Kinsey and Me (11 page)

W
HEN
I
WALKED
in, he was washing beer mugs behind the bar, running each in turn across a rotating
brush, then through a hot water rinse. To his right was a mounting pyramid of drying
mugs, still radiating heat. Today he wore a bulging T-shirt imprinted with a slogan
that read
ONE NIGHT OF BAD SEX IS STILL BETTER THAN A GOOD DAY AT WORK
. He fixed a look on my face, smiling pleasantly. “How’s it going?”

I perched on a bar stool. “Not bad,” I said. “You’re Ace?”

“That’s me. And you’re the lady P.I. I don’t think you told me your name.”

“Kinsey Millhone. I’m assuming you heard about Vesca’s death?”

“Yeah, Jesus. Poor guy. Looks like somebody really cleaned his clock. Hope it wasn’t
the little gal he dumped the other night.”

“That’s always a possibility.”

“You want a spritzer?”

“Sure,” I said. “You have a good memory.”

“For drinks,” he said. “That’s my job.” He got out the jug wine and poured some in
a glass, adding soda from the hose. He added a twist of lime and put the drink in
front of me. “On the house.”

“Thanks,” I said. I took a sip. “How come you never said he was your brother-in-law?”

“How’d you find out about that?” he asked mildly.

“I talked to your sister. She mentioned it.”

He shrugged. “Didn’t seem pertinent.”

I was puzzled by his attitude. He wasn’t acting like a man with anything to hide.
“Did you see him Saturday?”

“Saw his car at closing time. That was Sunday morning, actually. What’s that got to
do with it?”

“He must have been killed about then. The paper said sometime between two and six.”

“I locked up here shortly after two. My buddy stopped by and picked me up right out
front. I was in a poker game by two thirty-five, at a private club.”

“You have witnesses?”

“Just the fifty other people in the place. I guess I could have shot the guy before
my buddy showed up, but why would I do that? I had no ax to grind with him. I wasn’t
crazy about him, but I wouldn’t plug the guy. My sister adored him. Why break her
heart?”

Good question, I thought.

I
RETURNED TO MY
office and sat down, tilting back in my swivel chair with my feet on the desk. I kept
thinking Gage’s death must be connected to the Non Sung Smoke, but I couldn’t figure
out quite how. I made a call to the Vesca house and was put on hold while the maid
went to fetch Miss Katherine. She clicked on. “Yes?”

“Hello, Mrs. Vesca. This is Kinsey Millhone.”

“Oh, hello. Sorry if I sounded abrupt. What can I do for you?”

“Just a question I forgot to ask you earlier. Did Gage ever mention something called
Non Sung Smoke?”

“I don’t think so. What is it?”

“A high-grade marijuana from Thailand. Two thousand bucks a lid. Apparently, he helped
himself to somebody’s stash on Friday night.”

“Well, he did have some grass, but it couldn’t be the same. He said it was junk. He
was incensed that somebody hyped it to him.”

“Really,” I said, but it was more to myself than to her.

I headed down to the parking lot and retrieved my car. A dim understanding was beginning
to form.

I
KNOCKED AT THE
door of the duplex on Frontage Road. Mona answered, looking puzzled when she caught
sight of me.

“Did you talk to the cops?” I asked.

“Not yet. I was just on my way. Why? What’s up?”

“It occurred to me I might have misunderstood something you said to me. Friday night
when you went out, you told me your boyfriend Jimmy was at work. How come you had
the nerve to stay out all night?”

“He was out of town,” she said. “He got back Saturday afternoon about five.”

“Couldn’t he have arrived in Santa Teresa earlier that day?”

She shrugged. “I suppose so.”

“What about Saturday when you met Gage in Mooter’s parking lot? Was he working again?”

“Well, yes. He had a gig here in town. He got home about three,” she said in the same
bewildered tone.

“He’s a musician, isn’t he?” I said.

“Wait a minute. What
is
this? What’s it got to do with him?”

“A lot,” he said from behind me. A choking arm slid around my neck and I was jerked
half off my feet. I hung on, trying to ease the pressure on my windpipe. I could manage
to breathe if I stood on tiptoe, but I couldn’t do much else. Something hard was jammed
into my ribs and I didn’t think it was Jimmy’s fountain pen. Mona was astonished.

“Jimmy! What the hell are you doing?” she yelped.

“Back up, bitch. Step back and let us in,” he said between clenched teeth. I hung
on, struggling, as he half lifted, half shoved me toward the threshold. He dragged
me into the apartment and kicked the door shut. He pushed me down on the couch and
stood there with his gun pointed right between my eyes. Hey, I was comfy. I wasn’t
going anyplace.

When I saw his face, of course, my suspicions were confirmed. Jimmy was the fellow
with the guitar case who’d sat next to me at Mooter’s bar when I first went in. He
wasn’t a big guy—maybe five-eight, weighing in at 155—but he’d caught me by surprise.
He was edgy and he had a crazy look in his eyes. I’ve noticed that in a pinch like
this, my mind either goes completely blank or begins to compute at lightning speeds.
I found myself staring at his gun, which was staring disconcertingly at me. It looked
like a little Colt .32, a semiautomatic, almost a double for mine—locked at that moment
in a briefcase in the backseat of my car. I bypassed the regrets and got straight
to the point. Before being fired the first time, a semiautomatic has to be manually
cocked, a maneuver that can be accomplished only with two hands. I couldn’t remember
hearing the sound of the slide being yanked before the nose of the gun was shoved
into the small of my back. I wondered briefly if, in his haste to act, he hadn’t had
time to cock the gun.

“Hello, Jimmy,” I said. “Nice seeing you again. Why don’t you tell Mona about your
run-in with Gage?”

“
You
killed Gage?” she said, staring at him with disbelief.

“That’s right, Mona, and I’m going to kill you, too. Just as soon as I figure out
what to do with her.” He kept his eyes on me, making sure I didn’t move.

“But why? What did I do?” she gasped.

“Don’t give me that,” he said. “You balled the guy! Cattin’ around in that green-sequined
dress with your tits hangin’ out and you pick up a scumbag like him! I told you I’d
kill you if you ever did that to me.”

“But I didn’t. I swear it. All I did was bring him back here to try a hit of pot.
Next thing I knew he’d stolen the whole lid.”

“Bullshit!”

“No, it’s not!”

I said, “She’s telling the truth, Jimmy. That’s why she hired me.”

Confused, he shot a look at her. “You never slept with him?”

“Jesus Christ, of course not. The guy was a creep! I’m not
that
low class!”

Jimmy’s hand began to tremble and his gaze darted back and forth between her face
and mine. “Then why’d you meet him again the next night?”

“To get the grass back. What else could I do? I didn’t want you to know I’d been stiffed
for two thousand dollars’ worth of pot.”

He stared at her, transfixed, and that’s when I charged. I flew at him, head down,
butting straight into his midriff, my momentum taking us both down in a heap. The
gun skittered off across the floor. Mona leapt on him and punched him in the gut,
using her body to hold him down while I scrambled over to the Colt. I snatched it
up. Silly me. The sucker had been cocked the whole time. I was lucky I hadn’t had
my head blown off.

I could hear him yelling, “Jesus Christ, all right! Get off. I’m done.” And then he
lay there, winded. I kept the gun pointed steadily at body parts he treasured while
Mona called the cops.

He rolled over on his side and sat up. I moved back a step. The wild look had left
his eyes and he was starting to weep, still gasping and out of breath. “Oh, Jesus.
I can’t believe it.”

Mona turned to him with a withering look. “It’s too late for an attack of conscience,
Jimmy.”

He shook his head. “You don’t know the half of it, babe. You’re not the one who got
stiffed for the dope. I was.”

She looked at him blankly. “Meaning what?”

“I paid two grand for garbage. That dope was crap. I didn’t want to tell you I got
taken so I invented some bullshit about Non Sung Smoke. There’s no such thing. I made
it up.”

It took an instant for the irony to penetrate. She sank down beside him. “Why didn’t
you trust me? Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”

His expression was bleak. “Why didn’t you?”

The question hung between them like a cobweb, wavering in the autumn light.

By the time the cops came, they were huddled on the floor together, clinging to each
other in despair.

The sight of them was almost enough to cure me of the lies I tell.

But not quite.

falling off the roof

I
T WAS SIX A.M
. and I was jogging on the bike path at the beach, trotting three miles in behalf
of my sagging rear end. I’m thirty-two years old, five-six, weighing in at 118, so
you wouldn’t think I’d have to concern myself with such things, but I’m a private
eye by trade, and I’m single on top of that. Sometimes I end up running for my life,
so it will never do to get out of shape.

I had just hit my stride. My breathing was audible but not labored, my shoes chunking
rhythmically as the asphalt sped away underneath my feet. What worried me was the
sound of someone running behind me, and gaining too. I glanced back casually and felt
adrenaline shoot through my heart, jolting it into a jackhammer pace. A man in a black
sweat suit was closing ground. I picked up speed, quickly assessing the situation.
There wasn’t another soul in sight. No other joggers. None of the usual bums sleeping
on the grass.

I veered off toward the street, figuring that with luck a car would pass.

“Hey!” the man said sharply.

I ran on, mentally rehearsing every self-defense move I’d ever been taught.

“Wait up,” he called. “Aren’t you Kinsey Millhone?”

I slowed my pace. “That’s right. Who are you?”

His stride was longer than mine, and it didn’t take him long to catch up. “Harry Grissom,”
he said. “I need a private detective.”

“Most people try me at the office first,” I snapped. “You scared me half to death!”

“Sorry. The kid at the skate-rental shack told me I could find you out here. This
seemed like a good place to talk.”

I knew Gus from a case I’d worked, and I liked him a lot. I could feel myself become
more charitable. “How do you know Gus?”

“I own some property on Granita. He rents a cottage.”

“Why do you need me?”

“My brother Don was killed in a fall from his roof. The police said it was an accident,
but I think he was pushed.”

“Oh, really? By whom?”

“My sister-in-law.”

By now we were jogging side by side at a healthy clip. He was a good-looking fellow,
maybe thirty-five, with dark, bushy hair, a dark mustache, and a runner’s body, long
and lean. He said he was a chiropractor by profession, with a passion for skiing and
a modest talent as a painter. I think he told me all this to persuade me of his solid
character and the sincerity of his concern about his brother’s fatal accident.

“When was he killed?” I asked.

“Six months ago.”

“How long had they been married?”

“Thirteen years. Don and Susie met at college, Don’s junior year. They were wrong
for each other, but you couldn’t tell them that. They had a stormy two-year courtship.
Finally they ran off and got married. It was all downhill from there.”

“What was the problem?”

“For starters, they had nothing in common. On top of that, both of them were hotheaded,
stubborn, immature.”

“Any kids?” I asked.

“Amy, who’s eight, and a little boy, Todd, who’s five.”

“Go on.”

“Well, the two of them fought like cats and dogs, and then suddenly things smoothed
out. Susie was a doll and everything seemed fine. Don and I talked about it a couple
of times. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but of course he was pleased. He thought
their troubles were over.”

“And you agreed?”

Harry shrugged. “Well, yeah. On the surface, everything seemed fine. I had my doubts.
It wasn’t like she got into therapy or was ‘born again.’ There was definitely a change,
but it didn’t seem attached to anything. I thought she might be having an affair,
but I never said so to him. Nobody really wants to hear that stuff, and I didn’t have
any proof.”

“What are you saying? That she took a lover and then arranged an ‘accident’ to get
her husband out of the way?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Divorce isn’t that hard to come by in California. Murder seems like a radical way
to get rid of an unwanted spouse.”

“Divorce doesn’t pay benefits.”

“He was well insured?”

“A hundred and twenty-five thousand in whole life, with a double-indemnity clause
in case of accidental death. The lady netted herself a quarter million bucks. Plus
she gets all that sympathy. Divorced, she’d have had a fight on her hands and probably
come out a loser. Believe me, I’m single. Half the women I date are divorced, and
they all tell the same tale. Divorce is the pits. Why should Susie go through the
hassle when all she had to do was give him a push?”

“Had she been physically abusive to him over the years?”

“Well, no, but she did threaten him.”

“Really,” I said. “When was this?”

“Late June. July. Sometime in there, when the conflict was at its worst. I can’t even
remember now what they were arguing about, but she said she’d kill him. I was standing
right there. Next thing I knew, sure enough, he was dead.”

“Come on, Harry. Lots of people say things like that in the heat of an argument. It
doesn’t make them killers.”

“In this case it does.”

“I need more than your word for it, but tell me what you want.”

The gaze he turned on me was cold, his tone dead. “Find a way to nail her. I’ll pay
you anything you ask.”

I agreed to check into it—not for the money but for the look on his face. The man
was in pain.

That afternoon he stopped by my office, signed a standard contract, and gave me a
fifteen-hundred-dollar advance.

The next day I went to work.

He’d given me the few newspaper clippings about Don Grissom’s death:
SANTA TERESA RESIDENT DIES IN FALL FROM ROOF
. According to the paper, Don had climbed up to inspect for leaks after a heavy rain
had sent water pouring through the ceiling in the guest bathroom. The accompanying
copy of the police report indicated that to all appearances, Mr. Grissom had lost
his footing on the rain-slick red tile and tumbled two stories in a fall that broke
his neck. The coroner had determined that the death was accidental. Harry Grissom
said the coroner was a fool.

I made a note of the Grissoms’ address and presented myself at the doorstep with a
clipboard in hand. While a cop is required by statute to identify herself (or himself)
as a law-enforcement officer, a private investigator is free to impersonate anyone,
which is what makes my job so much fun. I’m a law-abiding little bun in most instances,
but I’ve been known to tell lies at the drop of a hat. The fib I cooked up for Susie
Grissom wasn’t far from the truth, and I sounded so sincere that I half believed it
myself.

“Mrs. Grissom?” I said when she opened the door.

“Yes, that’s right,” she said cautiously. She was in her early thirties, with mild
brown hair pulled up in a clip, brown eyes, freckles, no makeup, dressed in jeans
and a T-shirt.

I held up the clipboard. “I’m from California Fidelity Insurance,” I said. Now that
much was true. I had worked for CF once upon a time and did occasional investigations
for them now in exchange for downtown office space.

“Yes?”

I could tell from the look on her face that “insurance” was the magic word. If what
Harry said was true and she’d just collected two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,
I could see how the subject might still fascinate. “Your husband had a policy with
us,” I said. “Our regional office just informed us that he’s . . . uh, deceased.”

Her face clouded properly. “That’s right. He died September fourth in a fall from
the roof. What sort of policy?”

“I don’t have the details, but it was probably coverage he converted from a plan at
work. Was he employed at some point by a large company?”

I could see a spark of recognition. Almost everybody has worked for a large company
at some point.

“Well, he did work for Raytheon briefly in 1981, but I thought he let that policy
drop.”

“Apparently not,” I said. “I’ll need some data, if you don’t object. Just so we can
process the claim.”

“Claim?”

“Automatic payment in the case of accidental death.”

She invited me in.

Now, it’s not like I’m psychic, but I have to say this: From the moment I set eyes
on this lady, I knew she was guilty. I’ve seen enough widows and orphans in my day
to know what real grief looks like, and this wasn’t it. This was pseudo-grief, counterfeit
grief, or some reasonable facsimile, but it wasn’t real sorrow.

We sat in the living room and I quizzed her at length. Once I mentioned the face value
of the policy—let’s be generous, I thought, fifty grand—she was as cooperative as
she could be. I sat and took notes and cooed and mewed. She played her part to perfection—tears
in her eyes, nose all red.

“That must have been terrible,” I murmured. “You were out that day and came home to
find him dead?”

She nodded mutely, then blew her nose. “I’d been to a meeting of my mystery book club,”
she said. “I couldn’t think what was going on at the house. Police cars out front.
An ambulance and everything. Then I found out he was dead. . . .”

“Awful,” I said. “What a shock for the kids. How are they taking this?”

“They don’t really understand much. I’ve done the best I could.”

I was wondering how I could corroborate her alibi. I assumed the cops had done that,
but I wasn’t sure. “I think this is all I need for now.” I got up, and she walked
me to the door. “Actually,” I added, “I’m a mystery fan myself.”

“Oh, really?” she said, her manner brightening some. “Which authors do you like?”

Oh, shoot. Faked out, I thought. “Oh, golly, so many. Uh, Smith, and White . . .”

“Teri? Oh, she’s wonderful. As a matter of fact, we’re doing women writers this month.
Would you like to come?”

“I’d love it,” I said. “What a treat.”

Which is how I ended up at a meeting of the Santa Teresa Mystery Readers—STMR as they
called themselves. I was wearing my all-purpose dress with low heels and panty hose,
thinking that’s what suburban housewives probably wore. For the first and only time
in my life, I found myself overdressed, though everyone was very nice and pretended
not to notice. We had tea and cookies and laughed and chatted about writers I’d never
heard of. I kept saying things like “Oh, the ending on that one scared me half to
death!” or “I thought the plot line was a bit convoluted, didn’t you?” I lied so well,
I worried I’d be elected to office, but all that happened was that I was invited back
the next month.

“I’ll have Jenny give you the program for the year,” Susie said. “In case you want
to catch up.”

The club secretary rustled up a copy of the calendar for me, listing dates and places
of meetings and the books that had been discussed. We sat and sipped our tea while
I tried a casual imitation of the women I could see. I’m not good at this stuff. I
don’t bake or do civic work. I don’t know how to make small talk or sit with my legs
crossed. I studied the program. As soon as Susie stepped away, I lowered my voice,
leaning toward Jenny, who was probably fifty-five. She wore a matching tweedy skirt
and sweater and a strand of real pearls. “This September meeting. Isn’t that when
Susie’s husband was killed?”

She nodded. “We felt awful,” the woman said. “She was in charge of refreshments that
day.”

“You were at the meeting?”

“Oh, yes. We had a guest speaker from the police department, and Susie had such a
nice time talking to him. Afterward, of course, I worked with her in the kitchen while
she was putting cookies out. All the time he was dead and she had no idea.”

I shook my head. “God, I bet she fell apart. Were they very close?”

“Well, of course,” she said, looking at me with interest. “How did you meet Susie?
Have you known her long?”

“Well, no, but I feel I know her pretty well,” I said modestly.

The woman sitting to my left had apparently been listening, and she broke in. “What
sort of work do you do, Kinsey?”

“Insurance,” I replied.

“Is that right? Well, the name just seems so familiar somehow. Did I see it in the
news by any chance?”

“Oh, heavens. Not me,” I said. I’d only been mentioned about six weeks before in connection
with a homicide. “Is there a little-girls’ room around here?”

I saw the two women exchange a look. Maybe I’d gotten the vocabulary wrong. “A powder
room?” I amended.

“Of course. Right down the hall.”

I lingered until I heard the group breaking up, and then I slipped away. The next
day I canvassed Susie’s neighbors.

The first was a woman in her forties, overweight, prematurely graying hair, a Mrs.
Hill, according to the information I’d picked up from the city directory. “I’m from
California Fidelity,” I said. “We’re checking into a claim for Mrs. Grissom next door.
Could you answer some questions? She’s authorized this.” I held up a form with Susie’s
signature, which I’d recently faked.

“I suppose so,” Mrs. Hill said reluctantly. “What exactly did you want?”

I went through a series of questions. How well did she know the Grissoms? Was she
home on the day of his accident? She was singularly uninformative, the sort who answered
each query without editorial comment. When it was clear she had nothing to offer,
I thanked her and excused myself, moving on.