D is for DEADBEAT

by Sue Grafton

  “This is amazing,” I said.

  “Two cars. Maybe a cleaning woman once a week. I never went to college. I never had a daddy giving me all the advantages.”

  “Well, that explains it then,” I said. “I did meet your mom, you know. She looks like someone who’s worked hard all her life. Too bad you don’t appreciate the effort she made in your behalf.”

  “What effort? She works in a supermarket checkout line,” Coral said.

  “Oh, I see. You think she should do something classy like you.”

  “I’m sure not going to do this for life, if that’s what you think.”

  “What happened to your father? Where was he in all this?”

  “Who knows? He bugged out a long time ago.”

  “Leaving her with kids to raise by herself?”

  “Skip it. I don’t even know why I brought it up. Maybe you should get to the point and let me get back to work.”

  “Tell me about Doug.”

  “None of your business.” She slid out of the booth. “Time’s up,” she said, and walked away. God, and here I was being friendly.

  I picked up the shoes and skirt and dropped a couple of bucks on the table. I moved to the entranceway, pausing in the shelter of the doorway before I stepped out into the rain. It was 10:17 and there was no traffic on Milagro. The street was shiny black and the rain, as it struck the pavement, made a noise like bacon sizzling in a pan. A mist drifted up from the manhole covers that dotted the block, and the gutters gushed in a widening stream where water boiled back out of the storm drains.

  I was restless, not ready to pack it in for the night. I thought about stopping by Rosie’s, but it would probably look just like the Hub – smoky, drab, depressing. At least the air outside, though chilly, had the sweet, flowery scent of wet concrete. I started the car and did a U-turn, heading toward the beach, my windshield stippled with rain.

  At Cabana, I turned right, driving along the boulevard. On my left, even without a moon visible, the surf churned with a dull gray glow, folding back on itself with a thundering monotony. Out in the ocean, I could see the lights on the oil derricks winking through the mist. I’d pulled up at a stoplight when I heard a car horn toot behind me. I checked my rearview mirror. A little red Honda was pulling over into the lane to my right. It was Jonah, apparently heading home just as I was. He made a cranking motion. I leaned over and rolled the window down on the passenger side.

  “Can I buy you a drink?”

  “Sure. Where?”

  He pointed at the Crow’s Nest to his right, a restaurant with exterior lights still burning. The light changed and he took off. I followed, pulling into the lot behind him. We parked side by side. He got out first, hunching against the rain while he opened an umbrella and came around to my door. We huddled together and puddle hopped our way to the front entrance. He held the door and I ducked inside, holding it for him then while he lowered the umbrella and gave it a quick shake.

  The interior of the Crow’s Nest was done in a halfhearted nautical theme which consisted primarily of fishing nets and rigging draped along the rafters and mariner’s charts sealed into the table tops under a half-inch of polyurethane. The restaurant section was closed, but the bar seemed to be doing all right. I could see maybe ten tables occupied. The level of conversation was low and the lighting was discreet, augmented by fat round jars where candles glowed through orange glass. Jonah steered us past a small dance floor toward a table in the corner. The place had an aura of edgy excitement. We were protected by the weather, drawn together like the random souls stranded in an airport between flights.

  The waitress appeared and Jonah glanced at me.

  “You decide,” I said.

  “Two margaritas. Cuervo Gold, Grand Marnier, shaken, no salt,” he said. She nodded and moved off.

  “Very impressive,” I said.

  “I thought you’d like that. What brings you out?”

  “Daggett, of course.” I filled him in, realizing as I summed it up that I’d had just about as much of Billy Polo and his ilk as I could take for one night.

  “Let’s don’t talk about him,” I said when I was done. “Tell me what you’re working on.”

  “Hey, no way. I’m here to relax.”

  The waitress brought our drinks and we paused briefly while she dipped neatly, knees together, and placed a cocktail napkin in front of each of us, along with our drinks. She was dressed like a boatswain except that her high-cut white pants were spandex and her buns hung out the back. I wondered how long uniforms like that would last if the night manager was required to squeeze his hairy fanny into one.

  When the waitress left, Jonah touched his glass to mine. “To rainy nights,” he said. We drank. The tequila had a little “wow” effect as it went down and I had to pat myself on the chest. Jonah smiled, enjoying my discomfiture.

  “What brings you out so late?” I asked.

  “Catching up on paperwork. Also, avoiding the house. Camilla’s sister came down from Idaho for a week. The two of them are probably drinking wine and carving me up like a roast.”

  “Her sister doesn’t like you, I take it.”

  “She thinks I’m a dud. Camilla came from money. Deirdre doesn’t think either one of them should take up with guys on salary, for God’s sake. And a cop? It’s all too bourgeois. God, I gotta watch myself here. All I do is complain about life on the home front. I’m beginning to sound like Dempsey.”

  I smiled. Lieutenant Dempsey had worked Narcotics for years, a miserably married man whose days were spent complaining about his lot. His wife had finally died and he’d turned around and married a woman just like her. He’d taken early retirement and the two of them had gone off in an RV. His postcards to the department were amusing, but left people uncomfortable, like a stand-up comic making meanspirited jokes at a spouse’s expense.

  Conversation dwindled. The background music was a tape of old Johnny Mathis tunes and the lyrics suggested an era when falling in love wasn’t complicated by herpes, fear of AIDS, multiple marriages, spousal support, feminism, the sexual revolution, the Bomb, the Pill, approval of one’s therapist, or the specter of children on alternate weekends.

  Jonah was looking good. The combination of shadow and candlelight washed the lines out of his face, and heightened the blue of his eyes. His hair looked very dark and the rain had made it look silkier. He wore a white shirt, opened at the neck, sleeves rolled up, his forearms crosshatched with dark hair. There’s usually a current running between us, generated I suppose by whatever primal urges keep the human race reproducing itself. Most of the time, the chemistry is kept in check by a bone-deep caution on my part, ambivalence about his marital status, by circumstance, by his own uneasiness, by the knowledge on both our parts that once certain lines are crossed, there’s no going back and no way to predict the consequences.

  We ordered a second round of drinks, and then a third. We slow danced, not saying a word. Jonah smelled of soap and his jaw line was smooth and sometimes he hummed with a rumbling I hadn’t heard since I sat on my father’s lap as a very young child, listening to him read to me before I knew what words meant. I thought about Billy Polo lowering Lovella to the trailer floor. The image was haunting because it spoke so eloquently of his need. I was always such a stoic, so careful not to make mistakes. Sometimes I wonder what the difference is between being cautious and being dead. I thought about rain and how nice it is to sink down on clean sheets. I pulled my head back and Jonah looked down at me quizzically.

  “This is all Billy Polo’s fault,” I said.

  He smiled. “What is?”

  I studied him for a moment. “What would Camilla do if you didn’t come home tonight?”

  His smile faded and his eyes got that look. “She’s the one who’s talking about an open relationship,” he said.

  I laughed. “I’ll bet that applies to her, not you.”

  “Not anymore,” he said.

  His kiss seemed familiar.

&nbs
p; We left soon afterward.

  Chapter 21

  *

  I drove to the office at 9:00. The rain clouds were hunched above the mountains moving north, while above, the sky was the blue white of bleached denim. The city seemed to be in sharp focus, as if seen through new prescription lenses. I opened the French doors and stood on the balcony, raising my arms and doing one of those little butt wiggles so favored by the football set. That for you, Camilla Robb, I thought, and then I laughed and went and had a look at myself in the mirror, mugging shamelessly. Amazing Grace. I looked just like myself. Where tears erase the self, good sex transforms and I was feeling energized.

  I put the coffee on and got to work, typing up my case notes, detailing the conversations I’d had with Billy and Coral. Cops and private eyes are always caught up in paperwork. Written records have to be kept of everything, with events set out so that anyone who comes along afterward will have a clear and comprehensive resume of the investigation to that point. Since a private eye also bills for services, I have to keep track of my hours and expenses, submitting statements periodically so I can make sure I get paid. I prefer fieldwork; I suspect we all do. If I’d wanted to spend my days in an office, I’d have studied to be an underwriter for the insurance company next door. Their work seems boring 80 percent of the time while mine only bores me about one hour out of every ten.

  At 9:30, I touched base with Barbara Daggett by phone, giving her a verbal update to match the written account I was putting in the mail to her. The duplication of effort wasn’t really necessary, but I did it anyway. What the hell, it was her money. She was entitled to the best service she could get. After that, I did some filing, then locked up again, taking the green skirt and heels with me down the back stairs to my car, heading out to Marilyn Smith’s. I was beginning to feel like the prince in search of Cinderella, shoe in hand.

  I took the highway north, driving in the newly washed air. Colgate is only a fifteen-minute drive, but it gave me a chance to think about events of the night before. Jonah had turned out to be a clown in bed… funny and inventive. We’d behaved like bad kids, eating snacks, telling ghost stories, returning now and then to a lovemaking which was, at the same time, intense and comfortable. I wondered if I’d known him in another life. I wondered if I’d know him again. He was so generous and affectionate, so amazed at being with someone who didn’t criticize or withhold, who didn’t withdraw from his touch as though from a slug’s. I couldn’t imagine where we’d go from here and I didn’t want to start worrying. I’m capable of screwing things up by trying to solve all the problems in advance instead of simply taking care of issues as they surface.

  I missed my off-ramp, of course. I caught sight of it as I sped by, cursing good-naturedly as I took the next exit and circled back.

  By the time I reached Wayne and Marilyn Smith’s house, it was nearly 10:00. The bicycles that had been parked on the porch were gone. The orange trees, though nearly leafless with age, still carried the aura of ripe fruit, a faint perfume spilling out of the surrounding groves. I parked my car in the gravel drive behind a compact station wagon I assumed belonged to her. A peek into the rear, as I passed, revealed a gummy detritus of fast-food containers, softball equipment, school papers, and dog hair.

  I cranked the bell. The entrance hall was deserted, but a golden retriever bounded toward the front door, toenails ticking against the bare floors as it skittered to a stop, barking joyfully. The dog’s entire body waggled like a fish on a hook.

  “Can I help you?”

  Startled, I glanced to my right. Marilyn Smith was standing at the bottom of the porch steps in a tee shirt, drenched jeans, and a straw hat. She wore goatskin gardening gloves and bright yellow plastic clogs that were spattered with mud. When she realized it was me, her expression changed from pleasant inquiry to a barely disguised distaste.

  “I’m working in the garden,” she said, as if I hadn’t guessed. “If you want to talk you’ll have to come out there.”

  I followed her across the rain-saturated lawn. She tapped a muddy trowel against her thigh, distractedly.

  “I saw you at the funeral,” I remarked.

  “Wayne insisted,” she said tersely, then looked over her shoulder at me. “Who was the drunk woman? I liked her.”

  “Lovella Daggett. She thought she was married to him, but it turned out the warranty hadn’t run out on his first wife.”

  When we reached the vegetable patch, she waded between two dripping rows of vines. The garden was in its winter phase – broccoli, cauliflower, dark squashes tucked into a spray of wide leaves. She’d been weeding. I could see the trampled-looking spikes scattered here and there. Farther down the row, there was evidence that the earth had been turned, heavy clods piled up near a shallow excavation site.

  “Too wet for weeding, isn’t it?”

  “The soil here has a high clay content. Once it dries out, it’s impossible,” she said.

  She shucked the gardening gloves and began to tear widths from an old pillow case, tying back the masses of sweet pea plants that had drooped in the rain. The strips of white rag contrasted brightly with the lime green of the plants. I held up the skirt and shoes I’d brought.

  “Recognize these?”

  She scarcely looked at the articles, but the chilly smile appeared. “Is that what the killer wore?”

  “Could be.”

  “You’ve made progress since I saw you last. Three days ago, you weren’t even certain it was murder.”

  “That’s how I earn my pay,” I said.

  “Maybe Lovella killed him when she found out he was a bigamist.”

  “Always possible,” I said, “though you still haven’t said for sure where you were that night.”

  “Oh, but I did. I was here. Wayne was at the office and neither of us has corroborating witnesses.” She was using that bantering tone again, mild and mocking.

  “I’d like to talk to him.”

  “Make an appointment. He’s in the book. Go down to the office. The Granger Building on State.”

  “Marilyn, I’m not your enemy.”

  “You are if I killed him,” she replied.

  “Ah, yes. In that case, I would be.”

  She tore off another strip of pillow case, the width of cotton dangling from her hand like something limp with death. “Sounds like you have suspects. Too bad you’re short on proof.”

  “But I do have someone who saw her and that should help, don’t you think? This is just preliminary work, narrowing the field,” I said. It was bullshit, of course. I wasn’t sure the motel clerk could identify anybody in the dark.

  Her smile dimmed by a watt. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore,” she whispered.

  I raised my hands, as if she’d pulled a gun. “I’m gone,” I said, “but I have to warn you, I’m persistent. You’ll find it unsettling, I suspect.”

  I kept my eyes on her as I moved away. I’d seen the muddy hoe she was using and I thought it best not to turn my back.

  I cruised by the Westfalls on my way into town. I was going to have to show the skirt to Barbara Daggett at some point, but the Close was on my way. The low fieldstone wall surrounding the place was still a dark gray from the passing rain. I drove through the gates and parked along the road as I had before, pulling over into dense ivy. By day, the eight Victorian houses were enveloped in shade, sunlight scarcely penetrating the branches of the trees. I locked the car and picked my way up the path to the front steps. In the yard, the trunks of the live oak were frosted with a fungus as green as the oxidized copper on a roof. Tall palms punctuated the corners of the house. The air felt cool and moist in the wake of the storm.

  The front door was ajar. The view from the hallway was a straight shot through to the kitchen and I could see that the back door was open too, the screen door unlatched. A portable radio sat on the counter and music blasted out, the 1812 Overture. I rang the bell, but the sound was lost against the booming of cannons as the last movement rose to
a thunder pitch.

  I left the front porch and walked around to the back, peering in. Like the rest of the house, the kitchen had been redone, the owners opting here to modernize, though the Victorian character had been retained. There was a small floral print paper on the walls, lots of wicker, oak, and fern. The cabinet doors had been replaced with leaded glass, but the appliances were all strictly up-to-date.

  There was no one in the room. A door on the left was open, the oblong of shadow suggesting that the basement stairs must be located just beyond. Two brown grocery bags sat on the kitchen table and it looked like someone had been interrupted in the course of unloading them. There was an electric percolator plugged into the outlet on the stove. While I was watching, the ready-light went on. Belatedly, I picked up the smell of hot coffee.

  The music ended and the FM announcer made his concluding remarks about the piece, then introduced a Brahms concerto in E minor. I knocked on the frame of the screen door, hoping someone would hear me before the music started up again. Ramona appeared from the depths of the basement. She was wearing a six-gore wool skirt in a muted gray plaid, with a line of dark maroon running through it. Her pullover sweater was dark maroon, with a white blouse under it, the collar pinned sedately at the throat by an antique brooch. For effect, I decided not to mention the heels and wool skirt I’d brought.

  “Tony?” she said. “Oh, it’s you.”

  She had an armload of ragged blue bath towels which she dumped on a chair. “I thought I heard someone knock. I couldn’t see who it was through the screen.” She turned the radio off as she passed and then she opened the screen door to admit me.

  “Tony’s bringing groceries in from the garage. We just got back from the market. Have a seat. Would you like a cup of coffee? The pot’s fresh.”

  “Yes, please. That’s nice.” I moved the pile of rags out of the chair and sat down, putting the skirt and shoes on the table in front of me. I saw her eyes stray to them, but she made no comment.

  “Isn’t this a school day for him?” I asked.