D is for DEADBEAT

by Sue Grafton

  “They’re giving the sophomores some sort of academic placement tests. He finished early so they let him go. He’s got an appointment with his therapist shortly anyway.”

  I watched her move about the kitchen, fetching cups and saucers. She had one of those hairstyles that settle into perfect shape with a flick of the head. I butcher my own at six-week intervals with a pair of nail scissors and a two-way mirror, causing salon stylists to pale when they see me. “Who did that to you?” they always ask. I wanted perfect waves like hers, but I didn’t think I could achieve the effect.

  Ramona poured two cups of coffee. “There’s something I probably should have mentioned before,” she said. She took a ceramic pitcher from the cupboard and filled it with milk, realizing then that I was waiting for her to continue. Her smile was thin. “John Daggett called here Monday night, asking to talk to Tony. I took his number, but Ferrin and I decided it wasn’t a good idea. It might not matter much at this point, but I thought you should be aware.”

  “What made you think of it?”

  She hesitated. “I came across the number on the pad by the phone. I’d forgotten all about it.”

  I could feel a tingle at the back of my neck – that clammy feeling you get when your body overloads on sugar. Something was off here, but I wasn’t sure what it was.

  “Why bring it up now?” I asked.

  “I thought you were tracking his activities early in the week.”

  “I wasn’t aware that I’d told you that.”

  Her cheeks tinted. “Marilyn Smith called me. She mentioned it.”

  “How’d Daggett know where to reach you? When I talked to him on Saturday, he had no idea where Tony was and he certainly didn’t have your name or number.”

  “I don’t know how he got it,” she said. “What difference does it make?”

  “How do I know you didn’t make a date to meet him Friday night?”

  “Why would I do that?” she said.

  I stared at her. A millisecond later she realized what I was getting at.

  “But I was here Friday night.”

  “I haven’t heard that verified so far.”

  “That’s ridiculous! Ask Tony. He knows I was here. You can check it out yourself.”

  “I intend to,” I said.

  Tony thumped up the wooden porch steps, armed with two more grocery bags, his attention diverted as he groped for the screen door handle, missing twice. “Aunt Ramona, can you give me a hand with this?”

  She crossed to the door and held it open. Tony spotted me and the green skirt at just about the same time and I saw his gaze jump to his aunt’s face quizzically. Her expression was neutral, but she busied herself right away, pushing canned goods aside so he could set one bag on the table top. The second bag she took herself and placed on the counter. She sorted through and lifted out a carton of ice cream. “I better get this put away,” she murmured. She crossed to the freezer.

  “What are you doing here?” Tony said to me.

  “I was curious how you were feeling. Your aunt mentioned that you had a migraine Monday night.”

  “I feel okay.”

  “What’d you think about the funeral?”

  “Bunch of freaks,” he said.

  “Let’s get these unloaded, dear,” his aunt said. The two of them began to put groceries away while I sipped my coffee. I couldn’t tell if she was deliberately distracting him or not, but that was the effect.

  “You need some help?” I asked.

  “We can manage,” she murmured.

  “Who was that lady who went nuts?” Tony asked. Lovella had made a big impression on everyone.

  Ramona held up a soft drink in a big plastic bottle. “Stick this in the refrigerator while you’re there,” she said.

  She released the bottle an instant before he’d gotten a good grip on it and he had to scramble to catch it before it toppled to the floor. Had she done that deliberately? He was waiting for my reply so I gave him a brief rendition of the tale. It was gossip, in some ways, but he was as animated as I’d seen him and I hoped to keep his attention.

  “I don’t mean to interrupt, but Tony does have homework to take care of. Finish your coffee, of course,” she said. Her tone suggested that I suck it right down and scram.

  “I’m due back at the office anyway,” I said, getting up. I looked at Tony. “Could you walk me to my car?”

  He glanced at Ramona, whose gaze dropped away from his. She didn’t protest. He ducked his head in assent.

  He held the door for me while I gathered the skirt and shoes and turned back to her. “I nearly forgot. Are these yours, by any chance?”

  “I’m sure not,” she said to me, and then to him, “Don’t be long.”

  He looked like he was on the verge of saying something, but he shrugged instead. He followed me out on the porch and down the steps. I led the way as we circled the house. The path to the street was paved with stepping-stones spaced oddly, so that I had to watch my feet to gauge the distances.

  “I have a question,” I said as we reached the car.

  He was watching me warily by then, interested but on guard.

  “I was curious about the migraine you had Friday night. Do you remember how long that one lasted?”

  “Friday night?” His voice had a croak in it from surprise.

  “That’s right. Didn’t you have a migraine that night?”

  “I guess.”

  “Think back,” I said. “Take your time.” He seemed uncomfortable, casting about for some visual clue. I’d seen him do this before, reading body language so he could adjust his response to whatever was expected of him. I waited in silence, letting his anxiety accumulate.

  “I think that’s the day I got one. When I came home from school,” he said, “but then it cleared.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Real late. After midnight. Maybe two… two-thirty, something like that.”

  “How’d you happen to notice the time?”

  “Aunt Ramona made me a couple of sandwiches in the kitchen. It was a real bad headache and I’d been throwing up for hours so I never had dinner. I was starving. I must have looked at the kitchen clock.”

  “What kind of sandwiches?”

  “What?”

  “I was wondering what kind she made.”

  His gaze hung on mine. The seconds ticked away. “Meatloaf,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I said. “That helps.”

  I opened the VW on the driver’s side, tossing skirt and shoes on the passenger seat as I got in. His version was roughly the same as his aunt’s, but I could have sworn the “meatloaf” was a wild guess.

  I started the car and did a U-turn, heading toward the gates. I caught a glimpse of him in the rearview mirror, already moving toward the house.

  Chapter 22

  *

  It’s a fact of life that when a case won’t break, you have to go through the motions anyway, stirring up the waters, rattling all the cages at the zoo. To that end, on my way into town I did a long detour that included a stop at the trailer park, in hopes that Lovella would still be there. It was obvious to me, as I’m not a fool, that toting a green wool skirt and a pair of black suede heels all over town was a pointless enterprise. No one was going to claim them and if someone did, so what? The articles proved nothing. No one was going to break down sobbing and confess at the mere sight of them. The pop quiz was simply my way of putting them all on notice, making the rounds one more time to announce that I was still on the job and making progress, however insignificant it might appear.

  I knocked at the trailer door, but got no response. I jotted a note on the back of a business card, indicating that Lovella should call. I tucked it in the doorjam, went back to my car, and headed for town.

  Wayne Smith’s office was located on the seventh floor of the Granger Building in downtown Santa Teresa. Aside from the clock tower on the courthouse, the Granger is just about the only structure on State Street that�
�s more than two stories high. Part of the charm of the downtown area is its low-slung look. The flavor, for the most part, is Spanish. Even the trash containers are faced with stucco and rimmed with decorative tile. The telephone booths look like small adobe huts and if you can ignore the fact that the bums use them for urinals, the effect is quaint. There are flowering shrubs along the walk, jacaranda trees, and palms. Low ornamental stucco walls widen in places to form benches for weary shoppers. Everything is clean, well kept, pleasing to the eye.

  The Granger Building looks just like hundreds of office buildings constructed in the twenties – yellow brick, symmetrical narrow windows banded with granite friezes, topped by a steeply pitched roof with matching gables. Along the roofline, just below the cornice, there are decorative marble torches affixed to the wall with inexplicable half shells mounted underneath. The style is an anomaly in this town, falling as it does between the Spanish, the Victorian, and the pointless. Still, the building is a landmark, housing a movie theater, a jeweler’s, and seven stories of office space.

  I checked the wall directory in the marble foyer for Wayne Smith’s suite number, which turned out to be 702. Two elevators serviced the building and one was out of order, the doors standing open, the housing mechanism in plain view. It’s not a good idea to scrutinize such things. When you see how elevators actually work, you realize how improbable the whole scheme is… raising and lowering a roomful of people on a few long wires. Ridiculous.

  A fellow in coveralls stood there, mopping his face with a red bandanna.

  “How’s it going?” I asked, while I waited for the other elevator doors to open.

  He shook his head. “Always something, isn’t it? Last week it was that one wouldn’t work.”

  The doors slid open and I stepped in, pressing seven. The doors closed and nothing happened for a while. Finally, with a jolt, the elevator began its ascent, Stopping at the seventh floor. There was another interminable delay. I pressed the “DOOR OPEN” button. No dice. I tried to guess how long I could survive on just that one ratty piece of chewing gum at the bottom of my handbag. I banged the button with the flat of my hand and the doors slid open.

  The corridor was narrow and dimly illuminated, as there was only one exterior window, located at the far end of the hall. Four dark, wood-paneled doors opened off each side, with the names of the professional tenants in gold-leaf lettering that looked as if it had been there since the building went up. There was no activity that I could perceive, no sounds, no muffled telephones ringing. Wayne Smith, C.P.A., was the first door on the right. I pictured a receptionist in a small waiting area, so I simply turned the knob and walked in without knocking. There was only one large room, tawny daylight filtering in through drawn window shades. Wayne Smith was lying on the floor with his legs propped up on the seat of his swivel chair. He turned and looked at me.

  “Oh sorry! I thought there’d be a waiting room,” I said. “Are you okay?”

  “Sure. Come on in,” he said. “I was resting my back.” He removed his legs from the chair, apparently in some pain. He rolled over on his side and eased himself into an upright position, wincing as he did. “You’re Kinsey Millhone. Marilyn pointed you out at the funeral yesterday.”

  I watched him, wondering if I should lend him a hand. “What’d you do to yourself?”

  “My back went out on me. Hurts like a son of a bitch,” he said. Once he was on his feet, he dug a fist into the small of his back, twisting one shoulder slightly as if to ease a cramp. He had a runner’s body – lean, stringy muscles, narrow through the chest. He looked older than his wife, maybe late forties while I pegged her in her early thirties. His hair was light, worn in a crewcut, like something out of a 1950s high school annual. I wondered if he’d been in the military at some point. The hairstyle suggested that he was hung up in the past, his persona fixed perhaps by some significant event. His eyes were pale and his face was very lined. He moved to the windows and raised all three shades. The room became unbearably bright.

  “Have a seat,” he said.

  I had a choice between a daybed and a molded plastic chair with a bucket seat. I took the chair, doing a surreptitious visual survey while he lowered himself into his swivel chair as though into a steaming sitz bath. He had six metal bookcases that looked like they were made of Erector sets, loosely bolted and sagging slightly from the weight of all the manuals. Brown accordion file cases were stacked up everywhere, his desk top virtually invisible. Correspondence was piled on the floor near his chair, government pamphlets and tax law updates stacked on the window sill. This was not a man you’d want to depend on if you were facing an I.R.S. audit. He looked like the sort who might put you there.

  “I just talked to Marilyn. She said you came by the house. We’re puzzled by your interest in us.”

  “Barbara Daggett hired me to investigate her father’s death. I’m interested in everyone.”

  “But why talk to us? We haven’t seen the man in years.”

  “He didn’t get in touch last week?”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “He was looking for Tony Gahan. I thought he might have tried to get a line on him through you.”

  The phone rang and he reached for it, conducting a business-related conversation while I studied him. He wore chinos, just a wee bit too short, and his socks were the clinging nylon sort that probably went up to his knees. He switched to his good-bye tone, trying to close out his conversation. “Uh-huh, uh-huh. Okay, great. That’s fine. We’ll do that. I got the forms right here. Deadline is the end of the month. Swell.”

  He hung up with an exasperated shake of his head.

  “Anyway,” he said, as a way of getting back to the subject at hand.

  “Yeah, right. Anyway,” I said, “I don’t suppose you remember where you were Friday night.”

  “I was here, doing quarterly reports.”

  “And Marilyn was home with the kids?”

  He sat and stared at me, a smile flickering off and on. “Are you implying that we might have had a hand in John Daggett’s death?”

  “Someone did,” I said.

  He laughed, running a hand across his crewcut as if checking to see if he needed a trim. “Miss Millhone, you’ve got a hell of a nerve,” he said. “The newscast said it was an accident.”

  I smiled. “The cops still think so. I disagree. I think a lot of people wanted Daggett dead. You and Marilyn are among them.”

  “But we wouldn’t do a thing like that. You can’t be serious. I despised the man, no doubt about that, but we’re not going to go out and track a man down and kill him. Good God.”

  I kept my tone light. “But you did have the motive and you had the opportunity.”

  “You can’t hang anything on that. We’re decent people. We don’t even get parking tickets. John Daggett must have had a lot of enemies.”

  I shrugged by way of agreement. “The Westfalls,” I said. “Billy Polo and his sister, Coral. Apparently, some prison thugs.”

  “What about that woman who set up such a howl at the funeral?” he said. “She looked like a pretty good candidate to me.”

  “I’ve talked to her.”

  “Well, you better go back and talk to her again. You’re wasting time with us. Nobody’s going to be arrested on the basis of ‘motive’ and ‘opportunity.’”

  “Then you don’t have anything to worry about.”

  He shook his head, his skepticism evident. “Well. I can see you have your work cut out for you. I’d appreciate it if you’d lay off Marilyn in this. She’s had trouble enough.”

  “I gathered as much.” I got up. “Thanks for your time. I hope I won’t have to bother you again.” I moved toward the door.

  “I hope so too!”

  “You know, if you did kill him, or if you know who killed him, I’ll find out. Another few days and I’m going to the cops anyway. They’ll scrutinize that alibi of yours like you wouldn’t believe.”

  He held his hands out, pal
ms up. “We’re innocent until proven otherwise,” he said, smiling boyishly.

  Chapter 23

  *

  Waiting for the elevator, I replayed the conversation, trying to figure out what I’d missed. On the surface, there was nothing wrong with his response, but I felt irritated and uneasy, maybe just because I wasn’t getting anyplace. I banged on the DOWN button. “Come on,” I said. The elevator door opened partway. Impatiently, I shoved it back and got on. The doors closed and the elevator descended one floor before it stopped again. The doors opened. Tony Gahan was standing in the corridor, a shopping bag in hand. He seemed as surprised to see me as I was to see him.

  “What are you doing here?” he said. He got on the elevator and we descended.

  “I had to see someone upstairs,” I said. “What about you?”

  “A shrink appointment. He’s been out of town and now his return flight was delayed. His secretary’s supposed to pick him up in an hour so she said to come back at five.”

  We reached the lobby.

  “How are you getting home? Need a ride?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I’m going to hang around down here.” He gestured vaguely at the video arcade across the street where some high school kids were horsing around.

  “See you later then,” I said.

  We parted company and I returned to the parking lot behind the building. I got in my car and circled the four blocks to the lot behind my office where I parked. For the time being, I left the skirt and shoes in the backseat.

  There were no messages on my answering machine, but the mail was in and I sorted through that, wondering what else to do with myself. Actually, I realized I was exhausted, the emotional charge from Jonah having drained away. I’m not used to drinking that much, for starters, and I tend, being single, to get a lot more sleep. He’d left at 5:00, before it was light, and I’d managed maybe an hour’s worth of shut-eye before I’d finally gotten up, jogged, showered, and fixed myself a bite to eat.

  I tilted back in my swivel chair and propped my feet up on the desk, hoping no one would begrudge me a snooze. The next time I was aware of anything, the clock hands had dissolved magically from 12:10 to 2:50 and my head was pounding. I staggered to my feet and trotted down the hall to the ladies’ room. I peed, washed my hands and face, rinsed my mouth out, and stared at myself in the mirror. My hair was mashed flat in the back and standing straight up everywhere else. The flourescent light in the room made my skin look sickly. Was this the consequence of illicit sex with a married man? “Well, I sort only hope so,” I said. I ducked my head under the faucet and then dried my hair with eight rounds of hot air from a wall-mounted machine that had been installed (the sign said) to help protect me from the dangers of diseases that might be transmitted through paper towel litter. Idly, I wondered what diseases they were worried about. Typhus? Diphtheria?