Kill Smartie Breedlove (a mystery) (6 page)

Shep exchanged pleasantries with them and went to his usual easy chair in the corner, from which he could see both entrances and the hallway to the restrooms. He opened Smartie’s files on the table, thumbing through a whole lot of coulda-told-you-that amateur crap. Google searches. Wiki-fodder. Nothing that would elicit anything but eye rolling should she decide to go to the police. Nothing about Starbucks on Holmes and Holly Oak.

The subject previously identified as Benjamin Franklin Bean entered at 6:06 a.m. with a green apron rolled up tightly under his arm. With iPod ear buds blasting heavy metal music directly into his head, Bean didn’t even register the soft
clicksss-check
of Shep’s camera behind him.

“Dr. Beano!” Bean’s coworkers called out to him, and he waved his narrow arm, knobby-elbowed, lanky-wristed. A ruffle of unruly red hair clowned out from under his black baseball cap, making him look more like a fifteen-year-old mathlete than a twenty-three-year-old PhD. His watery blue eyes were warped as big as a troll doll’s behind his thick glasses. His Adam’s apple had a life of its own. Except for a few freckles and some scattered acne, his skin had the blinding sallow cast of a computer-addicted, Halo-playing hermit who spent his days indoors, mainlining information and Dr. Pepper.

Bean had been working at Starbucks off and on through high school, college and grad school. The previous year, during Shep’s initial investigation, Bean was under house arrest without access to the Internet, which rendered his doctorate in computer science of limited value. It didn’t make for much of a resumé: smart enough to hack a CEO’s e-mail, stupid enough to tweet about it.

In the corporate world, Bean was now unemployable, and on twitter, he was a troll and a follow-hog, but at Starbucks, a beloved oddity, able to remember the complex formulas of the picky constituency in the upscale neighborhood where he still lived with his parents. 

As Bean disappeared into the back room, Shep offered the front of the line to several chatty young women so he would still be standing there when Bean emerged in his barista apron.

“
The Dain Curse
.” The green apron girl manning the drive-through window plucked a Dashiell Hammett paperback from Bean’s baggy hip pocket. “What’s that about?”

Bean launched into an animated monologue about the Continental Op, a brilliant but unscrupulous private detective who remained symbolically nameless and never failed to ferret out the most deeply obfuscated clues, the reddest herrings, the lowest-lying culprits. The Continental Op was a remorseless liar, a man of dubious moral standards, a paunchy, middle-aged anti-hero with whom Shep felt an uncomfortable kinship.

“
A monster,
” Bean read from the ragged paperback, affecting the noir cover model’s whisky and lipstick character. “
A nice one, an especially nice one to have around when you're in trouble, but a monster just the same, without any human foolishness like love in him
.”

Shep cringed. Bean could be bottled and sold as prom queen repellant.

Obsessed with pulp fiction in general and the Continental Op in particular, he’d gas on about it to anyone who stumbled into conversation with him. Just before Janny’s death, Shep had observed Bean laboring through his lunch breaks at Starbucks, crafting a voluminous extra credit English class project for one of the high school baristas: an extensive written report on the Continental Op, accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation illustrating the life of Dashiell Hammett.

Bean was smart. Well read. A hard worker. Shep actually liked the guy, but, Christ, what a homely and obnoxious kid he was. This was the part that had never settled into Shep’s gut quite right. For what possible reason on God’s green earth would someone like Charma Bovet jeopardize her well-planned millions—money she’d earned on her knees, on her back, money that was a shallow breath, a feeble heartbeat away—for a few stolen afternoons with this dorky knot-necked egret?

“There has to be something else going on,” Shep had tried to tell Suri. Shep had actually laughed. “Suri, it’s nonsensical. It borders on creepy.”

But Suri had seized hold of the flimsy lead, determined to make it play out. The week before Charma’s death, she’d seriously turned up the heat, pressuring Shep to forage for anything and everything he could come up with to prove that Charma had been with Bean in a way that positioned Belinda Bovet to gain power of attorney and enforce the pre-nup with an iron fist. Now Shep was clinging to the flimsy evidence he’d found because the only flipside to Suri’s creepy and nonsensical Charma-does-Bean scenario was Smartie’s creepy and nonsensical notion that Suri was capable of having inconvenient people whacked at will.

Benjamin Franklin Bean still seemed like a drastically unlikely candidate to seduce anybody, but Smartie did say that Charma had that weirdly nerdy side. It was remotely possible that Charma had fun with the guy. Or at least as much fun as she had with the horny old goat. Not a pleasant picture for the mind’s eye, and Shep was haunted by the idea that if he’d been able to make the case back then, Charma might be alive today, broke but unbroken, working her bimbo magic on some other rich and randy bastard.

Instead, Charma died that night, and Janny died a few hours later. And for a long time after that, Shep didn’t give a shit who’d done what to whom or how much anyone might have gotten or gotten away with.

Watching Bean blend a Frappuccino for a beleaguered young mother, Shep was stunned at how rapidly the entire year had gone by. A year during which he’d hardly participated in his own life, observing events from a distance, as if he had himself under surveillance but wasn’t authorized to step in and take action.

\\\ ///

7

“
C
ritique night at the trendily untrendy Houston home of pulp fiction diva Smartie Breedlove. The air is thick with cigarette smoke and elegant variation. Pages are read aloud and subjected to ruthless peer evaluation. The camaraderie of writers is a terrible, beautiful thing to witness.
”

Smartie looked up from her MacBook. “Okay. Not too bad so far.”

“Keep reading.”

“
In the kitchen are the Quilters. Bestselling hottie literati Breedlove is joined by Yuki Sylvestri, a fifteen-minute prom queen whose first novel was an Oprah book club selection five years ago and whose second novel is, erm…‘forthcoming.’ (Cue the lonely chirp of crickets.)
”

“Oh, that snarky little cutlet.” Smartie put her arm protectively around Yuki’s shoulder. “Meanwhile, his first novel is under his bed. In his mother’s basement.”

“
Venerable Temple Yarborough aka Celeste LaMonde aka Portia Rose aka Meg Winterton aka L.J. Frost, the prolific Grand Dam of romance who’s produced enough bosomy clinch-covered fluffballs to keep her blue-haired shut-in fans heavy-hitting their oxygen tanks till death do them part.
”

“Would anyone else like a Diet Coke?” Temple asked without wasting a wince on the blogger’s characterization. She’d been dealing with this sort of dismissive missive since she was a grad student at Yale.

“
Last but not least (actually, she is least, but let’s not rub it in) there’s Phyllis Cabot-Sholls, an unagented wannabe who recently wrangled a walloping four-figure deal for her debut literary thriller,
The Caning of Dolly Craft
, with insufferably smart micro-press Quarter Mane Books.
”

“A: there’s no such thing as
least
around here,” said Temple. “B: Quarter Mane is a literary mouse that roars. And C: placing a book with no agent? Lovey, that makes you Wonder Woman.”

“That’s actually good PR for you, Phyl.” Yuki tapped the lid of her laptop. “
Galley Oop
is
the
industry gossip blog. Any mention means you’re a mover. Agents are going to prick up ears.”

“Is there a working link to my web site?” asked Phyllis.

Yuki checked it and smacked Phyllis a high five. “You got linkage, sister.”

“What about Herrick?” Smartie asked apprehensively. “Please, tell me he was nice to Herrick.”

“Nice like a pigeon shoot,” Temple warned, reading over Yuki’s shoulder.

“
Meanwhile, gathered in Breedlove’s sunroom
,
is the John Buchan Guild, a desperately serious and seriously desperate crew of largely unpublished literary fiction authors who labor in obscurity and look down their noses at the working girls next door. While pragmatic post-critique kibitzing in the kitchen centers on subrights and motherhood, conversation in the sunroom is permeated with the smell of fear and an eat-the-wounded dynamic that casts anyone who gives up the fight as a weakling, anyone who self-publishes as pathetic and anyone who actually gets a publishing contract as a whore. Their doggedly disaffected leader, Breedlove’s estranged hubby and hanger-on, Albert Herick
—”

“Oh, yams,” Smartie fretted.

“It gets better,” said Yuki. “Blah blah
hanger-on, Albert Herick
—and he misspells Herrick—
a tenured creative writing prof at a small private college in Houston, demonstrates that when it comes to writing, those who can’t do can’t teach either. His only student of note is Breedlove, and Herick is hasty to point out that he did his utmost to dissuade her from the lowbrow mass paperback novel pursuits that brought her success. He also points out that he is a direct descendant of the poet Herick, and when this tidbit is met with a blank stare from yours truly, he puffs like a cockatiel to recite ‘Whenas in Silk My Julia Goes.’
”

“Oh, that slimy little gherkin.” Smartie set her head in her hands.

“
Fellow professor Casilda Blanske is by far the most accomplished of the Buchan bunch, having ghostwritten a number of political and entertainment memoirs and penned several chunky academic tomes which can be found in the dusty duodenums of used and remaindered book outlets. A large woman and an artist, Blanske is by default a caftan-wearer. Fields of rampantly patterned Indonesian fabric waft in her wake as the meeting
comes to a melodramatic close with glasses raised and hearts bolstered by a stalwart toast to their patron saint, John Buchan.
”

“Whose idea was it to invite that dung beetle anyway?” asked Yuki.

“Herrick is wanting to change agents, and he thought the exposure would be good for him, and I can’t say no to him right now because…” Smartie glanced toward the doorway and lowered her voice. “I’m going to ask him for a divorce.”

There was a collective gasp.

“What brought this on?” asked Phyllis.

“A variety of things,” said Smartie. “I should have done it a long time ago.”

Temple, who could spot a plot wrinkle at sixty paces, regarded Smartie with a hawk-eyed editorial gaze.

“You’ve gotten laid,” she said. “You’ve been jolly rodgered, well and recently.”

Smartie clapped her hands over her face. “Don’t look at me.”

Another collective gasp. A collective coo and flutter, like bridesmaids at a lingerie shower, handmaids rescuing a not-so-much virgin from a volcano.

“Smartie, this is wonderful!” Phyllis hugged her tight.

“Who is this person?” Yuki asked.

“He’s Shep,” said Smartie. “He has a gunshot scar on his backside.”

“Oh, GSW to the beautimus maximus,” Temple marveled. “That’s just made outta man. If you don’t use that, I will.”

“So is this love or like or…” Phyllis opened her hands to all other possibilities.

“I like him,” said Smartie, “but I don’t trust him. Anyway, you know I have to keep that kind of thing in a box.”

“A small box,” Yuki nodded.

“With a strong lid,” said Phyllis. “And duct tape.”

“The important thing: How was he?” Yuki asked.

“Dee-
lish
,” Smartie whispered.

More cooing and a collective hug.

“This looks cozy.” Casilda Blanske appeared at the doorway in her de facto caftan, and the Quilters scattered as if they’d been caught smoking in the girl’s room.

“Casilda. Hey there.” Smartie clapped the laptop shut.

“Sorry to interrupt. Just fetching our snacks and another bottle of wine.” Casilda wafted to the refrigerator for a tray of California rolls and assorted sushi.

“I have those adorable sushi sets from Sur le Table,” said Smartie. “Let me get them.”

“Thanks,” Casilda smiled wryly. “All the better to eat our wounded.”

Smartie and the Quilters immediately chorused about the slimming quality of caftans and the noble gift of ghostwriting.

“Artistic integrity is not something a project bestows on us,” said Phyllis. “It’s what you bring to the project.”

“Oh, stuff that,” Casilda sighed. “I knew he was going to say something horrid. Bloggers are why God created the bitch-slap.”

Smartie went into the pantry and brought out tiny, pretty plates with little ceramic leaves for wasabi. The John Buchan Guild was much more about the food than the Quilters were. Smartie always set out china and linen napkins in the sunroom, and the Buchans took turns putting each other to shame with flowered crudités, homemade Pad Thai, elaborately piquant French pastry fingers, and rigorously informed wine pairings.

Paper plates and napkins were standard amenities in the kitchen, where standard fare was a bag of tortilla chips drowned with a can of chili, laden with handfuls of pre-shredded cheese, and microwaved to a steamy, coagulated pile Smartie had come to know back in Bible camp as “Hosea Pie” (a handle that made more sense to her later in life when she converted to Judaism and actually read the book of Hosea with all its unholy matrimonies and intercourses). The Hosea Pie was paired with Diet Coke, and after each member of the group had read and received comments on her ten pages for the week, Smartie made chamomile tea, unsheathed a sleeve of Fig Newtons, and put on Petula Clark or something else that gave the group a nice, dancy wrap-up.

When the tinseled chime of the sunroom mantle clock announced ten o’clock, the John Buchan’s raised their closing toast, with Herrick invoking and the rest on the chorus.