Marjorie Thelen: Designer Detective

“Great movie wasn't it?” said Olympia. She was dreamy-eyed. Viggo had once again lived up to expectation.

“Too violent for my taste, but his nude fight scene in the steam room was superb. There isn't enough male nudity in films these days. I don't know why Viggo does such violent films. I wish Hollywood would stop making them.”

“Mmm,” said Olympia, ignoring my riff on violence. “What buns. But tell me more about Jake. Think he'll ask you out, I mean, on a real date?”

Interesting that Viggo's buns led to Jake. Olympia could get romance out of a turnip, complete with sexy hero, fainting heroine, riveting plot and happy ending. Turnips, and I'm not kidding.

I lifted a shoulder. “He bought me dinner this evening and didn't ask me to be dessert.”

Olympia guffawed. She has this deep, ridiculous laugh that I loved and that usually got me going. I snorted along with her.

“What's he look like?”

“A mix between Morgan Freeman, George Clooney, and Graham Greene.”

“What kind of a mix is that?”

“Just that. He looks like a big mix of something, emphasis on the big. He's a husky guy. He wouldn’t look good in a suit. They wouldn’t fit him right. He looks like he should be out riding the range.”

I frowned.

“What?” said Olympia, anticipating the next plot point, I’m sure.

“I bet he worked for her on the ranch. He should be on a horse, not driving around the suburbs.”

Olympia arched her exquisitely penciled eyebrows. “Oooo, the plot thickens.”

* * * * *

Saturday morning I slept late. About noon I started making phone calls to get the library job going. I called a superb carpenter and painter and left a message to call. I called Hudson about moving the furniture out of the library, taking down the drapes, and rolling up the Persian carpets and left a message to call me back. He probably was polishing silver and didn't hear the phone. I called Colony Furniture Gallery on Lee Highway to make an appointment for tomorrow afternoon. Yes, interior designers work on Sunday. Last, I called my favorite drapery store on North Harrison. The proprietress, my good friend Judith Brooks, employed the most divine seamstress, a Vietnamese woman who was a genius when it came to drape design. All I had to do was give her the faintest sketch of what I wanted and presto she'd whip up something perfect.

Judith answered. She was a working woman after all. “Fiona? What’s up?”

“I need some drapes.”

“Come over. Kahn is coming this afternoon, and we'll have you fixed up in no time.” Judith was a woman of action from New York City, replete with long frizzy hair, dyed red.

Happily, the sun was shining when I finally hit the road. I love Arlington, but a friend who lives in Northwest D.C. won't come here. She says she gets lost if she ventures over Key Bridge. For the same reason she won't come, I delight in living here. Small community neighborhoods abound like Roslyn where I live — Westover, Ballston, Shillington, Clarendon — each with little strip shopping centers with diverse restaurants and shops from every corner of the world. And I’m not kidding.

Judith's store was in one of those cute strip malls off Lee Highway. She saw me pull in, waved and met me at the door.

“Hey, you,” she said and gave me a big hug. “I thought you were out of town.”

“No, I'm working this redo on a library over in McLean except I found the guy dead in the library.”

Her hand flew to her wide open mouth. “Oh, my gosh. I read about that in the Washington Post. You mean that was your job? They didn't say who found him.”

“I did, believe it or not.”

Judith led me to the big design table she had in the back room away from the yards of fabric in the sales room. “Sit. Talk. I want to know all about it. I can't believe you found a dead man on the job. You don't think this is a new trend in interior design, do you?”

I filled her in and she, a woman of some expertise, immediately said, “The butler did it. They always do in the mysteries I read.” She’s quite a connoisseur of the genre.

“No, it has to be one of the nephews.”

“Why not a niece?”

“Or a niece.” I shrugged. “Jake the PI is running all that down.”

“Is he married?” she said.

Driving back to my condo, I thought about Hudson. Maybe he did do it. I mean, fifty million mysteries can't be wrong, can they? Maybe he was broke. Maybe he was ready to retire and needed the money. He'd know Albert's medications. Surely, Albert would have provided for the loyal butler in the will.

I pulled into my parking space in the underground garage. I loved having a sheltered space for the Legend. Then I didn't have to try to find a parking place in a neighborhood that never had any. As the elevator whirred up to the top floor, I envisioned a quiet evening finishing the oil painting I had started of the marina basin near Alexandria in the spring. Popcorn and a beer sounded good for dinner.

The message machine blinked and chirped at me, so I pressed the play and listened as I emptied the grocery sack. Six pack of the latest microbrew, jar of popcorn, two cans of canned chopped clams, celery, and carrots, two bottles of Tabasco, and a dozen eggs.

The great carpenter said to call him back this evening, he'd be home. Shirley at Colonial Furniture Gallery said to come tomorrow around two P.M., she could help me. Dear Shirley, she was a hustler and liked to push what made her the best commission. I'd have to watch her, but she knew her stuff. Last message was from Jake. “Call me” was the message. He was talkative this evening. No message from Hudson.

I dialed Jake's cell phone. He picked up on the first ring.

“You were expecting my call,” I said.

“Right. Have you seen Hudson?”

“No, why would I have seen Hudson?”

“You go out there, don't you?”

“Sure, but not today.”

“He seems to have left town.”

“You mean as in disappear?”

“That's right.”

“I called earlier today and left a message for him to call me, but had no call back.”

“Opal hasn't seen him since he served dinner last night. When she went down to the kitchen this morning, he wasn't there. She checked the garage for his car, and it's gone. She thought he ran an errand, but he still isn't back as of an hour ago. I thought maybe he was with you, doing the library thing.”

“Nope, haven't seen him. So it was the butler in the library with an overdose.”

“What?”

“My friend Judith said it is always the butler that commits the crime. So it couldn't have been Colonel Mustard. Hudson murdered Albert with an overdose in the library.”

“Fiona, you have a very active imagination.”

“You're not the first person who's told me that. Have you called the police to report Hudson missing?”

“Not yet. We'll give him a day to show up. But it’s very unlike him to disappear.”

I hung up and stood looking out the windows across the Potomac at the lights of D.C. The monuments stood stark white against the black of night. Light reflected off the river. Red lights blinked from atop the Iwo Jima Memorial.

Hudson gone missing. Now there was an interesting plot twist Olympia would like.

* * * * *

Shirley at Colonial Furniture was delighted to see me on Sunday afternoon. She always saw dollar signs when I walked in. After a tussle over a number of high priced offerings, I ordered two great off white loveseats with a chicken wire bas relief pattern in the same color. I know, it doesn’t sound haute coteur but trust me, it will look great. Working a deal with Shirley is always exhausting, so I took the rest of the day off.

All afternoon I worried about Hudson and couldn't resist a call to Jake that night.