A Is for Alibi

by Sue Grafton

  “As punishment.”

  “As only Laurence Fife knew how. In spades.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “My lover? Why do you ask?”

  Her tone was instantly guarded, her expression wary.

  “Laurence must have known who he was. If he was punishing you, why not punish the other guy too?”

  “I don’t want to cast suspicion on him,” she said. “That would be a lousy thing to do. He had nothing to do with Laurence’s death. I’ll give you a written guarantee.”

  “What makes you so sure? A lot of people were mistaken about a lot of things back then and Nikki paid a price for it.”

  “Hey,” she said sharply, “Nikki was represented by the best lawyer in the state. Maybe she got a few bad breaks and maybe not, but there’s no point in trying to lay the blame on someone who had nothing to do with it.”

  “I’m not trying to blame anyone. I’m just trying to come up with a direction on this thing. I can’t force you to tell me who he is . . .”

  “That’s right and I think you’d have a hell of a time finding out from anyone else.”

  “Look, I’m not here to pick a fight. I’m sorry. Skip that for now.”

  Two patches of red appeared on her neck. She was fighting back anger, trying to get control of herself again. I thought, for a moment, she would bolt.

  “I’m not going to press the point,” I said. “That’s a whole separate issue and I came here to talk to you. You don’t want to talk about that then it’s fine with me.”

  She still seemed poised for flight so I shut my mouth and let her work it out for herself. Finally I could see her relax a little and I realized then that I was as tense as she. This was too valuable a contact for me to blow.

  “Let’s go back to Laurence. Tell me about him,” I said. “What were all the infidelities about?”

  She laughed self-consciously then and took a sip of wine, shaking her head. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get upset but you took me by surprise.”

  “Yeah, well that happens now and then. Sometimes I surprise myself.”

  “I don’t think he liked women. He was always expecting to be betrayed. Women were the people who did you in. He liked to get there first, or at least that’s my guess. I suspect an affair for him was always a power relationship and he was top dog.”

  “ ‘Do unto others before they do unto you.’ ”

  “Right.”

  “But who had an ax to grind with him? Who could have hated him that much?”

  She shrugged and her composure seemed restored. “I’ve thought about that all afternoon and what’s odd is that when it comes right down to it, I’m not sure. He had awful relationships with a lot of people. Divorce attorneys are never very popular, but most of them don’t get murdered.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t related to business,” I suggested. “Maybe it wasn’t an irate husband pissed off about alimony and child support. Maybe it was something else—‘a woman scorned.’ ”

  “Well there were a lot of those. But I think he was probably very slick about breaking things off. Or the women themselves were sufficiently recovered to recognize the limits of the relationship and move on. He did have an awful affair with the wife of a local judge, a woman named Charlotte Mercer. She’d have run him down in the street given half a chance. Or that’s what I’ve heard since. She wasn’t the type to let go gracefully.”

  “How’d you find out about it?”

  “She called me up after he broke off with her.”

  “Before your divorce or afterwards?”

  “Oh afterwards, because I remember thinking at the time that I wished she’d called sooner. I went into court with nothing.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “What good would it have done? You couldn’t have gotten him on adultery even back then.”

  “He didn’t get me on that either but it sure would have given me a psychological edge. I felt so guilty about what I’d done that I hardly put up a fight except when it came to the kids, and even then he beat me down. If she’d wanted to cause trouble, she could have been a big help. He still had his reputation to protect. Anyway, maybe Charlotte Mercer can fill you in.”

  “Wonderful. I’ll tell her she’s my number-one suspect.”

  Gwen laughed. “Feel free to mention my name if she wants to know who sent you. It’s the least I can do.”

  After Gwen left, I looked up Charlotte Mercer’s address in the telephone book by the pay phone in the rear. She and the judge lived up in the foothills above Santa Teresa in what turned out to be a sprawling one-story house with stables off to the right, the land all dust and scrub brush. The sun was just beginning to go down and the view was spectacular. The ocean looked like a wide lavender ribbon stitched up against a pink-and-blue sky.

  A housekeeper in a black uniform answered the bell and I was left in a wide cool hallway while “the missus” was fetched. Light footsteps approached from the rear of the house and I thought at first the Mercers’ teenage daughter (if there was one) had appeared in Charlotte’s place.

  “Yes, what is it?”

  The voice was low and husky and rude and the initial impression of adolescence gave way rapidly.

  “Charlotte Mercer?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  She was petite, probably five-four, maybe a hundred pounds if that. Sandals, tank top, white shorts, her legs tawny and shapely. Not a line on her face. Her hair was a dusty blond, cut short, her makeup subdued. She had to be fifty-five years old and there was no way she could have looked that good without a team of experts. There was an artificial firmness to her jaw and her cheeks had that sleek tucked-up look that only a face-lift can provide at that late date. Her neck was lined and the backs of her hands were knotted with veins but those were the only contradictions to the appearance of slim, cool youth. Her eyes were a pale blue, made vivid by the skillful application of mascara and an eye shadow in two shades of gray. Gold bracelets jangled on one arm.

  “I’m Kinsey Millhone,” I said. “I’m a private investigator.”

  “Goody for you. What brings you here?”

  “I’m looking into Laurence Fife’s death.”

  Her smile faltered, sinking from minimal good manners into something cruel. She gave me a cursory inspection, dismissing me in the same glance. “I hope it won’t take long,” she said, and looked back. “Come out to the patio. I’ve left my drink there.”

  I followed her toward the back of the house. The rooms we passed looked spacious and elegant and unused: windows sparkling, the thick powder-blue carpeting still furrowed with vacuum-cleaner tracks, fresh-cut flowers in professional arrangements on glossy tabletops. The wallpaper and drapes were endless repetitions of the same blue floral print and everything smelled of Lemon Pledge. I wondered if she used it to disguise the mild scent of bourbon on the rocks that wafted after her. As we passed the kitchen, I could smell roast lamb laced with garlic.

  The patio was shaded by latticework. The furniture was white wicker with bright green canvas cushions. She took up her drink from a coffee table of glass and wrought iron, plunking herself down on a padded chaise. She reached automatically for her cigarettes and a slim gold Dunhill. She seemed amused, as though I’d arrived solely to entertain her during the cocktail hour.

  “Who sent you up here? Nikki or little Gwen?” Her eyes slid away from mine and she seemed to require no response. She lit her cigarette, pulling the half-filled ashtray closer. She waved a hand at me. “Have a seat.”

  I chose a padded chair not far from hers. An egg-shaped swimming pool was visible beyond the shrubs surrounding the patio. Charlotte caught my look.

  “You want to stop and have a swim or what?”

  I decided not to take offense. I had the feeling that sarcasm came easily to her, an automatic reaction, like someone with a smoker’s cough.

  “So who sent you up here?” she said, repeating herself. It was the second hint I had that she wasn’t as sober as sh
e should have been, even at that hour of the day.

  “Word gets around.”

  “Oh, I’ll bet it does,” she said with a snort of smoke. “Well, I’ll tell you this, sweetie pie. I was more than a piece of ass to that man. I wasn’t the first and I wasn’t the last but I was the fucking best.”

  “Is that why he broke it off?”

  “Don’t be a bitch,” she said with a quick sharp look, but she laughed at the same time, low in her throat, and I suspected I might have gone up in her estimation. She apparently played fast and loose and didn’t object to a cut now and then in the interest of a fair game. “Sure he broke it off. Why should I have secrets these days? I had a little wingding with him before he divorced Gwen and then he came back around a few months before he died. He was like some old tomcat, always sniffin’ around the same back porch.”

  “What happened this last time?”

  She gave me a jaded look as if none of it seemed to matter much. “He got involved with somebody else. Very hush-hush. Very hot. Screw him. He discarded me like yesterday’s underpants.”

  “I’m surprised you weren’t a suspect,” I said.

  Her brows shot up. “Me?” She hooted. “The wife of a prominent judge? I never even testified and they knew damn well that I was involved with him. The cops tiptoed around me like I was a fussy baby taking an unexpected nap. And who asked ’em to? I would have told ’em anything. Hell, I didn’t give a shit. Besides, they already had their suspect.”

  “Nikki?”

  “Sure, Nikki,” she said expansively. Her gestures were relaxed, the hand with the cigarette waving languidly as she spoke. “You ask me, she was way too prissy to kill anyone. Not that anyone cared much what I thought. I’m just your Mrs. Loud-Mouth Drunk. What does she know? Who’s going to listen to her? I could tell you things about anybody in this town and who’d pay attention to me? And you know how I find out? I’ll tell you this. You’ll be interested in this because that’s what you do, too, find out about people, right?”

  “More or less,” I murmured, trying not to interrupt the flow. Charlotte Mercer was the type who’d barge right on if she didn’t get sidetracked. She took a long drag on her cigarette, blowing smoke through her nose in two fierce streams. She coughed, shaking her head.

  “Pardon me while I choke to death,” she said, pausing to cough again. “You tell secrets,” she went on, taking up from where she left off. “You tell the dirtiest damn thing you know and nine times out of ten, you’ll net yourself something worse. You can try it yourself. I say anything. I tell stories on myself just to see what I get back. You want gossip, honey, you came to the right place.”

  “What’s the word out on Gwen?” I asked, testing the waters.

  Charlotte laughed. “You don’t trade,” she said. “You got nothing to swap.”

  “Well no, that’s true. I wouldn’t be in business long if I didn’t keep my mouth shut.”

  She laughed again. She seemed to like that. My guess about her was that it made her feel important to know what she knew. I was hoping she liked to show off a little bit too. She might well have heard about Gwen’s affair but I couldn’t ask without tipping my hand so I just waited her out, hoping to pick up what I could.

  “Gwen was the biggest chump who ever lived,” she said without much interest. “I don’t like the type myself and I don’t know how she held on to him as long as she did. Laurence Fife was one cold cookie, which was why I was so crazy about him if you haven’t guessed. I can’t stand a man who fawns, you know what I mean? I can’t stand a man sucking up to me, but he was the kind who took you right on the floor and he didn’t even look at you afterwards when he zipped up his pants.”

  “That sounds crude enough,” I said.

  “Sex is crude, which is why we all run around doing it, which is why I was such a good match for him. He was crude as he was mean and that’s the truth about him. Nikki was too refined, too lah-de-dah. So was Gwen.”

  “So maybe he liked both extremes,” I suggested.

  “Well now, I don’t doubt that. Probably so. Maybe he married the snooty ones and fooled around with flash.”

  “What about Libby Glass? Did you ever hear about her?”

  “Nope. No dice. Who else?”

  God, this woman made me wish I had a list. I thought fast, trying to milk her while she was in the mood. I had the feeling the moment would pass and she’d turn sullen again.

  “Sharon Napier,” I said, as though it were a parlor game.

  “Oh yeah. I checked that one out myself. The first time I ever laid eyes on that little snake, I knew something was off.”

  “You think he was involved with her?”

  “Oh no, it’s better yet. Not her. Her mother. I hired a private dick to look that up. Ruined her life and Sharon knew about it, too, so up she pops years later and sticks it to him. Her parents broke up over him and Mommy had a nervous breakdown or turned to drink, some damn thing. I don’t know all the details except he fucked everyone over but good and Sharon collected on that for years.”

  “Was she blackmailing him?”

  “Not for bucks. For her livelihood. She couldn’t type. She barely knew how to spell her own name. She just wanted revenge, so she shows up every day for work and she does what she feels like doing and thumbs her nose at him. He took anything she dished out.”

  “Could she have killed him?”

  “Sure, why not? Maybe the gig wore thin or maybe just taking his pay from week to week wasn’t good enough.” She paused, pushing the ember out on her cigarette with a number of ineffectual stabs. She smiled over at me with cunning.

  “I hope you don’t think I’m rude,” she said with a glance at the door. “But school’s out. My esteemed husband, the good judge, is due home any second now and I don’t want to sit and explain what you’re doing in my house.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “I’ll let myself out. You’ve been a big help.”

  “I’ll bet.” She got to her feet, setting her drink down on the glass-topped table with a resounding crack. There was no harm done and she recovered herself with a long slow look of relief.

  She studied my face briefly. “You’re gonna have to get your eyes done in a couple of years. Right now, you’re okay,” she pronounced.

  I laughed. “I like lines,” I said. “I earn mine. But thanks anyway.”

  I left her on the patio and went around the side of the house to where my car was parked. The conversation wasn’t sitting that well with me and I was glad to be on my way. Charlotte Mercer was shrewd and perhaps not above using her drunkenness for its effect. Maybe she’d been telling the truth and maybe not. Somehow the revelation about Sharon Napier seemed too pat. As a solution, it seemed too obvious. On the other hand, the cops are sometimes right. Homicide usually isn’t subtle and most of the time, you don’t have that far to look.

  9

  It took me a day and a half to come up with an address on Sharon Napier. By means I’d just as soon not spell out, I tapped into the Department of Motor Vehicles computer and discovered that her driver’s license had expired some six years back. I checked with the Auto Title Department, making a quick trip downtown, and found that a dark green Karmann Ghia was registered in her name with an address that matched the last-known address I had for her locally, but a side note indicated that the title had been transferred to Nevada, which probably meant that she’d left the state.

  I placed a call to Bob Dietz, a Nevada investigator whose name I looked up in the National Directory. I told him what information I needed, and he said he’d call me back, which he did that afternoon. Sharon Napier had applied for and had been issued a Nevada driver’s license; it showed a Reno address. His Reno sources, however, reported that she’d skipped out on a big string of creditors the previous March, which meant that she’d been gone for approximately fourteen months. He’d guessed that she was probably still in the state so he’d done some further nosing around. A small Reno credit company showed req
uests for information on her from Carson City and again from Las Vegas, which he thought was my best bet. I thanked him profusely for his efficiency and told him to bill me for his time but he said he’d just as soon trade tit for tat at some point, so I made sure he had my address and home phone if he needed it. I tried Information in Las Vegas, but there was no listing for her so I called a friend of mine down there and he said he’d check around. I told him I’d be driving to Los Angeles early in the week and gave him the number so he could reach me there in case it took him a while to pick up a lead on her.

  The next day was Sunday and I devoted that to myself: laundry, housecleaning, grocery shopping. I even shaved my legs just to show I still had some class. Monday morning I did clerical work. I typed up a report for Nikki and put in another call to the local credit bureau just to double-check. Sharon Napier had apparently left town with a lot of money owed and a lot of people mad. They had no forwarding address so I gave them the information I had. Then I had a long talk with California Fidelity on the subject of Marcia Threadgill. For forty-eight hundred dollars, the insurance company was almost ready to settle with her and move on, and I had to argue with as much cunning as I could muster. My services on that one weren’t costing them anything out of pocket and it pissed me off that they were halfway inclined to look the other way. I even had to stoop so low as to mention principles, which never sits that well with the claims manager. “She’s cheating your ass,” I kept saying, but he just shook his head as though there were forces at work that I was too dim to grasp. I told him to check with his boss and I’d get back to him.

  By 2:00, I was on the road to Los Angeles. The other piece of the puzzle was Libby Glass and I needed to know how she fit into all of this. When I reached L.A., I checked into the Hacienda Motor Lodge on Wilshire, near Bundy. The Hacienda is not even remotely hacienda-like—an L-shaped, two-story structure with a cramped parking lot and a swimming pool surrounded by a chain-link fence with a padlock. A very fat woman named Arlette doubles as manager and switchboard operator. I could see straight into her apartment from the desk. It’s furnished, I’m told, from her profits as a Tupperware lady, a little hustling she does on the side. She leans toward Mediterraneanstyle furniture upholstered in red plush.