Edited to Death

by Linda Lee Peterson

  “Huh?” Zach, baffled, swigged his milk and then swiped the remaining mustache on his sleeve.

  “Zach, is that a napkin on your lap?” I reminded him. “Numbers. You know, like football players and combination locks and telephones and, well, anything you can think of.” I waved my fork at Michael, Anya, and Stuart.

  “You guys can play, too.” I shot Michael an “Is this okay?” look. He shrugged.

  “I give up,” he said. “Go, fight, win.”

  “What do we win, Mom?” asked Josh, ever the negotiator.

  “I don’t know. Something nifty. Come on, just say what comes into your head.”

  “Peach ice cream for breakfast!” said Zach.

  “That’s no number,” I protested.

  He giggled. “I know. That’s the prize I want, Mommy.”

  “You got it,” I said. “Anything you want for breakfast on Saturday for a whole month—if I get a right answer out of this.”

  And with that, the dinner table was electric. Athletes, shoes, calculators, telephones, ATM cards, fax machines.

  “Basketball stats,” offered Stuart.

  “I know,” shouted Josh. “Girls!”

  “Girls?” Michael inquired.

  Josh laughed and carved an hourglass in front of him. “You know, like in Playboy—36, 24, 36.”

  I fixed Michael with a look. “I can’t imagine where, when, or how he’s seen a Playboy,” I said sternly.

  “Hetero indoctrination,” said Stuart. “You’ve got to start very early.”

  Anya sighed and contributed, “Piers.”

  “Piers?”

  “Yes,” she said, sighing again. “You know, where the ships come in. And where that restaurant is—you know, Pier 23? My friend, Harrison, from Good ’n’ Gutters, took me there to hear music.”

  The boys continued their suggestions, getting sillier and giddier by the moment, thoughts of contraband ice cream for breakfast egging them on.

  Michael sipped his wine and looked thoughtful.

  “Maggie, wait a minute,” he said.

  “Pipe down, you two. What about piers? Suppose there’s something coming in, or going out? Isn’t what’s-his-toes in partnership with import-export big shots?”

  “Orlando,” I said, “John Orlando. Jack Rowland, whoever the hell he is.”

  “Mom!” protested Josh.

  “Sorry, sweetie. Okay, let me think.” I closed my eyes and pictured the string of piers, a long necklace of hangar-looking buildings along the Embarcadero. Something was nagging at me, some little tumblers in the lock, rolling and rolling and not yet clicking.

  I sighed. “I don’t know, Michael. The numbers looked more like numbered art prints. You know, 16/231572, like that.”

  Michael shook his head. “You’re the detective, cara, despite all my excellent counsel to the contrary. You and the gang here,” he gestured at the boys.

  “If you please,” protested Anya, “I came up with the pier idea.”

  “There you go,” said Michael. “And Anya was motivated by romantic memories. That’s got to be good luck.”

  “Not always,” said Stuart. “Maggie, pass me that wine bottle.”

  “Only if you’re spending the night,” I said. “Otherwise, it’s some lovely black coffee for you.”

  After dinner, Stuart and I companionably cleaned up in the kitchen.

  “Here we are again,” he said, loading the dishwasher, “two little hausfrauen doing the dishes.”

  “Speak for yourself,” I said, swiping the counters. I took a deep breath. This was my chance to find out about Quentin’s mysterious access to drugs and money.”

  “Hey, Stuart,” I began, “I was just wondering.…”

  “Maggie Fiori, girl detective, is back,” he said.

  I forged ahead.

  “About drugs.”

  He looked perplexed. “Drugs?”

  “Drugs and Quentin. Did it seem to you that Quentin had a lot of drugs around?”

  “What kind of drugs?”

  “Oh, recreational stuff.”

  Stuart laughed, “Well, old-fashioned stuff. A little hash, lots of dope—marijuana, I mean.”

  “Where’d he get it?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. He just always had a stash around. He never introduced me to his dealer, if that’s what you mean.”

  “You think he had a dealer?”

  Stuart shrugged. “Meaning somebody who actually sold stuff for a living? Not that I know of. It’s just that he always seemed pretty well supplied.” He closed the dishwasher. “He didn’t do drugs all that much,” he said, “but he was pretty generous with his stuff.”

  Almost exactly the same language Stare had used at Hot Licks. “So what about money? Did Quentin seem worried about it?”

  Stuart thought for a moment. “Not really. He wasn’t cavalier about money, and he certainly thought that Claire was a tightwad and that the magazine didn’t pay him nearly enough. But he seemed to have enough to live the way he wanted to. Although.…”

  “What?”

  “Well, it’s funny, you asking about money. Shortly before he died, Quentin told me we might have to tighten our belts a little in the future.”

  “Did he say why?”

  “Nope. But he was pretty close mouthed about money.” Stuart leaned against the counter and shook his head. “I’m sure he thought I was too much of a dim bulb to follow any complex financial arrangements.”

  “Or,” I said, “he was protecting you.”

  Stuart shrugged. “Who knows? Too late to speculate.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek.

  “Thanks for dinner, Maggie. It’s nice to hang out with you guys.” And he was gone.

  Anya’s pier idea seemed worth passing along to Inspector Moon. After Stuart had disappeared, I called and left Moon a message. I was tempted to leave it in Spanish to see how his Neruda study was coming along, but my street Spanish just didn’t seem up to the task. Plus I didn’t know the word for smuggling.

  23

  High-Tech Detective

  When I hit the office the next morning, Calvin was once again occupying my chair. Drinking coffee from my cup. Leafing through my magazines on my desk.

  I pointed this out to him.

  “My, my,” he said, not looking up, “aren’t we proprietary about a—what’d you call this, a ‘temp’ job?”

  “Yeah, well, the mug’s not temp,” I pointed out. “It’s got my name on it.”

  Calvin examined the mug and grinned at me. “Well, whaddya know? Hey, aren’t I a secure guy? Drinking from a mug with a girl’s name on it?”

  “Oh, you’re secure, all right,” I observed. “That’s why you’ve got to keep half a dozen women on the string.”

  Calvin’s face lit up with a wicked smile. “Why, Mags? Are you jealous? Would you like to apply? Actually, I think I’m down to no more than two or three at the moment. There may be openings. You know, we men of color have to live up to our mythologies.”

  Before I could squash him like the inconsequential, ego-driven, testosterone-ridden fool that he was, Andrea appeared at the door. “Openings?” she asked. “Who’s applying for what?”

  I smiled sweetly at Calvin. “Oh, Calvin will explain.”

  He leapt to his feet and gestured I should come take my chair back.

  “Another time,” he said. “Now look, girls, as long as all of us are here, let’s have a little detective catch-up. What say?”

  Andrea sat, straight-backed and composed, and regarded Calvin as if he were a lab specimen. “What say?” she repeated incredulously. “Is there some reason you have to sound so, so—”

  “Episcopalian? “I chimed in.

  “Ladies, ladies,” Calvin said. “Let go of those outworn ethnic clichés. This is San Francisco, this is the millennium, this is multi-culti heaven.”

  “You’re right, it is,” I said. “We’ve got detectives who read Neruda, and a dead editor who slept with people of every persuasion, a
nd his ex-lover who, according to my kids, has an awesome hook shot, so, why shouldn’t we have a black—excuse me, African-American, photographer who sounds like a highly privileged, over-educated, spoiled little snot?”

  “Because,” Calvin beamed, “that’s exactly what I am. That’s how my Mama raised me.”

  “Children, children,” said Andrea, “let’s not have any unpleasantness.”

  She raised her hand. “Now, let’s do what Calvin—the aforementioned spoiled brat—suggested. Let’s review what we do and do not know.”

  They both looked at me. Expectantly. I began to protest, thinking about deadlines, the magazine, the temp job I was beginning to feel a little too passionately attached to, and the presence of Gertie, the Editor’s Conscience, probably lurking just outside the door. But, well, the hell with it. I already knew Moon’s passion and priority about this case had cooled. We were way past seventy-two hours. Michael already knew I had reneged on my promise to let the police handle things. He’d even said, “go, fight, win,” hadn’t he? And if we didn’t figure it out.…

  “Okay,” I said. “Here goes. First, we can assume that Quentin was murdered by someone who knew him. No sign of struggle or forced entry. Correct?”

  They nodded.

  “Next. We know that he was murdered by a tallish woman, or an average sized man. Right-handed. And we know that shortly before or after the murder, Madame DeBurgos heard the sounds of very un-Quentin-like music coming out of the apartment.”

  “Excuse me, Miss Marple,” said Calvin, “but I have a little theory about that.”

  “And that would be.…”

  “Suppose whoever did the big guy in just punched the stereo system to create some noise, any noise. He—or she—wasn’t interested in the music. He or she just wanted to cover up noise in the apartment. So Madame heard the kind of music she did just because that’s the CD that happened to be in the player. It’s not that Quentin chose that music, it just happened to be on because Stuart had been listening to it last.”

  Puzzle lines appeared on Andrea’s Grecian brow. “What kind of noise?”

  Calvin shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe, maybe—”

  “Wait!” I yelled. “Wait, suppose the murderer was searching for something, turning drawers out, rummaging through closets, you know?”

  Calvin looked doubtful. “I don’t know, Maggie. How much noise could that cause? And besides, wouldn’t the cops have found evidence of a search that was so messy?”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  We sat glum, silent. “Okay, let’s keep going,” Andrea said. “What else do we know?”

  “Lots of weird, probably unconnected stuff,” said Calvin.

  “On the day he was murdered, Quentin wanted to sic Maggie and me on a story at the Cock of the Walk.”

  We all began talking at once. “Hey, hey,” protested Calvin. “I’ve got the floor. All right, lots of loose ends there.” He held up his hand and began ticking things off on his fingers. “One, Mr. Banana Republic, man-of-a-thousand-identities John Orlando owns the joint. Two, he owns it with a bunch of other folks, also somewhat suspicious.”

  “Buyers from Macy’s are suspicious?” Andrea inquired politely.

  “Whatever. They are when they’ve been shuttling back and forth from the Far East, land of sin, opiates and Suzy Wong.”

  I laughed. “Boy, are you behind the times, Calvin,” I said. “I think it’s officially the land of electronic components, capital, and action movies these days.”

  “Whatever. May I continue?”

  Andrea and I exchanged a glance and nodded at him. “Okay, so there’s John Orlando, but he’s got his ass covered with some convenient alibi for the time of the murder. On the other hand, he does have this squirrelly thing going on with these anal little illustrations, and clearly he had Quentin over some barrel about running them.”

  “And they had to be run at a certain time.”

  “Huh?” Calvin and Andrea were staring at me.

  “That’s what was nagging at me last night when the kids were coming up with theories about these numbers. Remember?”

  They both looked blank.

  I was getting that edgy, something’s-about-to-happen feeling I get when I’m on a roll with a story. “See, here’s what I mean. Suppose those little numbers in the bottom of John’s illustrations were coded signals for something that had to happen at a certain time?”

  “Like what?” Andrea asked.

  “Like, like,” Calvin was on his feet, pacing, “something getting delivered? Or someone important arriving?”

  “Deliveries?” came a voice from the door. It was Glen. Andrea waved him in and patted the couch next to her.

  “Hi, it’s the a.m. session of the Happy Detectives Club. Come on in.”

  He leaned against the doorjamb. “No, thanks, not my kind of thing. And besides, I thought Maggie had been persuaded to give all that up.” He waved a sheaf of page proofs at me. “So will you have time to look at these later this morning?”

  “I will. I do, right this minute,” I said. “Scram, you guys; I am supposed to be working for a living. Actually, we all are. We’ll leave this to the cops.”

  Andrea and Calvin exchanged glances. “But, Maggie—” began Calvin. I held up my hand. “Enough, guys. Really, truly, I’ve got to get through a pile of stuff today.” Calvin sighed and reached a hand out to Andrea.

  “Come on, Andrea, let’s go back to your office and I’ll see if I can’t have my way with you on that tidy desk of yours.”

  Andrea shot Calvin a serene, pitying look, ignored his hand and sailed out the door.

  Glen perched on the edge of my desk, shaking his head. “Formidable conquest, that Andrea. Calvin’s a brave man.”

  “He’s a nitwit,” I said. “He doesn’t know any better. You should see the kind of girl he’s used to.”

  “I have,” said Glen. He began sorting through the proofs, circling corrections in the margins for me to see. “Maggie,” he said, “I thought you were retired from the detective enterprise.”

  “I am, I am,” I lied. “But the cops keep showing up at Michael’s office to ask him questions.”

  Glen frowned, “Surely they can’t think Michael was involved.”

  “Surely they can,” I said, “but at this point, I just think they’re trying to make him nervous.”

  “Are they?” asked Glen.

  I bridled. “He doesn’t have anything to be nervous about. But.…”

  “But what?”

  “Oh, they’ve bumped him off the management committee at the firm. Until things clear up. But if things never do.…”

  “He should get a good lawyer, and you should stay out of it, Maggie,” muttered Glen.

  “I know. Honestly, I haven’t even been thinking all that much about the whole thing. But last night, I don’t know, I started brainstorming with the kids about something weird on John Orlando’s illustrations.”

  “Something weird?”

  “Yeah. Haven’t you ever noticed? If you look at the bottom of his illustrations, where his signature appears, there’s some peculiar number thing going on inside the O. You know how he always does those highly ornamented Os?”

  Glen nodded. “I’m familiar with his signature. But did you ask him about the numbers? Perhaps it’s his inventory system.”

  I sighed. “I know. It probably is, but I think that’s probably what he told Inspector Moon.”

  “You presented this theory to Moon?”

  “Yes, yes. You know, I promised Michael—and you, too, I guess—that I’d run our little ideas by him, instead of detecting on my own. And I’ve kept my word.” More or less, I thought to myself.

  “Well, then,” said Glen, “that’s about that, I guess. Now help me cut some of the extraneous matter out of this frivolous lox piece of yours.”

  “Frivolous?” I protested. “This is important investigative journalism.” I waved the galleys at him. “Without it, no bagel is safe from
inferior Nova Scotia anywhere in the Bay Area.”

  Glen’s face lit up. “Ah, Maggie, it’s nice to have you around. It’s nice to hear you be silly. It’s even,” he regarded me solemnly, “nice to have you as a Mother Superior.”

  “Perish the thought!”

  We spent a collegial half hour bickering back and forth about what to cut, pulling quotes, reviewing the factchecker’s notes on the story. As a typically lazy and somewhat haphazard writer, I had grown dependent on the factchecker’s due diligence on my pieces. Now, as an editor, I had to be willing to stand behind what we said. For Small Town, that usually involved nothing riskier than the price of smoked salmon in delis from Mill Valley to Milpitas, but the idea of the responsibility was sharpening my respect for the truth.

  The truth. That’s exactly what was preoccupying me after Glen left. In some ways, the surface of life had smoothed right out after Quentin’s death. It was if the shock of his murder had been a rock, crashing into the surface of my peaceful little lake of a life. Now, with him gone, only the tiniest of ripples remained. In many ways, the surface was smoother than ever. My “temp” job had solved my who-am-I woes, Michael and I seemed miraculously undamaged by my indiscretion, Josh’s stomach troubles had improved, probably without mom hovering over him so much, and I’d grown to feel ever more attached to the gang at Small Town. That’s what I’d been trying to tell Michael in the kitchen—some days I felt as if I was the one who got away with murder.

  But still, I wanted to know. Who had killed Quentin, and why? If the cops didn’t figure it out, or couldn’t figure it out, would it hang forever over Michael? Worse yet, over Michael and me? What about Stuart? He had to want to know. Of course, in some ways, finding the truth could be more frightening than not knowing at all. If it was someone close to me.… And with that, the urge to get up, find more caffeine, bother somebody in another office became overwhelming. Because that kind of truth seemed just too unthinkable.

  “Geez, Maggie, what a chicken,” I said aloud. I punched in Moon’s number.

  He answered on the second ring. “Anything new on the number on Orlando’s drawings?” I asked.