Desert Winter (26 page)

Grant whooped. “You've
got
to be kidding, Mark. That sounds like wizardry.”

“I know it sounds crazy, but it works—and works very well. To the layman, the visual improvement of offset printing over letterpress may be difficult to detect, but to the trained eye, there's a world of difference, enough to justify the expense of switching.”

I asked, “It's a costly conversion?”

“And how. The two technologies are so totally different, the conversion of a newspaper generally requires building a whole new printing plant and scrapping the old one—a tremendous investment. Many smaller papers, like the
Dumont Daily Register,
made the switch in the sixties and seventies, but the cost was so daunting for the big, old, established papers, many of them didn't convert to offset till the eighties and nineties. A few
still
haven't.” Mark paused to sip the last of his drink. With a soft laugh, he said, “Pardon the lecture. You got far more information than you probably wanted.”

“Nonsense,” said Grant, enthralled by the handsome journalist's every word. As for myself, I was quickly losing interest, but Grant protracted the tech talk, asking Mark, “In 1954, the
Palm Springs Herald
would have been printed by letterpress, right?”

My interest was suddenly rekindled.

“Yes,” Mark answered, “any newspaper from 1954 would almost certainly have been printed letterpress. That's conjecture; I could tell at a glance if I saw a sample of the paper.”

“It just so happens,” said Grant, “I have the original clipping of Stewart Chaffee's interview. It's still in my briefcase. Even I can tell it's
old,
but I wonder if you could point out how you can recognize the method of printing.”

Mark eyed him wryly. “Boning up for future cocktail chat?”

“Exactly.”

Larry coughed. “I wouldn't mind seeing that myself.”

I raised my hand. “Count me in.”

“Come on,” said Grant, herding us from the terrace. “It's getting cold, and we need fresh drinks. My briefcase is in the library.”

Passing through the invisible wall to the living room, we nabbed a waiter, ordered a round of drinks, and made our way across the room toward the library. I noticed that Tanner had just arrived, standing in the front hall gabbing with Kiki. Glenn was still huddled with Iesha and Tide, hammering out details for tomorrow's press conference. Mark waved at his nephew, Thad, still downing shrimp at the buffet table with other cast and crew members. The din of laughter and jabber now drowned out all but a few of the piano's higher trills.

“In here,” said Grant, ushering us into the quiet of the library, closing the door behind us. This room, unlike Glenn Yeats's high-tech home office, was contemplative in mood and traditional in design. Bookcases lined the walls. Plump upholstered chairs invited reading. A handsome desk from the Directoire period was meant for letter writing, not word processing. Grant lifted his briefcase from the floor, opened it on the desk, and flipped through some files, extracting a plastic sleeve that held the old clipping.

“Careful,” I reminded him as he slid the paper from its sleeve, “that's worth millions.”

Grant handed the clipping to Mark, who held it carefully in his fingers, leaning to examine it under the electrified candles of an antique bouillotte lamp that stood near a corner of the desk. Larry, Grant, and I gathered near, peering at the paper over Mark's shoulders.

He stood motionless, saying nothing.

“Well,” Grant finally asked, “was the
Herald
printed by letterpress?”

Mark set down the clipping and turned to face us. “I'm not sure how to tell you this”—he paused—“but something is very wrong. The clipping is a fraud.”

At that moment, there was a rap at the door, which opened. A waiter entered bearing a tray. “Your drinks.”

“Uh,” said Grant, distracted, “just leave them, please.”

The waiter nodded, placed the tray on a side table, and left, closing the door.

“What?”
Grant asked Mark.

“Are you sure?” asked Larry.

“How can you tell?” I chimed.

Mark raised a hand, then stepped aside so the rest of us could better see the suspect shred of paper. “Obviously,” he told us, “the newsprint is old—it's yellow and brittle—but the ink was not applied by letterpress
or
by offset. Letterpress printing leaves a slight impression in the paper, but this shows none at all. Even offset printing, with a flat plate, presses the ink into the fibers of the paper, but this shows no absorption, no show-through.” He flipped to the back side, proving his point. “May I fold this?”

Grant shrugged. “Why not? If what you say is true, it's not worth
anything.
”

Larry corrected his brother. “If what Mark says is true, our murder investigation has an important new lead.”

Mark chose an area of the back-side advertisement that was heavy with black ink. He made a crease through it, then flattened the paper again. “Look,” he said, tapping the crease, “the ink flakes off at the fold. Both letterpress and offset printing use wet, oily inks, but this was a dry-ink transfer. The pigment merely rests on the surface of the paper. No doubt about it—this was forged on a laser printer.” Setting the clipping on the desk, he brushed the flaked ink from his fingers.

Larry asked Grant, “May I take this?”

“All yours.” Grant slid the clipping back into its plastic sleeve, surrendering it as evidence to his brother.

Larry held it up at arm's length, pondering its significance to his investigation. “Name the forger,” he said, “and we've probably named Stewart Chaffee's killer.”

16

At Larry's urging, we decided
, for the time being, to keep knowledge of the forged clipping hush-hush. Even though it was now highly questionable whether the museum was the true heir to Chaffee's estate, we would not alert Glenn Yeats, letting him proceed with Thursday night's press reception as planned. Larry's investigation had a promising new direction to explore, and he reasoned that going public with the faked interview would tip his hand to the killer.

So around six-thirty, I thanked Glenn for a splendid evening (he had no idea that it had proven not only entertaining, but informative), gathered my cast and crew, and left the party, heading over to the theater for our final rehearsal of
Laura.

The memos I had written that morning helped. Almost any director would be thrilled with the level of polish my student cast had brought to the production, but still, I knew they were capable of better. I knew that the murder—and the victim's clock—had become a menacing distraction not only for Thad and Tanner, who had stumbled into the crime scene with me, but also for everyone else in the show. The buzz had proved infectious, the giddiness contagious. In the telling and retelling, Thad and Tanner's minimal contact with the crime, to say nothing of my own, had quickly swelled to mythic proportions.

While the gossip and excitement of an unsolved murder was seemingly harmless—no one's psyche would be permanently damaged—the distraction was sufficient to threaten the cohesiveness of Friday's opening performance, and I was worried. I had too much at stake. So did the college, and so did my students. When the curtain fell on Wednesday night's rehearsal, I understood that my opportunity to achieve true excellence through direction and teaching had ceased. The only way left to ensure the focus and concentration of my troupe was to solve the crime and get it behind us.

When Tanner and I left the theater and returned to my condo for the night, we were hyped by the rehearsal, by the knowledge that within forty-eight hours, our efforts would be judged by Spencer Wallace and Hector Bosch, among so many others. It would take a while to wind down for the night, so we sat up talking, sharing a drink or two.

I was tempted to bring Tanner up to date regarding the discovery of the forged clipping. It was intriguing news, and I had no doubt that I could trust him to keep it in confidence. Still, the last thing I wanted to do was contribute to the stir and ado of the murder, so I kept the topic off-limits. The only mystery we discussed that night was the scripted one we were preparing to enact onstage—more than enough to keep us up and gabbing till well past midnight.

When we finally went to bed, sleep, the gift of exhaustion, came quickly.

*   *   *

Thursday morning, I awoke to the sound of the shower. Rolling over, I squinted at the clock on a bedside table and saw that it was nearly nine, hours later than I typically rise. There was no need to rush—my only class that day was a late-afternoon seminar—but I was surprised that I'd slept so soundly. With rehearsals finished, perhaps my subconscious had temporarily set aside the pressures of my soon-to-open play. Stretching, kicking the bedclothes from one of my legs, sniffing coffee and shower steam and Tanner's shampoo, I felt wonderfully rested—and horny as hell.

The shower stopped running, and while the drain swallowed its last with a long gurgle, I heard Tanner toweling off, a treat for my mind's eye, which drank in the image of him bending and turning to blot and buff his wet body. Next he did some grooming; I heard the pop of plastic bottle caps, the clatter of a comb, the slapping of aftershave. Then he zipped up; he often wore a pair of shorts after his morning shower, before dressing for the day. I heard him pad through the hall and down the half flight of stairs to the kitchen.

Ceramic mugs, two of them, scraped the tile countertop. He poured the coffee in slow trickles, raising the pot high above each mug. He always poured that way, claiming the bubbles in the cup made the coffee taste better—something to do with aeration. I had no idea whether this was demonstrably true, but I could hardly argue the point, as any coffee, even instant swill, would taste better when served by the likes of Tanner Griffin topless.

The stairs creaked again, and in the next moment, he appeared in the bedroom. “Time to get up.” He approached the bed with both mugs of coffee.

Good God, the sight of him. On the morning when I first saw him at a garage in Palm Springs, I knew at a glance that he had “leading man” writ large all over him. The magnetism, the star quality, radiated like a nimbus. If only he could act, I had mused. Now I knew that he could indeed act—superbly—and with very little luck, he might soon enjoy a Hollywood career.

For now, though, he was still a heartthrob in training, and there he was, standing near the side of my bed, smiling down upon me with a caring expression that made me go limp. Had I been standing, my knees would have buckled. He wore the same baggy pair of olive drab cargo shorts that he'd worn that morning at the garage—and nothing else. His mop of sandy blond hair was matched by a fleecy nap that twisted from his navel and disappeared beneath the loose waistband of his shorts.

“Still sleepy?” he asked. That face. That smile. God help me.

“Hardly.” My shoulder blades dug at the mattress.

“Brought you some coffee.” He set my cup on the bedside table, sipping from his own before setting it down as well.

“You're the perfect overnight guest, Tanner.”

He laughed. “Is
that
what I am—a guest?”

“In a manner of speaking. Though you're welcome to stay as long as you like.”

He glanced around the room. “In case you haven't noticed, I've been moving a few things in.” The closet was jammed. The dresser drawers couldn't accommodate everything, so some of his clothes were still stored in boxes on the floor. “Sorry if I've crowded you.”

“Have you heard me complaining?”

“No.” With a grin, he leaned over the bed, planting his hands on the mattress to either side of my shoulders. I felt willingly trapped, deliciously caged by him. Hovering over me, he suggested, “If you
are
feeling cramped, maybe you should be looking for a bigger place.”

“That's a thought.” Reaching up, I traced a finger from his throat and down his chest, hooking it in his waistband where the hair disappeared.

“Oooh,” he said softly, “I just got everything tucked in.”

“Too bad,” I said, undoing the metal button.

“I forgot to kiss you good-morning.” And he lowered his head to deliver the dilatory greeting.

I tasted coffee on his tongue, parting my lips wider so he could probe deeper. With one hand, I raked my fingers through his still-damp hair. With the other, I unzipped him. As I took hold between his legs, he surfaced from my mouth to exhale a rapturous groan.

I whispered, “I love it when men do that.”

As he nuzzled into my neck, I gave him ample motivation to groan all the louder, which seemed amplified as his mouth approached my ear. When he inserted his tongue, my moan bested his groan.

There was no turning back now—not that either of us was inclined to stop. He broke away for a moment to kick free of his shorts, then crawled onto the bed, straddling me. Our lovemaking always had an element of gaming to it; we had fun. The experience of my years, to say nothing of my innate creativity, was perfectly complemented by the vigor of his youth. I still had a few tricks to teach him, and he never tired of learning. That morning's lesson required a bit of contortion, which he handled with athletic aplomb, but eventually we got back to basics, and he was giving me the ride of my life.

I lost track of time. Whether mere moments flew or long minutes passed, I couldn't tell and didn't care. Tanner had found his rhythm—and how. Though not quite frenzied, he was clearly in the zone and seemed on the verge of driving it home, so to speak.

When there came a frantic pounding at the door.

“Huh?”

Tanner hadn't heard it, focused blindly on his studly mission.

The knocking continued. Someone shouted my name.