Sue Grafton - K Is For Killer

I sped past a darkened service station, the bays and gasoline pumps shut down for the night. I could hear a burglar alarm clanging, apparently in a shop close by, but there was no sign of the police and no pedestrians running to see what was wrong. If there were actually burglars in the place, they could take their sweet time. We're all so accustomed to alarms going off that we pay no attention, assuming the switches have been tripped in error and mean nothing. Six blocks beyond, I crossed a smaller intersection heading up the road that led to the water treatment plant.

The area was largely unpopulated. I could see an occasional house on my right, but the fields across the road were scruffy and dotted with boulders. Coyotes yipped and howled in the distance, driven down from the hills by the need for water. It seemed too early in the evening for predators, but the pack was obeying a law of its own. They were hunting tonight, on the scent of prey. I pictured some hapless creature flying across the ground, in fear of its life. The coyote kills quickly, a mercy for its victim, though not much consolation.

I turned into the entrance to the treatment plant. Lights were on in the building, and there were four cars out front. I left my handbag in the car, locking it behind me. There was still no sign of the limousine. Then again, the guy wouldn't use his limo to make a hit, I thought. He'd probably send his goons, and they might well check Roger's place first, wherever that might be. A county-owned truck had been parked in the drive. As I passed, I put a hand out. The hood was still warm to the touch. I went up the stairs to the lighted entry. I could feel the reassuring bulk of the handgun in the small of my back. I pushed through the glass doors.

The receptionist's desk was empty. Once upon a time Lorna Kepler had sat there. It was curious to imagine her working here day after day, greeting visitors, answering the telephone, exchanging small talk with the control technician and senior treatment mechanics. Maybe it was her last shred of pretense, the final gesture she'd made toward being an ordinary person. On the other hand, she might have found herself genuinely interested in aeration maniforms and flash mix basins.

The interior of the building seemed quiet at first. Fluorescent lights glowed against the polished tile floors. The corridor was deserted. From one of the rear offices, I picked up the strains of a country music station. I could hear someone banging on a pipe, but the sound came from deep in the bowels of the building. I moved quickly down the hallway, glancing left into Roger's office. The lights were on, but he was nowhere to be seen. I heard footsteps approaching. A fellow in coveralls and a baseball cap came around the corner, moving in my direction. He seemed to take my presence for granted, though he took his cap off politely at the sight of me. His hair was a mass of curly gray mashed into a cap-shaped line around his head. "Can I help you with something?"

"I'm looking for Roger."

The fellow pointed down. "That's him you hear whumping on the sample lines." He was in his fifties, with a wide face, and a dimple in his chin. Nice smile. He reached out a hand and introduced himself. "I'm Delbert Squalls."

"Kinsey Millhone," I said. "Could you let Roger know I'm here? It's urgent."

"Sure, no problem. Actually, I'm just on my way down. Whyn't you follow me?"

"Thanks."

Squalls retraced his steps and opened the glass-paneled door into the area I'd seen before: multicolored pipes, a wall of dials and gauges. I could see the gaping hole in the floor. Orange plastic cones had been set across one end, warning the unwary about the dangers of tumbling in.

I said, "How many guys you have working tonight?"

"Lemme see. Five, counting me. Come on this way. You're not claustrophobic, I hope."

"Not a bit," I lied, following him as he crossed to the opening. On my previous visit, I'd seen a moving river of black water down there, silent, smelling of chemicals, looking like nothing I'd ever seen before. Now I could see lights and the bleak walls of concrete, discolored in places where the water had passed. I felt the need to swallow. "Where'd all the water go?" I asked.

"We shut the sluice gates, and then we have a couple of big basins it drains into," he said conversationally. "Takes about four hours. We do this once a year. We got some postaeration sample lines in the process of repair. They'd almost completely corroded. Been clogged for months until this shutdown. We got ten hours to get the work done, and then back she comes."

A series of metal rungs affixed to the wall formed a ladder, leading down into the channel. The banging had stopped. Delbert turned around and edged his foot down into the opening and then proceeded to descend. Tink , tink, tink went the soles of his shoes on the metal rungs as he sank from sight. I moved forward, turning myself. Then I descended as he had to the tunnel below.

Once we reached bottom, we were twelve feet underground, standing in the influent channel through which millions of gallons of water had passed. Down here it was always night, and the only moon shone in the form of a two-hundred-watt bulb. The passage smelled damp and earthy. I could see the sluice gate at the dark end of the tunnel, streaks of sediment on the floor. This felt like spelunking, not a passion of mine. I spotted Roger, with his back to us, working on an overhead line. He was standing on a ladder about fifteen feet away, the big lightbulb, in a metal guard, hooked on the pipe near his face. He wore blue coveralls and black rubber hip boots. I could see a denim jacket tucked across the ladder's brace. It was chilly down here, and I was glad I had my jacket.

Roger didn't turn. "That you, Delbert?" he said over his shoulder.

"That's me. I brought a friend of yours. A Miss… what is it, Kenley?"

"It's Kinsey," I corrected.

Roger turned. The light glittered in his eyes and bleached all the color from his flesh. "Well. I was expecting you," he said.

Delbert had his hands on his hips. "You need some help with that?"

"Not really. Why don't you find Paul and give him a hand?"

"Will do."

Delbert started up the ladder again, leaving us alone. His head disappeared, back, hips, legs, boots. It was very quiet. Roger came down from the ladder he was on, wiping his hands on a rag, while I stood there trying to decide how to go about this. I saw him pick up the jacket and check a pocket in front.

"This is not what you think," I said. "Listen, Lorna was getting married the weekend she was murdered. Earlier this week a fellow picked me up in a limo with a couple of flunkies in bulging overcoats…" I felt my voice trail off.

He had something in his hand about the size of a walkie-talkie: black plastic housing, a couple of buttons on the front. "You know what this is?"

"Looks like a taser gun."

"That's right." He pressed a button, and two tiny probes shot out on electrical wires that carried a hundred and twenty thousand volts. The minute the probes touched me I was down, my whole body numb. Couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. After a few seconds, my brain started to work. I knew what had happened, I just didn't know what to do about it. Of all the responses I'd imagined him making, this was not on the list, I lay on my hack like a stone, trying to find a way to heave oxygen into my lungs. None of my extremities responded to cues. In the meantime, Roger patted me down, coming up with my gun, which he tucked in the pocket of his coveralls.

I was making a sound, but it probably wasn't very loud. He moved to the wall and climbed the ladder. I thought he was going to leave me down there. Instead he flipped the trap door so that it came down on the hole. "Thought we might like a little privacy," he said as he descended. He found a plastic bucket that had been tossed to one side. He turned it upside down and took a seat not that far from me. He leaned close. Mildly he said, "Fuck with me, I'll smother you with this jacket. Weak as you are, it's not going to leave any marks."