by Susan Kandel
“Are they looking for doggy bags in the kitchen?” I asked.
“No.” The elevator doors opened and I followed her out. “Aunt Eloise ordered Peking duck. They’ve got to find the pond in the West Garden.” She pointed toward an exit sign. “There are ducks out there. In this heat, can you imagine?”
“That’s pretty obscure, don’t you think?”
“It’s supposed to be a challenge.” She stopped in front of the ice machine. “Most of us here are experts, Cece.”
“Well, I’m sorry about Edgar, but I’m ready.” I’d disappointed her. She’d actually been looking forward to catching me off guard, the sadist. “Yes,” I said, patting my purse, “I have my notes and even a change of underwear right here.”
“Be prepared. It’s not just the Boy Scout motto. It’s a life lesson.”
She looked at me and I looked at her. Then she snatched the ice buckets out of my hands and filled them up.
I think I won that round, but I’m not exactly sure.
THE LIGHTS WENT DOWN. I began with the bland stuff—the Stratemeyer Syndicate and the multiple Nancy Drew ghostwriters and half-ghosts, so called because they worked from such detailed outlines. Then, on the theory that pandering never hurts, I talked about the role of fans in series fiction. Tabby Cat nodded like crazy during that part. (She’d recently written a twelve-page account of Nancy’s wedding and posted it on the Chums’ Listserv. Her vision of the Drew-Nickerson nuptials had Nancy wearing a simple white sheath, no sequins or beads, and the bridesmaids, Bess Marvin and George Fayne, in pale yellow pantsuits. The hors d’oeuvres were likewise pale yellow: deviled eggs and curried chicken salad on endive spears.)
From there, I hashed over Nancy as gothic heroine, virgin goddess, feminist icon, and WASP legend. Finally it was time for my personal obsession: Grace Horton.
Grace Horton. She was the black hole at the center of my research, inescapable and invisible. I knew she had been a model with the Harry Conover agency in New York, where the idea of the celebrity model had supposedly originated. Other than the Nancy Drew covers, however, and a single newspaper advertisement from 1942, in which Grace, dressed in a red bathing suit and polka-dot slingbacks, professed to staying slim on the Ry-Krisp plan, I could find no images and no information whatsoever about her.
The Stratemeyer archive at the New York Public Library yielded nothing. Databases at various societies of illustrators and institutes of pop culture, also nothing. The Internet, zilch. And still, Grace haunted me, another one of the Stratemeyer ghosts—or maybe just a half-ghost.
The cool blonde. The good girl. She was both at the same time. That much I could fathom. What I just couldn’t wrap my head around, however, was the fact that Grace Horton used her beauty to become Nancy Drew, a young woman who only ever had to use her brain.
Nancy was beautiful, of course, but her beauty was beside the point. Poor Ned Nickerson. He never quite got it. He was the kind of guy who was always underfoot, a puppy waiting to be stroked—or kicked. There were others, too: Dick Larrabee, Dirk Jackson, Don Cameron, Jack Kingdom, as all-American as their names. But Nancy was indifferent. With her adoring father and unlimited bank account she could afford to be. Everything about her was inspirational: her bravery, her loyalty, her spirit of adventure. But it was this obliviousness to money and sex that made her an icon, especially to readers too young to have developed much of a taste for either. Then again, maybe that was me, a two-bit beauty queen from the working class who got pregnant and blew her one shot at a serious life.
The lights went up. All eyes were on me. I felt naked. I was clearly some kind of exhibitionist, because I liked it. And everyone seemed to be clapping.
Lael and Bridget arrived just as Clarissa opened the floor to questions and comments from the audience.
“Sorry,” Lael mouthed as they crawled into the back row, but I think she could tell from my face that things had gone well.
Rita was waving her arm with grim determination.
“Yes, Rita?”
“You’ve inspired me to come out of the closet. As I said yesterday, I think Nancy Drew sucks.”
After a chorus of horrified clucks, the audience turned en masse from Rita to me. Somebody had to be the source of this perfidy.
“Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear,” I said. “I do not think Nancy Drew sucks. I am a huge Nancy Drew fan. She made it possible for me to dream of doing things I never even could have imagined. She was fearless. And nothing could sway her.”
“Absolutely,” Rita said, cutting me off. “That’s a sign of psychosis.”
“Why don’t we move on?” I looked around the room for a friendly face. Nancy Olsen’s hand went up. Oh, great.
“Nancy?”
She looked at her mother for a minute, then back at me.
“What would a Nancy Drew book be without a happy ending?”
“Real life,” I answered without thinking.
Clarissa stood up abruptly.
“Do you have something to add?” I asked her.
She glowered at me by way of response, then walked slowly up to the front of the room. With the lights up I could see that her face was red, almost as red as her suit.
She turned to face me. “Thank you, Cece, on behalf of the Chums. That was very interesting. Of course”—and here she paused dramatically—“if you had bothered to inform me that you would be speaking on a topic other than the one we had agreed upon, ‘The Changing Demographics of River Heights,’ I might have been able to provide you with some pertinent information.” She addressed the Chums. “What I mean to say is, had I been better informed, I might have saved Ms. Caruso from making such egregious errors.”
What errors? Little beads of sweat began trickling down my sides.
Clarissa strolled around the room, up and down the aisles, her hands clasped behind her back. The Chums were mesmerized, heads swiveling in unison, pens poised over their pads. This was way more excitement than they’d bargained for when they’d sent in their registration forms.
“It would seem that Ms. Caruso finds our Nancy Drew to be some sort of elitist ideal.” Clarissa paused next to the sleep-over kits. “Fine. I don’t agree, but one could certainly argue the point.”
I scanned the crowd. Big Bad Sebastien, sensing a catfight, looked happier than a pig in shit.
“However, I find it reprehensible to use an actual individual to make such a point. I’m speaking about Grace Horton. Let me tell you a thing or two about Grace Horton, the original Nancy Drew. First of all, she was not a sociological cliché—some poor exploited girl from a humble background forced to use her beauty to rise in the world.”
I didn’t say she was, I wanted to scream. But I remained calm.
“Grace was a highly moral, highly principled individual. And more to the point,” Clarissa continued, walking back up to the front of the room, “she came from a wealthy and accomplished family—my family, to be precise.”
At this, the Chums went crazy.
Tabby Cat leapt up from her seat.
“Careful—the baby!” Rita warned.
“I need to know how Clarissa is related to Grace,” said Tabby Cat urgently.
“Grace Horton was my ex-husband’s mother, my daughter Nancy’s grandmother.”
I looked over at Nancy, whose head was buried in a book.
A dark-haired woman wearing glasses raised her hand.
“Yes?”
“Who chose Grace as the cover model? Was it Edward Stratemeyer or the illustrator, Russell Tandy?”
Before Clarissa could answer, another woman shouted out, “What was she really like? Was Grace anything like Nancy Drew?”
Then another: “Did your ex-mother-in-law get to keep any original cover art, anything like that?”
“Ladies, ladies. These are all fine questions. Indeed, on the subject of Grace’s relationship with Russell Tandy and her impact on the creation of Nancy Drew, I have much to say. But you will have to be patient.”
>
They didn’t much like that idea.
“Now, now.” She smiled. “What I mean to say is, I will be addressing all of these questions in my forthcoming book.”
The Chums were beside themselves yet again. What forthcoming book?
“It will be chock-full of surprises, I promise you that. All sorts of secrets will be revealed.” She smiled again, showing all of her thirty-two teeth.
Lael sounded like she was choking. She was a good friend.
“And now, Chums, we will adjourn for lunch. When we return, Allie Nemeroff from Shreveport, Louisiana, will give her talk, ‘Boullion with a Speck of Nutmeg: Savories in Nancy Drew.’ Finally,” she said, looking right at me, “something we can all enjoy!”
In the world of boxing, they call that a technical knockout.
10
Edgar Edwards’s pool turned out to be an excellent place to recuperate. The water was a crystalline blue, the temperature a balmy eighty. The three of us floated along on rafts we’d bought on sale at Target, soaking up the healing rays of the sun. All negative thoughts were banished. They were like the tiny leaves floating on the surface of the water. If you didn’t get rid of them, they’d eventually clog your filter.
So Lael and Bridget had lost three hundred dollars at video poker. They had their health, didn’t they? Bridget had a boyfriend who adored her. Lael had amazing children. As for me, well, I could hardly complain. I let my hand dangle in the water and tried to feel contentment wash over me. It took a minute. I had a happy daughter. Wonderful friends. My book was almost finished. I was done with Clarissa’s games. Her bad attitude was not my problem. Her daughter was not my problem. Her quote-unquote book was not my problem. My romance with Gambino, however—that was definitely my problem. I’d derailed it, and only I could set it right. I pulled my hand out of the water and shook the droplets off.
“You woke me up,” Lael said groggily.
“Go back to sleep,” I whispered.
I grabbed my cell phone from the raft’s cup holder and punched in his number. He’d be back from Buffalo by now. And if I knew him at all he would’ve gone straight from the airport to his office in the Hollywood Division.
He picked up on the first ring.
“Gambino.”
“Hi. It’s me.”
I thought I could hear him smiling. He’d be rumpled. The blue eyes behind his wire-rimmed glasses would be red. He couldn’t sleep on planes. And he’d be on his fourth cup of coffee by now, heavy on the cream and sugar.
“I missed you.”
“Me, too,” I answered.
Lael was wide awake now. She and Bridget drifted over, so they could hear our conversation better. “I want to hear all about your trip, but first I have something I need to tell you.” My stomach was doing flip-flops. “It can’t wait.”
Lael squealed. Bridget reached over to clutch her hand but inadvertently bumped her raft into mine. That’s when the phone flew out of my hand and fell down to the bottom of the pool.
“Shit!”
“Were you going to tell him you loved him?” asked Lael, positively deranged with anticipation. She was sitting up now, and clutching the sides of her raft. “What was he saying?”
“Now we’ll never know,” I said.
“Your love has plunged into the bottom of a watery abyss,” said Bridget. “Just like Titanic.”
I climbed out of the pool and adjusted my black bikini, which set off to perfection the wound I’d gotten stealing the orange in Riverside. “I’m calling him back from inside. You two can wait here.”
I probably needed a new cell phone anyway.
We had, of course, forgotten to bring out towels. Dripping wet, I traipsed across the velvety green grass to where I’d left my Diet Coke, took a swig, then walked through the sliding glass doors into the living room. The air conditioner was blasting. Shivering, I turned it off and tiptoed through the breezeway toward the bedrooms. The linen closet was located just opposite the room I’d been using.
“Love is in the air,” I hummed to myself, da-da-dada-da-da-da-da. Halfway through the next chorus, something caught my eye.
The door to the master bedroom was ajar.
Strange. I’d walked through the master bedroom earlier this morning, when I’d come in after getting soaked by the sprinklers. I distinctly remembered closing the door behind me before I walked across the hall to my room. Why would Lael or Bridget have opened it in the interim? They wouldn’t have. Maybe Edgar had finally arrived.
“Hello!” I called out, suddenly conscious of the fact that I was for all intents and purposes naked as a jay-bird. “Who’s in there?” There was no response. I walked slowly toward the door. “Who’s in there?” I asked more insistently. “Edgar, is that you?” I wondered if I should knock. I hesitated for a minute, then tapped gently. No one answered. I pressed my ear to the door and thought I could hear soft music playing.
I stepped back for a moment, then knocked harder. The door swung open and banged against the wall. The noise startled me. Not to mention the unmade bed. There were sheets and blankets everywhere. A pair of faded blue jeans was lying in front of the fireplace.
Jake.
But where was he? And where was Edgar? They’d obviously been here. And now they were gone.
I backed away from the room and headed to the kitchen. I remembered seeing a typed list posted by the phone with emergency contact information. This didn’t seem like an emergency, not exactly, but something wasn’t right. I wanted to talk to Edgar. The first number on the list was the Carroll Avenue house. I dialed and waited. The machine picked up. I hung up, frustrated. The next number was Mitchell Honey’s cell phone. It rang and rang. No answer. I started pacing back and forth.
“Ow!” Jesus H. Christ. Perfect. I’d stepped on some broken glass. Bridget had dropped something in here yesterday. Of course, it was too much to ask that she clean up her messes properly. I bent down and rubbed my hand across the bottom of my foot. Damn it. This was a monster piece. How could she have missed it? And now I’d cut my hand, too, and there was blood all over the place.
I grabbed some paper towels and started blotting up the drops of blood, then wrapped the last few sheets on the roll around my hand and foot. I peeled the list off the wall and studied it. Jake’s cell phone was next. I limped across the living room, trying not to stain the beautiful wood floors, and back out to the pool.
“Did you talk to him?” asked Lael. “What happened to you?”
“I never realized you were so accident-prone,” said Bridget.
“I cut myself,” I said, glaring at Bridget, “that’s what happened to me. And something strange is going on. Someone’s been in there. Edgar’s bedroom is a mess.”
“How can that be?” asked Lael.
My hands were trembling as I dialed Jake’s cell. “I’m sorry, you have reached a number that is no longer in service.”
Of course, he didn’t pay his bills. The next number was Edgar’s cell. Time to get to the bottom of this.
It rang several times.
“What’s that?” asked Bridget.
“What’s what?” I asked, thoroughly confused. I hung up. Who else could I call? Edgar’s was the last number on the list.
“That noise I just heard.”
I hadn’t heard a thing.
“It was probably nothing.” Or it was them. Somewhere out here.
“Edgar? Jake? Are you in the backyard?” I cried. “Please come out.” I stepped around an enormous palm tree embedded in some cement, and toward a sea of boulders leading to the mountains beyond.
“Where are you going, Cece? You don’t have any shoes on,” Lael said.
“Only bloody paper towels,” added Bridget. “And they’re going to get bloodier if you keep heading out there.”
“I’m coming to help you. C’mon, Bridget.”
They got out of the pool and huddled next to me.
“I’m going to try Edgar’s cell again. I didn’t let it rin
g long enough.”
“There’s that noise again,” said Bridget.
This time I heard it, too. Coming from beyond the boulders.
I hung up. The noise stopped. I dialed Edgar’s number again. The noise started again.
It sounded like a phone ringing.
Like when you’re home, but you don’t want to get the phone, and you’re waiting for the answering machine to pick up, to release you from some obligation you don’t want. But the ringing goes on and on, insistent, like a reproach.
I headed toward the edge of the property, my heart in my mouth. I went past the boulders, through the cactus, and deep into the brush. And that was where I found him, Edgar Edwards, with a small hole in the middle of his forehead.
His cell phone was lying next to him, still ringing, still insisting.
11
The Eames chairs in Edgar’s living room were unrelenting. I guess that was the theme of the day.
“Let’s go over it just one more time.” Detective Mindy Lasarow tucked a strand of prematurely gray hair behind one ear and smiled grimly at me.
“No problem,” I said.
“Why are you ladies here, in this house?” She looked at me as if she were hoping for a different answer, if only to relieve the monotony.
“We were invited here,” I recited. It was the fourth, maybe the fifth, time I’d explained it.
“By whom?”
“Edgar Edwards.”
Her partner, Detective Dunphy, scribbled madly, as if this were brand-new information.
I turned to Detective Dunphy. Cindy. She didn’t look like a Cindy. Cindys have dimples. This one had a single furrowed brow. “I’m talking about the dead man.”
“Uh-huh.”
She wasn’t exactly the conversationalist Detective Lasarow was.
“Okay. The dead man invited you here, to stay at his house.”
“Right.”
“And your friends, too.”
“We have every right to be here,” exclaimed Lael. “We were planning to leave a carrot cake.”