C is for CORPSE Read online

  I let the conversation lapse and Kelly, prompted by the silence, finally spoke up.

  “What’s Bobby doing these days?”

  I glanced back at him. He had perched himself on a tall wooden stool, the rag and disinfectant on the counter to his left.

  “He’s still trying to get his life back together,” I said. “He works out every day. I don’t know what else he does with his time. I don’t suppose you have any idea what was going on back then, do you?”

  “What difference does it make at this point?”

  “He says he was in some kind of danger, but his memory’s shot. Until I fill in the gaps, he’s probably still in trouble.”

  “How come?”

  “If somebody tried to kill him once, they may try again.”

  “Why haven’t they done that so far?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they think they’re safe.”

  He looked at me. “That’s weird.”

  “He never confided in you?”

  Kelly shrugged, his manner ever so slightly guarded again. “We only worked together a couple of times. I was off on vacation for part of the time he was here, and the rest of it, I was on days while he did graveyard shift.”

  “Is there any chance he might have left a small red leather address book out here?”

  “I doubt it. None of us even have lockers for our stuff.”

  I took a business card out of my wallet. “Will you give me a call if you have any ideas? I’d like to know what was going on back then and I know Bobby’d appreciate some help.”

  “Sure.”

  I went in search of Dr. Fraker, passing Nuclear Medicine, the nursing offices, and the offices of a group of local radiologists, all in the basement. I ran into Fraker just as he was coming downstairs again.

  “All through?” he said.

  “Yes, are you?”

  “I’ve got a ‘post’ at noon, but we can find an empty office and talk if you like.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t have any other questions for the moment. I may want to check back with you at some point.”

  “Absolutely. Just give me a call.”

  “Thanks. I’ll do that.”

  I sat in my car in the parking lot, making notes on some three-by-five index cards I keep in the glove compartment: date, time, and names of the two people I’d talked to. I thought Dr. Fraker was a good resource, even though the interview with him hadn’t yielded much. Kelly Borden hadn’t been much help either, but at least it was an avenue I’d explored. Sometimes the noes are just as important as the yeses because they represent cul-de-sacs, allowing you to narrow your field of inquiry until you stumble into the heart of the maze. In this case, I had no idea where that might lie or what might be hidden there. I checked my watch. It was 11:45 and I thought about lunch. I have a hard time eating meals when I should. Either I’m not hungry when I’m supposed to be or I’m hungry and not in a place where I can stop and eat. It becomes a weight-control maneuver, but I’m not sure it’s good for my health. I started my car and headed toward town.

  I went back to the health-food restaurant where Bobby and I had eaten lunch on Monday. I was really hoping to run into him, but he was nowhere in sight. I ordered a longevity salad that was supposed to take care of 100 percent of my nutritional needs for life. What the waitress brought me was a plate piled with weeds and seeds, topped with a zesty pink dressing with specks. It didn’t taste nearly as yummy as a Quarter Pounder with cheese, but I did feel virtuous, knowing I had all that chlorophyll coursing through my veins.

  When I got back in my car, I checked my teeth in the rearview mirror to make sure they weren’t flecked with alfalfa sprouts. I prefer not to interview people looking like I’ve just been grazing out in some field. I leafed through my notebook for Rick Bergen’s parents’ address and then I hauled out a city map. I had no idea where Turquesa Road was. I finally spotted it, a street about the size of an ingrown hair, off an equally obscure lane in the foothills that stretch across the back of town.

  The house was staunch and plain, all upright lines, with a driveway so steep that I avoided it altogether and squeezed my car in along the ice plant growing below. A bald cinderblock wall prevented the hillside from tumbling into the road and gave the impression of a series of barricades as it zigzagged up to the front. Once I reached the porch, the view was spectacular, a wide-angle shot of Santa Teresa from end to end with the ocean beyond. A hang-glider hovered high up to my right, sailing in lazy circles toward the beach. The day was full of hard sunlight, meager clouds looking like white foam just beginning to evaporate. It was dead quiet. No traffic, no sense of neighbors nearby. I could see a rooftop or two but there was no feeling of people. The landscaping was sparse, composed of drought-tolerant plants: pyracantha, wisteria, and succulents.

  I rang the bell ��� The man who came to the door was short, tense, unshaven.

  “Mr. Bergen?”

  “That’s right.”

  I handed him my business card. “I’m Kinsey Millhone. Bobby Callahan hired me to look into the accident last ���”

  “What for?”

  I made eye contact. His were small and blue, red-rimmed. His cheeks were prickly with a two-day growth of beard that made him look like a cactus. He was a man in his fifties, radiating the smell of beer and sweat. His hair was thinning and combed straight back from his face. He wore pants that looked like he’d retrieved them from a Salvation Army box and a T-shirt that read “Life’s a bitch. Then you die.” His arms were soft and shapeless, but his gut protruded like a basketball pumped to maximum pressure per square inch. I wanted to respond in the same rude tone he was using with me, but I curbed my tongue. This man had lost a son. Nobody said he had to be polite.

  “He thinks the accident was an attempt on his life,” I said.

  “Bullshit ��� I don’t mean to be rude to you, lady, but let me fill you in. Bobby Callahan is a rich kid. He’s spoiled, irresponsible, and self-indulgent. He fuckin’ drank too much and he ran off the road, killing my son, who was incidentally his best friend. Anything else you’ve heard is horseshit.”

  “I’m not so sure of that,” I said.

  “Well, I am and I’m telling you straight. Check the police reports. Its all there. Have you seen ‘em?”

  “I got copies yesterday from Bobby’s attorney,” I said.

  “No physical evidence, right? You got Bobby’s claim someone ran him off the road, but you got nothing to substantiate a word he says, which in my mind makes his story pure crap.”

  “The police seem to believe him.”

  “You think they can’t be bought off? You think the cops can’t be persuaded by a few bucks?”

  “Not in this town,” I said. This man had really put me on the defensive and I didn’t like the way I was handling myself.

  “Says who?”

  “Mr. Bergen, I know a lot of the local police. I’ve worked with them ���” It sounded lame, but I was sincere.

  He interrupted again, saying, Nuts! He made a dismissive gesture, turning his head with disgust. “I got no time for this. Maybe my wife’ll talk to you.”

  “I’d rather talk to you,” I said. He seemed surprised by that, as though no one ever preferred to talk to him.

  “Forget it. Ricky’s dead. It’s all over with.”

  “Suppose it’s not? What if Bobby’s really telling the truth and it wasn’t his fault?”

  “What’s it to me in any event? I don’t give a good god-damn about him.”

  I nearly replied, but I shut my mouth instead, trusting some other instinct. I didn’t want to get caught up in endless petty arguments that would only serve to keep this man inflamed. His agitation was profound, but I suspected that there was an ebb and flow to it. “May I have ten minutes of your time?”

  He thought about it for a moment and then agreed with an air of annoyance. “Christ, come on in. I’m havin’ my lunch. Reva’s gone anyway.”

  He walked away from t
he door, leaving it up to me to close it after us and follow him through the house, which was drably carpeted and smelled as if it had been closed up. Window shades were drawn against the afternoon sun and the light in the house had an amber cast. I received a brief impression of overscaled furniture: two matching recliners covered in green plastic, and an eight-foot sectional sofa with an afghan on one end, occupied by a big black dog.

  The kitchen was done in thirty-year-old linoleum with cabinets painted an intense shade of pink. The appliances made the room look like an illustration from an old issue of Ladies’ Home Journal. There was a small built-in breakfast nook with newspapers piled up on one bench, and a narrow wooden table with a permanent centerpiece composed of sugar bowl, paper-napkin dispenser, salt and pepper shakers shaped like ducks, a mustard jar, ketchup bottle, and a bottle of A-l Sauce. I could see his sandwich preparations laid out too: an assortment of processed cheese slices and a lunchmeat laced with olives and ominous chunks of animal snout.

  He sat down and motioned me into the bench across from him. I shoved aside some of the newspapers and took a seat.

  He was already slathering Miracle Whip on that brand 01 soft white bread that can double as a foam sponge. I kept my eyes discreetly averted as if he were engaged in pornographic practices. He laid a thin slice of onion on the bread and then peeled the cellophane wrap from the cheese, finishing with layers of lettuce, dill pickles, mustard, and meat. He looked up at me belatedly. “You hungry?”

  “Starved,” I said. I’d eaten a mere thirty minutes before and it wasn’t my fault if I was hungry again. The way I looked at it, the sandwich was filled with preservatives, which might be just what I needed to keep my body from going bad. He cut the first masterpiece diagonally, passing half to me, and then he made a second sandwich more lavish than the first and cut that one, too. I watched him patiently, like a well-trained dog, until he gave the signal to eat.

  For three minutes, we sat in silence, wolfing down lunch. He popped open a beer for me and a second one for himself. I despise Miracle Whip but, in this instance, it seemed like a gourmet sauce. The bread was so soft our fingertips left dents near the crust.

  Between bites, I dabbed the corners of my mouth with a paper napkin. “I don’t know your first name,” I said.

  “Phil. What kind of name is Kinsey?”

  “My mother’s maiden name.”

  And that was the extent of the social niceties until we’d both pushed our plates back with a sigh of relief.

  Chapter 11

  *

  After lunch, we sat out on the deck in painted metal porch chairs pockmarked with rust. The deck was actually a shelf of poured concrete, forming the roof of the garage, which had been carved into the hillside. Wooden planters filled with annuals formed a low protective barrier around the perimeter. A mild breeze was picking up, offsetting the heavy blanket of sunshine that settled on my arms. Phil’s belligerence was gone. He’d been pacified perhaps by the many chemicals in his lunch, but more likely by the two beers and the prospect of the cigar he was clipping with a pocket guillotine. He plucked a big wooden kitchen match from a can next to his chair and bent down, using the surface of the deck to scratch it into life. He puffed on the cigar until it drew fully, then shook the match out and dropped it in a flat tin ashtray. For a moment, we both sat and stared out at the ocean.

  The view was like a mural painted on a blue backdrop. The islands in the channel looked grim and deserted, twenty-six miles out. On the mainland, the small beaches were faintly visible, the surf like a tiny ruffle of white lace. The palm trees looked no bigger than fledgling asparagus. I could pick out a few landmarks: the courthouse, the high school, a big Catholic church, a theater, the one office building downtown over three stories high. From this vantage point, there was no evidence of the Victorian influence or any of the later architectural styles that blended now with the Spanish.

  This house, he told me, had been finished in the summer of 1950. He and his wife, Reva, had just bought the place when the Korean War broke out. He’d been drafted and had gone off two days after they moved in, leaving Reva with stacks of cardboard boxes to unpack, returning fourteen months later with a service-related disability. He didn’t specify what it was and I didn’t ask, but he had apparently only worked sporadically since his medical discharge. They’d had five children and Rick had been the youngest. The others were scattered now through the Southwest.

  “What was he like?” I asked. I wasn’t sure he’d answer. The silence stretched on and I wondered if perhaps it might have been the wrong question. I hated to spoil whatever sense of camaraderie we’d established.

  He shook his head finally. “I don’t know how to answer that,” he said. “He was one of those kids you think you’re never going to have a minute’s trouble with. Always sunny, did things without being told, good grades in school. Then when he was sixteen or so ��� his last year in high school ��� he seemed to lose his footing. He graduated all right, but he didn’t seem to know what to do with himself. He was drifting. Had the grades for college and God knows I’d have found the money someplace, but it didn’t interest him. Nothing did. Oh, he worked, but it never amounted to a hill of beans,”

  “Was he doing drugs?”

  “I don’t think so. At least there was never any sign of it that I could see. The kid drank a lot. Reva thought it was that, but I don’t know. He did like to party. He was out ‘til all hours, slept the weekends away, hung out with kids like Bobby Callahan, way above us socially. Then he started dating Bobby’s stepsister, Kitty. Christ, that girl was trouble the day she was born. By then, I was sick of putting up with him. If he didn’t want to be part of the family, fine. Go somewhere else, though, earn your own keep. Don’t think you can use this place to get meals and laundry done,” He paused, looking over at me. “Was I wrong? I’m asking you.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “How can you answer a question like that anyway? Kids get off-course and then they straighten out. Half the time, it doesn’t have anything to do with parents. Who knows what it is?”

  He was silent, staring out at the horizon, his lips encircling the cigar like a hose coupling. He sucked in some nicotine, then blew out a cloud of smoke. “Sometimes I wonder how bright he was. Maybe he should have seen a therapist, but how did I know? That’s what Reva says now. What’s a psychiatrist going to do with a kid who has no ambition?”

  I didn’t have a response to any of this so I made sympathetic sounds and let it go at that.

  Brief silence. He said, “I hear Bobby’s all messed up.”

  His tone was hesitant, a guarded inquiry about a hated rival. He must have wished Bobby dead a hundred times, cursing his good fortune at having survived.

  “I’m not sure he wouldn’t trade places with Rick if he could,” I said, feeling my way. I didn’t want to set off a fresh surge of agitation, but I didn’t want him harboring the notion that Bobby was somehow “luckier” than Rick. Bobby was working his ass off to make life all right, but it was a struggle.

  Below us, an old pale blue Ford rattled into view, spewing exhaust. The driver swung wide around my car and paused, apparently activating an automatic garage door. The car nosed out of sight beneath us and, moments later, I heard the muffled sound of the car door slamming.

  “That’s my wife,” Phil said, as the garage-door mechanism ground under our feet.

  Reva Bergen trudged up the steep walk, burdened with grocery sacks. I noted with curiosity that Phil made no move to assist her. She caught sight of us as she reached the porch. She hesitated, her face a perfect blank. Even at that distance, her gaze had an unfocused quality that seemed more pronounced when she finally came out of the back door, moments later, to join us. She was a dishwater blonde with that washed-out look women sometimes acquire in their fifties. Her eyes were small, nearly lashless. Pale eyebrows, pale skin. She was frail and bony, her hands looking as clumsy as gardening gloves on her narrow wrists. The two of them seemed so enti
rely unsuited to each other that I quickly discarded the unbidden image of their marital bed.

  Phil explained who I was and the fact that I was investigating the accident in which Rick had been killed.

  Her smile was mean. “Bobby’s conscience bothering him?”

  Phil interceded before I could frame a response. “Come on, Reva. What harm can it do? You said yourself the police ���”

  She turned abruptly and went back inside. Phil shoved his hands down in his pockets with embarrassment. “Nuts. She’s been like that ever since it happened. Things set her off. I haven’t been a joy to live with myself, but this thing has torn her heart out.”

  “I should be on my way,” I said. “But I would like for you to do one thing if you would. I’ve been trying to figure out what could possibly have been going on back then and I’m not having much luck so far. Did Rick give you any indication that Bobby was in trouble or upset? Or that he might have had some kind of problem himself?”

  He shook his head. “Rick’s whole life was a problem to me, but it didn’t have anything to do with the accident. I’ll ask Reva, though, and see if she knows anything.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I shook his hand and then fished a card out of my bag so he’d know how to get in touch with me.

  He walked me down to the road and I thanked him again for lunch. As I got in my car, I glanced up. Reva was standing on the porch, staring down at us.

  I headed back into town. I stopped by the office to check my answering machine for messages (none) and my mail, which was all junk. I made a fresh pot of coffee and hauled out my portable typewriter, detailing the notes on my investigation to that point. It was painstaking stuff given the fact that I’d turned up absolutely nothing. Still, Bobby was entitled to know how I’d spent my time and at thirty bucks an hour, he was entitled to know where the money went.