The World's Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant

Chapter 1

The Interview

Aubrey Merritt opened the door. "You're late," she said.

She was tall, silver-haired, formidable. In her sixties and still going strong. Her eyes-a vivid dark blue-bored into me with such ferocious concentration that I had to suppress an urge to run.

Still panting, I checked my watch. "By one minute. One minute only."

"That counts as late."

"Technically, I suppose, but-" Don't argue, I told myself. This is your dream-job interview. At least try to be agreeable. I plastered a nice smile on my face and said, "Of course. I'm so sorry."

Her eyes narrowed. "I don't like apologies. They're usually insincere, which yours clearly was."

I caught myself before I apologized again. The interview was deteriorating faster than it had any right to. I needed to turn it around quickly. Perhaps if the nationally renowned private investigator knew the reason for my very slight tardiness . . . ?

"I'm not usually late, at least not as a general rule," I explained. "It's just that the plumber was supposed to come this morning at nine a.m., and then at noon he called to say he was running late. If it had been anyone else, I would have canceled-I mean, if it had been the mayor of New York, I would have canceled-so as not to risk being late for this interview. But our kitchen sink has been leaking like crazy for more than a month-even when the water wasn't running!-and the landlord was no help at all. I tried to fix it myself, and so did . . . um, the guy I live with." I never knew what to call Trevor. Boyfriend was passé, partner sounded too functional, and fiancé was too French. "Nothing worked, and we've been desperate to get it fixed. I was really worried that if I told the plumber guy, Sorry, you missed the appointment; come back another day, he'd get annoyed and refuse to return at all! I thought that as long as he showed up very soon, as he assured me he would, because he was already in the neighborhood, I could wait while he fixed the sink and still make it here by two p.m. Which I did! Minus one minute, of course."

"Stop, please." Aubrey Merritt was holding up her pale white hands, palms out, as if I were aiming a gun at her. "Excuses are even worse than apologies. They tend to go on far too long, as yours just did. And the longer they go on, the less convincing they become."

I could feel my face reddening. Not convincing? Really? Anyone who'd ever experienced the scourge of a leaking sink wouldn't need convincing. First there's the constant drip, drip, drip. Then the stench of water collecting in a saucepan under the sink and sitting there (and overflowing) while you're at work. Then the job of dumping the dirty water. Where are you supposed to put it? You can't pour it down the kitchen sink, because it will just leak out again in a big rush. You can't throw it out the window of your apartment either. Try doing that on East Fourteenth Street and see how far you get! No, you have to pour it slowly down the bathroom sink or shower drain, or flush it down the toilet a little at a time, because the toilet is the most ancient fixture of all and always seems to be on the verge of giving up. Your day is thereby ruined. Now multiply that by weeks.

But as I peered past Aubrey Merritt, into the apartment where she lived and worked, I saw a possible reason why my explanation had failed to garner sympathy. The place was gorgeous and looked to be enormous. Even the foyer was huge. Its decorations included a tall Chinese-looking vase on a marble plinth, and a wall-sized, museum-quality nineteenth-century oil painting of men in a small boat harpooning a shark. And the building itself was one of the finest New York had to offer-a nine-story Gilded Age confection of brick and terra-cotta that bordered private Gramercy Park (its keys given only to near neighbors). Chances were good that Aubrey Merritt had never lived in a fourth-floor East Village walk-up with antiquated plumbing and a landlord who didn't return calls, so how could she possibly understand the desperation I'd felt and the risky calculation I'd had to make?

"Come with me," she said briskly, apparently having decided not to shut the door in my face. As I followed her down a corridor, I spied a man with the silhouette of a linebacker disappearing into a back room. I wondered what relation he had to the detective. Was he her husband? Lover? Friend? Employee?

"That's Gilbert," Aubrey Merritt said over her shoulder. She gave no further explanation, and I didn't ask for one. I was too unnerved by the ridiculous thought that she must have eyes in the back of her head.

We entered a large sunny room that I took to be her office. Crammed bookcases lined three walls. A faded Persian rug covered a portion of scuffed mahogany floor. Two old leather chairs were set on either side of a deep-cushioned couch of dark green velvet, and a single window, high and wide and gracefully bowed, looked over a garden ringed by a tall brick wall. Soaking up the cool late-April sunshine falling through this lovely window was a round oak table showcasing a collection of odd, eye-catching items: city maps, brass statuettes, an ancient South American mask, and other things.

But what really drew my attention was a wooden easel angled so that it caught the window's light. A low table next to it was home to charcoal pencils and dirty rags, and the floor surrounding it was covered with rudimentary charcoal sketches, some of them mere lines and shadings, pieces that appeared to have been ripped from the easel in dissatisfaction.

I couldn't help being drawn to one of these sketches, of a quaint ivy-covered cottage with a lush front garden in which a shadow in the shape of a man worked. Was it an actual place, I wondered, or only a fantasy? I hadn't studied it for more than a few moments when I heard a sharp cough. I looked up to find the detective waiting for me. She was seated behind a Louis XV-style writing desk with intricate inlaid wood and gold filigreed edges. The desktop was clear but for an iPad and a fluted vase filled with black-spotted tiger lilies.

Honestly, the room and everything in it had almost overwhelmed me. I could have spent an hour there by myself contentedly, simply reading the spines of the books, running my fingers along the well-aged leather of the desktop, and turning all the fascinating artifacts over in my hands. I'd grown up in a small house on a busy street in Queens. At night I'd fallen asleep to the tuneless music of nonstop traffic and the rumble of jets flying into and out of LaGuardia. It was just my dad and me in the house. He was a handyman/carpenter (no job too small), and in the entire seventeen years I'd lived with him before I went off to Queens College the decor had never once changed. Our idea of a luxury vacation was a long weekend every August in a motel on the Jersey Shore.

As Aubrey Merritt tapped her fingers on her desk impatiently, I weaved a path through the cast-off drawings and lowered myself into the armchair in front of the desk.

She picked up the iPad and settled stylish black reading glasses halfway down her nose.

"Let's see. . . . You are . . . ah, is it Laura Portman?" Her voice was low and a little rough, her cadence unhurried.

"Blunt," I supplied. "Olivia Blunt."

Frowning, she swiped an index finger, slightly bent with age, across the screen, then another and another. I imagined the job applications of dozens of more qualified applicants flying past under her fingertips.

"Oh, I see what happened. I was on the wrong day. Let's see. . . . Yes, there you are. Olivia Blunt."

A long moment of silence followed. I wondered if I should fill it with something. Gushing admiration would just embarrass us both, but I needed to let her know that I deeply and sincerely respected her, that I had never wanted anything as much as I wanted this job.

"How did you hear of this opening?" she finally asked.

"PI Today," I replied promptly.

"Good. You follow industry news. How long have you been a subscriber?"

A subscriber? I swallowed awkwardly. I would have given anything to be able to say that I devoured PI Today every month, and that I'd worked brilliantly in the field of private investigation for at least two years and had impeccable references. That, additionally, on a basic-skills level, I could answer phones with chronic pleasantness, keep schedules up-to-date and nonconflicting, and balance books so that they always came out ahead. But it seemed unwise to lie to a seasoned detective. Some subtle tell would probably give me away. Plus, she had my résumé.

I wobbled a rueful smile and said, "I'm not a subscriber. I've actually never read the magazine at all." For god's sake, Olivia, you didn't have to be that honest!

Her eyebrows were silver like her hair. Delicate and sparse, they blended into her milky skin. Nevertheless, I saw them rise. "No? How's that?"

"I have you on a Google search. Several, actually." Hearing how creepy that sounded, I reddened once more. But the words were out and there was no way to reverse the path I was on, so I forged ahead. "I know how you found the Native American teenager in Idaho who was missing for over two years, and how you identified the killer of that famous Instagram influencer whose body washed up on a Florida beach. I know you were down in Mississippi for a couple of weeks in February, solving the very public and scandalous murder of a state prosecutor. But somehow you always manage to keep your processes dark, despite the swirl of media attention that increasingly surrounds you, so I haven't been able to figure out how you do any of it. Basically, Ms. Merritt, whatever can be known about you from available sources, I know it. I even looked you up in your high school yearbook and found out that you played Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream. And shooting guard on the girls' basketball team." In genuine disappointment, I continued. "I was honestly surprised to learn that you didn't graduate at the top of your class."

Aubrey Merritt removed her reading glasses and set them carefully on her desk, then stared at me without expression. I squirmed internally. Had I really just scolded the famous detective? How epically stupid of me!

I finished weakly. "And you sang in the children's choir at St. Anne's Episcopal Church."

She waited, and when I said nothing more, she asked, "Is that all?"

"Well, no. But you get my point."

"I do indeed. Tell me, Ms. Blunt, how long have you been keeping such a close watch on me?"

"About four months. You see, I work as a fact-checker for an online news bureau-you probably know that from my résumé-and in about mid-December, I think it was, our publication ran a profile on you, and it was my job to check the basic facts. That was the first time I'd ever heard about you, and I was fascinated, of course, as anyone would be. I've always been fascinated by detectives, ever since I was a kid. I've read mysteries all my life." Hearing how naive that sounded, I hurried to qualify the statement. "Of course, I do realize that detective novels and real-life investigations have absolutely nothing in common, but still, it must be so interesting to solve mysteries-especially unsolvable ones, which you do all the time, apparently-without the heavy reliance on forensics that characterizes modern detective work. You use mostly logic, observation, and psychology-skills available to us all, as you've pointed out many times at the various conferences you've spoken at."

"How do you know that? Only licensed PIs are allowed to attend those conferences." She seemed suspicious, as if I must have done something illicit.

I explained patiently. "The best bits of the proceedings are often televised and put up on YouTube afterward. I've seen all your talks. Congratulations, by the way, on the lifetime achievement award from NALPI, the National Association of Licensed Private Investigators."

A light flickered in Aubrey Merritt's dark blue eyes, and a corner of her mouth twitched slightly. "Tell me, Ms. Blunt-do you own a double-breasted winter coat and a red beret?"

I nodded in dread and astonishment. It was actually a bucket hat, but I wasn't going to correct her.

"You were the young woman outside my window last December. December eighteenth, as I recall."

"Y-es," I stammered. "That was me. I didn't mean to bother you. I just-" I sighed. There was no excuse. But I kept going anyway, needing to smooth over the awkwardness. "You see, I'd just read that profile I told you about, and I knew you lived here, on the first floor-"

"How? My address isn't public."

"It wasn't hard to find. I mean, for a fact-checker." I wobbled a sheepish smile. "And when it turned out we're so close-I'm just a few blocks south of here, on Fourteenth-I thought I'd just stroll by and maybe catch a glimpse of you. I had no intention of loitering in front of your building the way I did, but it was night and your curtains were open, so I suppose I did peer a bit-"

"You were spying on me. Very badly, I might add. May I give you some advice?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Unless you want to be seen, and recognized by your mark months later, I don't recommend positioning yourself under a streetlamp directly in front of their window. At the very least, across the street would have been better. Or inside a parked car."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-"

"What did I say about apologies? And don't attempt to disavow your actions either. Spying is exactly what you meant to do, and what in fact you have done. Both in person and online."

"You're right," I admitted. My voice sounded flat and mechanical. I might as well leave now, I thought. This interview has failed.

"Good. Now that we have that settled, why don't you tell me exactly what fact-checking entails? From your red eyes and slumped shoulders, I assume it involves staring at a computer screen in dim light for hours every day."