When I came to Charlie Scorsoni’s name, I felt the same uneasiness I’d felt before. I’d checked him out two weeks ago, before I’d even met with him and he was clean, but appearances are deceptive. As squeamish as it made me feel, I thought I’d better verify his whereabouts the night Sharon died. I knew he’d been in Denver because I’d called him there myself but I wasn’t really sure where he’d gone after that. Arlette said he’d left messages from Tucson and again from Santa Teresa but she only had his word for that. When it came to Laurence Fife he did have opportunity. From the first, this had been a case where motive and alibi were oddly overlapped. Ordinarily, an alibi is an account of a suspect’s whereabouts at the time a crime was committed and it’s offered up as proof of innocence, but here it didn’t matter where anyone was. With a poisoning, it only mattered if someone had reason to want someone else dead — access to the poison, access to the victim, and the intent to kill. That’s what I was still sorting through. My impulse was simply to take Charlie off my list but I had to question myself on that. Did I really believe he was innocent or did I simply want to relieve myself of my own uneasiness? I tried to think about something else. I tried to move on, but my mind I kept drifting back to the same point. I didn’t think I was being smart. I wasn’t sure I was being honest with myself. And suddenly, I didn’t like the idea that my thinking might not be clear. The whole setup gave me a sick feeling down in my bones. I looked up his home phone number in the telephone book I hesitated and then I shook myself free and dialed. I had to do it.
The phone rang four times. I thought he might be out at Powers’s house at the beach but I didn’t have that number. I was rooting for him to be out, gone. He picked up on the fifth ring and I felt my stomach chum. There was no point in putting it off.
“Hi, it’s Kinsey,” I said.
“Well hello,” he said softly. The pleasure in his voice was audible and I could picture his face. “God, I was hoping I’d hear from you. Are you free?”
“No, actually I’m not. Uh, listen, Charlie. I’m thinking I shouldn’t see you for a while. Until I get this wrapped up.”
The silence was profound.
“All right,” he said finally.
“Look, it’s nothing personal,” I said. “It’s just a matter of policy.”
“I’m not arguing,” he said. “Do what you want. It’s too bad you didn’t think about ‘policy’ before.”
“Charlie, it’s not like that,” I said desperately. “It may work out fine and it’s no big deal, but it’s been bothering me. A lot. I don’t do this. It’s been one of my cardinal rules. I can’t keep on seeing you until I understand how this thing ties up.”
“Babe, I understand,” he said. “If it doesn’t feel right to you, then it’s no good anyway. Call me if you ever change your mind.”
“Wait,” I said. “God damn it, don’t do that to me. I’m not rejecting you.”
“Oh really,” he said, his tone flat with disbelief.
“I just wanted you to know.”
“Well. Now I know. I appreciate your honesty,” he said.
“I’ll be in touch when I can.”
“Have a good life,” he said and the phone clicked quietly in my ear.
I sat with a hand on the phone, doubts crowding in, wanting to call him back, wanting to erase everything I’d just said. I’d been looking for relief, looking for a way to escape the discomfort I felt. I think I’d even wanted him to give me a hard time so that I could resist and feel righteous. It was a question of my own integrity. Wasn’t it? The injury in his voice had been awful after what we’d been through. And maybe he was right in his assumption that I was rejecting him. Maybe I was just being perverse, pushing him away because I needed space between me and the world. The job does provide such a perfect excuse. I meet most people in the course of my work and if I can’t get emotionally involved there, then where else can I go? Private investigation is my whole life. It is why I get up in the morning and what puts me to bed at night. Most of the time I’m alone, but why not? I’m not unhappy and I’m not discontent. I had to free up until I knew what was going on. He would just have to misunderstand and to hell with him until I got this goddamn case nailed down and then maybe we could see where we stood-if it wasn’t too late. Even if he was right, even if my breaking with him was an excess of conscience, a cover for something else-so what? There were no declarations between us, no commitments. I’d been to bed with him twice. What did I owe him? I don’t know what love is about and I’m not sure I believe in it anyway. “Then why so defensive?” came a little voice in reply, but I ignored it.
I had to push on. There was no other way to get out of this now. I picked up the phone and called Gwen.
“Hello?”
“Gwen. This is Kinsey,” I said, keeping my voice neutral. “Something’s come up and I think we should talk.”
“What is it?”
“I’d rather talk to you in person. Do you know where Rosie’s is, down here at the beach?”
“Yes. I think I know the place,” she said with uncertainty.
“Can you meet me there in half an hour? It’s important.”
“Well sure. Just let me get my shoes on. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Thanks,” I said.
I checked my watch. It was 7:45. I wanted her on my turf this time.
Rosie’s was deserted, the lights dim, the whole place smelling of yesterday’s cigarette smoke. I used to go to a movie theater when I was a kid and the ladies’ rest room always smelled like that. Rosie was wearing a muumuu in a print fabric that depicted many flamingos standing on one leg. She was seated at the end of the bar, reading a newspaper by the light of a small television set, which she’d placed on the bar, sound off. She looked up as I came in and she set the paper aside.
“It’s too late for dinner. The kitchen is closed. I gave myself the night off,” she announced from across the room. “You want something to eat, you gotta fix it yourself at home. Ask Henry Pitts. He’ll do you something good.”
“I’m meeting someone for a drink,” I said. “Big crowd you got.”
She looked around as though maybe she’d missed someone. I went over to the bar. She looked as though she’d just redyed her hair because her scalp was faintly pink. She was using a Maybelline dark brown eyeliner pencil on her brows, which she seemed to draw closer together every time, coquettishly arched. Pretty soon, she could take care of the whole thing with one wavy line.
“You got a man yet?” she asked.
“Six or eight a week,” I said. “Do you have any cold chablis?”
“Just the crummy stuff. Help yourself.”
I went around behind the bar and got a glass, taking the big gallon jug of white wine out of the refrigerator under the bar. I poured a tumblerful, adding ice. I went over to my favorite booth and sat down, preparing myself mentally like an actor about to go on stage. It was time to stop being polite.
Gwen arrived forty minutes later, looking crisp and capable. Her greeting to me was pleasant enough, but under it I thought I could detect the tension, as though she had some inkling of what I was about to say. Rosie shuffled over, giving Gwen a brief appraising look. She must have thought Gwen looked okay because she honored her with a direct question.
“You want something to drink?”
“Scotch on the rocks. And could I have a glass of water, too, please?”
Rosie shrugged. She didn’t care what people drank. “You want to run a tab?” she said to me.
I shook my head. “I’ll take care of it now,” I said. Rosie moved off toward the bar. The look Gwen and I exchanged inadvertently indicated that both of us remembered her first reference to drinking Scotch in the days long past, when she was married to Laurence Fife and playing the perfect wife. I wondered what she was playing now.
“I revert now and then to the hard stuff,” she said, picking up my thought.
“Why not?” I replied.