Three Complete Novels: A Is for Alibi / B Is for Burglar / C Is for Corpse

by Sue Grafton

  I was home minutes later, safely tucked away for the night. 5:56 on a Friday evening and I had no plans. I made an olive-and-pimento-cheese sandwich on whole-wheat bread, which I cut into quarters. I poured myself a glass of wine and settled on the couch where I took up the Jane Doe file and started back at page one. Sometimes you work because there’s nothing else to do.

  8

  At 1:35 that morning, I was awakened from a sound sleep: Dolan on the phone, calling from the ER at St. Terry’s.

  “Stacey’s back got worse after I dropped him off. He called me at midnight and asked me to bring him in. They took one look at him and rounded up the doc on call. I’m waiting to hear what the fellow has to say.”

  “You want me to come over?”

  “Hang on a second.” He put a hand over the mouthpiece and conducted a muffled conversation with someone else, then returned to the line. “I’ll call you back in a bit. Soon as I find out what’s going on.”

  I replaced the handset, now wide awake. If Dolan intended to phone again, there was really no point in going back to sleep. I flipped on the light and fumbled for my running shoes. Given my new efficiency measures, I was fully suited up in sweats and crew socks. I needed only brush my teeth and run wet hands through my mop and I was ready to go.

  I parked on a side street across from the hospital emergency entrance. I love the town at that hour. Traffic is sparse, the streets are empty, most businesses are shut down. The temperature had dropped into the forties and the lights in the emergency room looked inviting. Apparently, the usual weekend traumafest hadn’t gotten under way as yet, because the front desk was deserted and all was quiet. I found Dolan reading a magazine in the reception area. He rose when he saw me.

  Without even thinking, I gave his cheek a buss. “How’s he doing?”

  “They’re in the process of admitting him. I could have saved you a trip. I tried calling you back, but I guess you’d already left by then.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I was up anyway. What now? Will they let you see him again?”

  “They gave him something for the pain and he’s out of it. He probably won’t know the difference, but I’ll feel better if I do. After that, I thought I’d make a run over to his place and pick up some of his things. Toothbrush and comb, stuff like that.”

  “Why don’t I find us a cup of coffee? There’s bound to be a vending machine on the premises somewhere.”

  We sat together for half an hour, sipping treacherous-smelling lukewarm coffee from thick paper cups with handles like flat-folded butterfly wings. He said, “What were you doing home? I was all set to leave a message. I figured you’d be out on a date.”

  “People don’t date anymore; at least I don’t,” I said.

  “Why not? What’s wrong with it? How else are you going to meet someone?”

  “I don’t want to meet anyone. I’m fine, thanks so much. What about you? You’re single. Are you dating these days?”

  “I’m too old.”

  “Me, too,” I said, peering over at him. “How long ago did your wife die?”

  “Ten months today.” He was silent for a moment. “I’ll tell you what’s been hard. She bugged me for years to go on a cruise. I hated the whole idea. Tahiti. Alaska. She’d bring me color brochures full of these pictures of happy couples, all of ’em thirty years old, standing on the deck, holding champagne flutes. Sunset. Romance. Inside’d be a picture of this mountain of food you could stuff yourself with twenty-four hours a day. Just the sight of it’s enough to make your ulcers perforate. I hate being cooped up, and I was worried I’d be stranded with a bunch of fools. Does that sound unreasonable?”

  “You think it was a cruise she wanted or just a trip someplace?”

  Dolan turned and gave me a look. “I never thought to ask.”

  I got back to my place at 2:45 A.M. and then slept restlessly until 10:00. The Santa Teresa County Jail is housed in a 25,000-square-foot building, two-stories, 120 beds, designed to be staffed by only two corrections officers, one of whom monitors the state-of-the-art security panel with its bank of television screens.

  Still feeling half-dead from lack of sleep, I pulled the VW into one of the slots out front and went through the main entrance doors, where I picked up a copy of the visitation request form. I filled in my name and gave it to the clerk at the counter, then hung out in the lobby area while the word went down to Pudgie that he had a visitor. I could picture his puzzlement, as I was reasonably certain he’d never heard of me. Curiosity (or boredom) must have gotten the better of him because the clerk returned and said he’d agreed to see me. She gave me the booth number where I could meet him.

  Ten of us entered the elevator: two lone women and three mothers with assorted small kids. I pressed DOWN, wondering if I looked like the sort of person who’d have a boyfriend in jail. The elevator descended by inches while we all secretly worried about getting stuck. Once the doors opened on the floor below, we spilled into a room that was probably twenty feet by twenty. Molded beige and gray plastic armchairs, chunky and square, were arranged in a double row down the middle of the room, with additional seats around the perimeter. The floor was a glossy beige vinyl tile. The walls were cinder block, painted a matte two-tone beige. A posted sign read KEEP FEET OFF WALL, though there was nothing to suggest how one might accomplish violating such a…well, feat. In the visitors room, eight stationary stools, with a handset at each place, were lined up on either side of a large glass-enclosed aisle. I sat down and placed my shoulder bag at my feet. I rested my elbows on the counter, feeling as if I were seated at the lunch counter of an old five-and-dime.

  I knew from the police report that Pudgie was born Cedric Costello Clifton in 1950, the same year I was. He had a birthday coming up, June 7, so I’d aced him by a month and two days. The door opened on the jail side and a few inmates straggled in on the other side of the glass, hands linked behind their backs, a requirement any time they were moved from place to place. Pudgie appeared and took a seat on a stool that was a match for mine. His face was moon-shaped, and he wore glasses with big round frames perched on a surprisingly dainty nose. His facial hair was disorganized—rough mustache and a beard that ran from patchy to thick as it drifted across his cheeks. There were miscellaneous whiskers scattered almost to his eyes. His dark hair looked jangled, a texture that on a woman would be attributed to a bad home permanent. He wore the usual jail garb: a white T-shirt, blue cotton elastic-waisted pants, and rubber shoes. I’ve seen similar outfits on surgical residents in the corridors of St. Terry’s. He was bulky through the shoulders, his chest and biceps bulging from years of pumping iron. The hair on his left forearm only partially masked an entire gallery of elaborate tattoos: a spiderweb, a skull wearing a sombrero, and a graphically portrayed sex act. There was also a big-breasted woman with flowing black tresses whose torso was laid out between his elbow and wrist. His right arm seemed to be bare of art. He studied me for a long time. Through sheer effort, I held his gaze without breaking eye contact. Finally, he lifted the handset on his side of the glass and said, “Hey, how you doin’?”

  I held the handset loosely against my ear. “I’m good, Mr. Clifton. How about yourself?”

  “I’m doing okay. I know you?”

  “My name’s Kinsey Millhone. I’m a private investigator. I appreciate your seeing me.”

  “Why don’t you skip the ‘mister’ shit and tell me what you want.” Behind the round lenses of his glasses, his eyes were a mild hazel under ill-kempt brows.

  “I was wondering if you’d answer a few questions.”

  A slight smile appeared. “About what?”

  “Something that happened in 1969.”

  “Why ask me?”

  “This isn’t about you. It’s about someone else.”

  “Goody. And who’s that?”

  “You remember being arrested in Lompoc in August of ’69?”

  “Yeah.” He replied with all the caution of someone who’s not quite sure wha
t he’s agreeing to.

  “You gave the officer a home address in Creosote, California. Can you tell me where that is? I never heard of it.” I’d looked it up on the map, but in the manner of a polygraph, I thought I’d start with baseline questions, whose truth value was easily verified.

  “Little town out near Blythe. Two miles this side of the Arizona line.”

  “How’d you end up in Lompoc?”

  “I was traveling to San Francisco. I had a buddy who’d just come back from six months living on the streets up there. He told me you could buy dope right out on Haight. ’Ludes, grass and hash, peyote, acid. Free sex and free clinics to treat crabs and the clap if you picked up a dose. Sounded like a good deal to me. Still does, come to think of it. Anymore, you lay a hand on a chick, she blows the whistle on you.”

  I glanced at the sheet of paper I’d taken from my bag, though I knew what it said. “According to this, you were picked up for vagrancy and possession of an illegal substance.”

  He loosened up at that, face creasing into a smile. Apparently, he’d made an entire career out of substance abuse and denial. “What a crock of shit that was. I’m standing on the side of the road, thumbing a ride, when this cop car comes by. Couple rednecks in uniform. Fuckin’ pigs. These two pull over and pat me down. Turns out I had some pot on me. One fuckin’ joint. And for this I’m locked up. I should’ve sued for harassment and false arrest.”

  “You’d hitchhiked?”

  “I’se nineteen years old. You don’t have a car, that’s what you do.”

  “We’re interested in anyone who might have seen a young girl hitchhiking in the area. Seventeen, eighteen years old. Dyed blond hair, blue eyes. She was probably five foot three, a hundred twenty-five pounds.”

  “That’s half the girls I knew. All of ’em looked like that except the ones porked up on grass. Ever notice that? Girls’d smoke too much dope and munch themselves up to twice their normal weight. Either that or all the fat ones were on the street in those days, hoping to get laid. Who else would have ’em?”

  “That’s a wholesome attitude.”

  Pudgie laughed at that, genuinely amused while I was not.

  I said, “Can we get back to the subject?”

  “Which is what now? I forget.”

  “The girl I described.”

  “Sure. What’d she do?”

  “She didn’t do anything. Her body was found dumped off the side of the road.”

  His attitude shifted slightly. “Sorry to hear that. You never said she was dead or I wouldn’t have smarted off.”

  “The point is, she had no ID and her body was never claimed. We’d like to find out who she is.”

  “Yeah, but 1969? Why worry about it now after all these years?”

  “It’s someone’s pet project. Couple of guys I work with. What about you? What happened when you got out of jail?”

  “I had to call my old man to come pick me up. He was royally pissed. Soon as we got home, the shit-head threw me out; flung my clothes in the yard and broke my dinner plate on the porch. Fucking drama queen. Had to make a big scene, make sure all the neighbors knew he’d busted my ass.”

  “At least he was willing to drive all the way from Creosote.”

  “Yeah, but not before I’d spent the worst three days of my life in a cell with a bunch of freaks,” he said and shrugged. “Worst until then. I’ve seen a lot worse since.”

  “You remember Lorenzo Rickman or Frankie Miracle?”

  He snorted. “Lorenzo? What kind of name is that? What’s the guy, some kind of fruit?”

  “You shared a cell with those two and a guy named John Luchek. You remember him?”

  “Not especially. I guess. Any reason I should?”

  “What about Rickman?”

  “Is this about him? Mean, it’d be nice if I knew what you were going for.”

  “We’ll get to that. Did the two of you talk?”

  “Jail’s a bore. You talk just to keep from going out of your gourd. Food stinks, too, until you get used to it. Here, it’s not bad; you know, heavy on the starch. Macaroni and cheese tastes like library paste. You ever eat that stuff?”

  I wasn’t sure whether he was referring to the jail cuisine or library paste. I’d dined on both, but I didn’t think that was any of his business. I wasn’t here to compare exotic foods. “What about Frankie? You have a conversation with him?”

  “Must have. Why not? I’m a friendly little fuck. Course, I probably wouldn’t recognize those guys now if I saw ’em on the street.”

  “Would it help if you saw pictures?”

  “Might.”

  I shifted the handset from my right ear to my left, tucking it between my cheek and shoulder so I could free my hands. I removed assorted mug shots from the file folder and placed them by twos against the glass in front of him. There were twelve in all; names, aliases, and personal data, wants and warrants carefully blocked out. Pudgie subjected the black-and-white photos to the same careful scrutiny he’d lavished on me. He pointed to Frankie. “That one? That’s Frankie. I remember him. Coked up and jumpy. He talked up a storm until the high wore off.”

  “What about the others?”

  “Maybe him. I’m not sure.” He pointed to Lorenzo Rickman, his memory better than he realized.

  “Anyone else?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “Did Frankie talk about his arrest?”

  “What, you mean the chick he whacked? I guess he cut her up bad and then he fucked it up big time.”

  “Like what?”

  “Stole her car, for one thing. What’s he think? The cops aren’t going to put out a fuckin’ APB? Then he takes her credit card and uses that to pay for his entire escape. He left a paper trail a mile wide. Guy’s dumb as he is mean. You kill a girl, you ought to have more sense.” He stopped and stared. “I bet you know all this stuff, right? What’s the story, is he out?”

  “You’re full of questions.”

  “How can I help if you won’t say what you’re after?”

  “Did he indicate how long he’d been in Lompoc before his arrest?”

  Pudgie smiled. “I don’t get your fascination with a little puke like him.”

  “I’m not fascinated with anything, except the truth.”

  “Hey, come on. Tell me the game and I can play for keeps.”

  I broke off eye contact. “Well, thanks for your time. Actually, I think that’s it.” I pinned the handset against my ear again while I gathered the mug shots and tucked them in the folder.

  “Wait! Don’t go. We’re not done yet. Are we done?”

  I paused. “Oh, sorry. I was under the impression you’d told me everything you knew. I didn’t want to waste your time.”

  “It’s like this: I might remember more if we could sit and chat awhile. You know, small talk and like that. Ask another question. Maybe it’ll stimulate my brain.”

  I smiled at him blandly, getting to my feet. “Why don’t you get in touch if you think of anything useful?”

  “About what exactly? At least put me in the ballpark here.”

  “I’m not going to feed you lines. If you don’t know anything, that’s fine. We’ll let it go at that.”

  “Naw, now don’t get mad. How’s this? I’ll think real hard. Meanwhile, you come back later and bring a carton of smokes.”

  “I’m not buying you cigarettes. Why would I do that?”

  “It’s the least you can do, compensation for my time.”

  I glanced at my watch. “Four minutes’ worth.”

  “Smoking helps me think.”

  I adjusted my shoulder bag, the handset still at my ear. “Bye now.”

  He said, “Okay. Skip the carton. Three packs. Any kind except menthol. I really hate those things.”

  “Buy your own,” I snapped.

  “I’m out tomorrow. I can pay you back.”

  “Quit while you can. That’s my advice.”

  “What’s your name again?”r />
  “Millhone. I’m in the book. If you can read.” I returned the handset to the cradle.

  “I love you,” he mouthed.

  “Yeah, right. I love you too.”

  He winked and wiggled his tongue, a gesture I pretended not to see.

  On my way home from the jail, I stopped at the supermarket to pick up items for Henry’s return. Traffic permitting, he was due back in town sometime between five and six. He’d left his car in long-term parking at the Los Angeles airport. I’d offered to take them down, but Henry, ever independent, had preferred driving himself. He and Rosie and William had flown to Miami, where they were joined by their older sister, Nell, age ninety-seven, and brothers Lewis and Charles, ages ninety-five and ninety, respectively. This morning, after two weeks in the Caribbean, they’d dock in Miami and three of them would catch a plane to L.A. while the three older siblings returned to Michigan.

  I loaded my shopping cart with milk, bread, bacon, eggs, orange juice, bananas, onions, carrots, a four-pound roasting chicken, new potatoes, and fresh asparagus, along with salad mix and a fifth of Jack Daniel’s, Henry’s beverage of choice. Briefly I considered fixing dinner for him myself, but my repertoire is limited and I didn’t think pouring skim milk over cold cereal was that festive. Shopping done, I stopped at a corner kiosk a block from the market and bought a bouquet of zinnias and dahlias, a mass of orange and yellow with a ribbon tied around the stems. I could feel my energy lifting the closer I got to home, and by the time I unloaded groceries in Henry’s kitchen and put away the perishables, I was humming to myself. I arranged the flowers in a silver coffee server and set them in the middle of the kitchen table.

  I did a quick circuit of the house. His answering machine was blinking, but I figured he could pick up any messages as soon as he came in. I went into his cleaning closet and hauled out the vacuum cleaner, a dust mop, a sponge mop, and some rags. I made a second circuit of the house, dusting and vacuuming. All I needed were the singing mice to keep me company. After that, I scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom sinks and ran the sponge mop across the kitchen floor until it gleamed. Then I went home and took a serious world-class nap.