C is for CORPSE

by Sue Grafton

  At three o’clock, I locked the office and walked over to the public library, which was two blocks over and two blocks up. I went downstairs to the periodicals room and asked for the previous September’s newspapers, now consigned to microfilm. I found a machine and sat down, threading in the first reel. The print was white on black, all of the photographs looking like negatives. I had no idea what I might spot so I was forced to skim every page. Current events, national news, local political issues, fire, crime, storm systems, folks being born and dying and getting divorced. I read the lost-and-found column, the personals, society, sports. The mechanism for advancing the film was somehow out of whack, so that paragraphs jerked onto the nine-by-twelve screen with the focus slightly skewed, generating a motion sickness of sorts. Around me, people were browsing among the magazines or were seated in low chairs, reading newspapers attached to upright wooden lances. The only sounds in the room were the drone of the machine I was using, an occasional cough, and the rustle of newsprint.

  I managed to check the papers for the first six days of September before my resolve faltered. I’d have to do this in small doses. My neck felt stiff and my head was starting to ache. A glance at my watch showed that it was nearly five and I was bored to death. I made a note of the last date I’d scanned and then I fled into the late-afternoon sunshine. I walked back to my office building and retrieved my car from the parking lot without going upstairs.

  On the way home, I stopped off at the supermarket for milk, bread, and toilet paper, doing a quick tour with my cart. There was so much lyrical music playing overhead, I felt like the heroine in a romantic comedy. Once I’d found what I needed, I moved to the express lane, twelve items or less. There were five of us in line, all surreptitiously counting the contents of each other’s carts. The man in front of me had a head too small for the size of his face, like an under-inflated balloon. He had a little girl with him, maybe four years old, wearing a brand-new dress several sizes too big. Something about it spelled “poor,” but I don’t know why. It made her look like a midget; waistline at her hips, the hem down around her ankles. She held the man’s hand with perfect trust, giving me a shy smile so filled with pride that I found myself smiling back.

  I was tired by the time I got home and my left arm ached. There are days when I scarcely remember the injury, other days when I feel drained by a constant dull pain. I decided to skip my run. To hell with it. I took a couple of Tylenol with codeine, kicked my shoes oft; and crawled into the folds of my quilt. I was still there when the phone rang. I awoke with a start, reaching automatically for the receiver. My apartment was dark. The unexpected shrill blast of sound had sent a jolt of adrenaline through me and my heart was pounding. I glanced at the clock with uneasiness. Eleven-fifteen.

  I mumbled hello, rubbing a hand across my face and through my hair.

  “Kinsey, it’s Derek Wenner. Have you heard?”

  ‘“Derek, I’m sound asleep.”

  “Bobby’s dead.”

  “What?”

  “I guess he’d been drinking, though we’re not even sure of that at this point. His car went off the road and smashed into a tree on West Glen. I thought you’d want to know.”

  “What?” I knew I was repeating myself but I couldn’t understand what he was talking about.

  “Bobby’s been killed in a car accident.”

  “But when?” I don’t know why it mattered. I was just asking questions because I couldn’t cope with the information any other way.

  “A little after ten. He was dead by the time they got him to St. Terry’s. I have to go down and identify him, but there doesn’t seem to be any doubt.”

  “Can I do anything?”

  He seemed to hesitate. “Well, actually, maybe you could. I tried to reach Sufi, but I guess she’s out. Dr. Metcalfs service is tracking him down, so he’ll probably be here in a bit. I wonder if you could sit with Glen in the meantime. That way, I can head on over to the hospital and see what’s going on.”

  “I’ll be right there,” I said and hung up.

  I washed my face and brushed my teeth. I was talking to myself the whole time,, but I didn’t feel anything. All my inner processes seemed to be suspended temporarily while my brain struggled with the facts. The information kept bounding back. No way. Nuh-un. How could Bobby be gone? Not true.

  I grabbed a jacket, my handbag, and my keys. I locked up, got in my car, started the engine, pulled out. I felt like a well-programmed robot. When I turned onto West Glen Road, I saw the emergency vehicles and I could feel a chill tickle at the base of my spine. It was just at the big bend, a blind corner near the “slums.” The ambulance was already gone, but patrol cars were still there, radios squawking in the night air. Bystanders stood on the side of the road in the dark while the tree he’d hit was washed with high-intensity floodlights, the raw gash in the trunk looking like a fatal wound in itself. His BMW was just being removed by a tow truck. The scene looked, oddly, like a location for a movie being shot. I slowed, turning to peer at the site with an eerie feeling of detachment. I didn’t want to add to the confusion and I was worried about Glen, so I drove on. A little voice murmured, “Bobby’s dead.” A second voice said, “Oh no, lets don’t do that. I don’t want that to be true, O.K.?”

  I pulled into the narrow drive, following it until it opened out into the empty courtyard. The entire house was blazing with lights as if a massive party were in progress, but there was no sound and not a soul in sight, no cars visible. I parked and moved toward the entrance. One of the maids, like an electronic sensing device, opened the door as I approached. She stepped back, admitting me without comment.

  “Where’s Mrs. Callahan?”

  She closed the door and started down the hall. I followed. She tapped at the door to Glen’s study and then turned the knob and stepped back again, letting me pass into the room.

  Glen was dressed in a pale pink robe, huddled in one of the wing-back chairs, knees drawn up. She raised her face, which was swollen and waterlogged. It looked as if all of her emotional pipes had burst, eyes spilling over, cheeks washed with tears, her nose running. Even her hair was damp. For a moment, still in disbelief, I stood there and looked at her and she looked at me and then she lowered her face again, extending her hand. I crossed and knelt by her chair. I took her hand ��� small and cold ��� and pressed it against my cheek.

  “Oh Glen, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

  She was nodding acknowledgment, making a low sound in her throat, not even a clearly articulated cry. It was a sound more primitive than that. She started to speak, but she could only manage a sort of dragged-out, stuttering phrase, sub-English, devoid of sense. What difference did it make what she said? It was done and nothing could change it. She began to cry as children cry, deep, shuddering sobs that went on and on. I clung to her hand, offering her a mooring line in that churning sea of grief.

  Finally, I could feel the turbulence pass like a battering rain cloud moving on. The spasms subsided. She let go of me and leaned back, taking in a deep breath. She took out a handkerchief and pressed it against her eyes, then blew her nose. She paused, apparently looking inward, much in the way one does at the end of an attack of hiccups.

  She sighed. “Oh God, how will I get through this?” she said, and the tears welled up again, splashing down her face. She regained control after a moment and went through the mop-up process again, shaking her head. “Jesus. Shit. I don’t think I can do this, Kinsey. You know? Its just too hard and I don’t have that kind of strength.”

  “You want me to call anyone?”

  “No, not now. It’s too late and what’s the point? In the morning, I’ll have Derek get in touch with Sufi. She’ll come.”

  “What about Kleinert? You want me to let him know?”

  She shook Her head. “Bobby couldn’t stand him. Just let it be. He’d find out soon enough. Is Derek back?” Her tone was anxious now, her face tense.

  “I don’t think so. You wan
t a drink?”

  “No, but help yourself if you like. The liquor’s in there.”

  “Maybe later.” I wanted something, but I wasn’t sure what it was. Not a drink. I was afraid alcohol would eat through the thin veneer of self-control. The last thing in the world she needed was to have to turn around and comfort me. I sat down in the chair across from her and an image flashed into my mind. I remembered Bobby bending down to say good night to her just two nights ago. He had turned automatically so he could offer her the good side of his face. It had been one of his last nights sleep on this earth, but neither of them had known that, nor had I. I glanced up at her and she was looking at me as if she knew what was going on in my head. I glanced away, but not quickly enough. Something in her face spilled over me like light through a swinging door. Sorrow shot through the gap, catching me off-guard, and I burst into tears.

  Chapter 12

  *

  Everything happens for a reason, but that doesn’t mean there’s a point. The next few days were a nightmare, the more so as mine was only a peripheral role in the pageantry of Bobby’s death. Because I’d appeared in the first moments of her grief, Glen Callahan seemed to fix on me, as though I might provide a solace for her pain.

  Dr. Kleinert agreed to release Kitty until after the burial, and an attempt was made to reach Bobbys natural father overseas, but he never responded and nobody seemed to care. Meanwhile, hundreds of people streamed through the funeral home: Bobbys friends, old high-school classmates, family friends and business associates, all the town dignitaries, members of the various boards Glen served on. The Who’s Who of Santa Teresa. After that first night, Glen was totally composed ��� calm, gracious, tending to every detail of Bobby’s funeral. It would be done properly. It would be done in the best of taste. I would be on hand throughout.

  I had thought Derek and Kitty would resent my constant presence, but both seemed relieved. Glen’s single-mindedness must have been a frightening prospect to them.

  Glen ordered Bobbys casket closed, but I saw him for a moment at the funeral home after his body had been “prepared.” In some ways, I needed that glimpse to convince myself that he was really dead. God, the stillness of the flesh when life has gone. Glen stood there beside me, her gaze fixed on Bobby’s face, her own expression as blank and inanimate as his. Something had left her with his death. She was unflinching, but her grip on my arm tightened as the lid to the casket was closed.

  “Good-bye, baby,” she whispered. “I love you.”

  I turned away quickly.

  Derek approached from behind and I saw him move as though to touch her. She didn’t turn her head, but she radiated a rage so limitless that he kept his distance, intimidated by the force of it. Kitty stood against the back wall, stony, her face blotchy from tears wept in solitude. Somehow I suspected that she and her father wouldn’t remain in Glen’s life for long. Bobby’s death had accelerated the household decay. Glen seemed impatient to be alone, intolerant of the requirements of ordinary intercourse. They were takers. She had nothing left to give. I scarcely knew the woman, but it seemed clear to me that she was suddenly operating by another set of premises. Derek watched her uneasily, sensing, perhaps, that he wasn’t part of this new scheme, whatever it was.

  Bobby was buried on Saturday. The church services were mercifully short. Glen had selected the music and a few passages from various non-Biblical sources. I took my cue from her, surviving the eulogy by neatly disconnecting myself from what was said. I wasn’t going to deal with Bobby’s death today. I wasn’t going to lose control in a public setting like this. Even so, there were moments when I could feel my face heat up and my eyes blur with tears. It was more than this loss. It was all death, every loss ��� my parents, my aunt.

  The funeral cortege must have been ten blocks long, cruising across the city at a measured pace. At every intersection, traffic had been forced to stop as we rolled by, and I could see the comments in the faces we passed. “Ooo, a funeral. Wonder whose.”

  “Gorgeous day for it.”

  “God, look at all the cars.”

  “Come on, come on. Get out of the way.”

  We wound into the cemetery, as green and carefully landscaped as a housing tract. Headstones stretched out in all directions, a varied display, like a stonecutter’s yard filled with samples of his work. There were intermittent evergreens, clusters of eucalyptus and sycamore. The cemetery parcels were sectioned off by low walls of shrubbery and on a plot map probably had names like Serenity and Heavenly Meadows.

  We parked and everyone trooped across the newly trimmed grass. It felt like an elementary-school outing: everyone on their best behavior, nobody quite sure what to do next. There were occasional murmured conversations, but for the most part, we were silent, Mortuary personnel, in dark suits, escorted us to our seats like ushers at a wedding.

  The day was hot, the afternoon sunlight intense. There was a breeze that rustled the treetops and lifted the canvas tent flaps flirtatiously. We sat dutifully while the minister conducted the final rites. I felt better out here and I realized it was the absence of organ music that made the graveside ceremony less potent. Even the most banal of church hymns can rip your heart out at times like this. I preferred the sound of wind.

  Bobby’s casket was a massive affair of glossy walnut and brass, like an oversized blanket chest too large for the space allotted. Apparently, the casket would fit down into the vault especially purchased to house it underground. There was some kind of complex mechanism set up above the grave site that would eventually be used to lower the casket into the hole, but I gathered that was done at some later time.

  Funeral styles had evolved since my parents were buried and I wondered, idly, what had dictated the change. Technology, no doubt. Maybe death was tidier these days and easier to regulate. Graves were dug by machinery, which carved out a neat pit surmounted now by this low-slung contraption on which the casket rested. No more of this horseshit with the loved ones flinging themselves into the grave. With this new apparatus in place, you’d have to get down on your belly and leopard-crawl into the hole, which robbed the gesture of its theatrical effect.

  Off to one side among the mourners, I saw Phil and Reva Bergen. He seemed upset, but she was impassive. Her gaze drifted from the minister’s face to mine and she stared at me flatly. Behind them, I thought I saw Kelly Borden, but I couldn’t be sure. I shifted in my chair, hoping to make eye contact, but the face was gone. The crowd began to disperse and I was startled to realize it was over. The minister, in his black robes, gave Glen a solemn look, but she ignored him and moved toward the limousine. Derek, in a show of good manners, lingered long enough to exchange a few remarks.

  Kitty was already in the backseat when we reached the limo. I would have bet money she was high on something. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were feverishly bright, her hands restless in her lap, plucking at her black cotton skirt. The outfit she’d elected to wear had an outlandish gypsy air to it, the black cotton top composed of tiers of ruffles, embroidered in garish shades of turquoise and red. Glen had blinked lazily when she’d first set eyes on Kitty and an almost imperceptible smile had hovered on her lips before she turned her attention to something else. She’d apparently decided not to make an issue of it. Kitty’s manner had been defiant, but with no resistance on Glen’s part the juice had drained out of the drama before she’d even launched into the first art.

  I was standing by the limo when I saw Derek approach. He climbed into the backseat and pulled down one of the collapsible camp stools, reaching to pull the door shut.

  “Leave it open,” Glen murmured.

  The limo driver was still nowhere in sight. There was a delay while people took their places in the vehicles parked along the road. Others were milling around on the grass to no apparent purpose.

  Derek tried to catch Glen’s eye. “Well, I thought that went very well.’

  Glen turned pointedly and peered out of the far window. When your only
child has been killed, who really gives a shit?

  Kitty took out a cigarette and lit it. Her hands looked like birds’ claws, the skin almost scaly. The elastieized neckline of her blouse revealed a chest so thin that her sternum and costal cartilages were outlined like one of those joke Tshirts.

  Derek made a face as the smell of smoke filled the backseat. “Jesus, Kitty, put that out. For Christ’s sake!”

  “Oh, leave her alone,” Glen said, dully, Kitty seemed surprised by the unexpected support, but she stubbed out the cigarette anyway.

  The driver appeared and closed the door on Derek’s side, then moved around the rear of the limousine and slid in under the steering wheel. I moved on toward my car as he pulled away.

  The mood was much lighter once we got to the house. People seemed to shrug death aside, comforted by good wine and lavish hors d’oeuvres. I don’t know why death still generates these little tetes-a-tetes. Everything else has been modernized, but some vestige of the wake remains. There must have been two hundred people crowded into the living room and hall, but it all seemed O.K. It was filler, just something to smooth the awkward transition from the funeral to the bone-crushing sleep that was bound to come afterward.

  I recognized most of the people who’d been at Derek’s birthday gathering that past Monday night: Dr. Fraker and his wife, Nola; Dr. Kleinert and a rather plain woman whom I assumed was Mrs. K.; the other doctor who’d been present, Metcalf, in conversation with Marcy, who had worked with Bobby briefly in the Pathology Department. I snagged a glass of wine and inched my way across the room to Fraker’s side. He and Kleinert had their heads bent together and they paused as I approached.

  “Hi,” I said, suddenly self-conscious. Maybe this wasn’t such a hot idea. I took a sip of wine, noting the look that passed between them. I guess they decided I could be privy to their discussion, because Fraker picked up where he’d left off.

  “Anyway, I won’t be doing the microscopic until Monday, but from the gross, it looks like the immediate cause of death was a ruptured aortic valve.”