A Is for Alibi

  “I appreciate your help. Jesus, what a schmuck that guy is.”

  “I’ll say. Hey, I got another call coming in. I’ll be in touch.” He gave me his home phone in case I needed him.

  “You’re terrific. Thanks.”

  The second message was from Gwen at K-9 Korners. One of her assistants answered and I listened to assorted dogs bark and whine while Gwen came to the phone.

  “Kinsey?”

  “Yeah, it’s me. I got your call. What’s happening?”

  “Are you free for lunch?”

  “Just a minute. I’ll check my appointment book,” I said. I put my palm against the mouth of the receiver and looked at my watch. It was 1:45. Had I eaten lunch? Had I even eaten breakfast today? “Yes, I’m free.”

  “Good. I’ll meet you at the Palm Garden in fifteen minutes if that’s okay for you.”

  “Sure. Fine. See you shortly.”

  My glass of white wine had just arrived when I glanced up to see Gwen approaching from across the courtyard: tall and lean, her gray hair slicked away from her face. The blouse she wore was gray silk, long full sleeves nipped in at the wrist, the dark gray skirt emphasizing her trim waist and hips. She was stylish, confident—like Nikki in that—and I could see where both women must have appealed to Laurence Fife. I guessed that once upon a time Charlotte Mercer fit the same mold: a woman of stature, a woman of taste. I wondered idly if Libby Glass would have aged as well had she lived. She must have been much less secure at twenty-four, but bright—someone whose freshness and ambition might have appealed to Laurence as he neared the age of forty. God save us all from the consequences of male menopause, I thought.

  “Hello. How are you,” Gwen said briskly, sitting down. She removed the napkin beside her plate and ordered wine as the waitress passed. Close up, her image softened, the angularity of her cheekbones offset by the large brown eyes, the purposeful mouth tinted with soft pink. Most of all, there was her manner: amused, intelligent, feminine, refined.

  “How are all the dogs?” I said.

  She laughed. “Filthy. Thank God. We’re swamped today, but I wanted to talk to you. You’ve been out of town.”

  “I just got back Saturday. Have you been trying to get in touch?”

  She nodded. “I called the office on Tuesday, I think. Your answering service said you were in Los Angeles so I tried to reach you there. Some total nitwit answered—”

  “Arlette.”

  “Well, whoever it was, she got my name wrong twice so I hung up.”

  The waitress arrived with Gwen’s wine.

  “Have you ordered yet?”

  I shook my head. “I was waiting for you.”

  The waitress got out her order card, glancing at me.

  “I’ll have the chef’s salad,” I said. “Make that two.”

  “Dressing?”

  “Blue cheese,” I said.

  “I’ll have oil and vinegar,” Gwen said and then handed both menus to the waitress, who moved away. Gwen turned her attention to me.

  “I’ve decided I should level with you.”

  “About what?”

  “My old lover,” she said. Her cheeks had flushed mildly. “I realized that if I didn’t tell you who he was, you’d be off on some wild-goose chase, wasting a lot of time trying to find out his name. It really amounts to more mystery than it’s worth.”

  “How so?”

  “He died a few months ago of a heart attack,” she said, her manner turning brisk again. “After I talked to you, I tried tracking him down myself. His name was David Ray. He was a schoolteacher. Greg’s, as a matter of fact, which is how we met. I thought he should know that you were asking questions about Laurence’s death, or at any rate that your curiosity might lead you to him.”

  “How’d you find him?”

  “I’d heard that he and his wife had moved to San Francisco. Apparently he was living in the Bay Area, where he was a principal of one of the Oakland public schools.”

  “Why not tell me before?”

  She shrugged. “Misplaced loyalty. Protectiveness. That was a very important relationship and I didn’t want him involved at this late date.”

  She looked at me and she must have read the skepticism in my face. The flush in her cheeks deepened almost imperceptibly.

  “I know how it looks,” she said. “First I refuse to give you his name and then he’s dead and out of reach, but that’s exactly the point. If he were still alive, I don’t know that I’d be telling you this.”

  I thought that was probably true, but there was something else going on and I wasn’t sure what it was. The waitress arrived with our salads and there was a merciful few minutes in which we busied ourselves with melba rounds. Gwen was rearranging her lettuce but she wasn’t eating much. I was curious to hear what else she had to say and too hungry to worry about it much until I’d eaten some.

  “Did you know he had heart trouble?” I asked finally.

  “I had no idea, but I gather he was ill for years.”

  “Did he break off the relationship or did you?”

  Gwen smiled bitterly. “Laurence did that but I wonder now if David might have engineered it to some extent. The whole affair must have complicated his life unbearably.”

  “He’d told his wife?”

  “I think so. She was very gracious on the phone. I told her that Greg had asked me to get in touch and she played right along. When she told me that David was dead, I was . . . I didn’t even know what to say to her but of course, I had to babble right on—how sorry, how sad . . . like some disinterested bystander making the right noises somehow. It was awful. Terrible.”

  “She didn’t mention your relationship herself?”

  “Oh no. She was much too cool for that, but she did know exactly who I was. Anyway, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you to begin with.”

  “No harm done,” I said.

  “How’s it going otherwise?” she asked.

  I felt myself hesitate. “Bits and pieces. Nothing concrete.”

  “Do you really expect to turn up anything after all this time?”

  I smiled. “You never know. People get careless when they’re feeling safe.”

  “I guess that’s true.”

  We talked briefly about Greg and Diane and my visits with them, which I edited heavily. At 2:50 Gwen glanced at her watch.

  “I’ve got to get back,” she said, fishing in her purse for her billfold. She took out a five-dollar bill. “Will you keep in touch?”

  “Sure,” I said. I took a sip of wine, watching her get up. “When did you last see Colin?”

  She focused abruptly on my face. “Colin?”

  “I just met him Saturday,” I said as though that explained it. “I thought maybe Diane might like to know he’s back. She’s fond of him.”

  “Yes, she is,” Gwen said. “I don’t know when I saw him last myself. Diane’s graduation, I guess. Her junior-high-school graduation. What makes you ask?”

  I shrugged. “Just curious,” I said. I gave her what I hoped was my blandest look. A mild pink patch had appeared on her neck and I wondered if that could be introduced in court as a lie-detecting device. “I’ll take care of the tip,” I said.

  “Let me know how it goes,” she said, all casual again. She tucked the money under her plate and moved off at the same efficient pace that had brought her in. I watched her departure, thinking that something vital had gone unsaid. She could have told me about David Ray on the phone. And I wasn’t entirely convinced she hadn’t known about his death to begin with. Colin popped into my head.

  I walked the two blocks to Charlie’s office. Ruth was typing from a Dictaphone, fingers moving lightly across the keyboard. She was very fast.

  “Is he in?”

  She smiled and nodded me on back, not missing a word, gaze turned inward as she translated sound to paper with no lag time in between.

  I stuck my head into his office. He was sitting at his desk, coat off, a law book open in front of
him. Beige shirt, dark brown vest. When he saw me, a slow smile formed and he leaned back, tucking an arm up over the back of his swivel chair. He tossed the pencil on his desk.

  “Are you free for dinner?” I said.

  “What’s up?”

  “Nothing’s up. It’s a proposition,” I said.

  “Six-fifteen.”

  “I’ll be back,” I said and closed his office door again, still thinking about that pale shirt and the dark brown vest. Now that was sexy. A man in a nylon bikini, with that little knot sticking out in front, isn’t half as interesting as a man in a good-looking business suit. Charlie’s outfit reminded me of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup with a bite taken out and I wanted the rest.

  I drove out to Nikki’s beach house.

  22

  Nikki answered the door in an old gray sweatshirt and a pair of faded jeans. She was barefoot, hair loose, a paintbrush in one hand, her fingers stained the color of pecan shells.

  “Oh hi, Kinsey. Come on in,” she said. She was already moving back toward the deck and I followed her through the house. On the other side of the sliding glass doors, I could see Colin, shirtless, in a pair of bib overalls sitting cross-legged in front of a chest of drawers, which the two were apparently refinishing. The drawers were out, leaning upright along the balcony, hardware removed. The air smelled of stripper and turpentine, which mingled not incompatibly with the smell of eucalyptus bark. Several sheets of fine sandpaper were folded and tossed aside, creases worn white with wood dust, looking soft from hard use. The sun was hot on the railings and newspapers were spread out under the chest to protect the deck.

  Colin glanced up at me and smiled as I came out. His nose and cheeks were faintly pink with sunburn, his eyes green as sea water, bare arms rosy, there wasn’t even a whisper of facial hair yet. He went back to his work.

  “I want to ask Colin something but I thought I’d try it out on you first,” I said to Nikki.

  “Sure, fire away,” she replied. I leaned against the railing while she dipped the tip of her brush back into a small can of stain, easing the excess off along the edge. Colin seemed more interested in the painting than he was in our exchange. I imagined that it was a bit of a strain to try to follow a conversation even if his lip-reading skills were good or maybe he thought adults were a bore.

  “Can you remember offhand if you were out of town for any length of time in the four to six months before Laurence died?”

  Nikki looked at me with surprise and blinked, apparently not expecting that. “I was gone once for a week. My father had a heart attack that June and I flew back to Connecticut,” she said. She paused then and shook her head. “That was the only time, I think. What are you getting at?”

  “I’m not sure. I mean, this is going to seem farfetched, but I’ve been bothered by Colin’s calling Gwen ‘Daddy’s mother.’ Has he mentioned that since?”

  “Nope. Not a word.”

  “Well, I’m wondering if he didn’t have occasion to see Gwen at some point while you were gone. He’s too smart to get her mixed up with his own grandmother unless somebody identified her to him that way.”

  Nikki gave me a skeptical look. “Boy, that is a stretch. He couldn’t have been more than three and a half years old.”

  “Yeah, I know, but a little while ago I asked Gwen when she saw him last and she claims it was at Diane’s junior-high-school graduation.”

  “That’s probably true,” Nikki said.

  “Nikki, Colin must have been fourteen months old at the time. I saw those snapshots myself. He was still a babe in arms.”

  “So?”

  “So why did he remember her at all?”

  Nikki applied a band of stain, giving that some thought. “Maybe she saw him in a supermarket or ran into him with Diane. She could have seen him or he could easily have seen her without any particular significance attached to it.

  “Maybe. But I think Gwen lied to me about it when I asked. If it was no big deal, why not just say so. Why cover up?”

  Nikki gave me a long look. “Maybe she just forgot.”

  “Mind if I ask him?”

  “No, go ahead.”

  “Where’s the album?”

  She gestured over her shoulder and I went back into the living room. The photograph album was sitting on the coffee table and I flipped through until I found the snapshot of Gwen. I slipped it out of the four little corners holding it down and went back out to the deck. I held it out to him.

  “Ask him if he can remember what was happening when he saw her last,” I said.

  Nikki reached over and gave him a tap. He looked at her and then at the snapshot, eyes meeting mine inquisitively. Nikki signed the question to him. His face closed up like a day lily when the sun goes down.

  “Colin?”

  He started to paint again, his face averted.

  “The little shit,” she said good-naturedly. She gave him a nudge and asked him again.

  Colin shrugged her off. I studied his reaction with care.

  “Ask him if she was here.”

  “Who, Gwen? Why would she be here?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why we’re asking him.”

  The look she gave me was half doubt, half disbelief. Reluctantly, she looked back at him. She signed to him, translating for my benefit. She didn’t seem to like it much.

  “Was Gwen ever here or at the other house?”

  Colin watched her face, his own face a remarkable mirror of uncertainty and something else—uneasiness, secrecy, dismay.

  “I don’t know,” he said aloud. The consonants blurred together like ink on a wet page, his tone conveying a sort of stubborn distrust.

  His eyes slid over to me. I thought suddenly of the time in the sixth grade when I first heard the word fuck. One of my classmates told me I should go ask my aunt what it meant. I could sense the trap though I had no idea what it consisted of.

  “Tell him it’s okay,” I said to her. “Tell him it doesn’t matter to you.”

  “Well it certainly does,” she snapped.

  “Oh come on, Nikki. It’s important and what difference does it make after all this time.”

  She got into a short discussion with him then, just the two of them, signing away like mad—a digital argument. “He doesn’t want to talk about it,” she said guardedly. “He made a mistake.”

  I didn’t think so and I could feel excitement stir. He was watching us now, trying to get an emotional reading from our interchange.

  “I know this sounds weird,” I said to her tentatively, “but I wonder if Laurence told him that—that she was his mother.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  I looked at her. “Maybe Colin caught them embracing or something like that.”

  Nikki’s expression was blank for a moment and then she frowned. Colin waited uncertainly, looking from her to me. Nikki signed to him again. He seemed embarrassed now, head bent. She signed again more earnestly. Colin shook his head but the gesture seemed to come out of caution, not ignorance.

  Nikki’s expression underwent a change. “I just remembered something,” she said. She blinked rapidly, color mounting in her face. “Laurence did come out here. He told me he brought Colin out the weekend I was back east. Greg and Diane stayed at the house with Mrs. Voss. Both had social plans or something, but Laurence said the two of them—he and Colin—came out to the beach to get away for a bit.”

  “Nice,” I said with irony. “At three and a half, none of it would have made sense to him anyway. Let’s just assume it’s true. Let’s assume she was out here—”

  “I really don’t care to go on with this.”

  “Just one more,” I said. “Just ask him why he called her ‘Daddy’s mother.’ Ask him why the ‘Daddy’s mother’ bit.”

  She relayed the question to Colin reluctantly but his face brightened with relief. He signed back at once, grabbing his head.

  “She had gray hair,” she reported to me. “She looked like a grandmothe
r to him when she was here.”

  I caught a glint of temper in her voice but she recovered herself, apparently for his sake. She tousled his hair affectionately.

  “I love you,” she said. “It’s fine. It’s okay.”

  Colin seemed to relax but the tension had darkened Nikki’s eyes to a charcoal gray.

  “Laurence hated her,” she said. “He couldn’t have—”

  “I’m just making an educated guess,” I said. “It might have been completely innocent. Maybe they met for drinks and talked about the kids’ schoolwork. We really don’t know anything for sure.”

  “My ass,” she murmured. Her mood was sour.

  “Don’t get mad at me,” I said. “I’m just trying to put this thing together so it makes some sense.”

  “Well I don’t believe a word of it,” she said tersely.

  “You want to tell me he was too nice a man to do such a thing?”

  She put the paintbrush on the paper and wiped her hands on a rag.

  “Maybe I’d like to have a few illusions left.”

  “I don’t blame you a bit,” I said. “But I don’t understand why it bothers you. Charlotte Mercer was the one who put it into my head. She said he was like a tomcat, always sniffing around the same back porch.”

  “All right, Kinsey. You’ve made your point.”

  “No, I don’t think I have. You paid me five grand to find out what happened. You don’t like the answers, I can give you your money back.”

  “No, never mind. Just skip it. You’re right,” she said.

  “You want me to pursue it or not?”

  “Yes,” she said flatly, but she didn’t really look at me again. I made my excuses and left soon after that, feeling almost depressed. She still cared about the man and I didn’t know what to make of that. Except that nothing’s ever cut-and-dried—especially where men and women are concerned. So why did I feel guilty of doing my job?

  I went into Charlie’s office building. He was waiting at the top of the stairs, coat over one shoulder, tie loose.

  “What happened to you,” he said when he saw my face.

  “Don’t ask,” I said. “I’m going to try to get a scholarship to secretarial school. Something simple and nice. Something nine-to-five.”