Sue Grafton - C is for Corpse

I pulled a chair over and sat down, propping my feet up on the couch, cataloguing my current state. The small of my back ached, my left arm ached. I finished off the wine in my glass and added Cutty Sark.

Glen took a long swallow of hers. "I saw you talking to Jim. What did he have to say?"

"He thinks Bobby had a seizure and that's why he ran off the road. Some kind of epilepsy from his head injuries in the first accident."

"Meaning what?"

"Well, as far as I'm concerned, it means if that accident was really a murder attempt, it finally paid dividends.'"

Her face was blank. She dropped her gaze. "What will you do now?"

"Hey, listen. I still have money left from the retainer Bobby gave me. I'll work 'til I find out who killed him."

She met my eyes and the look she gave me was curious. "Why would you do that?"

"To settle accounts. I believe in clearing the ledger, don't you?"

"Oh yes," she said.

We stared at each other for a moment and then she raised her glass. I lifted mine and we drank.

When Derek came in, the two of them went upstairs and, with Glen's permission, I spent the next three hours in a fruitless search of her den and Kitty's room. Then I let myself out and went home.

By Monday morning at eight o'clock I was in the gym again, working out. I felt like I'd been to the moon and back. Without even thinking about it, I looked for Bobby, realizing a millisecond later that he was gone and wasn't ever going to be there again. It didn't sit well with me. Missing someone is a vague, unpleasant sensation, like gnawing anxiety. It isn't as concrete as grief, but it's just as pervasive and there's no escaping it. I kept moving, working out hard, as though physical pain might blot out its emotional counterpart. I filled every minute with activity and I suppose it worked. In some ways, it's like rubbing Ben-Gay on a sore back. You want to believe it's doing you some good, but you can't think why it would. It's better than nothing, but it's no cure.

I showered, got dressed, and headed over to the office. I hadn't been there since Wednesday afternoon. There was several days' mail piled up and I tossed it on the desk. The message light on my answering machine was blinking, but I had other things to attend to first. I opened the French doors and let some fresh air circulate, then made a pot of coffee for myself. I checked the half-and-half in my little refrigerator, sniffing at the carton spout. Borderline. I'd have to replace that soon. When the coffee was done, I found a clean mug and filled it. The half-and-half formed an ominous pattern on the surface, but it tasted O.K. Some days I drink my coffee black, some days with cream for the comfort of it. I sat down in my swivel chair and propped my feet up, punching the replay button on the answering machine.

The tape rewound itself and Bobby came on. I felt a chilly finger touch the nape of my neck when I realized who it was.

"Hi, Kinsey. This is Bobby. I'm sorry I was such a jerk a little while ago. I know you were just trying to cheer me up. One thing came to me. I know this doesn't make much sense, but I thought I'd pass it on anyway. I think the name Blackman ties into this. Somebody Blackman, I don't know if that's who I gave the little red book to or the guy who's after me. Could be it's nothing the way my brain scrambles things. Anyway, we can put our heads together later and see if it means anything. I've got some stuff to do and then I have to see Kleinert. I'll try to get back to you. Maybe we can have a drink or something later tonight. Bye for now, kid. Watch your backside."

I flipped the machine off and stared at it.

I reached in my top drawer for the telephone book and hauled it out. There was one Blackman listed, an S. No address. Probably a woman trying to avoid obscene phone calls. I believe in trying for the obvious first. I mean, why not? Maybe Sarah, or Susan, or Sandra Blackman knew Bobby and had his little red book, or maybe he'd told her exactly what was going on and I could wrap the whole thing up with one phone call. The number was a disconnect, I tried it again, just to double-check. The same recording clicked in again. I made a note. The number might still pertain. Maybe S. Blackman had left town or died mysteriously.

I punched the replay button, just to hear Bobby's voice again. I was feeling restless, wondering how to get down to brass tacks on this thing. I checked back through Bobby's file. I hadn't yet talked to his former girl friend. Carrie St. Cloud, and that seemed like a reasonable possibility. Glen had told me she dropped out of the picture after the accident, but she might remember something from that period. I tried the number Glen had given me and had a brief chat with Carrie's mother, explaining who I was and why I wanted to get in touch with her. Carrie had apparently moved out of the family home a year ago and into a little apartment of her own that she shared with a roommate. She was working full-time now as an aerobics instructor at a studio on Chapel. I made a note of the two addresses, her work and home, and thanked the woman. I set my mug aside, unplugged the coffeepot, locked the office, and trotted down the back stairs.

The day was overcast, the sky a low ceiling of white. A pale gray haze seemed to permeate the streets with chill air. After the insufferable heat of the last few weeks, it seemed odd. The weather in Santa Teresa has been straying from the norm of late. It used to be that you could count on clear sunny skies and a tamed and temperate sea, with maybe a few clouds massing behind the mountains more for the visual effect than anything else. The rains came dutifully in January, two weeks of constant downpour, after which the countryside turned emerald green, bougainvillea and cape honeysuckle exploding across the face of the town like gaudy makeup. Nowadays, there are enexplicable rains in April and October, chilly days like this in August when the temperature should be eighty-five degrees. The shift is baffling, the sort of climatic alteration associated with the eruption of South Sea volcanoes and rumors about the ozone being penetrated by hair sprays.

The studio was only half a block away, housed in a former racquetball club that had gone belly-up once the passion for racquetball had passed. With aerobics coming in, it made perfect sense to convert all those plain narrow rooms with hardwood floors into little fat-burning ovens for women who yearned to be lean and fit. I asked if Carrie was teaching and the woman at the desk pointed mutely toward the source of the deafening music that made further conversation unlikely at best. I followed the end of her finger and rounded the corner. On my right, there was a waist-high wall overlooking an aerobics class in full swing one floor below.

The acoustics were grim. I watched from the observer's gallery while the music blasted. Carrie hollered out encouragement and fifteen of the best-looking female bodies in town exercised with a fanaticism I'd seldom seen. Apparently, I'd caught the class at its apex. They were doing buttocks lifts that looked obscene: women groaning on the floor in frosted, skintight leotards, doing hip thrusts and bun squeezes as if unseen partners were grinding away at them in unison.

Carrie St. Cloud was a surprise. Her name suggested a second runner-up for a Junior Miss pageant, or maybe a budding actress whose real name is Wanda Maxine Smith. I had pictured run-of-the-mill California good looks, the trim surfers body, blond hair, dazzling white teeth, maybe a little tendency to tap dance. She was none of these things.

She couldn't have been more than twenty-two with a body builders musculature and dark hair to her waist. Her face was strong, like Greek statuary, with a full mouth, rounded chin. The leotard she wore was a pale yellow Span-dex, defining the wide shoulders and lean hips of a gymnast. If she had an ounce of fat on her, I didn't spy it anyplace. She had no breasts to speak of, but the effect was intensely female anyway. This was no beach bunny. She took herself seriously, and she knew what fitness was about, breezing through the exercises without even breathing hard. Every other woman in the place was in pain. It made me grateful that all I have to do is jog three miles a day. I'm never going to look as good as she, but it didn't seem like a bad trade.