K is for KILLER

by Sue Grafton

  I went back to my index cards. I was going through the motions, not really on the track of anything in particular, just trying to keep busy until I figured out what to do next. I glanced down at the sack that held the broken picture frames. Shit. Of course, I’d forgotten to take Danielle’s bedding to the cleaners before it closed, but at least I could switch the frames. I moved over to the kitchen counter with the new frames I’d picked up. I put the wastebasket nearby and pulled the photographs from the paper bag. There were four eight-by-ten enlargements, all in color. I removed the frame and the matting from the first, pausing to study the image: three cats lounging on a picnic table. A sleek gray tabby was in the process of jumping down, apparently not that happy about the photographic immortality. The other two cats were long-haired, one pale cream and one black, staring at the camera with expressions of arrogance and disinterest respectively. On the back she’d written the date and the cats’ names: Smokey, Tigger, and Cheshire.

  As I removed the photo from the cracked frame, the glass separated into two pieces. I tucked both in the trash can and tossed the frame in after them. I pulled out a new frame and peeled off the price tag, sliding the mat and the cardboard backing out of the frame. I tucked the photo between the backing and the mat, turning it over to make sure the image was straight. I eased the three layers – mat, photo, and backing – into the space between the glass and the series of staples that were sticking out of the frame. I turned it back again. It looked good.

  I picked up the second photograph and went through the same process. The glass was only cracked across one corner, but the frame itself was unsalvageable. This photograph showed two young men and a young woman on a sailboat, everyone with beer cans, sunburns, and wind-tangled hair. Danielle had probably taken the picture herself. It must have been a good day with good friends at a time in her life when she was still in possession of her innocence. I’ve been on outings like it. You come home dog-tired and dirty, but you never forget.

  In the third picture, Danielle was posed under a white trellised arch in the company of a young clean-cut guy. From the dress she was wearing, complete with an orchid on her wrist, I guessed this was taken at her high school prom. It was nice getting a glimpse of her private life, images of her as she’d been before. She had entered the life as surely as a novice entering a convent, with a gap just as wide between past and present.

  The last picture had been rematted, a wide band of gray reducing the framed image to its two central figures: Danielle and Lorna dressed up and sitting in a booth. It looked like a commercial photograph, taken by a roving photographer who made a living snapping pictures on the spot. Hard to tell where this was taken, Los Angeles or Vegas, some glitzy nightclub, with dinner and dancing. In the background, I could see a portion of a bandstand and a potted plant. Champagne glasses on the table in front of them. The frame was cheap, but the wide gray matting was a nice choice for the subject matter, isolating the two of them.

  Both women were looking elegant, seated at a found table in a black leather-padded booth. Lorna was so beautiful: dark-haired, hazel-eyed, with a perfect oval face. Her expression was grave, with just the smallest hint of a smile on her lips. She wore a black satin cocktail dress, with long sleeves and a square, low-cut neckline. The diamond hoop earrings sparkled at her ears. Danielle wore kelly green, a form-fitting sequined top, probably with a miniskirt, if I knew Danielle’s taste. Her long dark hair had been smoothed into a French roll. I imagined Lorna getting her all dolled up for a kind of high-class date: two call girls on the town. Along the back of the booth, I could see a man’s hand and arm extending behind Lorna. I could feel my heart begin to thump.

  I extracted the photograph from the frame and turned it over. With the matting removed, I could see all four people who’d been sitting at the table that night: Roger, Danielle, Lorna, and Stubby Stockton. Oh, man, this is it, I thought. This is it. Maybe not everything, but the heart of the riddle.

  I carried the photo with me to the telephone and called Cheney’s pager number, punching in my own telephone number and the # sign at the sound of the tone. I hung up. While I waited for him to return my call, I sat at my desk and sorted through my notes, pulling all the index cards on which Roger was mentioned. Most were from my initial interview, with additional notes from my conversation with Serena. I scanned the cards on the bulletin board, but there were no further references. I laid the cards out on my desk like a tarot reading. I found the notes I’d scribbled to myself after my meeting with him. Roger had told me Lorna called him Friday morning. I circled the day and added a question mark, affixing the card to the photograph with a paper clip.

  The phone rang. “Kinsey Millhone,” I said automatically.

  “This is Cheney. What’s up?”

  “I’m not sure. Let me tell you what I came across, and you tell me.” I told him briefly how I’d acquired the photographs, and then I detailed the one I was looking at. “I know you were kidding when you talked about Roger and Stubby, but they did know each other, and well enough to go whoring together somewhere out of town. I also went back through my notes and came across an interesting discrepancy. Roger told me Lorna called him Friday morning, but she couldn’t possibly have done that. She was dead by then.”

  There was a brief silence. “I don’t see where you’re going with this.”

  “I have no idea. That’s why I’m calling you,” I said. “I mean, suppose Roger and Stubby were in business together. If Lorna told Roger about her relationship with Esselmann, they could have been using the information to pressure him. Esselmann balked….”

  “So Stubby killed him? That’s ridiculous. Stubby’s got a lot of irons in the fire. This deal doesn’t work, he’s got another one lined up, and if that fails, he’s got more. Believe me, Stockton is in business to do business. Period. If Esselmann dies, that only sets him back because now he’s gotta wait until someone’s appointed to take Clark’s place, yada, yada, yada…”

  “I’m not saying Stockton. I think it’s Roger. He’s the one who had access to that pool equipment. He had access to Lorna. He had access to everything. Plus, he knew Danielle. Suppose he and Stockton talked business that night. Danielle’s the only witness.”

  “How’re you going to prove it? All you have is speculation. This is all air and sunshine. You’ve got nothing concrete. At least, nothing you could take to the DA. He’d never go for it.”

  “What about the tape?”

  “That’s not proof of anything. It’s illegal for starters, and you don’t even know it’s Lorna. They could be talking about anything. You ever heard the concept of ‘fruit of the poisonous tree’? I’ve been thinking about this whole business ever since I dropped you off. You got people tampering with the crime scene, tampering with evidence. Any good defense attorney would rip you to shreds.”

  “What about Roger’s claim Lorna called him Friday morning?”

  “So the guy was mistaken. She called some other day.”

  “What if I went in with a wire and had a talk with him. Let me ask –”

  Cheney cut in, his tone a mixture of impatience and outrage. “Ask him what? We’re not going to wire you. Don’t be asinine. What are you proposing, you go knock on his door? ‘Hi, Rog. It’s Kinsey. Who’d you kill today? Oh, no reason, just curious. Excuse me, would you mind speaking into this artificial flower I’m wearing in my lapel?’ This is not your job. Face it. There’s nothing you can do.”

  “Bullshit. That’s bullshit.”

  “Well, it’s bullshit you’re gonna have to live with. We really shouldn’t even be discussing this.”

  “Cheney, I’m tired of the bad guys winning. I’m sick of watching people get away with murder. How come the law protects them and not us?”

  “I hear you, Kinsey, but that doesn’t change the facts. Even if you’re right about Roger, you got no way to nail him, so you might as well drop it. Eventually he’ll screw up, and we’ll get him then.”

  “We’ll
see.”

  “Don’t give me ‘we’ll see.’ You do something stupid and it’s your ass, not his. I’ll talk to you later. I got another call coming in.”

  I hung up on him, steaming. I knew he was right, but I really hate that stuff, and his being right only made it worse. I sat for a minute and stared at the photograph of Lorna and Danielle. Was I the only one who really cared about them? I held the missing piece of the puzzle, but there were no options open to me, no means of redress. There was something humiliating about my own ineffectiveness. I crossed the room and paced back, feeling powerless. The phone rang again and I snatched up the receiver.

  “This is Cheney…” His voice was oddly flat.

  “Hey, great. I was hoping you’d call back. Surely, between us, there’s a way to do this,” I said. I thought he was calling to apologize for being such a hard-ass. I expected him to offer a suggestion about some action we might take, so I was completely unprepared for what came next.

  “That was St. Terry’s on the line. The ICU nurse. We lost Danielle. She just died,” he said.

  I felt myself blink, waiting for the punchline. “She died?”

  “She went into cardiac arrest. I guess they coded her, but it was too late to pull her back.”

  “Danielle died? That’s absurd. I just saw her last night.”

  “Kinsey, I’m sorry. The call just came in. I’m as surprised as you are. I hate to be the one to tell you, but I thought you should know.”

  “Cheney.” My tone was rebuking while his had become compassionate.

  “You want me to come over?”

  “No, I don’t want you to come over. I want you to quit fucking with my head,” I snapped. “Why are you doing this?”

  “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  The line clicked out and he was gone.

  Carefully, I set the receiver in the cradle. Still standing, I put a hand across my mouth. What was this? What was happening? How could Danielle be dead while Roger was beyond reach? At first, I felt nothing. My initial response was a curious blank, no sensation at all attached. I took in the truth content of what Cheney had told me, but there was no corresponding emotional reaction. Like a monkey, I plucked up this bright coin of information and turned it over in my hand. I believed in my head, but I couldn’t comprehend with my heart. I remained motionless for perhaps a minute, and when feelings finally crept back, what I experienced wasn’t grief, but a mounting fury. Like some ancient creature hurtling up from the deep, my rage broke the surface and I struck.

  I picked up the receiver, put my hand in my jeans pocket, and pulled out the card I’d been given in the limousine. The scribbled number was there, some magical combination of digits that spelled death. I dialed, giving absolutely no thought to what I was doing. I was propelled by the hot urge to act, by the blind need to strike back at the man who had dealt me this blow.

  After two rings, the phone was picked up on the other end. “Yes?”

  I said, “Roger Bonney killed Lorna Kepler.”

  I hung up. I sat down. I felt my face twist with heat, and tears spilled briefly.

  I went into the bathroom and looked out the window, but the street beyond was dark. I went back to my desk. Oh, Jesus. What had I done? I picked up the phone and dialed the number again. Endless rings. No answer. I put the phone down. Hands shaking, I pulled my gun from the bottom drawer and popped in a fresh clip. I eased the gun into the waistband at the back of my jeans and pulled on my jacket. I grabbed my handbag and car keys, turned out the lights, and locked the door behind me.

  I hit the 101, heading out toward Colgate. I kept checking my rearview mirror, but there was no sign of the limousine. At Little Pony Road, I took the off-ramp and turned right, continuing past the fairgrounds until I reached the intersection at State. I stopped at the traffic light, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel in impatience, checking my rearview mirror again. Along the main thoroughfare there was only one touch of color, words written out in red neon on the drugstore I spotted. SAV-ON, the sign said. The shopping mall to my left was apparently having a gala all-night sale. Klieg lights pierced the sky. White plastic flags were strung from pole to pole. At the entrance to the parking lot, a clown and two mimes were motioning for passing cars to turn in. The two mimes in whiteface began a playlet between them. I couldn’t tell what silent drama the two were enacting, but one turned and looked at me as I pulled away from the light. I checked back, but all I saw was the painted sorrow on his downturned mouth.

  I sped past a darkened service station, the bays and gasoline pumps shut down for the night. I could hear a burglar alarm clanging, apparently in a shop close by, but there was no sign of the police and no pedestrians running to see what was wrong. If there were actually burglars in the place, they could take their sweet time. We’re all so accustomed to alarms going off that we pay no attention, assuming the switches have been tripped in error and mean nothing. Six blocks beyond, I crossed a smaller intersection heading up the road that led to the water treatment plant.

  The area was largely unpopulated. I could see an occasional house on my right, but the fields across the road were scruffy and dotted with boulders. Coyotes yipped and howled in the distance, driven down from the hills by the need for water. It seemed too early in the evening for predators, but the pack was obeying a law of its own. They were hunting tonight, on the scent of prey. I pictured some hapless creature flying across the ground, in fear of its life. The coyote kills quickly, a mercy for its victim, though not much consolation.

  I turned into the entrance to the treatment plant. Lights were on in the building, and there were four cars out front. I left my handbag in the car, locking it behind me. There was still no sign of the limousine. Then again, the guy wouldn’t use his limo to make a hit, I thought. He’d probably send his goons, and they might well check Roger’s place first, wherever that might be. A county-owned truck had been parked in the drive. As I passed, I put a hand out. The hood was still warm to the touch. I went up the stairs to the lighted entry. I could feel the reassuring bulk of the handgun in the small of my back. I pushed through the glass doors.

  The receptionist’s desk was empty. Once upon a time Lorna Kepler had sat there. It was curious to imagine her working here day after day, greeting visitors, answering the telephone, exchanging small talk with the control technician and senior treatment mechanics. Maybe it was her last shred of pretense, the final gesture she’d made toward being an ordinary person. On the other hand, she might have found herself genuinely interested in aeration maniforms and flash mix basins.

  The interior of the building seemed quiet at first. Fluorescent lights glowed against the polished tile floors. The corridor was deserted. From one of the rear offices, I picked up the strains of a country music station. I could hear someone banging on a pipe, but the sound came from deep in the bowels of the building. I moved quickly down the hallway, glancing left into Roger’s office. The lights were on, but he was nowhere to be seen. I heard footsteps approaching. A fellow in coveralls and a baseball cap came around the corner, moving in my direction. He seemed to take my presence for granted, though he took his cap off politely at the sight of me. His hair was a mass of curly gray mashed into a cap-shaped line around his head. “Can I help you with something?”

  “I’m looking for Roger.”

  The fellow pointed down. “That’s him you hear whumping on the sample lines.” He was in his fifties, with a wide face, and a dimple in his chin. Nice smile. He reached out a hand and introduced himself. “I’m Delbert Squalls.”

  “Kinsey Millhone,” I said. “Could you let Roger know I’m here? It’s urgent.”

  “Sure, no problem. Actually, I’m just on my way down. Whyn’t you follow me?”

  “Thanks.”

  Squalls retraced his steps and opened the glass-paneled door into the area I’d seen before: multicolored pipes, a wall of dials and gauges. I could see the gaping hole in the floor. Orange plastic cones had been set across o
ne end, warning the unwary about the dangers of tumbling in.

  I said, “How many guys you have working tonight?”

  “Lemme see. Five, counting me. Come on this way. You’re not claustrophobic, I hope.”

  “Not a bit,” I lied, following him as he crossed to the opening. On my previous visit, I’d seen a moving river of black water down there, silent, smelling of chemicals, looking like nothing I’d ever seen before. Now I could see lights and the bleak walls of concrete, discolored in places where the water had passed. I felt the need to swallow. “Where’d all the water go?” I asked.

  “We shut the sluice gates, and then we have a couple of big basins it drains into,” he said conversationally. “Takes about four hours. We do this once a year. We got some postaeration sample lines in the process of repair. They’d almost completely corroded. Been clogged for months until this shutdown. We got ten hours to get the work done, and then back she comes.”

  A series of metal rungs affixed to the wall formed a ladder, leading down into the channel. The banging had stopped. Delbert turned around and edged his foot down into the opening and then proceeded to descend. Tink, tink, tink went the soles of his shoes on the metal rungs as he sank from sight. I moved forward, turning myself. Then I descended as he had to the tunnel below.

  Once we reached bottom, we were twelve feet underground, standing in the influent channel through which millions of gallons of water had passed. Down here it was always night, and the only moon shone in the form of a two-hundred-watt bulb. The passage smelled damp and earthy. I could see the sluice gate at the dark end of the tunnel, streaks of sediment on the floor. This felt like spelunking, not a passion of mine. I spotted Roger, with his back to us, working on an overhead line. He was standing on a ladder about fifteen feet away, the big lightbulb, in a metal guard, hooked on the pipe near his face. He wore blue coveralls and black rubber hip boots. I could see a denim jacket tucked across the ladder’s brace. It was chilly down here, and I was glad I had my jacket.