Not A Girl Detective (8 page)

“They were the other way around when we went

across the street.”

“Have they been opened? Check them. Is anything

missing?”

She opened the car door and climbed in. “Well, they

seem to be locked up, like I left them. And the keys are right here, in my purse.” She shrugged. “I’m so spacey.”

But Bridget was not spacey. And Lael was not a

lamebrain.

And it hadn’t been a dream.

We drove off.

“Everything’s fine now,” Lael said.

Just fine.

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*

*

*

THE SUN WAS HIGH overhead by the time we saw the first billboard for Hadley Fruit Orchards.

“Do you think hydrogen-powered cars will ever be a

reality?” Lael’s eyes were closed. She had exhausted

herself searching for a chimerical all-Beatles radio

station.

“It’s the only thing that will save California,” Bridget answered. “What are your thoughts on Indian gaming?”

“How can you think about such things at a time like

this?” I asked. “Didn’t you see the sign? We’re almost at Hadley’s!”

“I think we should keep going,” Lael said.

The air was hot and dry. How could birds fly through

such hot dry air? I looked around. Didn’t see any birds.

Not many plants either. Just some extraterrestrial-

looking Joshua trees poking out of the parched red

dirt.

“Hadley’s has been an oasis in the high desert since

1931,” I said, slowing down to read the next sign.

“I said I think we should keep going.”

“You’re going to pass on sage honey? Mango-

flavored pineapple cones? Apricot-stuffed Medjool

dates? Ostrich jerky?”

“I want to take a dip in the pool at Edgar’s,” she said.

“Doesn’t that sound nice?”

Bridget piped up. “Perfect.”

“I’m thirsty,” I said as we drove past Hadley’s. I

knew what Lael was doing. She was worried about me.

She did not approve of my stunts. She feared for my

mental health. And she wanted to get me settled in so I N O T

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could rest up before my speech tomorrow. How little

faith she had in me.

“You can have a drink when we arrive,” she said.

“And a nice hot bubble bath after the pool.”

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said stubbornly,

pulling off the road and into the Wheel Inn.

Lael sighed. “Just make it quick.”

The Wheel Inn in Cabazon was famous for its four-

story-tall dinosaurs. Back in the sixties, somebody had planned an entire dinosaur-themed amusement park

there, but had never gotten any further than a bron-

tosaurus and a T. rex.

“Looks like there’s a gift shop inside the T. rex,” said Bridget excitedly. Away from her usual designer bou-tiques for two hours and she’d lost all perspective.

“We’ll get the sodas,” Lael said, pushing Bridget in-

side behind me.

Five minutes later, we walked back out to the car. I

pressed the icy can of Diet Coke against my cheek.

Bridget kicked some gravel in the parking lot. “I

want one of those pith helmets with a fan attached.”

“Edgar must have air-conditioning.”

“Are you sure it’s fine that we all stay there?”

“He insisted,” I said. “I have no idea why, but he insisted.”

“Andrew loathes air-conditioning. He doesn’t mind

sweat.”

“Yuck,” I said.

“Who’s Andrew?” Lael asked.

“Bridget’s new intern,” I said with a snort.

“Are you jealous?” Bridget asked.

“A little,” I confessed. “You seem so happy.”

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“I am. He’s just so . . . worshipful. And all that luscious hair.”

“Cece,” asked Lael, ever alert, “why should you be

jealous? You’ve got Gambino.”

“Why do we always have to talk about men?” I

snapped. “Can we please not talk about men for two

seconds?”

“Good idea,” said Bridget, stopping dead in front of

Maynard’s Caddy. “I think we’ve got more pressing

concerns.”

7

At any hour, in any time zone, by any stretch ofthe

imagination, four slashed tires qualified as a pressing concern.

No one spoke. We just stood around the car like

mourners at a funeral.

“How will I explain this to Maynard?” I finally

asked.

Bridget shook her head. “Somebody out there

doesn’t like you, Cece. This is bad mojo.”

“Please, would you stop with the mojo?”

Lael smeared some Chapstick on her lips. “Who

would do such a thing? This is crazy. Never in my

life . . . Cece?” She was yelling at me now. “Cece! What are you doing? You’re going to get yourself killed!”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” I was standing

half in the road, shouting and waving my arms back and forth like a lunatic. “Hey, hey, stop!” The black-and-white cop car tore past me at full speed. I turned

around. “Did you see that? Unbelievable! He didn’t

even look my way!”

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“He was probably pursuing a felon. Come back here

this instant.”

Bridget studied her fingernails, a practical woman at heart. “Call the auto club, and be done with it.”

Fred from Porter’s Automotive arrived in less than

half an hour. Hot and dusty, we squeezed into the cabin of his truck. Fred was nice enough but his nonstop patter about wore me out. As we drove back to the garage, he complained about the juvenile delinquents who were terrorizing the area, shooting up windows, slashing

tires, covering bus stops with graffiti. Then he lamented the good old days, before the gangs came in from Los

Angeles. A digression on the nefarious influence of

drugs followed. And when I foolishly mentioned the pa-trolman who’d ignored us earlier, he started in on police corruption, tax fraud, the right to bear arms, and his plans to go off the grid.

All that, plus four new tires, set me back a thousand dollars. I had now officially exceeded my Visa limit.

But some months are like that.

We ate sour cream and onion CornNuts from the ma-

chine at Porter’s while Fred put on the tires.

“You ladies are damn lucky this car didn’t have any

of those fancy whitewalls,” he said as he was finishing up. “Then you’d really have been in for it.”

“We should report this,” Lael said.

I crumpled up my empty bag of CornNuts and tossed

it into the trash. “I know we should, but we have to get going.” I consulted my watch. It was close to three already, and we had to be at the conference hotel by four o’clock for the Chums’ wine and cheese party. I’d

promised Clarissa we’d be there, and the way her life was going these days, I didn’t want to disappoint her.

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Lael gave me one of her looks.

“Don’t do that. I tried to report it—you saw me.

And you also saw how much the cops care about what

happens.”

“That officer didn’t even see you.”

“Lael, you heard Fred. This place is crawling with

rotten teenage kids. Do you really think anyone on the entire Cabazon police force is going to bother chasing them down for the sake of the three of us? They don’t like out-of-towners in the backwoods. Let’s just get out of here.”

“She’s right,” Bridget warned. “Remember
Deliver-

ance
.”

Lael shrugged. “It’s your weekend, Cece.”

“And don’t you forget it.”

WE PULLED UP in front of the Wyndham Hotel on Indian

Canyon Road at about ten after four. A huge, inflatable bottle of Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum lay inexplica-bly on the asphalt.

The valet hurried over. He was wearing a red uni-

form with gold epaulets, and the sweat was pouring

down his face.

“Oh, man. Glad you didn’t run that thing over. It just fell down. Jesus. The official sponsor. Well, it’s crazy around here today.”

That was an understatement. People were streaming

in and out of the hotel, salsa music was blaring, and the smell of tortilla chips filled the air. A group of women wearing sun visors and tennis shorts brushed past us on their way inside, laughing uproariously.

“So much for cocktail attire,” Bridget said.

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“Actually, I’m impressed,” I said.

Lael smoothed down her windblown hair. “About

what?”

“That Nancy Drew can still reel ’em in.”

“You here for the party, ladies?” the valet asked,

handing me a ticket.

I nodded.

“How long you going to be?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe an hour.”

“I’ll keep your car out front. It’s a beaut,” he said, letting out a whistle. “Very cherry.”

“Thanks.”

The lobby was a mob scene. We made our way back

to the reception table where a smiling woman in a cowboy hat handed us each a tiny box of Whitman’s choco-

lates and a golf ball–shaped paperweight embossed

with the American Airlines logo. More official spon-

sors, I supposed.

“Head straight out to the pool,” she said. “Things are just getting started.”

We followed some people who looked like they knew

where they were going down the hall, past a pair of uniformed guards with headsets on.

“Those are the only men we’ve seen since we set foot

in this place,” Lael whispered.

“Again with the men!” I said. “Who did you think

would be at a Nancy Drew convention? Big, burly truck drivers? Sexy firemen?”

“Calm down,” said Lael, right before her mouth fell

open.

Females—what seemed like hundreds of them, of

every conceivable age, ethnicity, and body type—were

packed into the pool area and, from the looks of it,

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having the time of their lives. The drinks were flowing, the beach balls were flying, the DJ was playing Cyndi Lauper.

“This is not what I expected,” Lael said, looking up

at the Miller Lite banner silhouetted against the bright blue desert sky.

“Me neither,” said Bridget, stepping out of the way

of a short Latina with tattoos covering every square

inch of exposed flesh, of which there was a lot.

I stared at the swimming pool, dumbfounded. “The

Chums are playing Marco Polo.”

“That’s
Marcia
Polo,” said an older woman who came up behind me. She was wearing a tangerine-colored sarong and matching visor. “Do you ladies

need beers? There are burgers on the grill.”

“We’re fine for now, thanks,” I said, “but maybe you

could help me with something.”

“After my last juice fast, the first thing I ate was a hamburger,” said Bridget dreamily. “With blue cheese

and onions.”

“I love women who eat,” the woman said, looking

Bridget up and down. “Nice outfit.”

“As I was saying,” I continued, “I’m looking for

someone. Clarissa Olsen?”

“If she’s hot, I’m looking for her, too,” she said,

laughing.

“Excuse me, are you here for the Nancy Drew fan

convention?”

“Nancy Drew? I
loved
Nancy Drew, are you kidding?” She turned serious. “Nancy Drew was un-

fucking-believable. The perfect chameleon. She could

fit in anywhere, pretend to be anything or anyone—

throw on a wig, join the circus—you never knew who

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she really was. And her sidekicks, oh, I loved them, too.

Bess was always eating, god bless her. And George

Fayne—an athletic-looking girl with close-cropped

hair and a boy’s name. Let’s just say been there, done that!”

I turned to Lael and Bridget. “We need to go back to

the lobby and find the person in charge.”

“What about my hamburger?” Bridget asked.

I took her arm. “Now.”

The woman in the cowboy hat was too busy passing

out freebies to pay much attention to our queries, but the soft-spoken clerk behind the reservations desk sent us up to the third floor.

The elevator doors opened onto thick pile carpet and

the oily tones of Barry Manilow. This was more like it.

We followed the arrows around a couple of corners to the Oak Salon, which must’ve made a great setting for a bar mitzvah back in the seventies, assuming the bar mitzvah boy’s mother was into mauve and crystal chandeliers.

I looked around the room. The walls were covered

from floor to ceiling in mirrored tiles, which created the chilling effect of an infinitely regressing gallery of Chums. I wiped my sweaty hands on my jeans. To my

horror, I realized I was nervous. But that was insane.

Why should I be nervous? There were no more than sixty women in the Oak Salon. Sixty sensibly dressed women, not a sarong in the bunch. And they were out to have a good time, not to torment me. I had to get over myself.

The welcome table had been abandoned, but I spied a

red marker with a stubbed tip and a pile of blank name tags. I scrawled my name on one and slapped it onto my T-shirt.

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“I’m going to find Clarissa. Get yourselves some-

thing to eat.”

Bridget and Lael headed toward a towering mountain

of minibagels. I wandered over to the book display,

then to a long table covered with Nancy Drew Christ-

mas ornaments and Nancy Drew slumber party kits.

The Mystery of the Fire Dragon
kit included fortune cookies and a paper cheongsam.
The Bungalow Mystery
kit included two sets of handcuffs and a blindfold.