Dim Sum Dead

by Jerrilyn Farmer

  “You are so lucky.” He looked at me.

  “Okay, yes I am. But, after all that work, don’t you want to hear about what I read in Dickey McBride’s diary?”

  “I suppose I do. But you won’t like my reaction.”

  “Why not?” I turned to look up at him.

  He reached up and gently pushed my hair back, touching my face. “Because whatever it is you read, it’s not going to take away your pain, Maddie. Some old man movie star’s diary will never tell us why, just a couple of nights ago, that poor drunk girl tripped and fell down the stairs and died. You may never know why.”

  “But I still have to keep trying. I have to. Have a little faith, Lieutenant.”

  I sat there and looked at him. He looked at me right back. We had been sitting for about an hour on my padded patio furniture out in the cold night air. I hadn’t noticed how cold it was, but now, I felt a shiver. I thought it might be too cold to stay outside.

  “So tell me what you learned,” he said.

  “The diary covers about ten years, from 1946–1956,” I said, happy at last that he would finally listen. McBride only kept occasional entries, marking dates and setting down information using a casual style of shorthand. He mentioned many, many women. I was disgusted to report he had a sort of rating system. Stars. I suppose in McBride’s line of work, he was used to reviews.

  One of the entries that got my attention was dated March 1952. “Rose is lying. She can’t find records.” And the next month, there was another mention of Rose. “Studio agrees to audit. Rose is raging mad.” And another entry, three months later. “Showed Rose ledger. Embezz?”

  Honnett looked at me. “Who’s Rose, then?”

  “Well, today I met Rosalie Apple. She had been McBride’s manager at one time, and he fired her. This was all a long time ago. I’m guessing Rose was his nickname for Rosalie. I’ll have to check on the dates and things. I’m guessing there were irregularities with royalty payments. As McBride’s manager, Rosalie Apple got all his checks. Perhaps she kept more than her ten percent.”

  “This was years ago. McBride never pressed charges. Do you expect me to go after some old lady without any evidence?”

  “Do you always have to ruin my buzz, Honnett? No one is asking you to arrest anyone. Jeesh.”

  He smiled at me, trying to relax a little. “It’s hard enough for two people to get together without all of their personal garbage getting in the way, you know? On top of that, you go dragging all sorts of professional crap into the mix.”

  “Calm down, Bubba,” I said, and gave him a peck on the cheek. “We’ll be fine. We will. Just don’t come busting down so hard on my good day’s work.”

  He took my hand. “Sorry about that.”

  My goodness. The man said he was sorry, and it hadn’t killed him. I was beginning to have hope.

  “You said there were two things in that red book you got excited about. What was the second one?”

  “Well, back at the house today, Eva James told me some odd story about a girl named Jade. She told me Dickey had an affair with this Jade back on a movie location in China. At the time, I was sure she was just trying to lead me off the track. But then, when Wes and I were reading Dickey’s diary, we found some passages about Jade.”

  I filled Honnett in. The dates were back in 1947. They were datelined “Hong Kong.” Dickey talked about Jade teaching him mah-jongg. He posted his winnings, taking quite a bit of cash off that film crew over the six months they were shooting Flower of Love. One entry read: “Jade my soul mate.” It was unusual in that it was one of the only affectionate things he’d written over the entire ten years and dozens of women the journal covered. Even more startling, there was an entry, in 1948, where Jade’s name appeared again. It read: “Jade arrives LAX. Daughter?”

  “What was that?” Honnett asked. “That’s a bombshell. You think McBride had a child with this woman Jade?”

  “I think so.”

  “But this all happened years ago, Maddie. Whoever this Jade was, how does it figure into this mess today?”

  “You mean, fit in with Quita McBride’s death?” I looked at him. “I will always regret what happened to her, Honnett. Somehow, not having liked her much makes it all worse. I will always regret it.”

  Honnett pulled me toward him, our faces close. “I’m sorry if I hurt you…if doing my job, being the guy I am…if that let you down. Don’t you know that? But in the same situation, I’d respond the same way. Because there is nothing I could have done that would have made this thing turn out any differently.”

  “I know you think that,” I said, “I know…but maybe if you and I hadn’t been so distracted that night…”

  He let go of me.

  What had I said?

  He stood up.

  “Honnett?”

  “I’ve got to go anyway. It’s damn cold out here…don’t you feel it? You really ought to go inside and warm up.”

  “Right.”

  “Thanks for filling me in,” he said.

  “What?” I asked. “Are you leaving? For good?”

  I was getting that unmistakable sinking feeling that I was splitting up with my second man this week.

  He smiled at me, but it wasn’t an altogether happy smile.

  I stood up, too, and went over to him. “Will you call me?”

  “I know you’re busy trying to find your answers, Maddie. I hope they are there for you.”

  “So…” How had I allowed everything to get so damn heavy and mawkish? Everyone knows a new boyfriend prefers things light and romantic. I had definitely been thrown off my game. It was probably too late, now, to reverse the damage.

  “So…you’re tired of hearing about movie stars and their love affairs? Man, the National Enquirer would go broke if everyone were like you.”

  “And,” Honnett said, grinning, “that would be a bad thing?”

  “So, are we still going to see that movie we talked about?” I asked.

  “Sure,” he said. “Why don’t you call me when you have some free time.”

  I put my arms around his waist and pulled him toward me. Leaning forward, going up on my toes to reach him, I gave him a slow kiss. I knew Honnett and I were not going to have a chance at any sort of real relationship until I got this whole Quita McBride thing out of my system. I just wanted to mark my place. I just wanted him to still want me when it

  Chapter 22

  I pushed aside the blue-and-white pineapple-pattern quilt and stretched. On Saturdays, I usually wake up late and spend the day cooking and prepping for whatever party we are catering that night. But not this Saturday. The “couples” baby shower we had planned for a pair of expectant parents in Pasadena was called off because their twin daughters arrived a month earlier than expected. Things happen for a reason, I thought to myself again. I had too much on my mind to cook today.

  I went through my shower-and-dress routine, sweeping my hair back in a low ponytail, putting on my favorite jeans and a black sweater. I knew I should use the free day to plow through the snowdrift of correspondence and invoices and menus that covered my desk downstairs. I was falling behind on orders. Last week, Wes and I had made a list of items we needed and others we wanted to try from specialty growers. For instance, I had promised to order a dozen bulbs of Metechi garlic. Each bulb of this fireball-hot variety is the size of an artichoke and with its purple stripes, beautiful enough to put on a pedestal in an art museum. Last week, I couldn’t wait to get some in from Texas so we could try their potent flavor in our garlic mashed potatoes. That’s the sort of thing I should be taking care of. Instead, I was thinking about Quita McBride and her fatal accident.

  If I was right about Catherine Hill and her old cronies, they had sent their guy to grab the mah-jongg set from Wesley at the Farmer’s Market, but figuring that out and finding the red book had brought me no closer to understanding what had happened to Quita McBride.

  I found my black clogs and stepped into them.

&n
bsp; Those old movie stars. They took a stupid risk. I had read McBride’s diary with Wesley, and then again later last night. There was simply nothing in it that was worthy of theft, much less murder. The tepid long-ago scandals that were mentioned would hardly shock anyone today. Dickey’s diary was from the forties, with a marked forties-era sensibility. It hinted darkly at infidelities of the day. It noted rumors of certain celebrities’ closeted homosexuality, and detailed petty studio betrayals, all among figures whose glory days were half a century ago, and most of whom had now been dead for years. In today’s culture, most of these scandals would be thought of as staggeringly boring.

  I shook my head. Only the puffy egos of women like Catherine Hill and Eva James and Helen Howerton could lead them to imagine that their old secrets were news. All that fuss and all that bother and nobody cared anymore what they did.

  But there was something else that was not quite right. Even with all these answers, I now began to realize I hadn’t been asking the right questions. Catherine Hill might have sent someone to grab the book, but she wouldn’t have harmed Quita. Once Catherine got her hands on McBride’s diary, Quita would no longer have been a threat. After all, Quita hadn’t even seen the book yet.

  I roamed around downstairs in the kitchen, putting on the teakettle, getting a big white mug, rooting around for some soothing carbohydrates to nibble with my tea as I thought it all over.

  Had Quita’s death been an accident? Then why had she seemed so terrified when we saw her? Why had she begged me for help? What had she been afraid of? It still didn’t add up.

  The pine farm table near the back of my kitchen had ten chairs around it, but I picked my usual spot at the end.

  I had to start over. Eliminate the mystery of that damn book and what was left? The key to Quita’s state of mind seemed to have been money. Her plan had been to sell Dickey’s book. But what if Catherine Hill had something to hold over Quita. What if they were trading secrets? I tried to remember exactly what I had overheard at Hill’s house. She had said, “Everyone has secrets. Dickey taught me that. Even her.”

  I looked down at the thin slice of apple-blackberry pie. Not, perhaps, a traditional breakfast, but decent enough, I rationalized. It contained fruit and grains and if I just added a dab of ice cream, I’d have dairy. I went to the freezer.

  Buster should know why Quita was so hyped-up for money. Maybe the others who were at the mah-jongg party with her, like Verushka or Trey, knew what was up with Quita that night.

  I looked down and realized I wasn’t hungry after all, so I cleared my dishes and rinsed them off. Then I grabbed my bag and keys. It was time to go visit Buster Dubin and, this time, ask the right questions.

  Outside, it appeared to be a typically bright day, this one perhaps clearer than most. Rose parade weather. The temperature was mild. Late January was a nice time of year to come visit our side of the continent. The postcard palm trees that lined my street looked like they were ready for their close-ups. I walked the two blocks to Buster’s house in a few minutes.

  His large white stucco home was set on the hillside, up a steep flight of steps. I stopped. Over the past six months, I’d run up and down those steps a hundred times. But I looked at those fourteen steps now and felt the heat of tears rush up behind my eyelids.

  A soft breeze picked up a tendril of hair and set it gently down. I could feel the heat of the sun warming my back and arms. It was a beautiful day. And I was alive to feel it.

  I took the steps slowly, checking them out as I went up. There was no indication that a young woman had slipped here. There was no blood or broken railing. Everything was peaceful. Two blocks from the freeway, this part of Whitley Heights was much quieter than mine. Birds perched on an overhead wire sang sweetly, oblivious to the recent calamity.

  I rang Buster Dubin’s doorbell and waited.

  To my surprise, Trey answered the door. “Hey. Madeline. What’s up? You looking for Bus?”

  “Yes. Is he home?”

  “Sure, come on in,” he said. “We’re sitting out back, drinking Bloody Marys. We have a pitcher.”

  I stepped in and was greeted by Buster’s gold-leaf Buddha, smiling benevolently from his place of honor in the entry. The fellow seemed to be the only one who was sanguine enough in the face of such disturbing events to hang on to his grin.

  I followed Trey through the darkened house.

  “I thought you were traveling out of town this week,” I said, just making conversation. I remembered Trey was a sales rep with manufacturing accounts in Indonesia and the Far East.

  “Right. Well we’re not supposed to leave,” he said, whispering the last part in mock menace. He sounded rueful. “They scared us shitless, the cops. They were pretty uncool.”

  Ah. Honnett had been there. I hoped Buster wouldn’t hold it against me. At least he hadn’t been arrested.

  Trey walked through his friend’s house barefoot. He wore a rumpled black T-shirt with the sleeves cut off and a pair of drawstring pants. As we stepped outside into the dappled sunlight, I noticed Trey’s normally tawny skin had a slightly grayish cast.

  Buster looked up from reading the paper. “Maddie? Hey.” He jumped up and kissed my cheek and then pulled over a third oversize teak patio chair to the table. “How cool is this?”

  Trey poured himself another Bloody Mary and offered one to me.

  “No, thanks. I’m just here for a minute.”

  “I’m glad you stopped by,” Buster said. “I’ve been meaning to call you. We’re going to cancel the Sweet and Sour Club for a while.”

  “I sort of figured,” I said. “It would be strange.”

  “Everyone is freaking about Quita’s accident,” Trey said. He sucked down a third of his Bloody Mary and added as an afterthought, “Verushka is a total wreck.”

  Buster nodded. “She’s been out of it, lately. She’s got business problems, doesn’t she?” Buster asked Trey.

  “She’s always got business problems. Everything works out,” Trey, the philosopher, said.

  “Are you talking about Verushka’s model-making business?” I asked.

  “Right,” Buster said. “She’s got about eight thousand square feet out in Culver City. Have you seen it?”

  I shook my head.

  “Oh, man, you should. It’s a very retro concept she’s got, very very cool. They create miniature models for special effects. It’s almost a lost art. They have to train a whole new group of craftspeople to get it going.”

  Verushka had gotten some publicity when the new company started up. She was working with two master model-builders in a motion-picture special-effects technique that had been used since the days of the silents. By playing with scale on film, the exact miniatures that her craftspeople constructed became life-size on the screen. Now that computer animation had taken over, almost no one was doing miniatures anymore. For one thing, the time-intensive craft was phenomenally expensive compared to the cost of using today’s computers. But Verushka and her partners figured there were an awful lot of a hundred-million-dollar film budgets out there. And a lot of big-spending, spoiled directors. There was something irresistible about working with perfect replicas.

  “I think she’s nuts to invest in a business that’s so medieval,” Trey said, sucking on a sliver of ice cube.

  “CG is fine…” Buster, the director, said and the two of them started arguing about computer-generated images on film.

  I tuned out and thought about Verushka. If she was working today, I would go out to Culver City and pay her a visit. Maybe she had some idea of what had been bothering Quita.

  “So,” I said to the guys. “I hear they’re keeping you both close to home still. The police. I’m sorry it’s been so harsh.”

  “I am over that, Madeline,” Buster said. His grin reminded me of the Buddha statue in his front hall. “You know how it goes in this devilish world. You cannot escape your karma.”

  Trey snorted. “Right, man.”

  Buster ignor
ed Trey and continued, “I figure that it is not my karma to be directing that Warp music video in Copenhagen. I’m cool with that. I figure there must be a higher plan. You dig?”

  Actually, I did.

  Buster said, “But my man Trey here is freaking.”

  I looked at Trey. He certainly looked bad.

  “I need to get to China, brother,” Trey said. “I got business, you understand? These Chinese partners don’t get why I’m not over there right now. It’s so stupid.”

  “You know what would make you feel better?” Buster asked his friend.

  I quickly thought of several good answers: sleep, a change of clothes, something to consume that didn’t include alcohol as its main ingredient…

  “You should jump in the pool,” Buster said. “It will cool you off, bro.”

  Trey drained the ice-cube melt from the bottom of his glass and stood up. “I think I will. You coming?”

  “In a minute,” Buster said. “Go ahead. You gotta chill.”

  Trey left us and walked down to the large swimming pool way down at the end of the property. I watched him in the distance as he pulled off his shirt and stripped down to his boxers. Athletic and slim, Trey Forsythe dived off the side into the pool, sending perfect aqua ripples up onto the glassy surface.

  “He’s been so out of it,” Buster said. And then he leaned over and opened a cooler, bringing out two bottles of Arrowhead water. He set one frosty bottle before me and then unscrewed the cap of the other one for himself.

  “Thanks,” I said. “What’s wrong with Trey? Is he staying here?”

  “Yeah. Just for a few nights. I hate to be alone, know what I mean?”

  “Sure.”

  “Anyway, he’s leaving today. I’ve got a friend who’s moving in for a while.”

  “Someone I know?” I asked, turning to look at Buster.

  “Do you know Doris Ann? She and I have started seeing each other.”

  Since when? I sighed. I suppose it was inevitable. Buster had been trying to dump Quita. This Doris Ann must have already been lined up. I felt uneasy thinking about Quita’s replacement.