by Mary Marks
“I can’t. She’s dead. She always refused to talk to me about him. I think she lied about everything!”
“Now you know how I feel. Go on. What else does the report say?”
She began to read again, skipping over most of it. “Hair samples, blah-de-blah, fibers, soil, plant material. ‘In conclusion, no visible indications of a struggle or foul play were found.’”
“Sorry to interrupt.” Crusher stood in the doorway. “I came to tell you I’m about to drive Isaac back to West LA and knew you’d want to say good-bye.”
Giselle also stood. “I can drive Uncle Isaac back to West LA and save you a trip back and forth over the hill.”
There it was again, her use of Uncle Isaac. I worried about how he’d respond to being alone with the woman who insulted his sister earlier in the evening. I tried to discourage her. “We’re not finished here, G. Besides, it’s not exactly on your way. My uncle lives far south of you in the Pico-Robertson area. You’d be taking a big detour from the Palisades to drive him. Yossi can do it.”
“Don’t be silly, Martha. It’s the least I can do for my big sister! Besides, I’ve had enough surprises for one night. We can continue this tomorrow.”
She leaned over and kissed my cheek, then she turned to Crusher. “Let’s go.”
She headed toward the living room. Crusher turned to me behind her back and rolled his eyes.
“This will not end well,” I whispered.
Uncle Isaac glanced at me nervously then turned to Giselle. “It’s very kind of you to offer me a ride home, but you don’t have to bother.”
“It’s no bother, really. I’m happy to help my big sister.”
I knew my uncle. He was too polite to keep refusing. He shrugged. “Well, if you say so.”
Crusher and I wished them Shabbat shalom and watched as they walked toward her red Escalade parked in my driveway.
“So, why haven’t you ever been married, Uncle Isaac?”
“I never found the right one.”
She opened the passenger door for him and offered to help him inside. “A cute little old man like you? I bet you’ve had tons of girlfriends.”
To my surprise, he laughed.
She closed his door, walked around to the driver’s side, and waved at us before she got in.
As they drove off I asked, “What do you think of her?”
Crusher threw back his head and laughed. He closed the door and took me in his arms. “I think she’s a lot like you in a scrawny, unedited sort of way.”
“But I’m smarter, right?”
He nuzzled my neck. “Way smarter.”
I thought about Giselle’s skinny thighs. “What about desirable?”
He began to undo the buttons on my pink silk blouse. “Ten times more desirable.”
“Only ten?”
He moaned softly. “A hundred times.”
We spent the rest of the evening eagerly fulfilling another lovely Sabbath tradition.
CHAPTER 8
Saturday morning I carried a cup of breakfast coffee to my sewing room and sorted through the pile of witness interviews, beginning with Giselle’s mother. The detectives had questioned Louise Maguire more than once. According to her initial testimony, on the morning of May 25, 1980, she’d packed Quinn’s suitcase and watched him toss it in the trunk of his Cadillac before heading for the airport. That was the last time she saw or heard from her husband.
Her next interview was conducted two weeks later, after Quinn’s missing car was impounded.
When questioned later about the condoms and semen in the car, LM claimed to have no knowledge and appeared to be very distressed. When asked about the red lipstick on the cigarettes, she stopped the interview and refused further discussion.
That seemed to substantiate what Giselle and I suspected last night. Some woman other than either of our mothers had been smoking inside Quinn’s Cadillac. The skin on the back of my neck tingled a warning as I read a third interview dated a month later.
LM said she and her husband drove to an isolated spot near Mulholland Drive to “spice things up a bit.” She initially denied knowing about the car sex because she’d been too embarrassed. She also claimed the red lipstick had been hers.
Why did she change her story? Louise Maguire was hiding something. The last line of the detective’s notes confirmed he also didn’t believe her story.
LM seemed agitated and refused to make eye contact. Body language suggests she’s lying.
Next I read the interviews with Louise’s parents. The initial conversation portrayed them as being perplexed by Quinn’s disappearance.
Jerome and Edith Eagan were questioned together. The last time they saw Jacob Quinn Maguire was the evening before his disappearance, when both families had dined together at the Jonathan Club. They said their son-in-law was excited about returning to New York. They never heard from him again.
Stapled to that document were follow-up interviews dated after the Cadillac had been examined.
Edith Eagan denied any knowledge of Maguire’s extramarital affairs. She said her daughter’s marriage was successful and happy and that Maguire was devoted to his family. He had no reason to leave his wife and daughter and disappear.
In a separate interview, Jerome Eagan didn’t seem to be surprised at the forensic evidence.
JE didn’t seem disturbed by his son-in-law’s flings. But he was disturbed about Maguire’s missing luggage. JE said, “If I find out he ran off with one of his little chippies, I’ll hunt him down myself!”
The detective underlined the last sentence.
I continued searching but found no evidence of any further interviews with the family. I did read brief interviews of friends, neighbors, and colleagues, both in LA and New York. Quinn was under exclusive contract to the Shiffer Gallery in Beverly Hills. The owner, Eliza Shiffer, was interviewed but denied knowing anything about his disappearance.
Only one artist friend, a potter named Jayda Constable, was able to add significant information. She admitted to having an ongoing affair with Quinn whenever he visited New York. In the rest of the interview, the artist said she and Quinn made plans to stay together at the Plaza during his weeklong stay. She revealed that on the day before he disappeared, he phoned to say he was bringing a lot of money with him to New York. When he didn’t show up, she suspected something “bad” must have happened to him. No follow-up interviews were ever made.
The more I learned about my father, the more disgusted I became. He got my mother pregnant and abandoned her. Then he married the daughter of an oil baron, had another child, and made my mother his mistress. Now I found out she was only one of his many lovers. Not everyone was as passive as my mother had been. Could he have been killed by an angry paramour or a jealous husband?
The few remaining papers from the file revealed the BHPD monitored Quinn’s known bank accounts and credit card statements but found no sign of cash withdrawals and no activity after the date of his disappearance. One month after he went missing, the investigation died a quiet death.
Now, more than ever, I needed to talk to retired BHPD Captain Bela Farkas. To dismiss a high-profile case like that after only a month seemed strange. When database searches and credit card statements failed to turn up any trace of Quinn, didn’t the police suspect foul play? If so, why didn’t they expand their probe?
I picked up my cell phone and called Giselle. “I think you should know what I found in the rest of Quinn’s file this morning.”
“You finished going through it without me?”
“It’s eleven in the morning, G. I wasn’t going to sit around until you decided to call.”
She yawned. “I like to sleep in on the weekends.”
“Do you want to know what I discovered or not?”
“Chill out. Why are you such a grumpus this morning? Didn’t you get any last night?”
Did I ever, but I wasn’t about to tell her that. “I’m not grumpy, I’m just disturbed by what I di
dn’t find in the file.” I told her what the witness reports revealed.
“I don’t get it. Daddy was famous. How could they forget about him like that?”
“That’s what I intend to find out. I’m going to track down the two detectives who worked the case. I’m also planning to talk to the guy who supervised those detectives, Captain Farkas. He’s incommunicado right now, but his son, Gabe, is going to help me get in touch. Gabe’s kind of a friend of mine. We worked together on a case a couple of years ago.”
“Well, I have a right to be there when you talk to all these people. After all, he was my father, too.”
“Of course. But when I tell you to meet me somewhere, you better show up on time. I don’t want to be standing around waiting for you to roll out of bed.”
“Stop right there, Sissy. Just because you’re older doesn’t mean you’re the boss of me.”
Sissy? I blew out a puff of air. Working with Giselle wasn’t going to be easy. “To change the subject, thanks again for taking Uncle Isaac home last night.”
“No problem. He really is a lovable little guy. I’ve decided to adopt him.”
“What did you talk about?”
“He wanted to know all about me, my late husband, and my son, Nicholas. He asked most of the questions and I did most of the talking.”
No surprise there.
“I asked him what you were like growing up.” She chuckled. “He said I reminded him a little of you. Curious, adventurous, and a good learner. Wasn’t that sweet?”
“Yossi said something similar last night.”
“It must be our DNA, right? Speaking of Yossi, what a hunk! I always thought Jewish men were little and indoorsy. I didn’t know they could grow so tall and lumberjacky. By the way, I heard Jewish men are great in the sack. Does he have any friends?”
Oy vey. “As much as I enjoy our conversations, G, I’m going to have to cut this one short. I’ve got some errands to run.”
“Okay, but before you go, I wanted to let you know I think I’ve located that quilt I told you about. The one my grandmother was making.”
“Bring it to my group. We meet every Tuesday morning at ten. My house.”
“There you go being bossy again, Sissy. Honestly!”
I ended the call and picked up a notepad. Now that I had a grasp of what was in the missing-persons file, I began writing summaries of the facts. Then I used straight pins with colorful round glass heads to pin each note to the flannel sheet. I lined them up in a horizontal row to establish a timeline that began with Quinn’s disappearance on May 25, 1980, and ended one month later. Then I posted a list of questions.
Where did Quinn’s luggage go?
What about the cash he was bringing to New York?
Who was the mystery woman with the red lipstick?
Who belonged to the unidentified fingerprints?
Why didn’t the police investigate foul play?
Possible motives: jealousy, robbery.
I stood back and studied the murder board, adding one last touch, Quinn’s photo and printouts of the three portraits of my mother. There was nothing more I could do until I spoke to Captain Bela Farkas. I hoped he could help me track down the investigating detectives and Jayda Constable, Quinn’s artist lover. I also hoped that, after more than thirty years, those people were still alive with their memories intact.
The quiet rumbling in my stomach reminded me it was lunchtime. Something about Lucy’s too-breezy attitude the other day bothered me enough that I gave her a call. “What are you doing right now? We haven’t had time to catch up for a while. Come over. I’m fixing brisket sandwiches on challah.”
“Good idea. There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”
I shook with a sudden chill at the somber tone of her voice.
CHAPTER 9
Lucy sat at my kitchen table, poking listlessly at her sandwich.
I cleared my throat. “You said you wanted to talk to me about something?”
“Ray went in for a colonoscopy last Monday and they found some polyps. We still haven’t gotten the biopsy results.”
“Don’t most polyps turn out to be benign?”
“There’s a history of colon cancer in his family. His mother, aunt, and cousin Rocco all died of it.” Her perfectly made-up face crumpled in pain. “I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to my Ray.”
Lucy and Ray Mondello had been together their whole lives. They grew up in the small town of Moorcroft, Wyoming, and became sweethearts in the seventh grade. They got pregnant and married—in that order—during their senior year in high school. At the end of Ray’s tour in Vietnam, they moved to Los Angeles, where they raised five sons and built a successful auto repair business.
I moved my chair closer and put my arms around my best friend while she leaned into me and sobbed. “I don’t blame you for being concerned,” I said, “but this could be nothing at all. Is Ray complaining about any symptoms?”
Lucy picked up her napkin, dabbed at her eyes, and blew her nose. “No.” Black mascara smudged the skin under her eyes. “He says he feels strong as an ox and frisky as a fox.” She curled her fingers in the air quotes she loved so much.
“Well, then, he’s probably fine. If the biopsy results are positive, God forbid, we’ll face this together. Do the boys know what’s going on?”
“No. We wanted to wait until we knew one way or the other. We should get the results by this coming Monday.”
“And this was the reason you updated your wills the other day?”
“Yes.” She sniffled. “Just in case.”
“I’m not going to tell you not to worry, Lucy, because if I were in your shoes, I’d be sitting on shpilkes till I found out. Frankly, I think this calls for some serious chocolate.”
She smiled for the first time.
I normally avoided mixing meat and dairy in the same meal, but my Catholic friend wasn’t bound by the same kosher rules. When we finished our sandwiches, I prepared a generous bowl of chocolate chunk ice cream with milk chocolate syrup and placed it on the table before her. “As Uncle Isaac would say, Ess, faigela. Eat up.”
Ten minutes later, Lucy’s spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl. She leaned back and closed her eyes and sighed. “I feel better now.” She looked at me. “When is Quincy coming to town?”
“She’s due to arrive tomorrow, but I won’t see her right away. Kaplan’s picking her up at LAX and they’re going straight to his place. She says they’ll join us for Shabbat on Friday, but I don’t know if I’ll see her before then. I hope she gets good and sick and tired of him by the end of her visit. I’ve already invited her to stay here if things don’t work out.”
“Come on, Martha. Is he that bad?”
“Worse!”
“What’ll you do if they end up getting married? Having children?”
“Pray that their babies scream all night long with colic and grow up to be rebellious teenagers with earrings in their lips.”
Lucy laughed. “So, tell me what’s new with your investigation.”
I led her to my sewing room.
She stepped closer to the murder board and began to read the timeline I’d constructed. “Where’d you get this information?”
I pointed to the stacks of papers on the cutting table. “Yossi managed to get a copy of Quinn’s missing-persons file.” I showed her the forensic report.
“Ewww,” she said. “Semen in the backseat?”
“I know, right? I mean, if Quinn was fooling around like that, maybe he pissed someone off.”
“Like a jealous husband?”
“Exactly! Yet the police never considered foul play.”
“Wait a minute. That family was fairly prominent, right? Then why didn’t they make a big stink and demand more? A family like that would’ve had influence in very high places.”
“I don’t know the answer to that. The Eagans didn’t contribute any useful information. And Louise actually changed her statement to whi
tewash her husband’s infidelities.”
“What does your sister say?”
“Half sister. She was only twelve at the time and doesn’t remember much. Unfortunately, her mother and her grandparents are gone, so we can’t ask any of them. But I did locate the supervising captain at the BHPD. I’m hoping he’ll tell us why the case wasn’t pursued.”
“Well, you certainly have your work cut out for you, girlfriend.” She arched her back and stretched. “Thanks for lunch and, you know, the shoulder. I’ve got to go. My grandson Trey has a soccer game this afternoon. Keep your fingers crossed for the biopsy report on Monday.”
“Of course I will. By the way, you’ll have a chance to meet Giselle on Tuesday. I’ve invited her to bring a quilt her grandmother was piecing when she died. Depending on the shape it’s in, I thought I’d help her finish.”
After Lucy left, I cleaned up the kitchen. As I wiped down the apricot-colored marble kitchen counters, my phone rang.
“Martha? Gabe Farkas here.”
“Hi, Gabe. Sorry I haven’t been in touch. I meant to tell you I already got a copy of my father’s missing-persons file.”
“That explains the other request they said they received. My dad finally surfaced and called me just now. I told him about you and he’s willing to talk. But he won’t do it over the phone. He’s insisting he’ll only speak to you in person.”
I didn’t relish a trip to Arizona, especially in July, when the thermometer soared into the triple digits. “You think he knows more than what’s in the file?”
“Yeah, but he wouldn’t tell me what. He told me to give you his phone number so the two of you can work out the details.”
I wrote down the info. “I really appreciate your help.”
“One more thing. At some point, this could turn into a homicide investigation. You need to keep me in the loop. Agreed?”
“Of course.”
