Not A Girl Detective (14 page)

“This has nothing to do with her. But I couldn’t turn my back on a friend.”

“Let’s talk about it later, okay?”

“Okay.”

We went inside.

“Hey.” Jake was sitting on the couch, his hands

folded in his lap. He looked suspiciously like a choir-boy, except for the shirt unbuttoned to his waist. Force of habit, I guess. A liar, I’d have no trouble believing; a murderer, I didn’t know. I didn’t think so.

“So I’m here,” I said, crossing my arms. “What did

you want to say to me?”

“Andrew, shouldn’t we offer Cece something to

drink?”

“This isn’t a party.”

“What about your dog?”

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“He’s fine, too.” Buster was uncharacteristically

quiet. I picked him up. “Why haven’t you gone to the

police?”

“I haven’t been a model citizen. But everybody’s en-

titled to a past.”

“True enough.” What exactly did Bridget know about

Andrew’s past?

“Please. Sit down.”

I took a seat next to him and held Buster in my lap.

“If you’re innocent, you shouldn’t have anything to

hide.”

“Don’t you have anything you want to hide?”

“This isn’t about me, Jake.”

“Tell her about Mitchell,” prompted Andrew.

“I know he’s a hothead,” I interrupted. “I’ve been on the receiving end, and I’ve only met him once.”

“He hates me,” Jake said. “He’s jealous of what I had with Edgar.”

“Which was?”

“A relationship, not that Mitchell would know any-

thing about relationships. Also, Edgar was my patron, I guess you’d call it. I’m really a sculptor. I’ve been in two group shows. I’m trying to arrange another one.

My work is really taking off.” Jake chewed on his lower lip. “We’d been fighting a lot.”

“Who? You and Mitchell?”

“That, too, but I meant me and Edgar.”

“About what?”

“Nothing. I don’t even remember what.”

“Did Mitchell know?”

“Mitchell thinks he knows everything.”

That had the ring of truth.

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“I’m sorry, but I still don’t get it.”

“Sleazy hustler kills older lover before gravy train

runs out. I know that’s what he’s been telling the police.”

“But that doesn’t make sense. Why would you kill

him if he was your meal ticket?”

“He wasn’t my meal ticket. We loved each other.”

“Well, can’t you just explain that to the police? Why should they believe the dirt Mitchell’s spewing?”

“Mitchell doesn’t know this, but Edgar and I saw a

lawyer together.”

“So?”

“The guy specializes in estate planning.”

Then I got it.

He let out a sigh. “I realize it looks bad.”

“Did he leave you
everything
?”

Jake was handsome all right, but Edgar was no fool.

Still, love can mess you up.

“I don’t know what he ultimately decided. But I

know what everybody’s going to think.”

What was I doing here? “Let’s say you didn’t kill

him.”

“I didn’t.”

“Then who did?”

He shrugged.

“You must have seen something. You were there that

night. I saw your pants.”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“Look, I was there earlier that morning. But like I

said, Edgar and I were arguing, so I left. I went to see a friend. By the time I came back, the police were all over the house. I didn’t think. I just ran.”

“Well, where’s your friend? He’s your alibi.”

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“I don’t know.” He looked sheepish. “We’re not all

that well acquainted.”

Oh, god. “So what can I do?”

“You can figure it out.”

I shook my head.

“For Edgar, Cece.”

I turned to Andrew, who had pretty much said noth-

ing since bringing me here. “I don’t have the slightest idea how to figure it out, Andrew. I’m sorry.”

“Cece,” said Jake, “listen to me. There was some-

thing going on these last couple of weeks. Something

Edgar was worried about. And it had to do with Nancy

Drew.”

I laughed. “Please.”

“I know it sounds stupid, but it’s true. Nancy Drew

has something to do with what happened to him. And

who knows more about Nancy Drew than you?”

About a million people. Clarissa. Tabby Cat. Rita.

Big Bad Sebastien, probably.

Andrew knelt in front of me and took my hands.

“Bad shit happens to good people every day. Most of us keep our heads down, or run the other way. We’re too

busy trying to keep our own lives from falling apart.

But there are some people, maybe you’ll meet one in a lifetime, who don’t cut and run. There are some people who stay.”

“The ones who can’t keep their noses out of other

people’s business.”

“Bullshit. Edgar knew right away what kind of per-

son you were. Jake told me.”

“A person in over her head. A person who should

know better. A person who should get a grip.”

“Stop.” He reached out to touch my cheek. “I can’t

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believe you don’t get it, that you don’t see who you are.

Look in the mirror sometime, Cece. Everybody sees it

but you.”

No wonder Bridget was smitten. This guy barely

talked, but when he did, he knew exactly what to say.

13

Andrew was persuasive, but no match for me. I

was too smart. I could see a snow job from fifty

paces. I was going to leave it to the police. They were experts. Trained professionals. They knew what they

were doing. Forensics, ballistics, profiling, they had their methods. And I would have stuck to my guns, I

swear I would have, if the mailman hadn’t chosen

that afternoon to bring me a letter from 1111 Carroll Avenue.

My hands started to tremble when I saw the return

address. Mitchell could have sent me something, or

Jake. But even before I ripped the envelope open and

pulled out the note, scrawled in felt-tip pen on a sheet of lined paper, I knew exactly who had written it.

Dear Cece,

Every girl should have a collection. Especially

girls like us, who made it out of Jersey unscathed.

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So consider this a start. I’ll see you in Palm

Springs. Oh, yes! Surprise!

Love, Edgar

Surprise.

Inside the envelope was a small black-and-white

photograph of a woman wearing some kind of white

shift dress. The image was faded, bent at the top, and utterly indistinctive. A dark-haired woman in a dark, old room. I didn’t understand. I looked inside the envelope again. There was nothing else there. I looked at the picture again. What kind of a collection? Who was this?

What was this?

It was Edgar, trying to tell me that he and I weren’t through.

I believe in signs, like I said. So I took the photo-

graph into my bedroom and tucked it safe and sound

between the folds of my Lanvin cape. Then I pulled out the scrap of paper Andrew had given me with his phone number on it, and I called him. Jake got on the phone, too. This time I talked and they listened. I said I’d see what I could do. End of story. I’d see.

Which is how I found myself, three hours later, wading through wet grass in search of Jayne Mansfield’s grave.

Edgar’s memorial service. It had seemed the logical

place to start. But I was too early and too morbid for my own good. Still, who could possibly resist the annotated maps to the stars’ graves on sale in the Hollywood Forever gift shop?

The woman behind the counter, dressed for success

in a maroon gabardine suit and floppy tie, gave me the hard sell.

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In the twenties and thirties Hollywood Memorial

Park, as it was then known, was the premier burial spot for the showbiz elite: Cecil B. DeMille, Rudolf

Valentino, Marion Davies, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Ty-

rone Power, Nelson Eddy. By the forties, however, as

Forest Lawn in nearby Glendale grew in popularity, it had already slipped into decline. Weeds crawled over

the tombstones, graffiti covered the crypts, and the reflecting pools were dull and murky. The family of legendary makeup artist Max Factor even had his remains

moved elsewhere. In the nineties the cemetery hit the auction block and things looked dire until a last-minute reprieve by somebody from St. Louis with big money

and big ideas.

Today, the woman in the suit concluded, they were

industry leaders. Did I know they were building a

brand-new 60,000-square-foot mausoleum, and that I

could have my funeral simulcast live on the Web, and

might I be ready to pick out my plot, with a view of the Hollywood sign perhaps?

I was not.

Back to Jayne Mansfield. I wandered around for half

an hour with my map until I found Lot 218 by the edge of a large pond with a mini Greek temple floating in the middle of it. Only it turned out she wasn’t in Lot 218.

She was buried in Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania, though I

suppose this was as nice a place as any for her fans to pay their respects. I wished I’d brought flowers. I consulted the official directory. She’d hit it big in
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?
and lived in a pink mansion with Mr. Universe before biting the dust outside Biloxi.

I’d always liked Jayne Mansfield.

From the pond I made my way over to the freshly

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dug mound of dirt. It was pretty conspicuous. With a

big hole right next to it. Some white folding chairs lined up in neat rows. Still nobody around but me. And

Edgar, of course. He was somewhere in the vicinity. In a back room of the Court of the Apostles? Propped up

in the Abbey of the Psalms? Cruising around in a

hearse?

Stop. This was not productive.

I decided to check on Edgar’s new neighbors.

Lady Sylvia Ashley to the left. I checked the direc-

tory. She was a regal dark-haired beauty whose first

marriage to Lord Anthony Ashley ended when Douglas

Fairbanks Jr. divorced America’s Sweetheart, Mary

Pickford, for her. Another titled marriage came and

went before she married Clark Gable, whom she left for a Russian, Prince Djorjadze.

I think Edgar would’ve liked Lady Ashley. She was a

true femme fatale.

Virginia Rappe to the right. She was the young ac-

tress who’d had the misfortune to catch the attention of former Keystone comedian Fatty Arbuckle, who’d invited her to a party at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco in 1921 to celebrate the signing of his new

contract with Paramount Pictures. What happened to

her in Fatty’s three-room suite on the twelfth floor of the hotel will never be known, but within a few days she was dead, and he was charged with her murder. Though

he was acquitted, Paramount canceled his contract and the Hays Office banned him from making films.

According to the directory, Virginia Rappe’s grave

was one of two at Hollywood Forever said to be

haunted.

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I wrapped my sweater tighter around me. The sun

was about to set and it was getting cold. Finally, the others were arriving. They had that slow gait mourners do. Mitchell Honey stepped out of a small white

car, on the arm of a tall man in dark glasses. He

looked shaken. When I’d pictured this moment, I’d

imagined I’d sort of blend into the crowd. No such

luck. Mitchell looked past dozens of people straight at me. I thought I saw something like regret in his eyes.

But maybe it was the light. I nodded at him and to my surprise he came over and gave me a hug. His face

was wet.

“Thanks for coming. Edgar was genuinely taken

with you.”

“I’m sorry, Mitchell,” I said, my voice cracking.

“Thank you,” he said. “Please join us afterward at the house.”

He shook some hands and exchanged some hugs.

Then he sat down in the front row of seats, next to the tall man in dark glasses. I stood in the back. The minister started talking. My mind wandered. I remembered

the flag that had been draped around my father’s casket.

My brothers had carried it home, all folded up into a neat triangle. My mother wouldn’t let me attend the funeral. She thought I couldn’t handle it. I’d always held it against her. But deep down I knew she was right.

Edgar’s service lasted about thirty minutes. I don’t

remember anything anybody said. I only remember

thinking about my father—that, and a strange feeling of foreboding.

I hoped Edgar’s grave wouldn’t be the third haunted

one at Hollywood Forever.

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Detectives Lasarow and Dunphy intercepted me on

my way out.

“Fancy meeting you here,” I said.

“Ms. Caruso, how are you?” Lasarow asked courte-

ously, a stretch for her.

“I’ve been better, thanks.”

“Thought you barely knew the man,” she said.

“Do you have a specific question for me, or may I go?”

“A couple of things. Do you own a gun?”

“Of course I don’t own a gun.”

“We’re looking for a twenty-two. Edgar Edwards

was killed with a twenty-two.”

“I do not own a twenty-two, nor have I ever owned a

twenty-two. Or any other kind of firearm.”

“No, I didn’t much think you were the type. But I had to try. Another thing.”