Edited to Death

by Linda Lee Peterson

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, “I didn’t kiss you goodbye this morning.”

  “We’d come kiss you, Mom,” said Josh, “but we’re busy.”

  “That’s okay,” I said, “I’ll come kiss you—I love coming home to a house full of cooks. Where’s Anya?”

  Michael rolled his eyes. “Upstairs, brooding. I believe there’s romantic trouble again. I came home early and I coaxed her to come with me to take the boys out for a bike ride around Lake Merritt, but her heart wasn’t in it.”

  Anya fell in and out of love with considerable regularity. Since summertime, we’d been treated to high melodrama over a fellow art student, a young associate in Michael’s office, the gutter repair guy we summoned after the first fall rain, and one or two others. Personally, I was pulling for Harrison, the young man from Grateful Gutters. I figured we might get a discount. But he, like all others, ran afoul of Anya’s cinema-inspired standards.

  I sighed. “I guess we’ll hear about it at dinner.”

  At least, I thought, once we’d gathered around the table, affairs of the heart didn’t inhibit Anya’s appetite. Between sniffles, she complimented Michael and the boys on their stir-fry, and polished off three servings, rice, and salad. The boys, on the other hand, picked at dinner. It emerged that the entire household—minus me, of course—had gone on a post-bike riding outing for ice cream. I was winding up for a lecture on ruining the boys’ dinner, but Anya was still completing her tale of romantic woe.

  “You know, Maggie,” she concluded, “it was just like the end of Casablanca.”

  “How, Anya? You said goodbye out on the tarmac?”

  “No, no,” she said dreamily. “He was giving me up for a higher cause. He’s been offered a job in Dayton, Ohio, working on a very important project at the Air Force Museum there.”

  I had a hard time picturing Humphrey Bogart, trenchcoat and all, disappearing into the mist to go to Dayton and catalog antique propellers in a museum, but it seemed best to leave Anya with her tragic ending intact.

  “Well, buck up, Anya,” said Michael. “You know, ‘Men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.’”

  “Yuck,” exclaimed Josh. Zach, I could see, was about to wind up for a rendition of a classic he’d been forbidden to sing at the table, featuring the lyrics, “the worms crawl in/the worms crawl out/the worms play pinochle on your snout.”

  Anya simply looked puzzled. “Shakespeare,” I explained. “Rosalind offers Orlando that comforting thought in As You Like It.”

  “Another tender-hearted, compassionate woman,” observed Michael.

  “Well, she’s just trying to be realistic.” I was warming to the topic, glad to have a little Shakespeare at the dinner table. Improving young minds and all that.

  Michael sighed, “Here we go.” He looked at his wristwatch. “Try and do the plot summary in under a half hour, cara.”

  I reached for my wineglass and stopped, frozen. “Michael, that’s it.”

  “What?” he said, distracted. “Joshie, send me down just a little more of that delectable rice we steamed up. Ask Mom why hers is never this fluffy, why don’t you?”

  “Excuse me a moment,” I said, dashing for the stairs. “Where’s my Shakespeare?”

  I found it in the den. Three volumes, A.L. Rowse, trying to retain its dignity sandwiched between the Sunset Western Garden Book and a dozen tattered Tintin comics.

  “Yes! Yes!” I shouted. There it was, staring me in the face. Michael, napkin in hand, stuck his head in. “Are you nuts?”

  “Look at this! It’s been right in front of me the entire time.” I turned the book so he could see, open to the dramatis personae of As You Like It.

  “Okay, I’ll bite. I don’t see.”

  “See? Oliver, Jaques and Orlando—they’re all sons of Sir Rowland de Boys. I always thought of them as Sir Rowland and the boys, which is why Zach and Josh reminded me of his name.”

  “And?”

  “And if you were named Jack Rowland and you wanted to change your name, why not John Orlando?”

  “Who is?”

  “This weird guy you met at the memorial for Quentin. He’s the one I had a fight with Glen about. He’s an illustrator, and he owns the restaurant Quentin wanted me to do the story on—the Cock of the Walk.”

  “So why’d he change his name?”

  “Exactly. Why? And another thing: why did Glen lie to me about knowing him? According to Douglas Thurston—I’ll explain who he is later—Glen, Quent, and Rowland were all at Oxford together. But when I asked Glen if he’d seen or heard from Rowland, he said no, not for years.” I banged the book shut and stood up. “But all the time, he was right here! With a different name, working for Quentin.” I grabbed Michael’s arm. “I’m on to something. God! This is what it’s like being a detective.”

  Michael’s face darkened. He took hold of my shoulders and turned me to him. “Maggie, this is exactly what I asked you not to do. You’re not a detective. And if you’re not careful, someone’s going to get hurt. Try to remember that phone call about Josh for a few minutes, would you? How effective do you think our little jerry-rigged checkin system is going to be if someone really wanted to threaten the kids?”

  His face swam before me. I tried to concentrate and breathe easily, regularly. “Okay, okay. You’re right. I’ll call Moon, right after dinner.”

  “Promise?”

  “Honest. I swear.”

  And I did. But I called Glen, too. Which may have been a mistake.

  18

  Okay by Me in America

  Glen and Corinne’s Mission District Victorian wasn’t exactly on the way to Hot Licks, but both were south of Market, and in a city only seven miles across, how far out of the way could anything be?

  The Mission is the oldest, most diverse (in the new, politically correct parlance for integrated), and one of the most happening areas in San Francisco. Spreading out from the historic Mission Dolores, it’s an eclectic mix of family neighborhoods, parks, taquerias, yuppified coffee bars, alternative theatre, and art spaces. It’s home to churches, feminist bookstores, a proper soda fountain (the St. Francis Fountain and Candy Store), and Good Vibrations, a disarmingly wholesome purveyor of erotic goodies. Glen and Corinne lived on Liberty, a sunny, leafy street that showcased a fine collection of San Francisco’s “painted ladies,” Victorian buildings so beautiful that their residents almost forget that the high ceilings gobble heat and the plumbing has to be coaxed to work.

  I whipped the Volvo into their driveway, grabbed the folder of invoices, and trotted up the front steps. The sign on the glossy green front door said, “Bell is unreliable. Please give the door a thump.” I did. No answer. I thumped again and heard Glen’s voice. “Coming, coming.”

  The door opened. Glen was in jeans and a denim shirt, eyes bloodshot, unshaven.

  “Ah, Maggie. How are you?”

  “I’m fine. How are you?”

  “Oh, well,” he rubbed his cheek. “A little worn round the edges. Some flu thing the kids probably brought home.”

  The wind was brisk on the front porch. I thrust the folder at Glen.

  “What’s this, love?” he asked.

  I explained about the invoices and asked him to call his okays in to Gertie. He said fine and looked expectant, clearly waiting for me to be on my way.

  “Glen, can’t I come in for a minute? I want to ask you about something else. That’s why I called you last night.”

  “Ah, Mags,” he said, “where are my manners? Sure, sure. Come in and have a drop to warm yourself.”

  In Glen’s white tiled kitchen, I sat down at a round, golden oak table stacked with children’s drawings, supermarket coupons, and what looked like the disassembled body parts of many Power Rangers. I’m sure there are families with kids without cluttered kitchens, but if I ever found one, I’d be hostile beyond belief.

  While he filled the teakettle, he called over his shoulder, “Shove that trash to t
he side, Maggie, and make room for a cuppa.”

  When we were settled in front of two mugs of fragrant black tea, I felt brave enough to broach the subject.

  “Glen, here’s what I’m wondering. You’ve told me a whole string of lies about—well, about who you know and who you don’t. And I guess I’m wondering why?”

  Glen’s face got stony. He sipped his tea.

  “Lies? For example?”

  “For example. You did know Douglas Thurston, because you’re the one who told him about Quent’s death.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “He did. Douglas. I talked to him on the telephone. And another thing, you did know that Jack Rowland and John Orlando are the same person—and you didn’t tell me that either.” I leaned back, relieved I’d gotten it all out. “Okay, so tell me what’s going on?”

  Glen sipped his tea again. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why should I tell you?”

  I felt flustered. “Because… because, for heaven’s sake, Glen, we’re all in this together.” I was warming to my subject now. “Quentin was our friend; he’s been killed. Don’t you want to know what happened, and why? And why would you lie to me? Aren’t we friends?”

  Glen smiled thinly.

  “You know, Maggie. Here’s what you’re like. You’re like the girl who’s always encouraging people to try things, to play a game of charades, or try ice-skating or something. And you know why you do it? Because you believe that everyone in the world is just like you. And you know that if you’re coaxed to do something, you’ll do it. And you’ll probably be okay at it. And there will be another sweet Jesus happy ending.”

  “Glen,” I started to protest.

  “No, Maggie. Now, it’s time to listen to me.” He got up and began pacing the kitchen, strides from refrigerator to table and back.

  “You’ve got a problem. I’m not one of those American husbands who’s been sensitized into thinking that communication is a grand thing. For an inky wretch, for a words man, I’m not much of a talker. What’s private is private.” He stopped and fixed me. “And I might add, for all your communication all the day long, you’re not above keeping some private business to yourself, too.”

  I felt my face burn. “Agreed.”

  “Yes, well, this isn’t a debatin’ society, now. This is me telling you what’s what. So the real story is that I didn’t own up to knowing Douglas and Jack Rowland because I had my reasons. And they’re mine, not yours. I had a whole life before I came here, Maggie. And, I have answered every single question the police have put to me, so I believe I’ve done my good citizen duty.”

  “Glen,” I began.

  “No, let me finish. I’m going to tell you my version of this story. And it’s going to be what I’m willing to tell you. And the rest, you’ll pardon my bad manners, is my business.” Glen stopped pacing and sat down across from me again. I felt as if I’d come in the middle of a Byzantine foreign movie. I’d only left for a few minutes, just to get popcorn or something, and the plot had galloped ahead of me. Where were the subtitles? Why was Glen so angry?

  He took a gulp of his tea and folded his hands. “Once upon a time—isn’t that how all stories begin?”

  I nodded.

  “Well then, once upon a time, there were a number of very bright, very confused, little adventurous boys who had gone up to Oxford. Quentin. Jack. Douglas. And me.” He tapped his chest.

  “So there we were, all of us young, all of us trying to prove we were something more than the lives we’d left behind. It was, in many ways, a grand time. We read everything. We argued. We drank. We ran around with the locals. We listened to music.”

  He stopped, looked around the kitchen, as if puzzled by how that intense and fun-loving young man had been transported, as if by magic, into a city flat, crammed with the artifacts of husband-and-daddy-dom.

  “We got in trouble from time to time. I think you probably know about the scrape Jack Rowland got in. Douglas told you?”

  I nodded. “He had a relationship with a minister’s son.”

  Glen sighed. “Yes, not the best judgment, that. But it was more. He’d been pissing away his study time, and so when the troubles came about, his tutor was too annoyed to stand up for him. Plus, it wasn’t so much the sex. The rumor was that all of us had been steadily leading a group of local boys astray. Lots of Algerian weed, and harder stuff, too.”

  “All of you?”

  “Well, none of us was blameless. Except Douglas; he was a little bit of a goody-goody. And I was rather intensely into my heir-of-Thomas-Merton period, thinking I had a religious vocation. Quentin and Jack offered to take the fall—Jack, after all, had been the one who’d led the rosy-cheeked boy down love’s forbidden path. And Quentin, well, everyone assumed he’d sleep with anyone or anything.”

  “Comforting thought,” I said.

  “Yes, well, we all have lapses, my girl. That’s why the confessional can be such a busy, busy place.” He smiled, looking amused for the first time since we’d sat down.

  “Perhaps we can discuss my transgressions another time,” I said. “Go on.”

  “So the long and short of it was that all of us misbehaved to one degree or another. If I were ranking the villains, I guess I’d have to say that Jack, Quentin, and I were most to blame.”

  “Were you?”

  “Having it off with the vicar’s boy?” He smiled bitterly. “Not him, but others. I was… confused. But I was close to Jack and I could have kept him in tighter rein.”

  “So then what happened?”

  “Well, that’s another story. Jack got sent down and finished up at some redbrick college, then came to the States, made some money, then moved back to London. Quentin and Douglas finished up. I came close, but then decided I had a vocation and returned to Ireland to the seminary.”

  “And Douglas stayed on in Oxford and Quentin came to the States. And none of you met again?”

  “Oh, no. Quentin and Douglas have seen each other from time to time over the years, although things were always a bit frosty because Douglas thought Quentin hadn’t stood up for Jack. I’d see Quent occasionally when he came to Ireland. As I think you know, he helped me and Corinne and the kids immensely when we came here.”

  We both fell silent, the sounds of the Mission faint outside the kitchen windows—city buses, kids shouting. I remembered Glen’s remarks at Quentin’s funeral. Okay, I thought, it’s now or never. Get the rest of the story and get out.

  “But then Jack Rowland, a.k.a. John Orlando, surfaced in the States again? In San Francisco?”

  “Well, he’d been here before, as I said. Knocking around. Doing this and that.”

  “Such as?”

  Glen reached across the table and captured my hands in his.

  “Listen to me, Maggie. I’ll finish this story—or what I choose to tell you of it. And then I want you to be done with it.”

  I nodded. I knew I had virtually no intention of honoring what Glen was asking, and somehow, my old kid’s-eye view of following the letter—not the spirit—of the law, meant that if I didn’t speak, if I didn’t say “I promise” aloud, I could do what I wanted. I nodded again and thought to myself; geez, Maggie, first adultery, then promises I had no intention of keeping. No ethics, no ethics whatsoever.

  “All right, then. I landed here a few years ago, as you know. Jack Rowland came to town shortly after that. He’d always been an arty fellow, and now, he had this portfolio under his arm. He’d turned himself into a Bohemian. He’d taken up illustration. Quentin and I saw him, liked his work.”

  I wrinkled my nose.

  “Yes, well, Maggie, now you’re in charge, you’re free not to like his stuff. But Quent and I did. And I suppose we both felt a little guilt over the old days. We’d gotten away with most of our hijinks—and Jack had paid.”

  “So he blackmailed you into hiring him?”

  “No, no, not at all. We liked his stuff. We’ve been using him. B
esides,” Glen picked up my tea mug and his and carried them to the sink and began rinsing them. “I hardly think Jack was depending on us to keep body and soul together. He’s got that fancy new restaurant of his.”

  “Exactly! And where did he get the money for that?”

  Glen shrugged. “Who knows? Those ritzy Hong Kong friends of his, I guess. And what business is it of yours, miss, I’d like to know?”

  “Well, I think when there’s been a murder, it’s everybody’s business.”

  Glen raised his hand. “Stop. That’s where you’re wrong. It’s Quentin’s business—and he’s dead. So now it’s police business.”

  I regarded Glen. None of this seemed so terrible. Why hadn’t he told me before? He looked back at me, his face impassive. It reminded me of a playground stand-off.

  “Maggie, you know who Charles Parnell was?”

  “Irish hero, right?”

  “In a way. There are some who think his strategies, his indiscreet love affair with the wife of an MP, well, they led to his ruination. And you, my girl, you remind me of Charles Stewart Parnell. You’ve got a good head. You’ve got prospects. But you can’t leave well enough alone. Do it. That’s my advice to you.”

  “How did he end up?”

  “Parnell? He died a very young man, fiftyish or so. Worn out, rejected by his party.”

  “But in love.”

  “Ah, yes. In love, he finally married his ‘Queenie’. Not many years of happiness they had, I’m afraid.”

  “Glen,” I said impatiently. “This is a little cryptic for me. Maybe I’m not Joycean enough to figure out what your story is about. So why don’t you say what’s on your mind?”

  He laughed. “That’s not very Irish. All right then, I’ll be direct, just like you Americans. Think about this: you’ve got a good life, you’ve got a good job—at least for the moment—don’t be overstirring the pot. The coppers have it in hand.”

  I considered my options. “Oh, Glen, you’re right, I suppose. I’m just so unsettled. I’m sure I feel a little guilty—well, a lot guilty about some of the choices I made. And I worry that my relationship with Quentin had something to do with this. Then, you know, the police were questioning Michael, and I felt so terrible.”