A Is for Alibi

by Sue Grafton

  I turned the bathroom light out and made up my bed, which really just amounted to a quilt folded lengthways on the couch. I could have opened out the sofa bed and done it right—sheets, pillow case, a proper nightgown. Instead I’d pulled the same T-shirt over my head and tucked myself into the fold of the quilt. My body heat was making a sexual perfume waft up from between my legs. I turned out the lamp on the desk and smiled in the dark, shivering with the recollection of his mouth on me. Maybe this wasn’t the time to get analytical, I thought. Maybe this was just a time to reflect and assimilate. I slept like the dead.

  In the morning, I showered, skipping breakfast, reaching the office by 9:00. I let myself in and checked with the service. Con Dolan had called. I dialed the Santa Teresa Police Department and asked for him.

  “What,” he barked, already annoyed with the world.

  “Kinsey Millhone here,” I said.

  “Oh yeah? What do you want?”

  “Lieutenant, you called me!” I could hear him blink.

  “Oh. Right. I got a report here from the lab on that letter. No prints. Just smudges, so that’s no good.”

  “Rats. What about the handwriting? Does that match?”

  “Enough to satisfy us,” he said. “I had Jimmy go over it and he says it’s legitimate. What else you got?”

  “Nothing right now. I may come in and talk to you, though, in a couple of days if that’s okay.”

  “Call first,” he said.

  “Trust me,” I replied.

  I went out on the balcony and stared down at the street. Something wasn’t right. I’d been half convinced that letter was a fake but now it was confirmed and verified. I didn’t like it. I went back in and sat down in my swivel chair, tipping back and forth slightly, listening to it creak. I shook my head. Couldn’t figure it out. I glanced at the calendar. I’d been working for Nikki for two weeks. It felt like she’d hired me a minute ago and it felt like I’d been on the case all my life. I tilted forward and grabbed a scratch pad, totaling the time I’d put in, adding expenses on top of that. I typed it all up, made copies of my receipts, and stuck the whole batch in an envelope, which I mailed to her out at the beach. I went into the California Fidelity offices and shot the shit with Vera, who processes claims for them.

  I skipped lunch and knocked off at 3:00. I stopped on the way home and picked up the eight-by-ten color photographs of Marcia Threadgill and I sat in my car for a moment to survey my handiwork. It isn’t often that I have such a captivating spectacle of avarice and fraud. The best shot (which I might have called “Portrait of a Chiseler”) was of Marcia standing up on her kitchen chair, shoulders strained by the weight of the plant as she lifted it up. Her boobs, in the crocheted halter top, sagged down like flesh melons bursting through the bottom of a string bag. The image was so clear that I could see where her mascara had left little black dots on her upper lids like tracks of some tiny beast. Such a jerk. I smiled to myself grimly. If that’s the way the world works, then let me not forget. I was resigned by now to the fact that Ms. Threadgill would have her way. Cheaters win all the time. It wasn’t big news but it was worth remembering. I slid all the pictures back into the manila envelope. I started the car and headed toward home. I didn’t feel like running today. I wanted to sit and brood.

  24

  I pinned the photograph of Marcia Threadgill up on my bulletin board and stared at it. I kicked my shoes off and walked around. I’d been thinking all day and it was getting me nowhere, so I took out the crossword puzzle Henry had left on my doorstep. I stretched out on the couch, pencil in hand. I did manage to guess 6 Down—“disloyal,” eight letters, which was “two-faced,” and I got 14 Across, which was “double-reed instrument,” four letters—“oboe.” What a whiz. I got stuck on “double helix,” three letters, which turned out later to be “DNA,” a cheat if you ask me. At 7:05, I had an idea that jumped out of the dim recesses of my brain with a little jolt of electricity.

  I looked up Charlotte Mercer’s telephone number and dialed the house. The housekeeper answered and I asked for Charlotte.

  “The judge and Mrs. Mercer are having dinner,” she said disapprovingly.

  “Well, would you mind interrupting please? I just have a quick question. I’m sure she won’t mind.”

  “Who shall I say is calling?” she asked. I gave her my name.

  “Just one moment.” She put the receiver down.

  I corrected her mentally. Whom, sweetheart. Whom shall I say is calling . . .

  Charlotte answered, sounding drunk. “I don’t appreciate this,” she hissed.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “But I need a piece of information.”

  “I told you what I know and I don’t want you calling when the judge is here.”

  “All right. All right. Just one thing,” I said hurriedly before she could hang up. “Do you happen to remember Mrs. Napier’s first name.”

  Silence. I could practically see her hold the receiver out to look at it.

  “Elizabeth,” she said and slammed down the phone.

  I hung up. The piece I was looking for had just clicked into place. The letter wasn’t written to Libby Glass at all. Laurence Fife had written it to Elizabeth Napier years ago. I was willing to bet on that. The real question now was how Libby Glass had gotten hold of it and who had wanted it back.

  I took out my note cards and went back to work on my list. I had deliberately deleted Raymond and Grace Glass. I didn’t believe either of them would have killed their own child, and if my guess about that letter could be verified, then it was possible that Libby and Laurence had never been romantically involved. Which meant that the reasons for their dying had to be something else. But what? Suppose, I said to myself, just suppose Laurence Fife and Lyle were involved in something. Maybe Libby stumbled on to it and Lyle killed them both to protect himself. Maybe Sharon got wind of it and he’d killed her too. It didn’t quite make sense to me from that angle, but after eight years much of the real proof must have been lost or destroyed. Some of the obvious connections must have faded by now. I jotted down a couple of notes and checked the list.

  When I came to Charlie Scorsoni’s name, I felt the same uneasiness I’d felt before. I’d checked him out two weeks ago, before I’d even met with him and he was clean, but appearances are deceptive. As squeamish as it made me feel, I thought I’d better verify his whereabouts the night Sharon died. I knew he’d been in Denver because I’d called him there myself but I wasn’t really sure where he’d gone after that. Arlette said he’d left messages from Tucson and again from Santa Teresa but she only had his word for that. When it came to Laurence Fife he did have opportunity. From the first, this had been a case where motive and alibi were oddly overlapped. Ordinarily, an alibi is an account of a suspect’s whereabouts at the time a crime was committed and it’s offered up as proof of innocence, but here it didn’t matter where anyone was. With a poisoning, it only mattered if someone had reason to want someone else dead—access to the poison, access to the victim, and the intent to kill. That’s what I was still sorting through. My impulse was simply to take Charlie off my list but I had to question myself on that. Did I really believe he was innocent or did I simply want to relieve myself of my own uneasiness? I tried to think about something else. I tried to move on, but my mind kept drifting back to the same point. I didn’t think I was being smart. I wasn’t sure I was being honest with myself. And suddenly, I didn’t like the idea that my thinking might not be clear. The whole setup gave me a sick feeling down in my bones. I looked up his home phone number in the telephone book. I hesitated and then I shook myself free and dialed. I had to do it.

  The phone rang four times. I thought he might be out at Powers’s house at the beach but I didn’t have that number. I was rooting for him to be out, gone. He picked up on the fifth ring and I felt my stomach churn. There was no point in putting it off.

  “Hi, it’s Kinsey,” I said.

  “Well hello,” he said softly. The pleasure in
his voice was audible and I could picture his face. “God, I was hoping I’d hear from you. Are you free?”

  “No, actually I’m not. Uh, listen, Charlie. I’m thinking I shouldn’t see you for a while. Until I get this wrapped up.”

  The silence was profound.

  “All right,” he said finally.

  “Look, it’s nothing personal,” I said. “It’s just a matter of policy.”

  “I’m not arguing,” he said. “Do what you want. It’s too bad you didn’t think about ‘policy’ before.”

  “Charlie, it’s not like that,” I said desperately. “It may work out fine and it’s no big deal, but it’s been bothering me. A lot. I don’t do this. It’s been one of my cardinal rules. I can’t keep on seeing you until I understand how this thing ties up.”

  “Babe, I understand,” he said. “If it doesn’t feel right to you, then it’s no good anyway. Call me if you ever change your mind.”

  “Wait,” I said. “God damn it, don’t do that to me. I’m not rejecting you.”

  “Oh really,” he said, his tone flat with disbelief.

  “I just wanted you to know.”

  “Well. Now I know. I appreciate your honesty,” he said.

  “I’ll be in touch when I can.”

  “Have a good life,” he said and the phone clicked quietly in my ear.

  I sat with a hand on the phone, doubts crowding in, wanting to call him back, wanting to erase everything I’d just said. I’d been looking for relief, looking for a way to escape the discomfort I felt. I think I’d even wanted him to give me a hard time so that I could resist and feel righteous. It was a question of my own integrity. Wasn’t it? The injury in his voice had been awful after what we’d been through. And maybe he was right in his assumption that I was rejecting him. Maybe I was just being perverse, pushing him away because I needed space between me and the world. The job does provide such a perfect excuse. I meet most people in the course of my work and if I can’t get emotionally involved there, then where else can I go? Private investigation is my whole life. It is why I get up in the morning and what puts me to bed at night. Most of the time I’m alone, but why not? I’m not unhappy and I’m not discontented. I had to free up until I knew what was going on. He would just have to misunderstand and to hell with him until I got this goddamn case nailed down and then maybe we could see where we stood—if it wasn’t too late. Even if he was right, even if my breaking with him was an excess of conscience, a cover for something else—so what? There were no declarations between us, no commitments. I’d been to bed with him twice. What did I owe him? I don’t know what love is about and I’m not sure I believe in it anyway. “Then why so defensive?” came a little voice in reply, but I ignored it.

  I had to push on. There was no other way to get out of this now. I picked up the phone and called Gwen.

  “Hello?”

  “Gwen. This is Kinsey,” I said, keeping my voice neutral. “Something’s come up and I think we should talk.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’d rather talk to you in person. Do you know where Rosie’s is, down here at the beach?”

  “Yes. I think I know the place,” she said with uncertainty.

  “Can you meet me there in half an hour? It’s important.”

  “Well sure. Just let me get my shoes on. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I checked my watch. It was 7:45. I wanted her on my turf this time.

  __________

  Rosie’s was deserted, the lights dim, the whole place smelling of yesterday’s cigarette smoke. I used to go to a movie theater when I was a kid and the ladies’ rest room always smelled like that. Rosie was wearing a muumuu in a print fabric that depicted many flamingos standing on one leg. She was seated at the end of the bar, reading a newspaper by the light of a small television set, which she’d placed on the bar, sound off. She looked up as I came in and she set the paper aside.

  “It’s too late for dinner. The kitchen is closed. I gave myself the night off,” she announced from across the room. “You want something to eat, you gotta fix it yourself at home. Ask Henry Pitts. He’ll do you something good.”

  “I’m meeting someone for a drink,” I said. “Big crowd you got.”

  She looked around as though maybe she’d missed someone. I went over to the bar. She looked as though she’d just redyed her hair because her scalp was faintly pink. She was using a Maybelline dark brown eyeliner pencil on her brows, which she seemed to draw closer together every time, coquettishly arched. Pretty soon, she could take care of the whole thing with one wavy line.

  “You got a man yet?” she asked.

  “Six or eight a week,” I said. “Do you have any cold chablis?”

  “Just the crummy stuff. Help yourself.”

  I went around behind the bar and got a glass, taking the big gallon jug of white wine out of the refrigerator under the bar. I poured a tumblerful, adding ice. I went over to my favorite booth and sat down, preparing myself mentally like an actor about to go on stage. It was time to stop being polite.

  Gwen arrived forty minutes later, looking crisp and capable. Her greeting to me was pleasant enough, but under it I thought I could detect the tension, as though she had some inkling of what I was about to say. Rosie shuffled over, giving Gwen a brief appraising look. She must have thought Gwen looked okay because she honored her with a direct question.

  “You want something to drink?”

  “Scotch on the rocks. And could I have a glass of water, too, please?”

  Rosie shrugged. She didn’t care what people drank. “You want to run a tab?” she said to me.

  I shook my head. “I’ll take care of it now,” I said. Rosie moved off toward the bar. The look Gwen and I exchanged inadvertently indicated that both of us remembered her first reference to drinking Scotch in the days long past, when she was married to Laurence Fife and playing the perfect wife. I wondered what she was playing now.

  “I revert now and then to the hard stuff,” she said, picking up my thought.

  “Why not?” I replied.

  She studied me briefly. “What’s up?”

  The question was brave. I didn’t think she really wanted to know, but she’d always struck me as the type to plunge right in. She probably whipped off big pieces of adhesive tape, too, with the same decisive thrust, just to get it over with.

  “I talked to Colin,” I said. “He remembered you.”

  The modification in her manner was slight and a look, not of apprehension, but of wariness flickered in her eyes.

  “Well that’s nice,” she said. “I haven’t seen him for years, of course. I told you that.” She reached into her purse and took out a compact, checking her reflection quickly in the mirror, running a hand through her hair. Rosie came back with her Scotch and a glass of water. I paid the tab. Rosie tucked the money in the pocket of her muumuu and wandered back to the bar while Gwen took a sip of water. She seemed to be holding herself in check, not trusting herself to pick up the conversation where we’d left off. I bumped her along for the sake of surprise.

  “You never mentioned that you had an affair with Laurence,” I said.

  A laugh burbled out. “Who, me? With him? You can’t be serious.”

  I had to interrupt her merriment. “Colin saw you out at the beach house that weekend when Nikki was out of town. I don’t know all the details, but I can make a guess.”

  I watched her compute that and shift gears. She was a very good little actress herself, but the slick cover she’d constructed was getting shabby from disuse. It had been a long time since she’d had to play this game and her timing was slightly off. She knew all the right lines, but the pretense was hard to sustain after an eight-year gap. She didn’t seem to recognize the bluff and I kept my mouth shut. I could almost see what was happening inside her head. The terrible need to confess and be done with it, the pressure to spill it all out was too tempting to resist. She’d gone a
few rounds with me and she’d pulled it off beautifully but only because I hadn’t known which buttons to push.

  “All right,” she blurted out rebelliously, “I went to bed with him once. So what? I ran into him at the Palm Garden as a matter of fact. I nearly told you the other day. He was the one who told me Nikki was out of town. I was shocked that he’d even speak to me.” She switched to the Scotch, taking a big drink.

  She was fabricating as fast as she could and it sounded nice but it was like listening to a record album. I decided to skip the cuts I didn’t want to hear. I bumped her again.

  “It was more than once, Gwen,” I said. “You had a full-blown affair with him. Charlotte Mercer was screwing his head off back then but he broke it off with her. She says he was into something very hush-hush. ‘Very hot,’ to quote her. I think it was you.”

  “What difference does it make if we had an affair. He’d been doing that for years.”

  I let a little time elapse and when I spoke I kept my voice low, leaning forward slightly just to give her the full effect.

  “I think you killed him.”

  The animation drained out of her face as though a plug had been pulled. She started to say something but she couldn’t get it out. I could see her mind working, but she couldn’t put anything together quickly enough. She was struggling and I pressed.

  “You want to tell me about it?” I said. My own heart was pounding and I could feel damp rings of sweat forming under my arms.

  She shook her head but that was all she could manage. She seemed transfixed. Her face had changed, taking on that look people get in their sleep when all the guards are down. Her eyes were luminous and dark and two bright patches of pink appeared now in the pale of her cheeks, a clownish effect, as though she’d applied too much blusher in an artificial light. She blinked back tears then, propping her chin on her fist, looking off beyond me, fighting for self-control, but the last defense was breached and the guilt was pushing against that gorgeous façade. I’d seen it happen before. People can hold out just so long and then they fold. She was really an amateur at heart.