Christietown (15 page)

Ditto.

“Can you pass the butter, please?” Gambino asked.

I handed him a pat. He was the only person I knew who didn’t bother unwrapping it first. He cut straight through the foil, then squeezed.

“So,” I said. “Did you find the victim’s business partner yet?”

“Nope,” he said, slathering his toast. “Jelly?”

I passed it over. “What about the ex-wife?”

“Not actually an ex. They never divorced. But yeah, we found her. She’s a counselor at a halfway house in the city of Orange. Tico and I have an appointment with her this after
noon. She says she hadn’t seen him in almost two years. He left her and the kid. He never sent money. Another pathetic story.”

The victim was found in the wee hours of the morning, around the corner from the Inmate Reception Center on Bauchet Street. He’d just served twenty-three days for driv
ing with a suspended license. He was a small-time bad guy, a music producer who’d screwed his associates, been up on assault charges more than once, and apparently didn’t believe in paying child support. When the cops fished him out of the Dumpster, he was still wearing his white plastic ID bracelet.

“Was there another woman?” I asked, finishing my grape
fruit juice.

“Naturally.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“Can’t find her.”

“What about the wife? Is she telling the truth about not having seen him?”

“I won’t know until I look in her eyes.”

The waitress appeared and refilled our coffees. Gambino sloshed his around meditatively.

“What is it?” I asked, putting my hand on his.

“Nothing.”

“I love it when you open up to me,” I said with a smile.

“Sorry.”

Strange. He hadn’t touched his bacon.

“Don’t be sorry,” I said.

Something was wrong. If I knew Gambino, he’d brood for a few more days, then he’d tell me what was going on. But I didn’t want to wait. “Is it meeting Richard on Thursday?”

“No. Is that this Thursday? As in tomorrow?”

“Yes! Walt’s Baby Headquarters at six thirty. Promise me you won’t forget? I need you to make a good impression. They think I’m insane.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“You remind me of my father when you do that.” My father, who’d never approved of me. My father, to whom I was always trying to prove something. Not that there was a pattern here.

Gambino looked at me across the table. “Look, are we or are we not getting married?”

So that was it. “Of course we’re getting married. Why would you think we weren’t getting married?”

“Cece. It’s taken months to organize a guest list. We’ve taken dance lessons. We’ve listened to a dozen wedding bands. We’ve tasted cakes. Father Joe is ready. But we haven’t even set a date. This is getting ridiculous.”

“That’s not fair. You know the problem. I can’t get my mother to say when she’s available to come out here. I didn’t have a chance to press her last time we talked. She was too busy yelling at me.”

“I don’t see why it matters if she’s there. You can’t stand her.”

I gave him a look. “She’s my mother.”

“Listen, I know you’re scared, but we either do this thing or we don’t. And I want to know one way or the other right now.”

“This is ridiculous. You know that I love you,” I said.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“You’re giving me an ultimatum? At Hugo’s?”

He stood up. “Yes.”

I paused for a split second, which was a split second too long. I could see something in his eyes go dark.

“I can’t deal with this now,” I said, grabbing my purse. “I’ll see you tonight.”

And I left my fiancé standing there, the wreck of our break
fast all around him.

When I got home, there was an e-mail from my editor, Sally. How’s the weather? Your daughter have her baby? Seen any movie stars lately? Just checking in. No pressure. But are you done yet? Have you solved the mystery of why Agatha Christie disappeared for eleven days? Because you’re holding up our production schedule. The publishing business isn’t what it used to be. Zero tolerance for writer’s block. Company policy. Get with the program. Beware self-sabotage. But no pressure. Just checking in.

I did some nervous eating, then decided to walk the dog.

At optimum dog-walking hours (eight to ten
A.M
., five to seven
P.M
.), the neighborhood is overrun with creatures of various sizes and configurations wearing studded collars. And you should see the dogs. But that’s West Hollywood for you. I quite enjoyed it. Most of the neighbors were pretty mild, actu
ally. The porn star down the block always put on baggy sweats
to walk Hubert, his Afghan hound. Lois and Marlene favored bathrobes when out with their 3.5 dogs (the Chow, sadly, was afflicted with a canine form of alopecia). Minnie, the drag queen who owned the thrift store next to the gas station, kept to herself when promenading Prince Pierre, her Labradoodle. There was, of course, the gold guy, who liked to grease his chest up with some kind of sparkling body lotion. He had a good-looking golden retriever named Reggie. And the beagle owner, who had curtain-rod-size rings in his earlobes. Not to mention the seventyish lady from a few blocks over who had a parasol for her German boxer (they are prone to skin cancer). But aside from them, it was your average group of law-abiding citizens. Well, most of them weren’t in fact law-abiding. They were creative types with illegal garage conver
sions, like me. But that wasn’t such a big deal. Unless the city inspector came calling.

Buster kept lagging behind me, sniffing the trees more intently than usual. I think it was his way of punishing me for not paying enough attention to him. I bent down and nuzzled him, which seemed to do the trick. He found a nice spot of grass, important duties were performed, and we turned around. At home, I checked my phone messages (none), weighed myself (speaking of self-sabotage), checked the cupboard for food (I’d cleaned us out), and thought about doing some nervous shop
ping. But I accepted that nervous shopping would only cause more suffering.

Time to face reality.

Gambino needed an answer.

So did my editor.

Ladies first.

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adies first.

Maybe that was the problem with my manuscript.

I’d been thinking of this story as Agatha’s, but stories are bigger than just one person. It was Archie’s story, too.

This time, I’d begin with Archie.

Archie Christie was deeply unhappy.

I sighed. Not particularly insightful. Nonetheless, it was a start.

Archie Christie was deeply unhappy. The woman he’d mar
ried had become a stranger.

Keep going.

She wanted to talk. He wanted solitude. She wanted to travel. He wanted to stay close to home.

Better.

Then her mother died and her grief cast a pall over the household. Her emotions overwhelmed him. The truth was, he no longer loved her. He’d been seeing Nancy Neele, a twenty-eight-year-old brunette who shared his passion for golf.

It had been eighteen months. He’d fallen in love. He wanted a divorce. He left.

Two weeks later, he returned home. Maybe he’d made a mistake. They had a daughter, after all. He’d try. He’d take Agatha on holiday to Guéthary, a tiny village at the foot of the Pyrenees. It was beautiful there—the sun, the water. Maybe they could turn back the clock. But it wasn’t so easy. He was neither able to commit to the marriage nor to end it.

Sounded familiar.

Agatha swore, in any case, that she wouldn’t give him a divorce. She threw things. She wrote a short story in which the wife is blackmailed by the other woman and jumps from a cliff side to her death. An obvious pity ploy. At least that’s how Archie would have seen it. He had no stomach for drama. He’d told her so from the beginning. There were more rows. Agatha threw a teapot. Archie refused to accompany her for a weekend in Beverley, in Yorkshire, as she’d hoped. She announced she’d go alone. He was relieved the charade was over. But she hurled accusations. Yes, he admitted, he wanted to spend the weekend with Nancy. He stormed off to work. He didn’t return home that night.

That was Friday, December 3, 1926.

The first clue Archie had that his wife was gone was a phone call from Charlotte, her secretary. Archie and Nancy were spending the weekend at the home of some friends, the Jameses. Charlotte told Archie the police had arrived at Styles that morning to inquire about Mrs. Christie’s whereabouts. Archie had no sooner hung up the phone than a police officer turned up at the Jameses’ front door to escort him home.

Of course they thought he’d killed her. It’s the husband nine times out of ten, isn’t it? All they needed was a body. They
already had the car. It had been found early that morning near Newlands Corner, at the edge of a chalk pit on a rutted, twist
ing dirt track, only six miles from where Archie and his mistress lay sleeping. The police had given him all the details, hoping to intimidate him.

I stopped for a moment, flipped through my notes. I found a quote from
Murder on the Orient Express:
“One cannot escape from the facts.”

These were the facts:

The car was in an upright position with the glass screen intact.

The folding canvas roof was still erect and the plastic side screens were in place, though the bonnet was slightly damaged and the speedometer cable broken.

The doors were closed, the brakes were off, the gears were in neutral.

The spare tin of petrol, carried on the side step, was knocked off when the car collided with the bushes, and was found lying in the grass.

There were no signs of skid marks in the soft dirt.

Inside the car was a fur coat, a dressing case, and a license indicating that the owner was a Mrs. Christie of Sunningdale, Berkshire.

But where was Mrs. Christie?

Archie was frantic. He located a recent photo, gave it to the police, and they generated a “Missing” poster. I pulled out a yellow file and from it a sheet of legal paper onto which I’d jotted down the text:

Age 35 Years, Height 5 ft., 7 ins., Hair Red (Shingled),

Natural Teeth, Complexion Fair, Well Built. Dressed—Grey

Stockingette Skirt, Green Jumper, Grey and dark Grey

Cardigan, small Green Velour Hat, may have handbag
containing five to ten pounds. Left home in 4 seater

Morris Cowley car at 9.45 p.m. on 3
^rd
December leaving

note saying she was going for a drive. The next morn

ing the car was found abandoned at Newlands Corner,

Albury, Surrey. Should this lady be seen or any informa

tion regarding her be obtained please communicate to any

Police Station.

Clues materialized but led nowhere. The police were inept. Days followed inconclusive days. Searches were conducted, through woods, streams, ponds, copses, fields. Unreliable wit
nesses recounted unreliable stories, each of which the press took up with lightning speed. The papers were ravenous for news, any news. This was a front-page story, about an almost-famous writer married to a dashing war hero.

There were whispers.

The parlor maid at Styles slipped up.

She told investigators that Archie and Agatha had had a ter
rible argument the morning of her disappearance. Archie was concerned for Nancy’s reputation, not to mention his own. His movements were being monitored now. He could no longer go to work. His friends were brought in for questioning. Nancy’s name had found its way into the papers.

They knew Agatha had left him a note.

They wanted to know why he’d destroyed it.

He began to crack under the pressure.

Then came the Great Sunday Hunt of December 12, when hundreds of civilians swarmed the area to comb the under
growth, looking for Agatha. It was a circus. Members of the Royal Automobile Club directed traffic. Vendors set up shop to sell hot drinks throughout the cold winter afternoon. Children sucked lollipops while search parties set out under police direc
tion from three major assembly points: Coal Kitchen Lane, near Shere; One Tree Hill, on Pewley Downs; and Clandon Water Works, on the Leatherhead to Guildford main road.

Archie didn’t make an appearance that day. The press were already all over him. It would’ve only fueled their fire.

Dorothy L. Sayers showed up. She looked around for a few moments, declared that Agatha would not be found, then incorporated the event into her third detective novel, published the following year.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was likewise intrigued. He obtained a glove of Agatha’s and gave it to a medium named Horace Leaf, who insisted that the person who owned it was half-dazed and half-purposeful, but very much alive.

Mystery writers. Archie must’ve been sick of the lot of them.

On Monday the thirteenth, the papers reported that the Great Sunday Hunt had failed.

On Tuesday the fourteenth, the phone never stopped ringing.

The phone
was
ringing.

My
phone.

I dove for it before the machine could pick up.

“Hello?” I said. “Don’t hang up. I’m here!”

It was Silvana. I’d left a message for her earlier in the day.

“How are you, darling?” she asked. “You sound a little stressed out.”

“Sorry. I’m at the computer. Thanks for calling me back.”

“The almost-famous writer? Of course I’m calling you back. How’s the book coming along?”

Why did everyone keep asking me that? “It’s coming along great. Listen, I wanted to apologize for upsetting you about the lobster.”

“I boiled him for lunch. He wasn’t as satisfying as I would’ve liked.”

“Speaking of . . .” I let my voice trail off.

“Yes?”

“I wanted to ask you something about your second hus
band, the one who was impotent?”

“That was my first husband. Erectile dysfunction.”

“Sorry. Your first husband. Erectile dysfunction.”

“You’re on your second husband, too, darling, isn’t that right?”

I’d never really thought about Gambino that way. “I guess so. Almost.”

“We should start a club!”

Agatha could’ve been a member. She married an archaeolo
gist the second time around. Every woman should marry an archaeologist, she said; the older you get, the more interested he is in you. Probably apocryphal.

“I’m working on Dot now,” Silvana went on. “She’s coming out for lunch on Friday. I’m going to find her an old geezer if it kills me.”

Richard was going to love that. “Listen, Silvana, this may sound a little weird, but did they diagnose your first husband’s condition with a test, like maybe a blood or urine test?”

“Ooh,” she said, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “
Now
I get it. Tell me, how long has this been going on with your fiancé, the cop?”

Suddenly, I felt very, very disloyal.

“I’m sorry,” Silvana said quickly. “I’m prying. But it’s always those law-and-order types. Anyway, let me get to the meat of it, you should pardon my pun. They check testosterone levels. A simple lab test. In and out, you should pardon that pun, as well.”

I was staring at the message Dr. R. had left for Ian: “Failure to Perform, 1200/1300, A.V. East Kern W.P.”

“You still there, darling?”

“Yes. So what do you think about a level of twelve to thir
teen hundred?”

“Twelve to thirteen hundred? Is that what you said?”

“Yes.”

“Twelve to thirteen hundred, are you kidding me?” Silvana made gobbling noises. “What I could do with a man like that!”

“Excuse me?”

“He’s off the charts, darling. A sexual prodigy! The prob
lem is obviously psychological.” Her voice turned low, con
spiratorial. “Do you know a store called Trashy Lingerie, on La Cienega?”

I did, as a matter of fact.

Silvana spent the next five minutes telling me exactly what types of garter belts and G-strings I should purchase to help Gambino with his mythical problem. She made me promise I’d call her back and tell her how things had gone.

I hung up, puzzled. These numbers obviously weren’t what I thought they were.

I saved my Agatha Christie notes and closed the file. Then I gave it one last shot. I punched the entire message from Dr. R. into Google: “Failure to Perform, 1100/1200, A.V. East Kern W.P.”

This was it.

I’d found it.

A.V.
East Kern W.P. was not some arcane bit of medical

jargon. It was the Antelope Valley East Kern Water Project. At last. Something that made sense. I should have known, of course. In California, it’s always about water.

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