by Mary Marks
Boom! goes the H-bomb again.
“Listen, G, I don’t know if you’re asking for my advice, but I’m going to give it to you anyway. Harold has had a lot of years to think about how he feels and what he wants. But you need to take some time to figure out what you want. If you want to get married, fine. But that doesn’t mean you have to start a family if you don’t want to.”
“I’m not a kid, Sissy. I know all that. But what if I do want to have a baby with him?”
“Then I’ll be right there holding your head as you puke in the toilet with morning sickness.”
We heard the front door closing and a moment later Lucy sat in her usual place on the cream-colored sofa. “Giselle has morning sickness?”
“We were talking about Quincy,” I lied. “You’ve had five boys. You know what the first trimester is like.”
A minute later, Jazz led an excited Zsa Zsa into the house. “Bonjour. We had a little tinkle on the lawn just now.” He bent over, unhooked the pink leash from her pink collar, and straightened the rhinestone barrette in her topknot. “Daddy loves his little girl,” he sang.
The Maltese immediately trotted off in her pink pinafore in search of Bumper.
“You know she’s just a dog, right?” Giselle said.
Jazz adjusted the rolled-up cuffs on his pink shirt and sniffed. “Maybe she’s just a dog to you, but she’s my child. You should find yourself something to love. It might improve your attitude.”
Giselle and I exchanged a quick glance and she held up her hand. “Don’t be offended, Jazz. I think Zsa Zsa is darling. I just tend to blurt things out sometimes. You’ll get used to me.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Still waiting for that to happen.”
He thrust a white paper bag smelling of onions and garlic in my hands. “My turn to bring the snack. I’m not doing sugar this week.”
The bag was still warm to the touch from the freshly baked bagels inside. He also gave me a smaller sack with a pint of whipped cream cheese.
We settled in the living room with our plates of food. Lucy sat in her usual spot on one end of the sofa and Jazz on the other end. She handed me a small sheaf of papers. “I printed these out from the computer. They’re directions for how to file a claim with the state controller’s office, along with an official form.”
Jazz looked confused. “What’s that for?”
I brought him up to date on the notes and photo we reconstructed on Sunday. He fanned his face with his hand. “One-point-eight million? Quelle surprise! Just think. With that kind of cash, we could open a quilt store.”
Giselle frowned. “She’d be better off investing in real estate over the hill, a beach condo in Santa Monica, for instance.” She opened her tote bag and dumped the limp quilt top and fabric hexagons on the coffee table. “I brought these back like you asked.”
“And I stopped by the quilt store for these.” Lucy reached in her tote bag and pulled out ten packages of precut two-inch white paper hexagons. “I bought a thousand. I figured that would be enough to replace the ones we removed from the quilt. If not, we can always get more.”
“I don’t think that’ll be enough.” Giselle lifted a fabric flower. “Aren’t there more than eighty of these in the quilt?”
“We don’t have to replace all of them, hon.” Lucy held up the unfinished top. “We only need to put paper in the outside edges to stabilize them for stitching. The hexes in the middle don’t need to be reinforced. They’re already sewn together. The same goes for the flower you’re holding. Only the outside edges need paper hexes.”
I tore open one of the small plastic packages and spilled the contents on the table—one hundred pieces of die-cut paper templates. “You’re about to get your first lesson in quilting, G.” I took a silver thimble from my sewing kit and placed it on the middle finger of my sister’s right hand. Then I cut an eighteen-inch length of white thread, licked the end, and showed her how to thread a needle and make a knot on the other end.
“We’re going to be using basting stitches, which means they can be bigger and don’t have to be neat because they’re only temporary. Just like the stitches we removed when we took out the original hexagons.” I taught her how to push the needle through both the fabric and the paper underneath then bring it all the way up again.
“This thimble feels awkward. Do I really have to use it?” Giselle twisted the metal cap on top of her finger.
“Absolutely. Otherwise, the pointed top of the needle will poke right into your bare finger when you push it through the fabric. I know it feels funny at first, but I promise you’ll get used to it. Using a thimble is an essential skill for every person who sews.”
I coaxed and encouraged my sister for the next ten minutes. After sewing her first hexagon, she was able to load the needle with two or three stitches before pulling the thread through the fabric.
“You’re doing great, G.”
Satisfied she had the basics down, I grabbed the top half of a garlic bagel and smeared it with cream cheese.
Lucy worked on reinforcing the edges of the quilt top, and Jazz stitched hexagons into a pink flower. “Something about this color speaks to me today.”
I closed my eyes and enjoyed the dense, rubbery texture of my bagel. “Something about this food speaks to me.”
Around noon Giselle’s cell phone chirped. “It’s a text to call the lab! Wolf’s DNA results are in.”
“That was fast.”
“I paid them a hefty bonus to make this their top priority.”
By the time I hurried over to Giselle’s chair, her phone was already on speaker and ringing the lab. “This is Giselle Cole returning Dr. Chowdhury’s text.”
A moment later a man with a Hindi accent spoke. “Mrs. Cole?”
“Yes. You have the DNA results?”
“Quite so. I myself stayed over the weekend to perform the test. As a matter of fact, I ran it twice just to be absolutely certain. We take pride in being one hundred percent accurate at all times.”
I looked at Giselle and made a rolling gesture with my hand, trying to hurry them along. This was the breakthrough we’d been waiting for.
“And what did you find, Doctor?”
“The sample of the male DNA you gave me is not a relation of yours.”
No! How can that be?
Giselle’s face fell. “Are you sure?”
“Most definitely.”
She looked at me and shook her head once. “Thank you for expediting the test, Dr. Chowdhury. I appreciate your thoroughness. Please FedEx a hard copy of the results to my office.”
“The pleasure was all mine, Mrs. Cole. Cheers.”
She flopped back in the chair. “I was positive Wolf was our brother.”
“Tell me again.” Jazz placed a blue flower with stiff edges in the “finished” pile and picked up a limp yellow flower. “Why were you so sure?”
I explained about the pencil drawings Quinn gave to all his mistresses. “We discovered one of Eliza Shiffer in the gallery office. And since Wolf seemed to be the right age, we assumed he was the brother Jayda Constable told us about.”
Giselle tucked her cell phone back in her purse. “We were counting on it, because if Wolf was our brother, then Eliza could’ve been the killer. Plus, it would’ve been nice to connect with yet another sibling. Even if he does have dark purple hair. God knows how many more of us are out there.”
“So, now what?” Lucy ended off a basting thread and picked up the next paper hex.
“For one,” I said, “there’s still Gabe Farkas. He said he’d search for Quinn Junior’s birth records if Wolf’s DNA test didn’t pan out.”
“That’s right,” said Giselle. “I’d forgotten all about that. We should call him and tell him to go ahead and contact Jayda Constable in New York. Maybe she can pinpoint the day in 1971 when she and Daddy first slept together.”
“Why is that important?” asked Jazz.
“She said it was the same night that Quinn Junio
r was born in LA. Having that information would certainly make his search a lot easier.”
“We also need to talk once more to Gabe’s father, Captain Bela Farkas. I’m bothered by something Figgy told me yesterday. Don’t get upset, G, but she didn’t deny your grandfather could’ve arranged Quinn’s death.”
Giselle’s shoulders slumped and she seemed to deflate. “I don’t know . . . It’s true Granddad was powerful. And he was used to getting his own way. You might even say he was a tyrant. But ordering a hit on Daddy? There was too much at stake. He’d lose everything if he were caught.”
“Not if his friend Chief Nelson helped him cover up the crime. We know Nelson stopped the investigation into Quinn’s disappearance. And he was in the perfect position to sanitize the missing-persons file. Plus, the sixty thousand Quinn carried when he disappeared in 1980 was an advance from Chief Nelson for a portrait Quinn was supposed to paint of Nelson’s wife. I ask you, where does a cop get that kind of cash if he’s not dirty?”
Jazz leaned forward. “What if the sixty thou came from Giselle’s grandfather as a bribe to Nelson for looking the other way and shutting down the investigation?”
Lucy pushed her well-drawn eyebrows together. “That doesn’t make sense. Nelson commissioned a painting of his wife before Quinn disappeared. If the money was a bribe for looking the other way, that means Nelson must’ve known ahead of time Quinn was going to die. And if that’s the case, why would he hand Quinn all that money?”
Why, indeed? “Maybe Nelson was setting up an alibi in case the hit man was caught. Maybe the chief wanted it to look like he didn’t know about Quinn’s impending murder by paying the victim ahead of time for a job he knew he’d never live to fulfill.”
“That theory seems pretty convoluted,” said Giselle. “Nelson may have simply shut down the investigation to save Granddad the embarrassment of a scandal. Daddy’s behavior was pretty awful.”
“Maybe. Unfortunately, all the players in that little scenario are long gone. Now we may never know for sure.”
CHAPTER 27
Crusher and I sat at a small table in Rafi’s Middle Eastern restaurant, working our way through the Tuesday night special.
My giant fiancé tried to get comfortable on the small wooden chair as he speared a deep-fried falafel with the plastic fork. “Occam’s razor, babe. The simplest explanation is usually the best. What you’re describing is an elaborate conspiracy between an oil baron and a corrupt chief of police to commit a premeditated murder.”
“I know, but that’s our only solid lead right now.”
“You still can’t rule out jealousy as a motive. From the notes you pieced together, you know at least one of his women was pissed off enough to threaten him.”
I pushed around my cucumber and tomato salad with my fork. “I know. And I thought we’d found her. But we were wrong. Eliza Shiffer may have been one of Quinn’s women, but she wasn’t the mother of his son or the author of those notes.” I sighed. “The other thing is, Giselle and I were really hoping to find our brother.”
“Maybe I can still help with that. But I’ll need more to go on than just the birth year.”
“Yeah. Gabe Farkas said the same thing. I called him this afternoon and told him about the DNA results. I reminded him there’s a chance he could still find Quinn Junior, depending on Jayda Constable’s memory. Gabe said I should contact her myself.”
“Go for it.”
“I tried this afternoon, but nobody answered the phone.” I glanced at my watch. “It’s too late to call New York tonight. But I’ll call again first thing in the morning.”
We finished our combo plates and started on our honey-drenched baklava and tea with nana, fresh mint.
“I spoke to Quincy this afternoon. She’s trying to make peace between Noah and his parents. She’s invited everyone to their place for Shabbat dinner Friday night.”
“That’s cool,” he muttered through a mouthful of dessert.
“Maybe not.” I told him about Eli Kaplan suing Eagan Oil. “The man is a jerk.”
Crusher’s blue eyes twinkled. “Don’t worry. I spent time around the guy in the rabbi’s office, remember? If he acts up, he won’t be a problem for long. I’ve never met a bully I couldn’t . . . you know.”
“Crush?”
* * *
Jayda Constable picked up my call Wednesday morning at eleven New York time. I brought her up to date on what we’d learned, including the notes from Quinn Junior’s mother. “We’re trying to track down the woman who had Quinn’s son. If we can find our half brother, we’ll find her, too. And we need your help.”
“How could I possibly—”
“You said the night the baby was born was the first time you slept with Quinn. Please try to remember when that was.”
“It was ages ago, Martha, I can’t remember the exact day.”
“Would it help if we started with the time of year and work backward?”
“I can try.” She paused for a moment. “Okay. I recall it was snowing outside. We rushed inside my apartment to get out of the cold. I poured us each a shot of whiskey to warm up. One thing led to another, and . . . well, you know.”
“Okay, that’s a good start. You said it was snowing. Was it around Christmas? New Year? How about holiday decorations? Do you remember window displays? Colored lights? Did you have a tree?”
“Oh God, I don’t know.
“Do you remember where the two of you were before you went to your apartment?”
“Yes. We were at a gallery opening. I’d heard Quinn was in town. I knew all about him, of course. I’d seen his work and thought he was brilliant. So, I asked a friend to introduce us. It was instant attraction. For both of us.”
Now we were getting somewhere. A gallery opening would appear in the arts section of the New York Times. “Do you remember which gallery or who the artist was?”
“Some funky little place in Soho that’s no longer there. I have no idea who the artist was.”
“Do you at least remember if he was a painter, sculptor, photographer?”
“Sorry. I only remember Quinn’s green eyes, red hair, and sexy smile.”
Darn! This was New York City, with countless art galleries and where winter could last for six months. I needed more details before sending Crusher to the archives of the Times.
“You took him back to your apartment that same night?”
“Almost right away. We both knew what we wanted.”
“How far did you have to go? Did you walk, take a cab?”
“Since the show was only a couple of blocks from my apartment on Watts Street, we walked.”
“You told Giselle and me this happened in 1971. Why are you so certain?”
“Because that’s the year I left home and moved to New York. January. I’d only been there around a month before I met Quinn.”
My pulse began to quicken with each new detail. “You’re doing great, Jayda. That narrows it down to, what? February? March?”
“Well, I know it was before April because my birthday’s in April. He was back in LA by then, but he sent me flowers.”
“So, can we say for sure that you first slept with Quinn in February or March of 1971 on the opening night of an art show in Soho a couple of blocks from your place on Watts Street?”
“Yes. That sounds about right.”
Bingo! “Okay, this helps a lot. If you remember anything else more specific—even if it’s a tiny thing—will you call me?”
“Of course. I want to know as much as you do what happened to Quinn. I was the one who bugged that policewoman and insisted something bad had happened. Remember?”
“I remember. To be fair, Detective Gomez couldn’t tell you more because the chief of police shut down her investigation.”
“Bastard! I suspected something like that was going on. Only I couldn’t prove it. Do you know why?”
“Chief Nelson and Giselle’s grandfather Jerome Eagan were friends. Giselle believes
her grandfather merely wanted to avoid public scandal over Quinn’s behavior. The housekeeper, however, believes Eagan himself could have been responsible for Quinn’s death. In either case, Nelson quashed the investigation.”
“So, you’re telling me you have two suspects? Either the mother of Quinn’s son or Quinn’s father-in-law?”
I sighed. “Yeah. The first suspect we still have to find, the second one is dead.”
Just as the call ended, Crusher emerged from the bedroom and clomped across the hardwood floor in his leathers and biker boots. I told him what I’d learned from Jayda.
“Great work, babe.” He grabbed his ATF badge from the hall table and hung it around his neck. “I’m on my way downtown. I’ll see what I can find online in the New York Times archives and run it through the birth records.”
He strapped on his helmet over the blue bandana covering his head and disappeared through the front doorway. A minute later the engine of his Harley fired up and roared out of the driveway.
Time for another conversation with Captain Bela Farkas in Green Valley, Arizona. He answered on the third ring.
“I know you want to avoid talking over the phone about certain sensitive subjects,” I said, “but I’d like to bring you up to date on what Giselle and I have discovered and ask you a couple more questions without having to travel to Tucson.”
There was a short silence. “I’m driving to LA as we speak to visit Gabe and my grandchildren. How about we talk when I get there?”
“Captain, you seriously think someone’s listening in? I mean, who else would be interested after all this time?”
“Call me Bela. Let’s just say I’m happy to drive five hundred miles to buy a gorgeous woman a drink.”
I laughed. “Should I bring my fiancé along for protection?”
“Maybe you’d better.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “See you this evening.”
I spent the rest of the morning basting the new paper hexagons back onto Giselle’s quilt. I kept wondering why Giselle’s grandmother went to all the trouble of cutting up and incorporating Quinn’s private papers and photos into a quilt. Why did she want to preserve proof of his indiscretions in this way? Was it to hide the information from her husband in a place she knew he’d never look? And what currency did she gain by doing that? The power to expose her husband as a killer? The power to make Quinn behave if he ever showed up again?