D Is for Deadbeat

  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, palms 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. r />
  "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?

  I could hear my office phone from halfway down the hall and I started to run. I snagged it on the sixth ring, snatching up the receiver with a winded hello.

  "This is Lovella," the glum voice said. "I got this note to call you."

  I took a deep breath, inventing as I went along. "Right," I said. "I thought we should touch base. We really haven't talked since I saw you in L.A." I sidled around my desk and sat down, still trying to catch my breath.

  "I'm mad at you, Kinsey," she said. "Why didn't you tell me you had Daggett's money?"

  "To what end? I had a cashier's check, but it wasn't made out to you. So why mention it?"

  "Because I'm standing around telling you I'm married to a guy who'd just as soon kill me as look at me and you're telling me to call the rape crisis center, some bullshit like that. And all the time, Daggett had thousands of dollars."

  "But he stole the money. Didn't Billy tell you that?"

  "I don't care where it came from. I'd just like to have a little something for myself. Now he's dead and she gets everything."

  "Who, Essie?"

  "Her and that daughter."

  "Oh come on, Lovella. He couldn't have left them enough to worry about."

  "More than he left me," she said. "If I'd known about the money, I might have talked him out of some."

  "Yeah, right. As generous as he was," I said drily. "If you'd gotten your hands on it, you might be dead now instead of him. Unless Billy's been lying to me about the punks from San Luis who were after him." I'd never really taken that story seriously, but maybe it was time I did.

  She was silent. I could practically hear her shifting gears. "All I know is I think you're a shit and he was too."

  "I'm sorry you feel that way, Lovella. John hired me, and my first loyalty was to him... misguided, as it turned out, but that's where I was coming from. You want to vent a little more on the subject before we turn to something else?"

  "Yeah. I should have got the money, not someone else. I was the one who got banged around. I still got two cracked ribs and an eye looks like it's all sunk in on one side from the bruise."

  "Is that why you freaked out at the funeral?"

  Her tone of voice became tempered with sheepishness. "I'm sorry I did that, but I couldn't help myself. I'd been sittin' in some bar drinkin' Bloody Marys since ten o'clock and I guess I got outta hand. But it bugged me, all that Bible talk. Daggett never went to church a day in his life and it didn't seem right. And that old fat-ass claimed she was married to him? I couldn't believe my eyes. She looked like a bulldog."

  I had to laugh. "Maybe he didn't marry her for her looks," I said.

  "Well, I hope not."

  "When did you see him last?"

  "At the funeral home, where else?"

  "Before that, I mean."

  "Day he left L.A.," she said. "Week ago Monday. I never saw him after he took off."

  "I thought maybe you hopped a bus on Thursday after I left."

  "Well, I didn't."

  "But you could have, couldn't you?"

  "What for? I didn't even know where he went."

  "But Billy did. You could have come up to Coral's last week. You might have met him at the Hub Friday night and bought him a couple of drinks."

  Her laugh was sour. "You can't pin that on me. If that was me, how come Coral didn't recognize me, huh?"

  "For all I know, she did. You're friends. Maybe she just kept her mouth shut."

  "Why would she do that?"

  "Maybe she wanted to help you out."

  "Coral doesn't even like me. She thinks I'm a slut so why would she help me?"

  "She might've had reasons of her own."

  "I didn't kill him, Kinsey, if that's what you're getting at."

  "That's what everyone says. You're all wide-eyed and innocent. Daggett was murdered and nobody's guilty. Amazing."

  "You don't have to take my word for it. Ask Billy. Once he gets back, he can tell you who it was for sure, anyway."

  "Oh hey, sounds great. How's he going to manage that?"

  There was a pause, as if she'd said something she really wasn't authorized to say. "He thought he recognized somebody at the funeral and then he figured out where he'd seen 'em before," she said reluctantly.

  I blinked at the telephone receiver. In a quick flash, I remembered Billy's staring at the little group formed by the Westfalls, Barbara Daggett, and the Smiths. "I don't understand. What's he up to?"

  "He set up a meeting," she said. "He wants to find out if his theory's right and then he said he'd call you."

  "He's going to meet with her?"

  "That's what I said, isn't it?"

  "He shouldn't be doing that by himself. Why didn't he notify the police?"

  "Because he doesn't want to make a fool of himself in front of them. Suppose he's wrong? He doesn't have any proof, anyway. Just a hunch is all and even that's not a hundred percent."

  "Do you have any idea who he was talking about?"

  "Uh-uh. He wouldn't tell, but he was pretty happy with himself. He said we might get some money after all."

  Oh God, I thought, not blackmail. I could feel my heart sink. Billy Polo wasn't smart enough to pull that off. He'd blow it like he did every other crime he tried. "Where's the meeting taking place?"

  "What makes you ask?" she said, turning cagey.

  "Because I want to go!"

  "I don't think I should tell."

  "Lovella, don't do this to me."

  "Well, he didn't say I could."

  "You've told me this much. Why not the rest? He could be in trouble."

  She hesitated, mulling it over. "Down at the beach somewhere. He's not dumb, you know. He made sure it was public. He figured in broad daylight, there wouldn't be any problem, especially with other people around."

  "Which beach?"

  "What if he gets mad at me?"

  "I'll square it with
him myself," I said. "I will swear I forced the information out of you."

  "He's not going to like it if you show up and spoil everything."

  "I won't spoil it. I'll lurk in the background and make sure he's okay. That's all I'm talking about."

  Silence. She was so slow I thought I'd scream. "Look at it this way," I said. "He might be happy for the help. What if he needs backup?"

  "Billy wouldn't need back up from a woman."

  I closed my eyes, trying to keep my temper in check. "Just give me a hint, Lovella, or I'll come over to the trailer and rip your heart out by the roots." That, she heard.

  "You better never tell him I told," she warned.

  "Cross my heart and hope to die. Now come on."

  "I think it's that parking lot near the boat launch..."

  I banged the phone down and snagged my handbag. I locked the office in haste and ran down the hall, going down the back stairs two and three at a time. I'd had to park my car at the far end of the lot and once I got to the pay booth, there were three other cars in front of mine. "Come on, come on," I murmured, banging on the steering wheel.

  Finally, it was my turn. I showed the attendant my parking permit and shot through the gate as soon as the bar went up.

  Chapel is one way, heading up from the beach, so I had to turn right, take a left, and hit the one-way street going down again. I caught the light wrong at 101 so that delayed me. I didn't want to miss this one. I didn't want to show up two minutes late and miss the only chance I might have. I pictured a citizen's arrest... me and Billy Polo saving the day.

  The light turned green and I crossed the highway. Two blocks more and I reached Cabana where I took a right turn. The entrance to the lot I wanted was all the way around the bend near Santa Teresa City College. I got a ticket from the machine and threaded my way along the perimeter of the lot. I scanned the parked cars, hoping for a glimpse of Billy's white Chevy. The marina was on my right, the sun reflecting starkly from the white sails of a stately boat as it glided out of the harbor. The boat launch itself was at the very end of the parking lot, through a second parking gate. I pulled a second ticket and the arm went up. I found a slot and left my car, proceeding on foot.