Sue Grafton: C is for Corpse

Oh, the bothersome details that finally fall into place like a little right-brain joke. It did come to me, in a flash, like a bubble through my veins, that Fraker was the one supplying Kitty with drugs, probably in exchange for information about Bobby's search for the gun. The stash in her bed-table drawer was a plant. He'd been there that night. Maybe he thought it was time to take her out, lest she in her guilt admit to her own duplicity where Bobby was concerned.

The distance to the corner of the hallway had been extended. I'd been running forever. The simple commands I was managing to send to my body were taking too long and I was losing the feedback system that records a response. Was I, in fact, running? Was I going anywhere? Sound was being stretched out, the echo of my own footsteps coming belatedly. I felt as if I were bounding down a corridor with a floor like a trampoline. Flash number two. Fraker had rigged the autopsy report. No seizure. He'd cut the brake lines. Too bad I hadn't figured it out before now. God, what a dummy I was.

I reached the corner slowing, and I could feel my body folding down on itself. As I rounded the corner, I had to pause. I propped myself against the wall, working to breathe. I had to clear my head. Stay upright. I had to lift my arms if I could. Time had begun to stretch out like taffy, long strands, sticky, hard to manage.

He was singing again, treating me to some oldies but goodies in his own private hit parade. He'd moved on now to "Accentuate the positive… eliminate the negative"… vowels dragged out like a phonograph record slowing when the power shuts off.

Even the voice in my own brain got hollow and remote.

Crouch, Kinsey, it said.

I thought I might be crouching but I couldn't tell anymore where my legs were or my hips or much of my spine. My arms were feeling heavy and I wondered if my elbows were bent.

Batter up, the voice said and I believed, but couldn't have sworn to the fact, that I was drawing the two-by-four back, elbow crooked as my aunt had taught me long long ago.

Day was passing into night, life into death.

Fraker's voice droned out the song. "Acceeennntuate the pooosssitive, eeeellliiiimindaate the neeegatiiiive…"

When he came around the corner, I stepped into the swing, the two-by-four aimed straight at his face. I could see the board begin its march through space, like a series of time-lapse photographs, light against dark, closing down the distance. I felt the board connect with a sweet popping sound.

It was out of the ball park and I went down with the roar of the crowd in my ears.

They told me later, though I remember little of it, that I managed to make my way down to the morgue, where I dialed 911, mumbling a message that brought the cops. What comes back to me most clearly is the hangover I endured after the cocktail of barbiturates I was injected with. I woke in a hospital bed, as sick as a dog. But even with a pounding head, retching into a kidney-shaped plastic basin, I was glad to be among the living.

Glen spoiled me silly and everyone came to see me, including Jonah, Rosie, Gus, and Henry, bearing hot cross buns. Lila, he said, had written to him from a jail up north, but he didn't bother to reply. Glen never relented in her determination to reject both Derek and Kitty, but I introduced Kitty Wenner to Gus. Last I heard, they were dating and Kitty was cleaning up her act. Both had gained weight.

Dr. Fraker is currently out on bail, awaiting trial on charges of attempted murder and two counts of first-degree murder. Nola pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter, but served no time. When I got back to the office, I typed up my report, submitting a bill for thirty-three hours, plus mileage; a total I rounded off to an even $1000. The balance of Bobby's advance I returned to Varden Talbot's office to be factored into his estate. The rest of the report is a personal letter. Much of my last message to Bobby is devoted to the simple fact that I miss him. I hope, wherever he may be, that he sails among the angels, untethered and at peace.

– Respectfully submitted, Kinsey Millhone

SUE GRAFTON has written novels, articles, short fiction, a screenplay, and numerous teleplays. She has also lectured on writing at colleges and confer ences in Southern California and the Midwest. Her first mystery, 'A' IS FOR ALIBI, won an award from the Cloak and Clue Society of Wisconsin. 'B' IS FOR BURGLAR won both the Anthony and the Shamus awards for best novel of 1985, and 'C' IS FOR CORPSE won the Anthony Award for Best Novel in 1986. "The Parker Shotgun" won a Ma-cavity Award from the Mystery Readers of America and an Anthony for Best Short Story of 1986. Grafton, who was born in Louisville, Kentucky, now lives in Southern California with her husband, Steven Humphrey.