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Dead by Any Other Name: A Janet’s Planet Mystery © 2011 by Sebastian Stuart.
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First e-book edition © 2011
E-book ISBN: 9780738730882
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Dedication
For my sisters, Diana Stuart and Rebecca Stuart,
My cousin, Nicola Montemora,
My sister-in-law, Patti McCauley;
Four fabulous feisty women.
Acknowledgments
I’m indebted to everyone at terrific Midnight Ink, especially Terri Bischoff, Connie Hill, Lisa Novak, Steven Pomije, and Courtney Colton.
I’d also like to thank Lesli Gordon, Jenny Rose and Dan Boyle, Anthony Rocanello and Chris Tanner, Agosto Machado, Chuck and Patti McCauley, David and Gerry Allan, and Penny Rockwell. And Billy Novotny, who showed what he’s made of.
Special thanks to Bob and Babs Malkin, friends, neighbors, and Valleyites extraordinaire.
Gratitude, as always, to the people of the Hudson Valley, who inspire and touch me.
And last, but always first, to Stephen McCauley.
ONE
I picked up the Elvis commemorative plate—they were common as dirt but this one was kind of cool—a smoldering Elvis leaning against a pink Cadillac in front of the gates to Graceland. I was pretty sure I could sell it to one of my hipster customers, who would display it with pride and irony.
“How much do you want for this?” I asked the woman sitting in the lawn chair sucking down a cigarette and engrossed in a Sudoku booklet.
“Forty,” she said without looking up. “It’s a collectible.”
I put down the plate—which I would have priced at $20—and moved down the wares table. I spied an orange glass bowl with a sleek oblong shape. This kind of stuff flew out of my shop, especially if I could price it low.
“How much is this bowl?”
“Thirty,” Sudoku said, still not looking up, sucking away. I guess nicotine really does improve concentration. “It’s a collectible.”
I felt like telling her that used dental floss is a collectible to somebody. Instead I muttered “Thanks” and walked back to my car.
It was a gorgeous Saturday morning and I was out yard saleing. Yard saleing ain’t what it used to be—the Internet and Antiques Roadshow killed it. Now everyone thinks Uncle Gary’s “original patina custom bowling ball” is worth eighty bucks and Ashley’s circa 2001 pink plastic “limited edition” My First Pony is worth twenty. Well guess what, gang, the market for dead guy’s bowling balls is nil, and that “limited edition” numbered a cool million.
Still, I love barreling around to sales—every once in awhile you score a fabulous piece at an amazing price. It’s also a great way to observe the flora and fauna in their native habitat. I mean, there’s something poignant about seeing Ashley all grown up, dealing with her three kids under five by chugging her morning Bud Lite. And Uncle Gary’s heirs unloading his stuff as fast as they can haul it out of his prefab. And then of course there’s my so-called business, which needs the inventory. Oh yeah, there was one more cool thing about hitting the circuit—I got to see hidden corners of the Hudson Valley, strange little hollers, tiny riverbank settlements, awesome hilltop vistas.
The back of my van was filled with the morning’s haul—a motley collection of fring-frungs and whatnots, half of which I’d probably end up donating to the animal shelter thrift shop. I was just heading over the crest of Cauterskill Road, chugging a cup of coffee, when my cell rang.
“This is Janet.”
“Hi, Janet, I’m Natasha. Tosh.” The voice was youngish, throaty, inviting.
“What’s up, Tosh?”
“I have some jewelry I want to sell. Masses of it actually.” Then she laughed, a warm laugh that made me like her.
I was getting more into jewelry, mainly because it was so damn easy to deal with—stuffing a sofa into my van was never fun—and if the baubles were at all cool, they sold steadily.
“What kind of jewelry?”
“Well, there’s a lot of bakelite, some geometric pieces from my beatnik phase, and a bunch of kitschy animal stuff from when I was in that ridiculous retro phase we chicks go through in high school.” The words were pouring out a little too quickly and this time the laugh had an edge of desperation to it. “What wasn’t I thinking? Anyway I want to unload it pronto, Tonto!”
I immediately smelled a bargain—when people are super eager to sell they rarely want to bother with negotiations, they just want to see some green. This jewelry sounded very promising, I’d take a wad of cash with me and hope for the best.
“So where are you, and what time is convenient?”
“I’m up in Phoenicia and how about now?”
TWO
I swung by the shop to drop off my load. I pulled up to the back door, grabbed a cardboard box, walked into my workshop and was greeted by Sputnik’s smiling maw and waggling body. Dogs are a direct heart-to-heart charge. With people, it’s never that simple.
I dropped the box on my worktable and went out into the store. I pulled the cover off of Bub’s birdcage and found the little guy with his head buried in his chest—he liked to sleep late on weekends. He opened his eyes, smiled at me, and then shook himself to full alert. I refreshed his water bottle and he hopped over to it. Lois was asleep on her favorite armchair, the one I was afraid to sell for fear of incurring her wrath. She opened her eyes and glared at me—the Bad Seed in a fur coat.
It was a sunny Saturday in early September, one of the few times customers were pretty much guaranteed in Sawyerville. Luckily the store wasn’t my only source of income—I had some savings and since I owned the building and lived upstairs my expenses were low. Still, days like today were important to my bottom line. I sat at my desk, looked around the shop, and felt a familiar stab: I wish Josie Alvarez were here.
Josie was the smart, feisty fifteen-year-old I’d hired last spring to help out in the sto
re. She came from an abusive family and had a visible scar to match her emotional ones: one leg was a little shorter than the other because her mother hadn’t taken her to the hospital after Josie broke it playing. One day I saw her boozy stepdad slap her and—after practicing my kickboxing technique on his body—I moved Josie in with me until she got hooked up with a foster family up in Troy. She’d only lived with me for a month, but she’d definitely left a mark, damnit. I missed her. And on a practical level, she was just so damn bright and competent and ran the store better than I did. But she was in Troy with her foster family, which was the best outcome for everyone, right?
I picked up the phone and called George, my pal who lived down the street. George was around my age—early forties—an ER nurse who’d bought up a few buildings in town and was now semi-retired, living off the rents he collected. When I first moved to Sawyerville, he helped me get my shop up and running—he had a great gay eye, was loyal and fun if a bit, well, self-dramatizing at times.
“Listen, I got a call to go look at some jewelry. Can you open the store for me?”
“Damn, babe, not a good morning. I’ve got company.” He lowered his voice. “He’s still asleep. And no, I am not in love with him. I have learned my lesson. No more absurd obsessions.”
“Whatever.”
“He trains horses,” George swooned. Sawyerville was home to a large horse show that met a half-dozen times a year. “Have you ever heard of anything more romantic in your life?”
I’d only known George for a year and a half but I’d already invested way too much time in his amorous adventures. The man had a neurotic need to be “in love,” to focus all his attention and affection on another man. It all sounds very giving and selfless, but after having watched the pattern play out a few times, I’d decided that it was actually a strange kind of narcissism—it seemed like it was all about the love object, but it was actually all about George. How passionate, adoring, and giving he was.
“When I think of horses,” I said, “I think of dust, manure, and The Godfather.”
“Janet, do you kill dreams consciously or is it some kind of weird compulsion?” I heard him crunch on his toast. “But okay, I’ll open for you. I know Antonio—he’s Brazilian, doesn’t that make you just melt—has a morning workout. As soon as I get him fed and on his way, and drop in at Chow, I’ll hustle over.”
Chow—run by our friend Abba—was the homey restaurant that was Sawyerville’s unofficial town hall, nerve center, and gossip mill.
“You’re a doll.”
“Well, if last night is any measure, Antonio agrees with you in a big way.”
THREE
I headed west on 212. One of the coolest things about the Hudson Valley is how it’s flanked on the west by Catskill State Park: 700,000 acres of green mountains crisscrossed by rushing streams, set up by some smart folks back in 1895. Talk about foresight. The park pumps money into the area; in fact it pretty much is the local economy—tourists, skiers, second-homies; I’m told the Catskills are a hiker’s paradise (there are no hikes in my paradise). Anyway, I loved driving up into the mountains, all that open country cleared my head, made my chest open wide, my breathing come easier (as long as I didn’t have to get out and walk around in it).
I passed through Woodstock, jammed with its usual nut jobs, ancient beatniks, tie-dye survivors, and Saturday morning flea-market crowds. Phoenicia was about twelve miles up past Woodstock, and with each mile you got deeper into the country. I passed a Zen monastery, some fancy country restaurants, and a mix of old farms, modest houses, and richie-rich second homes.
Phoenicia is a loose scruffy little town that sits in a bowl surrounded by mountains. There are streams at every other street corner, nothing is tarted up, the houses tend toward ramshackle, the place feels almost like a Western town in its lack of affect and cutesy gift shops.
Natasha’s house was at the very end of a dead-end street. It was a small cabin fronted by a screen porch, barely visible through a thicket of pine trees, vines, and shrubs. No gardener she. I walked down the overgrown path and knocked on the porch door.
“Janet!” Nastasha cried, charging out of the cabin. I pegged her at a skosh short of thirty, with long, lustrous, jealous-rage-inducing black hair, the whitest skin, a quirky, sensual, not-quite-beautiful face that still had a tiny hint of baby fat (I guess by now it was adult fat), all lit up by enormous soulful dark eyes. She was wearing a flouncy skirt, a thick black leather belt, black ballet flats, and a red silk blouse that made her look sophisticated and did nothing to hide her dynamite figure. This gal was stunning, but in a tossed-off, I-don’t-really-give-a-shit way that I found appealing.
She was also so high-strung and quivery that she seemed to be vibrating. I immediately suspected chemicals were involved.
“Thank you for coming up so quickly,” she said, leading me into the house. “I’ve made us a little berry cake, I tromped around and harvested them myself, and some divine green tea from Cape Verde.” She grew still for just a moment and a dreamy look came into her eyes, “I would love to visit Cape Verde.” In addition to anxiety, she radiated warmth, vulnerability, and a desperate need to be loved. I was charmed. And wary. I sensed Natasha was in trouble, wanted company, someone to talk to. “Unless you’re in a mad hurry, that is?”
“I’ve got a few minutes.” I didn’t want to blow the deal by being too abrupt, but Natasha was just the kind of complex, screwed-up but muy sympatico person who could suck up a lot of my psychic energy—and that was my old life as a psychotherapist, the one in which I was being paid to care. I couldn’t afford to be this chick’s shoulder, for more reasons than one.
The cabin was decorated in off-hand boho chic—a mix of comfy old pieces and mid-century—with a lot of books and CDs; there was a patina of dust and the place was none too neat, several large packing boxes stood in one corner. We sat around the coffee table. She poured me a cup of tea and cut me a piece of cake. Edith Piaf was playing on her iPod.
“So how did you find my number?” I asked.
“I just googled local antique shops and I loved the name Janet’s Planet. Sophisticated research, huh? Hey, I love your earrings.”
I was wearing my favorite pair—Mexican silver and black onyx. “Thanks.”
“I love jewelry, but I need to sell because I’m moving to LA. My little country experiment hasn’t worked out quite the way I’d hoped.” She ran her fingers through that amazing hair and laughed, but I was sure I saw fear in her eyes. “You know, get out of the big bad city for a while, away from big bad men, big bad drugs, the whole scene. Settle down, sober up, get back to writing songs.”
“So you’re a songwriter?” I asked, unable to control my goddamn trouble-making curiosity.
“Slash-singer. Was. Am. Will be.” She picked up a CD from the table and handed it to me. There was a shot of Natasha on the front, looking ravishing and soulful in the middle of a nighttime urban swirl. “I had three CDs before I was twenty-five. I’d like to have a fourth before I’m thirty. I was kind of a semi-name. But a taste of honey triggered a whole lot of crap for me.” She laughed in a way that wasn’t funny.
What is it about my face that makes people pour out their life stories the minute they see me? Whatever it is, I wonder if there’s a plastic surgeon who could erase it. But hey, look, this wasn’t costing me anything. I could get up and leave whenever I felt like it. It wasn’t like I was hanging on every word, every admission, every emotion. I was here because I needed inventory. End of story.
“So I bought this little place three years ago, but then I got up here and my money ran out. Well, guess what, Janet? Even in the middle of big fat nature, a girl can get herself into big fat trouble. But I’m getting clean and dry and I’m staying on the beam if it kills me. How’s the cake?”
I was wondering if the clean-and-dry included prescription drugs—then I realized my wondering was getting a little too acute for comfort, was edging into oh-Christ-I-care-about-this-person. “
Delicious. About the jewelry …” Hurt flashed across her face. “Hey, I’d love to hear a little,” I said, indicating the CD.
“Would you? Would you really?” She got up and fiddled with her iPod. “This is one of my songs—Love by Any Other Name.”
The melody was bluesy, soulful, the lyrics both rueful and romantic, and her voice was a dream—distinctive and warm, sexy, with a kick-ass lower register.
“This is great,” I said.
She was moving around the room now, swaying to the music, singing along.
I’m no talent scout, but the kid had it. Lots of it.
“Oh God, I can’t wait to get onstage again,” she said. “I’m staying with my friend Vondra in Silverlake for the first few months. I still have some contacts in the business. I’m off my high horse forever, I’ll do voiceovers, commercials, back-up, you name it. And I do adore LA, that slightly seedy glamour, the nooks and canyons, the exuberant architecture.”
She twirled and hit a note. The song ended and she stood there dazed for a moment. Then she looked down and a storm swept over her face, trouble and fear.
“Are you all right?”
“Me? Oh yeah, sure, fine. And I’ll be even better when I’ve put three thousand miles between me and the East Coast—for more reasons than one,” she said, a bitter edge creeping into her voice. I had an urge to ask for more, but bit my tongue. I was not a shrink anymore. That was my past. Over. Done. Natasha was in trouble, but it was her trouble, not mine.
“I should probably get back to my store,” I said.
She disappeared into the bedroom and returned with a wooden box. She put it on the coffee table and opened it, revealing a treasure chest filled with jewelry that I could immediately tell was the good stuff.
“Here it is, Janet, take your pick.”
I pored through some pretty serious bakelite pieces—hanging cherries, the iconic mahjong bracelet, geometric pins, rings, earring. This stuff sold easy-peasy. Then there was a Noah’s Ark of animal pieces—charming, kitschy, and they sold, too (chicks still go through that retro phase). Finally there were the dramatic silver pieces, all swoopy and mid-century, some with large inlaid stones—this stuff flew out of the store and was tough to find.
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