Not a Girl Detective

by Susan Kandel

  The woman popped a soda cracker into her mouth and, hefting her bag in my direction, asked, “What sign is she?”

  “Scorpio,” I answered. Scorpios are fiery, intense, and creative.

  “Ah, the scorpion,” he said. “You are secretive, controlling, and manipulative.”

  I suppose it’s all in how you spin it. I turned to the woman. “I believe this man asked you a question.”

  She wiped the crumbs from her mouth. “I was born under the sign of the schlep.”

  It seemed like a good time to get a glass of wine. Better yet, to go upstairs. There was a closet I needed to check.

  The second-floor landing was dark. There was a stained-glass skylight overhead covered with wet leaves, which meant that even in the daytime it would’ve felt like the middle of the night. I stood still for a moment, listening for signs of life. Dead calm. Everyone was downstairs. Good. Except that unfortunately, I couldn’t remember which way the blue bedroom was.

  I stared down the long hallway at a series of closed doors. It seemed like a sign. Turn back. You are not dressed for success. You do not own a maroon gabardine suit and floppy tie.

  Then I thought of Clarissa. The winning individual must be able to turn on a dime, roll with the punches, sway with the breeze.

  I tried the first door on the left. It was full of gym equipment. The second door on the left seemed to be Edgar’s bedroom. No, thank you. The third door opened onto an office of some kind. I flicked on the light. There was a big oak desk pushed up against the wall, underneath a painting of a crusty old fisherman. There were books everywhere. Looking at people’s books is even better than looking in their medicine cabinets. I tiptoed in.

  French Symbolism. The Warhol Look. Dada, Surrealism, and Their Heritage. The latter was propped up against a tower of Kleenex boxes. This had to be Mitchell Honey’s office. Every family needs a curator.

  The surrealism book was opened to a section on Salvador Dalí. I’d come across something else about Salvador Dalí recently, but I couldn’t remember what. Oh, well. I sat down. Then I looked up at the ceiling. No glitter trap in evidence. Still, I wasn’t opening any drawers.

  I started reading. In 1939 Dalí designed a window display at Bonwit Teller in New York featuring a furlined bathtub. The store was unhappy with it, and in the ensuing agitation the artist crashed through the display window’s plate glass. I read on. Dalí’s famous painting of melting watches was inspired by a very ripe Camembert: “…one of the strangest statements in art of man’s obsession with the nature of time.” I looked up at the clock, chastened. Time waits for no man. I turned off the light and went back into the hall. I tried the next door.

  This was it.

  I took one quick look around, just to make sure I was still alone, then went in, closing the door behind me.

  The Shrine.

  Everything looked the same as it had the other day: the blue wallpaper, the blue bed, the blue shelves lined with the Nancy Drew books. And unlike the rest of the house, the air smelled fresh, like Ivory soap.

  Last time I was here I hadn’t noticed a shelf filled with scripts from the Nancy Drew TV series. It had aired briefly in the late seventies, with Pamela Sue Martin (a brunette) playing the lead. The premiere episode outranked other detective shows like Kojak, Barnaby Jones, and Starsky and Hutch, but the series lasted only a season. Then Pamela Sue Martin made an appearance on the cover of Playboy, wearing a seductively draped trench coat. When asked how she could do such a thing to the fans, she answered, “What the hell do you think? You think I’m Nancy Drew?”

  Sounded like she and Grace Horton would’ve had a lot to talk about.

  Grace Horton. The reason I was here. Well, one of the reasons.

  I walked past the bookshelves to the closet, my pulse racing. This was where Edgar had kept the painting. But when I opened the door and looked inside, it wasn’t there. There were a couple of wire hangers on the rod, a water-stained box of envelopes on the floor, and that was about it unless you count the dust.

  So where the hell was the painting?

  Just then I heard footsteps out in the hall. Damn it, I didn’t want to get caught. If I’d had any sense whatsoever, I’d have marched right out the door and pretended I’d been looking for the bathroom. But no, I had to panic. I had to go and hide inside the closet.

  Maybe it was someone who really was looking for the bathroom. I’d wait for the flush, give it a few minutes, and then come out. But time passed awfully slowly in that tiny, stuffy closet. I stared at the four walls. I studied the hangers, which are actually ingenious devices. I was done. It couldn’t have been more than three minutes and I was going mad. Feeling claustrophobic. Then I heard the door to the blue bedroom open. Shit. I was done for. My foot started to itch. Oh, hell, let the chips fall where they may. I threw open the door.

  “Cece Caruso?”

  “Nancy Olsen?”

  What was she doing here?

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m looking for something,” I said. Honesty is the best policy, not that this minikilted minx would know anything about that. “How about you?”

  “I knew Edgar. The jazz world.”

  “I thought you were into punk.”

  “I’m into whatever.”

  “Obviously.”

  “I’m paying my respects to Edgar.”

  “In his bedroom? That’s a little strange.”

  “This isn’t his bedroom. And what did you say you were doing here? In his closet?”

  “This isn’t his closet. And I said I was looking for something.”

  “For what?”

  “A nude portrait of your grandmother, Grace Horton.”

  That shut her up.

  “Grace Horton was your grandmother, right?” I walked over to the blue bed.

  “That’s right,” she said, fiddling with her purse, which was shaped like a crescent moon. She pulled out her cigarettes, then put them back. She didn’t want to look me in the eye.

  “Amazing,” I said, smoothing out a wrinkle in the spread.

  “Not really. Everybody’s got a grandmother.”

  “My grandmother’s claim to fame was her baked ziti.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “What was Grace like?”

  “She died before I was born. I never knew her.”

  “But your mother knew her. She’s writing a book about her.”

  “Looks that way.” The mother is always the sore spot.

  “So, Nancy, what do you know about the painting?” I wanted to know why she had that slide in her car.

  “So, Cece, what do you know about it?”

  “I know that Edgar was planning to show it at your mother’s Nancy Drew party, but that didn’t happen. Somehow, it’s disappeared.”

  “What are you implying?”

  “Me? Absolutely nothing. But I do suggest you lock up your car in the future. You don’t want to lose anything valuable.” I turned on my heel. Let her stew for a change.

  ANOTHER NIGHT OF tossing and turning.

  The phone stopped ringing around eleven. I thought about Edgar. I looked up fan in the encyclopedia and learned many things. That in ancient Greece palm-leaf fans were sacred instruments used to tend the fire of the virgin goddess Hestia. That in China peacock-feather fans kept the wheels of the empress’s chariot free from dust. That in eighteenth-century France fans had a language all their own. Twirling a fan in the left hand, for example, meant that you were being watched.

  I went through all three hundred channels two times. There was nothing to watch. I filed my nails. I turned off the light. I turned on the light. I reread The Moonstone Castle Mystery. I ate a bag of Milano cookies. Then the doorbell rang.

  It was Gambino. Unshaven and bleary-eyed, he looked beautiful to me.

  I didn’t lose my nerve.

  And I didn’t get any sleep.

  Given the circumstances, however, that was fine with me.

  15


  Gambino and I looked at each other across the breakfast table.

  “Great toast,” I said.

  “Great coffee.”

  “Want some jam?” I asked.

  “Want some insulin?”

  “You’re not suggesting I’m laying it on too thick, are you?” I wagged my spoon at him. A dollop of raspberry jam landed on the sports section.

  “‘I love you’ was the easy part, Cece.”

  “Not for me.”

  “Come here.” He pulled me onto his lap.

  “The thing about domesticity…”

  “Yes?” He kissed my neck.

  “It’s an art form.”

  “I know.”

  “We’ve blown it before.”

  “This time it’s different.”

  “Why?”

  “We’re different. Things are different.” He gave me a little push. “Get up. I’ve got to take a shower.”

  “Wait for me,” I said.

  Afterward I lay on the bed while Gambino stood at the sink, shaving. I could see his reflection in the mirror, but the frame of the doorway cut off the top of his head. He was very tall. Tall people take up a lot of room. But I had a lot of room. That, come to think of it, was one of the things that was different.

  “I’ll try to call you later, Cece, but I don’t know exactly where I’ll be.”

  “I understand.”

  “The double homicide. We’ve finally got something.”

  “That’s great.”

  “Yeah. We needed a break. Things have been really slow otherwise. Did I tell you about this idiot who called us yesterday from under his bed? Somebody was in his house stealing his marijuana plants.”

  “That’s good,” I said, laughing.

  “What about you? What are you up to today?”

  I sat up. “Absolutely nothing.”

  He came out of the bathroom with shaving cream all over his face.

  “You said that too fast.”

  “I talk too fast.”

  “You think too fast.”

  “Thanks, Santa.”

  He rinsed off his face and came back out holding a wet towel.

  “Careful, you’re dripping.”

  He looked at me sternly. “Is there anything I should know, Cece? Anything at all you need to tell me?”

  Oh, god, where to begin?

  “I need to finish what I start,” I blurted out.

  “Finish what?”

  No, I couldn’t get into it. He’d be furious. And what was there to tell, really? That I’d found Edgar’s body? He knew that part already. That Andrew had taken me to see Jake? That I was looking for an obscure painting of an obscure woman by an obscure artist? And trespassing on private property to do so?

  “Finish what, Cece?”

  I paused. “My book. I’m so close, but I can’t quite finish. It’s a classic problem.”

  He looked skeptical, but he was in a hurry. If you have to lie, lie to people who are rushing. They will not pursue it. They may not even be listening to you. Except if they’re detectives. Then they’re always listening.

  He pulled on his pants and buckled his belt.

  “Anyway,” I said, throwing my legs over the side of the bed, “I have all day today, and the only thing I’m going to do is sit at my computer and work.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  That it did. But even the best-laid plans—well, we all know the rest.

  The first problem was the fact that my office was located in the garage behind my house. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. But its location had proven a serious hindrance to productivity. Your work should be in your face at all times. This is what compels you to do it. Out of sight, out of mind. The problem was exacerbated in the winter months, when I was actually compelled to put on footwear to make the ten-yard journey across the grass.

  The next issue was my desk. Once, in despair over something, I had swept the thousands of apparently useless pieces of paper covering its surface directly into the trash, a gesture I was to deeply regret. One of them was my property-tax bill. Another was Annie’s birth certificate, which had the effect of delaying her wedding by a week. But merely to clear a space large enough to accommodate a yellow pad and a cup of coffee was an hour-long ordeal. And I wanted to make Gambino a risotto.

  He loved risotto. Porcini mushroom and asparagus. I had everything I needed. I flung open the refrigerator door. Except for the mushrooms and the asparagus. I walked over to the cupboard and peered inside. And the rice and the chicken stock. I did have white wine and an onion. Maybe I could just slice the onion and drown my sorrows in the Pinot Grigio. Or maybe I could stop procrastinating. Maybe if I were actually working on my book I’d be ordering out more. And less tempted to solve the problems of the world. The problem of Carolyn Keene was more than enough.

  The problem of Carolyn Keene.

  I needed a conclusion.

  Half an hour later I was seated at my desk. An hour after that and I’d cleared a spot. Then I had to call Lael and fill her in on the latest developments in my exciting life, which should have taken under a minute, but all of a sudden it was lunchtime. All My Children and an avocado and fontina sandwich later, I was back at my desk, determined to wrap this thing up for real. My editor, Sally, was not known for her patience.

  Who was Carolyn Keene?

  That was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.

  Edward Stratemeyer had come up with the name. He’d had a gift for pseudonyms. One of his first was Arthur M. Winfield, under which he wrote and published the Rover Boys and Putnam Hall series. Stratemeyer explained it by saying that Arthur sounded like author; M was for the million books he’d sell; and Winfield referred to the success he would achieve in his profession. Other examples of his genius at work included Laura Lee Hope, Margaret Penrose, Victor Appleton, and Roy Rockwood. Roy Rockwood I particularly loved. If I were trapped in a burning building, I’d want Roy Rockwood to save me.

  Carolyn Keene was another killer combination: Carolyn sounded vaguely patrician; Keene conjured someone razor-sharp yet ingenuous. The name proved Stratemeyer’s most enduring. Carolyn Keene may not have existed, but that didn’t stop her from writing hundreds of books about a girl detective from River Heights. Seventy years later she’s still writing them. And still does not exist.

  Walter Karig, Margaret Scherf, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, Wilhelmina Rankin, Mildred Wirt Benson—they all existed. And each of these ghosts was, at one time or another, the author who didn’t exist—Carolyn Keene. But that was hardly the end of it. Take Mildred Wirt Benson. She was also, at one time or another, the following authors who likewise didn’t exist—Frank Bell, Joan Clark, Julia K. Duncan, Alice B. Emerson, Don Palmer, Dottie West. Ditto Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, who, when she wasn’t busy being Carolyn Keene, was the author of the Kay Tracy mysteries, Frances K. Judd.

  That was another good one. Frances K. Judd made you think of Francis Scott Key, the flag, civic pride. And Kmart.

  The names kept multiplying. The supply was inexhaustible. An endless family tree of ghostwriters and their progeny: the Bobbsey Twins, the Dana Girls, the Outdoor Chums, the Motor Boys, the Four Little Blossoms, the Six Little Bunkers. I was being stalked by Edward Stratemeyer’s apple-cheeked army of the undead. Maybe that was why I couldn’t think straight. My biography of Carolyn Keene was supposed to be a ghost story, but it had turned into a full-fledged horror show.

  I logged on to the Chums’ Listserv for comic relief. But all I got was a tale of someone’s father’s botched knee replacement and the good wishes of half a dozen sympathetic souls. There was a semitragic exchange between Lana S., who’d posted pictures of her daughter, wanting to know if she could play Nancy Drew in a movie, and Bill 45, who responded that her hair seemed more red-brown than red-blond, but not to fret because it could always be dyed before shooting. Clarissa had posted an announcement about her book, which I skipped out of pique. And then there was a lengthy digression on how to
keep from being cheated on eBay posted by a woman who’d bought an autographed first edition of The Clue of the Tapping Heels only to learn that Mildred Wirt Benson never signed autographs as “Millie.”

  I wandered back inside to pour myself a fresh cup of coffee. But there was none left from breakfast so I decided to brew another pot. I’d drink all twelve cups if it would help me arrive at anything resembling a coherent thought, which you’d think I’d have by this point, one month before my delivery date. Oh, please, let Sally not hate me. While I waited for the coffee I turned on the TV. I flipped past a talk show featuring dysfunctional teens, the local news, an animal psychic in touch with a dead Pekinese, and Boris Karloff hamming it up as Frankenstein.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon at my desk, brooding over Frankenstein. It seemed relevant to my book—the mad scientist, the larger-than-life creation. The only problem was I couldn’t decide which larger-than-life creation was the more troublesome: Carolyn Keene or Nancy Drew.

  I clicked the Save key nonetheless.

  It wasn’t the theory of relativity, but it was something to chew on.

  Later that evening I was reminded that dogs prefer more tangible snacks. Within seconds of walking into Bridget’s shop, Helmut had gone straight for my snakeskin granny boots.

  “I told you he knows vintage,” Bridget said.

  “Will you get him off?” The dog was sucking away at my feet like a tiny demented lover.

  After separating us with some difficulty, Bridget grabbed some Kleenex off her desk and was about to wipe Helmut’s mouth when I snatched the box out of her hands.

  “I guess I’ll just clean this slobber off now,” I said.

  “Sorry.”

  “So do you like the boots at least?” I asked. “Annie found them for me at that shop in Topanga Canyon.”

  “Let’s just say I could leave out a pair of Charles Jourdan sandals with amber Lucite heels from the seventies and Helmut wouldn’t go near them. He has respect for the good stuff.”

  “Do you edit your thoughts at all, Bridget? I was just wondering.”

  “Well, you can do better. On the vintage food chain, the only thing lower than snakeskin granny boots is zippered housedresses.”