Sue Grafton - K Is For Killer

Trinny shrugged. "I guess."

I folded it twice and tucked it back where it had been. "Mind if I sit down? I was hoping I'd have a chance to talk to you."

"Fine," she said. She slid the lever on the iron to the off position.

"I hope I'm not interrupting dinner preparations."

"I got a casserole in the oven. All I have to do is heat it and make a salad real quick."

I took a seat, wondering how to coax some information out of her. I wasn't even sure what I wanted to know, but I considered it a bonus to be alone with her. She was wearing the same cutoffs I'd seen her in before. Her legs looked solid, her bare feet tucked into rubber flip-flops. Her T-shirt this time must have been an XXL, the front emblazoned with a painted design. She moved from the ironing board to the kitchen table, where she sat down across from me and began squeezing a tube of paint in a Jackson Pollock-type design on the front of a new T-shirt. Dots and squiggles. Hanging from a knob on one of the kitchen cabinets was a completed work, its lines of paint puffed out in three dimensions. She caught my gaze. "This's puff paint," she said. "You put it on and let it dry, and when you iron it on the wrong side, it puffs out like that."

"That's cute," I said. I got up and moved closer to the kitchen cabinet, taking a moment to inspect the finished product. Looked dreadful to me, but what do I know? "You sell these?"

"Well, not yet, but I'm hoping. I made this one I got on, and whenever I go out everybody's like 'Oh, wow, cool T-shirt.' So I thought since I wasn't working I could set up my own business."

My oh my. She and her sister Lorna, both driven by the entrepreneurial spirit. "How long have you been doing this?"

"Just today."

I took my seat at the kitchen table again, watching Trinny work. I began to cast out my line. Surely there was something I could wheedle out of her. To my right was a stack of travel brochures, touting Alaskan cruises, ski holidays, and package tours to Canada and the Caribbean. I picked up a pamphlet and began to scan the copy: "The world's last unspoiled paradise… stunning white beaches… deep azure lagoons…"

Trinny saw what I was doing. "Those are Berlyn's."

"Where's she going?"

"She doesn't know yet. She says Alaska looks good."

"Are you going, too?"

She made a disappointed face. "I don't have the money."

"Too bad. It looks like fun," I said. "She doesn't mind traveling alone?"

"Nuh-uhn. She likes it. Not all the time, but if she has to, she says. She did the one trip already, in the fall."

"Really. Where'd she go then?"

"Acapulco. She loved it. She says she'll take me if she goes back."

"That's neat. I was in Viento Negro last summer, but that's as far south as I've been."

"I haven't even been that far. Berlyn's always liked to travel. I don't have the same bug. I mean, I like it and all, but there's stuff I'd rather do."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Buy clothes and stuff."

I tried another tack. "Lorna's death must have been hard. Are you doing okay with that?"

"I guess so. It's been hard on them. I mean, Mom and Daddy used to be a lot closer. Once Lorna died, seems like everything changed. And now it's like Mom's the only one caught up in it. Lorna's all she talks about. Berlyn gets her feelings hurt. It really pisses her off. It's like, what about us? Don't we count for anything?"

"Were you close to Lorna?"

"Not really. Lorna wasn't close to anyone. She lived in her world and we lived in ours. She had that cabin, and she liked it private. She hated it if people stopped by without asking. A lot of times she wasn't even home. Nights especially she'd be out somewhere. She made it plain you should keep away unless you called first and got yourself invited."

"How often did you see her?"

"A lot over here, whenever she stopped by. But at the cabin, maybe once or twice in the three years she lived there. Berlyn liked to go over. She's kind of nosy by nature. Lorna was real mysterious."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Like, why was she so picky about people dropping in? What's the big deal? She didn't have to worry about us. We're her sisters."

"Did you ever find out where she went at night?"

"Nuh-uhn. Probably wasn't any place special. After a while, I more or less accepted her for what she was. She wasn't sociable, like us. Berlyn and me are buddies. We like to pal around and double-date and stuff like that? Right now, like, neither of us has a boyfriend, so we see movies and go out dancing on the weekends.

Lorna never did the first nice thing for either one of us. Well, she did now and then, but you practically had to lay down and beg."

"How'd you find out about her death?"

"The police stopped by the house and asked to speak to Daddy. He was the one who told Mom, and she told us. It was kind of creepy. I mean, we thought Lorna was out of town. Off on vacation, is what Mom said. So we didn't think anything about it when we didn't hear from her. We just figured she'd give us a call when she got back. It's horrible to think she was just laying there, moldering."

"It must have been awful."

"Oh, God. I started screaming, and Berl got white as a ghost. Daddy was like in shock. Mother took it the worst. She still isn't over it. She was staggering around shrieking and crying, practically tearing her hair out. I've never seen her like that. She's usually the one holds the rest of us together. Like when Grandma died? This was her own mother. She kept real calm, made airline reservations, packed our bags so we could go back to Iowa to the funeral. We were all young kids, acting dumb, boo-hooing real pitiful. She got everything all organized, as cool as you please. When we found out about Lorna, she just fell to pieces."

"Most parents don't expect to outlive their kids," I said.

"That's what everybody says. It doesn't help that the police think she was murdered and all."

"What's your opinion?"

Trinny made a mute shrug with her mouth. "I guess she could have died from her allergies. I don't like to think about it. Too icky for my taste."

I shifted the subject. "Were you the one who went to San Francisco with Lorna last year?"

"That was Berlyn," she said. "Who told you about that?"

"I met the guy on the tape."

She glanced up from her work with interest. "Which one?"

She had the good grace to blush. Despite the dark brown hair, she was fair-complected, and the tint hit her cheeks like a heat rash. She dropped her gaze to the work in front of her, suddenly much busier than she'd been before. I could tell she was casting about for a way to change the subject. She bent over her work. I guess it was important to get the paint dots just right.

"Trinny?"

"What?"

"How'd you happen to see the tape? And don't say 'which tape' because you know exactly which tape I'm talking about."

"I didn't see the tape."

"Oh, come on. Of course you did. If you didn't, how'd you know there was more than one guy?"

"I don't even know what you're talking about," she said with pious irritation.

"I'm talking about the porno tape in which Lorna appeared. Remember? Your mother told you."

"Maybe Mom told us that, too. About the other guy, more than one."

I said, "Uhn-hun," in my most skeptical tone. "What happened, did Lorna give you a copy?"

"Nooo," she said, giving it two sliding syllables, high note to low, offended by the notion.

"Then how'd you know there was more than one man?"

"I guessed. What do you care?"

I stared at her. The obvious conclusion leapt to mind. "Were you the one who wrapped it and put it out in the mailbox?"

"No. And anyway, I don't have to answer." This time the tone was sullen, but the blush came up again. This was better than a polygraph.