by Lynn Harris
“I totally will. And, sweetie, will you call me a car service?” Cabs didn’t just cruise Brooklyn. To leave the borough, you had to really want to.
Quentin had explained to Lola that the cops would be taking him home in the next while. That was the good news. “You wouldn’t mind if I looked around a little when we drop you off, would you?” Bobbsey had asked.
“I couldn’t say no!” Quentin told Lola. “It’s not like I have anything to hide.”
“Of course not,” Lola had said.
“Except I do.”
“Talk.”
“Okay,” Quentin said. “You know how crossword puzzles have themes?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Well, the one I’m right in the middle of writing?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, the theme of this one?”
“Uh-huh?”
“Is famous murderers.”
“Oh,” said Lola.
“Yeah,” said Quentin.
“What’s a seven-letter word for ‘It just doesn’t look good’?” asked Lola.
“So just go ahead and delete the entire Documents folder,” said Quentin.
“I-M-H-O-S-E-D!” Lola exclaimed.
“What?” asked Quentin.
“Never mind,” said Lola. “But wait. The whole Documents folder? Isn’t that a little excessive?” asked Lola. “Wouldn’t deleting the Vaguely Incriminating Crosswords folder be sufficient?
“It’s fine. I don’t need any of that stuff, really, and I don’t want to take any chances,” said Quentin. “Anyway, the doorman, he’s a stand-up guy. Used to be a woman who filled in on overnights, didn’t know her very well, but now she’s only once a week because she’s writing a book about being a lady doorman, I think, or something. Anyway, the guy and I, we’re close. Just say my name, and he’ll let you in. And Lola, could you hurry? Cops said they still have to do a bunch of paperwork first, but still.”
“On it,” said Lola. “Just one thing, Quentin. Why me?”
Quentin sighed. “Well, given everything that happened to you before with Ovum, and then your book, and that other investigative stuff you’ve done, I figured you were always up for a caper. You’ve got skillz, as they say!”
“Thanks,” said Lola. Doug did call her “incident-prone.” And it was always nice to feel a little indispensable.
“That’s skillz with a z,” noted Quentin. “Plus …”
“Uh-huh? …”
“Well, it’s getting late, and—”
“Uh-huh …”
“Well, you’re still freelancing, right?”
“Yes …” Lola knew where this was going.
“I was also thinking you don’t, like, have to get up in the morning. So I felt less bad about—”
“Oooookay, Quentin, I’m totally on it. Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll check in with you soon.”
I actually do have to get up in the morning, thank you very much, thought Lola. Just because I do it wearing my giant tomato slippers doesn’t mean it’s not a job.
At that moment, something gave Lola the vague feeling that she did have something specific to do tomorrow morning, something that did in fact require shoes, but she couldn’t place it.
Anyway. She had to hurry.
Six
“Mom, it’s the middle of the night!”
“Why didn’t you answer your home phone, Lulu?”
“Because it’s the middle of the night!”
“But then why did you answer your cell phone?”
“I heard both ring, so I figured it was something important,” Lola offered. She was an old hand at not giving her mother more information than she needed—for example, the fact that she was currently speeding uptown to tamper with evidence at a young man’s apartment, in which she had once slept.
“Are you sure you’re okay, Lulu? Do you want me to get on the shuttle?”
“Yes, Mom. I mean, no. I mean, yes, I’m okay, no, no shuttle, thank you,” Lola said. “How did you hear about Mimi so fast, anyway?”
“Well, I couldn’t sleep—and now I see why!—so I got on the online.”
Her befuddled terminology notwithstanding, Mrs. Somerville had actually gotten pretty handy with the Internet. As far as Lola was concerned, her mother and the World Wide Web were a match made in hell. Lola remembered the good old days—when the newspaper clippings about preliminary studies showing a link between cell phones and brain tumors, or which types of fish have the most mercury contamination, would arrive, nice and slow, by U.S. mail.
“Let me see what else is on the Google,” said Mrs. Somerville. Clickety-click, Lola heard.
Lola was an only child. She got a lot of attention. Which she loved, except when she didn’t. The only phase when she’d ever really wanted a sibling—specifically, an older brother who’d tousle her hair and explain what the “bases” were—had occurred when she was too young to realize that what she actually wanted was a boyfriend. Lola did know, however, that more siblings had been wanted: when she was little, her parents—a medical professional and a professor of neurolinguistics, and therefore not the type to use terms such as “wee-wee” or “daddy plants a seed”—had given her way too much information about whose plumbing had gone wrong where, and why it looked like it was just going to be the three of them.
At that moment, it had occurred to young Lola, if subconsciously, that she was going to have to work extra hard to make Mom and Dad not sad that she, just she, was all they had.
Her mother, Audrey, was a registered nurse and social worker, so, to be fair, fussing was her job. Interestingly and refreshingly, though, Mrs. Somerville had generally steered clear of interfering in Lola’s love life; somehow she’d seemed less worried about Lola’s getting married than she was about Lola’s getting melanoma. Perhaps this raise-an-independent-daughter spirit stemmed back to Mrs. Somerville’s days as a collaborating writer on Our Bodies, Our Selves. Lola’s childhood had been very Free to Be You and Me, only with more hand washing.
“Hey, Mom, can I go now?” Lola asked. “I’m really trying to get eight hours tonight, as recommended in that article you sent me about sleep and toxoplasmosis.”
“Lulu!” Mrs. Somerville sounded freshly upset.
“What, Mom?”
“You found the body?”
“Mom, what are you reading?” Is there anything Doug can rig up to keep my mother off the Web? That would give parental control a whole new meaning.
“Royalty,” said Audrey. Royalty?! thought Lola. That my mother knows about it is either a testament to its market penetration or to her omniscience or both. “It’s right here, under ‘Breaking.’ Oh, this—this is just too much. Lola, you have got to be more careful!”
“I’ll try not to stumble on any more bodies, Mom, I promise.”
“Not with corpses, with reporters. This Page Proof person spelled your name wrong.”
Oh, for God’s sake. At least Wally’s pseudonym wouldn’t trigger any memories from the Aunt Fern fix-up.
“Just promise me you’re okay, Lulu?”
“I promise, Mommy.”
“Try not to go out.”
“At all?”
“Well, I suppose daytime is still okay.”
“I’ll do my best,” said Lola.
“If you promise to wear a helmet,” said Mrs. Somerville. “Kidding! Now let’s both try to get some sleep—that is, as soon as I give the ombudsman an earful.”
“Mom, blogs don’t have—”
“I know, Lola.”
Lola laughed. I really oughta give her some more credit. “Good night, Mom.”
“Good night, Lulu.”
“I’m going up to feed Quentin Frye’s cat!” Lola waved cheerily at the doorman. Never mind that Quentin was allergic to cats, not to mention dogs—yet another reason he and Lola could never be together—or that it was the middle of the night.
The doorman looked up, startled, from his Sudoku. Lola hadn’t realized he’d no
dded off. “Morning!” he said, waving her in.
Piece of cake. Quentin hadn’t mentioned that the doorman, much like the building, was prewar. In his case, Peloponnesian, Lola figured. She headed through the lobby.
“Excuse me, miss?”
Uh-oh.
She turned to face the doorman, sure he’d realized he’d just waved in a complete stranger under utterly false pretenses, sure he was about to tell her to take a hike.
“I mean, ma’am?”
Oh, God. How matronly do I look?
“Yes, sir?” Act casual.
“Wondering if you could do me a favor, while you’re on your way up there?”
Phew. “Of course!”
“Stray piece of mail for Mr. Frye.” He held out a white windowed business envelope and looked at her with rheumy eyes. “Mind leaving it for him?”
“Not at all,” said Lola. She slipped the envelope into her bag.
“Much obliged, ma’am,” said the doorman, touching the brim of his dusty doorman cap.
I so love that he just said “much obliged” and tipped his cap, Lola thought. So much so that I’m over the “ma’am” part.
She smiled and waved and headed down the hall, her mission back under way.
Lola remembered both this place and her singlehood in their faded glory. The small apartment building was the type where your first therapist, the one you had when you still wanted someone “nice” and validating, would have had her office: thick but worn beige carpeting, lovely mahogany detailing that needed a touch-up ten years ago, one of those teeny rickety elevators with an accordion door like a child’s safety gate. The security camera, though, that was new. Times change.
Following Quentin’s instructions, Lola found his bike in the first-floor storage room where all the tenants kept theirs. Quentin was one of those serious bicyclists who ride around Central Park in long slim groups like schools of fish. He kept an extra key duct-taped under the seat—no doubt Mimi’s idea. Poor head-in-the-clouds Quentin; his apartment door evidently locked automatically behind you, usually at the very moment you realized you’d forgotten your key.
Poor Mimi, for that matter.
Lola eased herself into Quentin’s apartment. She had forgotten how nice it was. What’s a nine-letter-word for affords on puzzle-writer’s salary? She had no idea. It was all dark paneled wood, like dorm rooms in movies about Yale. It was a two-bedroom—he used one as a study—with a sliver of a kitchen, its beige counters nearly bare. There was a public-radio-logo umbrella in a stand by the door, right next to the canvas man-bag Lola was looking for.
She plopped on the bed—which, in the middle of the night, was more enticing than the desk chair—with Quentin’s iBook, musing that, after six months of marriage, the whole dating thing seemed at once very far and very near away. On the one hand, she could no longer fathom waking up in any bed but her own or doing the toothpaste-on-her-finger brush of shame—though she had always half-enjoyed the challenge of tracking down an Americano and a decent muffin in whatever neighborhood she’d woken up in. On the other—and the thought made her smile as she waited for the computer to fire up—sometimes she’d momentarily “forget” that she was married, and when Doug called for whatever reason, she’d get that he called! bloop in her tummy. The bloop was dormant, evidently, but not dead. Which, hey, was nice.
Okay, here goes.
You know, I’ll just do Quentin a favor and back up his whole hard drive, considering that Doug’s state-of-the-art bionic minidrive holds like a billion gigs.
Now for the Documents file. Trash. Empty trash. Mission accomplished.
Lola hit Shut Down. This would have taken me an hour in Windows, Lola thought, and Doug would be proud of me for thinking that. She scanned the room for her shoes.
Rrrring!
Lola jumped. Her phone.
“Can’t sleep,” said Annabel.
“Me neeth,” said Lola. She quickly explained where she was, pacing the room. “So I really can’t talk. Oh but wait, just tell me quick, where’d you guys go after Cabin 9?” she asked Annabel.
“Well, Leo dropped me off—”
“Ever the gentleman.”
“And then Darius called.”
“Oh!” said Lola. Darius. The rug trader. He was actually from Casablanca, which, until Annabel met him, Lola had forgotten was a place you could actually be from.
“He intoxicates me,” said Annabel.
“I’ll bet,” said Lola.
“As in, he gets me drunk.”
“Ah,” said Lola. She’d wandered into the study. A couple of crossword drafts lay on Quentin’s desk. Better grab these, too, she thought.
“… which will make the nightmares I’m going to have about Mimi even worse,” Annabel finished.
“I know, Bella. I know. But let me call you from the cab before the cops show up and find me here and I have to do some sort of I Love Lucy stunt to escape?”
“Okay. Mwah.”
“Mwah.”
I was so wired a second ago, thought Lola. Now I’m tired. Crap.
Sleepy.
I am not my best after ten PM. And now it’s even after ten PM in California.
I know, thought Lola, I’ll just look at this crossword for a second. Right over there on the bed. Huh. I should really know what silicates are, shouldn’t I? Five letters. See, doing the crossword will make me think it’s morning. And then I’ll get right up and go, like I do in the—
Lola heard a noise. In her dream, it was the penguins, who were about to come in from the yard with Madonna. One took a key out from somewhere beneath its feathers. Lola heard it turning in the lock.
She heard it in real life, too.
Lola was an early sleeper, but also—fortunately—a light one.
Stop, drop, and roll.
She was under the bed in less than two seconds.
Seven
There was a slipper in her face, the kind the dog brings Dad after work. Avuncular, elbow-patch-wearing Quentin was ahead of his time.
The door closed. Silence. Lola waited, trying to do some sort of out-only yoga breathing so that she wouldn’t inhale whatever it was that accumulates under the bed of even the tidiest single male. Besides ex-girlfriends.
Lola heard footsteps but no voices. God, if they would just speak, I could gauge their whereabouts more precisely and plan my Lucy maneuver. The bedroom was at the far end of the living room, with the door open, so if she came out, she’d be visible.
They were coming closer. Lola held what was left of her breath.
Clonk. The side of her head slammed into the floor, as the bottom of the bed had just slammed into her head.
Hold on.
“Quentin?”
“Aaaaaah!”
Lola rolled out from under. Quentin was crouched at the head of his bed, pillow raised to strike.
“Lola?!”
“No, a giant mouse.”
“Not funny.”
“I’m sorry,” said Lola. Jeez, Somerville, this guy’s girlfriend was just murdered. Once in a while, would it kill you—er, once in a while, could you not make a joke?
Lola gave Quentin a giant hug. “I mean, I’m really sorry.”
“Thanks.” Quentin was stiff in her arms. Still shocked and numb, surely.
“So wait,” Lola said, sitting back. “After all that, they just dropped you off?”
“I guess,” shrugged Quentin. “Maybe they were just trying to intimidate me.”
“Probably,” said Lola. God damn. This Nervous Nellie totally eek-a-moused me again, thought Lola. Boy, should I have known.
“Lola, thanks,” said Quentin.
“Don’t mention it,” said Lola. Let it go, Somerville. “Listen, you really shouldn’t be alone. Do you want me to stay around, you know, wait until you fall asleep or whatever?” Oh, it’s so nice to be married. You can say stuff like that without sounding suspect.
“Thanks, Lola, I’m good,” Quentin said. “My sister’s on h
er way over right now from her shift at the ER.”
“I can wait.”
“No really, I’m fine,” said Quentin. “I’ll call you tomorrow. If you don’t mind.”
“Of course not,” said Lola. Genuine sadness and lingering guilt swirled inside her again. I really shouldn’t leave until his sister gets here, thought Lola, though she needed her bed badly. “Let me at least get you something to drink.”
Quentin accepted a glass of flat Pellegrino—the only thing in his fridge besides batteries and a crusty two-ounce jar of artisanal wasabi—and took a sip.
“I guess her parents will let me know about the funeral. I hope they will. Would be nice to have met them under better circumstances.”
“I know, Quentin,” Lola said, sincere sorrow in her voice.
“Lola,” Quentin asked, “who would want to do this to Mimi?”
“I don’t know, Quentin.”
“You don’t?”
“No, I really—wait, what do you mean?”
“I just thought Lola Somerville would have a bead on this somehow,” said Quentin. “You seem to always be in the middle of things.”
“Sure, if by always you mean that one time two years ago.”
“Well, you did find Mimi’s body.” Quentin’s voice caught.
Fair point. “But not on purpose,” said Lola. “And unfortunately, the killer wasn’t included.”
“I’ll bet you could find him,” said Quentin.
“Quentin, I—”
“I mean that as a compliment but also a statement of fact,” said Quentin. “And also, I guess, a request.”
“But—” Lola didn’t know where to start. “What about the police? The detective seemed on top of things.”
“Sure, until the next orange alert,” Quentin said. “They’ll be all over it tomorrow—and it’ll be all over the Day, naturally—but then they’ll be back to human-shielding the Statue of Liberty.”
Even earnest Quentin had reason to be cynical. These days, the blue line was stretched thinner than ever. And on top of it all, there was the Penelope effect. Penelope—one name was all she needed—was the omnipotent single-named domestic goddess/pop singer/movie actress/anti-land mine activist/talk show host with whom Lola had crossed paths quite closely during the Ovum incident. On her top-rated, drop-everything, taste-making TV show, Penelope!, authors regularly broke down in tears and admitted to substantial fabrications in their “memoirs.” Back in the day, one offhand comment by Penelope on the air had resulted in a nationwide shortage of vegetable peelers. Another, more significantly, had caused Internet stocks to plummet, leading directly to the dot-com bust. And, more recently, ever since Penelope had devoted a show to race differences in law enforcement and media attention to murder cases, the police and the papers had been making a big show of devoting fewer resources to the murders of pretty white girls.