upswing, gathering momentum as I dragged my body out. Coffee might help, but it would only postpone the inevitable crash. I was going to pay for this.
Ori was sitting up in bed, fussing with the ties on her gown. Paraphernalia on the night table and the faint scent of alcohol indicated that Ann had done Ori’s glucose test and had already administered her morning dose of insulin. The trace of blood streaked on the reagent strip had dried to a rusty brown. Old adhesive tape was knotted up on the bed tray like a wad of chewing gum. Stuck to it was a cotton ball with a linty-looking dot of red. This before breakfast. Mentally, I could feel my eyes cross, but I bustled about in my best imitation of a visiting nurse. I was accustomed, from long experience, to steeling myself to the sight of violent death, but this residue of diabetic odds and ends nearly made my stomach heave. Resolutely, I swept it all into a plastic wastebasket and tucked it out of sight, tidying pill bottles, water glass, carafe, and Ace bandages. Usually, Ori had her legs bound in heavy pink stretch wraps, but she was apparently airing them today. I avoided the sight of her mottled calves, the ice-cold feet in which so little circulation pumped, the blue-gray toes, dry and cracked. She had an ulcerated area about the size of a nickel on the inside aspect of her right ankle.
“I think I’ll sit down a minute,” I murmured. “Well, honey. You’re pale as a ghost. Go out to the kitchen and get a glass of juice.”
The orange juice helped and I ate a piece of toast, cleaning up the kitchen afterward as a way of avoiding the woman in the other room. Three thousand hours of investigative training hadn’t quite prepared me for a sideline as a drudge. I felt like I’d spent half my time on this case washing dirty dishes. How come Magnum, P.I., never had to do stuff like this?
At twenty minutes after ten, Maxine appeared, cleaning supplies in a plastic bucket on her arm. She was one of those women with an extra hundred pounds wobbling around her body like a barrel made of flesh. She had one eyetooth the size and color of a rusty nail. Without any pause, she took out a dustrag and began to work her way around the room. “Sorry I’m late, but I couldn’t get that old car to start to save my neck. I finally called and asked John Robert to come over with a set of jumper cables, but it took him a good half hour just to get there. I heard about Royce. God love his heart.”
“I’m going to have Ann take me over there this evening,” Ori said. “Provided I feel well enough.”
Maxine just clucked and shook her head. “I tell you,” she said. “And I bet you haven’t heard a word from Bailey. No telling where he’s at.”
“Aw, and I’m worried sick. I never even laid eyes on him after all this time. And here he’s took off again.”
Maxine made a face that conveyed sympathy and regret, then flapped her dustrag to indicate a
shift in tone. “Mary Burney’s making a perfect fool of herself. Windows boarded up, big lock on the gate, convinced he’ll go over there and carry her off.”
“Well, whatever for?” Ori asked, completely mystified.
“I never said she had brains, but then half the people I talked to are loading their guns. Radio says he ‘may be seeking refuge among former acquaintances.’ Just like that. ‘May be seeking refuge.’ Now, if that’s not the silliest thing I ever heard. I told John Robert, ‘Bailey’s got more sense than that,’ I said. ‘For one thing, he doesn’t know Mary Burney from a hole in the ground and besides which, he wouldn’t go anywhere near that place of hers because it backs right up to the National Guard Armory. Chain-link fence and all what kind of thing. Floodlights? Lord God,’ I said. ‘Bailey may be a criminal, but he’s not a retard.’ “
As soon as I could decently insert myself into the conversation, I told Ori I’d be taking off. Max-ine got conspicuously quiet, hoping no doubt to pick up some information she could pass along to John Robert and Mary Burney next chance she had. I avoided giving any indication where I meant to go. The last glimpse I had of them, Maxine was handing Ori a fistful of junk mail to sort through while she applied Lemon Pledge to the top of the bookshelf where the mail had been stacked.
Tap Granger’s widow lived on Kaye Street in a one-story frame house with a screened-in porch. The exterior was painted an ancient turquoise trimmed in buttercup, the porch steps eaten through by something that left ominous holes in the wood. She came to the door looking pale and thin, except for the belly that jutted out in front of her like a globe. Her nose was a dull pink from tears, her eyes swollen, with all the makeup cried off. Her hair had the tortured appearance of a recent home permanent. She wore faded jeans that hung on her narrow behind, a sleeveless T-shirt that left her bare arms bony-looking and puckered from the chilly morning air. She had a plump baby affixed to one hip, his massive thighs gripping her bulk like a horseman preparing to post. The pacifier in his mouth looked like some kind of plug you might pull if you wanted to let all the air out. Solemn eyes, runny nose.
“I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs. Granger. My name’s Kinsey Millhone. I’m a private investigator. Could I talk to you?”
“I guess,” she said. She couldn’t have been much more than twenty-six, with the lackluster air of a woman drained of youth. Where was she going to find someone who’d take on another man’s five kids?
The house was small and rustic, the construction crude, but the furnishings looked new. All Sears Revolving Charge Account items, still under warranty. The couch and two matching Barcaloungers were green Naugahyde, the coffee table and the two end tables flanking the couch were blond wood laminate, still unscarred by little children’s shoes. The squat table lamps had pleated shades still
wrapped in clear cellophane. She’d be paying it all off till the kids were in high school. She sat down on one couch cushion, which buckled up slightly and let out a sigh as the air was forced out. I perched on the edge of one lounge chair, uneasy about the half-eaten Fluffer-nutter sandwich that kept me company on the seat.
“Linnetta, quit doin’ that!” she sang out suddenly, though there didn’t seem to be anyone else in the room. I realized belatedly that the twanging sound of a kid jumping up and down on a bed had just ceased. She shifted the baby, setting him on his feet. He swayed, clutching at her jeans, the pacifier wriggling around in his mouth as he started working it with a little humming sound.
“What’d you want?” she said. “The police have been here twice and I already told ‘em everything I know.”
“I’ll try to be brief. It must be hard on you.” “Doesn’t matter,” she shrugged. The stress of Tap’s death had made her face break out, her chin splotched and fiery pink.
“Did you know what Tap was getting involved in yesterday?”
“I knew he had some money, but he said he won a bet with this guy who finally paid up.” “A bet?”
“Might not have been true,” she said, somewhat defensively, “but God knows we needed it and I wasn’t about to ask after it too close.” “Did you see him leave the house?” “Not really. I’d come in from work and I went straight to bed as soon as him and the kids left. I guess he dropped Ronnie and the girls off and then took Mac to the sitters. He must have drove into San Luis Obispo after that. I mean, he had to, since that’s where he ended up.”
“But he never said anything about the breakout or who put him up to it?”
“I wouldn’t have stood for it if I’d known.”
“Do you know how much he was paid?”
Her eyes became wary in the blank of her face. She began to pick idly at her chin. “Nuh-unh.”
“No one’s going to take it back. I just wondered how much it was.”
“Two thousand,” she murmured. God, a woman with no guile, married to a man with no sense. Two thousand dollars to risk his life?
“Are you aware that the shotgun shells were loaded with rock salt?”
Again, she gave me that cagy look. “Tap said that way nobody’d get hurt.”
“Except him.”
Light dawned in that faraway world of the 98 IQ. “Oh.”
“Was the shotgun his?”