Edited to Death

by Linda Lee Peterson

  I glanced at the clock. Just after eight, too early to call Moon. But on the other hand, my scalp prickled, the perfect time to call London.

  “Bad idea,” I said aloud, antidote to the “adventure without a diaphragm” revelation of last night.

  “You shouldn’t play detective, Maggie. Bad, bad idea.” Then I thought about Michael’s dark joke at the kitchen door. It was my fault; I had gotten us into this mess. I should—I could—get us out. The police were busy; certainly they could use the help of a concerned citizen like me. I took a sip of coffee. For a moment, I dutifully considered my motives. Was I interested in helping the cops because it would help Michael, or because I knew I was just as smart as Moon, or just because? “This is a terrible idea,” I said aloud. Then, I dialed. It was just after four in the afternoon in London, and Sara Jenkins would be getting the children’s tea. What harm could it do to ask for her help?

  “Sara? It’s Maggie.”

  “Maggie! I can’t believe you called. Colin’s having the worst time practicing. I wish you were here to help.”

  “What’s the piece?”

  “It’s not a piece. It’s one of those fill-in-as-you-go notebooks on music theory.”

  “Uh huh, what’s he studying?” I glanced at the clock again, getting impatient. Colin’s transatlantic musical coaching was ticking away at many cents a minute.

  “Intervals. He says he can’t hear the difference between a fourth and a fifth. Is that right? Aren’t they things to drink?”

  I laughed. “Tell him to go sit at the piano and play fourths and fifths with a little trick in mind: the fourths always sound like ‘here comes the bride’ and the fifths always sound like ‘twinkle, twinkle, little star.’ It works anywhere on the piano.”

  “Oh, Maggie, thanks.”

  “Wait, wait, don’t hang up! I called you. Listen, Sara, are you still tutoring university students?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I have a little academic detecting for you to do. I’m looking for a professor.”

  “What’s the name?”

  “That’s what I don’t know, exactly. His first name’s Douglas, he’s married to someone named Leslie, and I think he’s written a biography rather recently.”

  “About?”

  “Isn’t Gully the name of one of Joyce Cary’s characters?”

  “The Horse’s Mouth, Gully Jimson.”

  “That’s what I thought. Okay, my guess is it’s a bio about Cary.”

  “So you want me to ask ’round about this guy? Then what?”

  “Just get me his name and a number where I can reach him. And the sooner the better. I’ll explain later. I’m late for work.”

  Sara chuckled. “You must be on deadline again.”

  “Deadline nothing. I’ve got a real job!” And with that, I hung up.

  Half hour later I was in Small Town’s offices. I picked up a stack of pink message slips at the front desk, poured coffee, and settled in behind Quentin’s desk. Uncle Alf, Inspector Moon, Manfred Smith, the writer on the January resolution piece had all called.

  Linda Quoc, the art director, pushed the door open, her arms full of layouts. As usual, she was in requisite designer black, head to toe, except for her hot pink eyeglass frames.

  “Maggie, you’ve got to look at these spreads for January. Glen’s seen them all and wants your approval before we commission art. And I’ve got portfolios of illustrators we want to use for this issue, so please take a look so I can call these people and get them going.”

  “Show me,” I said. “I don’t want to return any of these phone calls anyway.”

  I approved layouts, shifted some stories around, trying to recapture Quentin’s unerring eye for leading with substance yet leavening with enough sexy fluff to keep people reading. Then I looked at illustrator portfolios. The last one bothered me.

  “Who is this guy?” I asked Linda.

  “John Orlando,” she said. “You met him at Quentin’s funeral. Stocky dude in Banana Republic regalia.” She perched her glasses atop her elegantly spiked haircut and looked at me. “Do you like his work?”

  I leafed through the portfolio again. He worked in pen and ink, dense fine-lined drawings that looked like the op-ed pages of The New York Times. All had elaborate, tiny signatures, with the last “O” of Orlando filled in with heavy ornamentation.

  “It’s okay.”

  “But?”

  I closed the portfolio.

  “But I think it’s awfully heavy-handed for Small Town.”

  She sighed. “If you like him, Linda,” I said hastily, “I’m okay with it. I gather he does a lot of work for the magazine.”

  “I don’t like him,” she said crossly. “I never did like him. But Quentin was his… his advocate, and then when Glen came, he seemed to agree. Twice I put my foot down, because the assignments he turned in were so grim and depressing I couldn’t stand to use them.”

  “What happened?”

  “Quent supported me, so we didn’t use the drawings. We paid a very handsome kill fee, but Glen was cranky for a week.”

  Kill fees, the money you pay an artist or writer for commissioning a piece and then not using it, can deplete a magazine budget and throw a schedule off track.

  She tapped her pencil on the drawing. “I don’t even know what he was cranky about. Quent or Glen, I don’t remember which one, managed to persuade the people over at the Sunday magazine supplement to buy that drawing. I offered to think about it for another issue, but Glen and Quent said that Orlando’s drawings are—what did they say?—perishable. You’ve got to use them when they’ve been commissioned or they go bad.”

  “They go bad? Since when has illustration become spoil-able? That’s nuts. It’s not like they’re topical or political cartoons or anything.”

  Linda smiled. “I couldn’t agree more.”

  “I hate to be a new broom,” I said. “But I think he’s wrong for this resolutions story. It’s supposed to be lighthearted and fun.”

  Linda smiled. “Fine,” she said. “You break the news to Glen.”

  She got up to leave. “Chicken!” I called after her.

  “Hey, Maggie,” she said. “You may actually work out as a boss.”

  “I may, huh?” I asked. “Okay, boss’s privilege. I’ve got a question for you.”

  She leaned against the doorjamb. “Go ahead.”

  “How come I’ve never seen you in anything except black—ever except at Quentin’s funeral?”

  “Oh, Maggie, that’s a personal question. Don’t you ever read that multicultural, diversity sensitivity stuff? You know Asians don’t like to answer personal questions.”

  I grinned. “Uh huh, I know,” I said. “But seeing as how you left Vietnam when you were five, and you already told me you grew up on Count Chocula cereal and Barbie dolls, I figure you’re just obnoxiously American enough to blab about yourself like the rest of us. So tell me, is it true they make you take the all-black pledge in design school?”

  She laughed. “Sort of. I do think color is way too intense to use casually. So it keeps me calm if there’s no color on me. Plus, now that I have kids, it’s all I can do to get out of the house in the morning. And they wear all those crayon colors that make my eyes hurt. When I look in my own closet and the choices are black, black, and black, it makes it quick and easy to get dressed.”

  “Okay, that’s everyday,” I said, “but what about the turquoise?”

  She looked away, seeming to consider, then back at me. “Some friend of Quentin’s brought a bolt of turquoise silk back from Hong Kong and Claire didn’t want it. So he brought it here and one day when I was sitting at the table in his office, he jumped up and held the fabric next to my face. He made me stand in front of a mirror with him and look at myself with all that silk wrapped around my shoulders.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “It was as if I was seeing myself in some different way. I looked, I don’t know, exotic or glamorous or something.” She
thought for a minute, “I looked like a more intriguing version of me.”

  I thought about Quentin in the millinery department at Saks, buying me just the right hat.

  I handed Linda a tissue. “I know what you mean,” I said.

  “So anyway,” she continued, “I took the silk and my mother made me that jumpsuit you saw at the funeral. Pretty peculiar, wasn’t it? Everyone else puts on black for a funeral, and I put on turquoise. But I thought Quentin would like it.” She swiped at her eyes with the tissue. “I’m getting back to work. See you later.”

  I turned to the message slips. One of the feature writers, predictably, wanted a teeny-weeny extension. Uncle Alf was just “checking in,” and wanted me to know he’d be reviewing the books very carefully each month. And could Michael and I have dinner with him and Claire later in the week? Just to chat?

  “Of course,” I said cheerfully, and hung up, ruminating about what horrible reparations I would have to make to Michael in return for a dinner with Alf and Claire.

  “Dentists,” I muttered to myself. “I’ll have to take the kids to every single dental appointment for the next five years.”

  Glen stood in the doorway. “You’re not doing well, dear heart,” he said. “You’re talking to yourself about dentists.”

  I motioned for him to come sit down.

  “What do you and Corinne do about dentists, Glen?”

  “I pay their infernal bills,” he said.

  “No, I mean about who takes the kids when,” I said. “We’re always negotiating.”

  “Ah, you Americans with modern marriages,” he said. “We don’t negotiate. Since Corinne’s a schoolteacher, it’s hard for her to get away. So I always take the little ones.”

  I patted his hand. “You’re a good dad, Glen.”

  “It’s all I ever wanted, Maggie. It was a pleasure too long deferred. When I left the priesthood, I wasn’t dreaming about women or riches or fancy houses. I was dreaming about being a real father.”

  The intercom buzzed and Gertie’s voice squawked. “Maggie? It’s that Inspector Moon. Again.”

  I looked apologetically at Glen. “I better take this.” He gestured towards the door. “Want a bit of privacy?”

  I shook my head and picked up the phone.

  Moon’s voice came over receiver, cool and mannerly. “Mrs. Fiori? Remember the file you were looking for at Mr. Hart’s flat?”

  “Yes?”

  “I believe we have it,” he said. “If you’d like to drop by my office, we can go through it together.”

  I glanced at my watch and calculated. “Good, I wanted to talk to you anyway. I’ll be by around two. Is that okay?”

  “Fine. By the way, my colleagues met with your husband the other day.”

  “So I heard,” I said frostily.

  “Relax,” he said, “we have to talk to everyone. I told you Michael’s not really a suspect. My team said he just seems like a good guy.” I tasted bile.

  “A good guy?” I said. “Is that how cops talk? He’s my husband. He’s a helluva lot more than a good guy.”

  Moon was quiet for a moment. “I’m not the one who needs convincing, Mrs. Fiori. I skate next to him every week. You can tell a lot about a man by the way he behaves on the ice.”

  I thought about watching Michael play hockey. To a spectator like me, he looked fierce, bloodthirsty, and unstoppable. I’m not sure I wanted to hear Moon’s opinion.

  He continued, “I’ll look forward to seeing you this afternoon.”

  I looked miserably at Glen.

  “Not wise to piss off the constabulary, Maggie,” he said.

  “I know. Can you believe this? They had Michael in for questioning.”

  Glen shrugged. “They’re questioning everybody. Did Michael know something?”

  I swallowed. “Well, nothing helpful. Quentin was really my friend, after all.”

  Glen caught my eye and then looked away. “Yes, indeed. He was.”

  “Well, anyway,” I muttered, “Inspector Moon thinks he found the file on that story Quent wanted us to do.”

  Glen raised his eyebrows. “Really? Where’d Quentin have it tucked away?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll find out this afternoon.”

  The intercom buzzed again. “Maggie, it’s Calvin Bright. He says he needs you for just one minute.”

  I punched the hands-free button and Calvin’s voice filled the room.

  “Be quick,” I said, “I’m in the middle of a meeting.”

  “Maggie? Just starting the job and you’re already pretentious. A speakerphone, yet!”

  “Calvin,” I began.

  “Listen, gotta run. But I’ve made a reservation for lunch at Cock of the Walk. I want to see if we can figure out what Quent’s story was about.”

  I considered. I was getting pretty interested in the subject myself. “What time? I’ve got to meet Inspector Moon at two.”

  “11:45. Be there or be square,” and Calvin was gone.

  “Want to come, Glen?” I asked.

  He thought for a moment. “Thank you, no. I’m not much at playing Sherlock Holmes.” He stood. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

  “Oh, Glen, wait,” I said as he started for the door. “I wanted to talk to you about Orlando doing the illustration for the resolutions story.”

  He paused. “Yes?”

  I forged ahead. “Can we take a pass? I really think he’s wrong for the piece.”

  “Quentin suggested him. For this story. For this issue.”

  “Yeah, I know. But I think he’s wrong. We’ll use him for something else.”

  Glen was quiet. “Come on, Glen,” I coaxed. “I don’t think this was Quentin’s dying wish or anything, that we use Orlando for this story.”

  Glen’s face went blank. “You’re the chief.” And he was gone.

  The phone buzzed, “Maggie, it’s Michael.”

  Michael’s voice sounded matter-of-fact and friendly. “Cara, I’m going to be in the city for a conference this afternoon. Want to grab a sandwich together?”

  “Oh, I can’t. I’m meeting Calvin at that place Quentin wanted us to cover—you know, Cock of the Walk?”

  “Oh.”

  “Why don’t you join us?”

  “No, thanks. Not my cup of tea.”

  “The restaurant? Me? Calvin?” I pushed.

  “Who knows?” said Michael vaguely. “Well, how’s your morning in executive life?”

  “Swell,” I said grimly. “I’ve asked Linda Quoc personal questions, irritated Glen, thrown my weight around, and I have to go see Moon after lunch. He’s got a file he wants me to see.”

  “Have fun, Maggie,” said Michael. “I’ll see you tonight, assuming you can squeeze us in.” He hung up.

  I listened to the dial tone. “S.O.B.,” I pronounced to no one in particular. “Smug, smart-mouth, vengeful prick.” Mmm, that felt better. Surely there was some way I could feel self-righteous about this.

  On the way out the door to lunch, I knocked on Puck Morris’s door. His was the only corner of the office that showed clear defiance of Quentin’s prejudices about clean lines and white and gray as background colors of choice. The walls were hung with posters that looked like moments stolen from MTV, Puck’s black leather jacket was flung on a chair that leaked stuffing from every seam, and I could hear faint bass and drum sounds from the iPod that held him in thrall. I touched him on the shoulder. He looked up, pulled the earbuds out, and grinned.

  “Hey, Maggie, how they hangin’?”

  “Hanging? Just ducky, Mr. Morris.”

  He started to put the earbuds back in, and I stopped him.

  “Wait a sec, Puck,” I said. “I want to talk.”

  He gestured at the chair, and I sat.

  “Shoot, boss,” he said. “But make it snappy. I’ve got a lunch date with the manager over at the Warfield. She’s got a half a dozen new high-concept metal groups she wants me to hear.”

  “High-concept?”
<
br />   “You know,” he said. “Kind of like this generation’s version of The Ramones. They know about three chords, can’t carry a tune, but they dress great and have lots of attitude.”

  I laughed. “I smell a raft of ‘Pucked by Morris’ tshirts coming their way.”

  “You bet.” Puck leaned back in his chair, smoothed his thinning sandy hair with both hands, and gave me a level gaze.

  “So how are you doing, Maggie?”

  I shrugged. “Up and down.”

  “Must be tough.”

  I took a deep breath. “Puck, I know you didn’t mean to do it, but your little revelations to Inspector Moon put me in a tight spot.”

  He picked up a paper clip and began straightening it out. “Hey, I didn’t mean to leak anything.”

  “Yeah, well, what is it the road to hell is paved with?”

  “Well, Holy Christ, Maggie, it was kind of dumb. I mean Quentin is—was—a pretty interesting guy, but I sure as hell don’t see what you were doing mixed up with him. I mean, Michael’s, well, he’s.…”

  “He’s great,” I said brusquely. “This wasn’t about Michael and I didn’t really want to discuss my personal life.”

  He tossed the paperclip up in the air and caught it with the same hand. “Yeah? So what did you want to discuss?” He was clearly perturbed.

  I felt my face go hot. “I’m sorry, Puck, I don’t mean to be rude. I’m just feeling so confused and upset—and as if I’ve screwed up in a pretty big way.”

  “Not my business, lady,” he said, “but I’ve got to agree.”

  “Well, thanks,” I said. “We all make mistakes.”

  He grinned. “Not me.” He held up his left hand and wiggled the fingers at me. “No ring, see? No commitments, I fool around with, what’s the word?”

  “Impunity,” I said dryly.

  “You got it,” he said. “But seriously, I’m sorry I spilled to Moon. I didn’t mean to.”

  “How’d you know?” I asked.

  “I dunno. I just did. Quentin wasn’t as discreet as he might have been.”

  “You mean he said something?”

  “No, just the way he talked about you. And Quentin always had a little something on the side, as long as I’ve known him. And the way he kinda championed you. Quentin wasn’t all that nice to people unless he had a reason. I just figured it had to be you.”