Dusted (A Maid in LA Mystery)

by Jacobs, Holly

  I thought about my severely under-stocked pantry. “I don’t think my boys found my stash of Pop-Tarts,” I said, then added, “Cinnamon. And I don’t share my Pop-Tarts with just anyone,” I assured him. He groaned again and left.

  Now what was I going to do with my Thursday night?

  I thought about going out to pick up something to eat, because I’d already established that cinnamon Pop-Tarts were all that was left in the house. But in the end, that sounded like too much work. I toasted a Pop-Tart and sat down to work on the script that my writing teacher had encouraged me to write.

  Richard Macy, Dick Macy…really that was his name. It might not be so bad if he went by Richard or Rich, but no, he goes by Dick. I’ve pointed out that there were other nicknames for Richard that might be better, but he just laughs and says his name is his name.

  Anyway, Dick was a tiny man who’d written for television. And despite my decided lack of talent, he was fascinated by the fact I’d solved a murder in real life on my own. After a weekend class I went to, he invited me to stay on and work with him privately. Not in a creepy way, but in a mentor/mentee sort of way.

  I ate one of the Pop-Tarts and managed to eke out one crappy page in what Dick was sure would be my award-winning true-life drama mystery script.

  Dick had said, “You can fix a crappy page, but you can’t fix a blank page.”

  Thanks, Dick.

  When I finished, I rewarded myself with a beer and the other Pop-Tart.

  I had a mouthful of cinnamon goodness when my cell rang.

  “Mom, it’s Hunter.”

  Hunter was my college boy.

  “Hi, honey. How are classes?”

  “Fine. Dad and Peri came up yesterday and took me out for lunch.”

  “That was nice.”

  “Peri said she’s having lunch with you this week.”

  Rats. I’d forgotten. I’d have stood her up if Hunter hadn’t said something. I jotted myself a note as I said, “Yes.”

  “She said I’m lucky. That you’re a great mom. She said she wished you were her mom.” He paused a moment, and added, “You know, a lot of my friends have parents who split, but they don’t end up being friends with their ex’s new spouse. You and Peri being friends is weird.”

  I’d joked about adopting her when my ex divorced her. No, I’m not being bitter. Jerome had never stayed married to a woman past the age of twenty-five. Peri’s days were numbered.

  “Weird?” I asked Hunter. “Honey, listen. I’m sorry to break it to you, but you’re in college now, so you’re old enough to know…your mom is weird.”

  He laughed. “Uh, that ship sailed years ago. But even for you, Mom, this is odd.”

  “I like her. I’ve liked all your dad’s exes. Let’s just say he has very good taste in women and leave it at that.”

  Hunter snorted. “I just called to check in with you.”

  “Are you sure everything’s okay?” I asked. My mom-senses were tingling.

  “Yeah. I’m just kind of worried about Peri. Dad seemed to ignore her a lot. You know how it goes when that starts to happen.”

  I sighed. I absolutely knew what happened next, and my heart broke for Peri.

  “She’ll need us,” Hunter said.

  Of all Jerry’s wives, Peri was the boys’ favorite. Probably because she was young enough to be more of a big sister than mother figure.

  “I’ll see what I can find out at lunch,” I promised him.

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “You’ve always been a good kid, Hunter. But you’re growing into an even better man.”

  He hung up without saying anything to that. The boys didn’t like it when I was too effusive with my praise, but they deserved it. They were very good kids.

  I hung up from Hunter and my phone pinged that I had a text. It was Cal. What are you doing?

  Eating Pop-Tarts…alone in bed, I texted back.

  Groan.

  It wasn’t exactly a lie. I wasn’t eating the Pop-Tart alone in bed, but I’d be alone in bed soon enough. Sometimes a white lie was okay.

  Shortly thereafter, Miles and Eli came in. I’d finished my Pop-Tart, which was good because if they knew I had a stash, they’d find it.

  I finished my beer and listened to the boys give me highlights of play practice.

  I was the luckiest woman in the world.

  Chapter Two

  I was the most unlucky woman in the world.

  “…So, it was a forgery,” Tiny said the next day as we sat in her office, which still looked more like a bridal shop than a cleaning service’s office.

  “How did they discover it so quickly?” I asked.

  She grimaced. “It wasn’t a good forgery. They said it was good enough to fool someone when it was up on a wall and not on close inspection. Up close? No way.”

  It was three o’clock on a Friday. This wasn’t how I wanted to start my weekend.

  “It gets worse,” Tiny said.

  “Worse?” Worse than a forgery?

  “The Giffords went home and went through the rest of their artwork. They discovered three other paintings were forgeries, too.”

  “Well, fu—” I cut myself off. “Boogers,” I switched to, though it wasn’t nearly as satisfying as an F-bomb might have been.

  “You can say that again.”

  I let the information sink in a moment, then said, “Okay, so the good news is, Theresa didn’t ruin an expensive painting, but a forgery. She actually helped the Giffords find out about a crime.”

  “Or it’s bad news,” Tiny said. “If they’re looking for suspects, they’ll have to realize that Mac’Cleaners has a key to the house and, even worse, the security code.”

  “So, we’re suspects?” Seriously. I’d lived the first thirty-eight years of my life rather uneventfully. I’d married, divorced, raised three wonderful boys and started a successful business with my best friend. I dated on occasion, got along with my ex and I was thinking about adopting his twenty-year-old wife when he divorced her. It was a quiet life but a very good life.

  “I would think we’d have to be suspects. At least Theresa.” Tiny paused a moment, shook her head and her dark curls went every which way. “No, you and I have access, too, so we’d have to be suspects as well.”

  “Oh, come on. I just cleared us of murder charges. Now, we’re under suspicion of an art heist?”

  We sat in morose silence.

  “There’s a bright side,” I said.

  “Do tell,” Tiny said grimly.

  “Dick will be thrilled I’ve got another case to investigate.” I imagined my slight writing teacher’s excitement. “He thinks the fact I really solved Mr. Banning’s murder will give producers added interest in my script. One of those based-on-real-events movies of the week.”

  “It won’t matter if anyone’s interested because you’ll be dead. Cal will kill you if you investigate this. You almost got yourself killed just a few weeks ago. Just leave this to the cops, Quincy. We didn’t do anything, and as much as we’ve both thought about firing Theresa more than once, I don’t think she’s capable of something like this.”

  “I know we didn’t do it, and I don’t think Theresa did it either. As for Cal, he won’t know. I’ll be very careful. You know I have to check this out. How can I trust the cops to clear us? Remember my Uncle Bill? My innocent uncle who was in jail for years for a crime he didn’t commit.”

  “Quincy.”

  “Cal won’t ever know I’m investigating,” I added. He wouldn’t know because I sure wasn’t going to tell him.

  At that moment, Detective Cal Parker strode in. I took a moment to simply admire the view. He was long, lean and his dark hair had a touch of grey in it. In a world of actors, Cal was a real man. A gorgeous man.

  And he was my man.

  “I heard about the painting,” he announced in his gravelly voice that made my knees go weak.

  “How did you hear already? I just heard myself.”

  “Se
riously, every cop in LA knows I’m dating the infamous amateur sleuth who singlehandedly caught a murderer.” There was a touch of pride in his voice. Some men might be less than enthused about not getting to ride to the rescue, but Cal seemed to take pride in the fact I rescued myself.

  “I wanted to let you know that Mickey Roman is the lead investigator on the forgery case,” he said. “He’s good. You are not a suspect. Tiny is not a suspect. There is no need for you to investigate this on your own.” He gave me a steely look. A cop look. It was a look he’d probably used when he interrogated suspects. The kind of look he used when he captured murderers. It said, I’m in charge, don’t worry and whatever you do, don’t mess with me.

  I realized what he hadn’t said—who he hadn’t mentioned. “What about Theresa?”

  “We’re looking into her, but I don’t think she’d be dumb enough to damage the picture and report it if she were the one who stole the original and replaced it.”

  “But you’re looking into her?” I pressed.

  “Not me, personally. Mickey. I’m investigating a murder. And no one thinks she did it. This has to be the work of a pro. Someone who could forge a work of art and replace it without the owners being any the wiser.”

  “Well, they couldn’t be that good if the art restorer knew immediately it was a fake.”

  Cal sighed. “Just let the police department do their job, Quincy. We’ll figure it out.”

  I slid my hand behind my back and crossed my fingers as I promised, “Fine.”

  “Are you heading over to Dick’s tonight?” he asked.

  I nodded. Even if I hadn’t had a session set up with Dick, I’d have gone to see him. I needed to discuss my newest case with my new detecting mentor.

  “Great. I’m working on this new case, and I’ve got some hot leads. So I’ll be tied up most of the weekend. I’ll call if I can get away. Maybe we can hook up.”

  Hooking up with Cal has gotten trickier since the boys got home from their month-long vacation with their dad. But we managed.

  Not as often as I’d like but when we did hook up it was off the hook.

  He gave me another long, hard cop-look and added, “Stay out of trouble.”

  “I will,” I lied.

  Sometimes white lies were the grease that kept a good relationship lubricated. It’s not that I’d go looking for trouble, but sometimes trouble found me on its own.

  With one parting cop-look and a quick kiss, Cal left and I sighed.

  “He is very pretty to look at,” Tiny said.

  “Handsome,” I corrected her.

  There was nothing pretty about Cal. He was rugged looking. He had a sort of gravelly voice that made me think of Sam Elliot. I loved that voice.

  “You’re not going to stay out of this, are you?” Tiny asked, pulling me from my Cal-induced fantasies.

  I smiled at my best friend. “I think I should go home and get the boys fed before they head out to play practice, then I’ve got to go see Dick.”

  “Quincy, Theresa didn’t do it, so it’ll all be fine.”

  “My Uncle Bill didn’t do anything either, but he ended up tattooed and in jail.” Just like I’d almost ended up innocent and in jail for a crime I didn’t commit. A crime I’d simply cleaned. “I’m just going to talk to Dick and see what he has to say.”

  “Just talk?”

  “Just talk,” I promised with my hand behind my back again.

  “Quincy Mac, that is marvelous news!” Dick Macy—all five-foot-three and one-hundred-and-twenty-pounds-soaking-wet, balding grey comb-overed writing mentor—practically quivered with delight. “The trick to selling a premise here in Hollywood is having somewhere to take it. Sequels sell. Look at all the comic book movies that are all over now. Sequels of sequels are even better. That’s where the money is—movie franchises.”

  “So, if you were going to investigate this crime, where would you start?” I asked him.

  Right after I’d solved Mr. Banning’s murder, I’d found an ad for the local community college. It was for Dick’s how to write a detective class. It was only a weekend long. But when he’d found out I was the Quincy Mac—the emphasis on the was his not mine—the maid who’d solved a murder, he invited me to stay on and critique with him. He kept telling me he wanted me to thank him when my script won an award.

  He stared into space for a few moments and then he said, “You’ll have to start by looking at Theresa. She’s the one that broke the painting.”

  “Tore it,” I corrected.

  “Yes,” he said as if he hadn’t noticed the distinction. “You need to check her out just to make sure the cops aren’t going to have any reason to think it’s her. From there, you’ll just have to take it step by step. Or like Ann Lamott says, Bird by Bird.”

  Dick had encouraged me to read Lamott’s Bird by Bird. He said he didn’t believe in how-to books on writing, but he loved books that inspired. He assured me that that one would.

  It was on my nightstand. I’d planned to start it this week, but now it looked like I’d be busy with other things.

  “So why are you sitting here?” he asked. “Go get investigating. And remember to take good notes. After we finish your script for Steamed, we’ll start this one.”

  He’d decided that Steamed was the perfect title for my Mr. Banning’s murder who-dunnit. It wasn’t bad. I had steamed some perfectly good footprints out of the carpet at the murder scene. Heck, I’d cleaned the entire murder scene. But Steamed seemed a better title choice than Confessions of a Maid Who Accidentally Cleaned a Murder Scene and Almost Went to Prison, Got a Tattoo, and Faced the Death Penalty…if California had the Death Penalty.

  I still hadn’t looked up whether or not California had the death penalty. Truthfully, I didn’t want to know, just in case I got in trouble again.

  At least this time I hadn’t tampered with any evidence.

  “Okay, I’ll get started,” I promised Dick. “Can I call you if I have questions?”

  “Anything I can do to help,” he promised.

  I pushed him the new pages I’d printed out for him. “Did you want to see these?”

  He took the pages. “I’ll take them home and start looking. Oh, and I have a name for you.”

  “A name?” he asked.

  “When I was writing A Fish Without a Net—my movie of the week where Robert Fish has to save the Internet from cyber-terrorists—I needed an Internet expert.” When Dick talks about one of his specific shows, he frequently does that…sounding like a living television guide.

  “This guy can do anything online,” he continued. “That’s why I named the hero of the movie after him. He can help you check out Theresa’s background. Make sure she doesn’t have some secret account where she’s stashing her loot. Rule her out first, after that move on and look at other suspects. When you’re investigating a murder, you always start with the spouse. I’m not sure who you start with when it’s art theft and forgery. Start with the owners? That’s what I’d do if I were writing this as a script. And odds are, as you start looking into Theresa, you’ll find something that will tell you where to look next.”

  “Okay.”

  I took the paper that Dick had scribbled on. “Robert Williams. His number’s there. And since you’re dealing with art, I’d find someone in the art industry who can tell you about forgeries and how prevalent something like this is. I don’t have an expert to suggest for that. I’ve never written a script that had art in it. I’d say it was a good idea, but I think I’ll leave that for you and your second script…finish your murder one first.”

  It looks like Quincy Mac, maid by day, private investigator by night, had her second case.

  Cal was true to his word. He was tied up with his murder case over the weekend. The boys were busy with the school play and engrossed with girls. I know. Shocker. Sixteen-year-old and seventeen-year-old boys who liked girls.

  The girls in question this time happened to be sisters who were also in the play. Eli and
Miles took them out Saturday night. I was told it wasn’t a double date. It seems even thinking the term dated me. I was old, according to my sweet, loving sons. I practically had one foot in the grave, I was so old and out of touch.

  They were just two guys hanging out with two girls they liked.

  With Cal working and the boys occupied with the play or with hanging out with the girls, I was sort of on my own. I thought about calling Tiny, but she was crazy busy with wedding stuff. Okay, so not so much busy as crazy. We’d crossed everything off her wedding to-do list, but she was still constantly checking and rechecking.

  I called Dick’s computer guy on Saturday and left a voice mail. And though I was no computer guru, I started a computer search to find some artsy person here in LA. Someone who would know something about art and forgery.

  I’ll confess, I didn’t know much about either. I could name a handful of artists—Van Gogh, Grandma Moses and the like. The artist whose painting was stolen, I’d never heard of.

  I Googled his name—Mark Kirchoff. TheArthur Wadsworth Gallery was mentioned in a bunch of articles related to Kirchoff’s artwork and the LA art scene. I decided to go there for myself the next day and fill up my solo Sunday afternoon. I worked a while longer on the script and I went to the grocery store, knowing that no matter how much I bought, it wouldn’t last long.

  The next morning, I woke up to a quiet house. That wasn’t odd. The boys were not fans of mornings. I’d had a couple cups of coffee and read the paper before I saw either of them.

  Miles came out first, his shoulder length hair wild. “Rough night?” I asked.

  He grunted in a way I took to mean yes.

  “Play practice a problem?”

  “If people would learn their lines, it would be easier.”

  “Morning, Mom,” Eli said brightly. His hair had that Einstein-ish quality to it this morning. He was smiling as he started to explore the kitchen, looking for breakfast.

  “There’s yogurt and there’s bread for toast,” I said helpfully. My phone binged, letting me know I had a text.

  Still on the case. You going to be around if I can sneak out for dinner?