C Is for Corpse

  "I have a better idea," Bobby said. "Stop by the house this afternoon. Mom's having some people in for drinks around five. My stepfather's birthday. It'll give you a chance to meet everyone."

  I hesitated. "You sure it'll be all right? She might not want me barging in on a special occasion like that."

  "It's fine. I'll tell her you're coming. She won't care. Got a pencil? I'll give you directions."

  I rooted through my handbag for a pen and my notebook and jotted down the details. "I'll be there about six," I said.

  "Great." He slammed the car door and moved off.

  I watched him hobble as far as his car and then I headed for home.

  I live in what was once a single-car garage, converted now to a two-hundred-dollar-a-month studio apartment maybe fifteen feet square, which serves as living room, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, closet, and laundry room. All of my possessions are multipurpose and petite. I have a combination refrigerator, sink, and stovette, a doll-sized stacking washer/dryer unit, a sofa that becomes a bed (though I seldom bother to unfold it), and a desk that I sometimes use as a dining-room table. I tend to be work-oriented and my living quarters seem to have shrunk, year by year, to this miniature state. For a while, I lived in a trailer, but that began to feel too opulent. I'm often out of town and I object to spending money for space I don't use. It's possible that one day I'll reduce my personal requirements to a sleeping bag that I can toss in the backseat of my car, thus eliminating altogether the need for paying rent. As it is, my wants are few. I don't have pets or houseplants. I do have friends, but I don't entertain. If I have any hobbies at all, they consist of cleaning my little semi-automatic and reading up on evidential documents. I'm not exactly a bundle of laughs, but I do pay my bills, keep a little money tucked away, and provide myself with medical insurance to cover the hazards of my trade. I like my life as it is, though I try not to boast overmuch about the fact! About every six or eight months, I run into a man who astounds me sexually, but between escapades, I'm celibate, which I don't think is any big deal. After two unsuccessful marriages, I find myself keeping my guard up, along with my underpants.

  My apartment is located on a modest palm-lined street a block from the beach and it's owned by a man named Henry Pitts, who lives in the main house on the property. Henry is eighty-one years old, a retired baker who supplements his income now by turning out breads and pastries that he trades with local merchants for goods and services. He caters tea parties for the little old ladies in the neighborhood, and in his spare time, he writes crossword puzzles that are a bitch to figure out. He's a very handsome man: tall, lean, and tanned, with shocking-white hair that looks as soft as baby fuzz, a thin aristocratic face. His eyes are a violet-blue, the color of ground morning glories, and they radiate intelligence. He's caring, compassionate, and sweet. It shouldn't have surprised me, therefore, to find him in the company of the "babe" who was having mint juleps with him in the garden when I got home.

  I had parked my car out front as usual, and I was heading around to the back, where my entrance is located. My apartment faces the rear and looks out onto a picturesque little bit of scenery. Henry has a patch of grass back there, a weeping willow, rosebushes, two dwarf citrus trees, and a small flagstone patio. He was just coming out of his own back door with a serving tray when he caught sight of me. "Oh, Kinsey. Well, good. Come on over here. There's someone I want you to meet," he said.

  My glance followed his and I saw a woman stretched out on one of the lounge chairs. She must have been in her sixties, plump, with a crown of dyed brown curls. Her face was as lined as soft leather and she used makeup skillfully. It was her eyes that bothered me: a velvety brown, quite large, and, just for a moment, poisonous.

  Henry set the tray down on a round metal table between the chairs. "This is Lila Sams," he said, then nodded at me. "My tenant, Kinsey Millhone. Lila's just moved to Santa Teresa. She's renting a room from Mrs. Lowenstein down the street."

  She held out a hand with a clatter of red plastic bracelets, moving as though she meant to struggle to her feet.

  I crossed the patio. "Don't get up," I said. "Welcome to the neighborhood." I shook hands with her., smiling sociably. Her return smile erased the chill from her gaze and I found myself doing a mental doubletake, wondering if I'd misinterpreted. "What part of the country are you from?"

  "Here, there, and everywhere," she said, glancing slyly at Henry. "I wasn't sure how long I'd stay, but Henry makes it seem veerry niiice."

  She wore a low-cut cotton sundress, a bright green-and-yellow geometric print on a white background. Her breasts looked like two five-pound flour sacks from which some of the contents had spilled. Her excess weight was carried in her chest and waist, her hefty hips and thighs tapering to a decent set of calves and quite dainty feet. She wore red canvas wedgies and fat red plastic button earrings. As with a painting, I found my gaze traveling right back around to the place where it began. I wanted to make eye contact again, but she was surveying the tray Henry held out to her.

  "Oh my. Well, what's all this? Aren't you a sweetie pie!"

  Henry had prepared a plate of canapés. He's one of those people who can whip into the kitchen and create a gourmet snack out of canned goods from the back of the cupboard. All I have at the back of my kitchen cupboard is an old box of cornmeal with bugs.

  Lila's red fingernails formed a tiny crane. She lifted a canapé and conveyed it to her mouth. It looked like a toast round with a bite of smoked salmon and a dab of dilled mayonnaise. "Mmm, that's wonderful," she said, mouth full, and then licked her fingertips, one by one. She wore several crusty diamond rings, the stones clotted together with rubies, and a square-cut emerald the size of a postage stamp, with diamonds on either side. Henry offered me the plate of canapés. "Why don't you try one of these while I fix you a mint julep?"

  I shook my head. "I better not. I may try to jog and then I have work to do."

  "Kinseys a private detective," he said to her.

  Lila's eyes got big and she blinked in wonderment. "Oh my goodness. Well, how interesting!" She spoke effusively, implying more enthusiasm than etiquette required. I wasn't nearly that thrilled with her and I'm sure she sensed it. I like older women as a rule. I like almost all women, as a matter of fact. I find them open and confiding by nature, amusingly candid when it comes to talk of men. This one was of the old school; giddy and flirtatious. She'd despised me on sight.

  She looked at Henry and patted the chaise pad. "Now, you sit down here, you bad boy. I won't have you waiting on me hand and foot. Can you believe it, Kinsey? All he's done this afternoon is fetch me this, fetch me that." She bent over the canapé plate, enthralled. "Now, what is this one?"

  I glanced at Henry, half expecting him to shoot me a pained look, but he had settled on the chaise as commanded, peering over at the plate. "That's smoked oyster. And that's a little cream cheese and chutney. You'll like that one. Here."

  He was apparently about to hand-feed her, but she smacked at him ineffectually.

  "Quit that. You take one for yourself. You are spoiling the life out of me, and what's more, you're going to make me get fat!"

  I could feel my face set with discomfort, watching their two heads bent together. Henry is fifty years older than I am and our relationship has always been completely decorous, but I wondered if this was how he felt on those rare occasions in the past when he'd spotted some guy rolling out of my place at six A.M.

  "Talk to you later, Henry," I said, moving toward my front door. I don't even think he heard me.

  I changed into a tank top and a pair of cutoffs, laced up my running shoes, and then slipped out again without calling attention to myself. I walked briskly one block over to Cabana, the wide boulevard that parallels the beach, and broke into a trot. The day was hot and there was no cloud cover at all. It was now three o'clock and even the surf seemed sluggish. The breeze fanning in off the ocean was dense with brine and the beach was littered with debris. I don't even know why I was bo
thering to run. I was out of shape, huffing and puffing, my lungs on fire within the first quarter-mile. My left arm ached and my legs felt like wood. I always run when I'm working and I guess that's why I did it that day. I ran because it was time to run and because I needed to shake the rust and stiffness from my joints. As dutiful as I am about jogging, I've never been a big fan of exercise. I just can't think of any other way to feel good.

  The first mile was pure pain and I hated every minute of it. Mile two, I could feel the endorphins kick in, and by mile three, I'd found my pace and might have gone on forever. I checked my running watch. It was 3:33. I never said I was swift. I slowed to a walk, pouring sweat. I would pay for this on the morrow, I was relatively sure, but for the moment, I felt loose, my muscles soft and warm. I used the walk home to cool down.

  By the time I reached my place again, evaporating sweat had left me chilled and I was looking forward to a hot shower. The patio was deserted, empty mint-julep glasses sitting side by side. Henry's back door was closed and the window shades were drawn. I let myself into my place with the key I carry tied to my shoelace.

  I washed my hair and shaved my legs, slipped into a robe, and puttered around for a while, tidying up the kitchen, cleaning off my desk. Finally, I donned a pair of pants, tunic top, sandals, and cologne. At 5:45, I grabbed my big leather handbag and went out again, locking up.

  I checked the directions to Bobby's house and turned left on Cabana toward the bird refuge, following the road as it wound into Montebello, which is rumored to have more millionaires per square mile than any other community in the country. I don't know if that's true or not. The residents of Montebello are a mixed lot. Though the big estates are interspersed now with middle-class homes, the overall impression is of money, carefully cultivated and preserved, vintage elegance harking back to a time when wealth was handled with discretion and material display reserved for one's financial peers. The rich, these days, are merely gaudy imitators of their early California counterparts. Montebello does have its "slums," a curious string of clapboard shacks that sell for $140,000 apiece.

  The address Bobby'd given me was off West Glen, a narrow road shaded by eucalyptus and sycamore, lined with low walls of hand-hewn stone that curve back toward mansions too remote to be seen by passing motorists. An occasional gatehouse hints at the stately digs beyond, but for the most part West Glen seems to wander through groves of live oak with nothing more on its mind than dappled sunshine, the scent of French lavender, and bumblebees droning among hot-pink geraniums. It was six now and wouldn't get dark for another two hours or so.

  I spotted the number I was looking for and turned into a driveway, slowing. To my right were three white stucco cottages, looking like something the three little pigs might have built. I peered through the windshield, but couldn't see a parking place. I rolled forward, hoping there would be a parking pad somewhere around the bend coming up. I glanced back over my shoulder, wondering why there weren't any other cars in sight, and wondering which of the little bungalows belonged to Bobby's folks. I felt a brief moment of uneasiness. He had said this afternoon, hadn't he? I could just picture myself arriving on the wrong day. I shrugged. Oh, well. I'd suffered worse embarrassments in my life, though for the moment, I couldn't think of one. I rounded the curve, looking for a place to pull in. Involuntarily, I slammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop. "Holy shit!" I whispered,

  The lane had opened out into a large paved courtyard. Just ahead I saw a house. Somehow, in my gut, I knew Bobby Callahan lived here, not in one of those homey little snuggeries up front. Those were probably servants' quarters. This was the real thing.

  The house was the size of the junior high school I'd attended and had probably been designed by the same architect, a man named Dwight Costigan, dead now, who had revitalized Santa Teresa single-handedly during the forty-odd years he worked. The style, if I'm not mistaken, is Spanish Revival. I have tended, I confess, to sneer at white stucco walls and red tile roofs. I've been contemptuous of arches and bougainvillea, distressed beams and balconies, but I had never seen them put together quite like this.

  The central portion of the house was two stories high, flanked by two cloistered arcades. Arch after arch after arch, supported by graceful columns. There were clusters of airy palms, sculptured portals, tracery windows. There was even a bell tower, like an old mission church. Hadn't Kim Novak been pushed out of something similar? The place looked like a cross between a monastery and a movie set. Four Mercedes were parked in the courtyard like a glossy ad campaign, and a fountain in the center shot a stream of water fifteen feet high.

  I pulled in as far to the right as I could get and parked, then looked down at what I had on. The pants, I saw now, had a stain on one knee that I could only conceal if I held myself in a continual crouch so the tunic would hang down that far. The tunic itself wasn't bad: black gauzy stuff with a low square neck, long sleeves, and a matching tie belt. For a moment, I considered driving home again to change clothes. Then, it occurred to me that I didn't have anything at home that looked any better than this. I torqued myself around to the backseat, sorting through the incredible collection of odds and ends I keep back there. I drive a VW, one of those nondescript beige sedans, great for surveillance work in most neighborhoods. Around here, I could see I'd need to hire a stretch limo. The gardeners probably drove Volvos.

  I pushed aside the law books, file boxes, tool kit, the briefcase where I keep my gun locked. Ah, just what I was looking for: an old pair of pantyhose, useful as a filter in an emergency. On the floor, I found a pair of black spike heels I'd bought when I'd intended to pass myself off as a hooker in a tacky part of Los Angeles. When I'd gotten there, of course, I'd discovered that all the whores looked like college girls, so I'd abandoned the disguise.

  I tossed the sandals I was wearing into the backseat and hunched my long pants off! I wiggled into the pantyhose, did a spit polish on the pumps, and slipped into those. I took the self-belt off the tunic and tied it around my neck in an exotic knot. In the bottom of my handbag, I found an eyeliner pencil and some blusher and I did a quick make-over, tilting the rearview mirror so I could see myself. I thought I looked weird, but how would they know? Except for Bobby, none of them had ever seen me before. I hoped.

  I got out of the car and steadied myself I hadn't worn heels this high since I'd played dress-up in my aunt's cast-offs when I was in first grade. Beltless, the tunic hit me midthigh, the lightweight fabric clinging to my hips. If I walked in front of a light, they'd see my bikini underpants, but so what? If I couldn't afford to dress well, at least I could provide a distraction from the fact. I took a deep breath and clattered my way toward the door.

  Chapter 3

  * * *

  I rang the bell. I could hear it echo through the house. In due course, the door was opened by a black maid in a white uniform like a nurse's aide's. I wanted to fall into her arms and be dragged off to the infirmary, my feet hurt so bad, but I mentioned my name instead and murmured that Bobby Callahan expected me.

  "Yes, Miss Millhone. Won't you come in, please?"

  She stepped aside and I moved into the hallway. The ceiling in the entryway was two stories high, light filtering down through a series of windows that followed the line of the wide stone stairs curving up to the left. The floor was tile, a soft red, polished to a satiny sheen. There were runners of Persian carpeting in faded patterns. Tapestries hung from ornamental wrought-iron rods that looked like antique weaponry. The air temperature was perfect, cool and still, scented by a massive floral arrangement on a heavy side table to my right. I felt like I was in a museum.

  The maid led me down the hallway to a living room so large the group of people at the far end seemed constructed on a smaller scale than I. The stone fireplace must have been ten feet wide and a good twelve feet high, with an opening big enough to roast an ox in. The furniture looked comfortable; nothing fussy or small. The couches, four of them, seemed substantial, and the chairs were large and overstuf
fed, with wide arms, reminding me somehow of first-class seats on an airplane. There was no particular color scheme and I wondered if it was only the middle class that ran out and hired someone to make everything match.

  I caught sight of Bobby and, mercifully, he lumbered in my direction. He had apparently divined from my expression that I was ill-prepared for this whole pageant.

  "I should have warned you. I'm sorry," he said. "Let me get you a drink. What would you like? We've got white wine, but if I tell you what it is, you'll think we're showing off"

  "Wine is perfect," I said. "I'm crazy about the show-off kind."

  Another maid, not the one who opened the door, but one especially trained for living rooms, anticipated Bobby's needs, approaching with glasses of wine already poured. I was really hoping I wouldn't disgrace myself by spilling a drink down my front or catching a heel on the rug. He handed me a glass of wine and I took a sip.

  "Did you grow up in this place?" I asked. It was difficult to picture binkies, Johnny-Jump-Ups, and Tonka trucks in a room that looked like the nave of a church. I suddenly tuned in to what was happening in my mouth. This wine was going to ruin me for the stuff in a cardboard box, which is what I usually drink.

  "Actually, I did," he said, looking around with interest now, as though the incongruity had just occurred to him. "I had a nanny, of course."

  "Oh sure, why not? What do your parents do? Or should I guess."

  Bobby gave me a lopsided smile and dabbed at his chin, almost sheepishly, I thought. "My grandfather, my mother's father, founded a big chemical company at the turn of the century. I guess they ended up patenting half the products essential to civilization. Douches and mouthwashes and birth-control devices. A lot of over-the-counter drugs, too. Solvents, alloys, industrial products. The list goes on for a bit."