Edited to Death

by Linda Lee Peterson

  “Maggie, how very nice to hear from you,” he said.

  “Uh huh. Very nice, I’m sure. I bet you’re sitting there rolling your eyes and wondering when I’ll go away.”

  “Not rolling my eyes,” he said. “Not yet. Oddly enough, other people keep inconveniently getting killed in our fair city, so I do have one or two other things to attend to. What’s on your mind?”

  “Well, I was wondering if you got my message last night.”

  “I did.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing yet. I did pass the idea along to the information services people who are looking at those numbers. I also—just so you don’t think I ignore every fine lead you send my way—did talk to some gallery owners about how artists number their work.”

  “What’d you find out?”

  “Well, I faxed Orlando’s drawings to several people. None of them recognized his signature as a numbering system they knew for prints or serigraphs or anything.”

  “But that’s how he explained it, right?”

  “Right. And just because gallery owners don’t understand his system, that doesn’t make him guilty of something.”

  “I know. Well, keep me posted.”

  There was an audible sigh on the other end of the line. “And to be perfectly clear, Maggie, I should keep you posted because.…”

  “Because,” I said in my wannabe mover-and-shaker voice, “A. You are a public servant, right? I do pay your salary.”

  Moon chuckled. “Yes, that’s entirely correct. We never forget who we work for. And was there a B?”

  “Well, B is, after all, I am editor of a major city magazine. I am a member of the Fourth Estate.”

  “Acting editor, I believe,” said Moon tartly. “And unless I’m mistaken, Small Town’s mission in life seems to be covering important retail and culinary trends, not current events.”

  I thought about the lox piece. He had me there. “Hey,” I said, “press is press. And C is, well, aren’t we friends?”

  “We are friendly acquaintances,” he said. “And I don’t ask you to share confidential information from your job, and you shouldn’t ask me to share confidential information from mine. I’ve already raised eyebrows going out socially with you and your husband.”

  “Okay, let’s go back to reason B,” I said.

  “Mm-hmm,” he said. “Well, as I mentioned to you, I’m most grateful for any ideas, and I assure you we’ll be following up on the results of the important investigative session you carried out at your dinner table last night. Say hello to Michael for me.”

  All very cordial. All very polite. All very patronizing. But I was convinced nothing was happening with our hot idea. I wandered down the hall to the coffee machine and ran into Jorge, one of the factcheckers. The Copy Chief tended to hire college students as factcheckers, interns whom we can cheerfully exploit. They need the work experience, we need their labor. Mutual abuse. Jorge was a case in point. Senior at Berkeley in journalism, dressed in kid-couture du jour—multiple ear piercings, one eyebrow piercing, Courtney Love T-shirt, jeans worn well below the waist. Despite his grunge looks, he was sweet, responsible, and exceptionally hard working.

  “Hey, good work on my lox piece,” I said.

  He blushed. “Your stuff is pretty clean,” he said. “You get people’s names right.”

  “I know,” I said, rooting in the mini-fridge for half and half that had an expiration date in this calendar quarter. “But I get careless about the other stuff—numbers, times, addresses.”

  He blushed even deeper. “Thanks, Maggie. I’m glad you like my work.”

  I regarded him carefully, feeling my hipness slip away as I mourned over all those holes in that gorgeous young face. Oh, well, preview of times to come at my house, I guessed.

  “Hey, Maggie, I’ve been fooling around with a new home page for Small Town. Can I show you later?”

  Under Quentin’s nineteenth-century sensibility, Small Town had been dawdling on the journey into cyberspace. But, led by Jorge and a few of the other young info junkies, the magazine had been playing catch-up with increasing speed. “Sure,” I said vaguely. “Maybe this afternoon.” And then those little tumblers, rattling around, trying to find their home, started up in my head.

  “Hey, Jorge,” I called. “Wait up a sec.”

  I followed him to his desk and computer terminal, and in a few minutes had learned what I needed to know. The old Daily Commercial News, San Francisco’s longstanding chronicle of shipping news, a publication that had flourished in the days when the city was an important port, was no more. But the information the paper had carried—what ships moved in and out of which piers, carrying what cargo—was still available. Online.

  Jorge logged on, accessed an online service, and began scrolling through pages and pages of shipping news.

  “So what are we looking for, Maggie?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure exactly. But I want you to check out any time these sets of numbers come together,” and I scribbled a series of numbers from Orlando’s signature.

  “Come together?”

  “Yeah, like if on the third day of the fifth month, there’s a container ship arriving at Pier 31, I want to know the particulars. What ship, what’s it carrying, like that.”

  Jorge grinned and flashed me a thumbs up. “Got it. And what do I win if I figure it out?”

  “Geez, that’s exactly what my kids asked me last night,” I protested. “Doesn’t anybody do anything for the fun of it anymore?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Jorge laughed. “I do plenty of random stuff for the fun of it. But you don’t want to hear about it.”

  “Probably not.”

  “Okay, here’s the deal.” He swiveled his chair to look at me. “I find something, and you give me a real writing assignment.”

  “What do you want to write about?”

  “Hey, I don’t care. I just want to see a byline sometime before I’m—”

  “Ancient?” I asked.

  He blushed. “Well, not ancient, but you know, over-the-hill.”

  I patted his hand. “Jorge, you’re making it worse. We got a deal. Find me some juicy numbers and I’ll find you an assignment.”

  We shook on it and I left him to his screen.

  24

  Nosy Slut

  The Fiori Volvos were so aged and battered, veterans of so many urban and suburban wars, that it was, at first glance, hard to tell what was different about my car. Same color, same dents, same slightly askew right-side mirror.

  But as I drew closer in the parking lot, I saw there was an added attraction. Guercino’s Girl Is a Nosy Slut, the side panel read. I circled the car. Correction, Guercino’s Girl Is a Nosy Slut decorated both side panels. The hood and rear window had been abbreviated to Nosy Slut. “Thorough,” I thought to myself, and then a wave of nausea hit me. I leaned against a cold, concrete pillar in the parking lot and willed my lunch not to come up. Someone nasty knew I hadn’t given up detecting, and that someone was pissed enough to embarrass me.

  I called Inspector Moon and he was there within twenty minutes.

  “I don’t get it,” he said. “Who’s Guercino? Some other guy you’re seeing on the side?”

  “Watch it,” I said. “Not that it’s your business, but I’m not seeing anyone.”

  “Okay, so who’s this guy, Guercino?”

  “A painter,” I said, “Italian, 1600s, I think.”

  “So are you supposed to be Guercino’s Girl?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll figure it out.”

  A sweet-faced uniformed cop had accompanied Moon and asked me more practical questions. Who knew where I parked my car? Did I keep a regular schedule, etc. After she left, Moon suggested we sit in the car.

  “Once again, just to pry into things that may not be my business,” he said, “have you called Michael yet?”

  I felt sick again. Michael. Oops. He’d probably agree with the judgment of the auto graffiti expert and
be pissed as hell all over again. I kept these thoughts to myself.

  “No, I haven’t called him,” I snapped. “But actually, he’ll be thrilled. It’s time to paint the old wreck anyway.” The Queen of Bravado was back and lying through her teeth.

  Moon permitted himself a small, smug, superior smile. “Forgive me for saying so, but I believe you are full of horseshit.”

  I leaned my head on the steering wheel. “I know I am. And Michael’s going to be furious. He doesn’t care about the car—what’s to care about—but we’d sort of made peace about this detective stuff. I told him I was telling him everything I knew, and he believed me.

  “Hmm,” said Moon. “I’d be surprised if he were that accomplished at self-deception.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out his little reporter’s notebook. “So as long as you are foolishly, and against my direct orders, putting yourself and your family in harm’s way with this Nancy Drew stuff, why don’t you tell me what you know that’s new and different since our conversation this morning?”

  Surrender seemed in order. I quickly ran down a summary of the conversation Andrea, Calvin and I had had. Moon interrupted with a question or two, took a few notes, and let me finish.

  “That’s it?” he inquired. “You’re sure?”

  I nodded. “Oh, of course, there’s Jorge.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” said Moon. “And who is Jorge, and what’s he doing?”

  I explained. He smiled. “I see our information systems people were too slow for you,” he said.

  I felt myself blush. “Well, not too slow,” I said, “but I’m sure they’re busy tracking down all those offshore stashes of funds some local Catholic church keeps embezzling.”

  Moon raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you ever worry about what you say, Maggie? I could be Catholic. You could be offending me, you know?”

  “Hey, I’m married to a Catholic myself. I just read the papers. Aren’t all those local priests turning into the Michael Milkens of the new millennium? Besides, I’m hoping they’re socking some extra away to help put my little half-Catholic waifs through expensive private colleges. And besides,” I finished with a flourish, “shouldn’t you be Buddhist?”

  “I believe that’s what’s called none of your business,” he said, closing his notebook. “And now, since you informed me this morning that we’re friends, I’m going to talk to you like a friend. Maggie, you’ve got to cut it out.”

  I began to protest, “I didn’t really do anything—”

  “Well, someone thinks you did. Asking questions and exploiting your magazine help to do your legwork for you looks like a lot of something to somebody. Just cut it out or something more permanent than mysterious name-calling graffiti is going to happen.” He shook his head. “You know, that’s what bothers me about this prank.”

  “Bothers you? It’s my car.”

  He ignored me. “Remember, I worked for years in high schools. This is the kind of thing teenagers do. It’s like tepee-ing a neighbor’s house. It’s meant to scare and humiliate you, I guess, but it doesn’t seem very threatening. And it’s meant to puzzle you. So it’s somebody who knows you well enough to assume you’ll figure it out.”

  “You mean, like Glenn Close boiling the kid’s bunny?”

  He smiled. “Your kids have a bunny?”

  “No, thank heavens.”

  “Well, you see what I mean, don’t you? This isn’t life threatening. It’s meant to look scary, but it isn’t really.”

  “So you think I’m being stalked by a teenager?”

  He gave a short laugh. “Maybe. It’s more like you’re being warned off by someone who actually cares about you—and just can’t bring himself or herself to really scare you in a serious way.”

  We were silent for a moment.

  “Michael?” ventured Moon.

  “Michael what?” I asked crossly.

  “Michael wouldn’t do something like this?”

  I snorted. “Just because he’s Italian doesn’t mean he knows anything about sixteenth century painters,” I said. “And besides, he just wouldn’t.”

  Moon shook his head. “I’m remembering our conversation at Skate Oakland. Husbands and wives. Do we ever really know each other?”

  “Uh huh,” I said noncommittally, distracted by the distressing series of phone calls I had still in front of me—to Michael, to our cranky insurance agent who never seemed happy to hear from me.

  Moon asked me a few more questions, trying to pin down exactly who did and didn’t know about my contraband sleuthing, then unfolded himself out of the defaced Volvo and sent me on my way.

  I couldn’t stand the thought of parking the newly enhanced Fiori-mobile in front of our house, so I dropped it at one of those discount paint places my insurance agent kinda, sorta pre-approved and called Anya to come fetch me.

  The kids were in the back seat of her equally disreputable aged VW bug, singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” and favoring the back of the seat with those high-force kid kicks that convince you terminal kidney disease is just around the corner.

  I blew kisses at everybody, discouraged the kicks, and closed my eyes.

  “Shhh, kids,” Anya cautioned, “your mom’s not feeling good.”

  I sighed. “I’m okay, Anya, I feel fine. It’s just been a complicated day.” And then I sat bolt upright in Anya’s grimy passenger seat.

  “Anya’s an art student, you idiot!”

  Anya looked miffed. “Who are you talking to, Maggie? I’m right here. Of course I’m an art student.”

  “Good. So you know who Guercino was, right?”

  “Italian painter, Bolognese school, inspired by Titian.”

  “Okay, what else do you know about him?”

  “He took over the supervision of the Bolognese school from Guido Reni.”

  “Guido, Uh huh. What else?”

  “I don’t know that much more,” Anya said. “He really had just one famous painting.”

  “And that was?”

  “The picture of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. I think it’s called Christ with the Woman Taken in Adultery.”

  “That’s it,” I said grimly. “So if somebody was called Guercino’s girl, what would she be?”

  “Oh,” Anya said, “a bad woman, an adulteress.”

  I fell silent. The graffiti artist clearly knew about my wicked ways. Of course, as time went by, I was becoming convinced that could include most of the population of the greater Bay Area.

  “I have something to cheer you up, Maggie,” said Anya. “Two somethings.”

  “Good,” I said, “I can use some cheering up.”

  “Michael’s bringing home ribs from Everett & Jones.” A cheer went up from the backseat. Everett & Jones was a hole-in-the-wall paradise for lovers of authentic down-to-the-last-spoonful-of-spicy-coleslaw barbecue. I felt a little like cheering myself.

  “So,” Anya wagged a finger at the kids in the rearview mirror, “no reindeer souffle!”

  Fortunately, she was good-natured about her lack of cooking skills, and about the incrementally preposterous dishes Michael was always promising the kids she would make.

  “Okay, I agree, great news number one,” I said. “What’s next?”

  “Oh, someone must be—do you say, ‘sweet on you’?” asked Anya.

  “We do say that,” I said, “under certain circumstances. Why?”

  “Well, someone left a big bouquet on the front steps,” she said. “And it must be from their garden, because there’s no florist note, just a little envelope with your name on it.”

  By the time we reached home, the pinching/scuffling activities in the backseat had escalated. We turned the kids out in the driveway, Anya disappeared into the basement to work on her senior project—which consisted of many large, metal, rusty objects scavenged from trips to the “pick ’n pull” wrecking yard destined for eventual soldering into one large, increasingly hideous, and, I feared, unmovable, sculpture.

  Anya had put
my bouquet on the dining table, arranged in a large crystal vase. And before I even saw the note, I felt my heart sink. I leaned on the table and called, “Anya? Can you come a minute?”

  Anya came in, caught sight of my face, and said, “Maggie? What’s wrong? What’s wrong? Sit down.”

  “Do you see anything odd about this bouquet?” I asked.

  Anya regarded it. “No, I mean, I don’t know much about flowers, but these are… unusual. I don’t think I’ve seen many of them in a bouquet before.”

  “And there’s a reason,” I said. “They’re all poisonous.”

  “Poisonous?” Anya recoiled.

  “Yes,” I said, gesturing at each different kind, ticking them off. “Oleanders, solanum, foxglove, even the foliage—it’s poison oak. Did you touch these leaves?” I asked.

  Anya’s eyes grew wide. “Maybe.”

  “Well, go have a good, soapy shower just to be sure. I’m going to dump these things. And where’s the note?”

  “In with the mail on the hall table,” Anya sprang to her feet.

  The envelope looked innocuous enough, although my name was in typeface, clearly cut from something in print—Small Town’s masthead, I would have guessed. I had the envelope slit and open and the note halfway out before I remembered to worry about letter bombs. Nothing exploded, except the message.

  “Sweets to the sweets,” it read, “and poison fiori to the Nosy Fiori Slut.”

  “How charming,” I said. My graffiti-artist worked in mixed media. Fiori is Italian for “flowers.”

  I pulled on rubber gloves to protect against the poison oak, unfolded newspaper on the dining room table, swept the offending bouquet into it, and marched to the trash can. Then I considered my options. I could call Inspector Moon—who would deliver yet another lecture; I could tell Michael, who would probably try to put me under house arrest; or I could let it ride. I made the dumb, expedient decision and let it ride. It must have been Moon’s past life as an authority figure in high school, but against all reason, I resisted being a well behaved little citizen. I had reported dutifully: with Orlando’s signature, with my kids’ theories, with my car, and where was it getting us? Michael’s career was in a holding pattern. This was our life some nut was intruding on, and it seemed as if the cops weren’t making progress on much of anything. When Anya emerged from the bathroom, her hair still dripping from the shower, I suggested to her that the bouquet could be our little secret.