Not a Girl Detective

by Susan Kandel

  I had at least two of those.

  Bridget went into the back and came out with a white box trimmed in blue.

  “Change into these.”

  “Excuse me, I am not an employee.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Have you ever read Frankenstein?”

  “I’ve seen the movie.”

  “Never mind, then.” I opened the box. Inside was a pair of burgundy suede peep-toed platforms.

  “They’re gorgeous, but aren’t we just about to go shoe shopping?”

  She sighed. “You can’t go shoe shopping in bad shoes. It’s not done.”

  The platforms did go better with my outfit.

  While I tested out their pain quotient by jogging in place, Bridget walked to the back of the shop to activate the alarm system.

  “Cece,” she called, “while you’re up there, can you turn off the lights? And grab my wallet from Andrew’s desk? Watch the drawer. It sticks.”

  “Sure,” I said, bending over to rub my hand across the back of my ankle. No incipient blisters. That was good news. I hit the switch and watched the lights in the display window go down, plunging a tiny teal ruched mini by Giorgio di Sant’ Angelo into darkness. The discotheque was now closed.

  “Where’s Andrew, by the way?”

  “Poor thing is out sick. Some flu that’s going around.”

  Nice excuse. I guess the flu sounded better than babysitting a fugitive.

  I sat down at Andrew’s desk. What a fastidious fellow. There were piles of small papers and piles of large papers and piles of medium-size papers with no overlap whatsoever. Paper clips in a magnetized paper-clip holder. Pencils as sharp as daggers. But it was when I opened the drawer that I was really surprised, and not because it was a mess. I already knew that appearances could be deceiving.

  I was surprised because there, in Andrew’s desk, right under Bridget’s wallet, was a shiny gold key—the same shiny gold key I thought I’d lost, the one that opened the door to Edgar Edwards’s Palm Springs death house.

  16

  What took you guys so long?” asked Lael, studying her feet. She had a chocolate brown T-strap on the left one and an apple green T-strap on the right. “After two drinks,” she said, waving a martini at me, “these shoes seem downright cheap. I do believe I need both colors.”

  “That’s the spirit!” exclaimed Bridget, raising her pink lady aloft. She pushed me into the red leather booth with her spare hand and slid in after me. “I’d given up on you, Lael, but this place gets ’em every time.”

  Star Shoes on Hollywood and Ivar was one of those hybrid spots that shoot up in this town as fast as weeds by the side of the freeway: Laundromat/Internet cafés, wig shop/travel agencies, UPS drop spot/piñata outlets. I suppose it makes good sense, parking being at such a premium in Los Angeles. And with its inventory of 100,000 pairs of inverted wedgies, buckled boots, and faux crocodile pumps, designed by the late, legendary Joseph LaRose of Florida, who’d numbered Joan Crawford and Betty Grable among his clients, Star Shoes was a better place than most to park your vehicle, at least for some of us. And now even Lael—level-headed Lael—had crossed over to the dark side.

  “Those are awful,” she proclaimed, pointing to a pair of two-toned Mary Janes in the display case opposite us. “And these are my rejects,” she said, indicating the mess on the floor.

  “Fine work,” said Bridget.

  I tore my attention away from the Jetsonsesque light fixtures, which reminded me of the ones in our dining room in Asbury Park. “Speaking of work, exactly how long has Andrew been out sick?”

  “I don’t remember,” said Bridget, turning back to her tipsy protégée. “What’s your opinion of those over there?” She pointed to a pair of suede elf boots with fur trim that someone had left at the table next to ours. Lael recoiled in horror. “Correct,” said Bridget, elated. “Do you want another Diet Coke, Cece? I’m getting another.” She started to get up.

  I’d decided to keep my wits about me, given my unfortunate Visa situation. “No, I’m fine, thanks. Has it been a couple of days, or more?”

  “I said I don’t know.”

  I reached out for her hand. “Bridget. Do you think he was sick last weekend, when we were in Palm Springs? Stuck in bed, maybe?”

  “What’s your problem with Andrew?” Bridget said, snatching her hand back. “Why don’t you just spit it out, Cece? If you really want to know, it’s insulting just how negative you’ve been about the whole thing. So what if Andrew’s younger than I am? Am I such a hag that a younger man couldn’t find me attractive?”

  Lael was looking at me like I was Adolf Hitler.

  “That’s not what I’m implying. Not at all. You know me. I’m just nosy.”

  “That’s for sure,” she said, barely mollified.

  How could I explain to her that I had to know where Andrew had been last weekend? Had he followed us to Palm Springs? And messed up Maynard’s car? And eaten our lobster sandwiches? (Which were not waiting on my counter when we came home, by the way, but Buster could have been responsible, I suppose.) Had he actually stolen that gold key out of my purse? I’d meant to take it back, but Bridget had suddenly materialized at my side, and I’d gotten all flustered and shut the drawer, missing my chance. Dumb. Very dumb. But even if I could be absolutely certain Andrew had taken it, did that necessarily mean he was a murderer?

  No. I refused to believe it was possible. But what were Andrew and Jake up to? They certainly weren’t the brightest bulbs, trying to get money out of Edgar’s ATM. Then something else came to me. Could they have been the ones who’d broken into my house before we even left for Palm Springs? Lois had said two men, carrying a birthday present. Andrew and Jake were two men.

  “Cece.”

  Bridget was waiting for an explanation.

  “Maybe,” I said, stalling for time, “well, maybe I’m asking all these questions because I have a crush on Andrew.” I looked down bashfully.

  Lael studied me with narrowed eyes.

  “Of course you have a crush on him,” said Bridget. One could never go wrong appealing to this woman’s vanity. “He’s very attractive. But hands off. You’ve got one of your own.”

  “I know,” I said. “And he’s very attractive, too.”

  “I’ll say,” said Lael.

  I studied her this time.

  “Oh, Cece. You know I like them less beefy.”

  “Gambino’s not beefy.”

  “You’ve got to admit he’s big,” Bridget said.

  “Herculean.”

  “Ah, yes, herculean.”

  “Can we leave now?” I asked.

  “I’m hungry.” Bridget picked up her purse.

  “I vote for In N Out,” said Lael. There was one close by, across the street from Hollywood High. Five minutes tops.

  We walked out into the brisk night air. A crowd had gathered in front of the club next door, where they were doing a makeup promotion. There were posters of disembodied pink lips plastered to the brick wall. A model in purple latex twirled on a makeshift stage, smacking her own surgically enhanced lips for the cameras. As we passed by, someone handed each of us a goody bag with a small pot of lip gloss at the bottom.

  Lael unscrewed the top of hers. “It’s scented,” she said, sniffing. “Spearmint…and strawberry, I think.”

  “Chuck it immediately,” said Bridget, pointing to a trash can.

  Indeed. In number 23, The Mystery of the Tolling Bell, one learns that complimentary makeup never looks good, especially when applied by a gypsy pushing a cart.

  “Let’s take my car, since it’s right here,” I said, pulling my keys out of my bag. “We’ll drive you back to your car afterward, Lael.”

  “Okay.”

  And then I saw Mitchell Honey emerge from the crowd, swinging a goody bag of his own.

  “It’s Mitchell! Duck!” I yelped, dragging Lael and Bridget behind a white van parked next to my car. Mitchell crossed the street, heading west, away
from the bondage shops. He was easy to track. His bald head glowed like a beacon in the night.

  “Why are we ducking?” asked Bridget.

  “I don’t want him to see us,” I said.

  “Why?” asked Lael.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “I’m hungry,” Bridget repeated. “This is stupid.”

  “C’mon,” I said, pushing them into my car while keeping one eye glued to Mitchell. “Hurry up. He’s leaving. We’re going to lose him.”

  Mitchell climbed into an old blue Jaguar and attempted to pull out into traffic. It was Friday night and Hollywood Boulevard was mobbed. The city had recently passed an anticruising ordinance, obviously to no avail. But that was a good thing. There was no way Mitchell would be able to get away.

  “Whoa! What are you doing?” Bridget asked, clutching at the passenger-side door.

  “I’m making a U-turn, of course.”

  “In this traffic?”

  Drivers in Los Angeles are, generally speaking, a courteous lot. And uncannily attuned to their fellow drivers. They know to back off when a nut job is in the vicinity.

  They backed off.

  There was only one car between us now. I could see Mitchell perfectly when I craned my neck outside my window, which only worked at stoplights for obvious reasons. I think he was fiddling with the stereo. Everybody’s window was open and everybody’s stereo was blaring. Hip-hop, Christian rock, Tejano ballads. I was getting a headache.

  “You’ve just passed In N Out.”

  “You’re obsessed with food, Bridget. We’re on a mission now. There’s no time.”

  “What mission exactly are we talking about?”

  Lael said, “Perhaps if you explained yourself a little better, Cece.”

  “Edgar is dead! Isn’t that enough?”

  “It’s enough,” they said in unison.

  Mitchell’s car crawled along Hollywood until La Brea, where he pulled a quick right. I was stuck on red, behind the same Chevy truck that had been between us since Ivar, and I was getting pretty darned tired of looking at the decal in the rear window of that little cartoon guy, Calvin, peeing on a Ford. I tapped my fingers on the wheel. Finally, the light changed and I zoomed up and over to La Brea, scanning the street for Mitchell, whom I caught sight of a few cars ahead. He’d been stuck on red, too. I zigzagged into position, and slumped a little in my seat.

  “Slump, you guys.”

  “He doesn’t know us,” Bridget said.

  “Fine. Don’t slump.”

  “All right. We’re slumping.” Bridget turned around to look at Lael. “Get with the program.”

  Now Mitchell was heading deep into the hills. Great. The hills. Isolated houses. No sidewalks. Hairpin turns. Maybe I should see someone, but I feel trapped if I can’t see down the full length of a block to the cross traffic beyond.

  “Cece, pay attention,” Lael said. “He’s gone down that narrow, windy street.”

  “Of course he has.” Mitchell had turned onto a narrow, windy street that would surely lead onto many other narrow, windy streets. Like I said, the hills were loathsome. But so far so good. I hung back some so as not to be conspicuous, and I knew that if he happened to take a good look in his rearview mirror we were goners, but luck was on our side. He drove like an old lady, nice and slow and oblivious.

  And then I made my first big mistake of the evening. The last narrow, windy street Mitchell turned down was not a narrow, windy street at all. It was somebody’s very long driveway. Somebody who lived in a big white mansion with tall white columns. Somebody with a Rottweiler, probably. And there was no way out.

  The motor court was full of expensive cars. Mitchell parked behind a silver Bentley. I cut the motor, turned off the lights, and assessed the situation.

  “It looks like Tara,” said Bridget.

  “Or a government auction,” Lael offered.

  “Down, down!” I whispered. Mitchell was getting out of his car. He walked up to the front door, then turned around.

  “What’s he doing?” asked Lael.

  “I don’t know.”

  He walked back to his car, opened his trunk, and pulled out a smallish, squarish package.

  “Hostess gift?” Bridget asked.

  “Mail-order smoked salmon,” Lael answered.

  He headed back to the front door.

  I turned around. “Okay, when he goes inside, we back down the driveway and get out of here.” We had accomplished nothing, of course.

  “Cece, he’s not going in,” Lael said.

  “He’s walking this way!” Bridget was clutching at the door again. “You better switch into reverse!”

  But it was too late for that. One minute I was stealth incarnate, the next minute Mitchell Honey was knocking on my window.

  “Ms. Caruso, is that you?”

  I rolled the window down. “Mitchell! What a surprise!”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “We’re looking for the…Ellerbee house,” I said calmly.

  “Ellis Ellerbee,” Bridget said, “the famous record producer.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “He’s a mogul, a cigar-puffer. He lives right around here,” Lael said. “Right around here somewhere.” She produced a map. “On…Ellington Street.”

  I grabbed the map from her. “We’ve been looking for the place for an hour, and then I think…I think we must’ve fallen asleep.”

  Bridget stretched her arms over her head and yawned. “Time change.”

  “We just flew in from Norway,” Lael said.

  “Visiting relatives,” Bridget said.

  “Mine, not hers,” Lael explained.

  “You know those circadian rhythms,” I said. “Once they’re out of sync, you’re sunk.”

  Mitchell picked some lint off his jacket. “I thought I recognized your car from the other day.”

  Now how was that possible? When I’d first visited the house on Carroll Avenue I’d been driving Maynard’s Caddy. Maybe he meant the memorial service. But I was sure he hadn’t seen me arrive.

  “Why don’t you come in and have a drink? To revive yourselves. A friend is having a little party.”

  “Great,” said Bridget, practically leaping out of the car. She loved a party.

  “What about Elliott Ellerbee?” I protested, fighting the inevitable.

  “Ellis. It was a cocktail thing. It’s over now.”

  “Right.”

  I opened my door and a rush of wind blew my skirt up around my waist. Would this evening never end? I yanked it back down, not that Mitchell was barking up that alley. He introduced himself to Bridget and Lael, and we followed him to the front door.

  He pushed the buzzer.

  Bridget yawned energetically.

  “Just tell me one thing.” Mitchell was staring straight ahead. His voice was soft. “How the hell did you find out about Asher Farrell?”

  17

  Asher Farrell did not have a Rottweiler. What he did have was a prison record, not that I discriminate against ex-cons. But it’s a good thing to know what you’re up against.

  A big-time contemporary art dealer, Asher Farrell had started out peddling Lladró figurines, only to discover he had a gift for catering to rich people’s insecurities. And an “eye,” which I think meant he could see dollar signs where the rest of us could only see, say, collages made of cut-up Wonder bread bags. He’d been married half a dozen times, to increasingly beautiful actresses, several of whom went into early retirement when he was done with them. As for the prison record, it was a short stay in a minimum-security facility. Farrell blamed an overzealous accountant, but tax fraud, it would seem to me, was tax fraud. The thing is, the man was a looker, and people will forgive a looker anything.

  I’d read that in a profile in People magazine.

  The inside of Asher Farrell’s house did not match the outside. It had been hollowed out like a pumpkin, painstakingly scraped down to the drywall. Must’ve been an ae
sthetic statement. We went down a couple of steps to the living room, which had been consecrated to two very large abstract paintings. There was a tufted white leather chaise in the middle of the room, but otherwise it was unfurnished.

  Mitchell went to disengage our host from a woman wrapped in a formfitting white dress. It might’ve been sterile gauze. Hard to tell. He gestured in our direction. Farrell took Mitchell’s package, looked over at us, and grinned. That’s when Lael began radiating pheromones. I was getting hot and twitchy just standing next to her. This wouldn’t do at all. I tried to pull her toward the bar cart in the next room, but the damage had been done. Farrell was heading our way.

  “He’s trouble,” I whispered in her ear.

  She was breathing so hard she couldn’t hear me.

  He walked straight up to Lael and looked at her, his eyes translucent, glittering even. Oh, please. She wasn’t going to fall for that. His longish dark hair was slicked back and he was wearing a black suit that fit him like a glove. His white shirt was unbuttoned one button too many, a ploy obviously designed to put his chest hair on display. I would have recommended a depilatory, if asked.

  He tore his gaze away from Lael and addressed yours truly. “I think we saw each other at Edgar’s memorial service.” He put out his hand.

  “Did we?” I shook it. Of course. He’d been the one wearing dark glasses, the one who’d arrived with Mitchell. “Yes, you’re right. It’s so nice to see you again.”

  “I’m so pleased you could be here.”

  I wondered if he said that to all his trespassers. Farrell shook hands with Bridget, too, and they chatted for a moment. It turned out that they knew some people in common, and he was familiar with her store. I looked over at Mitchell, who was standing at his right elbow. Poor guy. Born to be the toady of a powerful man.

  “Mitchell,” said Farrell, shaking him off expertly, “get Cece and Bridget something to drink.” He took Lael by the hand. “I want this one all to myself.”

  Mitchell watched them go, then fabricated an excuse to get away from us. Bridget and I found ourselves marooned under a massive color photograph of the interior of a 99 Cent store.