smudged the pale cheeks. In the dry-eyed designer crowd, sniffling into a soggy tissue, she stood out like a dot of spaghetti sauce on a white dress.

“An acci-dent?” The beaded woman’s tone spewed incredulity. “Someone do this to her. Now stop your moanin’ and don’ make a scene.”

From the way she had angled her body, Claudia could see that the girl’s tissue was shredded. Not waiting for her to switch to her bare arm, which seemed inevitable, she dug a fresh Kleenex from her purse and offered it with a glance over her shoulder. With the suspicious glare of a feral cat, and no word of thanks, the girl snatched the tissue from her and blew her nose with a loud, wet snuffle. She pushed the waterlogged mess into her pocket and started walking away. The other woman, ‘Des,’ cut her eyes at Claudia, shook her head, and followed the girl.

“Huh,” said Kelly. “That was interesting.”

“You heard them? What’s your take on it?”

“Do I think it wasn’t suicide? That someone killed her? Why not? Everyone hated her.”

“Maybe so, but not enough to kill her.”

“I wanted to kill her.”

“There’s a big leap from wanting to kill someone to doing it. And remember, there was a suicide note.”

“Supposed suicide note. I wish you could’ve taken a look at it.”

As a forensic handwriting examiner, Claudia had wished the same. But the note found with Lindsey Alexander’s body had not been made public, nor had the police called her to examine it. And this was not the time to muse about it. At the graveside, a canopy had been erected to protect special guests from the worst of the sun and the funeral director was showing the most mega of Lindsey’s mega-clients to folding chairs. Claudia and Kelly fell into step behind the lesser glitterati who were jockeying for whatever prime spots remained.

“Look, there’s Ivan.”

Claudia followed her friend’s pointing finger to a portly middle-aged man in the front row, nearest the open grave. Lindsey’s close friend and business manager, Ivan Novak, was seated between a handsome older couple Claudia recognized from his campaign ads: State Senator Bryce Heidt and his wife, Mariel. Maybe he felt them talking about him, as Ivan turned in his chair and spotted Claudia and Kelly where they stood near the back. Rising, he waved at them.

“Think he’ll invite us to sit with him?” Kelly asked as he excused his way over.

Claudia shook her head. “No,” and as he approached, “Shhh.”

The puffy pink pouches under Ivan’s eyes said that he, at least, had shed real tears for Lindsey. When he spoke, his voice trembled with emotion. “Thank you so much for coming. It means a lot to me. I know it wasn’t easy for either of you.”

Kelly grabbed him in a warm hug. “You look like you haven’t slept in days. Are you okay?”

Shorter than Claudia by several inches, Ivan was almost at eye-height with petite Kelly. “No, Kelly dear, ‘okay’ is something I definitely am not.” He laid a damp hand on Claudia’s arm. “You and I need to talk privately. Come find me at the reception.”

Claudia hesitated. Joining that crowd for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres was the last thing she had in mind for the rest of the afternoon. “I wasn’t going—”

Ivan’s face fell. “No, you have to come. Look, we can’t talk now, the service is about to start.” Ivan’s grip on her arm tightened. “It won’t take long, I promise.”

Lindsey may be dead, but the drama continues.

The funeral director was stepping up to the lectern. Ivan let go. “Don’t disappoint me, Claudia. Remember, you were friends once.”

Watching him walk back to his seat, she wished she had squashed his expectation, but the intensity in his eyes had startled her. “I don’t want to go,” she told Kelly. “The reception is at Lindsey’s penthouse. Where she died, for Chrissake. How creepy is that?”

Kelly rolled her eyes. “Go. I’ll be there, and—hey, there’s Zebediah, he’ll be there, too.”

“Zebediah’s here? Where?”

Kelly chuckled, pointing out their friend, Zebediah Gold, under the canopy. “You think he’d miss this? Look, over there, behind Bradley Cooper and his wife. In the seersucker jacket.”

Claudia had to smile at Zebediah’s choice of funeral wear. “I guess being Ivan’s therapist puts him on the A-list.”

“Ivan’s gonna need a whole lot more therapy before this shit is over.”

“I feel bad for him. He’s devastated.”

“Maybe so, but he’s the only one here who is.”

Considering their shared history, Claudia couldn’t blame her friend for her bitterness. On the other hand, a sense of propriety prompted her to try and shush her. But Kelly was on a roll. “If it wasn’t closed casket, she’d rise up like Dracula’s wife. Can’t you see her sinking her fangs into Bradley’s jugular?”

The retort Claudia would have made was cut off by the funeral director stepping to the podium and introducing of the officiant. She recognized Bishop Patrick Flannery from a Tweet hyping his new podcast. He opened his gilt-edged missal and peered out over the assembled crowd, cleared his throat, pulled a handkerchief from some hidden pocket and mopped his head. With the air as dry as the bones beneath the grass on which they stood he would be lucky not to come away with a nasty sunburn on that bald pate.

“We are gathered here today on this sad occasion to bid a final farewell to Lindsey Alexander, a woman much revered …” Flannery intoned.

“Good thing he didn’t say ‘much loved,’” Kelly stage-whispered.

Claudia leaned close and whispered back, “Please, shut the hell up.”

“… often seen in the news with the clients to whom she devoted her life, Lindsey Alexander came to Hollywood with nothing but raw energy and a unique gift for recognizing talent in others. We are here to bid farewell, not to a celebrity in her own right, but she represented those whose reflected light is shining on her now …”

Flannery’s reedy tenor was no competition for the eggbeater clatter of the news chopper hovering overhead. Claudia could hardly make out his words and could not bring herself to care. The truth was, Lindsey had been a self-serving ball-buster. But brutal truths like that did not belong in a eulogy.