She put a finger to her lips as if to seal them. The tears began. “I’ve tried to be good. I really have. I’m in AA and everything and I cleaned up my act.”
“Sure you did and that’s great. But your gut must send you little messages, doesn’t it? Eventually, you’ll get back into booze just to silence that voice.”
Her voice shifted up into the squeaky range. “God, I’m sorry. I really am. I’m so sorry. It was an accident. I didn’t mean to do it.” She hugged herself, bending over, the sobs as noisy as those of a child, which is what she was. I watched with compassion, but made no move to comfort her. It wasn’t up to me to make life easier. Let her experience remorse, all the grief and guilt. I didn’t know that she’d ever let herself assimilate the full impact of what she’d done. The tears came in uncontrollable waves, great gut-wrenching sobs that seemed to shake her from head to toe. She sounded more like a howling beast than a young girl filled with shame. I let it happen, almost unable to look at her until the pain subsided some. Finally, the storm passed like a fit of helpless laughter that peters out at long last. She groped in her purse and pulled out a wad of tissues, using one to mop her eyes and blow her nose. “God.” She clutched the fistful of tissues against her mouth for a moment. She nearly lost it again, but she collected herself. “I haven’t had a drop of alcohol since the night it happened. That’s been hard.” She was feeling sorry for herself, maybe hoping to stimulate pity or compassion or amnesty.
“I’ll bet it has,” I said, “and I applaud that. You’ve done a lot of hard work. Now it’s time to tell the truth. You can’t skip over that and expect recovery to work.”
“You don’t have to lecture me.”
“Apparently I do. You’ve had six years to think about this, Tootsie, and you haven’t done the right thing yet. I’ll tell you this: It’s going to look a lot better if you walk into the police station of your own accord. I know you didn’t mean to do it. I’m sure you were horrified, but the truth is the truth. I’ll give you some time to think, but by Friday I intend to have a conversation with the cops. You’d be smart to get your butt in there and talk to them before I do.”
I got up and slung my big leather bag across my shoulder. She made no move to follow. When I reached the front door, I looked back at her. “One more thing and then I’ll leave you to your conscience. Did you see David Barney that night?”
She sighed. “Yes.”
“You want to expand on that?”
“I nearly ran into him coming off the freeway. I heard this thump, and when I looked out the window, he was staring right at me.”
“You do understand you could have cleared him years ago if you’d admitted that.” I didn’t wait for her response. She was beginning to sound martyred about the whole business and I didn’t want to deal with that.
15
I stopped off at my place after I left Tippy and grabbed a hasty lunch, which I ate without much interest. There was precious little in the refrigerator and I was forced to open a can of asparagus soup, which I think I bought originally to put over something else. I’ve been told novice cooks are chronically engaged in this hoary ruse. Cream of celery soup over pork chops, baked at 350 for an hour. Cream of mushroom soup over meat loaf, same time, same temp. Cream of chicken soup over a chicken breast with half a cup of rice thrown in. The variations are endless and the best part is you have company once, you never see them again. Aside from the aforementioned, I can scramble eggs and make a fair tuna salad, but that’s about it. I eat a lot of sandwiches, peanut-butter-and-pickle and cheese-and-pickle being two. I also favor hot sliced hardboiled egg sandwiches on whole wheat bread with lots of salt and Best Foods mayonnaise. As far as I’m concerned, the only reason for cooking is to keep your hands busy while you think about something else.
What was bugging me at this point was this question of Morley’s death. What if David Barney’s paranoia was justified? He’d been right about everything else. What if Morley was getting too close to the truth and had been eliminated as a consequence? I was torn between the notion of murder as too farfetched and the worry that someone was actually getting away with it. I went back and forth, exploring the possibilities. His curiosity might well have been stimulated by his conversation with David Barney. Maybe he’d inadvertently stumbled across something significant. Had he been silenced? I could feel myself shy away from the idea. It was so damn melodramatic. Morley had died of a heart attack. The death certificate had been signed by his family doctor. I didn’t doubt there were drugs that could trigger or simulate the symptoms of cardiac arrest, but it was hard to picture how such a drug might have been administered. Morley wasn’t a fool. Given his health problems, he wasn’t going to take medications not prescribed by his own physician. It almost had to be poison, but I hadn’t heard the possibility mentioned. Who was I to step in and distress his ailing widow? She had problems enough and all I had to offer was conjecture.
I finished my soup, washed the bowl, and left it in the dish rack with my solitary spoon. If I kept up this cycle of cereal and soup, I could eat for a week without dirtying another dish. I wandered idly around the apartment, feeling restless and uneasy. I wanted desperately to talk to Lonnie, but I didn’t see a way to do it, short of driving the hour up to Santa Maria. Ida Ruth seemed to feel he’d resent the intrusion, but I thought he should be apprised of what was going on. Currently, his case was in complete disarray, and I didn’t see a way to clean it up before he came home. He was going to love me.
This was now Thursday afternoon. Morley’s funeral was on Friday, and if I had questions to raise about the cause of death I was going to have to move quickly. Once he was buried, this whole issue would be buried with him. Since his death was attributed to natural causes, my guess was that nobody’d bothered to question his activities the last couple of days of his life. I still had no idea where he’d gone or whom he’d seen. The only thing I was sure about was that he’d taken those pictures. I was assuming his actions had been prompted by his conversation with David Barney, but I couldn’t be certain. Maybe he’d talked to Dorothy or Louise about the case.
I put a call through to the house. Louise answered on the first ring. “Hi, Louise. This is Kinsey. You found the bag I left?”
“Yes, and thank you. I’m sorry we weren’t here, but Dorothy wanted to go over to the funeral home to see Morley. We realized you’d stopped by as soon as we got back.”
“How’s Dorothy holding up?”
“About as well as could be expected. She’s a pretty tough old bird. We both are if it comes to that.”
“Uhm, listen, Louise, I know this is an imposition, but is there any way I could talk to the two of you this afternoon?”
“About what?”
“I’d really prefer to discuss it in person. Is Dorothy up for a visit?”
I could hear her hesitation.
“It’s important,” I said.
“Just a minute. I’ll check.” She put a hand over the mouthpiece and I could hear the murmur of their conversation. She came back on the line. “If you can make it brief,” she said.
“I’ll be out there in fifteen minutes.”
For the third time in two days, I drove out to Morley’s house in Colgate. The early afternoon sun was just making an appearance. December and January are really our best months. February can be rainy and it’s usually gray. Spring in Santa Teresa is like spring anywhere else in the country. By early summer, we’re swathed in a perpetual marine layer so that days begin in the bright white-gray of fog and end in a curious golden sunlight. So far December had been a blend of the two seasons, spring and summer alternating inexplicably from day to day.
Louise answered my knock and let me into the living room, where Dorothy had been ensconced on the couch.
“I’m going to make us a pot of tea,” Louise murmured and then excused herself. Moments later, I could hear her rattling dishes as she took them from the cupboard.
Dorothy was still dressed in a skirt and s
weater from her recent outing. She’d taken off her shoes and a quilt had been tucked around her legs for warmth. One narrow foot, looking as fragile as porcelain, extended from the swaddling. She and Louise might have looked more like sisters before her illness had drained her face of color. Both were small-boned with blue eyes and fine-textured skin. Dorothy was sporting a platinum-blond wig in a blowsy bedroom style. She caught my eye and smiled, reaching up to adjust the Dynel pouf. “I always wanted to be a blonde,” she said ruefully and then held out her hand. “You’re Kinsey Millhone. Morley told me all about you.” We shook hands. Hers felt light and cold, as leathery as a bird’s claw.
“Morley talked about me?” I said with surprise.
“He always thought you had great promise if you could learn to curb your tongue.”
I laughed. “I haven’t quite managed that, but it’s nice to hear. I was sorry he and Ben never patched up their differences.”
“They were both much too stubborn,” she said with mock disgust. “Morley never could remember what they fought about. Have a seat, dear. Louise will bring us some tea in just a minute.”
I chose a small chair covered in a tapestry. “I don’t want to be a bother. I appreciate this. You must be tired.”
“Oh, I’m used to that. If I fade, you’ll just have to forgive me and carry on with Loo. We were just over at the funeral home for the ‘viewing,’ as they refer to it.”
“How does he look?”
“Well, I don’t think the dead ever look good. They seem flat somehow. Have you ever noticed that? Like they’ve had half the stuffing taken out,” she said. Her tone was matter-of-fact, as if she were discussing an old mattress instead of the man she’d been married to for forty-odd years. “I hope that doesn’t sound heartless. I loved the man dearly and I can’t tell you what a shock it was to have him go like that. This past year, we talked quite a lot about death, but I always assumed mine was the one under discussion.”
Louise returned to the room. “The tea will just be another minute. In the meantime, why don’t you tell us what’s on your mind.” She perched on the arm of Morley’s leather chair.
“I need some answers to a few questions and I thought you might help. Did Morley talk to you about this case he was working on? I don’t want to give you background if you already know the setup.”
Dorothy adjusted her quilt. “Morley told me about every case. As I understand it, this fellow Barney had already been tried for murder. The lawsuit was an attempt on the part of the victim’s ex-husband to prove him guilty of wrongful death so that he couldn’t inherit the woman’s estate.”
“Exactly,” I said. “David Barney got in touch with me twice yesterday. He said he’d talked to Morley on Wednesday of last week. He implied Morley was going to look into a couple of questions for him. Did Morley tell you what he was doing? I’m trying to piece this together and I don’t want to jump to conclusions if I can help it.”
“Well, let’s see now. I know the fellow got in touch with him, but he never went into any detail. I had my chemo Wednesday afternoon and I was in bad shape. Usually we spent time together in the evenings, but I was completely exhausted and ended up in bed. I slept right through the evening and most of Thursday.”
I glanced at Louise. “What about you? Did he talk to you about it?”
She shook her head. “Not anything specific. Just the fact that they’d talked and he had work to do.”
“Did he seem to believe what David Barney had told him?”
Louise thought about that and shook her head. “I’m not really sure. He must have given him some credit or he wouldn’t have done anything.”
Dorothy spoke up. “Well, now that’s not quite true, Loosie. Whatever the man said, he was trying to keep an open mind. Morley said it was foolish to make assumptions before all the facts were in.”
I said, “That’s certainly what I was taught.” I reached into my shoulder bag and retrieved the pack of photographs. “It looks like he took these sometime on Friday. Did he tell you what he was up to?”
“That one I can answer,” Louise said promptly. “We had an early lunch together. Since he was dieting, he liked to have his meals here at the house. Less temptation, he said. He left here about noon and went out to the office to pick up his mail. He had an early afternoon appointment and then he spent the rest of the day out looking for trucks. He dropped the film off on his way home and said he’d pick the prints up Saturday, which was when he started feeling poorly. He probably forgot all about it.”
“How’d he know what to look for?”
“You mean what kind of truck it was? He didn’t say anything about that. He thought the same truck might have been involved in some kind of accident, but he didn’t say what it was or how he came to that conclusion. He’d picked up a description of it from the original police report.”
I thought about the timing. Everything must have come on the heels of his conversation with David Barney. “What happened on Saturday?”
“With his work?” Louise asked.
“I mean with anything.” I looked from Louise to Dorothy, inviting either one to answer.
Dorothy took my cue. “Nothing unusual. He went into the office and did some things out there. Mail and whatnot from the sound of it.”
“Did he have an appointment?”
“If he was seeing anyone, he didn’t say who. He came home around noon and just picked at his lunch. He usually took his meals in my room so we could visit while he ate. I asked him then if he was feeling all right. He said he had a headache and thought he was coming down with something. I thought that was more than Louise had bargained for—two invalids for the price of one. I sent him to bed. I couldn’t believe he actually listened, but he did what I said. Turned out he had that terrible flu that’s been going around. The poor thing. Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach cramps.”
“Could it have been food poisoning instead?”
“I don’t see how, dear. All he had for breakfast was cereal with skim milk.”
“Morley really ate that? It doesn’t sound like him,” I said.
Dorothy laughed. “His doctor put him on a diet at my insistence—fifteen hundred calories a day. Saturday lunch, he had a little soup and a few bites of dry toast. He said he was a little nauseated and didn’t have much appetite. By midafternoon, he was sick as a dog. He spent half the night with his head in the commode. We joked about taking turns if I started feeling worse. Sunday morning he was better, though he didn’t look good at all. His color was terrible, but the vomiting had stopped and he was able to keep a little ginger ale down.”
“Tell me about Sunday dinner. Did you fix it yourself?”
“Oh dear no, I don’t cook. I haven’t cooked for months. Do you remember, Loosie?”
“I made us a cold plate, poached chicken breast with salad,” she said. From the kitchen came the piercing shriek of the kettle. She excused herself and headed off in that direction while Dorothy took up the narrative.
“I was feeling better by then so I came out to the table just to keep them both company. He did complain some of chest pain, but I assumed it was indigestion. Louise was concerned, but I remember teasing him, I forget what I said now, but I was sure it wasn’t serious. He pushed his plate back and got up. He had his hand to his chest and he was gasping for breath. He took two steps and went down. He was gone almost at once. We called the paramedics and we tried mouth-to-mouth, but it was pointless.”
“Mrs. Shine, I don’t know how to say this, but is there any way you might consider having the body autopsied? I know the subject is painful and you may not feel there’s any necessity, but I’d feel better if we were really sure about the cause of death.”
“What’s the nature of your concern?”
“I’m wondering if someone, uhm, tampered with his food or medications.”
Her gaze settled on my face with a look of almost luminous clarity. “You think he was murdered.”
“I’d like to h
ave it ruled out. It may be a long shot, but we’ll never know otherwise. Once he goes in the ground . . .”
“I understand,” she said. “I’d like to talk it over with Louise and perhaps Morley’s brother, who’s arriving tonight.”
“Could I call you later this evening? I’m really sorry to have to press. I know it’s distressing, but with services tomorrow, time is very short.”
“Don’t apologize,” she said. “Of course you may call. At this point, I don’t suppose an autopsy would do any harm.”
“I’d like to have a conversation with the coroner’s office to alert them to the situation, but I don’t want to do anything without your permission.”
“I have no objections.”
“To what?” Louise asked as she came around the corner with a fully laden tea tray. She placed the tray on the coffee table. Dorothy filled her in, summing up the possibilities as succinctly as she’d summed up the wrongful death suit.
“Oh, let her go ahead with it,” Louise said. She filled a cup and passed it over to me. “If you discuss it with Frank, you’ll never hear the end of it.”
Dorothy smiled. “I thought the same thing myself, but I didn’t want to say so.” To me she said, “Go ahead and do whatever you think best.”
“Thank you.”
* * *
Detective Burt Walker, of the coroner’s bureau, was a man in his early forties with receding auburn hair and a close-clipped beard and mustache in a blend of red and blond. His face was round, his complexion ruddy, his coloring suggestive of Scandinavian heritage. His glasses were small and round with thin metal frames. He wasn’t heavyset, but he looked like a man who was becoming more substantial as the years went on. The weight looked good on him. He wore a brown tweed jacket, beige chinos, blue shirt, a red tie with white polka dots. While I detailed the circumstances surrounding Morley’s death, he leaned an elbow on his desk and variously nodded and rubbed his forehead. I verbalized my suspicions, but I couldn’t tell if he was taking me seriously or simply being polite.