“We checked all the costume shops within a fifty-mile radius but apparently there’s not a big call for that.”
“In other words, you don’t have squat,” Fitzwater said, not kindly. “I came here representing Alice Gerard to find out what you’re doing to get Peter’s killer. The answer is, not much. It sounds to me like Quandra’s the best suspect you have. Maybe you’d better ramp up your efforts to find her.”
Oscar managed to not turn purple - just pink. He looked like he was just about to unload on Fitzwater when Mac beat him to it.
“All of this is most entertaining,” he said. “I feel constrained, however, to point out what I believe is a fatal flaw in what might be called Mr. Fitzwater’s Quandra Theory: Only the most tortured reasoning can produce any conceivable reason for Ms. Hall to kill Rodney Stonecipher.
“Admittedly, one could hypothesize that she wanted to throw the police off the track by killing the wrong man first, but surely that is a far-fetched reason for accepting the huge added risk inherent in killing a man with a room full of people just a few feet away. And just as surely neither she nor Mr. Fitzwater nor anyone who knew Peter really well - far better than I did in recent years - would have mistaken Mr. Stonecipher for him.”
Presumably those two wouldn’t know that Gerard was supposed to be at the Faculty Club that night, either, but apparently Mac didn’t want to draw attention to that because it would get back to the uncomfortable question of how the Stonecipher-Gerard substitution came to be.
“I suggest alternative theories are in order,” Mac continued. “For example, Oscar, have you succeeded in locating Carl Janzig, the young man who accused Peter of stealing his ideas some years ago?”
“Oh, yeah,” Oscar said. “Tracked him down all right. Trouble is, he’s in a cemetery in West Virginia. Died of AIDS nearly two years ago. Got any other bright ideas?”
Finding Quandra
I had to find Quandra.
We had to find Quandra.
“I’ll check out the movie theaters; you try the bars and hotels,” I told Mac.
“That is a rather seedy assignment for the Lorenzo Smythe Professor of English Literature,” my brother-in-law sniffed.
“It would do you good, but never mind. I’ll take the seedy stuff and you take the theaters.”
I didn’t really think she’d be in a theater. What was she going to do - sit in a second-run house and watch 221B Bourbon Street over and over?
Come to think of it, she might at that. If she did, Mac would find her and take her to his house. If I found her, I’d also take her to his house. Either way - or neither way - we’d meet at Casa McCabe for dinner by seven at the latest.
Admitting to myself that the unpleasant Fitzwater was probably right that Quandra wasn’t pining away by herself, I started with the hotels first.
For the first time, I really felt like a gumshoe - like Max Cutter, in fact - as I went from hotel to hotel talking to room clerks, maids, bartenders, and porters. Some were cagey, protective of their guests’ privacy, and some talked more readily. It would have been easier if I’d had a photograph. But Quandra was a standout person and my description of her luxuriant hair and her upscale fashion sense should have been enough to jog the memory of any lustful man or envious woman.
“I didn’t see her,” said the elderly clerk at the Rancho Caballero, drawing his tongue across his dry, pale lips, “but I wish I had.”
The Caballero was my last hope on the hotel/motel circuit. I’d worked my way down from the high-toned and respectable places like the Harridan, ancient rival of the Winfield, to the merely respectable, such as the Ramada and the Marriott, to this, the favorite refuge of businessmen renting by the hour with junior executives. I couldn’t see Quandra as the bed and breakfast type, so I’d skipped those.
In retrospect, I don’t know why I didn’t start at the Caballero. But it didn’t matter; I didn’t find anybody who admitted to having seen her.
All this time, my mind was on Lynda and her meeting with Meg Whitlock. I was more concerned about it than I’d let on. I wished she would call me and tell me what happened. I double-checked the phone to make sure the ringer was on.
Bars - I had to look for Quandra in the bars, early as it was. Bars were the classic place to find somebody looking for a good time, and Quandra was always looking for a good time. Or maybe she was just looking for anesthesia.
But bars represented a real challenge. There were only seven motels and hotels in the whole county, but there were dozens of bars. Every neighborhood had at least one. I should probably start near the Winfield, an area that Quandra knew and was close to, and move out from there to the rest of downtown.
I’d gotten that far in my thought process when I realized that Quandra had been picked up in Bobbie McGee’s Sports Bar on Saturday night. It was just down the street from the Winfield. I headed there in the Beetle.
Bingo! Quandra was sitting with a guy around fifty years old, sporting a fuzzy beard and a sweatshirt. He looked like a beatnik who’d gotten lost on his way to 1960.
I walked over to them and said, “Sometimes you get lucky.”
Quandra looked up from her drink, a little glassy-eyed. “I never do.”
Her companion started standing up as soon as I opened my mouth. “Well, where does the time go? Thanks for the drink, lady.” He beat a hasty exit.
“Sir Galahad,” Quandra muttered, and took a long swallow of something dark. It wasn’t caffeine-free Diet Coke.
If you found her washed up on a beach the way she looked right then, you probably wouldn’t throw her back. But on the other hand, she wasn’t the ravishing creature I’d been describing at hostelries all over town. Her chestnut hair was combed, but it had lost its luster - the curls were half-hearted. The ice blue dress she was wearing probably cost more than I earn in a couple of weeks, but I don’t think Quandra was paying any attention when he’d put it on. She hadn’t even bothered to change the color of her eyes to match. And her make-up was skimpy by her standards.
I took over the empty chair beside her.
“The police chief wants to talk to you,” I said.
“I don’t want to talk to no police chief, Red.” The slurring was slight. She enunciated every syllable to prove she wasn’t drunk, the way people do when they are drunk. Apparently inventing nicknames was something else she did when she was drunk.
“We don’t want you to talk to the chief, either,” I said. “He’s asking some embarrassing questions.”
This was interesting enough to take her mind off of her drink. She finally looked me in the eye. “Like what?”
Like what clues Peter was pursuing when he was killed. “Like where were you when Peter died and can you prove it? Fitzwater invested part of an afternoon trying to convince Oscar that you’d make a dandy murderess.”
“That skunk! He’s the one you ought to look at.”
I shook my head. “That ten-million-dollar insurance policy was small change, to hear him tell it.”
“Ha! He’s broke.”
“Broke? What do you mean? He should be rolling in dough.”
“Yeah, but he spends it all and then some to keep Monica happy. Remember, he’s got a Hollywood wife and a long-distance marriage to support, not to mention four houses that are now worth a lot less than they owe on the mortgages. And Monica’s still paying heavy alimony to that stunt man. Ten million would help the Fitzwaters a lot right now.”
This put a whole new face on things. His wife . . . Too bad he had an air-tight alibi. But was it really? Ideas were popping in my head like firecrackers. I had to tell Mac as soon as possible, but my tipsy companion kept talking.
“Anyway, I’m not worried about little ol’ me. Your professor buddy said all you have to do is find someone who saw me out with my gentleman friend, remember?”
“Do you want to sit in the Erin jail while we try to find that someone?”
She turned a little pale. “That doesn’t sound like fun.”
“Then come with me.”
“Where to, Red?”
“To Mac’s house. The cops won’t be looking for you there. You can even spend the night and feel good about it in the morning.”
Quandra sighed. “Oh, what the hell. Why not? What have I got to lose?”
Certainly not your virtue. “Come on, then.”
I got her into the Beetle.
Surprise Party
Halfway to Mac’s place Quandra’s over-indulgence forced me to change the game plan just slightly.
“Oh - oh, Red, I’m going to -”
She did, but not before I stopped the car and helped her to the side of the road.
“I can’t take you to my sister’s house in this shape,” I told her. “You’re going to my apartment first to sober up.”
She didn’t argue. She didn’t do much of anything except groan, especially around the curves.
When we got to Half Moon Street I put Quandra’s left arm around my shoulder and my right arm around her waist and walked her up the seventeen steps to my carriage house apartment above Mac’s garage.
I managed to prop her up against the porch without dropping her while I fumbled with my keys. I half-dragged her into the apartment and sat her on the couch. I started the coffee and turned on the shower.
“The coffee will be hot and shower cold,” I told Quandra. “You need both.” At first I’d figured the coffee would wake her up as long as she didn’t know it was decaf. But then I remembered that I still had a little of the high-test that I used to keep for Lynda, so I might as well pull out all the stops. She’d need it.
“You’re so good to me,” she mumbled, letting her head fall softly on my shoulder. It was the booze talking. With a fatherly firmness - I was more than a decade older than Quandra - I pushed her into the bathroom and closed the door behind her with a solid click.
I went into the kitchen and took the pot out of the coffee machine. Just as I was getting ready to pour a cup, the doorbell rang. Jehovah’s Witnesses at this time of night? Not quite. It was Lynda, dressed in shorts and a sweatshirt, hair pulled back into a ponytail, ready to hit the mats or whatever it is they do at taekwondo lessons. Her face was flushed with excitement, which evoked a similar response in me. Is it manly to swoon?
Before she could say a word, I asked, “How did it go with your boss’s boss?”
“Unbelievable, Jeff. Meg’s been following my work ever since I won Best of Grier. I had no idea. She really likes what I’ve done with the website and social media.” She swallowed. “I’ve been promoted.”
“What! That’s terrific!” I hugged her. “You’ll be the best editor The Observer ever had!”
“That’s not the job, Jeff. That’s why it’s unbelievable. Meg created a new position just for me - editorial director of Grier Ohio NewsGroup. I’m going be helping all of the Grier papers in Ohio to pump up their hard news coverage, while at the same time being a bigger presence in everything digital. I’m not replacing Frank, I’m going to be like his boss on the editorial side.”
That called for another hug.
I had a ton of questions: Would she miss reporting. (“Oh, yes.”) Would she have to move? (“No, but I’ll be traveling around the state a lot.”) Who would replace her? (“That’s up to Frank, but I’m going to recommend Ben.”)
This all came out fast and kind of loud. I didn’t even hear the bathroom door open behind me.
“Yoo-hoo! Hey, Red! Got any towels?”
Slowly I turned around to see Quandra poking her head out the bathroom door. Her hair was wilting and steam was billowing behind her.
This can’t be happening. This is an episode in some bad situation comedy from the 1970s.
“Beneath the sink,” Lynda said. “Um, could we have a little privacy here?”
Quandra smiled like a drunken Mona Lisa, wiggled her fingers goodbye, and clicked the door shut again.
“That was Quandra,” I said stupidly.
“I know. We’ve met. You’re really happy about my promotion, aren’t you, Jeff?”
“Of course I am.” I was a little surprised - but not at all unhappy - that Lynda was staying on-topic instead of asking a bunch of silly questions about my estrogen-endowed visitor. “It’s important to you, so it’s important to me.”
“I was hoping you would be.” She took a deep breath. “Jeff, you know I’ve been thinking a lot about us these last few months. In fact, I think I’ve been thinking too much and I’m tired of it.”
Uh-oh. Here it comes. That’s why she ignored the hot young babe showering in my bathroom - I was history, about to be defriended in real life, not just on Facebook. My stomach was churning like a four-hundred-dollar KitchenAid mixer on one of those cooking shows.
“Marry me, Jeff Cody.”
I’m glad there’s no video of me staring goofily at her, shocked out of the power of speech for maybe thirty seconds. Finally I finally managed to gasp out:
“What?”
“This shouldn’t be a difficult concept, Jeff. Maybe you just didn’t hear me, so I’ll try again. I want you to marry me, you neurotic nitwit.”
This is a wonderful dream, but I’m really going to be pissed when I wake up.
“Uh, may I ask what brought this on? Just curious.” Way to go, Jeff - look that gift horse right in the mouth! Not that Lynda’s a horse, but she is a gift. See, I couldn’t even talk to myself coherently.
“I’ve decided to pack my family baggage and leave it at the lost and never-found. I’m not afraid of failure anymore. My career is booming and I know who I am. I can live without you, more or less - I learned that last spring. But I also learned that I don’t want to. So will you marry me or not, my darling?”
“Say yes!” Quandra yelled from behind the door.
Yes, yes, oh YES, my love. “Well, all right, sure.”
Lynda took me in her arms, stood on tiptoe, and whispered in my ear in Italian, making me tingle from head to toe. “Ti voglio bene, tesoro mio.” I love you, my treasure. “Buon compleanno.” Happy birthday.
Oh, yeah. It was my birthday. What a surprise party.
Breakthrough
“Unlike Sherlock Holmes learning of Dr. Watson’s engagement, I really must congratulate you, old boy,” Mac said. We were sitting in his study about an hour later. “And all this happened with Ms. Hall, presumably in her natural state, in your bathroom? And Lynda wasn’t jealous?”
“Apparently not,” I said. “I was almost insulted, but she said I didn’t look guilty.” That was strange, because I felt guilty even though I hadn’t done anything. “She also said my hair wasn’t messed up.” Later on it was. “And then she said, ‘Besides, it’s me you’re besotted with.’”
Mac smiled. Instead of lecturing me on Lynda’s bad grammar, he said, “What a remarkable woman is your fiancée!”
“I’ll say. When the hugging and kissing was over she wanted an interview with Quandra.”
Mac raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t worry. You saw Quandra - she was in no condition to give an interview.” Gerard’s bereaved assistant was now in the kitchen with Kate, and I hoped that the smell of food didn’t make her sick again. Lynda was off to taekwondo class with Triple M, who’d been waiting patiently for her in Lynda’s bright yellow Mustang. But first she’d given me a birthday present: her Italian grandfather’s wedding ring. I know nothing about the gent. He could have been a mafia don for all I know. Well, that would explain her tight lip about the family. Or was that ‘the Family’?
“But Quandra did tell me something important,” I said. “According to her, Fitzwater is broke.” I’d been chomping at th
e bit to share this bit of info, and the theory that it inspired. “His alibi is his wife. She could be in on it with him. Suppose she was the woman who called for Gerard on the night of the murder. It could have been a way to lure him into the room, where her husband was supposed to murder him. Fitzwater was agitated, it all happened fast, and he was expecting Gerard to come into that room. With all that, it’s not really so hard to believe he killed the wrong man, even if he realized his mistake immediately afterward.”
“Yes,” Mac said slowly, “that is within the bounds of credulity so far as it goes. In fact, however, Monica LaRue’s witness is not the only evidence that Fitzwater was in California at the time of the murder. What about the airline records showing he didn’t return until today?”
“That’s where it gets really cute,” I said. This is the part I was proud of. “We can assume that Fitzwater wasn’t just blowing smoke: The airline will back him up that he was on the plane. But airport security doesn’t take your fingerprints. They just compare your picture to your driver’s license. So Fitzwater found somebody who looks like him to make the trip in his place. Don’t try to tell me that’s not possible.”
“I would not think of it. And how did Fitzwater and his wife know that Peter was supposed to be in Erin that night?”
I shrugged. “Who knows? Some kind of six degrees of separation thing - they heard it from somebody, who heard it from somebody else who lives in Erin, who heard it from one of us. That kind of thing happens all the time in real life, just not in fiction.”
Mac sat back. “Brilliant, Jefferson! Absolutely brilliant! You have concocted a theory worthy of Damon Devlin, or perhaps even the great Holmes himself!”
This was rare praise indeed.
“So you think I’m on to something?”
“By no means, old boy! Your scenario is merely brilliant, not correct. Neither the murderer’s accomplice nor the murderer called the Faculty Club that night and asked for Peter Gerard. In fact, no one did.”
Holmes Sweet Holmes Page 20
