K Is for Killer

  The cabin, when I'd seen it, had been stripped of all the furniture. Only the bare bones of Lorna's living space were left intact: empty cabinets and bathroom, plumbing, and electrical fixtures. It was good to see the pictures, to correct my mental process. In memory, I had already begun to distort the room sizes and relative distances. I went through all the pictures a second time and then a third. In the ten months since Lorna's death, the crime scene had been dismantled, and this was all that remained. If murder were ever proved and a suspect charged, the entire case could easily rest on the contents of this envelope. And what were the chances? What could I possibly hope to accomplish this late in the game? Basically, in my investigation, I was mimicking the spiral method of a crime scene search: starting at the center, moving outward and around in ever-widening circles. The problem was that I had no direction and no hard line to take. I didn't even have a theory about why she had died. I felt as though I were fishing, fly casting in the hopes that I'd somehow snag myself a killer. All that wily devil had to do was lie low, looking up at my lure from the bottom of the cove.

  I sorted through the file while I let my mind wander. Aside from the random or the serial killer, the perpetrator of a homicide has to have a reason, some concrete motive for wanting the victim dead. In the case of Lorna Kepler, I was still uncertain what the reason was. Financial gain was a possibility. She'd had assets in her estate. I made a note to myself to check with Janice on that score. Given the assumption that Lorna had no living issue, Janice and Mace would be her legal heirs if she died intestate. It was hard to picture either one of them guilty of murder. For one thing, if it were Janice, she'd have to be a fool to turn around and bring me into it. Mace was a question mark. He certainly hadn't conformed to my notion of a grieving parent. Her sisters were another possibility, though neither struck me as sufficiently smart or sufficiently energetic.

  I picked up the phone and dialed Frankie's Coffee Shop. This time Janice answered. I could hear jukebox music in the background, but not much else.

  "Hi, Janice. This is Kinsey, up in San Francisco."

  "Well, Kinsey. How are you? I'm always surprised to hear from you at such an hour. Did you find the fellow she was working for?"

  "I talked to him this evening, and I also tracked down one of the other actors in the film. I haven't made up my mind about either one of them. In the meantime, something else has come up. I'm wondering if I could take a look at Lorna's financial records."

  "I suppose so. Can you say why, or is that classified?"

  "Nothing's classified between us. You're paying for my services. I'm trying to pin down a motive. Money's an obvious possibility."

  "I guess that's true, but it's hard to see how it could apply in this case. None of us had any idea she had money until after she died and we went through her files. I'm still in shock. It was unbelievable, given my perception. I was forever slipping her a twenty just to make sure she'd eat right. And there she was with all those stocks and bonds and savings accounts. She must have had six. You'd think with that kind of money, she'd have lived a little better."

  I wanted to tell her the money was part of Lorna's pension fund, but it seemed unkind somehow since she hadn't lived long enough to use it. "Did she have a will?"

  "Well, yes. Just one sheet of paper that she'd written out herself. She left everything to Mace and me." '

  "I'd like to see that, if you don't object."

  "You can see anything you want. When I get home from work, I'll find the box of Lorna's personal effects and leave it on Berlyn's desk. You can stop by when you get back and pick it up from her."

  "I'd appreciate that. I want to talk to the two of them, in any event."

  "Oh, shoot, and that reminds me. Have you talked to that woman Lorna used to house-sit for?"

  "Once."

  "Well, I wonder if you'd do me a favor. Last time I went through Lorna's things, I came across a set of house keys I'm sure belong to her. I've been trying to return them and haven't had a minute to take care of it."

  "You want me to drop them off?"

  "If you would. I feel like I should do it myself, but I just don't have time. And I'd appreciate it if you'd make sure I get everything back when you finish going through it. There's some dividend and interest statements I'm going to need to pass along to the probate attorney when he files her income taxes."

  "Has the estate been settled yet?"

  "It's still in the works. What I'm giving you is copies, but I'd still like to have them back."

  "No problem. I can probably drop it all off to you day after tomorrow."

  "That'd be fine." I could hear the swell of chatter in the background. She said, "Uh-oh. I got to go."

  "See you tomorrow," I said, and hung up.

  I looked around at the room, which was serviceable but glum. The mattress was as dense as mud, while the pillows were foam rubber and threatened serious neck damage. I'd made reservations for a noon flight out of San Francisco. It was now almost three a.m. I wasn't ready to sleep. If I junked my return ticket, I could drive the rental car back and drop it at the airport in Santa Teresa, where my VW was sitting in the long-term parking lot. The trip would take roughly six hours, and if I could manage to avoid dozing off at the wheel, I'd be back around nine.

  I suddenly found myself energized by the notion of heading home. I swung my feet over the side of the bed, found my Reeboks, pulled them on, and left the laces dangling. I went into the bathroom, gathered up my toiletries, and shoved everything in the duffel. It took me longer to wake the night manager than it took me to check out. By 3:22 I was heading south on the 101.

  There's nothing as hypnotic as a highway at night. Visual stimulation is reduced to the lines on the road, asphalt zipping past in a series of streaks. Any shrubbery at the side of the road is diminished to a blur. All the trailer trucks were in transit, semis carrying goods that ranged from new cars to furniture, from flammable liquids to flattened cardboard boxes. Off to the side, I caught sight of townlet after townlet encased in darkness, illuminated only by rows of street lamps. An occasional billboard provided visual distraction. At long intervals a truck stop appeared, like an island of light.

  I had to stop twice for coffee. Having opted to head back, I now found the drive narcotic and was struggling to stay awake. The radio in the rental car was good company. I flipped from station to station, listening to a talk show host, classical and country music, and countless newscasts. Once upon a time I'd smoked cigarettes, and I could still remember the habit as a way of marking time on car trips. Now I'd rather drive off a bridge than light up. Another hour passed. It was nearly dawn and the sky was turning white, the trees along the road beginning to reclaim their color, now charcoal green and dark chartreuse. Dimly I was aware of the sun coming up like a beachball into my line of vision, the colors of the sky shading up from dark gray to mauve to peach to bright yellow. I had to flip down the visor to keep the glare out of my eyes.

  By 9:14 I'd turned in the rental and picked up my VW and I was pulling into a parking place in front of my apartment. My eyes felt itchy and I ached from a weariness that felt like the flu, but at least I was home. I let myself in, checked to see that there were no messages, brushed my teeth, took my shoes off, and fell into bed.

  For once, sleep descended like a blow to the head, and I went down, down, down.

  I woke at 5:00 p.m. The eight hours should have been adequate, but as starved as I was for sleep, I felt I was dragging myself out of quicksand. I was still struggling to adjust to the inverted pattern my life had taken. In bed at dawn, up again in the afternoon. I was eating breakfast at lunchtime, dinner in the dead of night, though often that meal turned out to be cold cereal or scrambled eggs and toast, which meant I ate breakfast twice. I was vaguely aware of a psychological shift, a change in my perception now that I'd substituted night for day. Like a form of jet lag, my internal clock was no longer synchronized with the rest of the world's. My usual sense of myself was breaking down, an
d I wondered if a hidden personality might suddenly emerge as if wakened from a long sleep. My day life was calling, and I was curiously reluctant to answer.

  I rolled out of bed, dumped my dirty clothes, took a shower, and got dressed. I stopped at a minimart where I grabbed a carton of yogurt and an apple, eating in my car as I headed over to the Keplers'. I could have used a couple more hours of sleep, but I was hoping to talk to Lorna's sisters before their mother woke up. Like me, her days and nights were turned around, and I felt a strange bond with her.

  Mace's plumbing truck wasn't parked in the drive this time. I left my VW on the berm, by the white split-rail fence, and moved up the walk to the porch, where I knocked. Trinny answered the door, though it took her a while. "Oh, hi. Mom worked a double shift and she's not up yet."

  "I figured as much. She said she'd tuck some information in a box and leave it with Berlyn."

  "She's not here right now. She's running some errands. You want to come in and wait?"

  "Thanks." I followed her through the small, densely furnished living room to the dining area, which was located at one end of the kitchen. Sunset wasn't far off, and the kitchen windows were getting dark, lending the lighted kitchen an artificial air of warmth. An ironing board had been set up, and the scent of freshly pressed cotton made me long for summer. "Mind if I take a look at Berlyn's desk? If the box is close to the surface, I can go ahead and get it."

  Trinny took up the iron again. "It's right in there." She pointed toward the door that led into the den.

  One corner of the room apparently doubled as the offices for Kepler Plumbing. I remembered seeing both the desk and the filing cabinet the night I talked to Mace. A banker's box with my name scrawled on top was sitting right in plain sight. For once I resisted any further urge to snoop. I lifted the lid to check the contents. A fragrance wafted up, some delicate combination of citrus and spice. I closed my eyes, wondering if this was Lorna's scent. I'd experienced it before – the very air saturated with someone's characteristic smell. With men it's after-shave, leather, or sweat. With women it's cologne. The house keys Janice had mentioned were sitting on top of a neatly packed collection of file folders, all in alphabetical order: bank statements, past income taxes, dividends, stocks, assorted annual reports. Tucked into one end of the box was a folded cashmere scarf. I pressed the length of it against my face, smelling cut grass, cinnamon, lemon, and clove. I hauled the box back to the kitchen and set it by one of the kitchen chairs, the scarf laid on top, "Is this Lorna's? It was in the box with her stuff."

  Trinny shrugged. "I guess."

  I folded it twice and tucked it back where it had been. "Mind if I sit down? I was hoping I'd have a chance to talk to you."

  "Fine," she said. She slid the lever on the iron to the off position.

  "I hope I'm not interrupting dinner preparations."

  "I got a casserole in the oven. All I have to do is heat it and make a salad real quick."

  I took a seat, wondering how to coax some information out of her. I wasn't even sure what I wanted to know, but I considered it a bonus to be alone with her. She was wearing the same cutoffs I'd seen her in before. Her legs looked solid, her bare feet tucked into rubber flip-flops. Her T-shirt this time must have been an XXL, the front emblazoned with a painted design. She moved from the ironing board to the kitchen table, where she sat down across from me and began squeezing a tube of paint in a Jackson Pollock-type design on the front of a new T-shirt. Dots and squiggles. Hanging from a knob on one of the kitchen cabinets was a completed work, its lines of paint puffed out in three dimensions. She caught my gaze. "This's puff paint," she said. "You put it on and let it dry, and when you iron it on the wrong side, it puffs out like that."

  "That's cute," I said. I got up and moved closer to the kitchen cabinet, taking a moment to inspect the finished product. Looked dreadful to me, but what do I know? "You sell these?"

  "Well, not yet, but I'm hoping. I made this one I got on, and whenever I go out everybody's like 'Oh, wow, cool T-shirt.' So I thought since I wasn't working I could set up my own business."

  My oh my. She and her sister Lorna, both driven by the entrepreneurial spirit. "How long have you been doing this?"

  "Just today."

  I took my seat at the kitchen table again, watching Trinny work. I began to cast out my line. Surely there was something I could wheedle out of her. To my right was a stack of travel brochures, touting Alaskan cruises, ski holidays, and package tours to Canada and the Caribbean. I picked up a pamphlet and began to scan the copy: "The world's last unspoiled paradise... stunning white beaches... deep azure lagoons..."

  Trinny saw what I was doing. "Those are Berlyn's."

  "Where's she going?"

  "She doesn't know yet. She says Alaska looks good."

  "Are you going, too?"

  She made a disappointed face. "I don't have the money."

  "Too bad. It looks like fun," I said. "She doesn't mind traveling alone?"

  "Nuh-uhn. She likes it. Not all the time, but if she has to, she says. She did the one trip already, in the fall."

  "Really. Where'd she go then?"

  "Acapulco. She loved it. She says she'll take me if she goes back."

  "That's neat. I was in Viento Negro last summer, but that's as far south as I've been."

  "I haven't even been that far. Berlyn's always liked to travel. I don't have the same bug. I mean, I like it and all, but there's stuff I'd rather do."

  "Like what?"

  "I don't know. Buy clothes and stuff."

  I tried another tack. "Lorna's death must have been hard. Are you doing okay with that?"

  "I guess so. It's been hard on them. I mean, Mom and Daddy used to be a lot closer. Once Lorna died, seems like everything changed. And now it's like Mom's the only one caught up in it. Lorna's all she talks about. Berlyn gets her feelings hurt. It really pisses her off. It's like, what about us? Don't we count for anything?"

  "Were you close to Lorna?"

  "Not really. Lorna wasn't close to anyone. She lived in her world and we lived in ours. She had that cabin, and she liked it private. She hated it if people stopped by without asking. A lot of times she wasn't even home. Nights especially she'd be out somewhere. She made it plain you should keep away unless you called first and got yourself invited."

  "How often did you see her?"

  "A lot over here, whenever she stopped by. But at the cabin, maybe once or twice in the three years she lived there. Berlyn liked to go over. She's kind of nosy by nature. Lorna was real mysterious."

  "Like what?"

  "I don't know. Like, why was she so picky about people dropping in? What's the big deal? She didn't have to worry about us. We're her sisters."

  "Did you ever find out where she went at night?"

  "Nuh-uhn. Probably wasn't any place special. After a while, I more or less accepted her for what she was. She wasn't sociable, like us. Berlyn and me are buddies. We like to pal around and double-date and stuff like that? Right now, like, neither of us has a boyfriend, so we see movies and go out dancing on the weekends.

  Lorna never did the first nice thing for either one of us. Well, she did now and then, but you practically had to lay down and beg."

  "How'd you find out about her death?"

  "The police stopped by the house and asked to speak to Daddy. He was the one who told Mom, and she told us. It was kind of creepy. I mean, we thought Lorna was out of town. Off on vacation, is what Mom said. So we didn't think anything about it when we didn't hear from her. We just figured she'd give us a call when she got back. It's horrible to think she was just laying there, moldering."

  "It must have been awful."

  "Oh, God. I started screaming, and Berl got white as a ghost. Daddy was like in shock. Mother took it the worst. She still isn't over it. She was staggering around shrieking and crying, practically tearing her hair out. I've never seen her like that. She's usually the one holds the rest of us together. Like when Grandma died? Th
is was her own mother. She kept real calm, made airline reservations, packed our bags so we could go back to Iowa to the funeral. We were all young kids, acting dumb, boo-hooing real pitiful. She got everything all organized, as cool as you please. When we found out about Lorna, she just fell to pieces."

  "Most parents don't expect to outlive their kids," I said.

  "That's what everybody says. It doesn't help that the police think she was murdered and all."

  "What's your opinion?"

  Trinny made a mute shrug with her mouth. "I guess she could have died from her allergies. I don't like to think about it. Too icky for my taste."

  I shifted the subject. "Were you the one who went to San Francisco with Lorna last year?"

  "That was Berlyn," she said. "Who told you about that?"

  "I met the guy on the tape."

  She glanced up from her work with interest. "Which one?"

  Chapter 12

  * * *

  She had the good grace to blush. Despite the dark brown hair, she was fair-complected, and the tint hit her cheeks like a heat rash. She dropped her gaze to the work in front of her, suddenly much busier than she'd been before. I could tell she was casting about for a way to change the subject. She bent over her work. I guess it was important to get the paint dots just right.

  "Trinny?"

  "What?"

  "How'd you happen to see the tape? And don't say 'which tape' because you know exactly which tape I'm talking about."

  "I didn't see the tape."

  "Oh, come on. Of course you did. If you didn't, how'd you know there was more than one guy?"

  "I don't even know what you're talking about," she said with pious irritation.

  "I'm talking about the porno tape in which Lorna appeared. Remember? Your mother told you."