Iced (17 page)

“I’m counting the minutes.”

34

O
N TUESDAY MORNING, Ida was so excited she could hardly stand it. She’d never been inside a celebrity’s home before. And to think she was getting two for the price of one! Last night Ida had phoned her best friend Dolores back in Ohio and told her to go over to her house and get Nora Regan Reilly’s books and send them out to be autographed. Priority Mail. It was worth the expense.

Ida checked her watch and hurried down the street. It was nine fifty-eight. She’d be working at the cleaner’s from ten until two, and then was due at the Woods’ house at three. At precisely ten she pulled open the door and scurried into the dry-cleaning shop. “Hello, Max.”

Her boss looked up from the cash register. “Good morning, Ida. How are you feeling today?”

“Thankful to be alive,” Ida said. “Thankful that the Good Lord allowed me to wake up this morning and still be breathing.”

“That always helps,” Max said as he unwrapped a packet of quarters and watched them cascade into the drawer. He was a young man in his early thirties. Tall and skinny with gray hair, he was given to short sentences and what seemed like shorter conversations. Still waters hopefully run deep, Ida often thought.

“Today should be busy. Two days after Christmas and everyone’s dirty clothes are piling up. And of course people drink too much over the holidays and get careless. Then they have to get their outfits ready for New Year’s Eve . . .” Ida took off her ski jacket and hung it over the hook that was marked IDA.

“Good for business,” Max said. “A few people were already in this morning. You can tag their clothes.”

Ida adjusted her glasses, walked over to her work station, and reached into the bin of dirty clothes. She pulled out a man’s suit and checked the pockets for any abandoned personal items and was disappointed to find there were none. Reaching for a set of tags, she tried to make her next remark sound casual. “Were any movie stars in here this morning?”

Max didn’t even look up from his hard work arranging the money drawer. “Nope.”

“Um-hmmmm,” Ida said as she stapled the tags onto the jacket and pants. This suit looks expensive, she thought and dropped it into the second bin. She looked up at the big clock on the wall. Three minutes past ten. My God, she thought, this is going to be the longest day of my life. She could see that the hotels had dumped off their loads of cleaning and they all needed to be tagged. With the prices that Max insisted on charging just because it was Aspen and he could get away with it, Ida thought it would be cheaper to buy new clothes than send your old ones out for a few spins in a vat of chemicals.

Max slammed the register drawer shut with an air of authority and announced to Ida, “I’ll be in the back.”

Ida sighed and bent over the big white basket of soiled garments. She reached for a bundle and hoisted it onto her work area. The worst part of the hotels providing the cleaning service, she thought, is that many of the celebrities never needed to bring in their dirty clothes themselves, unless it was an emergency and they’d missed the morning pickup. Heck, Ida had taken this job so she’d meet people, and lately the only things that stared her in the face were big piles of smelly laundry.

The bell over the front door tinkled and Ida looked up.

“Hear that, Ida?” Max shouted from the back where the pressers were already at work, pressing and singing along and dancing to whatever song was on the radio. Max was at his work station armed with a squirt bottle, ready to attack any stained clothing with the zeal of a revivalist.

Deliberately Ida ignored him. Of course she heard it, she was standing right in front. Sometimes she worried that inhaling all those chemical fumes all year long was making him a little bananas.

“May I help you?” Ida said sweetly to a beautiful young woman with dark shiny hair wearing an expensive fur-lined jacket.

The woman handed her a piece of white material with spaghetti straps. “Someone spilled red wine on me last night. Can you get it out?”

“Of course we can,” Max said, suddenly breathing down Ida’s back. “Write out the ticket, Ida.”

Ida turned to him and said wryly, “I wish I’d have thought of that.” She licked her finger and pulled the top slip from a neat pile on the check-in counter. Next she picked up the white garment. “Where’s the rest of it, dear?”

The customer stared at her with a blank expression. “That’s it.”

“Sexy,” Ida murmured. Hard to believe it’s a dress, she thought as she wrote down the customer’s name. It must stretch out more than a rubber band. I should only charge her for a necktie. “Here we go,” Ida said, smiling, handing over the pink customer copy. “Tomorrow okay?”

“Sure. See you then.”

Once again Ida checked the clock on the wall. I shouldn’t wish my life away, she thought. But today I just can’t help it.

After what seemed like an eternity, the hands of the clock finally rested on twelve and two. It was time for her to leave, to begin her new job rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous.

35

A
FTER TAKING A hot shower, Regan felt ready to take on the day. She went downstairs to Louis’s office and found him on the phone.

“Hi, darling,” he whispered and then spoke into the mouthpiece. “This party is going to be so fabulous. Everybody’s coming . . . Who? . . . I said everybody. We’re getting extensive media coverage. It’s the hottest ticket in town.... I’ll fax you a press release.” He hung up the phone and rolled his eyes. “I have national publications coming and the society editor of the
Ajax Bulldog
is telling me they have a lot of invitations for that night and they’ll see if they can make it. Oh please . . .” He opened his desk drawer and removed his bottle of Tums. “I’m eating these things like candy.”

“Those are what Eben had in his medicine cabinet.”

“Don’t mention him,” Louis cautioned. “It’s Tuesday and I’m still in business. There are only two more days where he can ruin me. How was the cot?”

“Kit said she was so tired last night she would have slept on a bed of nails, but on a normal night...”

“I’ll see what else I can find. We’re all booked up. Every bed in the house is taken. Are you going skiing?”

“Later. Now Louis, do you know the guy who wrote that article about Geraldine?”

“I’ve met him a couple of times. Why?”

“I don’t know. I’d just like to talk to him about the paintings.”

“Don’t stir up any trouble!”

“I’m not going to. From the article it appears that he knows a lot about art. I think it could help. He might have some interesting insights about what’s gone on, and about the painting in Vail too. Could you call him for me?”

Louis put his hand over his heart. “Regan, the last thing I need is any more negative publicity.”

“What about the old adage: ‘I don’t care what you say about me as long as you spell my name right’?”

“After Thursday they can say whatever they want,” Louis said as he begrudgingly picked up the phone and called over to the
Aspen Globe
. “Ted Weems, please . . . Oh . . . Well, this is Louis Altide at the Silver Mine . . . Could I get his home number? . . . I have a private investigator who wants to talk to him about the series he’s doing . . .” Louis winked at Regan, hung up, and dialed Ted’s number.

Regan sat there in awe as Louis pulled off a phone call that would have made a drama teacher’s heart sing. He sounded so confident, so convincing, so full of admiration for Regan, so determined to cooperate with the authorities and get to the bottom of what looked like Eben’s crime spree. Finally he dropped the phone back into its cradle. “That was easier than I thought. He said to come on over to his apartment right now. It’s not far from here.” Louis wrote down the address and handed it to Regan. “He has to go out to do an interview in a little while.”

“Louis, this is great.”

“Now I’ve paid you back for yesterday.”

“Of course, doll. You’ve made my life worth living. I’ll leave now,” Regan said, standing up. “Oh, I want to quickly call Yvonne Grant and see if she found Bessie’s number.”

“Here,” Louis said, handing her the phone. “And then get out of here. You’re making me nervous.”

“I thought you liked having me here,” Regan said in mock protest.

Louis came around the desk and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “You can come here anytime.”

Yvonne answered the phone and told Regan that she couldn’t find Bessie’s cousin’s number in Vail. “I thought we had it written down on a piece of paper in a drawer in the kitchen.” Her laugh could not conceal a touch of annoyance. “Since I’m not too familiar with the kitchen . . . Bessie is in charge of everything around here and I don’t know where she would have left it. She’s due back on Thursday. Can you wait until then?”

Regan was disappointed but kept it out of her voice. “Sure. But if you hear from her, ask her to call me at Louis’s.”

“Okay. You’ll be at Kendra’s for dinner?” Yvonne asked.

“Yes.”

“We’ll see you there.”

“Great. See you later,” Regan said and hung up. “Kit and I are going to Kendra’s for dinner tonight. Yvonne’s going to be there too. Wanna come?”

Louis didn’t even have to answer. He just reached for his bottle of Tums at the very thought as Regan grabbed her coat and hurried out the door.

36

T
ED WEEMS ANSWERED the door and ushered Regan in. He lived in the area behind the Ritz Carlton where condos were modern and had their own balconies. The living room was light and bright, with a high ceiling and pine floors. It was filled with papers and books, and a computer was blinking in the corner. The place reminded Regan of her mother’s office at home.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve been working all morning and I didn’t expect company.”

“Thanks for taking the time to see me,” Regan said earnestly. “I appreciate it.”

He took her coat and then looked as if he didn’t know what to do with it. Finally he threw it on a chair. “Coffee?”

“I’d love some.”

“How do you take it?”

“Just some milk.”

“I don’t keep any milk in the house.”

So why did you ask? Regan thought. “Black would be fine,” she replied.

When he retreated into the kitchen, Regan glanced around. One wall of the living room was taken up by a floor-to-ceiling bookcase. A quick look at one of the shelves revealed an eclectic collection of history and art books. Comfortable armchairs and an overstuffed couch were facing the fireplace on the opposite wall. A great place, Regan thought, to curl up on a snowy day and read.

“Here you go,” Ted said as he came back into the room carrying two mugs. Regan studied him as he pushed a newspaper out of the way and set the cups down on the coffee table. He was about forty, had dark hair flecked with gray, a thin intense face, and wore wire-rimmed granny glasses. Clad in blue corduroy pants, a white shirt and an old gray sweater, he did not look like the skiing type. Regan hoped that he wasn’t one of those intellectuals who disdain ordinary conversation. She decided to start out by taking the middle road.

“It must be great to live in Aspen,” she said, following his lead and sitting down in one of the armchairs.

Ted crossed his legs and wiggled his L.L. Bean duckboot. “Well, I’m here part of the time. I also have a rent-controlled studio apartment in New York. That’s where I started out.”

“A place here and a place there. That’s not bad.”

“I’ve always loved the West and its history. I thought it would be great to live here, but I never wanted to give up the city. Luckily, I can now afford both.”

“And being a writer you can work wherever you happen to be,” Regan said.

“Well, you have to be where the story is,” Ted informed her. “My series on the descendants of the Aspen settlers who live in Aspen now couldn’t be done in Poughkeepsie.” He laughed and his eyes darted around the room. “I write what I want to write,” he continued. “And I’m syndicated. That series is being carried by many,
many
newspapers around the country.”

Regan raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t realize that. So a lot of people from all over have been reading about Geraldine and her Beasley painting.”

Ted smiled proudly. “I’ve gotten numerous phone calls about the articles. Old friends. Relatives. People who wonder if maybe I have a spare room they can stay in if they want to come out and ski.”

Regan smiled. “Do you?”

He waved his hand at her. “I try and fend that off as much as possible. What I really like to do is work. If I had people in and out of here all winter long I’d never get anything done. I deliberately bought a one-bedroom condominium so I’d have no room for guests.”

What a pal, Regan thought. “You spend a lot of time working?” she asked.

“I’m doing this series. I do features. I’ve been working on a history of the mining towns in Colorado. And I’ve been writing about western art.”

“So it’s pretty interesting to talk to these people in Aspen, then?”

Ted laughed. “Sure. I enjoyed talking to Geraldine. She was a killer talking all about her grandfather. I asked her to show me around and when I came across that painting, I nearly died.”

Regan leaned forward. “Tell me about that painting. How did you know it was a Beasley?”

Ted’s eyes glinted. “I’ve been doing a study of Beasley and I planned on doing a story about him. He was . . .” Ted paused for emphasis, “
fascinating
.”

Regan nodded, waiting for more. She didn’t have to worry.

“Beasley was a tragic figure. He went around the mining towns in the 1880s and painted these masterpieces, then died when he was only twenty-eight. Like most great artists, he wasn’t appreciated until years after he passed on. From his notations, he’d made twelve canvases. Ten are in museums in Colorado, where they belong, I might add. They should be shared by all.” He stared intently at Regan. “I mean, after all, does the
Mona Lisa
belong in someone’s living room?”

“No,” Regan said dutifully.