by Sue Grafton
“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 I 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 chum. 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 discontent. 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 fullblown affair with him. Charlotte Mercer was screwing his headoff 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 facade. I’d seen it happen before. People can hold out just so long and then they fold. She was really an amateur at heart.
“You got pushed too hard and you broke,” I said, hoping I wasn’t overplaying my hand. “You waited until he and Nikki left town and then you used Diane’s keys to get into the house. You put the oleander capsules in his little plastic vial, being careful to leave no prints, and then you left.”
“I hated him,” she said, mouth trembling. She blinked and a tear splashed on her shirt like a drop of rain. She took a deep breath, words coming out in a rush. “He ruined my life, took my kids, robbed me blind, insulted, abused ��� oh my God, you have no idea. The venom in that man…”
She snatched up a napkin and pressed it to her eyes. Amazingly, Rosie didn’t seem to notice her distress. She sat at the bar, probably reading Ann Landers, thinking At Wit’s End should have turned hubby in for the obscene calls he made, while a customer confessed to murder right under her nose. To her right, the little television set flickered a Muppets rerun.
Gwen sighed, staring down at the tabletop. She reached over and picked up her glass, taking in a big slug of Scotch, which made her shudder as it went down. “I didn’t even feel bad about it, except for the kids. They took it hard and that surprised me. They were far better off with him gone.”
“Why the affair?” I probed.
“I don’t know,” she said, folding and refolding the paper napkin. “I guess it was my revenge. He was such an egotist. I knew he couldn’t resist. After all, I’d insulted the hell out of him by having an affair with someone else. He couldn’t tolerate that. I knew he wanted his own act. It wasn’t even that hard to engineer. He wanted to prove something to himself. He wanted to show me what I’d passed up. There was even a certain amount of jazz to the sex for once. The hostility was so close to the surface that it gave us both a sick charge. God, I loathed him. I really did. And I’ll tell you something else,” she said harshly. “Killing him once just wasn’t enough. I wish I could kill him again.”
She looked at me fully then and the enormity of what she was saying began to sink in.
“What about Nikki? What did she ever do to you?”
“I thought they’d acquit her,” she said. “I never thought she’d go to jail, and when the sentence was handed down I wasn’t going to stand up and take her place. By then it was too late.”
“So what else?” I said and I noticed that my tone was getting sullen. “Did you kill the dog too?”
“I had nothing to do with that. He got hit Sunday morning. I drove Diane over there because she’d remembered that she’d left him out and she was upset. He was already lying in the street. My God, I would
n’t run over a dog,” she said emphatically, as though I should appreciate the delicacy of her sentiments.
“And the rest just fell into place? The oleander in the yard? The capsules upstairs?”
“One capsule. I doctored one.”
“Bullshit, Gwen. That’s bullshit.”
“It’s not. I’m telling the truth. I swear to it. I’d thought about it for a long time but I couldn’t see a way to make it work. I wasn’t even sure it would kill him. Diane was a wreck about the dog anyway so I drove her to my place and put her to bed. As soon as she was asleep, I took her keys and went back and that’s all it was.” She spoke with an edge of defiance, as though having opened up this far there was no point in mincing words.
“What about the other two?” I snapped. “What about Sharon and Libby Glass?”
She blinked at me, pulling back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh the hell you don’t,” I said, getting up. “You’ve lied to me since the first minute we met. I can’t believe a goddamn word you say and you know it.
She seemed startled by my energy. “What are you going to do?”
“Give the information to Nikki,” I said. “She paid for it. We’ll let her decide.”
I moved away from the table, heading toward the door. Gwen grabbed her jacket and purse, keeping pace with me.
Out on the street, she snatched at my arm and I shook her off.
“Kinsey wait” Her face was remarkably pale.
“Blow it out your ass,” I said. “You’d better hire yourself a hot attorney, babe, because you’re going to need one.”
I moved off down the street, leaving Gwen behind.
Chapter 25
*
I locked the door to my place and tried dialing Nikki out at the beach. The phone rang eight times and I hung up, pacing the room after that with an unsettled sensation in my chest. There was something off. There was something not right and I couldn’t put my finger on what was bothering me. There was no feeling of closure. None. This should have been the end of it. The big climax. I’d been hired to find out who killed Laurence Fife and I had. The end. Finis. But I was left with half a case and a lot of loose ends. Gwen’s killing of Laurence had been part premeditation and part impulse, but the rest of it didn’t seem to fit. Why wasn’t everything falling into place? I couldn’t picture Gwen killing Libby Glass. Gwen had hated Laurence Fife for years, titillating herself perhaps with ways of killing him, maybe never even dreaming that she’d actually do it, never imagining that she could actually pull it off. She’d come up with oleander scheme and suddenly she’d seen a way to make it work. A perfect opportunity had presented itself and she’d acted. Surely Libby Glass’s death couldn’t have been that easy to arrange. How did Gwen know about her? How did she know where she lived? How could she have gotten into that apartment? And how could she have counted on her taking medication of any kind? I couldn’t picture Gwen driving to Vegas either. Couldn’t imagine her shooting Sharon in cold blood. For what? What was the point? Killing Laurence had wiped out an old grudge, satisfied an ancient and bitter hatred between them, but why kill the other two? Blackmail? Threat of exposure? That might account for Sharon but why Libby Glass? Gwen had seemed truly self-righteous in her bewilderment. Like her denial of any responsibility for killing the dog. There was just that odd note of genuine outrage in her voice. It didn’t make sense.