G is for Gumshoe (10 page)

“You look like you're in pretty good shape for someone your age,” I said gamely. The subject was careening around like conversational pinball.

“Lottie was the other one. She was a simpleton, but she always had a big smile on her face. She didn't have the brains God gave a billy goat. She'd go out the back door and then she'd forget how to get back in. She'd sit on the porch steps and howl like a pup until someone let her in. Then she'd howl to get back out again. She was the first. She died of influenza. I forget when Mother went. She had that stroke, you know, after Father died. He wanted to keep the house and Emily wouldn't hear of it. I was the last one and I didn't argue. I wasn't really sure until Sheila, and then I knew. That's when I left.”

I said, “Unh-hunh,” and then tried another tack. “Is it the trip that worries you?”

She shook her head. “The smell when it's damp,” she said. “Never seemed to bother anyone else.”

“Would you prefer to have Irene fly down and travel back with you?”

“I worked cleaning houses. That's how I supported Irene all those years. I watched Tilda and I knew how it was done. Of course, she was dismissed. He saw to that. No financial records. No banks. She was the only casualty. It was the only time her name was ever in the papers.”

“Whose name?”

“You know,” she said. Her look now was secretive.

“Emily?” I asked.

“Time wounds all heels, you know.”

“Is this your father you're talking about?”

“Oh dear, no. He was long gone. It would be in the footing if you knew where to look.”

“What footing?”

Her face went blank. “Are you talking to me?”

“Well, yes,” I said. “We've been talking about Emily, the one who died when the chimney fell.”

She made a motion as if to lock her lips and throw away the key. “I did it all to save her. My lips are sealed. For Irene's sake.”

“Why is that, Agnes? What is it you're not supposed to tell?”

She focused a quizzical look on me. I was suddenly aware that the real Agnes Grey was in the room with me. She sounded perfectly rational. “Well, I'm sure you're very nice, dear, but I don't know who you are.”

“I'm Kinsey,” I said. “I'm a friend of your daughter's. She was worried when she didn't hear from you and she asked me to come down and find out what was going on.”

I could see her expression shift and off she went again. “Well, no one knew that. No one even guessed.”

“Uh, Agnes? Do you have any idea where you are?”

“No. Do you?”

I laughed. I couldn't help myself. After a moment, she began to laugh, too, the sound as delicate as a cat sneezing. Next thing I knew, she'd drifted off to sleep again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I did not sleep well. I found myself thinking about Agnes, whose fears were contagious and seemed to set off worries of my own. The reality of the death threat had finally filtered down into my psyche, where it was beginning to accumulate an energy of its own. I was sensitive to every noise, to changes in room temperature as the night wore on, to shifting patterns of light on venetian blinds. At 1:00
A.M
., a car pulled into a parking slot near my room and I found myself instantly on my feet, peering through the slats as a couple emerged from a late-model Cadillac. Even in heavy shadow, I could tell they were drunk, clinging to one another in a hip-grinding embrace. I moved away from the window, my senses heightened by anxiety as the two of them fumbled their way into the room next to mine. Surely, if they were killers they wouldn't postpone my demise for the noisy grappling that started up the minute the bolt shot home. The bedframe began to thump relentlessly against the adjoining wall like
a kid drumming his heels. There were occasional lulls while the woman offered up suggestions to her hapless companion. “Hop on up here like a puppy dog,” she would say. Or “Get that old bald-headed thing over here.”

On my side of the wall, the picture of the moose would start to rattle out another little tap dance. I had to reach up and hold it, lest the frame jounce right off the hook and smack me in the face. She was a screamer, sounding more like a woman in labor than one in love. The tempo picked up. Finally, she uttered a little yelp of astonishment, but I couldn't tell if she came or fell off the bed. After a moment, the smell of cigarette smoke wafted through the walls and I could hear their murmured postmortem. Twelve minutes later, they were at it again. I got up and took the picture off the wall, stuffed a sock in each cup of my bra and tied it across my head like earmuffs, with the ends knotted under my chin. Didn't help much. I lay there, a cone over each ear like an alien, wondering at the peculiarities of human sex practices. I would have much to report when I returned to my planet.

At 4:45, I gave up any hope of getting back to sleep. I took a shower and washed my hair, returning to the room wrapped in a motel towel the size of a place mat. As I pulled on my clothes, she was beginning to yodel and he was yipping like a fox. I had never heard so many variations on the word
oh.
I locked the door behind me and headed out across the parking lot on foot.

The smell of desert air was intense: sweet and cold. The sky was still an inky black with strands of dark red cutting through the low clouds at the horizon. I was nearly giddy from lack of sleep, but I felt no sense of endangerment. If
someone were waiting in the bushes with an Uzi, I would leave this world in a state of sublime innocence.

The lights in the café were just blinking on, vibrant green neon spelling out the word
CAFE
in one convoluted loop, like a squeeze of tooth gel. I could see a waitress in a pale pink uniform scratch at her backside at the height of a yawn. The highway was empty and I crossed at a casual place. I needed coffee, bacon, pancakes, juice, and I wasn't sure what else, but something reminiscent of childhood. I sat at the far end of the counter, my back against the wall, still mindful of the plate-glass window and the gray wash of dawn light outside. The waitress, whose name turned out to be Frances, was probably my age, with a country accent and a long tale to tell about some guy named Arliss who was systematically unfaithful, most recently with her girlfriend, Charlene.

“He has really tore himself with me this time,” she said, as she plunked down a bowl of steaming oatmeal in front of me.

By the time I finished eating, I knew everything there was to know about Arliss and she knew a lot about Jonah Robb.

“If it was me, I'd hang on to him,” she said, “but now not at the expense of meeting this doctor fella your friend Vera wants to fix you up with. I'd jump right on that. He sounds real cute to me, though personally I've made it a practice not to date a man knows more about my insides than I do. I went out with this doctor once? Actually he's a medical student, if the truth be known. First time we kissed, he told me the name of some condition arises when you get a pubic hair caught down in your throat. Tacky?
Lord God. What kind of person did he think I was?” She leaned on the counter idly swiping it with a damp rag so she'd look like she was busy if the boss stopped in.

“I never heard of a doctor dating a private eye, have you?” I said.

“Honey, I don't even know any private eyes, except you. Maybe he's tired of nurses and lab technicians and lady lawyers and like that. He's been dating Vera, hasn't he? And what is she, some kind of
in
surance adjuster . . .”

“Claims manager,” I said. “Her boss got fired.”

“But that's my point. I bet they never sat around having long heart-to-heart chats about medical malpractice, for God's sake. He's bored with that. He's looking for someone new and fresh. And think of it this way, he probably doesn't have any communicable diseases.”

“Well, now there's a recommendation,” I said.

“You better believe it. In this day and age? I'd insist on a blood test before the first lip lock.”

The front door opened and a couple of customers came in. “Take my word for it,” she said, as she moved away. “This guy could be it. You could be Mrs. Doctor Somebody-or-other by the end of the year.”

I paid my check, bought a newspaper from the vending machine out front, and went back to my room. All was quiet next door. I propped myself up in bed and read the
Brawley News
, including a long article about “palm gardens,” which I learned was the proper term for the groves of date palms strung out on both sides of the Salton Sea. The trees, exotic transplants brought in from North Africa a century ago, transpire as much as five hundred quarts of water a day and have to be pollinated by hand. The varieties
of dates—the Zahidi, the Barhi, the Kasib, the Deglet Noor, and the Medjool—all sounded like parts of the brain most affected by stroke.

As soon as it seemed civilized, I called the convalescent hospital and talked to Mrs. Haynes about Agnes Grey. Apparently, she'd been as docile as a lamb for the remainder of the night. Arrangements for her transport to Santa Teresa by air ambulance had been finalized and she was taking it in stride. She claimed she couldn't even remember what had so upset her the day before.

After I hung up, I put a call through to Irene and passed the information on to her. Agnes's outburst still felt unsettling to me, but I didn't see what purpose my apprehension might serve.

“Oh, Mother's just like that,” Irene said when I voiced my concern. “If she's not raising hell, she feels she's somehow remiss.”

“Well, I thought you should know how fearful she was. She sure raised the hair on the back of my neck.”

“She'll be fine now. Don't be concerned. You've done a wonderful job.”

“Thanks,” I said. As there didn't seem to be any reason to remain in the area, I told her I'd be taking off shortly and would give her a call as soon as I got back to town.

I packed my duffel, gathered up my briefcase, the portable typewriter, and miscellaneous belongings, and locked everything in the car while I went up to the front office to settle my bill.

When I returned, the lovers were just emerging from the room next door. They were both in their fifties, a hundred pounds overweight, dressed in matching western-cut
shirts and oversize blue jeans. They were discussing interest rates on short-term Treasury securities. The slogan painted on the Cadillac's rear window read:
JUST MERGED
. I watched them cross the parking lot, arms around each other's waists, or at least as far as they would go. While the car warmed up, I pulled my little .32 out of the briefcase where I'd tucked it the night before and transferred it to my handbag on the passenger seat.

I cut over to Westmorland, taking 86 north. I drove the first ten miles with a constant check on the rearview mirror. The day was sunny and the number of cars on the road was reassuring, though traffic began to thin some by the time I reached Salton City. I fiddled with the car radio, trying to find a station with more to offer than static or the price of soybeans, alfalfa, and sugar beets. I caught a flash of the Beatles and focused briefly on the radio while I did some fine-tuning.

It was when I glanced up again, with an automatic reference to the traffic behind me, that I spotted the red Dodge pickup bearing down on me. He couldn't have been more than fifty yards back, probably driving eighty miles an hour to my fifty-five. I uttered a bark of surprise, jamming my foot down on the accelerator in a futile attempt to get out of his path. The engine nearly stalled out with the unexpected surge, shuddering a hop, skip, and a jump before it leaped ahead. The front grill of the pickup appeared at my rear window, completely filling the glass. It was clear the guy meant to crawl right up my tailpipe, crushing me in the process. I jerked the steering wheel to the right, but not fast enough. The Dodge caught my rear fender with a smashing blow, spinning me in a half circle that left
me facing south instead of north. I slammed on the brakes and the VW skittered along the shoulder, throwing up a spray of gravel. My handbag seemed to leap into my lap of its own accord. The engine died. I turned the key in the ignition and willed the car to start. Dimly, I registered the now empty highway. No help in sight. Where had everybody gone? Just up ahead on my left, a soft-packed dirt road followed the curve of an irrigation canal that bordered a fallow field, but there was no ranch house visible and no signs of life.

Behind me, the Dodge had made a U-turn and was now accelerating as it headed straight at me again. I ground at the starter, nearly singing with fear, a terrified eye glued to my rearview mirror where I could see the pickup accumulating speed. The Dodge plowed into me, this time with an impact that propelled the VW forward ten yards with an ear-splitting
BAM.
My forehead hit the windshield with a force that nearly knocked me out. The safety glass was splintered into a pattern of fine cracks like a coating of frost. The seat snapped in two and the sudden liberation from my seat belt slung me forward into the steering wheel. The only thing that saved me from a half-rack of cracked ribs was the purse in my lap, which acted like an air bag, cushioning the blow.

The other driver threw the pickup into reverse, then punched on the gas. The truck lurched back, then forward, ramming into me like a bumper car. I felt the VW leave the ground in a short flight that ended in the irrigation ditch, plumes of runoff water splatting out in all directions. I narrowly avoided biting my tongue in half as I bounced against the headliner and then off the dashboard. I put a
hand on my mouth and checked my teeth automatically, making sure I hadn't lost any. The car seemed to float briefly before it settled against the muddy bottom. The runoff water in the ditch was only three feet deep, but both doors had popped open and silty water flooded in.

On the shoulder of the road, my assailant got out of the pickup and moved around to the rear, a tire iron in his right hand. Maybe he thought a death by bludgeoning was more consistent with a car wreck than a bullet in the brain. He was a big man, white, wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap. Mewing in panic, I fumbled in my handbag for my gun and rolled out of the VW. I crouched, shielded by the car as I jacked a shell into the chamber. I propped the barrel of the gun on the roof and steadied the sights with both hands.