When I reached Santa Teresa, I went straight to the office, taking with me the sheaf of bills from Sharon Napier’s apartment. For the first time, I was beginning to think those might be significant. I went through them with an abstract curiosity that felt ghoulish nevertheless. She was dead and it seemed obscene now to note that she’d bought lingerie that had gone unpaid for, cosmetics, shoes. Her utilities were a month behind, with dunning notices from several small businesses including her tax man, a chiropractor, and a health spa membership renewal. Visa and Mastercharge had gotten churlish and American Express wanted its card back in no uncertain terms, but it was her telephone bill that interested me. In the area code that included Santa Teresa, there were three calls in the month of March, not an excessive number but telling. Two of the calls were to Charlie Scorsoni’s office, both on the same day, ten minutes apart. The third number she’d called I didn’t immediately recognize but the Santa Teresa exchange was the same. I picked up my Cross Reference Directory. The number was for John Powers’s house at the beach.
I dialed Ruth, not allowing myself to hesitate. Surely Charlie hadn’t told her I’d broken with him. I couldn’t picture him confiding his personal affairs to anyone. If he was there, I’d have to think fast and I wasn’t sure what I intended to say. The information I needed was from her.
“Scorsoni and Powers,” she sang.
“Oh hi, Ruth. This is Kinsey Millhone,” I said, heart in my throat. “Is Charlie there?”
“Oh hi, Kinsey. No he’s not,” she said with a hint of regret in my behalf. “He’s in court up in Santa Maria for the next two days.”
Thank God for that, I thought, and took a deep breath. “Well maybe you can help me instead,” I said. “I was just going over some bills for a client and it looks like she was in touch with him. Do you happen to remember someone calling him a couple of times maybe six, eight weeks ago? Her name was Sharon Napier. Long-distance.”
“Oh, the one who used to work for him. Yes, I remember that. What did you need to know?”
“Well I can’t quite tell from this if she actually got through to him or not. It looks like she called on a Friday, the twenty-first of March. Does that ring a bell?”
“Oh yes. Absolutely,” Ruth said efficiently. “She called asking for him and he was out at Mr. Powers’s house. She was very insistent that I put her through but I didn’t feel I should give out the number without checking with him, so I told her to call me back and then I checked with him out at the beach and he said it was fine. I hope that’s all right. I hope she hasn’t hired you to pester him or anything.”
I laughed. “Oh heavens, Ruth, would I do that to him? I did see the number for John Powers and I just thought maybe she talked to him instead.”
“Oh no. He was out of town that weekend. He’s usually gone around the twenty-first for a couple of days. I have it right here on my calendar. Mr. Scorsoni was taking care of his dogs.”
“Oh well, that would explain it,” I said casually. “God, that’s been a great help. Now the only other thing I need to check is that trip to Tucson”
“Tucson?” she said. Doubt was beginning to creep into her voice, that protective tone secretaries sometimes take when it suddenly occurs to them that someone wants something they’re not supposed to get. “What is this about, Kinsey? Maybe I could be of more help if I understood what this has to do with a client of yours. Mr. Scorsoni’s pretty strict about things like that.”
“Oh no, that’s something else. And I can check that out myself so don’t worry about it. I can always give Charlie a buzz when he gets back and ask him.”
“Well, I can give you his motel number in Santa Maria if you want to call him yourself,” she said. She was trying to play it both ways — helpful to me if my questions were legitimate, helpful to Charlie if they weren’t — but in any case, dumping the whole matter in his lap. For an old lady, she was adroit.
I jotted the number down dutifully, knowing I’d never call him but glad to get a fix on him anyway. I wanted to tell her not to mention my call but I didn’t see how I could do it without tipping my hand. I just had to hope that Charlie wouldn’t check in with her anytime soon. If she told him what I’d been asking about, he would know like a shot that I was on his tail and he wouldn’t like that a bit.
I put in a call to Dolan at Homicide. He was out but I left a message, “important” underlined, that he should call me back when he got in. I tried Nikki at the beach and got her on the third ring.
“Hi, Nikki, it’s me,” I said. “Is everything okay?”
“Oh yeah. We’re fine. I still haven’t quite recovered from the shock of Gwen’s death, but I don’t know what to do about that. I never even knew the woman and it still seems a shame.”
“Did you get any details from Dolan? I just tried to call him and he’s out.”
“Not a lot,” she said. “He was awfully rude. Worse than I remember him and he wouldn’t tell me much except the car that hit her was black.”
“Black?” I said with disbelief. I was picturing Charlie’s pale blue Mercedes and I’d fully expected some detail that would tie that in. “Are you sure?”
“That’s what he said. I guess the detectives have been checking with the body shops and garages but so far nothing’s turned up.”
“That’s odd,” I said.
“Are you coming out for a drink? I’d love to hear what’s going on.”
“Maybe later. I’m trying to clean up a couple of loose ends. I’ll tell you what else I need. Maybe you can answer this. Remember the letter I showed you that Laurence wrote …”
“Sure, the one to Libby Glass,” she broke in quickly.
“Yeah, well I’m almost sure now that the letter was written to Elizabeth Napier instead.
“Who?”
“I’ll fill you in on that later. I suspect that Elizabeth Napier was the one he got involved with when he was married to Gwen. Sharon Napier’s mother.”
“Oh, the scandal,” she said, light breaking. “Oh sure, it could well be. He never would tell me much about that. Messy business. I know the story because Charlotte Mercer filled me in on that, but I was never really sure of the name. God, that would have been way back in Denver, just after his law-school days.”
I hesitated. “Can you think who else would have known about that letter? Who could have had access to it? I mean, could Gwen?”
“I suppose so,” she said. “Certainly Charlie would. He was working as a law clerk in the firm that represented the husband in that divorce and he lifted the letter from what I heard.”
“He what?”
“Stole it. Oh I’m sure that’s the one. Didn’t I ever tell you the end of that? Charlie snitched the letter, just cleaned out all the evidence, and that’s why they ended up settling out of court. She didn’t do that well but at least it got Laurence off the hook.”
“What happened to the letter? Could Charlie have kept the letter himself?”
“I don’t know. I always assumed it had been destroyed but I guess he could have hung on to it. He never did get caught and I don’t think the husband’s attorney ever figured it out. You know how things disappear in offices. Probably some secretary got fired.”
“Could Gwen have testified to any of this?”
“What am I, the district attorney’s office?” she said with a laugh. “How do I know what Gwen knew?”
“Well, whatever it was, she’s quiet now,” I said.
“Oh,” she said and I could tell her smile had faded fast. “Oh, I don’t like that. That’s a terrible thought.”
“I’ll tell you the rest when I see you. If I can get out there, I’ll call first and make sure you’re home.”
“We’ll be here. I take it you’re making progress.”
“Rapidly,” I said.
Her good-byes were puzzled and mine were brief.
I hauled out my typewriter and committed everything I knew to paper in a lengthy and detailed report. Another piece had fallen into place. The night the storage bin was broken into, it was Charlie, not Lyle, who was planting the letter among Libby’s belongings, hoping I’d find it, hoping he could shore up his own tale about Laurence Fife’s “affair” with Libby Glass. Which probably also explained the key to her apartment that had been found on Laurence’s key ring in the office. It wouldn’t have been hard for Charlie to plant that one too. I typed on, feeling exhausted but determined to get it all down. In the back of my mind, I kept thinking of it as a safeguard, an insurance policy, but I wasn’t sure what kind of coverage I needed. Maybe none. Maybe I didn’t need protection, I thought. As it turned out, I was wrong.