Sue Grafton - C is for Corpse

"Well thank heaven for that," she said, as she came through the living room. "I didn't find anything under the bed, but I'd left my ticket right up on the chest, so it's lucky I went back."

As she reached the front door, I eased behind her. She glanced up, catching sight of the officers.

The guy, according to his name tag, was G. Pettigrew. He was black, maybe in his thirties, with big arms and a barrel chest. His partner, M. Gutierrez, looked almost as hefty as he.

Pettigrew's eyes settled on Lila. "Are you Lila Sams?"

"Yes." She loaded that one syllable with puzzlement, blinking at him. Her body seemed to change so that she looked older and more squat.

"Could you step out onto the porch, please?"

"Of course, but I can't think what this is about." Lila made a move toward her purse, but Gutierrez intercepted, checking the contents quickly for weapons.

Pettigrew told Lila she was under arrest, reciting her rights to her from a card he held. I could tell he'd done it all a hundred times and didn't really need the cue, but he read it anyway so there wouldn't be any question later.

"Could you turn around and face the wall, please?"

Lila did as she was told and Gutierrez did a pat-down, then snapped on a pair of handcuffs. Lila was starting to wail pitifully. "But what have I done? I haven't done anything. This is all a terrible mistake." Her desperation seemed to set Moza off.

"What's going on, officer?" Moza said. "This woman is my tenant. She hasn't done anything wrong."

"Ma'am, we'd appreciate it if you'd step back, please. Mrs. Sams is entitled to contact an attorney when we get downtown." Pettigrew touched at Lila's elbow, but she pulled away, her voice rising to a shrill pitch.

"Help! Oh no! Let go of me. Help!"

The two officers took control of her, one on either side, moving her off the porch at a businesslike pace, but Lila's shrieks were beginning to bring curious neighbors out onto their porches. She went limp, sagging heavily between them, craning her face toward Moza with a piteous cry. They hustled her into the squad car, picking her feet up to deposit her in the rear. Lila somehow conveyed the impression that this was a Gestapo arrest, that she was being hauled off by the Nazis and might never be heard from again. Shaking his head, Officer Pettigrew gathered up her belongings, which were now strewn along the walk. He tucked her suitcases in the trunk.

The man next door apparently felt called upon to intercede and I saw him in conversation with Pettigrew while Gutierrez called in to the station and Lila thrashed about, flinging herself at the mesh that separated her from Gutierrez in the front seat. Finally Pettigrew got in the car on the driver's side, slamming the door shut, and they pulled away.

Moza was dead white and she turned a stricken face to me. "This was your doing! What in heaven's name were you thinking of? The poor woman."

But I'd caught sight of Henry half a block away. Even at that distance, his face seemed blank with disbelief, his body tense. "I'll talk to you later, Moza," I said and headed toward him.

By the time I reached my place, Henry was nowhere in sight. I pulled the envelope out of my waistband and knocked on his back door. He opened it. I held the envelope up and he took it, glancing at the contents. He gave me a searching look, but I didn't explain how I'd come by it and he didn't ask.

"Thank you."

"We'll talk later," I said, and he closed the door again, but not before I caught a glimpse of his kitchen counter. He had gotten out the sugar canister and a new blue-and-white sack of flour, turning to the activity he knew best while he worked through his pain. I felt awful for him but I had to let him sort it out for himself. God, it was all so unpleasant. In the meantime, I had to get back to work.

I let myself into my apartment and got out the telephone book, looking for Kelly Borden. If Bobby'd been searching for the gun out at the old county building, I wanted to have a crack at it too and I thought maybe Kelly could tell me where to start. No sign of him in the telephone book. I tried to find the number for the former medical facility, but there wasn't a listing for it and the information operator was being obtuse, pretending she had no idea what I was talking about. If he worked a seven-to-three shift, he'd be gone anyway. Shit. I looked up the number of Santa Teresa Hospital and put a call in to Dr. Fraker. His secretary, Marcy, told me he was "away from his desk" (meaning in the men's room), but would be back shortly. I told her I needed to talk to Kelly Borden and asked for his address and telephone number.

"Gee, I don't know," she said. "Dr. Fraker probably wouldn't mind my giving you the information, but I'm not really supposed to do it without his O.K."

"Look, I've got some errands to run anyway so why don't I stop by. It'll take me ten minutes," I said. "Just make sure he doesn't leave work before I get there."

I drove over to St. Terry's. Parking turned out to be a trick and I had to leave my car three blocks away, which was okay with me because I had to stop at a drugstore. I went in through the back entrance, following varicolored lines on the floor, as though on my way to Oz. Finally, I reached a set of elevators and took one down to the basement.

By the time I reached Pathology, Dr. Fraker was off again, but Marcy had told him I was coming and he'd instructed her to forward me, like a piece of mail. I trailed after her through the lab and finally came across him in surgical greens, standing at a stainless-steel counter with a sink, disposal, and hanging scales. He was apparently about to launch into some procedure and I was sorry I had to interrupt.

"I really didn't mean to disturb you," I said. "All I need is Kelly Borden's address and telephone number."

"Pull up a chair," he said, indicating a wooden stool at one end of the counter. And then to Marcy, "Why don't you look up the information for Kinsey and I'll keep her amused in the meantime."

As soon as she departed, I pulled the stool over and perched.

For the first time, I cued in to what Fraker was actually doing. He was wearing surgical gloves, scalpel in hand. There was a white plastic carton on the counter, a one-pint size, like the kind used for chicken livers in the meat section of the supermarket. As I watched, he dumped out a glistening blob of organs, which he began to sort through with a pair of long tweezers. Against my will, I feit my gaze fix on this small pile of human flesh. Our entire conversation was conducted while he trimmed off snippets from each of several organs.

I could feel my lips purse in distaste. "What are those?"

His expression was mild, impersonal, and amused. He used the tweezers to point, touching each of several hunks in turn. I half expected the little morsels to draw away from his probing, like live slugs, but none of them moved. "Well, let's see. That's a heart. Liver. Lung. Spleen. Gall bladder.

This fella died suddenly during surgery and nobody can figure out what his problem was."

"And you can? Just from doing that?"

"Well, not always, but I think we'll come up with something in this case," he said.

I didn't think I'd ever look at stew meat in quite the same way. I couldn't take my eyes away from his dicing process and I couldn't get it through my head that these had once been functioning parts of a human being. If he was aware of my fascination, he didn't give any indication of it and I tried to be as nonchalant about the whole deal as he was.

He glanced over at me. "How does Kelly Borden figure into this?"

"I'm not sure," I said. "Sometimes I have to look at things that end up having no connection whatever to a case. Maybe it's the same as what you do-inspecting all the pieces of the puzzle until you come up with a theory."