P is for PERIL

by Sue Grafton

  “And they all get along?”

  “As far as I know. I mean, they hardly ever see each other. Joel and Harvey seem to be happy with Dow, so they tend to go their way and let him go his. An operating company does the billing. I know at first he was worried they’d interfere with the running of the place, but it hasn’t turned out that way.”

  “How long have they owned the place?”

  “I believe they bought it in 1980. It’s over on Dave Levine Street right there at the corner of Nedra Lane. You’ve probably passed it a hundred times. Looks like Tara without the acreage-big white columns across the front.”

  “Oh, that. I see it on the right side any time I drive in from that end of town. There must be five or six nursing homes along that stretch.”

  “The staff people all refer to it as ‘Formaldehyde Alley,’ no disrespect intended. Dow hates when I repeat that.”

  “How did you two meet?”

  “Mom…”

  Crystal glanced into the great room through the open door. “We’re out here.” She must have caught sight of Leila because she turned back with an expression of annoyance and disbelief. “Oh, for heaven’s sake.”

  I followed her gaze.

  Leila was clumping down the stairs in a pair of black satin pumps with heels so high she could hardly stand erect. Now and then her ankles wobbled as though she were setting off across the ice for the first time on skates. Under her black leather jacket, her top was a see-through confection of chiffon and lace, worn with a long, narrow wool skirt. At fourteen, she was still in that coltish stage of development: no bust to speak of, narrow hips, and long, bony legs. The length of her skirt couldn’t have been less flattering. She looked like the cardboard cylinder in a spent roll of paper towels. She’d also done something strange to her hair, which was cut short, dyed a white blond, sticking out in all directions. Some strands had been dreadlocked while the rest remained as wispy as cotton candy. She came to the open door and stood there staring at us.

  Crystal snorted. “What’s that getup supposed to be?”

  “It’s not a ‘getup.’ What’s wrong with it?”

  “You look ridiculous. That’s what.”

  You do, too. You look like a bag lady. That sweater’s down to your knees.”

  Fortunately, I’m not going out in public. Now please go upstairs and find something decent to wear.”

  “God, you are always so worried what other people think.”

  “Knock it off. I’m really tired of fighting with you.”

  “Then why don’t you leave me alone? I can dress any way I want.

  It’s no reflection on you.”

  “Leila, you’re not leaving the house dressed like that.”

  “Great. I won’t go then. Thanks a lot and fuck you.”

  “Where’s your suitcase?” Crystal said patiently, declining Leila’s invitation to escalate.

  “I don’t have one. I told you I’m not going. I’d rather stay here.”

  “You didn’t see him last time and I swore you’d be there.”

  “I don’t have to go if I don’t want to. It’s my decision.”

  “No, it’s not, it’s mine, so quit arguing.”

  “Why?”

  “Leila, I’m irritated at all the lip you’ve been giving me. What’s the matter with you?”

  “I just don’t want to go. It’s boring. All we do is sit around and watch videos.”

  “That’s what you do here!”

  “You promised I could see Paulie.”

  “I never said any such thing. And don’t change the subject. Paulie’s got nothing to do with it. Lloyd’s your father.”

  “He is not! We’re not even related. He’s one of your stupid old ex-husbands.”

  “One ex-husband. I’ve only been married once before,” she said. “Why are you being so hostile and obnoxious? Lloyd adores you.”

  “So what?”

  “Leila, I’m warning you.”

  “If he’s so full of adoration why does he force me to spend time with him against my will?”

  “He’s not forcing you. I am and that’s final. Now get.”

  “I will if I can see Paulie.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “God, you’re so mean. You don’t give a shit about me.”

  “That’s right. I’m just here to abuse and mistreat you. Call Children’s Protective Services.”

  “You think Lloyd’s so great, why don’t you go see him yourself?” Crystal closed her eyes, trying to control her temper. “We’re not going to do this in front of company. He’s got joint custody, okay? He’s picking you up at seven, which means he’s already on his way over. I’ll come get you Sunday morning at ten. Now go back up and change. And you better pack a bag or I’ll do it myself and you’ll hate what I choose.”

  Leila’s face shut down and I could see a patch of red form around her nose and mouth where she held back tears. “You are so unfair,” she said, and clomped back up the stairs again. She slammed the door behind her after entering her room, then screamed the word “bitch” again from the far side of the door.

  Crystal returned to our conversation, making no reference to Leila beyond a shake of her head and a rolling of her eyes. “Dow and I met in Vegas at the home of mutual friends. The first time I saw him, I knew I’d marry him one day.”

  “Wasn’t he married?”

  “Well, yes. I mean, technically speaking, but not happily,” she said, as though Dow’s marital angst justified her poaching on Fiona’s turf. “You’ve met Fiona. She’s only six months younger than him, but she looks like she’s a hundred. She drinks. She smokes two packs a day. She’s also hooked on Valium, which I doubt she mentioned when she was hiring you. Dow was sixty-nine last spring, but you’d never guess by looking. Have you seen a picture of him?”

  “There was one in the paper.”

  “Oh, that was terrible. I have a better one. Hang on.” She left the deck and moved into the great room, returning moments later with a framed color photo. She sat down on her chair again and passed the photograph to me. I studied Dow Purcell’s face. The picture, taken on the golf course, had been cropped so that the others in his foursome were scarcely visible. His hair was white, trimmed close, and his face was lean. He looked tanned and fit, wearing a white golf shirt, pale chinos, and a leather golf glove on his right hand. I couldn’t see the head of the club he was holding upright in front of him. “Where was this taken?”

  “Las Vegas. The same trip. That was in the fall of 1982. We were married a year later when his final divorce papers came through.”

  I handed the photo back. “Does he gamble?”

  She held the framed photograph and studied it herself. “Not him. He was speaking at a symposium on geriatric medicine. He loved Vegas for the golf, which he played all year long. He was a five handicap, really very good.”

  I wondered at the sudden use of the past tense but decided not to call attention to the shift. “Do you play?”

  “Some, but I’m terrible. I play to keep him company when he’s got no one else. It’s nice when we travel because it gives us something to do.” She leaned forward and set the picture on the table, studying it briefly before she turned back to me. “What happens now?”

  “I’ll talk to anyone who seems relevant and try to figure out what’s going on.”

  “There’s your mommy,” a man said. He stood just inside the door, holding Griffith, who was dressed for bed in flannel jammies with enclosed rubber-soled feet and a diaper tailgate in back. His face was a perfect oval, his cheeks fat, his mouth a small pink bud. His fair hair was still damp, sharply parted on one side and combed away from his face. Blond curls were already forming where a few strands had dried. Mutely, he held his arms out and Crystal reached for him. She fit him along her hip, looking at him closely while she spoke in a high-pitched voice, “Griffie, this is Kinsey. Can you say ‘Hi’?” This elicited no response from the child.

  She took one of hi
s hands and waved it in my direction, saying, “Hewwoh. I weady to doh feepy. I dotta doh beddy – bye now. Nighitie-night.”

  “Night-night, Griffith,” I said, voice high, trying to get into the spirit of the thing. This was worse than talking to a dog because at least there you really didn’t anticipate a high-pitched voice in response. I wondered if we were going to conduct the rest of the conversation talking like Elmer Fudd.

  I glanced at Rand. “Hi. You’re Rand? Kinsey Millhone.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I should have introduced you.”

  Rand said, “Nice to meet you.” He appeared to be in his early forties, dark-haired, very thin, jeans, white T-shirt. I could still see damp splotches on his front from the toddler’s bath. Like Crystal, he was barefoot, apparently impervious to cold.

  I said, “I better go and let you get the little one to bed.”

  Rand took Griffith from his mother and retreated, chatting to the child as he went. I waited while she jotted down the names and phone numbers of her husband’s business associates and his best friend, Jacob Trigg. We exchanged parting remarks of no particular consequence, and I left with her assurance I could call if I needed to.

  On the way out, I passed Leila’s stepfather Lloyd, who’d just arrived. He drove an old white Chevy convertible with a shredded sun-faded top and patches of primer where various dents and dings were being prepped for repainting. His brush cut was boyish and he wore glasses with oversized lenses and tortoise-shell frames. He had the body of a runner or a cyclist-long, lean legs and no visible body fat. Even with a nip in the air, all he wore was a black tank top, shorts, and clunky running shoes without socks. I placed him in his late thirties, though it was hard to determine since I glanced at him only briefly as he passed. He nodded, murmuring a brief hello as he approached the front door. As I started my car, the first fat drops of rain were beginning to fall.

  Chapter 5

  *

  Aside from Henry, Rosie’s tavern was empty when I arrived shortly after seven o’clock. I closed my umbrella and leaned it up against the wall near the door. The Happy Hour crowd had apparently been there and gone and the neighborhood drinkers hadn’t yet wandered in for their nightly quota. The cavernous room smelled of beef and wet wool. Several sections of newspaper formed a sodden door mat inside the entrance, and I could see where people had trampled their wet feet across the linoleum, tracking dirt and lines of newsprint. At one end of the bar the television set was on, but the sound had been muted. An old black-and-white movie flickered silently across the screen: a night scene, lashing rain. A 1940s coupe sped along a winding road. The woman’s hands were tense on the wheel. A long shot through the windshield revealed a hitchhiker waiting around the next curve, which didn’t bode well.

  Henry was sitting alone at a chrome-and-Formica table to the left of the door, his raincoat draped over the chair directly across from him, his umbrella forming a puddle of rainwater where it leaned against the table leg. He’d brought the brown paper bag in which Rosie had presented her sister’s medical bills. He had a glass of Jack Daniel’s at his elbow and a pair of half-rimmed glasses sitting low on his nose. An oversized accordion file rested on the chair next to him, the sections divided and labeled by the month. I watched him open a bill, check the date and heading, and then tuck it in the proper pocket before he went on to the next. I pulled up a chair. “You need help?”

  “Sure. Some of these go back two years if not more.”

  “Paid or unpaid?”

  “Haven’t figured that out yet. A little bit of both, I suspect. It’s a mess.”

  “I can’t believe you agreed to do this.”

  “It’s not so bad.”

  I shook my head at him, smiling slightly. He’s a dear and I knew he’d do the same for me if I needed help. We sat in companionable silence, opening and filing bills. I said, “Where’s Rosie all this time?”

  “In the kitchen making a calf s liver pudding with anchovy sauce.”

  “Sounds interesting.”

  Henry shot me a look.

  “Well, it might be,” I said. Rosie’s cooking was madcap Hungarian, the dishes impossible to pronounce and sometimes too peculiar to eat, her fowl soup with white raisins being a case in point. Given her overbearing nature, we usually order what she tells us and try to be cheerful about it.

  The kitchen door swung open and William emerged, dressed in a natty three-piece pin-striped suit, a copy of the evening paper tucked under his arm. Like Henry, he’s tall and long-limbed, with the same blazing blue eyes and a full head of white hair. The two looked enough alike to be identical twins on whom the years had made a few minor modifications. Henry’s face was narrower; William’s chin and forehead, more pronounced. When William reached the table, he asked permission to join us, and Henry gestured him into the remaining chair. “Evening, Kinsey. Hard at work, I see. Rosie’ll be out momentarily to take your supper order. You’re having calf’s liver pudding and kohlrabi.”

  “You’re really scaring me,” I said.

  William opened his paper, selected the second section, and flapped the first page over to the obituaries. Though his lifelong hypochondria had been mitigated by marriage, William still harbored a fascination for those people whose infirmities had ushered them out of the world. It annoyed him when an article gave no clue about the nature of the final illness. In moments of depression or insecurity, he reverted to his old ways, attending the funeral services of total strangers, inquiring discreetly of the other mourners as to cause of death. Key to his query was identifying early indications of the fatal illness – blurred vision, vertigo, shortness of breath – the very symptoms he was destined to experience within the coming week. He was never at ease until he’d solicited the true story. “Gastric disturbances,” he’d report to us later with a significant stare. “If the fellow’d only consulted medical authorities at the first hint of trouble, he might be with us today. His brother said so.”

  “We all have to die of something,” Henry invariably said.

  William would turn peevish. “Well, you don’t have to be such a pessimist. Vigilance is my point. Listening to the body’s messages –”

  “Mine says, You are going to die one day regardless so wise up, you old fart.”

  Tonight, Henry glanced at William’s paper politely. “Anyone we know?”

  William shook his head. “Couple of kids in their seventies; only one with a photo. Couldn’t have been taken much later than 1952.” He squinted at the page. “I hope we didn’t look that smarmy when we were young.”

  “You certainly did,” Henry said. He took a sip of whiskey. “If you go first, I know exactly the picture I’m going to give the paper for your obit. You in those knickers the summer we toured Atlantic City. Your hair’s parted down the center and it looks like you’re wearing lipstick.”

  William leaned closer. “He’s still jealous because I took Alice Vandermeer away from him. She could jitterbug like the dickens and had money to burn.”

  Henry said, “She had a wen on her cheek the size and color of a small Concord grape. I never knew where to look so I palmed her off on him.”

  William turned several pages to the classified ads, where he compared descriptions of “found” dogs and cats with those reported missing, often spotting a match. While Henry and I continued to open and file Klotilde’s medical bills, William entertained us with all the livestock currently being offered for sale. He glanced up at me. “Well, here’s something. Still need office space? You should check this one out. Five hundred square feet, newly renovated, downtown. Two fifty a month, available immediately.”

  I stopped what I was doing and tilted my head in his direction. “You’re kidding. Let me see that.”

  William handed me the section, pointing to the item, which read:

  For lease: 500 sq ft in newly renovated Victorian, heart of downtown near courthouse; private bath and separate entrance w/ private deck. $250/mo. Call Richard after 6:00 pm.

  The ph
one number was listed.

  I read the lines twice but they didn’t seem to change. “I’ll bet it’s a dump. They always embellish in these ads.”

  “It won’t hurt to call.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Of course.”

  “What if it’s rented?”

  “You won’t be out anything. Maybe the guy has others.” He reached into his watch pocket and removed a coin, which he placed on the table right in front of me. “Go on.”

  I took the coin and the paper and crossed the room. The pay phone was in the vestibule, the area dimly illuminated by a neon Budweiser sign. I dialed the number and read the ad again while I listened to four rings. Finally, the line was picked up on the other end and I asked to speak to Richard. “This is he.”

  I placed him in his thirties, though phone voices can be deceptive. “I’m calling with regard to the office space listed in tonight’s paper. Is the place still available?” I noticed a tinge of plaintiveness had crept into my voice.

  “Sure, but we’re asking for a year’s lease, first and last month’s rent, plus a cleaning deposit.”

  “Can I ask what street it’s on?”

  “Floresta. Across from the police station and about six doors down.”

  “And the price quoted is correct? The ad says two hundred and fifty bucks a month.”

  “It’s only one room. It’s got a closet and bathroom, but it’s not large.”

  I pictured a phone booth. “Would it be possible to see it tonight?”

  “As it happens, my brother’s in there laying carpet and I’m on my way over. You want to take a look, I can meet you there in fifteen minutes.”

  My watch said 7:30. “Great. I can do that. What’s the address?” He gave me the information. “You can pull on down the driveway to the parking lot in back. You’ll see lights on, first floor rear. My brother’s name is Tommy. The last name’s Hevener.”

  “I’m Kinsey Millhone. Thanks so much. I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.