Not A Girl Detective (9 page)

Pretty kinky, if you asked me. As I left the table a tall, very pregnant woman wearing a Chums 1997 Convention sweatshirt and a blue wraparound skirt snapped

my picture and handed me a book.

“Will you sign it?” she asked, peering at my chest.

“Ms. Caruso, is it?”

“Call me Cece.”

“I’m Tabitha.”

“You really want me to autograph your book?”

“I do it at every convention. I buy a Nancy Drew

book that’s missing pages or something and get every-

body to sign it. Then I have a record of who was

there.”

“That’s so sweet,” I said, writing my name across the ripped title page of a 1944 edition of
The Whispering
Statue.
“I never actually read this one. How is it?”

“Togo, Nancy’s little terrier, appears for the first time in this book, so it’s a favorite of mine,” she replied. “I can’t have animals because I’m a flight attendant and I’m always traveling, but I love them like crazy! I’m sort of an expert on them,” she added, blushing a deep shade of crimson.

“Animals in general?”

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“No, in Nancy Drew. Snowball the cat, Nancy’s white

Persian, appears for the first time in
The Mystery of the
Brass-Bound Trunk,
original text, not revised text, I mean. And Nancy has a horse named Black Prince in

one of the spin-off series, number sixty-six,
Race
Against Time
. But that’s about it. I think Hannah must’ve been allergic. Or didn’t need the extra aggravation.”

“Hannah Gruen, Nancy Drew’s housekeeper?” I

asked.

“Uh-huh,” she said, taking back her book.

“Who’s allergic?” demanded a potbellied woman

standing behind us. “Because I’ve got a shitload of an-tihistamines if anybody needs them.”

“We were just talking about Hannah.”

“Oh, Hannah,” she said.

“How’re you doing, Rita?” asked Tabitha.

“Fair, Tabby Cat.”

“My online persona,” Tabitha explained.

I recognized the name from her postings on the

Listserv.

“Sleuth or Virgin Sleuth?” Rita demanded of me.

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s Clarissa’s concoction. Fresca with or without

gin. Over by the minibagels.”

“Don’t forget the maraschino cherry,” Tabby Cat

said shyly.

“I’m not thirsty right now,” I replied. “But thanks.”

“So it’s official,” said Rita. “I’m getting divorced.”

“Oh, no! What about your collection?” Tabitha

turned to me. “Rita and her husband—ex-husband-to-

be, I guess—have an amazing Stratemeyer collection:

Bomba the Jungle Boy, the Motor Boys, the Campfire

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Girls, Honey Bunch. Who wrote the Honey Bunch

books again?”

“Mildred Wirt Benson wrote the Honey Bunch

books as Helen Louise Thorndyke,” I answered. What a

pedant.

“ ‘Honey Bunch is a dainty, thoughtful little girl, and to know her is to take her to your heart at once,’ ” Rita recited.

I had to concede defeat.

“You know,” said Rita, patting Tabby Cat’s tummy,

“you could name your baby Honey Bunch.”

“What if it’s a boy?”

I turned to Rita. “Why don’t you collect Nancy

Drew?”

“I hate Nancy Drew,” she said in a low voice. “But

don’t rat me out.”

“How can you hate Nancy Drew?”

“Haven’t you ever noticed how selfish that girl is?

She’s helpful, but what a control freak! She’s always got to have her own way, and to hell with everybody

else.”

“Now that you mention it—”

“Excuse me, I’m not finished. To hell with every-

body else’s legitimate concerns. They’re supposed to

stuff them just like she does. And danger? So what if she puts everybody around her in danger? One inappropriate response after another.” She shook her head.

“Nancy Drew is a bundle of defense mechanisms

wrapped up in a pretty package.” Then she looked right at me. “Sound familiar?”

I didn’t answer. I got away by pretending I wanted to look at the Nancy Drew sunglass cases.

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Lael and Bridget were about done. “Let’s go check

out our new vacation home!” said Bridget. “The cream

cheese is gone.”

“Almost,” I said. “I love you guys.”

“Big smooch,” said Bridget.

“Cece Caruso! You’re here!” said a voice I recog-

nized.

“Clarissa!” I replied, turning around.

So this was Clarissa Olsen.

“You are not what I envisioned,” I said without

thinking.

“Neither are you.”

“What were you expecting?” I asked, sweeping my

index fingers under my eyes and trying to rub off the mascara that had melted somewhere around Cabazon.

“Certainly not someone so young and so gorgeous.”

This woman had absolutely missed her calling.

With those lines and that sleek blond bob she was

meant to be a network news anchor. I half expected

her to shove a microphone in my face and ask me for a comment.

“Clarissa, these are my friends Lael and Bridget,” I

said.

“So nice to meet you. And this,” she said, gesturing

to a girl whose back was toward us, “is my daughter,

Nancy Olsen.”

Nancy turned around.

Life can be so strange.

Because the girl I was looking at—Clarissa Olsen’s

daughter, Nancy—was the same girl I’d talked to at the Holly View Apartments, the one who’d claimed to be

Nancy Olsen’s next-door neighbor.

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“Nice to meet you, Cece,” she said, sweet as pie.

“Love the tartan minikilt,” I said. “You’re some kind of original.”

Her mother beamed.

8

And speaking of Nancy Drew’s long-suffering

beau, Ned, why do you think his last name is Nicker-

son? Nickers-on, get it? The poor sap.”

A man wearing a name tag that read Big Bad Se-

bastien was putting the moves on Lael. She took it

with her usual good cheer, smiling graciously as he

droned on.

“One more minute,” I promised, squeezing her arm.

“Cece,” Lael said, “Sebastien here is a charter mem-

ber of the Chums.”

“Sebastien-with-an-e Kister. Pleased to know you. I

publish a newsletter out of Detroit.” He handed me a

somewhat grimy copy of
Big Bad Sebastien’s Super

Dicks and Bloodhound Babes.
“Only nineteen ninety-nine a year. I write the whole thing and I’m witty as hell.”

“Sebastien has also explained what was going on

downstairs.”

“Lesbians!” he cried. “Twenty thousand of them!

Headquartered here! The Dinah Shore Classic! One

weekend a year the girls take over the city!”

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Lael and I looked at each other and cracked up.

“Clarissa about wet her pants when she realized what

was happening, but I say, bring it on! I’m crashing the grand ballroom tomorrow night if you ladies want to

join me. They’re turning the place into Emerald City.

There’s going to be a yellow brick road that’ll start at the entrance and go all the way through to the party.

I’ve seen them setting up. Green lights everywhere!

The Munchkins are an erotic belly-dancing troupe

from Des Moines!”

“Cece, don’t we have that thing we have to get to?

Isn’t it starting right now? That thing?”

“Give me one more minute, Lael,” I said. “Please.”

I knew I was pushing it, but I had a couple of ques-

tions that needed answering.

“What, are you worried I can’t handle the both of

you?” I heard Sebastien saying as I stepped into the hall.

Nancy Olsen was standing out there, puffing on a

cigarette.

“That’s against the law,” I said. “And it’ll kill you.”

She took a long drag. “I’ve already got a mother.”

“I’m well aware of that.”

“She makes her presence felt, doesn’t she?”

“Listen, I don’t know what’s going on between you

two. That’s for you to work out. But I don’t appreciate being made a fool of.”

Nancy dropped her cigarette into a cup of cranberry

juice someone had left behind. “Sorry.”

“That’s it? Sorry?”

“That’s it.”

“Well, that’s not good enough.”

“You were in the way.”

“Of what?”

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“My fucking life,” she said, shoving her chopped-off

red hair out of her eyes. “Do you think it’s easy having Clarissa for a mother?”

“Do you think it’s easy having you for a daughter?”

She looked up at me with tear-filled eyes. “I sup-

pose not.”

Well, shoot. I hadn’t meant to make her cry. The girl was decked out in full punk regalia but still had her baby fat.

“My mother had all sorts of plans for me, too,” I said, leaning against the wall. “I was supposed to become

Miss New Jersey, maybe even Miss America. But then I

sort of rushed into marriage. I blew it for her.”

“Were you pregnant?”

I nodded. “I had a daughter, Annie. She’s a little

older than you are now.”

“Where does she live?”

“In L.A.”

“Do you see her much?”

“I do.”

“Did you name her after a fictional character?”

I laughed. “No, though I will admit to being obsessed with Annie Oakley. But I never mentioned it to her father. He would’ve been horrified. He wanted to name

her after one of the Brontë sisters.”

“Emily was an anorexic.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Charlotte was a masochist.”

“Good thing we stuck with Annie.”

“There was an Anne Brontë.”

“Bet nobody called her Annie.”

“Probably not.” She smiled and I saw her tongue

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piercing glisten. She stuffed her cigarettes into a tiny fringed purse.

“I’ve got to go help my mother. She’ll go ballistic if everything’s not perfect. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow.”

I went back inside, too, to rescue Lael and find Bridget. Clarissa was furiously scooping up conference

programs from the chairs she’d laid them on earlier.

She beckoned me over with a long red fingernail. I

thought of her daughter’s green ones, bitten to the

quick.

“Cece, I have news I forgot to mention. We’re

switching things around a bit. The scavenger hunt will now begin at eleven, and we’re going to start your

speech a little later than planned because we have a surprise guest coming.”

Oh, great. I’d been preempted. “Who is it?”

“Edgar Edwards, the collector from L.A.”

“Edgar Edwards?”

“I talked to him this morning. I wouldn’t have let him horn in on our event, but he says he’s got something to show us that’ll knock our socks off. Sounds pretty

thrilling. Anyway, I’m thrilled,” she said, tucking the now-defunct programs under her arm. “I’ll have to redo these tonight, of course.”

I knew the man couldn’t have vanished into thin air.

So much for Mitchell Honey’s hysterics. But what was

Edgar’s big surprise?

Oh, no.

The painting of naked Nancy Drew. What else could

it be? And it was all my fault. I shouldn’t have looked so interested. Man, oh, man. That painting was not going 78

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to fly with this group—except maybe for Big Bad Se-

bastien, who’d be licking his chops. Poor Clarissa. Between the lesbians and the painting she was going to

commit hara-kiri right here in the Oak Salon. Not to

mention the fact that Edgar’s bombshell was guaran-

teed to scoop my keynote address.

Which reminded me of something. I’d forgotten to

ask Nancy what she was doing with a slide of Edgar’s

painting. Actually, I think I forgot on purpose because I didn’t want to have to mention the fact that I only knew about the slide because I’d broken into her car and

pawed through her things. But there was no way around it now.

I scanned the room, rehearsing my mea culpas. I

didn’t mean to sneak into your car. I
did
mean to sneak into your car, but I only did it out of concern for you, a person I’d never met. I did mean to sneak into your car, but I did it out of concern for your
mother,
another person I’d never met. I snuck into your car because I’m a sucker. Because I suffer from Catholic guilt. Because I’ve got a savior complex. Because I’m easily bored.

I was making myself dizzy and it looked like Nancy

had already left anyway. I poured myself some cran-

berry juice and downed it in a single gulp. It was just as well. Soon enough everything was going to come out in the wash. Maybe even the juice I’d just dribbled onto my Aerosmith T-shirt.

THE MOON WAS OUT, though the sun hadn’t set. We

drove straight toward snowcapped Mount San Jacinto,

a jagged wall of gray stone that seemed to have

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crashed down on the center of town, like a gargantuan space rock.

At least we knew where we were going. The valet at

the hotel, Norman, had sketched us a map on a cocktail napkin. It was pretty simple. To the west was the neighborhood of Las Palmas with its Spanish-style houses,

the epitome of old money luxe. To the north was the

Movie Colony, named for the influx of Hollywood stars in the 1920s and 1930s who’d come to get away from it all. (So said Norman, who’d also informed us that when he was five years old, he’d seen all four Gabor sisters slurping down oysters at a well-known French restaurant in town.) Farther north was Little Tuscany, where famous, once-isolated modernist houses were being