K Is For Killer

5

The den had been added onto the house by framing in one-half of the two-car garage. Subflooring had been laid over the original concrete, and look-like-oak tongue-and-groove vinyl planks had been installed on top of that. Even with the addition of an area rug, the room smelled like motor oil and old car parts. A sofa bed, coffee table, four chairs, an ottoman, and a rolling cart for the television set had been arranged in the space. In one corner was a filing cabinet and a desk piled high with papers. All of the furniture looked like garage sale purchases: mismatched fabrics, worn upholstery, someone else's discards given another chance in life.

Mace sank onto a battered brown Naugahyde lounger, activating the mechanism that flipped the footrest into place. His mouth was crowded with bad teeth. The flesh along his jaw had softened with age, and he now had parentheses setting off the thin line of his mouth. He picked up the TV remote, punched the mute button, and then clicked his way through several channels until he found a basketball game in progress. Silently, guys bounded up and down the court, leapt, fell, and bumped one another sideways. If the sound had been turned up, I knew I'd hear the high-pitched shriek of rubber soles on the hardwood floor. The ball sailed into the basket as if magnetized, not even touching the rim half the time.

Without invitation, I perched on the nearby ottoman, arranging myself so I was in his line of sight. "I take it Janice has told you about our conversation last night." I was prepared to make soothing noises about Lorna's participation in the pornographic film. Mace made no response. A fast-food commercial came on, a fifteen-by-twenty-inch full-color burger filling the TV screen. The sesame seeds were the size of rice grains, and a slice of bright orange cheese drooped invitingly from the edge of the bun. I could see Mace's eyes fix on the picture. I'd always known I wasn't as compelling as a flame-broiled beef patty, but it was deflating nonetheless to see his attention displaced. I moved my head to the left, entering his visual frame of reference.

"She told me she wants to hire you to look into Lorna's death," he said as though prompted by someone off stage.

"How do you feel about it?"

He began to tap on the chair arm. "Up to Janice," he said. "I don't mean to sound crass, but her and me have a difference of opinion with regard to that. She believes Lorna was murdered, but I'm not convinced. It could have been a gas leak. Could have been carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty furnace." He had a big voice and big hands.

"Lorna's cabin had a furnace? I was under the impression her living quarters were pretty crude."

A brief look of impatience flashed across his face. "Janice does the same thing. She takes everything literal. I'm just giving an example. Every item in that cabin was either old or broke down. You have a heater that's defective, and you can get yourself in a peck of trouble. That's the point I was trying to make. I see it all the time. Hell, that's what I do for a living."

"I assume the police looked into the possibility of a gas leak."

He shrugged that one off, hunching one beefy shoulder while he worked out a kink. "Bunged myself on the back, trying to wrench a pipe off a slab," he said. "I don't know what the police did. Point is, I think this whole business ought to be laid to rest. Seems to me this speculation about murder is just another way of keeping the subject open for discussion. I loved my daughter. She's as near perfect as you could want. She's a beautiful, sweet girl, but she's dead now, and nothing's going to change that. We got two daughters living, and we need to focus our attention on them for a change. You start hiring lawyers and detectives, all you're going to have is a lot of unnecessary expense in addition to the heartache."

I could feel my inner ears prick up. No outrage, no protest, no reference whatever to all the licking and sucking? To me, Lorna's prurient behavior left her short of "near perfect" and put her closer to "wanton." Being wild didn't make her bad, but the word sweet was not quite the word that leapt to my mind. I said, "Maybe the two of you need to have another chat about this. I told her last night you'd have to agree."

"Well, we're not in agreement. I think the woman's got her head up her butt, but if that's what she wants, I'm willing to go along with it. We're all of us coping any way we can. If this makes her feel good, I won't interfere, but that doesn't mean I agree with her on the issue."

Oh, boy. Wait until the man saw the bill for my services. I didn't want to be caught in the middle of that dispute. "What about Trinny and Berlyn? Have you discussed this with them?"

"It's not up to them. It's me and her make decisions. The girls live at home, but we're the ones pay the bills."

"I guess what I'm really asking is how they're coping with Lorna's death."

"Oh. I guess we don't tend to talk about that much. You'd have to ask them yourself. I'm trying to put this behind us, not keep it all stirred up."

"Some people find it helpful to talk about these things. That's how they process what they've experienced."

"I hope I don't sound like a surly so-and-so on the subject, but I'm just the opposite. I'd just as soon drop it and get on with life."

"Would you object to my talking with them?"

"That's between you and them, as far as I'm concerned. They're grown-ups. As long as they're willing, you can talk all you want."

"Maybe I'll catch them before I leave. We don't necessarily have to talk today, but I'd like to have a conversation with each of them soon. It's always possible Lorna confided something that might turn out to be significant."

"I doubt it, but you can ask."

"What hours do they work?"

"Berl mans the phone here eight to five. I got a pager, and she makes sure I know about emergencies. She keeps my books, pays the bills, and handles the deposits. Trinny's in the process of looking for work. She got laid off last month, so she's here most of the time."

"What's she do?"

The series of commercials had finally come to an end, and his attention was focused on the TV set again. Two ex-athletes in suits were discussing the game. I let the matter pass, thinking I could ask her myself.

There was a knock at the den door, and Janice peered in. "Oh, hi. Trinny said you were here. I hope I'm not interrupting." She came into the den and closed the door behind her, bringing with her the scent of shower soap, deodorant, and damp hair. She was wearing a red-and-white-checked shirt and red polyester stretch pants. "I got a regular uniform for work," she said, her glance following mine. She looked spiffier than I did, polyester or no. "Did anyone offer you a beverage?" I was surprised she didn't pull out an order pad and pen.

"Thanks, but I'm fine. Mace offered earlier." I reached into my handbag and took out the contract, which I laid on the coffee table. "I stopped by with this. I hope I'm not interrupting your supper preparations."

She waved a hand. "Don't worry about it. Trinny's taken care of that. Ever since she Rot laid off, it's like having live-in help. We don't eat until eight, which is hours from now anyway. Meantime, how've you been? I hope you got enough sleep. You look tired."

"I am, but I'm hoping to catch up tonight. I don't know how you work the night shift. It would kill me."

"You get used to it. Actually, I prefer it. A whole different set of people come in at night. By the way, that offer of coffee still stands if you're ever up in that area when I'm on shift." She picked up the contract, a simple one-page document spelling out the terms of our agreement. "I guess I better read this before I sign. How does this work? Is this hourly or flat fee?"

"Fifty bucks an hour plus expenses," I said. "I'll submit a written report once a week. We can touch base by phone as often as you like. The agreement authorizes my services and expenditures up to five thousand dollars. Anything beyond that, we'll discuss if the time comes. You may decide you don't want to proceed, and if so, that's the end of it."

"You'll probably need an advance. Isn't that how this is done?"

"Generally," I said. We spent a few minutes talking about the particulars while Mace watched the game.

"This looks all right to me. Honey, what do you think?"

She held out the contract for him, but he ignored her. She turned back to me. "I'll be right back. The checkbook's in the other room. Will a thousand dollars be all right?"

"That'd be fine," I said. She left the room, and I turned my attention to him. "It will save me some time if you can give me the names and addresses of Lorna's friends."

"She didn't have any friends. She didn't have enemies, either, at least as far as we know."

"What about her landlord? I'll need his address."

"Twenty-six Mission Run Road. Name is J. D. Burke. Her place was at the back of his property. I imagine he'd give you the tour if you ask him nice."

"You have any idea why she might have been killed?"

"I already told you my opinion," he said.

Janice returned to the room, catching my last remark and his response. "Ignore him. He's a pill," she said. She took a swat at hit head. "You behave yourself."

She sat down on the couch with her checkbook in hand. From the glimpse I caught of the check register, it looked as though it had been a while since she'd done her subtraction. She seemed to favor rounding everything off to the nearest dollar, which made all the amounts end in zero. She wrote out the check, tore it off, and passed it over to me, making a note of the check number and the sum. Then she scribbled her name at the bottom of the contract and handed it to Mace. He took the pen and added his signature without glancing at the terms. The very gesture conveyed, not indifference, but something close to it. I've been in business long enough to smell trouble, and I made up my mind to have Janice pay me as we went along. If I waited to submit a final bill of any substance, Mace would probably get his undies in a bundle and refuse to pay.

I glanced at my watch. "I better go," I said. "I have an appointment in fifteen minutes on the other side of town." I was lying, of course, but these people were beginning to give me a stomachache. "Could you walk me out?" I asked.

Janice stood up when I did. "Be happy to," she said.

"Nice meeting you," I murmured to Mace as I departed.

"Yeah, ditto for sure."

Neither Berlyn nor Trinny was visible as we passed through the living room on our way to the door. As soon as we hit the front porch, I said, "Janice, what's going on here? Have you told him about the tape? He doesn't act like he knows, and you swore you would do that."

"Well, I know, but I haven't had a chance yet. He'd already gone to work when I got home this morning. This is the first opportunity I've had. I didn't want to mention it in front of Berlyn or Trinny…"

"Why not? They have a right to know what she was up to. Suppose they have information that's relevant. Maybe they're holding something back, trying to be protective of the two of you."

"Oh. I hadn't thought of that. Do you really think so?"

"It's certainly possible," I said.

"I guess I could tell them, but I hate to tarnish her memory when it's all we have."

"My investigation may turn up worse than that."

"Oh, Lord, I hope not. What makes you say that?"

"Wait a minute. Let's stop this. I can't be effective if you keep on playing games."

"I'm not playing games," she said, her tone indignant.

"Yes, you are. You can knock off the bullshit about Lorna, for starters. The detective I talked to says you knew what she was doing because he told you himself."

"He did not!"

"I don't want to get into this 'did too, did not' stuff. I'm telling you what he said."

"Well, he's a damn liar, and you can tell him that's what I said."

"I'll convey your position. The point is, you promised to tell Mace about the video. You're lucky I didn't open my big mouth and put my foot in it. I came this close to mentioning it."

"That'd be all right," she said with caution, apparently mistaking my statement for an offer.

"I bet that'd be all right with you. You figure he's already hostile toward me, so what difference would it make? I can just imagine his reaction. Hey, no thanks. That's your job, and you better be quick."

"I'll raise the subject at supper."

"The sooner the better. Just don't leave me in the position of knowing more than he does. He's going to feel foolish enough as it is."

"I said I'd take care of it," she said. Her manner was frosty, but I didn't care.

We parted company on that slightly strained note.

I stopped by the bank on my way through town and deposited the check. I wasn't convinced the damn thing wouldn't bounce, and if I'd had any sense, I'd have waited until it cleared before I did any further work. I intended to head home. Under the trees, the February twilight had accumulated shadows. I was looking forward to an early supper and a good night's sleep. In the interest of efficiency, I did a detour as far as Mission Run Road in search of Lorna's former landlord. If he was home, I'd have a quick chat. If he was out, I'd leave a card with a note asking him to get in touch.

The house was a two-story Victorian structure: white frame with green shutters and a wrap-around porch. Like many such homes in Santa Teresa, this had probably been the main residence on agricultural land of considerable acreage. There was a time when this parcel would have been on the outskirts of town instead of close to its center. I could picture the orchards and fields being subdivided, other houses encroaching while owner after owner put money in the bank. Now what remained was probably less than six acres populated with old trees and the suggestion of outbuildings converted to other use.

As I moved up the walk, I could hear voices, one male, one female, raised in anger, though the subject matter wasn't audible. A door slammed. The man yelled something else, but the point was lost. I went up wooden steps that were rough with flaking gray paint. The front door was standing open, the screen on the latch. I rang the bell. I could see linoleum in the hallway and on the right, stairs going up to the second-floor landing. One portion of the hallway had been sectioned off with two accordion gates, one near the stairway, the other halfway to the kitchen. Burke had a puppy or a kid, it was hard to say. Lights were on at the back of the house. I rang the bell again. A man called out from the kitchen and then appeared, heading in my direction with a dish towel tucked in his belt. He flipped on the porch light, peering out at me.

"Are you J. D. Burke?" I asked.

"That's right." His smile was tentative. He was in his mid- to late forties, with a lean face and good teeth, though one was chipped in front. He had deep creases on either side of his mouth and a fan of wrinkles at the outer corners of his eyes.

"My name is Kinsey Millhone. I'm a private investigator. Lorna Kepler's mother hired me to look into her death. Can you spare a few minutes?"

He glanced back over his shoulder and then shrugged to himself. "Sure, as long as you don't mind watching me cook." He unlatched the screen and held it open for me. "Kitchen's back here. Watch your feet," he said. He sidestepped an array of plastic blocks as he moved down the hall. "My wife thinks playpens are too confining for kids, so she lets Jack play here, where he can see what's going on." I could see that Jack had smeared peanut butter on all the stair spindles he could reach.

I followed J.D. down a chilly hallway, made darker by mahogany woodwork and wallpaper somber with age. I wondered if the art experts could brighten the finish by cleaning away the soot, restoring all the colors to their once clear tones like an old masterpiece. On the other hand, how colorful could pale brown cabbage roses get?

The kitchen was someone's depressing attempt to "modernize" what had probably been a utility porch to begin with. The countertops were covered with linoleum, rimmed with a band of metal where a line of dark gray grunge had collected. The wooden cabinets were thick with lime-green paint. The stove and refrigerator both appeared to be new, incongruous white appliances sticking out into the room. An oak table and two chairs had been tucked into an alcove, where a bay of windows with built-in benches looked out onto a tangled yard. The room was at least warmer than the hall we'd passed through.

"Have a seat."

"I'm fine. I can't stay long," I said. Really, I was reluctant to park my rear end on seats that were sticky with little fingerprints. A short person, probably Jack, had made the rounds of the room, leaving a chair rail of grape jelly that extended as far as the back door, which opened onto a small glass-enclosed porch.

J.D. leaned toward the burner and turned the flame up under his skillet while I leaned against the doorjamb. His hair was a mild brown, thinning on top, slightly shaggy across his ears. He wore a blue denim work shirt, faded blue jeans, and dusty boots. A white paper packet marked with butcher's crayon sat on the counter, along with a pile of diced onions and garlic. He added olive oil to the skillet. I do love to watch men cook.

"J.D.?" A woman's voiced reached us from the front of the house.

"Yeah?"

"Who's at the door?"

He looked toward the corridor behind me, and I turned as she approached. "This lady's a private investigator looking into Lorna's death. This is my wife, Leda. Sorry, but your name slipped right by me." With the oil hot, he scooped up the onions and minced garlic and dropped them in the pan.

I turned and held my hand out. "Kinsey Millhone. Nice to meet you."

We shook hands. Leda was exotic, a child-woman scarcely half Burke's height and probably half his age. She couldn't have been more than twenty-two or twenty-three, small and frail with a dark pixie cut. Her preferred fingers were cold, and her handshake was passive.

Burke said, "Actually, you might know Leda's dad. He's a private investigator, too."

"Really? What's his name?"

"Kurt Selkirk. He's semiretired now, but he's been around for years. Leda's his youngest. He's got five more just like her, a whole passel of girls."

"Of course I know Kurt," I said. "Next time you talk to him, tell him I said hi." Kurt Selkirk had made his living for years doing electronic surveillance, and he had a reputation as a sleazebag. Since Public Law 90-351 was passed in June of 1968, "anyone who willfully uses, endeavors to use, or procures any other person to use or endeavor to use any electronic, mechanical, or other device to intercept any oral communication" was subject to fines of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than five years. I knew for a fact that Selkirk had risked both penalties on a regular basis. Most private investigators in his age range had made a living, once upon a time, eavesdropping on cheating spouses. Now the no-fault divorce laws had changed much of that. In his case, the decision to retire was probably the result of lawsuits and threats by the federal government. I was glad he'd left the business, but I didn't mention that. "What sort of work do you do?" I asked J.D.

"Electrician," he said.

Meanwhile Leda, smiling faintly, moved past me in a cloud of musk cologne. Any oxen in the area would have been inflamed. Her eye makeup was elaborate: smoky eye shadow, black eyeliner, brows plucked into graceful arches. Her skin was very pale, her bones as delicate as a bird's. The outfit she was wearing was a long, white sleeveless tunic, cut low on her bony chest, and gauzy white harem pants, through which her thin legs were clearly visible. I couldn't believe she wasn't freezing. Her sandals were the type that always drive me insane, with thin leather straps coming up between the toes.

She moved out onto the glassed-in porch, where she busied herself with a swaddled infant, which she lifted from a wicker carriage. She brought the infant to the kitchen table, sliding onto the bench seat. She bared her quite weensie left breast, deftly affixing the baby like some kind of milking apparatus. As far as I could tell, the child hadn't made a sound, but it may have emitted a signal audible only to its mother. Jack, the toddler, was probably off somewhere finger painting with the contents of his diaper.

"I was hoping to see Lorna's cabin, but I didn't know if you had tenants in there at this point." I noticed Leda watched me carefully while I talked to him.

"Cabin's empty. You can go on back if you want. There hasn't been a way to rent it since the body was found. Word gets out and nobody wants to touch it, especially the shape she was in." Burke held his nose with exaggerated distaste.

Embarrassed, Leda said, "J.D.!" as if he'd made a rude noise with his butt.

"It's the truth," he said. He opened the butcher's packet and took out a pillow of raw ground beef, which he plunked into the skillet on top of the sautéed onions. He began to break up the bulk meat with his spatula. I could still see the densely packed noodles of beef where the meat had emerged from the grinder. Looked like worms to me. The hot skillet was turning the bottom of the bulk ground beef from pale pink to gray. I'm giving up meat. I swear to God I am.

"Can you remodel the place?"

"Right now I don't have the bucks, and it probably wouldn't help. It's just a shack."

"What was she paying?"

"Three hundred a month. Might sound like a lot unless you compare it to other rentals in the area. It's really like a one-bedroom with a wood-burning stove I finally took out. People know a place is empty, and they'll steal you blind. They'll take all the lightbulbs if nothing else."

I noticed that in typical landlord assessment, the "shack" had been elevated to a "one-bedroom apartment."

"Did someone live there before she did?"

"Nope. My parents used to own the property, and I inherited when Mom died, along with some other rentals on the far side of town. I met Lorna through some people at the plant where she worked. We got talking one afternoon, and she told me she was looking for a place with some privacy. She'd heard about the cabin and asked if she could see it. She fell in love with it. I told her, 'Look, it's a mess, but if you want to fix it up, it'd be fine with me.' She moved in two weeks later without really doing much."

"Was she a party person?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"What about friends? Did she have a lot of people back there?"

"I really couldn't say. It's way back in the back. There's like this little private dirt road going in off the side street. You want to see it, you probably ought to drive your car around and come in that way. Used to be a path between the two places, but we don't use it anymore, and it's overgrown by now. Most of the time, I didn't see if she had company or not because the foliage is so dense. Winters I might catch lights, but I never paid much attention."

"Did you know she was hustling?"

He looked at me blankly.

"Turning tricks," Leda said.

J.D. looked from her face to mine. "What she did was her business. I never considered it my concern." If he was startled by the revelation, it didn't show on his face. His mouth curved down in a display of skepticism while he poked at the cooking beef. "Where'd you hear about that?" he asked me.

"From a vice detective. Apparently, a lot of hookers work the classy hotels where the high rollers hang out. Lorna had done out-call, but she upgraded to independent."

"I guess I'll have to take your word for it."

"So as far as you knew, she didn't bring clients here."

"Why would she do that? You want to impress a fella, you'd hardly bring 'em back to some little shack in the woods. You'd be better off at the hotel. That way he'd get stuck for all the drinks and stuff."

"That makes sense," I said. "I gather she was careful to keep her private life private, so she probably didn't like to mix the two, anyway. Tell me about the day you found her."

"Wasn't me. It was someone else," he said. "I'd been out of town, up at Lake Nacimiento for a couple of weeks. I don't remember the exact timetable offhand. I got home, and I was taking care of some bills came in while I was gone and realized I didn't have her rent check. I tried calling a bunch of times and never got any answer. Anyway, couple days after that, this woman came to the door. She'd been trying to get in touch with Lorna herself, and she'd gone back there to leave her a note. Soon as she got close, she picked up the stink. She came and knocked on our door and asked us to call the police. She said she was pretty sure it was a dead body, but I felt like I ought to check it out first."

"You hadn't noticed anything before?"

"I'd been aware of something smelling bad, but I didn't think much of it. I remember the guy across the street was complaining, but it wasn't like either one of us really thought it was human. Possum or something. Could have been a dog or a deer. There's a surprising amount of wildlife around here."

"Did you see the body?"

"No ma'am. Not me. I got as far as the porch and turned around and came back. I didn't even knock. Man, I knew something was wrong, and I didn't want to be the one to find out what it was. I called 911 and they sent a cop car. Even the officer had a hard time. Had to hold a handkerchief across his mouth." J.D. crossed to the pantry, where he took out a couple of cans of tomato sauce. He took the crank-style can opener from a nearby drawer and began to remove the lid on the first can.

"You think she was murdered?"

"She was too young to die without some kind of help," he said. He dumped the contents of the first can into the skillet and then cranked open the second. The warm, garlicky smell of tomato sauce wafted up from the pan, and I was already thinking maybe meat wasn't so bad. Other people's cooking always makes me faint with hunger. Must be the equivalent of lost mothering. "Any theories?"

"Not a one."

I turned to Leda. "What about you?"

"I didn't know her that well. We put the vegetable garden back in that corner of the property, so I'd sometimes see her when I went back there to pick beans."

"No friends in common?"

"Not really. J.D. knew Lorna's supervisor out at the water treatment plant. That's how she heard we had a cabin in the first place. Other than that, we didn't socialize. J.D. doesn't like to get too chummy with the tenants."

"Yeah. First thing you know they're giving you excuses instead of the rent check," he said.

"What about Lorna? Did she pay on time?"

"She was good about that. At least until the last one. Otherwise, I wouldn't have let it ride," he said. "I kept thinking she'd bring it by."

"Did you ever meet any friends of hers?"

"Not that I remember." He turned to look at Leda, who shook her head in the negative.

"Anything else you can think of that might help?"

I got murmured denials from both.

I took out a business card and jotted my home phone on the back. "If anything occurs to you, would you give me a buzz? You can call either number. I have machines on both. I'll take a look at the cabin and get back to you if there's a question."

"Watch the bugs," he said. "There's some biggies out there."