Not a Girl Detective

by Susan Kandel

  He said nothing.

  “I’m warning you, Asher.”

  He started walking toward me.

  “Don’t take another step.”

  There wasn’t anyplace for me to go. There wasn’t anyplace I could hide.

  “Look at Grace Horton. How lovely she is,” I said. “It will all have been for nothing if you let me do this.”

  He took another step.

  It had cost Edgar his life, this painting of Grace Horton. Gambino had once asked me what it had meant to Edgar. He owned dozens of beautiful things: why did this one matter?

  Grace posed as Nancy, who was brilliant like the sun. But Grace wasn’t Nancy; she was Grace, and fickle like the moon. Quicksilver. What Edgar saw in the painting was a woman who didn’t want to be true to type, all of a piece, constant. What he saw in Grace was his own restless spirit.

  I looked at the painting one last time. Was I willing to destroy it? Them both? Then I noticed something. A speck of dirt clinging to Grace’s ankle. I went to brush it off, but it wasn’t dirt. It was something painted onto the canvas.

  A zipper.

  A tiny, curving zipper, perfectly placed to allow Grace to slither in and out of her own skin.

  Jesus. This painting wasn’t by Russell Tandy. It was by Salvador Dalí, too.

  Salvador Dalí, the man who had understood Grace all too well.

  I was so blind. I’d seen only part of it. Dalí had staged a painting contest, yes; but not against his old drinking buddy, Russell Tandy. He’d staged a contest against himself.

  Dalí versus Dalí.

  It was the only way he could be sure he’d win. The only way he’d know the crown of laurel leaves would be his.

  Suddenly, there was a clatter from the staircase.

  “Cece!”

  “Stay where you are, hon, we’re coming!”

  “Careful!”

  “They need Tomas in here to fix these steps.”

  Bridget and Lael.

  “Who the fuck is that?” Asher asked, turning around. In that split second I could see him start to lose his balance.

  “The cavalry, you asshole,” I yelled as I bent down, dropped the paintings, picked up The Chicago Manual of Style, and hurled it at him with all my might.

  Who knew I had perfect aim?

  36

  Let’s go over the whole thing again,” Lael said.

  “We like the part where we save the day,” Bridget prompted. “Tell that part again.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m getting us refills and then I’m going to tell that part again.”

  It was Friday morning, and we were at the Farmers Market on Third and Fairfax, an L.A. institution since the thirties. In the old days, farmers used to park their trucks on the undeveloped land and sell produce to the locals. These days, it was tourists who spilled out of state-of-the-art motor coaches to marvel at the monster strawberries. The regulars—sitcom writers, rock-and-rollers, aggressive retirees—liked to feign nonchalance, but it was obvious that even for them, breakfast at the Farmers Market was akin to a sacrament. We weren’t regulars but knew enough to arrive early if we didn’t want to duke it out with the old ladies for one of the good tables near Bob’s Coffee and Doughnuts.

  I returned to the table with three coffees and a pink box.

  “We’re celebrating,” I said, handing around doughnuts. “There’s three for each of us, two for the pigeons, and one for the memory of James Dean.”

  Legend has it that James Dean ate breakfast at Bob’s the day of his fatal car crash.

  “Delicious,” said Lael, getting powdered sugar all over her blouse.

  “All right,” I said, sitting down. “He was about to kill me.”

  “Shoot you dead without mercy,” Bridget interrupted. “It’s the details that make the story.”

  “He was about to shoot me dead without mercy. He owed the government eight million dollars.”

  “Honey, that’s really getting all over you,” Bridget said. “Here.” She handed Lael a napkin.

  “You only get two hours free with a validation, ladies. Shall we get on with it?”

  “Sorry,” said Bridget.

  “It was the money or the slammer. He needed that painting. I was a goner. I wouldn’t be here today if my two best friends, my stouthearted chums, hadn’t charged in like the cavalry.”

  Bridget beamed.

  “It was a phone call that alerted you to my situation.”

  “A phone call from Mitchell,” said Bridget.

  “Go away, now! Shoo!” said Lael. A pigeon had landed on her green wooden shopping cart and was about to go after the loaf of rye she’d just bought at J and T Bread Bin.

  “Excuse me,” said a good-looking guy at the next table, looking deeply into Lael’s eyes. “Do you need any help?” Another one bites the dust.

  “No, thank you,” she replied, but without her usual sparkle.

  Bridget cleared her throat. “I thought we were focusing here.”

  “Right. So Mitchell remembered about your shop and called you there around ten in the morning. His housekeeper, Miss Vasquez, had gotten him on his cell at yoga class. The guru was probably apoplectic.”

  “You don’t call them gurus,” said Lael.

  “As Cece was saying,” Bridget interrupted, “the housekeeper told Mitchell she’d let a woman into the house, a very odd woman who’d wanted to take a look around the attic. The housekeeper was worried she’d made a mistake, but this very odd woman talked so fast and was so insistent, she couldn’t think straight. Mitchell said that sounded exactly like you.”

  “It does,” Lael said, nodding. “You misjudged him, but he didn’t misjudge you.”

  I decided to let that one pass. She was in some mood.

  “Anyway,” Bridget continued, “he called me. He wanted to give me a chance to get you out of there before he called the police.”

  “I think he had a sense something might be wrong,” I said. “That I might be in trouble.”

  “We rang the bell a few times, but there was no answer.”

  “Asher Farrell sent Mrs. Ramirez away,” I said.

  “So we let ourselves in.”

  “Bridget.”

  “Don’t stop me now. I’m on a roll.”

  “No, I want to apologize about Andrew.”

  She let out a sigh. “All right.”

  “That night you had me look in Andrew’s desk for your wallet? I saw the missing key from Palm Springs in there. I was worried you might be in over your head with Andrew.”

  “You found the what in where?”

  “The gold key Edgar gave me. In Andrew’s desk.”

  “There was a gold key in there all right, but it wasn’t what you think it was.”

  “It wasn’t?” I put down my doughnut.

  “It was a key to my house. I had it made for Andrew. I left it in there as a surprise for him.”

  What kind of idiot thinks she can tell one key from another? Jeez. I wanted to slap myself. Luckily, I didn’t have to. Bridget would tend to that. I knew what was coming next. She was going to get huffy. Imperious. Make me pay for leaping to conclusions. But there was none of that. She was actually squirming in her seat.

  “What is it, Bridget?”

  “I should tell you something, too.”

  “What?”

  “Andrew was with me the whole time.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, not the whole time. He showed up at my place Tuesday, after I saw you. He was in my bedroom while those miserable cops were grilling me.”

  How could that be?

  “Andrew was hiding in the kitchen that night when Asher came to his place to kill Jake, only Andrew didn’t know it was Asher. He had no idea who Asher even was. And it all happened so fast, by the time Andrew came out of the kitchen, Asher was gone. Andrew thought Jake was dead. He didn’t know what to do. He ran out of the apartment and just started driving. He wound up at a twenty-four-hour co
ffee shop on Ventura Boulevard. He sat there for hours, drinking coffee. That was when he called me to say he’d had an emergency and wasn’t coming in to work.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “After you left the store, he showed up. He didn’t know what he was doing. He only knew he needed to see me.” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Cece. I should’ve told you right away. I should’ve had more faith in you.”

  Lael finally spoke up. “I slept with that man.”

  Bridget and I looked at each other.

  “I don’t have a lot of regrets, but I regret that.” She looked down at her lap.

  “Lael,” I said, reaching for her hand.

  “Forget it,” she said, screwing up her face.

  “You didn’t know.”

  “I didn’t want to know.”

  “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you, Lael.”

  “She’s right,” Bridget said. “It’s just like in frigging Nancy Drew. Us girls against the world. What could be better?”

  I laughed. “Life isn’t exactly like that.”

  “Women do need men,” said Lael, wiping her eyes.

  “What I meant was, where’s the happy ending?”

  My cell phone started to ring. I reached down into my purse and pulled it out.

  “Hello?”

  It was Gambino.

  “What?” I asked.

  “What?” Lael asked.

  I held up a finger for her to wait.

  “Me, too. Bye.”

  “What?” Bridget asked.

  I dropped the phone back into my purse and smiled. “Jake’s up.”

  HE WAS THE ONLY person I’d ever seen who looked good in a hospital gown.

  An orderly was taking his pulse and a nurse was fluffing his pillow. It looked like a scene from a porno movie.

  “People, I keep telling you I’m fine,” he said with a grin. “Go take care of somebody sick.”

  “You’re amazing,” the orderly said.

  “Thanks. Can you give us a minute?”

  Reluctantly, they left.

  I sat down on the edge of the bed.

  “You saved my life, Cece.”

  “Jake,” I said, shaking my head.

  “No, I mean it. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “I’m glad you turned out to be such a fighter.”

  “I don’t remember much about what happened.”

  “There’s time for that later.”

  “Somebody came to the door.”

  “Jake, stop.”

  “I assumed it was you, so I opened it.”

  “You couldn’t have known.”

  “I should have known.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was me who let it slip where I was.”

  I stared hard at him.

  “I left a message on the phone machine for Mitchell.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “I needed money. Asher Farrell must’ve heard it.”

  Or twisted Mitchell’s arm pretty hard. Mitchell was finally going to get back at him, though. Mitchell was going to escape prosecution by telling the cops everything. His testimony was going to be the nail in Asher’s coffin.

  “That piece of shit left me for dead. If you hadn’t shown up, I’d never have made it.”

  “That’s not important right now. What’s important is that you get better.”

  “You can’t keep a good man down.”

  “Rest up a little first, would you?”

  He laughed. “Do you want some candy?”

  “Always.”

  He held out a velvet-lined box and I took a cocoa truffle with a hazelnut on top.

  “Since we’re on the subject, there is something I want to know,” I said. “Umm.”

  “A busy mouth is a happy mouth.”

  “Jake.”

  “Sorry. Sometimes I can’t help myself. What?”

  “What was so urgent that you had to get me to Andrew’s in the middle of the night?”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” he said, suddenly sheepish. “I was driving Andrew crazy, walking in circles, pacing around. He was exhausted. He couldn’t keep his eyes open another minute.”

  “You were looking for company?” I asked incredulously.

  “No, that wasn’t it.”

  I looked into his blue eyes. There were circles under them the same color. Two matched sets.

  “I remembered something Edgar kept talking about the last day we were together. And Edgar never said anything unless he had a very good reason.”

  I realized that now. I’d finally had a chance to look up who gave Harpo Marx a harp with barbed-wire strings. It was Salvador Dalí. Edgar was trying to tell me something even then. That he knew. He knew about those paintings, that they were both Salvador Dalís, from the very beginning.

  “Well, what was it?” I asked Jake.

  “The attic. He kept talking about the attic.”

  Now he tells me.

  “Edgar wasn’t sure you’d realize our house had an attic. Good thing you read all those Nancy Drew books.”

  That was an understatement.

  “Knock-knock. Am I interrupting?”

  It was Melinda, from Asher Farrell’s gallery, a mouse no more. She sauntered in wearing low-rider jeans, spike-heeled pumps, and a filmy chiffon blouse.

  “Cece, meet my new dealer!” Jake said.

  “That’s right,” Melinda said. “I’m opening my own gallery—thanks to something you said, I might add—and Jake is my first artist.”

  “I’m not really dyslexic,” I burst out.

  “Great,” she said without blinking. “So how are you today, Jake? You look better.”

  “I feel better.”

  “Listen,” I said, getting up. “I’m going to leave the two of you alone. You probably have a lot to talk about.”

  “Cece.” Jake took my hand. “Before you go, I have something for you.”

  “I don’t need anything.”

  “Don’t be so rash,” Melinda said. “He inherited the entire kit and caboodle. And he’s giving it all away.”

  “I’m keeping the house in Palm Springs.”

  “Okay, one thing. The art, all those fabulous collections—all going to the best museums. One of the Salvador Dalís is going to the Met—the creepy one, with the ants. They’ll probably make him head of the board of trustees the way he’s going!”

  I could just see Jake seated in the boardroom of the Met in a tight silk shirt unbuttoned to the waist.

  “Where’s the other Dalí going?” I asked.

  “To Nancy Olsen,” Jake said. “It’s only right she should have it.”

  I was floored. “Does she know?”

  “I’m going to tell her,” said Melinda. “I’m a fan of her work, you know. My gallery is also going to represent performers.”

  “She’s an artist who sings,” I said.

  “Of course.”

  “You really are amazing, Jake,” I said, rumpling his hair.

  “Melinda,” he asked, “did you bring it?”

  “You’re blushing, silly,” she said. “Here, Cece.” Melinda handed me a book.

  It was a first printing of The Secret in the Old Attic.

  “Jake, I can’t accept this.”

  “Sure you can.”

  “I can’t break up Edgar’s collection. It meant so much to him.”

  “Edgar of all people understood that a complete collection is death. A collection is vital only insofar as it is marked by a void.”

  Even Melinda looked surprised.

  Jake turned a deeper shade of red. “I think I read it someplace.”

  37

  A registered package was waiting for me the next day at the post office on Santa Monica and San Vincente.

  For a moment I wondered if Edgar had another surprise for me. But this surprise had come from Clarissa, of all people. I couldn’t wait until I got home so I opened it right there in the parking lot. I
t contained a thick folder with the notes for her book on Grace Horton, which she’d decided to abandon, and a handwritten letter, on whisper-thin watermarked paper.

  Nancy, it turned out, had flown out to Phoenix to see her mother after talking to me on Monday, frantic with worry about what Clarissa might or might not have done. Had I been a more sensible individual, Clarissa chided, I would have allayed the poor girl’s fears immediately. But what, she wondered, could she possibly have expected from someone like me? In any case, she was certain her notes would prove helpful. Perhaps they would clear up my numerous misconceptions. As for her, she was on to a different project, a guide to child-rearing in the age of instant gratification. Since she’d done so well with Nancy, she was certain others would benefit from her sage advice.

  In closing, Clarissa admonished me not to miss a small volume with a blue leather cover she had included with the notes.

  I found it at the bottom of the stack.

  It was Grace Horton’s diary.

  January 17, 1930. A job. It’s what I’ve been waiting for. The illustrator is a wonder. He thinks I look the part, except for my hair, which is all wrong. He wants me to bleach it.

  February 3, 1930. I don’t know why I bothered. My hair, half of which fell out in the sink, wound up under a blue cloche hat. My back still aches a week later. I had to stand there, bent at the hip, for almost four hours. When I left, I took the hat.

  April 27, 1934. I am the queen of the fifty-centers! Everyone teases me. My nieces are beside themselves. But I’ve had no work in months now. My parents sent money, again. I must say it’s nice to be rich. Not all of us must suffer for our art.

  February 2, 1936. Dentine, Pond’s, Milky Way.

  March 8, 1937. Jergens, Colgate.

  August 20, 1940. Lux.

  November 2, 1941. His studio is cold. There is a nasty draft that comes up between the floor- boards. Goose bumps aren’t sexy, he tells me. So take off your clothes and see how you like it, I say, laughing. He unbuttons his shirt and then, when he sees my face, he buttons it up again. He lays out a bolt of red velvet he found in a closet. Nonetheless, I spend the day shivering.