A Stiff Critique (13 page)

But Slade’s characters did more than march. Jack Randolph was Brightstar’s leader in the sixties, as handsome and as charismatic as a Kennedy. By the nineties he’s a has-been actor dying of AIDS. Patty Novak was his lover and right-hand assistant at Brightstar, glimpsed briefly in the future as a real estate agent bearing a marked resemblance to Nan Millard. Jack’s sergeant-at-arms was ex-Catholic Kathy Banks who loved Jack too, if only platonically. She also loved guns and justice in equal proportions. I already knew from the beginning of the story that she would return to the church more than twenty years later as a nun.

But I liked Peter Dahlgren the best of Slade’s characters, a man destined to become a banker, who negotiated dope deals in the earlier years with a cerebral excitation that felt sexual in nature. And completely pleasurable. Then there was Warren Lee, who sat quietly in the background, intent on the passports he was forging, easily recognizable as Russell Wu even then.

By the time I put down the manuscript, I was convinced that Brightstar had been close to paradise. I wanted to be there working for a just cause alongside Slade’s characters. And I felt a peculiar combination of dread and curiosity knowing that disaster was coming. I left my chair reluctantly and set the manuscript on a pinball machine. My eyes felt gritty. It was way past my bedtime.

I was glad for Slade’s characters when I went to bed and pulled up the covers that night. I figured they would keep my mind off his murder. I figured wrong.

I closed my eyes and immediately thought of Mave Quentin and Phoebe Mitchell. Was Mave fit enough at her age to beat someone to death with a dumbbell?

I rolled over on my side. Then there was Donna Palmer and the Mafia connection. I wondered if Palmer was her married or maiden name. Not that Mafioso had to be Italian. Look at Bugsy Siegel.

*

Hours later, I fell uneasily asleep, only to wake the next morning from a dream in which a grinning Bugs Bunny wielded a machine gun. Then I saw what he was shooting at. It was a manuscript whose pages dripped blood as they floated to the floor.

I drowned my anxiety in Jest Gifts paperwork all of Friday morning and most of the afternoon. It was close to four o’clock when the doorbell rang, breaking my concentration as effectively as a joy buzzer detonating under a cushion. I even jumped in my chair. C.C. gave me one slow look of disgust and leapt from my lap.

I got up and opened the door cautiously, the dread from last night’s visitation drying my mouth. But when I peered through the crack in the doorway, I didn’t see a murderer. I saw Carrie looking back at me, a white-toothed grin on her round, freckled face.

“Carrie!” I greeted her, flinging open the door in my relief.

“I’m glad you’re happy to see me,” she said as she strode through the doorway. She gave me a quick hug, then stepped back to look into my eyes. “I wasn’t sure I would be welcome.”

“Of course you’re welcome,” I assured her as another part of my mind began to backtrack. Was she really welcome? It all depended on why she was here.

“I left work early,” she told me. “I plan to visit each of the critique group members individually. I thought I might begin with Mave. Would you care to accompany me?”

I pursed my lips into the shape to say “No,” and then the phone rang.

It was my ex-husband, Craig, on the line. I mouthed that information to Carrie as he spoke. I also crossed my eyes for emphasis, feeling guilty in the next instant.

“I’ve got some more ideas for computer-nerd gag gifts,” Craig said, his voice low and seductive. “How about I come by and show them to you?”

“Sorry, Craig,” I answered quickly. “I’m just leaving the house with a friend.”

I looked across at Carrie after I hung up the phone. Her molasses-brown eyes were crinkled with repressed laughter.

“Well, get your purse, girl!” she ordered. “We
are
just leaving the house now, aren’t we?”

Sitting next to Carrie as she drove up Highway 101 toward Hutton not much later, I realized that I should have asked Craig if he had been walking up my driveway the night before. But would he admit to it even if he was my nighttime intruder? I turned to Carrie, ready to ask her advice, but she spoke first as she took the Hutton turnoff.

“Did you know that Hutton has only seven non-white residents?” she asked.

I shook my head, still thinking about Craig as the town’s tree-lined streets came into view.

“And of those seven people all but two are servants,” she continued.

“Who are the other two?” I asked curiously. She had my interest now.

“An African-American couple,” she told me. “He owns his own business. She’s a stockbroker. They are either very brave or very foolhardy. Or perhaps both. But they are very, very rich in any case, so they’ll probably do just fine.”

We found Mave at home as expected.

“Howdy, women!” she greeted us at the door. She was wearing a lavender T-shirt and tight purple jeans today. They looked damned good on her too. “You two come all the way to Hutton just to grill this old woman?” she asked, tilting her head.

I swallowed guiltily, but Carrie just said, “Sure thing,” and flashed a grin at Mave.

Mave slapped her thigh and let out a snort of laughter. “Well, come on in then!” she boomed, then turned to lead us down the hall.

I read the words inscribed on the back of her bobbing lavender T-shirt as we followed her: “If they can put one man on the moon, why can’t they just send them
all
there?”

Carrie and I must have both finished the sentence at the same time, because we were laughing in unison as we stepped into Mave’s living room.

“Never did have much tolerance for the male of the species,” Mave commented as she turned around. Obviously, she had eyes in the back of her head. She squinted the eyes in the front of her head at Carrie as she continued. “Though Travis doesn’t appear to be such a donkey’s bottom as the rest of them, does he now, Carrie?”

I looked at Carrie, too, wondering what exactly Mave was getting at. Was she curious about Carrie’s relationship with Travis? Or maybe she was warning Carrie off—

“I believe Russell Wu is a pretty acceptable human being as well,” Carrie replied blandly.

And then I wondered if Mave had left Russell out of her question on purpose, because she suspected him. I gave my head a little shake, feeling like Alice in a Wonderland of innuendo and subtext.

“Well, sit yourselves down and we’ll talk,” Mave suggested, her bright eyes round behind her glasses.

I just hoped I hadn’t missed any important implications as I took my seat next to Carrie on a comfortable purple couch. The whole room was comfortable, both physically and visually. I looked around as Mave sat across from us on a matching couch. The walls were a pale lavender, the windows trimmed in soft yellow and the carpet a darker lavender. The odd combination of colors was more soothing than I would have expected.

“Did you ever find your copy of Donna’s manuscript?” Carrie asked, getting down to business.

“No, I didn’t!” Mave exclaimed. She shook her head. “Now, isn’t that the goofiest thing? Do you really think one of those mob critters got it?”

Carrie nodded solemnly.

“Well, I suppose it wouldn’t have been all that hard to get in this place,” Mave murmured, her eyes out of focus behind her glasses. “I don’t lock up much. And I’ve been spending a lot of time in the back garden.”

“Perhaps you might lock your doors from now on,” Carrie suggested.

“You betcha,” Mave agreed readily. “Though in this case the horse is already gone.” She frowned. “You two think Donna’s family situation’s tangled up with Slade’s death?”

“I don’t know,” Carrie answered carefully. “Though I’d certainly appreciate an answer to that very question.”

“Me too,” Mave muttered. “Not that I cared much for Slade Skinner. He was one of those males that you think might be of another species altogether, if you know what I mean. But still and all, murder isn’t a good thing no matter how pesky the victim might be.”

“How did you meet Slade, originally?” I asked.

“Good golly, I’d known Slade for donkey’s years,” Mave said. She stared up at the ceiling. “Met him through some neighbors, the Atchesons. Good folks, long gone. We started this here writing group maybe ten years ago. I was doing a series of articles for the
American Heritage.
Slade had just published his first thriller. And Amy Atcheson was writing gardening books, bless her poor little heart. She’s dead now, of ovarian cancer. Her husband went not long after—” Mave shook her curly gray head as if to clear it. “I’ll bet you two don’t really want to hear all about Amy and the rest of the neighbors,” she finished with a wink. “Ask your next question.”

“How did you feel when Slade challenged you about meeting Phoebe Mitchell?” I obliged.

Mave’s head jerked back as if slapped. “I felt a mite testy,” she snapped, her eyes squinting in a fierce glare. But then her expression softened again. “Don’t you worry, though. I don’t kill folks when I’m feeling testy. And it wasn’t as if I really believed I’d met Phoebe. It was just a little white lie I’d grown fond of. Made a good story to tell. George Jean Nathan said, ‘Art is a beautiful, swollen lie.’ And that about sums it up. Wouldn’t be a whole lot of art without lies, now, would there?”

I didn’t have an answer to that one. I turned to Carrie. But she seemed out of ideas too.

“Want to see a picture of Phoebe?” Mave offered.

Carrie and I nodded simultaneously. Somehow, we had become a team.

Mave stood up and led us to the wall behind our couch. It was covered in black and white photos of women. Mave pointed and identified each of them enthusiastically. Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein, “Red” Emma Goldman and Margaret Sanger were the only names I recognized. And, of course, Phoebe Mitchell. She was a handsome woman, with well-chiseled features and one impudently raised eyebrow above an eye that seemed ready to wink. I could see why Mave loved her so.

Carrie and I made polite noises over Mave’s collection for a few more minutes and then she saw us out, pleading the need to write.

“Well?” I asked once Carrie and I were in the car again.

Carrie still hadn’t answered me by the time we passed the lush lawn and beds of dahlias in front of the large redwood house next to Nan’s.

“Look,” Carrie said, extending a finger. But she wasn’t pointing at the garden, she was pointing at the BMW parked in front of Nan’s cottage.

“Nan’s home. Real estate sales must be slow,” Carrie drawled, sounding for a moment like Nan herself. She pulled to the curb, set the brake and turned to me, all in one motion. “Shall we?”

“After you,” I replied.

Our visit with Nan wasn’t much longer than our visit with Mave. Nan answered the door with an impatient, “Oh, you two,” and ushered us into her living room, ten feet by six feet of spotless bare hardwood floors and cream-colored walls with two small, perfectly matched vanilla-colored sofas and one abstract painting in shades of cream, muted blue and pale yellow above a small, neat, unused fireplace. That was it. The room was perfect, tasteful, and utterly sterile. Nan didn’t ask us to sit down.

I managed one phrase, “Hi, we were in the neighborhood,” and she started talking real estate.

“Carrie says you’re in Mill Valley,” Nan told me, tossing a languid gold-bangled wrist in its general direction. “Not a good place to be right now.” She shook her head, her shining blond pageboy swinging from side to side as gracefully as hair in a shampoo ad. “Prices are dropping in Mill Valley. You want to be in Hutton or San Ricardo. Ever thought about a condo? Larkspur has a great little…”

If she was trying to avoid our questions, she had a good technique. I looked over at Carrie. She shrugged and rolled her eyes. But ten minutes later, Nan paused for a breath.

“We were curious how you came to be in the critique group,” Carrie put in quickly.

Nan blinked, her tan face blank for a moment.

“Oh,” she said finally. “I took a class from Slade a few years ago. Well, he took one look at my writing and practically begged me to join his little group.” She smiled smugly, animated once more. “Anyway, Kate. I can tell you right now that Mill Valley has had its day as a real estate hot spot. The areas that are—”

“Slade could give quite a rough critique,” Carrie cut in again, not even waiting for Nan to breathe this time. I didn’t blame her. It might have been ten more minutes.

“Slade, rough?” Nan said, eyebrows arcing. Then she chuckled. “Not really. You just had to understand Slade’s sense of humor. Very sly, very subtle. He was really a darling man. But so misunderstood.” She didn’t have to add “by lesser mortals.” The implication was enough.

“Have you found your copy of Donna’s manuscript?” I asked.

“I haven’t had a single little second to look yet,” Nan told me. She shook a well-manicured finger in my direction, jangling her bracelets. “Been too busy showing hot properties. You ought to come by the office, Kate…”

As we were leaving Nan’s, I heard a car start up behind us. The sound seemed familiar. Was it the same sound as the car the night before? I turned my head and saw a beige Honda Civic alone on the wide Hutton street about a block behind us. I couldn’t make out the features of the driver. The car was too far away. But still, I had a feeling…