Not a Girl Detective

by Susan Kandel

  Detective Dunphy spoke up. “If you just answer the questions, ma’am, we’ll all get out of here sooner.”

  “Don’t you ma’am me.” Lael outraged was a thing to behold, but now was probably not the time.

  “Should we be contacting our lawyers?” asked Bridget, who was sweating profusely, as if she were already locked up in a Third World prison. “Don’t we get a phone call?”

  “Don’t be silly, Bridget,” I said. “We aren’t suspects. Right, Detective Lasarow?”

  She glanced at her partner.

  “Not yet, Ms. Caruso.”

  They were so cool, these two. But Edgar was dead, and they were wasting precious time. Surely we didn’t look like the type of lowlifes they usually dealt with. My bikini was by Dolce and Gabbana.

  “Okay. You were invited here by Mr. Edwards. But he wasn’t planning to be in town.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But he showed up unexpectedly.”

  “According to Clarissa Olsen, yes.”

  “Spell it.”

  Come on. “O-L-S-E-N.”

  “And she said what?”

  “She told me Edgar was here, in Palm Springs. He was planning to give a talk at her conference at the hotel. But I never saw him. He canceled his talk. Or she axed him, I don’t know.” Bad choice of words. But she was pretty riled up about something.

  “So back when he didn’t think he was coming he gave you a key.”

  “Yes.”

  “You and your girlfriends were supposed to let yourselves in.”

  “Correct.”

  “And you did. Last night.”

  “Correct.”

  “And where is that key?”

  Here was the sticky part. “I lost it.”

  Detective Lasarow sent a meaningful glance to Detective Dunphy, who promptly started a new page in her notepad.

  “I think the key fell out of her purse at the Wyndham,” volunteered Lael. “We had it this morning when we left. I remember seeing Cece lock up. But we didn’t have it when we came back this afternoon. We had to go around the back. The gate was open.”

  “Did you leave the gate open when you left?”

  “I’m not sure. I don’t even think it locks.”

  “Why are you all cut up, Ms. Caruso?”

  I looked down guiltily at my hand. She didn’t know about the foot, of course. “I told you. Bridget broke a glass yesterday in the kitchen.”

  “By accident,” Bridget insisted.

  “Of course it was by accident,” I said. “Anyway, I went inside to make some calls after noticing the bedroom door open, and I cut myself.”

  “Must’ve been a pretty big piece of glass.”

  “I can’t sweep to save my life,” said Bridget.

  “Actually, you did a great job. The crime scene guys didn’t find so much as a splinter.”

  Bridget looked pleased until she realized what Detective Lasarow was implying. I was fed up. We hadn’t done anything and these glorified meter maids had nothing—not a shred of evidence—to suggest otherwise.

  “Just stop this,” I said, my voice trembling. “Forget about us and find Edgar’s boyfriend, for god’s sake! What are his jeans doing in the bedroom without him in them?”

  Everyone turned to look at me.

  “How do you know whose jeans those are in the bedroom?”

  How embarrassing. “He was wearing them when we met, on Wednesday, I guess it was.”

  Detective Dunphy could barely contain her excitement. With some color in her cheeks, she looked more like a Cindy. Her partner took over with the pen and pad.

  “And you recognized them, glancing through a half-open door, crumpled in a heap on the floor?”

  “Cece is very good with clothes,” said Bridget.

  “That means a lot, coming from you,” I said.

  “Okay, okay,” said Detective Dunphy. “You girls can save that stuff for the Wyndham.”

  “Excuse me?” Lael said. “Excuse me? Did you say what I think you did? That’s sexual harassment. We could report you for that.”

  “Sorry. I just assumed.”

  “That was totally inappropriate,” Lael said. She loved this sort of thing. A righteous cause. “How dare you?”

  Mindy Lasarow took back the reins. Cindy Dunphy looked chagrined. “So, was Wednesday the day you were given the key?”

  “Yes. Look, just call the boyfriend, curator, whatever. His name is Mitchell Honey. He was there that day. He’ll vouch for me.”

  “The boyfriend whose pants you saw? How can I call him? You said he’s missing.”

  “Those are Jake’s pants. I’m talking about the other boyfriend. Mitchell Honey would never fit into those pants.”

  And Mitchell Honey would never vouch for me. He hated me, plus he hadn’t actually been there when Edgar had pressed the key into my hands. He probably knew nothing about it. I thought back to my conversation with him on the phone Thursday morning. He’d been really concerned about Edgar giving me something. Maybe he had known about the key. Why would he care? For that matter, why had Edgar given it to me if he was planning to use the house himself? I guessed I’d never know. One thing was for sure. Mitchell was going to believe the absolute worst of me. That I’d broken into the house with my desperado girlfriends. That I’d shot Edgar. That I’d done something equally horrific to Jake, but only after stealing his pants. I hoped Jake was all right. Where could he be? Maybe back in L.A., with Mitchell. The two of them would really be stuck with each other now.

  The detectives consulted their notepads one last time, then stood up. They were finished with us. We shook hands without meaning it. They gave us permission to return home but advised us, in the strongest language possible, to stay in touch. To be available for further questioning. And not to be foolish. A serious crime had been committed, and we were to conduct ourselves accordingly. I found that last part a bit obscure. I wondered if they were trying to tell us that we were no longer suspects. Or maybe it was routine procedure for homicide detectives to remind people to watch their backs.

  Two uniformed cops took over from there. They helped us pack up our things, fished my apparently waterproof cell phone out of the bottom of the pool with a net they’d found in the storage shed (three messages from Gambino), then escorted us out to Maynard’s car. What a road trip this had turned out to be. Lael switched on the radio so we didn’t have to talk to one another, which would’ve been a good idea except that I was distracted by the sudden blast of rockabilly and ran over the yellow crime scene tape on the way down the pebbled drive.

  I was a little offended that nobody believed I’d done it by accident.

  12

  The next few days Gambino and I were all about crossed signals. I finally caught up with him Wednesday morning at his desk. But we’d barely said hello when his partner showed up, champing at the bit. They were working a double homicide, two men found dead in a burning car. It had taken them out to Yucaipa three times since Saturday night, and they were on their way out there again. He knew I had something important to tell him, and asked me to be patient. I wanted to be patient, but I was afraid that if much more time passed I’d lose my nerve.

  Looked like it’d been a good week for the grim reaper. Besides the twosome Gambino had told me about, the newspaper was full of inventors, mathematicians, retired army lieutenant generals, prizewinning horticulturists, and theatrical producers all winging their way to the hereafter. Poor Edgar’s obituary didn’t make it into the L.A. Times until Thursday.

  I read it with my morning coffee.

  Edgar Edwards was born in Teaneck, New Jersey, the only child of a machinist and a homemaker. As a teenager, he played sax. After graduating from high school, he moved to Chicago and worked as a hospital orderly during the day while fronting a local band at night. He was good. But it was in the early seventies that his lucky streak began. He won $15,000 in the state lottery and within ten years had parlayed it into a fortune in real estate, buyin
g up buildings in Chicago’s warehouse district when they were cheap and riding the gentrification wave all the way to the bank.

  I dropped an English muffin into the toaster and read on.

  Edgar brought his sax with him to California, a retiree at forty. He took a crash course in art history at UCLA, then threw himself into collecting. He was catholic in his tastes: plein air painting, Mayan carvings, documentary photography. I’d seen only a fraction of what he’d amassed.

  Several works from his British art pottery collection were considered masterpieces, promised gifts to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. “Edgar had a voracious appetite,” said a prominent dealer from San Francisco. “Once he believed in something, he wouldn’t let it go.” The director of a small Kunsthalle in Cologne claimed that “he could see through to the insides of things, not merely on their outsides,” which had to have lost something in the translation. A curator of Japanese art and antiquities at the L.A. County Museum commented that Edgar had “that rarest of talents, the ability to recognize true quality.” Probably true, but I’ll bet she was after those Edo fans, the ghoul.

  My muffin popped up, a little burnt around the edges. I scraped the black parts into the sink. I hadn’t known this, but Edgar was on the board of JazzFest L.A. and the Children’s Museum, and was active in several AIDS charities. It didn’t seem fair. He was a good guy whose luck had run out too soon.

  Services were to be held Thursday afternoon at Hollywood Forever Memorial Park, with a private reception to follow at the home of the deceased. The executor of the estate, Mitchell Honey, asked that in lieu of flowers, donations in Edgar’s memory be sent to the charity of one’s choice. That didn’t sound like the Mitchell Honey I knew. Then again, he had all those allergies. Probably didn’t want any more pollen around him than necessary.

  There were no immediate survivors.

  I made quick work of my muffin, washed my plate and cup, and placed them on the dish rack to dry. Then I went to the hall closet and pulled Buster’s leash from its hook. The little guy raced to the door, leaping and yapping with excitement. I think we both needed some air.

  It was a beautiful day, which contrary to popular opinion not all of them are around here. August and September are too hot; June is known for its gloom; January, February, and March bring the rain; but April can be as perfect as early July, and today was one of those perfect days.

  I sucked in the air, greedy for oxygen. Ever since getting back from Palm Springs I’d been having a hard time sleeping. I was so tired. The phone never stopped ringing. Who did I think murdered Edgar? Could I speculate on the missing Jake Waite? Too bad about his solicitation arrest. It was several years back, but it still didn’t look good. Unlike Jake’s mug shot, which I have to say did him justice. Still, rough sex gone bad seemed to be a prospect no news reporter could resist.

  Then there was everyone I’d ever met, wanting to bring me a casserole. Annie and Vincent beat them all to the punch. Dinner had been waiting on my doorstep every night this week: I had no idea tofu could be so versatile. My mother took a different tack. She called several times, then FedExed me a two-pound box of dark chocolate turtles with a note reading something to the effect of, did I not care that my shenanigans were sending her blood pressure through the roof? I suppose it was comforting to know that solipsism was alive and well in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

  Buster started pulling me across the street. He’d spied Scarlett, an attractive standard poodle from around the corner. She towered over him, but Buster liked a challenge.

  “Hello, Buster!” said Melanie, Scarlett’s owner. She was carrying a fistful of plastic bags and a half-gallon jug of water. “How are you today? You’re looking very frisky.”

  In West Hollywood you address the dog, not the human. I didn’t dare break protocol with Melanie, who was unnaturally attached to her pet.

  “Hello, Scarlett,” I said. “You look like you’ve just been groomed.”

  “I have,” said Melanie. “And Mommy and I are exercising this morning so we can’t chat for long.”

  I was about to throw up when Pushkin, the sex-crazed Siberian husky from down the street, showed up. After the requisite greetings, Buster and I beat a hasty retreat.

  We were headed for Book Soup. The new edition of The Chicago Manual of Style was hot off the presses, and I’d special-ordered a copy. What can I say? Strange things excite me. Like the fact that the comma is omitted after short introductory adverbial phrases unless misreading is likely. And that cross-country gets a hyphen and crossover does not. But maybe everybody’s interested in such things.

  I was partial to the scenic route so we took the steep detour up La Cienega to Sunset Plaza, a Eurotrash oasis smack-dab in the middle of the Sunset Strip. The Strip was the fabled home of rock clubs and runaways; Sunset Plaza was more moneyed if equally sleazy. It attracted, among other colorful types, a sizable contingent of tanned Italian sexpots with dachshunds in their purses, along with the ne’er-do-well younger sons of deposed dictators trying to get into said sexpots’ Versace jeans.

  Buster enjoyed the ambience.

  I’d planned on stopping for a chocolate croissant, but there was a middle-aged man with a ponytail sitting out front at Clafoutis who gave me the kind of grin that kills appetites. Maybe I should go there more often, I thought, tugging at the waistband of my skirt. Today I’d gone Andalusian retro, with my hair pulled back into a bun, an off-the-shoulder blouse, and a matching silk chiffon skirt with tiered ruffles. The skirt was a size too small, but beggars can’t be choosers when you’re talking marked-down Prada. I passed on the pastry and flounced down Sunset past Holloway to the bookstore, one of the best in the area.

  While I waited at the back counter for my book, I wondered about Edgar. There were no immediate survivors, the paper had said. So who was going to get it all? The houses. The art. The Blue Nancys. The painting of Grace Horton. Shoot, I’d never had a chance to speak to Edgar about reproducing it in my book. I wondered if Mitchell could give me permission. Right. I’m sure he’d bend over backward to help me out.

  “Excuse me?” I asked, my patience wearing thin. “Did you find that book yet?” The clerk had taken several phone calls since I’d been standing there, and was now engaged in a spirited debate with a coworker about the year Francis Ford Coppola’s Rumble Fish had been released. He held up his index finger. What did that mean? One minute? I walked over to the fashion section to wait. Some leisurely pace they kept around there.

  “Cece?” The voice came from behind a top-heavy rack of paperbacks. “I’m over here.”

  I peered around a pile of books on animal prints.

  “Andrew?” It was Bridget’s intern, bearing little resemblance to the sexy layabout of the other day. There were beads of perspiration on his upper lip and his clothes were wrinkled. “What are you doing, scaring me like that? Don’t tell me you’re playing hooky?”

  “It’s my day off, and I followed you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I followed you, from your house. I wish you hadn’t taken the long way. I’m in a hurry.”

  “Does Bridget know you’re crazy?”

  “I’m not crazy. I need you to come home with me.”

  He had a lot of cojones. “Hold it right there. Bridget is one of my best friends, as you very well know, not to mention the fact that I have a boyfriend. A policeman!” Buster started barking. He knew when I was upset. Not that he was much of a Gambino fan.

  “Calm down. It’s not what you think. But we didn’t know who else to turn to.”

  “We? Who’s we?”

  “Jake and I.” He paused, waiting for it to sink in.

  “Andrew,” I whispered, stealing a glance in either direction. “Are you talking about Jake Waite?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Jake’s in trouble, and you have to help him.”

  “Me? You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I’m not.”

  I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was a
tall man in a Burberry raincoat. “Can you point me to Sylvia Plath?”

  “Bugger off,” I said rudely. We waited for him to move on, which took forever.

  “I am dead serious, Andrew,” I said, turning back to him. “Do you know where Jake is? Because if you do, you have to tell him he’s got to go to the police. He’s got to turn himself in. Throw himself on their mercy. He’s making this much worse for himself.”

  “He’s innocent, Cece. He didn’t kill Edgar. I’ve known Jake for years, and believe me, he doesn’t have it in him. But he’s scared. He’s got a record. You know what the papers are saying.”

  “All the more reason he should come forward.”

  “You must be kidding. Do you really believe that’s how it works?” He started plucking at the buttons on his shirt. “I told Jake this was a bad idea,” he said, shaking his head. “Regardless of what Edgar thought.”

  “Edgar?”

  “Jake says Edgar spoke very highly of you. He thought you were a decent person, which was high praise coming from him.”

  Even though I barely knew Edgar, I felt the same way about him.

  “What does Jake want me to do?” I asked in a low voice.

  “He wants to talk to you, face-to-face.”

  “Where is he?”

  “At my apartment. Are you coming?”

  Consorting with a known criminal. Aiding and abetting a fugitive from justice. Accessorizing (or whatever) after the fact. My rap sheet was getting longer by the minute.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  FOR SOMEONE WITH the face of an angel, Andrew drove like a bat out of hell. We must’ve hit every red light between West Hollywood and Echo Park, which might have slowed down the average person, but not this guy. He glanced right and left, and if no one was coming he just kept right on going, fifty miles an hour down Sunset Boulevard, which I truly didn’t think was possible. By the time we got to his place, I was totally discombobulated. But it was less the driving pyrotechnics than the prospect of seeing Jake. Actually, of being alone in an apartment with a suspected killer and someone who knew him from the good old days—the good old hustling days, that would be.