Seeing Red

by Dana Dratch

  She picked up the comforter again and started moving double time. Like I wasn’t even there. At this point, I preferred the laser glare.

  “Baba, I’m trying to do the right thing. He’s a good man. I really do think he’s in trouble. Of some sort.”

  “Little boys tell stories,” she said. “Bigger boys tell bigger stories.”

  “I listened to him. Really listened. I’m not saying his niece is a homicidal maniac. But he honestly does believe she tried to kill him. And she’s holding his medicine and wallet and laptop hostage. I just want to get him back to some place he feels safe to recover. Just a couple of days. I swear.”

  Baba sighed. “Two days, he is gone,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Two days,” I said.

  Now I just had to make good on my word.

  Chapter 29

  Trip had a slightly different take on the Marty situation when we met at Simon’s for coffee that afternoon.

  Right off the square, Simon’s is a local institution. It’s also one of my favorite spots. And the fact that Mrs. Simon bakes several kinds of pie fresh every morning has almost nothing to do with it.

  “Hey, you were looking for one elderly gent,” Trip said as we slid into a corner booth. “But you found a different one. Do you think Ian would take him as a replacement?”

  “As in ‘the part of Harkins is now being played by Marty Crunk’? Somehow, I don’t think so. Besides, Marty is solving his own problems. He just needs a place to crash while he does it.”

  “You OK?” Trip asked, glancing at me over the top of the Xeroxed menu.

  “Uh, yeah. Why?”

  “Well, I’d imagine the prospect of instant fatherhood has dumped a little cold water on the budding romance.”

  “Not as much as the prospect of Alistair’s mother waiting in the wings,” I admitted. “The guy’s got a family. A ready-made family. Married or not, as far as I’m concerned, he’s off the market. But I’d love to see the look on Lydia Stewart’s face when she hears the news.”

  “I predict she’ll be wearing black for the foreseeable future.”

  “Only because she thinks it’s stylish. Hey, maybe she’ll hook up with Ham Stephens. Solve two problems at the same time.”

  “Birds of a misbegotten feather . . . ,” Trip started.

  “I think that thing she wore to Ian’s cocktail party might have actually had feathers. Besides, what I really need right now is more info on Jameson Blair.”

  “Hmm, today’s pie is blueberry crumb,” he said.

  “Definitely going to have a piece of that. Well, I may be able to help you out on the Blair part.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Hey, don’t thank me, thank the dynamic duo of Izawa and Polk on the business desk. They’ve been digging into your friend Blair. And while they have precious little they can actually print, they are swimming in a virtual sea of gossip.”

  “And you provided a willing ear?”

  “I am the soul of patience and discretion itself. Plus, I bought a pitcher of beer.”

  “Anything that might help us out?”

  “Perhaps. Turns out that art collection of Blair’s is just as spectacular as you remember. It’s also the most important thing in his life.”

  “Really? I’m guessing that was a surprise to wife number two,” I said.

  “Not as much as his ongoing auditions for wife number three. But the art is his major hobby. And he’s picked up some pricey new pieces in the past few years. Modern stuff.”

  “Those paintings I didn’t recognize.”

  “Very possibly,” Trip said. “Turns out his art collection is probably the least of our problems. Besides amassing art, money, women, and yachts, our soon-to-be-bachelor also enjoys collecting politicians.”

  “Politicians?”

  “That’s why Polk and Izawa were poking around in the first place,” Trip explained. “The general elections are just over seventeen months out. And they’ve been hearing that Blair’s funneling some major money. Well over the legal limit.”

  “Damn.”

  “Anyway, wife number two—Deirdre—thinks she and Jamie-boy are soul mates. Then she finds out he’s cheating and wants to hit him where it hurts. So she tells the attorneys to go after the art collection. Blair goes ape shit. Vows to destroy her and anyone connected with her.”

  “Yikes!”

  “Fast-forward to a few months ago,” Trip said. “He backs off. Says they collected most of it together, so it’s only fair she gets half of it.”

  “I take it that’s out of character.”

  “To this guy, ‘fair’ is just his favorite skin color,” Trip said.

  “If she knew about his political dealings, she might be blackmailing him,” I said.

  “Polk and Izawa don’t think so. She was boiling mad. She’d have gone straight to the authorities if she had anything. She didn’t, so she went after the art.”

  “And Harkins is an art thief,” I said. “And an art forger.”

  “And we’re pretty sure he’s made at least one copy of Blair’s Renoir,” Trip said, between sips.

  “What if Harkins is working for Blair?” I theorized. “He’s making copies of the major pieces in the collection. But what about Insurance Guy? Did Blair send him to keep an eye on things?”

  “Could be Blair’s special type of insurance,” Trip said. “Keep an eye on the forger. Make sure nothing goes wrong.”

  “Or goes missing,” I said.

  “Could also be there to tie up loose ends,” Trip said, seriously. “If that’s true, it makes me a little less anxious about how and why he ended up in the freezer.”

  “So Blair has Harkins make copies to give Deirdre, while he keeps the real ones?” I said, trying out the idea.

  “Maybe,” said Trip. “But you’d think there would be some kind of authentication. I mean, she knows he’s a sleaze. It’s not like she’s going to trust him.”

  “What if the real paintings are already in Deirdre’s possession? If she’s the one doing the dispersing, she wouldn’t think twice about authentication. That would be on him. That also explains why Blair needs someone who’s a forger and a thief.”

  “And why the collection is sitting in Harkins’s study,” Trip said. “They’ve already done it. They’ve already swapped the fake stuff for the real art.”

  “And when Deirdre finally gives Blair whatever pieces he’s awarded in the divorce,” I concluded, “Jameson Blair is going to be laughing all the way to the bank.”

  Chapter 30

  Before I’d left that afternoon, Baba and Marty had worked out their own kind of truce. He had the dining room. She took the kitchen. The living room, like the DMZ, was split straight down the middle. Though I noticed she gave the sofa a wide berth.

  When I got back, Baba was strapping on her sneakers and tucking her purse onto her arm. Lucy was leashed up and ready to go.

  “Nicholas is baking. Across street. I’m going to store,” she said. “Food. You have charge of house?”

  “I’ll drive you,” I said.

  “No. You work. Look after little baby,” she reminded me. “If he cries, change diaper. Then one bottle.” She held up a single gnarled finger. “Just one. Then pat, pat, pat. Then to sleep. Good?”

  “Good! And here, let me give you food money.”

  She smiled and shook her head vigorously. “No. No. All good. Back soon,” she said, giving me a thump on the shoulder. “Take care!”

  “You too!” I said, giving her a hug. Lucy jumped up for a little love, and I scratched her ear. She wagged her tail happily, wriggling around to lick my hand.

  Was it my imagination or did Baba seem a little more upbeat?

  * * *

  “OK, kid, ready for your first lesson in Aunt Margie?” Marty said. It was more an announcement than a question.

  I nodded. “Yup.”

  “OK,” he said, gesturing to a foot-high stack of printer paper on the floor by
my desk. “Reach over, and pull one out at random.”

  I complied, making my selection from halfway down the pile.

  “Now, give it a quick read and tell me what you notice,” he said.

  If this was a magic show, I was the dim-but-lovely assistant.

  “OK, now let me take a look,” he said, after I finished scanning it. “Hmm, uh. OK, got it. Now, what did you notice?”

  “Well, the letter writer is a woman, and she seems awfully invested in her friend’s life . . .”

  “Yeah, nobody on the face of the earth writes an advice columnist for their friend,” Marty said. “You write an advice columnist because you’re desperate, because you want validation—or because you’re desperate for validation. In this game, ‘my friend’ is code for ‘I did something so stupid I don’t even want to admit it anonymously.’”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yeah. Look, half this job is reading between the lines. The other half is channeling a little common sense. And, despite the term, it’s a lot less common than you think.”

  “So this woman is sleeping with her mailman?” I felt like a slow six-year-old learning to read.

  “Yeah. And the fact that she’s writing in at all means she’s either afraid of getting caught or she wants to dump the guy.”

  “How do you get that out of this?” I said, waving the letter in the air.

  “Because if she was in the blissful throes of an affair, she wouldn’t be taking the time to write me. The fact that she is either means it’s run its course, or she’s hit a speed bump. And since she’s married, having an affair, and living in a high-density urban area—signing the thing ‘Having My Cake in Cathedral Heights’—my take is she’s afraid someone’s gotten wise. Might be her husband. Might be a neighbor. Either way, she wants someone to tell her she can drop the boy toy and go back to hubby. Preferably without ’fessing up.”

  I hated to admit it. Marty was amazing. “Is she really from Cathedral Heights?”

  “Now you’re catching on,” he said, handing the paper back to me. “Check the e-mail address.”

  I scanned slowly. At this rate, I wouldn’t have been surprised if my lips were moving.

  “Navy.gov?!”

  “The Navy Yard,” Marty said. “Now there’s an area where everybody knows everybody’s business.”

  “So why sign it ‘Cathedral Heights’?”

  “A little extra insurance so nobody recognizes her,” he explained. “And probably where she’d like to live. Who wouldn’t? Don’t worry, kid, you know this stuff. Even if you don’t know you know it.”

  He pulled out another letter, gave it a quick read and handed it over. “Here, look at this. Tell me what you see.”

  I didn’t even know what I was looking for. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Then I opened them and read.

  “A little self-centered,” I said.

  “Good. What’s the tip-off?”

  “He uses I three times in the first paragraph.”

  “Exactly! What else?”

  “Seems like a braggart, too.”

  “Yes! How’d you get that?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just an impression.”

  “See the part where he says. ‘I don’t like to blow my own horn, but . . .’?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Anything before the word ‘but’ is suspect. Like, ‘I don’t normally judge, but . . .’ or ‘I really love my wife, but . . . ’”

  Marty was a genius. Or Margie. Frankly, I wasn’t sure exactly which of them I was dealing with today.

  “Did you, uh, talk with Baba while I was gone?” I asked.

  “Yeah, we’re cool,” he said. “She’s gonna let me make a pot roast tonight.”

  “I’m sorry, a what?”

  “Pot roast,” he said. “You live on your own, you learn to cook one or two things really well. My thing’s pot roast. She’s gonna get a nice piece of meat. I said I’d take care of the rest. Least I can do with you guys putting me up and all.”

  When I first moved out on my own, I gave myself food poisoning twice trying to learn to cook salmon. So I guess my “thing” was scrambled eggs. And coffee. And delivery pizzas.

  “OK, kid, I looked through the stack,” Marty said. “These are the three letters we want to answer today. Give ’em a read, then we’ll talk it out. Remember, glean what you can about the person writing the letter. That tells you how much you can trust your narrator. Then look at the problem they present. And take a step back. The world is always bigger than they make it. Last, what’s your common sense tell you?”

  Suddenly, it all began to click. All the years of reading Aunt Margie. All the weeks of studying the columns. Marty’s master class. I could actually do this.

  “Wah-wah-wah-waaaaaahhhhh!” Alistair.

  “Sorry, Marty, I’ve got to take care of this,” I said, bolting from the room.

  “Hey, there, little guy,” I said as I ran into the bedroom. “It’s OK. It’s OK, yeah. I know you’re missing your momma. And your Baba. And probably your Lucy, too, right? But Auntie Alex is right here,” I said, carefully lifting him out of the crib. “Yes, I am.”

  He looked at me and started crying again. Everyone’s a critic.

  I laid him on the bed just as the phone rang. Without even looking, I grabbed it off the night table.

  Big mistake.

  “Alexandra, is that a baby?” My mother.

  “The TV. A nature show. Screaming goats.”

  Alistair didn’t agree. Alistair was bawling for all he was worth. I tried waving my hands and making funny faces. I tried bouncing the bed. Nothing worked.

  “Alexandra, where did you get a baby?” Translation: Who on the face of the earth would trust you with a helpless infant?

  Fair question.

  “We’re just watching him for a neighbor. Baba had to run to the store, and . . .”

  “Your grandmother’s there? You invited her, and you didn’t invite me?”

  “I didn’t invite her. Nick and I needed a hand and . . .” There was no good way to end that sentence.

  “Oh, Nicholas is in on it, too? Let’s just throw a family reunion. But for heaven’s sake, don’t tell Mom.”

  “Nobody’s throwing a family reunion,” I shouted over the squalling. “I’m watching Alistair for a neighbor. He’s a little cranky. We asked for advice. And Baba volunteered to lend a hand. That’s all.” It sounded reasonable to me. But then my eardrums were being liquified by a screaming baby.

  “And what, she just flew there on her broomstick? You drove to Baltimore and picked her up! I only live across the District, and I never see either one of you!”

  Any wonder why?

  “Next time I have a crying baby with a full diaper, I promise you’ll be the first one I call. Look, Mom, I’ve gotta go. If I don’t stop this racket, someone’s gonna call the cops.”

  Probably me.

  I clicked off and threw the phone onto the bed. As Alistair wailed, I grabbed a diaper and wipes. I bounced him a little, as I dumped the supplies on my bed. Then I spread out one of his little blankets and laid him on it.

  All the while, Alistair howled.

  I didn’t get the whole “baby fever” thing. Sure, I think babies are cute. I also like going to the nature park to look at the hippos. But never once did I want to shove one in the back of my car and bring it home. And I kinda feel the same way about babies.

  I eyed Alistair, lying on his little blue blanket. He stared back up at me with wide blue eyes, lips pursed. He’d stopped crying. But he looked as scared as I felt.

  “Are you a little hippo? Do you want to be my little hippo?”

  He looked panicky. Then he hurled. Some kind of white goop. On the bright side, he was now grinning and waving his hands in the air.

  Oh boy. And I’m the mutant for not wanting one of these little guys?

  Chapter 31

  Marty was right: he made a mean pot roast.

  Not only did
the house smell wonderful all afternoon, but I snuck a taste, and it melted in my mouth. I called Nick and told him why he needed to come home for a dinner break. He showed up with a dozen brioche rolls, a big cherry tart (his latest experiment), and a half a bottle of Ian’s red wine for the roast itself.

  “The alcohol cooks off, but the flavor stays,” Marty assured us.

  I thought Baba would be apoplectic at the idea of sharing her kitchen. Turned out with all her Alistair-related labors, she was relieved to have someone take up the slack.

  Shows what I know.

  I was psyched. I may not be much of an Alistair wrangler, but I’d blazed through my batch of Aunt Margie letters. And Marty was tickled. I think he liked being able to pass on what he’d learned.

  Ian had popped over a couple of times to visit his son. The little guy was gold whenever he was around. And despite the fact that there was no news about Harkins, Ian seemed to be in a pretty good mood, too.

  I invited him for the meal, but he couldn’t leave the inn during dinner. So he’d promised to stop by for dessert and coffee. He showed up with a gallon of ice cream.

  We were right in the middle of dessert when there was a knock at the door.

  “That could be for me,” Marty said. “Finally got in touch with the doc’s office and found a pharmacy that delivers. They even arranged to bill the doc until I get my new credit cards.”

  “I’ll get it,” I said. “I’m closest to the door anyway.”

  Absent a dining room table, we were scattered all over the living room. Baba and Marty had TV trays in front of overstuffed chairs. Nick, Ian, and I were sharing the sofa in front of the coffee table. Lucy, ever hopeful, was under the coffee table, ready to hoover up any stray tart crumbs. And Alistair was blissfully zonked out in his crib.

  I didn’t even bother to check the peephole. I just threw open the door,

  Big mistake. A couple of months outside the newsroom, and I was already getting soft.

  My mother stood on the porch. She was wearing a Chanel suit, L’Occitane perfume, and a sour expression. But it was clear where my supermodel sister got her knockout looks.

  She stuck her beautifully coiffed, honey-blond head into the doorway and surveyed the living room. “Glad to know you’re not having a party,” she said archly.