Edited to Death (12 page)

Andrea put her beer down, regarded the napkins on the table with some distaste, and
opened her purse. She came up with a linen handkerchief and patted her mouth. “Aren’t
you ever serious?” she asked.

“Only about love and work,” said Calvin. He reached across the table, captured the
hanky and helped Andrea pat some more.

“Speaking of work,” I interrupted, “remember that piece we were supposed to do, Calvin?”

“Um-hmmm.”

“Would you cut that out and listen to me? I’m going to report you to the Empress of
Saks Fifth Avenue.”

Calvin looked chagrined. “I don’t think the personal shopper and I are going to find
true happiness,” he mumbled.

Andrea looked bewildered. Calvin hastily handed her the hanky. “I’ll explain later.”

“Okay, Mags, I’m listening. What story?”

“Our story. The Cock of the Walk piece. Did you have research or background on it?”

“Me? I’m just the shooter. Quentin wouldn’t give me anything hard, like stuff to read
or anything. Plus, the cops already asked me about it.”

“They asked Gertie, too. And if she didn’t know anything… well, unless the info is
stashed in Quentin’s flat, whatever research existed is gone. Glen didn’t know anything
about the file, didn’t know Quent had talked to us, didn’t even know what it’s all
about.”

“I know where the background on that story is,” volunteered Andrea.

We both looked at her.

She sipped her beer. “Whoever murdered Quentin took it.”

We stared some more.

“Don’t you two ever read mysteries?” she said. “If something disappears, and somebody
gets offed at the same time—well, there’s your clue.”

“Offed?” I echoed, faintly. Andrea patted the knot of honey-colored hair she wore
coiled at her neck. Clearly, she had dimensions I’d never explored.

“You may be right,” I said, “but I’d sure like to paw through Quentin’s desk at home.
Maybe there’s something there.”

While Calvin and Andrea settled up the check, I rang Inspector Moon and explained
my request.

“I’m pleased you called, Mrs. Fiori,” he said. “If you don’t mind my hanging around
while you look for your file, I’ll be delighted to let you in the apartment. I’ve
been planning to call you soon, anyway.”

“Really? Why?”

“Just a little chat. This and that,” he said vaguely. “You know.”

11

In Quentin’s Bedroom

As soon as Inspector Moon unlocked the door and gestured for me to precede him into
the flat, I was glad I wasn’t alone.

It was odd to be at Quentin’s; not for lunch, not for love, not for grief, but in
pursuit of a story. A story? A murder. “Nice work if you can get it,” I said to myself.

Moon didn’t hover. He stood in front of Quentin’s floor-to-ceiling living room bookshelves,
humming under his breath, acting for all the world like a man at leisure in the reading
room of the public library.

It was clear that the flat was still Stuart’s home. Moon had called to say we were
coming over and Stuart had left a note on the kitchen counter.

“Coffee’s made, ready in the thermos. Maggie knows where to find cream and sugar.
Help yourselves.”

I seated myself at Quentin’s desk, marveling yet again at his organization. Check
files, charity receipts, address books, even a Christmas shopping list. “Garnet earrings,”
it said next to my name, with a query, “Jane Austen bio?”

“He was very generous to his writers,” said Moon, at my elbow. I jumped. “He was a
friend, too,” I said.

Moon wandered back to the bookshelves.

“We’d searched the place, of course,” he said. “It seemed odd that Mr. Hart didn’t
have some kind of filing cabinet.”

“Quentin hated clutter,” I said. “It took a lot for him to hold onto something. I
suppose he had personal papers, a will and things like that in a safe deposit box
somewhere. But he wasn’t much of a paper keeper. His assistant, Gertie, was always
snatching things out of his hands at work before he tossed them.”

There was nothing of particular interest in the desk. Some receipts, engraved note
paper, a few letters tied together with the black ribbon that comes on stationery.

I held the letters up. “May I take these?” Moon shrugged. “I guess so. We’ve already
been through them. I’m not sure who you’d ask. Stuart? Mrs. Hart?”

“I’m asking the police.”

“Fine with me. You’ll tell me if you find anything?” I looked at him.

“Probably.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

“I’d like to go in the bedroom now.”

“I’ll come with you.”

On Quentin’s nightstand: a tiny clock radio, the
New York Times
Book Review section, Eudora Welty’s essays on writing, a tired-looking copy of Roger
Angell’s baseball classic
The Five Seasons
, a box of tissues. I opened the drawer. There, as I remembered, was a blue leather
box, right where I left it nearly a year ago. “M.S.F.” read the initials.

“What does the “S” stand for?” asked Moon from the doorway.

I held the box on my lap and looked up.

“Stern,” I said, running my fingers over the raised gold letters.

“Your maiden name?” he asked politely.

“Yes.”

“Open it,” he said. “I apologize, but of course we’ve already searched it.”

I didn’t move, paralyzed by the inconsequential weight of the box on my lap.

“You created the combination, didn’t you?” prodded Moon.

I did. Two, one, sixty five. My birthday.

Moon sat down beside me on the bed, carefully adjusting his gray flannel slacks to
protect the crease, and watched me open the box.

Some notes from Quentin, tickets from a performance of
Un Ballo in Maschera
we’d seen together, a flat brown compact.

I picked it up. My diaphragm lay inside, right where I left it nearly a year ago.

“There’s something I don’t understand,” he said. “Didn’t you need this at home?”

“No. My husband had a vasectomy a few years ago.” The room seemed very quiet.

“Ah, yes,” said Moon. “He mentioned that in the locker room, after a game. One of
the referees was discussing the possibility, and he was nervous. Michael reassured
him.”

The room was silent. Moon cleared his throat.

“You know,” he said, almost to himself, “before I joined the police, I used to be
a high school counselor. I learned something from those kids. If you just shut up,
people will eventually tell you their story.”

I breathed in and out, lovely Lamaze skills that transferred nicely from hard labor
to moments just like this.

“Listen, I know this looks awful. But my relationship with Quentin had nothing to
do with my husband. Or,” I faltered, thinking of Michael’s white rage at me and his
refusal to talk about it, “maybe it does. But Quentin and I hadn’t been lovers for
almost a year.”

“I see,” he said. “Then why, may I ask, is the box still here? That seems out of character
for a man who liked to clear out unnecessary clutter.”

“Because the box was mine,” I said fiercely, “not his. And maybe he hoped I’d need
it again one day. Which I didn’t, but I hadn’t claimed it either. I don’t know why.”

Suddenly I felt ill. I stood up, clutching the box.

“You think I killed Quentin?”

Moon patted the bed. “Sit down, sit down.” I sat.

“It had occurred to me as a possibility,” he said. “But the evidence suggests it was
very unlikely. “You’re close to the right height, but you’re left-handed. However,
once we discovered you and Hart were… intimate, that opened a world of suspects.”

“It did?” I asked faintly.

“Oh, yes, indeed. There’s jealousy, of course, so that leads us to think about Mrs.
Hart, Stuart, other lovers. And,” he hesitated. “Of course, there’s your husband.”

I stared at him. “Michael?” He nodded.

“That’s ridiculous.” The room felt very warm.

“I take it he’s not a jealous man?” asked Moon. “Or perhaps he didn’t know?”

“How did you find out?”

“Ah, Mrs. Fiori, this is a terrible city for secrets. What is it you call your magazine?
Small Town
?” He shook his head. “Very small, very small indeed.”

“You’re enjoying this,” I said, looking at him with distaste, wondering if the entire
world would soon know how stupidly I’d strayed.

“That’s not correct,” he said. “I am doing my job. That often means finding out about
things people would prefer I don’t know. But I don’t enter people’s lives, or,” he
gestured, “their bedrooms, without a reason.”

“It’s a job,” I muttered.

“Yes, it is. And I’m good at it.”

“If you’re so good at it,” I retorted, “who killed Quentin? You still don’t know,
do you?”

He shook his head. “No, we don’t. But we will. We are very certain Mr. Hart was not
killed by a stranger. He was killed by someone who knew him. Slowly and surely, we
are examining every possibility.”

“Good luck,” I said bitterly. “Quentin knew a lot of people.”

He sighed, “Yes, he did.”

Something struck me. “If Michael is really a suspect, you wouldn’t be investigating
this, would you? You know him. Isn’t that a conflict of interest or something?”

“Or something,” he said. “The forensics are all wrong for Michael. He’s too tall,
for one thing. And you’re correct, if your husband hadn’t been ruled out fairly quickly,
I would have been taken off the team. Right now, it’s somewhat helpful to know the
players.”

“Because.…”

Moon smiled, “Don’t you and Michael ever say ‘just because’ to your kids?”

“Because,” I persisted, “even if Michael and I aren’t real suspects, you can pump
us for information.”

He sighed again, “The British have a nicer way of describing this. They say ‘someone
is helping the police with inquiries.’”

“Too bad we’re here and not there,” I snapped, quickly placing the contents of the
blue box back inside.

He nodded.

Half an hour later I was in my car, heading home, still feeling as if I’d been measured
and found wanting after the conversation with Inspector Moon.

“Smart-ass detective,” I muttered. “Thinks he’s got the whole picture. I’m sure he’s
got a perfect, unsullied marriage, unlike the rest of us weak-willed lowlifes.”

I smacked the steering wheel hard and gunned the motor, waiting for the light to turn
on Broadway.

I thought of the inspector’s face as he opened my diaphragm case and I felt my own
cheeks turn hot. “Dammit, Maggie, you
are
a weak-willed lowlife, you deserve this,” I grumbled.

But what? What did I deserve? And, even if I did deserve this—this shock, suspicion,
Michael’s anger—and, okay, I did, did Quentin deserve what happened to him?

And what did happen? It now seemed very important to find out who had spilled the
beans about Quentin and me to Moon. I pulled over at the next corner and called Moon
on the cell phone. I didn’t want to be changing lanes for this conversation.

Moon answered on the second ring.

“Inspector Moon? It’s Maggie Fiori.”

“Yes, Mrs. Fiori?”

“I need to know. Who told you about my relationship with Quentin?”

He was silent.

“Please.”

“Actually, I believe it was Mr. Morris, your magazine’s music critic. And, he didn’t
exactly tell. I made an educated guess.”

“How?”

“During questioning, he made it clear how very upsetting it must have been for you,
in particular, to find Mr. Hart. I said, why, yes, for anyone it’s a shock. Then,
Mr. Morris—well, he blushed. And suddenly, it seemed quite obvious.”

“I see,” I said grimly, watching the traffic slow on Broadway.

“Well, thanks for your candor.”

“A pleasure,” he said. “Please call me if you find anything in those letters.”

I agreed immediately. Then, after I hung up, I remembered how foolish I felt in Quentin’s
bedroom under Moon’s neutral gaze.

“Maybe I will,” I said petulantly. “And maybe I won’t.” And drove home.

12

The Heart of a Jealous Man

It was Friday night at Ratto’s.

Ratto’s is an Oakland institution, an Italian grocery that carried a dozen kinds of
olive oil before the yups ever discovered the difference between virgin and extra
virgin.

Adjoining the grocery, there’s a cavernous room where the fortunate eat dinner on
Friday nights. Serve-it-yourself salad, pasta, dessert, wine and coffee. Then, when
everyone’s full and the children begin to get sleepy, the entertainment starts. There’s
usually a slightly manic accompanist and three or four singers. Opera, glorious, glorious
opera. Old favorites, so the singers clink wine glasses with the patrons and bellow
the drinking song from
La Traviata
, and some surprises, especially with young singers trying an ambitious aria out in
front of a friendly crowd.