Edited to Death

by Linda Lee Peterson

  “So tell me about it, Claire,” I said. “I’m really interested. You know, Quentin had talked to me about doing a story on that benefit.”

  “Did he?” asked Claire, narrowing her eyes. “Wasn’t that lovely of him?”

  “It was,” I responded.

  Silence fell again. This was not going well. “Okay,” I prompted, “I know you all help fund research for drugs that aren’t far enough along in the FDA pipeline. Isn’t that right?”

  “Yes,” she said. “We all know the FDA is much, much too slow in moving drugs along.”

  “Point of fact,” interrupted Michael, “I believe they’re doing a little better these days, especially for AIDS drugs. That’s part of what ACT UP helped push. They’ve got several drugs on fast tracks, and they’re making them available on a limited basis to AIDS patients who meet certain criteria. After clinical trials, before final approval.”

  Claire looked nonplussed. “You sound quite knowledgeable.”

  Michael sipped his wine. “Two of my clients are the nonprofit foundations of pharmaceutical companies. I try to keep up. With a wife in those fast-moving media circles, I’ve got to be more than a pretty face, you know.” He patted my hand.

  “So then, Claire,” I continued. “The money you raise goes to what? Research grants?”

  “Absolutely,” she said, snapping her lighter open and closed again. “Well, some of it. The rest goes to individuals.”

  “Individuals?” Michael inquired.

  “Yes, yes,” she said blithely. “People who can’t get into trials.”

  “How interesting,” Michael said. “And how does it get distributed?”

  Claire looked impatient. “There’s a committee. John Orlando, the fellow who owns Cock of the Walk, is on the committee. Along with some others. You’re both very welcome to review our bylaws.”

  “I wasn’t questioning your motives,” I said “I was just wondering, just curious.”

  Uncle Alf came to for a minute. “And that’s what killed the cat, isn’t it?”

  He laughed.

  Silence fell again.

  “Well,” Claire said briskly, “I imagine that story is moot, isn’t it? The benefit’s long gone, as is Quentin, of course, so you’ll just have to find some other little social do to cover, won’t you?”

  “Well,” Michael protested, “I don’t think Maggie was planning to cover this as a social notes story.”

  I gave Michael another gentle kick.

  “Really?” asked Claire. “What did you have in mind, then?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “That’s why I was going to meet Quentin the day he died. We were going to talk about a story angle. I thought you could help me out on that?”

  Claire sighed. “Sorry. No idea; I simply thought Quentin was doing the right thing and giving us a little publicity.”

  “Do the Right Thing,” said Alf, drifting into the conversation again. “Isn’t that the movie by that colored fella, Lee Spike, Spike Jones, something like that? All the rage a few years back?”

  Michael gave me his most innocent look. “Don’t think you’ve got that quite right, Alf. But you might want to put that question to Maggie’s friend Calvin next time you see him.”

  “Oh, actual filmmaker, is he?” asked Alf.

  “No,” said Michael. “Actual colored person.”

  The dessert cart came and went. It was actually a highly anodized wheelbarrow with pedestals spiraling from its bed, each holding an intricately engineered concoction, heavy on cloudberries and light on chocolate. We all passed.

  “Looks just like the one I use to haul chicken manure around the backyard,” observed Michael.

  “Funny people, Claire,” said Alf. She ignored him. “Damn fine senses of humor. Keeps things moving merrily along, I s’pose.”

  “Very merry,” said Michael. “The fun never stops at our house.”

  Over coffee, Alf got down to business. He and the Witch-Woman were pleased with what I was doing at the magazine. Would I be willing to stay on for another six months?

  I took a deep breath and said precisely the right thing. “Oh, thank you so much. Michael and I will need to discuss that first.”

  “In a merry, merry way, of course,” said Michael, very solemnly.

  Claire rolled her eyes.

  “May I get back to you?” I asked sweetly.

  “Of course, of course,” said Alf. “Don’t wait too long, though.” He waved for the check. Meanwhile, Claire was scanning the room looking for someone, anyone more interesting than the present company. Bingo! Her eyes lit up, and she waggled her fingers in the air. Across the room, John Orlando waved back and headed over to the table.

  He and Claire air-kissed, both cheeks, very European, he shook hands with Alf and Michael, then turned to me.

  “Mrs. Fiori, out celebrating an anniversary on the new job?” he asked dryly.

  I smiled, “Something like that. I’m surprised to see you here. Who’s running the show over at your place?”

  “Busman’s holiday,” he said, “got to see what the competition is up to. Research, you know.”

  “Must get expensive,” I said, “all this dining out. Guess the restaurant business must be very lucrative.”

  “Maggie,” chided Michael, turning to Orlando. “You’ll have to forgive my wife. Once a journalist, always a journalist, ask anybody anything.”

  Orlando smiled. “Quite all right. Quite. Yes, well, this is a restaurant town, isn’t it?” He gestured around the room. “Fortunately, there seems to be more than enough business to go around.” He bent and air-kissed Claire again. “Must run, must get back to my own little lunchroom.” He looked pointedly at me. “’Fraid the new regime isn’t tip-top market for my artwork, so I’ve got to grind out my living at the restaurant trough.”

  “I’m sure we’ll find a way to work together in the future,” I said stiffly.

  “Yes, well, mustn’t put all the eggs in one hopeful little basket,” he said. Gestured at the table. “Lovely to see you all.”

  “Didn’t follow all that, did you?” asked Alf, after he’d gone.

  It seemed best not to explain. We thanked Alf and Claire for dinner and headed out to redeem our beat-up stationwagon from the contemptuous young valet.

  On the way home, Michael suggested I say yes to Alf and Claire’s offer to extend my employment.

  “Really?” I asked. “You think it’s okay?”

  “I think it’s great,” he said. “Keeps you too busy to play amateur detective, cuts down on the time you have to ask people nosy questions. Plus, there doesn’t seem to be anyone else on that staff for you to have an affair with.”

  I started to protest.

  “Just joking,” he said. “But, you know, I actually think it’s making the boys a tiny bit more independent, and Anya a little more competent. Takes her mind off that perpetually broken heart. And if it’s making you happy.…”

  And I realized it was. I liked the routine, I liked the people, I liked the sense of accomplishment of moving from one issue to the next. “It is,” I said. “It surprises me, but it is.”

  “And very little time to play detective?”

  I was silent.

  “Maggie, why can’t you leave this alone?”

  “Because I keep thinking that I can put this together and make it all go away.”

  “Oh, that’s not arrogant, is it?”

  “Well, yes, it is. On the other hand, I was there! And the truth of the matter is, the cops haven’t figured it out, so I don’t think they have much to feel arrogant about either.”

  “I can’t forbid you.”

  I snorted, “You certainly can’t.”

  “But I can ask you in the strongest possible terms to think about what you’re doing. Think about the kids and think about me. And then it’s up to you.”

  “Thank you,” I said meekly. “I’m being very careful, I’m really just passing along anything I figure out to John Moon.”
>
  “Well, here’s the good news in all this,” said Michael. “With your new job, I think you’ll continue to feel conflicted and guilty, and you’re just Jewish enough to make that up to us by cooking better dinners, and keeping Anya out of the kitchen. So I say we may all come out ahead.” He turned back to the road, humming a little under his breath.

  “Michael, is something up with you?” I asked.

  “Why?”

  “You’re way too easy about this.”

  He shook his head. “For a smart girl, you can be so, so dumb. I don’t care if you want to work at the magazine. I never cared if you wanted to go out and be a captain of industry. I just wish you’d talked to me before.”

  “Before Quentin,” I said.

  “Yeah. Before him. But what’s done is done. And the son of a bitch is dead and gone. I want to trust you; it’s now abundantly clear to me that I can’t unless you’re happy. And if working at Small Town, in Quentin’s old job, makes you happy—and too busy to get into trouble—then I’m happy. QED.”

  “How lawyerly,” I said.

  “Yes, well, that can’t be a big surprise to you, can it? Frankly, I’d prefer for Quentin and anything that had anything to do with him to vanish off the face of the earth.”

  “I’m really sorry—” I began.

  “Enough, Maggie. I know you are. And I’m almost getting used to the cops showing up at my office to ask questions from time to time,” he said bitterly. “My poor protective secretary keeps telling everyone that all these guys are potential new squash partners. Oh, one thing I should mention.…”

  “What?”

  “It’s not a big deal, at least not to me.”

  “Michael, what is it?”

  “The senior partners have asked me to step down from the management committee. At least until the murder investigation is over.”

  How much more wretched could I feel? “I’m so sorry,” I began.

  “Maggie, don’t bother. I don’t care. It’s one less thing to worry about.”

  Silence fell in the car. Then Michael spoke. “So I’m very motivated to keep you busy and out of mischief. I’d prefer not to put any of us through this again. Ever.”

  Maybe I can make it all go away, I thought to myself.

  “Are you listening to me, Maggie?” Michael said.

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “I heard every word you said.”

  21

  O Is for Ornamentation

  The weeks sped by. The sycamores and birches in our front yard were completely denuded, the kids had celebrated Halloween and were recovered from their sugar rush. The home magazines were featuring photographs of brown and glistening turkeys, exhorting us drop-out Martha Stewarts that our lives would be richer, more complete, if we grew, harvested, shelled, and roasted our own chestnuts for the stuffing.

  At work, as Michael had observed, I was genuinely enjoying the rhythm of getting out the magazine. Glen and Gertie knew everything there was to know about the production side, but that left me presiding over the unruly group of writers who gave Small Town its voice. Thinking about story angles, chasing deadlines, and showing up for periodic reviews with the alcohol-addled Uncle Alf pretty much drove detecting out of my everyday consciousness. Quentin, on the other hand, was still omnipresent. I felt him in the room with me, watching me at his desk. Would he be glad I was there, or tsk-tsk over some lame decision I made?

  Inspector Moon and I had struck up something resembling a friendship. Since the Neruda conversation, I knew he was interested in poetry, so I had invited him and his wife to use two of Small Town’s comp tickets and join us for a benefit reading at San Francisco’s flossy new main library. Mostly, I’d wanted to see if he’d come out on a social outing, assuming that would mean Michael was really, truly in the clear.

  “Don’t you pay any attention in the movies?” Michael asked me. “Cops like to socialize with suspects; they catch them off-guard that way.” I felt my face freeze in dismay until Michael assured me he was joking.

  When Moon was in the neighborhood, he’d drop by my office occasionally, and let me pester him with questions about the investigation. But mostly I was too preoccupied with the magazine to get into much mischief.

  Only Calvin kept after me. I’d come back from lunch and find a message slip with a terse, “How about the INS?” or “CIA involvement.” For Calvin it was a lark, an adventure—he had come close to something dangerous and he couldn’t give up worrying it, like our dog Raider with an old pot roast bone. Of course, every time I heard from him, my own unfinished business with Quentin would pop up again. I’d conjure Michael’s voice floating to me in the dark car after dinner with Alf and Claire, wishing Quentin out of our lives.

  At home, the household seemed to have re-settled itself around my work schedule. I had worried that Josh would suffer the most, since any disruption in routine could lead to upheavals in his delicate digestive system. But, aside from the usual Friday morning pre-spelling test jitters, things actually seemed a little easier for him. Since Michael’s office was just a few minutes from our house, he was often home before me, and early enough to sweep the boys out for pre-dinner fun playing catch at the park, riding bikes around Lake Merritt, or drinking hot chocolate at the ice cream parlor. Sometimes Anya would go with them and I’d come home to a kitchen full of laughter, all four of them with their cheeks rouged by the fall wind. I’d feel a little like an intruder until I got caught up in the flurry of dinner, stories, bath, and bedtime. Maybe, I groused to myself, I should take my wicked, straying self out of the picture, and let Michael and Anya raise the children. Then I’d remember what a dreadful cook Anya was and how much my husband valued good food. Saved by the Italian passion for pleasures of the cucina, I thought.

  In the back of my mind was one guilt-stricken reality: Michael had all this extra time on his hands because his partners had asked him to step down from the management committee of the firm.

  Michael insisted he didn’t care.

  “One less committee meeting, cara,” he said; “maybe you did me a favor.”

  I felt awful, especially when we went to social outings with other people in the firm and I could see people exchange glances when we walked in.

  “Gives me big points with the secretaries,” said Michael. “They love the idea that some stuffy tax lawyer might be capable of a crime of passion.”

  Michael was so cool, so removed during these conversations that I knew he wouldn’t talk to me about it in any serious way.

  “Swell, Maggie,” I muttered to myself in the ladies’ room after one particularly self-conscious exchange with the senior partner’s wife. “Go ahead and ruin Michael’s career along with your marriage.” But Michael refused to discuss any of these repercussions.

  In keeping with our marital malaise, the gray, discouraging November skies began leaking rain. One gloomy morning I struggled in to the office, books and files under one arm, juggling an umbrella and a caffe latte on the other side. Calvin was at my desk leafing through old issues of Small Town and sipping out of a commuter mug. I was not charmed to see him.

  I flung my coat over the coat rack and shook my umbrella over his head. A mini-shower of rain cascaded on to him.

  “Calvin. Get up this instant, I’ve got tons of stuff to do this morning and I’ve got to get out of here by three today to see Josh’s soccer game or it’s off to the Bad Mommy Farm for me.”

  “Haven’t we become the little overachiever?” He gestured at the visitor chair. “Sit down, Maggie. Relax. Suck up that caffeine and let’s talk.”

  The day’s schedule rolled through my head, scrolling at top speed like a computer screen out of control. I sighed. “Come on. I really don’t have time.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. Things to do. People to see. Just chill one little minute. I want to show you something.”

  “Okay, five minutes. I mean it. Show me, and then you’re history ’cause I’ve got to get to it.”

  Calvin swept my deskto
p debris into a corner. “Wait, wait a second,” I protested.

  “You know, Maggie,” he said, “it never looked like this when Quentin had this office.”

  “Thanks,” I said grimly. “I’ll add tidiness to my ‘improving my character’ list.”

  He grinned. “Good idea. What else have you got on that list?”

  I glared at him. “Upgrading the company I keep, thank you very much. ”

  Calvin ignored me. He was busy lining up past issues of Small Town in front of me. Each was open to a spread, and each featured a black and white pen and ink illustration.

  “Uh huh,” I said. “Orlando’s stuff. I don’t like it much, but I know Quentin and Glen used him a lot. So?”

  Calvin rearranged the spreads carefully, aligning them just so. “Take a good look.”

  I was getting exasperated. “I have. I know his stuff.”

  Now Calvin was getting excited. “Okay, look at these. See how they’re all different subject matter?”

  “Yes, they are. They’re all illustrations for very different stories.” As I glanced, I could see one on a boxing program at the Y, a piece on erotic bookstores, one on classic Viennese bakeries, a profile on a city supervisor.

  Calvin leaned forward, pushing up the sleeves of his sweater impatiently.

  “Now, what’s the same on every illustration?”

  I looked. Hard. They were all in the same style, intricate, almost scratchboard-like, a little William Blake-ish.

  “I don’t see anything, Calvin. Unless you mean that they all have the same look—and the same signature.”

  He exploded out of his chair. “Exactly! They all have the same signature—or almost the same. Look closely.”

  I did. Each was signed with the illustrator’s last name—Orlando. And the first O was heavily ornamented. Calvin sat back down at my desk, yanked open the center drawer, and began pawing around.

  “Calvin! Do you mind? What are you looking for?”

  “Where’s your loupe? Aha! Got it.” He held up the small magnifying glass used to look at photographic contact sheets. He came around in back of me and placed the loupe on one of Orlando’s signatures. “Okay, take a close look.”

  I bent over and put my eye right on the loupe. I could feel Calvin leaning over me, quick intakes of breath.