Edited to Death Read Online Free Page B

happened?”
    “I don’t know. But it looked as if—” I took a deep breath. “It looked as if somebody
     smacked him from behind with a walking stick.”
    “A walking stick?”
    I nodded. “From the umbrella stand. Quentin always kept a couple of walking sticks
     in there. I think they were his father’s.”
    “Hey,” Calvin said. “I just got it. You’re Maggie Fiori? You write all those wiseass
     food and literary pieces, right?”
    “Right.”
    “I know your stuff. I like it.”
    “Thanks.”
    Silence. We looked at each other.
    “Did you do it?” he asked.
    “Kill Quentin? No! Jesus, what a question!” I bridled.
    He managed a grin. “Just asking. Quentin didn’t always see eye-to-eye with his writers.”
    “He was my pal.” I felt myself losing control. “He was a great editor and the best
     person in the world to have lunch with. And, besides.…” I stopped.
    Calvin began patting his pockets. “Geez, my mom always told me to carry a handkerchief
     for moments like this.”
    I sniffled and dug in my purse. “It’s okay. I’m a mom myself. I carry my own tissues.”
    “You know,” said Calvin, “we were all supposed to have lunch together.”
    “We were?”
    “Yep. Quentin called this morning, told me his favorite feature writer was shedding
     her suburban disguise and coming to town for lunch and that I should come on over.
     He said he had something we should work on together. He said it was a perfect job
     for me and ‘the JIP’. You’re the JIP, aren’t you? The one Quentin calls the Jewish
     Italian Princess.”
    I sniffled some more. “Suburban disguise. That’s not fair.”
    Calvin licked his thumb, reached over and rubbed at my cheek.
    “Your mascara’s running.”
    “Thanks.”
    “Let’s do it.”
    “What?”
    “Let’s get out of this…” he dropped his voice, “beehive mausoleum and have lunch.
     We’ll drink to Quent.”
    It was an appalling thought. I was starved, though the thought of food made me feel
     nauseated all over again.
    “I couldn’t eat anything,” I said.
    “Fine,” said Calvin. “You can watch me eat—and you look like you could use a drink.”
    “Or some hot tea,” I said faintly.
    Calvin gave me an exasperated look. “I’ve seen these movies before—the person who
     discovers the body is supposed to have a belt of something.”
    “This isn’t a movie,” I said.
    His shoulders sagged. “I know. I’m just wising off ’cause this is all too weird for
     me. I’m sorry.” He looked stricken.
    “It’s awful, but I mean, he wasn’t exactly my friend or anything. Were you guys close?”
    “Something like that,” I said. And just like a bad movie montage, images of Quentin
     in a variety of settings flickered across my mind.
    Calvin touched my cheek, “Hey, maybe you just need to be by yourself.”
    Time alone? Time to keep that Quentin movie playing along in my brain? Absolutely
     not.
    “You know what?” I said, “I’d love a drink.”
    I stood up. “We have to talk to the cops before we go. Let’s get it over with.”

4
    Liquid Lunch
    It was almost three o’clock by the time Calvin and I walked into Pier 23 and claimed
     a minuscule table for our own.
    We’d answered the inspector’s questions while a battalion of people from the coroner’s
     office swarmed over Quentin’s flat. When I asked if I could go back into the flat,
     Inspector Moon hesitated for a moment. Then he nodded and put his hand on my elbow
     and walked me across a crinkly plastic runner the cops had put down in the living
     room. I had the unshakable feeling he was watching my every breath. I crept over to
     Quentin’s body and stood there a minute. It was, after all, not the awful sight of
     his head that bothered me. It was his right hand, those perfect manicured fingers
     so still and so disengaged from everything they did well. I thought of that hand and
     all its past intimacies and felt cold in every part of me.
    When I pulled myself