by Lisa Lutz
Rae responded appropriately for someone guilty of neither jealousy nor unrequited love.
“Ewwwww,” she said as loudly as one can say that word and still give it the proper tone of disgust. She then tossed a quarter on the table and said, “We’re done here.”
Two days later, Rae, knowing that Henry and Maggie had dinner plans that night, logged on to Henry’s e-mail 3 and begged out of their evening plans. She then phoned Henry’s office, claiming to be Maggie’s secretary, and canceled their plans from Maggie’s end. Rae’s plan was discovered straightaway. It was unlike Henry to cancel a date via e-mail. In fact, the only person Henry makes plans with or communicates with primarily in that fashion is Rae.
When Henry finished his tale, or rather Maggie’s, I asked the obvious question.
“Why did she toss a quarter on the table?”
“I know. I thought that was strange, too,” Henry replied.
“Do you think she was paying for the coffee?”
“Maybe.”
“When was the last time a cup of coffee cost a quarter?”
“She’s been watching a lot of old movies lately,” was Henry’s answer. Then he changed the subject. “I need you to do me a favor,” he said.
“Shoot.”
“I need you to take care of the Rae situation.”
“Why me?”
“I ask myself that question every day,” Henry replied.
“Have you tried reasoning with Rae?”
“Have you?”
“Okay. I get your point. I’ll have a talk with her.”
“Talk to Maggie, too. I need a neutral third party negotiating this peace settlement. Here’s her card,” he said.
I studied the card as a stalling tactic. There was something on my mind, but I was debating whether to bring it up.
“You must like this Maggie woman.”
“Call me crazy, but I tend to date people I like.” 4
“Ouch. I’m going to let that remark slide for now. Remember, you need me.”
“Sorry. I’ve got a headache.”
“Is it serious?”
“Nothing aspirin won’t cure.”
“No. With Maggie. Is it serious?”
“You have a strange way of asking questions. Seems like an unfortunate quirk for a private investigator. I hope you’re better with strangers.”
“I am.”
“Good.”
“So are you refusing to answer my question?” I asked.
“It could be serious one day. I don’t know. If it were, would you have an opinion on the subject?”
“Are you asking if I have an opinion?”
Henry’s spirits were not up to the task of an indirect conversation with me. “No, Isabel, I’m not asking if you have an opinion. Thank you for taking care of this matter for me. Excellent bourbon,” he said, placing the empty glass on the bar and taking his leave.
Okay. For those who have read documents one and two, you might be thinking that I do have an opinion—a strong opinion—on the subject of Henry Stone and that perhaps this was a missed opportunity to voice that opinion. It’s true. I have an opinion. For the time being, I’m going to keep it to myself.
Five minutes after Henry left, my father showed up looking for Rae. When I explained that she had left at least a half hour ago, my dad decided to make the most of his visit and used David’s hot tub. After Dad relaxed his muscles, he decided to relax his mind in front of David’s television. He even had the nerve to make casual conversation.
“So how have you been?” he asked.
“Can’t complain,” I replied, turning up the volume on the television.
Dad shouted over the laugh track. “Anything new?”
“I’ve almost completed my court-ordered therapy.”
“I’m proud of you, Isabel.” Dad said that line as if he were struggling to make it sound legitimate.
“For what?” was my response. The therapy was court-ordered; it wasn’t like I set out on my own to sort out my troubles.
Dad stared at the television, hoping an answer would come to him. “Well,” he said, “you didn’t get into any more trouble in the meantime, did you?”
I turned to my father, perplexed. He’s not exactly the kind of man to congratulate you on your misdeeds (or absence of misdeeds, in my case). I must have looked guilty rather than confused, because then he said, “You didn’t, did you?”
“Noooo,” I replied, and turned the volume up even more.
Another long silence extended through more bad television, accompanied by desperately encouraging laugh tracks. A commercial came on and I muted the sound.
“Seen any good movies lately?” Dad asked.
Having endured what I believed was more than a fair amount of small talk, I reminded my father of our agreement at the bar the other day, and he reminded me of all the times I had broken my word. My plans for the evening (searching David’s house) were derailed by Dad’s visit, but I wasn’t going to let him interfere with my sleep. I phoned Mom, who phoned Dad, and finally my father was on his way. I went to bed near one A.M . As I drifted off to sleep, I contemplated reasons why David might have a gun the way some people might count sheep.
NO GOOD DEED
M y phone rang at dawn the following morning. I don’t know about you, but I like at least six hours of sleep a night.
“Hello?”
“Izzele. Morty here. I need a ride.”
“What time is it?”
“Six A . M .”
“Where do you need to go this early?”
“Nowhere. But at ten this morning, I have an appointment with your friend the dentist. I thought you could drive me.”
“Why are you calling me at six A . M .?”
“So you don’t make other plans. Can you drive me?”
“Sure. Okay.”
“Be here at nine,” Morty said.
“But your appointment is at ten.”
“I like to be early.”
“I don’t.”
“You know, the new Caddies have just come out. I could hop on over to the dealer this afternoon.”
“How would you get there?”
“I’d take a cab. And then I’d leave with a brand-new four-door sedan with my name on it.”
“I’ll see you at nine,” I said, and hung up the phone.
I tried to sleep in, but the universe was conspiring against my rest, or at least the Golden Gate Disposal and Recycling Company was. I can sleep through many things, but the piercing jingle of bottles smashing against one another is not one of them. By 6:45 I gave up on sleep.
“Isabel, what a pleasant surprise,” Daniel said when he saw me and Morty enter the examination room. Ex-boyfriend #9, Daniel Castillo, DDS, gave me a warm kiss on the cheek and asked what I was doing in his office.
“She’s my driver,” Morty said as he seated himself in the chair.
“Are you two related?” Daniel asked.
“No,” I replied.
“I’m her lawyer,” Morty said.
“Lawyer?” Daniel repeated, seeming confused.
“I kept her out of jail. She owes me.”
“Hey!” I shouted. “What about attorney-client privilege?”
“I’m confused,” Daniel said. “Are you now working for Mr. Schilling?”
“No,” I replied. “He’s just not allowed to drive anymore.”
“I still have my license,” Morty said, giving me the evil eye. “There has been no official ruling.” The last sentence was directed at Daniel.
“I see,” Daniel replied, deciding that further questions were probably a bad idea. “Shall we begin the exam?”
Daniel put the bib on Morty and angled the chair back.
“Can you do anything about his teeth-sucking?” I asked.
“Mr. Schilling, try to floss after every meal. Or at least once a day.”
“Ahhh onnn uck ayyy eeth,” Morty said while the scaler and mirror were in his mouth.
“What? I can’t understand you,” I said.
“He said he doesn’t suck his teeth,” Daniel replied.
“He also makes this weird clicking noise, like his dentures are loose or something.”
Morty once again mumbled something incomprehensible, and I turned to Daniel for translation.
“Can you go sit in the waiting room, Isabel?” Daniel asked.
“Is that what he said?”
“No. It’s what I said.”
Twenty minutes later, Morty left the exam room and immediately made that teeth-sucking noise.
I turned to Daniel for at least sympathy, but I got none. I guess dentists hear a wide variety of teeth-related noises all day long. I suppose you get used to it. Daniel said good-bye and gave me a list of family members who needed to make checkup appointments. He said something about getting together sometime; his wife 1 would love to have me over for dinner—the usual awkward ex exchange, although in this case I got a free toothbrush.
Upon exiting Daniel’s office, Morty insisted that I take him to the store to do his weekly grocery shopping. Having never gone to the supermarket with my ancient friend before and therefore not knowing whether his ten-minute study of the decaf coffee selection, his intimate dance with the grapefruit, and his long-winded discussion at the deli counter were the true habits of an old man whose wife was on the lam or whether it was payback, I let our four-and-a-half-hour excursion (door to door) slide for the time being. However, after I dropped Morty off at his house, I decided to do a little research to be certain how to cope with my new responsibility in the future. I dropped by Gabe’s skate shop.
This time, Gabe was alone at the counter, doing something to a skateboard—no, I don’t know what. The closest I’ve come to skateboarding is smoking pot with someone who did.
“Izzele,” Gabe said, much to my annoyance.
“I’d hoped you’d stop calling me that.”
“It’s good to have hope. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
I leaned on the counter, suddenly feeling too tired to stand upright. “Have you ever been to a grocery store with your grandfather?”
“Sure. But it’s been a while. He hates going to the store. That’s why we set him up with an online delivery service. He just logs on to his computer.”
“I knew it!” I said.
“Huh?” Gabe said.
“Morty’s punishing me. I just spent three hours chauffeuring him to the dentist—we had to be early—and then an hour and a half in the grocery store, shopping for items that came to a grand total of forty-three dollars. Have you talked to your grandmother yet?”
I played along with Morty at the diner, but called Gabe with the inside scoop later that night. He agreed to intervene. “I’m afraid it’s not very good news,” Gabe replied.
Here’s Morty and Ruth’s conflict in a nutshell: For sixty years, Ruth Schilling, a sun worshipper at heart, lived in a city that is temperate but rarely toasty. She settled for yearly vacations in the desert or the tropics and bided her time. The Schillings made a deal. When Morty retired, they would move to a meteorological sauna. But when he turned sixty-five, he postponed his retirement another five years, then another five. Then he stuck a desk in their garage and took on a random client (like me) here and there—just enough to be able to claim he wasn’t officially retired. Ruthy eventually hopped on a plane to Miami with her mah-jongg tiles, jewelry, and resort wear, and told Morty that she’d either see him in Miami or see a divorce attorney. But Morty wasn’t budging and neither was Ruth.
Gabe and I compared notes and concurred that Ruth was 100 percent in the right. We therefore agreed that our responsibility in this matter was to convince Morty of that fact.
On my way to the car, after leaving Gabe’s shop, I was poised to call Maggie and begin mediating the Rae situation when my mother phoned.
“I need you to come home right away,” my mother said, sounding professional but urgent.
“Is it an emergency?” I asked.
Long pause. “Sure. Why not?” she replied.
I arrived at the Spellman residence fifteen minutes later.
My mother held an official-looking envelope in her hands. I’d already waited five minutes for her breaking news, and my patience was waning.
“Mom, I have to be at work in an hour. Either spill the beans or let me go.”
My mother slid the envelope across the table. “You can’t tell anyone. No one has seen it yet.”
“What is it?” I asked, trying to place the return address.
“Rae’s PSAT scores.”
I opened it and studied the report. “This can’t be right,” I said.
SAT scoring has changed since my day, when 1600 was a perfect score. An essay question has been added, upping the total to 2000. Rae’s score was 1795 (really, really high).
“I thought the same thing,” replied my mom. “But I called the school. It was just a practice test, but the score is legitimate.”
Mom kept talking, but I wasn’t paying attention anymore.
“What was David’s score? Do you remember?” I asked.
“Fourteen-eighty,” Mom said.
“You are so weird, Mom. Why would you have memorized David’s SAT score?”
“I checked his file 2 this morning. Yours, too, Miss Ten-Fifty.”
In my defense, I was seriously stoned both times I took the SAT (and didn’t break into quadruple digits on the first outing). However, my sister’s score was shocking.
“If she is this smart, why is she scraping by with a B-minus average?”
“Good question,” Mom replied.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“I don’t know. But there are going to be some changes around here.”
PEACE TALKS
F or someone officially off the job, my investigative endeavors had certainly picked up steam in recent weeks. Aside from the ongoing Ernie-Black’s-not-very-suspicious-wife case (on hold until the wife actually did something suspicious), there was the mystery of the gun found in my brother’s house, the mystery of my sister’s surprise PSAT score, and finally, the mystery of why Maggie Mason was willing to negotiate with my tyrannical sibling.
Since Henry refused to negotiate with Rae, I was forced to play mediator in their dispute. But first, let me provide you with some background on the new couple.
Henry Stone and Maggie met on the job. Well, sort of. They met in the empty corridors of the Bryant Street criminal court building, where Maggie wa
s roaming the halls with the stunned, aimless bearing of someone who had given up searching for a solution to her troubles. She’d been cramming for a murder trial for five sleep-deprived days.
When the trial was over—and her client was found guilty 1 —Maggie was looking forward to going home, crawling into bed, and staying there for a few days. The problem with that plan was her car: It wouldn’t start. After a few failed attempts, Maggie exited her vehicle, opened the trunk, and pulled out a set of jumper cables. When she closed the trunk, she locked her keys inside. She didn’t panic until she realized that she’d also locked the car door behind her, with her briefcase and cell phone inside. Maggie returned to the criminal court building, figuring that between cops and criminals she could find someone to break into her car. Henry Stone found her first.
Maggie searched the hallway with the jumper cables tossed over her shoulders like a mink stole. She was exhausted and her heart wasn’t in the hunt. She sat down on a bench outside one of the many courtrooms and rested her eyes.
Henry approached the tired woman in the suit and jumper cables and asked if she needed assistance.
Henry borrowed a slim jim from the police department and broke into Maggie’s car. He gave her battery a jump start and Maggie gave Henry her card.
“I owe you,” she said.
A week later, they had their first date.
Five months later, I was meeting Maggie at a coffee shop across the street from her office at the Bryant Street courthouse to play mediator in her negotiations with my sister. I ordered a coffee and sat by the window, waiting for the two parties to arrive. Maggie waved at me from across the street.
On the surface, Maggie appears attractive, confident, and maybe a little conservative. As I watched her cross the street, her bearing made her almost a cliché of a high-achieving professional in her midthirties. Her gray suit and white shirt were tasteful but bland. What I liked most about Maggie was how the surface was so deceiving. Up close you might notice that she buttoned up her jacket so that you couldn’t see the wrinkled shirt beneath. You might also notice that even though her hair is a shiny dark brown, several thick strands of gray have begun to emerge and she seems in no hurry to cover up this fact, even though it’s the only solid evidence that she’s past thirty. You might also notice that she’s a compulsive foot-tapper and that if she notices you noticing, she’ll try to stop.
