D Is for Deadbeat

  Kelly Borden was a morgue attendant I'd met during a homicide investigation I'd worked on in August.

  "Nice to meet you too," I said. "What's the story on this one?"

  "I can't tell you much. They brought him in about seven, just as I was coming to work."

  "Do you have any idea how long he'd been dead?"

  "I don't know for sure, but it couldn't have been long. The body wasn't bloated and there wasn't any putrefaction. From what I've seen of drowning victims, I'd guess he went in the water late last night. Don't quote me on that. The watch he had on was stopped at two thirty-seven, but it could have been broken. It's a crummy watch and looks all beat up. It's in with his effects. Hell, what do I know? I'm just a flunkie, lowest of the low. Dr. Yee hates it if we talk to people like this."

  "Believe me, I'm not going to say anything. I'm just asking for my own purposes. What about his clothing? How was he dressed?"

  "Jacket, pants, shirt."

  "Shoes and socks?"

  "Well, shoes. He didn't have socks on and he didn't have a wallet or anything like that."

  "Any signs of injury?"

  "None that I've seen."

  I couldn't think of anything else I wanted to ask for the moment so I thanked him and said I'd be in touch.

  Then I went out to look for Barbara Daggett. If I was going to work for her, we needed to get business squared away.

  Chapter 6

  * * *

  I found her standing in the foyer, looking out at the parking lot. The rain was falling monotonously, occasional gusts of wind tossing the treetops. Gozy-looking lights were on in all the buildings that rimmed the parking lot, which only emphasized the dampness and the chill outside. A nurse, her white uniform flashing from the flaps of a dark blue raincoat, approached the doorway, leaping over puddles like a kid playing hopscotch. Her white hose were speckled with flesh-colored blotches where the rain had soaked through and the tops of her white shoes were spattered with mud. She reached the entrance and I held the door for her.

  She flashed me a smile. "Whoo! Thanks. It's like an obstacle course out there." She shook the water from her raincoat and padded down the hallway, crepe soles leaving a pattern of damp footprints in her wake.

  Barbara Daggett seemed rooted to the spot. "I have to go to Mother's," she said. "Somebody has to tell her." She turned and looked at me. "How much do you charge for your services?"

  "Thirty an hour, plus expenses, which is standard for the area. If you're serious, I can drop a contract off at your office this afternoon."

  "What about a retainer?"

  I made a quick assessment. I usually ask for an advance, especially in a situation like this, when I know I'll be talking to the cops. There's no concept of privilege between a P.I. and a client, but at least the front money makes it clear where my loyalties lie.

  "Four hundred should cover it," I said. I wondered if the figure came to mind because of Daggett's bounced check. Oddly enough, I felt protective of him. He'd conned me – there was no doubt of that – but I had agreed to work for him, and in my mind, I still had a duty to discharge. Of course, I might not have felt as charitable if he were still alive, but the dead are defenseless, and somebody in this world has to look out for them.

  "I'll have my secretary cut you a check first thing Monday morning," she said. She turned back, looking out the double doors into the gloom. She leaned her head against the glass. "Are you okay?"

  "You don't know how many times I've wished him dead," she said. "Have you ever dealt with an alcoholic?" I shook my head.

  "They're so maddening. I used to look at him and I was convinced he could quit drinking if he wanted to. I don't know how many times I talked to him, begging him to stop. I thought he didn't understand. I thought he just wasn't aware of what we were going through, my mother and me. I can remember the look he'd get in his eyes when he was drunk. Little pink piggy eyes. His whole body radiated this odor. Bourbon. God, I hate that stuff. He smelled like somebody'd dropped a bottle of Early Times down a heater vent... waves of smell. He reeked of it."

  She looked over at me, her eyes dry and pitiless. "I'm thirty-four and I've hated him with every cell in my body for as long as I can remember. And now I'm stuck with it. He won, didn't he? He never changed, never straightened up, never gave us an inch. He was such a shitheel. It makes me want to smash this glass door out. I don't even know why I care how he died. I should be relieved, but I'm pissed. The irony is that he's probably still going to dominate my life."

  "How so?"

  "Look what he's done to me already. I think of him every time I have a drink. I think of him if I decide not to have a drink. If I even meet a man who drinks or if I see a bum on the street or smell bourbon, his face is the first thing that comes to mind. Oh God, and if I'm around someone who's had too much, I can't stand it. I disconnect. My life is filled with reminders of him. His apologies and his phony, wheedling charm, his boo-hooing when the booze got to him. The times he fell, the times he got put in jail, the times he spent every dime we had. When I was twelve, Mother got religion and I don't know which was worse. At least Daddy woke up most days in okay shape. She had Jesus for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was grotesque. And then there were the joys of being an only child."

  She broke off abruptly and seemed to shake herself. "Oh hell. What difference does it make? I know I sound sorry for myself, but it's been such a bitch and there's no end in sight."

  "Actually, you look like you've done pretty well," I said.

  She turned her gaze back to the parking lot and I could see her faint, bitter smile reflected in the glass. "You know what they say about living well as the best revenge. I did well because it was the one defense I had. Escape has been the motivating force in my life. Getting away from him, getting away from her, putting that household behind me. The funny thing is, I haven't moved an inch, and the harder I run, the faster I keep slipping back to them. There are spiders that work like that. They bury themselves and create a little pocket of loose dirt. Then when their prey comes along, the soil gives way and the victim slides right down into the trap. There are laws for everything except the harm families do."

  She turned, shoving her hands down in her raincoat pockets. She pushed the door open with her backside and a draft of cold air rushed in. "What about you? Are you leaving or will you stick around?"

  "I guess I'll hit the office as long as I'm out," I said.

  She pressed a button on the handle of her umbrella and it lifted into the open position with a muffled thunk. She held it for me and we walked toward my car together. The raindrops tapping on the umbrella fabric made a muted sound, like popcorn in a covered saucepan.

  I unlocked my car and got in, while she moved off toward hers, calling back over her shoulder. "Try me at the office as soon as you hear anything. I should be there by two."

  My office building was deserted. California Fidelity is closed on weekends so their offices were dark. I let myself in, picking up the batch of morning mail that had been shoved through the slot. There were no messages on my answering machine. I pulled a contract out of my top drawer and spent a few minutes filling in the blanks. I checked Barbara Daggett's business card to verify the address, then I locked up again and went down the front stairs.

  I walked the three blocks and dropped the contract off at her office, then headed over to the police station on Floresta. The combination of the weekend and the bad weather lent the station much the same deserted air as my office building. Crime doesn't adhere to a forty-hour week, but there are days when even the criminals don't seem to feel like doing much. The linoleum showed a gridwork of wet footprints, like a pattern of dance steps too complex to learn. The air smelled of cigarette smoke and damp uniforms. I could see where someone had fashioned a folded newspaper into a rain hat and then abandoned it on the wooden bench just inside the door.

  One of the clerks in the identification and records section buzzed Jonah and he came out to the locked foyer door and
admitted me.

  He wasn't looking good. During the summer, he'd shed an excess twenty pounds and he'd told me he was still working out at the gym, so it wasn't that. His dark hair seemed poorly trimmed and the lines around his eyes were pronounced. He also had that weary aura that unhappiness seems to breed.

  "What happened to you?" I asked as we walked back to his office. He'd been reconciled with his wife since June, after a year's separation, and from what I'd gathered, it was not going well.

  "She wants an open relationship," he remarked.

  "Oh come on," I said, with disbelief.

  That netted me a tired smile. "That's what the lady says." He held the door open for me and we passed into an L-shaped room, furnished with big wooden desks.

  Missing Persons is included in Crimes Against Persons, which in turn is considered part of the Investigations Division, along with Crimes Against Property, Narcotics, and Special Investigations. The room was deserted at the moment, but people came and went at intervals. From the interview room off the inside corridor, I could hear the rise and fall of a shrill female voice and I guessed that an interrogation was under way. Jonah closed the hall door, automatically protective of department business.

  He filled two Styrofoam cups with coffee and brought them over, handing me packets of Cremora and Equal. Just what I needed, a cup of hot chemicals. We went through the motions of doctoring the coffee, which smelled like it'd been on the burner too long.

  I took a few minutes to lay out the Daggett situation. At this point, we didn't have the results of the autopsy, so the idea of murder was purely theoretical. Still, I told Jonah what had gone on to date, detailing the principal characters. I was talking to him as a friend instead of a cop and he listened as an interested, but unofficial, party.

  "So how long was he up here before he died?" Jonah asked.

  "Since Monday presumably," I said. "It's possible he went somewhere else first, but Lovella seemed to think he'd head straight for Billy Polo if he needed help."

  "Did that information on Polo do you any good?"

  "Not yet, but it will. I'm just waiting to see what we've got on our hands before I proceed. Even if the death was accidental, I suspect Barbara Daggett will want me to look into it. I mean, for starters, what was he doing on a boat in a rainstorm? And where has he been all this time?"

  "Where have you been?" Jonah asked. I focused on him and realized he'd shifted the subject. "Who, me? I've been around."

  He picked up a pencil and began to tap out a beat, like a man auditioning for a tiny blues band. He was giving me a look I'd seen before, full of heat and speculation. "Are you dating anyone?"

  I shook my head, smiling slightly. "The only good men I know are married." I was being flirtatious and he seemed to like that.

  His blue eyes locked into mine and the color rose in his face. "What do you do for sex?"

  "Jog on the beach. How about you?" He smiled, breaking off eye contact. "In other words, it's none of my business."

  I laughed. "I'm not avoiding the question. I'm telling the truth."

  "Really? That's funny. I always pictured you out raising hell."

  "I did some of that years ago, but I can't stand it these days. Sex is a bonding process. I'm careful who I connect up with. Besides, you don't know what the marketplace is like. A one-night stand is more like a wrestling match with a couple of quick take-downs. Talk about demoralizing. I'd rather be alone."

  "I know what you mean. I was out there hustling some the year she was gone, but I never got the hang of it. I'd go in a bar and some babe would sidle up to me, but I never made the right moves. Couple of times, women told me I was rude when I just thought I was making small talk."

  "It's worse if you're successful at it," I said. "Be grateful you never learned the gamesmanship. I know a couple of guys on the circuit and they're hard as nails, you know? Unhappy. Hostile toward women. They get laid, but that's about all they get."

  Behind him, Lieutenant Becker came in and took a seat at a desk across the room. Jonah's pencil tapping started again and then stopped. He tossed it aside and rocked back in his chair.

  "I wish life were simple," he said.

  I kept my tone of voice mild. "Life is simple. You're the one making things complex. You were doing great without Camilla, as far as I could see. She crooks her finger, though, and you go running back. And now you can't figure out what went wrong. Quit acting like a victim when you did it to yourself."

  This time he laughed. "God, Kinsey. Why don't you just say what's on your mind."

  "Well, I don't understand voluntary suffering. If you're unhappy, change something. If you can't make it work, then bail out. What's the big deal?"

  "Is that what you did?"

  "Not quite. I dumped the first and the second one dumped me. With both, I did my share of suffering, but when I look back on it, I can't understand why I endured so long. It was dumb. It was a big waste of time and cost me a lot."

  "I've never even heard you mention those guys."

  "Yeah, well I'll tell you about them sometime."

  "You want to have a drink when I get off work?" I looked at him briefly and then shook my head. "We'd end up in bed, Jonah."

  "That's the point, isn't it?" He smiled and did a Groucho Marx wiggle with his eyebrows.

  I laughed and turned the subject back to Daggett as I got up. "Call me when Dr. Yee has results on the post."

  "I'll call for more than that."

  "Get your life squared away first." When I left, he was still staring after me, and it was all I could do to get out of there. I had this troubling urge to gallop over and leap onto his lap, laughing while I covered his face with licks, but I didn't think the department would ever be the same. As I glanced back, I could see Becker giving us a speculative look while he pretended to check his "in" box.

  Chapter 7

  * * *

  Daggett's death was ruled accidental. Jonah called me at home at 4:00 to give me the news. I'd spent the afternoon again wrapped up in a quilt, hoping to finish the book. I'd just put on a fresh pot of coffee and I was scurrying back under the covers as the phone rang. When he told me, I was puzzled, but I wasn't convinced. I kept waiting for the punchline, but there wasn't one.

  "I don't get it," I said. "Does Yee know the background on this?"

  "Babe, Daggett's blood alcohol was point three-five. You're talking acute ethanol intoxication, almost coma stage."

  "And that was the cause of death?"

  "Well no, he drowned, but Yee says there's no evidence of foul play. None. Daggett went out in a boat, got tangled up in a fishing net, and fell overboard, too drunk to save himself."

  "Bullshit!"

  "Kinsey, some people die accidentally. It's a fact."

  "I don't believe it. Not this one."

  "The crime scene investigation unit didn't find a thing. Not even a hint. What can I say? You know these guys. They're as good as they come. If you think it's murder, come up with some evidence. In the meantime, we're calling it an accident. As far as we're concerned, the case is closed."

  "What was he doing dead drunk in a boat?" I asked. "The man was broke and it was raining cats and dogs. Who'd he rent the boat from?"

  I could hear Jonah sigh. "He didn't. Apparently, he took a little ten-foot skiff from its mooring off the dock at Marina One. The harbor master identified the boat and you can see where the line was cut."

  "Where'd they find it?"

  "On the beach near the pier. There weren't any usable prints."

  "I don't like it."

  "Look, I know what you're saying and you've got a point. I tend to agree, if that makes you feel any better, but who's asking us? Look at it as a gift. If the death is ruled a homicide, you can't get near it. This way, you've got carte blanche... within limits, of course."

  "Does Dolan know I'm interested?" Lieutenant Dolan was an assistant division commander and an old antagonist of mine. He hated private investigators getting involved in police
business.

  "The case is Feldman's. He won't give a shit. You want me to talk to him?"

  "Yeah, do that," I said. "And clear it with Dolan, while you're at it. I'm tired of getting my hand smacked."

  "Okay. I'll get back to you first thing Monday then," Jonah said. "In the meantime, let me know if anything turns up."

  "Right. Thanks."

  I put a call through to Barbara Daggett, repeating the information I'd just received. When I finished, she was silent.

  "What do you think?" she asked, finally.

  "Let's put it this way. I'm not satisfied, but it's your money. If you like, I can nose around for a couple of days and if nothing turns up, we'll dump the whole business and you'll just have to live with it."

  "What are the odds?"

  "I have no idea. All I know to do is pick up a thread and see where it leads. We may come up with six dead ends, but at least you'll know we gave it a shot."

  "Let's do it."

  "Great. I'll be in touch."

  I pushed the quilt aside and got up. I hoped Billy Polo was still around. I didn't know where else to start.

  I unplugged the coffeepot, poured the balance of the coffee into a thermos, and then made myself a peanut butter and dill pickle sandwich, which I put in a brown paper bag like a school kid. I had just about that same feeling in my gut too... the dull dread I'd experienced when I was eight, trudging off to Woodrow Wilson Elementary. I didn't want to go out in the rain. I didn't want to connect up with Billy Polo, who was probably a creep. He sounded like one of the sixth-grade boys I'd been so fearful of... lawless, out of control, and mean.

  I searched through my closet until I found my slicker and an umbrella. I left my warm apartment behind and drove over to Billy Polo's old address on Merced. It was 4:15 and getting prematurely dark. The neighborhood had probably been charming once, but it was gradually being overtaken by apartment buildings and was now no more than a hapless mix of the down-at-the-heel and the bland. The little gingerbread structures were wedged between three-story stucco boxes with tenant parking underneath and everywhere there was evidence of the same tasteless disregard for history.