“Jimmy, you know anyone who works with drywall?”
He turned away from his beloved computer with a surprised expression. “That’s an odd question coming from you.”
“I had a little trouble with my walls last night. Ceiling, too.”
“What sort of trouble?”
“They fell down.”
“They fell down?” He stared at me, which was unusual because Pima Indians are some of the most polite people you’ll ever meet.
“Yes. Now I need someone to put them back up. Do you know anyone or not? I’d prefer not to let Gus know about this, ah, situation.” I could imagine my landlord’s face if he saw the walls. And the ceiling. He might even be irritated enough to break my lease.
“Drywall.” Jimmy looked like he wanted to ask another question. Instead he gave me the name of someone from the Rez. “Remember that Owen does a little carpentry here and there, too.”
“Owen’s too busy these days so I’ll go with the other guy.”
“That’s it, then?”
“Sure is.” Unless the redhead came back with a new gun.
As soon as I’d placed a call to Jimmy’s buddy I started to make some notes on the case, but Jimmy interrupted me.
“Before you get too deep into that, I’ve got some news. That librarian, Myra Gordon?”
I put my pen down. “What about her?”
“When I first ran her through the system, I came up with nothing, but then I discovered that Gordon uses her maiden name. Her married name was Mbisi. Does that ring a bell?”
I thought for a moment, waiting for it to come to me. When it did, I exhaled in shock. “You don’t mean George Mbisi?”
“The same. She’s his widow.”
“Oh, hell.” Feeling sick, I put my head in my hands.
Two years back, while I was still with the Scottsdale PD, George Mbisi, an executive for one of the local airlines, had been carjacked by three skinheads. They drove him out into the desert and, after torturing him with lit cigarettes until it got old, beat him to death with a tire iron. They then burned his body and buried it in a shallow grave. To celebrate, they dropped by a local bar where their boasts had been overheard by the bartender, who just happened to be the daughter of a Phoenix police sergeant. She called daddy, and within hours, Mbisi’s murderers were behind bars, where they remained to this day, awaiting execution. As details of the case came back to me, I remembered the furor that had erupted when the search of the skinheads’ apartments revealed a bevy of hate literature. Much of it bore the imprint of Patriot’s Blood.
“Oh, man, Jimmy. What a motive.” I remembered Myra Gordon’s face, her carefully guarded conversation.
“That doesn’t mean she did it.”
No. But even without taking the hike, a librarian would know where to find water hemlock. Figuring out a way of getting the hemlock onto the right salad would be easy, too, especially with those place cards. Was that the real reason Gordon/Mbisi had attended the SOBOP Expo? And was the fact that she had been seated near Gloriana at the banquet table no coincidence?
I picked up the phone and called Emil Ramos, who told me he’d have his wife call me right away. Fortunately, she did.
“Mrs. Ramos, did anyone at the conference make a special request about seating?”
“Certainly,” she said. “Married couples wanted to be seated together, friends did, too. There was a space on the registration application for those requests.”
“How about at Gloriana’s table?”
“David Zhang wanted to sit with my husband—they’re friends—and that nice librarian wanted to sit near Gloriana.”
“Did she give a reason?”
Mrs. Ramos was silent for a moment, then said, “You understand that there were more than one hundred people there, Ms. Jones. But if I remember correctly, she wrote down on the form that she wanted to talk to Gloriana about the Patriot’s Blood line.”
I closed my eyes.
“Ms. Jones? Is there anything else?”
I opened them again to find Jimmy watching me intently. “How far in advance did she register. Do you know?”
“Registration closed thirty days before the conference. The resort needed to know which banquet hall to use, the big one or the small one.”
One month. More than enough time to read up on water hemlock, and to take the necessary drive to harvest the deadly stuff. She couldn’t have known that Gloriana would make procuring it so easy, not that it made any difference in the end.
“Thank you, Mrs. Ramos,” I said softly. After I wrangled Myra Gordon’s Wyatt’s Landing telephone number from her, we said our goodbyes and I hung up.
Every now and then private detectives question their commitment to truth, and this was one of those times. If Myra Gordon/Mbisi had murdered Gloriana, I didn’t want to know. Yet I had to know because a friend’s life was at stake.
“Bad news, huh?” Jimmy asked.
“You got it, partner.” I picked up the phone again and dialed Gordon’s number. All I got was her message machine, telling me to leave my number. I did.
To calm myself, I went back to my case notes and jotted down this new information. Once I’d returned to normal, or what passed for normal for me, I remembered there were other people who might have wanted Gloriana dead. So I poured myself some coffee (standard black brew, no pretentious Seattle crap) and wandered across the street to the Damon and Pythias Art Gallery where my friend Cliffie Barbianzi knew about all things art and all things gay. I found him hunched over his Louis Quatorze desk, sipping at what smelled like a double shot of hazelnut cappuccino from a Royal Doulton cup. As I approached, he rose politely. His immaculate linen suit, the same pale gray as his hair, hadn’t yet wrinkled.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?”
I waved my coffee mug at him. “Thought I’d join you for a cuppa.”
“Really? Just a nice morning visit between friends?” He smiled. “Who’s dead?”
“Can’t put anything over on you, can I, Cliffie? This time around, it’s Gloriana Alden-Taylor, the publisher. Jimmy’s cousin has been charged with the murder.”
Cliffie took another sip of his brew, then frowned in distaste. I doubted it was the coffee. “Can’t say I’m sorry she’s dead. You should see some of the irresponsible bilge that press of hers has published. I swear, it’s enough to make you make you think twice about the First Amendment.”
“No laws are perfect,” I murmured. I gave him a brief rundown on the case, then asked the question that had brought me here. “Do you know anything about a film-maker named Sappho?”
“Everyone knows Sappho. But what does that delightful woman have to do with the unpleasant Gloriana Alden-Taylor?”
“Sappho is Gloriana’s daughter.”
Cliffie’s cultured veneer slipped as his mouth dropped open. “You shittin’ me?”
“I shit you not. Now, what can you tell me about her?”
Cliffie stared into his fancy coffee cup for a moment, then looked back up at me, the façade back in place. “Well, my dear, I can tell you that Sappho has been out of town for the last month, so she certainly couldn’t have done anything to Gloriana even if she’d wanted to. And she most definitely doesn’t have a reputation for violence.”
I took the character reference with a grain of salt. Cliffie trusted everyone, even me. “You say she’s been out of town for the last month. Where?”
“She’s shooting a film in Superior. A gay Western.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I didn’t know there was such a thing.”
He took another sip of his coffee. “You think gays were invented this century? We’ve always been around. In fact, I’m betting that a lot of those ‘old marm’ schoolteachers were gay. Same for those ‘buddy’ cowpokes. As for myself, I’ve always had grave suspicions about Pancho and Cisco. Not to mention Red Ryder and Little Beaver.”
I tried to look shocked but failed.
***
Superior was an old mining town approximately sixty miles east of Scottsdale. It had seen better days. Now the silver mine and most of the huge open pit copper mine were closed, and the miners’ homes had weathered far beyond picturesque. Only a few residents had remained to work the pit, a huge maw which gaped at the edge of town. Their grown children had long ago left to find jobs in Phoenix and Tucson.
Lately, though, Superior had begun to enjoy new life. The Arizona Film Commission had touted the town’s rough-hewn attractions to Hollywood, and Hollywood had responded with one film crew after another. As I followed Highway 60 through Superior, I spotted veritable forests of lighting equipment and dozens of heavily made-up men and women sitting around in directors’ chairs, fanning themselves under patio umbrellas. I stopped by one such gathering and asked a rumpled-looking man sipping designer water if he knew where Sappho was shooting. He directed me back the way I’d come. It was only as I drove away that I realized I’d been talking to Nick Nolte.
Sappho had set up her encampment on the outskirts of town in rugged terrain that in many finished films had doubled as Old California, New Mexico, or Montana. Rough hills encircled a flat basin of sand and sage, while above, a few buzzards flapped their wings in annoyance at the ruckus below.
I parked the Jeep behind an empty horse trailer and got out. The film crew was small compared to some of the others I’d seen in town, probably only around thirty people total. Some wandered back and forth across the dirt road muttering imprecations about the glaring light and the drifting sand. A few yards away, three bored-looking women dressed in Stetsons and chaps sat astride well-groomed horses.
“Can you tell me where I could find Sappho?” I asked a large person of indeterminate sex.
“Over by the catering truck.” The sweet, high voice of a woman. She gestured toward an even taller woman who, in the midst of taking a Coke from the caterer, had her back to me. Then the woman turned around and I gasped. She looked like Gloriana must have looked thirty years earlier. Talk about strong genes.
Sappho’s exact age was hard to determine because she was one of those long, lean women who seasoned rather than aged. Her beautiful face, deeply browned by the sun, made her blue eyes seem startling in contrast.
But they were the saddest eyes I had ever seen.
Not certain of the welcome I’d receive, I showed her my I.D. and explained the reason for my visit.
“I imagine a lot of people wanted to kill my mother,” she said in a deep, almost masculine voice. “I used to fantasize doing it myself when I was a child. But I got over it.”
“She was up here filming when it happened, with at least thirty witnesses,” said a petite brunette standing nearby. The heavy pancake makeup on her face revealed her to be one of the film’s actresses.
Sappho turned to her and smiled. Her voice was gentle when she said, “Thanks, Lainie, but I can take care of this myself.” She turned back to me. “A couple of detectives have already been up here asking questions, and they seem satisfied with my answers. I don’t know what else I can tell you, but I can assure you that I’m even more anxious to find my mother’s murderer than you are. And by the way, I never for one moment believed that Owen killed her. He’s not the type.”
“What type is that?”
“Poisoning is cowardly, and Owen is no coward. He confronts his enemies.” She motioned toward a picnic table which had been set up in the shade of an ancient mesquite. “Grab yourself a Coke or something from the catering truck and let’s sit and talk.”
A half-hour later, I’d learned little more about the murder itself, but gained insight into the Alden-Taylor family dynamics. I’d also learned that, surprisingly, Sappho’s preference for film work had angered Gloriana more than her sexual preference.
“So many people misunderstood my mother on race, and especially on lifestyle.” Sappho started on her third Coke. “She once told me she didn’t care who I slept with as long as I got pregnant somewhere along the way and perpetuated the glorious Alden-Taylor genes. When she finally figured out that the idea of sleeping with a man disgusted me, she suggested I find a sperm donor and a friendly turkey baster. But I couldn’t see myself as a mother, especially once I got started in the film business. I’ve never believed that nonsense about women being able to have it all, family and a high-powered career. Someone always winds up suffering in those situations, and the sufferer is usually the kid. I should know.”
Sappho’s tone was bitter, making me wonder again about Gloriana’s mothering skills. For all her obsessions, none of them had seemed to be children, not even her own.
“She disinherited you?”
“Not entirely. I still get something. When I told her that I refused to carry on the press if something happened to her, she pretty much gave up on me and turned to Zach.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Three years, five? I’ve been too busy to keep count.”
“How do you feel about Zach inheriting the bulk of the estate?”
Sappho shrugged. “Good for him and Megan. They can use it. I talked to her yesterday, when she called about the funeral arrangements. God, I’m glad Zach found that woman. He needs all the love he can get. Did you know that his parents were killed when he was only nine?”
I nodded my head and she continued. “Zach’s mother’s parents were both dead, so Mother decided to raise him herself. If there’s anything I feel guilty about, it’s him. At the time of the accident, I was old enough to take care of him, and probably should have, but I was about to premiere my first film at Sundance. So.…”
Her voice faded and the sadness returned to her eyes.
“He seems to have turned out well,” I said.
“You think so? Interesting. I should have done more to help him, but I was busy leading my own life. After the accident that killed my brother and his wife, Mother.…Well, let’s just say other people didn’t exist for her for a long, long time. Mother doesn’t…didn’t do grief very well. She retreated emotionally, just like she did when my father died.
“It was rough on Zach, not having someone to lean on. I think that’s why he and Megan are so into the rescue work with those abandoned animals. They both can relate to the poor things. But Mother. I’ve not done her justice, I’m afraid. Maybe she wasn’t maternal, but she was no monster. She made certain Zach’s needs were taken care of, but other than that.…She wasn’t too negligent unless she was caught up in one of her obsessions. Then she’d forget the poor little guy was even alive. When she was on the trail of whatever she’d fixated on, nothing else in the world mattered, not even her own grandchild. At least Zach had Rosa.”
Gloriana’s Fevers, shoving away the pain, but creating misery for everyone else in an ongoing cycle. “When you say obsessions, are you talking about the Barbie dolls or the Hacienda?”
“Either. Both. It wasn’t only things, though. Sure, she’d take off on month-long buying trips without warning, leaving me, and then Zach in his time, to whatever maid was around. One year she became fixated on baseball. Baseball! Can you believe it? She decided that, given our Plymouth Brethren origins, she should root for the Red Sox, so she’d fly all over the country to watch them play.”
“She never took you along?”
“No, and I hate baseball to this day because it took her away from me.” She sounded fragile, and I could see her as a lonely child with only maids to talk to.
I remembered the handsome man in the photographs, Sappho’s father, and decided to double-check something. “I heard your father died at the Phoenix Open.”
Her answer was odd. “Technically, yes.”
My radar blipped. “What do you mean, technically?”
“He’d been feeling pretty ill earlier in the day and thought about staying home, but Mother told him to go ahead.” Sappho’s voice held that note of caution every detective learns to recognize.
“Why, if he was sick?”
She flicked a look at the set and saw the camera people still fussing with the equipment. Then she sighed. “She and my father had been arguing for a week, and I think she simply wanted to get him out of the house.”
“What were they arguing about?” A private detective is nothing if not nosy.
“A woman. Satisfied? He’d been having yet another affair.”
“You knew this for sure?” I had a vision of a little child cringing against her bedroom door, hearing her parents brawl over sex. Then she straightened me out.
“Oh, everyone knew. The woman, like a couple of his others, was one of the cocktail waitresses at the country club.”
“You hung out at a country club?” It was hard to envision Sappho with the Ladies Who Lunch.
A strange smile. “We had a family membership, of course. But that’s not how I found out. The woman told me herself. She was my lover, too.”
I took a slug of my Diet Coke. It didn’t help.
“Daddy died in happy ignorance, sipping on his fifth bourbon with Arnie Palmer. Mother began collecting the dolls right after that. Lord, Mother owned at least three of each Barbie ever manufactured, literally thousands of the creepy things.”
She gave a theatrical shudder. “All those beady eyes blinking and blinking at you. Like female versions of Chuckie, the Killer Doll. They gave me nightmares when I was a kid. But those Barbies are probably worth a small fortune today, so who am I to criticize Mother? Anyway, after the Barbie era, she started on pewter, then antique books. She has…had…a library full of first editions, many of them signed. Zach got those. And somewhere along the line came her film noir posters, which she left to me because she knew I loved them, too. And lately, of course, there was all the Jeffersoniana. Lord, Mother was into anything and everything to do with Thomas Jefferson. She bought paintings of him, books about him, she even bought a chamber pot he supposedly used. You know, ‘Thomas Jefferson shat here.’”
I remembered the pretty object I’d mistakenly identified as a soup tureen. Well, live and learn. “Zach told me Gloriana believed you Alden-Taylors are related to him.”
Her smile seemed forced. “That was Mother all over for you. Before an obsession could run its course, she would always take it to the most ridiculous level. Something she heard along the way, heaven knows what, made her decide that Jefferson was one of our ancestors, so a couple of months ago she sent one of her lackeys up here to swab out my mouth. I don’t know why testing her own DNA wasn’t enough.”
But I did. The compulsive Gloriana wanted everyone in the family tested as a matter of course. I was about to say so when the brunette actress I’d noticed earlier approached Sappho and laid her petite hand on the film-maker’s arm.
“Darling, I hate to spoil your little trip down Memory Lane with this lovely blonde, but we need to get my scene in the can before we lose the light.”
Sappho covered the tiny hand with her own and looked up at her. This time the smile was genuine. “Thanks, Lainie.” Then to me she said, “Here I am telling horror stories about my obsessive Mommie Dearest, and I’m such an obsessive talker that I damn near blew the shoot! Now, if you’ll excuse me I have to get back to work.”
We both stood up and said our goodbyes. As I walked toward my Jeep, Sappho called out, “Have you talked to my aunts yet?”
I nodded.
Her laugh was harsh. “Then I’m sure you noticed that they have their own obsession. Plastic.”
“Yeah, I noticed.”
She was still laughing when I drove away. But underneath the laughter I detected a well of sadness. For all her Hollywood sophistication, Sappho remained a lonely little girl who needed her mother.