The Wrong Stuff (14 page)

He wasn't returning from his search entirely empty-handed though.

He knew that Scott and Annie were special friends and that Annie had been crying. He knew that Scott needed a root canal. He knew that mellow Mickey had quite a temper when he thought his space was being violated. And he knew about a charming little hideaway that someone who didn't want to be seen on the grounds could use without being seen herself. He was also sure that when he and Jane did find Claire Oh, she would be wearing only one ruby earring.

Jane made a quick stop at her cabin. If Claire Oh needed a place to hide out during the day, wouldn't she feel safest in Jane's place? And even if she hadn't wanted to stay in such an obvious location, she might have left a note, perhaps something a little less cryptic than the lipstick on the mirror.

But Claire Oh wasn't hiding under the bed or in the closet or behind the shower curtain. Jane lightened the load in her big leather bag by taking out the Westman book. She could go over what she had learned from that source later. The rest of the papers she had picked up at Rick's she kept with her. After tucking his Birkenstock sandals out of sight in her closet, she left for the lodge. It was almost lunchtime, and she was sure that Tim, over his hangover by now, would not want to miss a meal.

Approaching the front porch, she saw a new visitor talking to Roxanne. She could only see him from the back, but he looked familiar. A tall, slender man, he carried himself almost regally. He had a small duffel in his left hand and was gesturing with his right. If one looked quickly, it might appear that he was patting Roxanne's shoulder in a kind of “there, there” gesture, calming her; but looking more closely, Jane could see that he was patting the air. It had the effect of a “there, there” or a “don't worry about a thing” but it was more respectful, less familiar or patronizing. The man didn't know her so would not presume to touch her. Even that gesture seemed familiar to Jane.

She was only a few feet behind him when she heard his voice.

“Please don't trouble yourself. I'm only sorry Mr. Moore didn't give you my message. I can see how it must be an inconvenience, me showing up like this.”

“The room in the lodge is quite nice, it's just that it's smaller than the guest cabins. We can have it ready after lunch, and I'll make sure you can meet with Mr. Campbell after tea this afternoon. We keep a silence after lunch you see…”

Again, the man patted the air. “Please, you are being so kind, and I am the intruder. I will leave my bag in the car,” he said.

“No, no. I'll put it in my office, and it will be in your room after lunch,” Roxanne said, taking the bag. “Jane, come and meet Mr….”

“Oh,” said Jane, as the man turned to her with a small smile and extended his hand.

“Mr. Kuruma. And you are?”

“Jane Wheel,” she whispered.

He was wearing tan dress pants and an unstructured silk-and-linen sport coat in a rich brown with a thin windowpane of robin's egg blue running through it. Against his pale blue shirt hung an incredible tie. On a tan background, shiny blue-and-green cicadas were scattered, so colorful and vividly detailed that the design seemed three-dimensional.

“Are you a restoration artist, Mrs. Wheel?” he asked.

“No, a…student,” she answered, trying desperately to remember how to speak a few more words in English.

“Call yourself an apprentice, Janie,” said Tim, walking up behind them. “It's more in keeping with the spirit of Campbell and LaSalle. Right, Roxanne?”

She nodded and began to introduce Tim to the newcomer.

“Tim Lowry, meet Mr. Kuruma.” Jane said the name at the same time as its owner, who thrust out his hand toward Tim.

“Oh,” said Tim. “Hello.”

“I'll leave you all for a few minutes, if that's all right. I want to make sure that Mr. Kuruma's room gets made up. See you at lunch.

“Can you please tell me about these studios?” asked Mr. Kuruma, so much better known to them as Bruce Oh, escorting the two of them off the porch. As he pointed and gestured, looking out at the grounds, he quickly and quietly told them that Claire was still missing.

“When she didn't come home, I looked over a few things in her office. She has a phone record printed out every month from her business phone, her cellular, and I saw that she had called Campbell and LaSalle the night of the antique show, at seven-eighteen
P.M.
Which would be right after Horace Cutler had come to her booth and made such a scene. In her calendar notebook, she had written down that she had called C & L and explained the problem to Rick. I decided to show up here and say that my secretary had called to say to expect me this day, this time, and that she had left the message with a Rick Moore. Sadly, I knew they wouldn't be able to check with him to see if I had called for a meeting and tour of Campbell and LaSalle.”

“So Rick Moore knew that the Westman chest had been exposed as a fake,” said Jane.

“Yes.” Oh nodded. “And over there?” he asked loudly, pointing to the art gallery and studio behind the lodge.

“Did Claire say how specific Horace was when he yelled at her about selling him a fake? Did he mention that it was a Westman chest?” Jane asked.

“Claire told me that it was lucky he was so mad. He just sounded like a sputtering old man. No specifics. She was relieved. Just talking about a Westman chest would have called so much attention to the controversy.”

“So as far as we know, only Claire, Horace, and Rick Moore knew about the Westman chest,” said Jane. “No one here has mentioned it.”

“Which doesn't make sense at all. They all peer over each other's shoulders here, dickering over which brush to use, whether or not they should make a hand-hammered hinge to match, or go off and scout one. They're all in each other's pockets,” said Tim, then he remembered his news. “By the way, was Claire wearing chunky gold earrings last night, big ruby in the center?”

“She owns such a pair,” said Oh, evenly. “I don't know if she was wearing them when she left.”

Jane didn't know whether to be impressed with Oh's composure or shocked at his coolness. “Why, Tim?” she asked.

“I didn't find her, but I know where she slept last night. And that she ate well. She apparently left crumbs and an earring in Mickey's tree house. He was furious, but he has no idea that we have a stowaway,” said Tim.

Oh nodded. Was he smiling? Jane wished she knew what the microscopic changes in the rise and fall of the corners of Oh's mouth really meant? Did he have a facial tic, or did he have feelings?

“Mickey has a tree house?” she asked, turning her attention to what Tim had discovered.

“Very possessive about it, too. He thinks someone spirited one of the gals up there for a liaison last night.”

“Why last night? How does he know…?”

“Because he was up there with Silver and Martine getting high after the memorial service. And when he went back this morning for his salute to the sun, or whatever the hell he does up there, he found the earring and dinner remains.”

Oh cleared his throat and went into Mr. Kuruma mode. Martine was descending on them like a funnel cloud.

“You cannot monopolize our new guest, my dears,” she said, brushing off Jane and Tim like gnats. “I am riveted by Asian culture and sensibility, and I insist you allow me to absorb some of your”—Martine gazed upward and around, looking for that pseudospiritual teleprompter that she seemed to call upon at will—“innate knowledge.”

Jane watched Martine sweep Oh away from them.

“Close your mouth, Jane,” Tim said. “It's a catch-and-release program with her. She'll throw him back when she finds out he has no money, no publishing connections, and no desire to take her to bed.”

“Publishing connections?” asked Jane.

“That's why she latched on to Silver. She thought he knew people in the book biz. She told me she was shocked to find out Silver didn't have an agent. Some life coach guru type stayed here, and she and Martine talked a lot of bullshit; and then the ‘protégé,' as Martine referred to her, went off and wrote a bunch of self-help books and made a fortune. Martine wants a piece of that pie. She said she was terribly disappointed that Silver didn't seem to understand anything about publishing. So she's given him the gate.”

“The old heave-ho, Silver?” Jane asked.

“Awa-a-ay,” answered Tim, taking her elbow and pushing her toward the lodge and lunch.

Jane and Tim quickly realized that it would be impossible to fill each other in between bites of lamb ragout and a pear-and-Roquefort salad. It was much easier—and quite entertaining—to watch Martine turn up the charm for Bruce Oh. Since she ran on a fairly high wattage regularly, the effect of adding more power was blinding.

Mr. Kuruma had introduced himself as a collector and a journalist for a new art and antiques journal. He had been careful to describe it as being in that fragile start-up phase where he couldn't really talk about the details, the investors, or the people behind the scenes. Still, it gave him enough of a cachet that the artists surrounding him at the table treated him as if he were an important restaurant critic, and they were all chefs.

Only Silver seemed removed from the feeding frenzy. The metaphorical feeding frenzy anyway. The poet was taking lunch quite seriously. According to the count Jane was keeping in her head, he had helped himself to four plates of the ragout and three salads. How hungry
was
this man? Since his caftan contained pockets, Jane was certain he lined them with plastic bags so he could stock up for later. Perhaps, as a poet, he had learned to take advantage of the generous table when it presented itself as a hedge against the lean times. Or perhaps, Jane thought, sizing up his ample frame robed in a brocade tent, he was simply a man with an appetite.

The thought crossed Jane's mind that Mickey must have built himself quite a tree house if he could entertain both Silver and Martine. That pair plus Mickey would be quite a test of the structural integrity of the tree house floor, not to mention the quality of hemp used to make the rope ladder. Considering hemp quality prompted Jane to wonder if there were Campbell and LaSalle residents who needed extra money for drugs, for publishing ventures, and, glancing at Silver's once again full plate, she added food to her list, desperately enough to want to profit by pulling the old switcheroo with antiques that came in for repair.

Her use of “cahoots” and “switcheroo” within the same hour—even though it was well within the boundaries of silent notes to self—prompted Jane to consider getting herself a word-a-day calendar to improve her vocabulary, which seemed to be based much too much on old movies and conversations with Tim. She also might ask Nick to tutor her on more updated slang.

Years ago, Jane and Charley had had neighbors, an older couple, whom they liked very much. They noticed, though, when talking over the hedges or carrying in groceries at the same time, that both the man and woman had curiously formal and old-fashioned ways of speaking. After trimming a tree and offering some of the firewood to Charley, Carl suggested that Charley measure the width of the fireplace and have “your frau call my frau.”

Jane and Charley decided that what their neighbors most sounded like were two observers from another planet who had learned to imitate earthlings by reading a how-to manual. Jane now realized that what they had really sounded like were middle-aged people.

Rooted in the slang and casual speak of their youth, they had only an acquaintance with contemporary pop culture because their age allowed them only limited access, classic Catch-22—another reference Jane doubted would make sense to Nick's generation. Carl and his “frau” probably would have preferred sounding young and hip or at least like Earth-born earthlings, but no one had bothered to tell them how to do it—or pointed out that they didn't sound “groovy” for that matter. And now Jane and Charley were there—middle-aged, a faraway planet, next stop, Frauville.

“Please?” whispered Silver.

Jane realized he had asked her something. From the pained look on his face, it was clearly something important.

“Sorry. I was lost in space,” said Jane.

“Butter,” said Silver, louder and with a slightly exaggerated articulation, as if Jane might be a bit hard of hearing.

Jane passed the pale slab of what appeared to her to be fine Danish butter. She wanted to ask him how he could possibly be putting away a thickly spread hunk of bread, after everything else he had eaten, but as Jane Wheel, girl detective, she knew that wouldn't be the way to his heart or to wherever he kept any information that might be helpful in finding out what had happened to the Westman chest, Horace Cutler, Rick Moore, or Claire Oh.

Jane thought maybe she knew the way into his heart.

“I'm getting coffee. Can I bring you back a plate of those cookies from the sideboard?”

He gave her a great big buttery grin and nodded.

Jane arranged six cookies, two of each of the three varieties—peanut butter rounds, chocolate-studded oatmeal cookies, and dipped macaroons—on a pink depression glass plate and brought it to Silver. He looked at her with such bald gratitude that she was taken aback. What must his poetry be like? Lots of food metaphors and themes of emptiness and hunger?

“Working on a new collection?” asked Jane. “Or is that a bad question to ask a poet?”

“Not a bad question, I just have a sad answer,” Silver said, brushing crumbs off the sleeve of his robe. “Block,” he said, pointing first at his head, then at his heart.

Jane wasn't sure if he meant he had writer's block or he was telling her something about his arteries. He had, after all, just downed a quarter pound of butter.

“I've had great difficulty reentering my artistic space. I am working my way back to the word, so to speak,” he said.

With a fork, not a pen,
Jane thought, while she said, “Interesting.”

“Martine is helping me,” Silver said. “Coaching.”

Jane wondered how one went about coaching a poet. Writing seemed like a highly personal endeavor, and writing poetry the most personal of all. How did a life coach figure into his literary work?

“Martine is good at opening up the channels,” said Silver, “helping me redirect my energies.”

“How?” Jane asked, truly curious, but realizing as soon as the question was out of her mouth that it might sound insensitive.