Edited to Death (8 page)

I had come all the way here from the sea
,

Yet met the wave again between your arms

Where cliff and citadel—all verily

Dissolved within a sky of beacon forms—

Sea gardens lifted rainbow-wise through eyes

I found
.

Yes, tall, inseparably our days

Pass sunward. We have walked the kindled skies

Inexorable and girded with your praise
,

By the dove filled, and bees of Paradise
.

Michael handed me his handkerchief. After the service, we ran into Glen, his wife
Corinne, and their five children on the steps. “A very fine hat, Maggie,” said Glen.
“Quentin would have loved it.”

“Thanks,” I said, putting a hand to the cloche. I felt Michael stiffen next to me.

“Are your boys here?” asked Corinne.

“No, I’m afraid they’re not as well regimented as your kids,” I said. “They’d have
wiggled.”

Corinne smiled. “We had some wiggles, too. But Glen wanted the children to say goodbye
to Quentin. He’s been very kind to us, you know.” She sighed. “Kept us out of the
almshouse, in fact, when we came to America.”

Glen put his arm around Corinne. “We need to be off, love.”

“Soccer practice and choir rehearsals for the little ones,” he explained over his
shoulder. “I’ll come by Quentin’s after we get everyone delivered.”

Calvin Bright trotted up the steps, camera bag slung over his left shoulder. I made
the introductions. Michael shook hands with Calvin and said, “I hear you and my wife
drowned your sorrows in some cracked crab the other day.”

Calvin’s mouth turned up in a dangerous grin.

“Actually, it was more voyeuristic than that. I ate, and she watched me. Too bad you
couldn’t join us. But I guess tax lawyers don’t go in for long lazy lunches.” Michael
fixed him with a humorless smile. “No, but we do go in for mindless, vindictive behavior
when anyone trespasses on our personal property.”

Calvin looked bewildered by Michael’s sharp tone. I tapped Calvin’s camera bag. “Promise
me you weren’t shooting during the service?”

He shook his head. “No, too sleazy even for me. But it’s good to be prepared in case
someone really famous showed up. Plus, I wasn’t so sure our pal Inspector Moon believed
I was a real, live photographer at Quentin’s place the other day. Thought I’d better
show up with the tools of the trade.”

“Are you serious?” I asked. “You really think Moon didn’t believe you were a photographer?”

“Hey,” said Calvin, “they always suspect the black guy first.”

Michael snorted. “Not when he shows up with French cuffs and expensive cuff links,
looking like an overpaid investment banker.”

Calvin’s eyes lit up. “That’s just the look I was going for. Most photographers dress
like bums. I love spending money on clothes. I’ve got one of those personal shoppers
at Saks. She thinks I’m going to cave in and sleep with her some day, so she’s always
scouting the good sale stuff for me.”

I didn’t want to look at Michael. I knew he’d be wearing one of those looks that loosely
translates into, “Sure, lawyers may be dull, but they’re not certifiable lightweights
like the people you hang out with.”

“That is really shallow and disgusting,” I said.

Calvin smiled, “Isn’t it? But cool threads, huh?”

“Are you ever going to come across for Ms. Shopper?” asked Michael.

Calvin shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. She’s good looking, but she’s got that fortysomething
obsession about her body. She’s always rubbing her throat because I know she’s worried
about her jawline. Of course, she’d probably put all that worry into one fine lay.”

Michael chuckled. “Sounds great to me.”

I looked at both of them. “Male bonding is so six weeks ago,” I said.

They managed to look reprimanded, vaguely delighted, and very, very chummy all at
once. It was a little nauseating, but far preferable to Michael acting sullen and
jealous.

“Let’s go get a drink and hear some more about Calvin’s love life,” said Michael.

“Later,” I said. “We’re invited back to Quentin’s flat.”

Calvin sighed, “Really? Do we have to go? That place creeps me out.”

“We do,” I said firmly. The two of them looked as if they were concocting excuses
on the spot. “Besides,” I added, “I want to corner Michael’s pal, Inspector Moon.
I’d like to know just what progress the cops are making.”

And, of course, I was looking for an opportunity to retrieve my diaphragm from Quent’s
bedroom.

8

Mourning at Quentin’s

It was Quentin’s kind of party.

All traces of the violence that prompted the gathering had been tidied away. No yellow
police tape. No uniformed officers. No vulgar arrangements from florists, just wildly
expensive Peruvian lilies in tall black ceramic vases. Stuart had supervised the catering.
There was sushi and sashimi and warm sake and cold Tsing-Tao beer. And lots of mourners,
consoling themselves with good things to eat and drink. Claire was sitting in a corner,
smoking, pouting, and leafing through a magazine. It wasn’t
Small Town
.

Michael surveyed the scene in disgust. “This is no wake,” he said. “This looks like
a fund-raiser for the society to preserve leather interiors in upscale cars.”

Calvin nudged me. “Is he always so hostile?”

“Just in the face of tasteful materialism,” I said. “It’s got something to do with
Catholic guilt.”

“You white people,” said Calvin, “You’re so confusing. I thought it was Jewish guilt
and Catholic shame.”

“Welcome to the magic of mixed marriages,” I said. “You get the combo meal.”

Michael had roamed away and returned with three bottles of beer. “Quick,” he said,
“take a swig out of the bottle before Stuart comes by and ruins it by pouring it into
a glass.”

We swigged. “Come on, Michael,” I said. “Everyone grieves in his or her own way. Quentin
would love all this—gossip, music, lots of well-dressed people.”

He shook his head. “It’s missing something.”

“Like what?” asked Calvin.

“Casseroles. Chocolate cake. Little Italian ladies dressed in black with hairnets
and faint mustaches on their upper lips.” He sighed.

“Don’t mind him,” I said to Calvin. “Funerals make him nostalgic.” I turned to Michael.
“Besides, you love sushi.”

“I know. I’m going off to drown my sorrows in some raw tuna.” He wandered off again.

“I like that guy,” said Calvin.

“Me, too,” I said. I grinned. “He’s not bad in the sack, even if he’s not my fashion
advisor.”

“So judgmental, Maggie.”

“Got it in one,” I said.

“You women. You’ve really taken all the fun out of objectification of the opposite
sex.”

“Objectification?”

“Yeah. I used to have a shrink girlfriend and she took me to some of those conferences
where the Berkeley lady therapists in Birkenstocks sit around and relive their girlhoods
from a feminist perspective.”

“You went?”

“Sure. One thing about those feminist conferences, they’re great places to meet women.
And they have to be nice to me, because I’m a…” He gestured quote marks in the air,
“… man of color.” He tilted his beer bottle and swigged, waggling his eyebrows in
a bad imitation of W.C. Fields.

“You’re reprehensible, Calvin.”

“But lovable. You know, I like real women, too. Watch this. I’m going to hook up with
the Empress of Ice over there.” He gestured with his beer bottle. The object of his
attention was
Small Town
’s film critic, Andrea Storch. “Starchy Storch,” the magazine staff called her. Boston-born,
Wellesley-educated, she rarely appeared out of regulation uniform: tailored wool skirt
and cashmere twinset. Usually gray. Pearls, of course, and a signet ring. I was willing
to bet good money the ring had belonged to one of her very Episcopalian parents.

“Do your best, Calvin,” I said. “I hope you two will be very happy.”

As Calvin strolled over to assault the redoubtable Ms. Storch, I decided to search
out the next of kin. Actually, I wasn’t sure to whom I should tender my condolences.
There was Claire, of course, but she was really the ex, even though I didn’t think
they’d ever actually filed for divorce. Or Stuart? But then, I’d never really understood
that relationship either.

I’d been charming to Stuart, truly I had, including him in dinner invitations we extended
to Quentin—all that Miss Manners stuff—but it had cost me.

I bumped into Stuart in the kitchen. He was at the counter, piling more tiny linen
cocktail napkins on a tray. He had forsaken his usual Errol Flynn-style blousy silk
shirt for a gray and white striped broadcloth shirt and tailored wool slacks. I touched
his shoulder.

He turned. “Maggie.” He pecked me on the cheek. “Thanks for sitting with me at the
service.”

“How are you holding up, Stuart?”

He shrugged. “Well, the widow and I are circling, trying to decide whose party this
really is.”

“You look wonderful. Very uptown; Quentin would approve.”

He smiled. “He would, wouldn’t he? He should, it’s his shirt. This is as close as
I come to Savile Row, I’m afraid.”

“God, Stuart, I feel so awful for you. For me, too.”

He adjusted his stack of napkins a millimeter this way and that. Without looking up,
he said, “Tell me about finding him.”

I suppressed a shudder. “There’s not much to tell. We had a lunch date. Nobody answered
the door. Madame went to get me some writing paper so I could leave a nasty note,
and then I pushed the door open and walked up the stairs. He was,” I swallowed hard,
“just lying there, sort of crumpled, over the desk.”

“I feel so guilty about all this.”

My heart sank. “Why?”

“I should have been here when whoever it was came in.”

“Why weren’t you?”

“Quentin and I had a blowup. He’d gotten an invitation to a gallery opening up on
Sutter Street. And I knew he wasn’t going to take me.”

“Why?”

“Oh, he hardly ever took me anywhere. I can’t—couldn’t—keep up with his ever-so-clever
friends. I’d wear something wrong, a Hawaiian shirt or something.” He stopped suddenly.
“Listen to me, I sound like a whiny mistress. Besides, it’s all past tense now, anyway.”
I considered Stuart. His face, which usually seemed boyish and even younger than his
thirty-something years, looked tired and drawn.

“So you two had a fight and you stomped out and went where?”

Stuart shrugged. “Why are you asking me all these questions? Are you Inspector Moon’s
little helper?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just feel awful, and responsible, and impatient.”

“Impatient?”

“Oh, you know. The sooner we—the cops figure this out, the sooner we can put it behind
us and get life back to normal.”

Stuart snorted. “Normal? What’s that, Maggie? I don’t have a little nest to run back
to, remember? Quentin was it.”

Keep going, Maggie, I said to myself. You can’t make it much worse than this.

“Stuart, I’m just bumbling around. What I mean is, there’s some nut out there who
killed Quentin.”

“Or,” Stuart gestured toward the living room, “out there.”

“Right,” I said grimly. “Right out there in the living room. What’s a little murder
among friends? Isn’t that a pleasant thought?”

Stuart picked up a napkin and carefully re-folded it. “Okay, so what did you want
to know? Oh, where I went when I left here.” He sighed. “I don’t even know. I had
on running clothes, so I put Nuke on the leash and I just ran. Somehow I ended up
at the Golden Gate Bridge. I ran across and back, walked up the hill on Fillmore to
cool off, and came home. When I got here, the place was crawling with cops. Moon told
me that you and Calvin Bright had just left.”

“I’m sorry we missed you,” I said. I patted Stuart’s shoulder ineffectually.

Stuart slammed his hand flat on the counter, so hard the silver tray jumped. “That’s
another thing that pissed me off,” he said.

“What?” I was bewildered.

“That photographer. I think Quent had a little thing for him.”

“That was his tough luck,” I said wryly. “From my short acquaintance with Calvin,
I’d say he’s hopelessly straight.”

“No, listen, Maggie. Quentin was on the phone all day the day before he died, asking
everybody nosy questions about Calvin. Who were his friends? Did he do drugs? Why
hadn’t he left town yet? This guy is getting work from all the major consumer magazines.
The agencies have him booked all the time. But he sticks around San Francisco. Why?”

“I don’t know, Stuart. Maybe he’s got a sweetie here? Maybe he likes the sourdough?
Why do you stick around?”

He gave me a level look. “Because I loved Quentin.”