"Give it back," Marcia said. She held out one hand, made an impatient waving motion.
"Hey, you don't need it, Marcia," I said. "You've got plenty more. In all those safe deposit boxes."
"I'm going to count to five-" she began.
"Were you in on the murder from day one? You know, from the planning stages?" I asked. I kept my voice low, but it echoed off the walls of Mooney's tiny office. The hum of everyday activity kept going in the main room. Nobody noticed the little gun in the well-dressed lady's hand. "Or did you just do your beau a favour and hide the loot after he iced his wife? In order to back up his burglary tale? I mean, if Justin Thayler really wanted to marry you, there is such a thing as divorce. Or was old Jennifer the one with the bucks?"
"I want that coin," she said softly. "Then I want the two of you"-she motioned to Jo Ann and me-"to sit down facing that wall. If you yell, or do anything before I'm out of the building, I'll shoot this gentleman. He's coming with me."
"Come on, Marcia," I said, "put it down. I mean, look at you. A week ago you just wanted Thayler's coin back. You didn't want to rob my cab, right? You just didn't know how else to get your good luck charm back with no questions asked. You didn't do it for money, right? You did it for love. You were so straight you threw away the cash. Now here you are with a gun pointed at a cop-"
"Shut up!"
I took a deep breath and said, "You haven't got the style, Marcia. Your gun's not even loaded."
Mooney didn't relax a hair. Sometimes I think the guy hasn't ever believed a word I've said to him. But Marcia got shook. She pulled the barrel away from Mooney's skull and peered at it with a puzzled frown. Jo Ann and I both tackled her before she got a chance to pull the trigger. I twisted the gun out 'of her hand. I was almost afraid to look inside. Mooney stared at me and I felt my mouth go dry and a trickle of sweat worm its way down my back.
I looked.
No bullets. My heart stopped fibrillating, and Mooney actually cracked a smile in my direction.
So that's all. I sure hope Mooney will spread the word around that I helped him nail Thayler. And I think he will; he's a fair kind of guy. Maybe it'll get me a case or two. Driving a cab is hard on the backside, you know?
SUE GRAFTON (b. 1940)
In the evolution of American detective fiction, the rise of the well-wrought, believable female private eye may be the most important trend of the past twenty years. There can be no doubt about Sue Grafton's contribution to this development as the creator of Kinsey Millhone, a self-confident, independent, smart divorcee in her thirties whose outlook on life, Grafton says, is patterned after her own. After all, Grafton admits to having turned to mystery writing as a means of getting her aggressions out on the page at a particularly difficult time in her life.
Millhone's clients-Californians who work for a living-and their problems are also realistic. In her novels, memorably titled after successive letters of the alphabet, Grafton's sleuth deals with issues that have directly affected the author's own life. For instance, in «D Is for Deadbeat» Grafton deals with alcoholism, a problem that she knew firsthand as the daughter of two alcoholics. Grafton says that her family was "classically dysfunctional," but it was also a household that revered the written word. Grafton's father was C. F. Grafton, a lawyer who wrote the classic courtroom novel Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.
It has been said that Grafton's work takes that of Ross Macdonald into another dimension. As did Macdonald, Grafton lives in Santa Barbara, California. And in homage to Macdonald, Grafton has Kinsey Millhone, like Lew Archer, reside in the fictional Santa Teresa.
Grafton notes that «The Parker Shotgun» grew out of reading that a long-defunct firearms company had made only two copies of a particular model, of which one had been lost. "I know nothing at all about guns, but here was a chance to make the murder weapon also the motive," Grafton says. The story displays another of the strengths that make her work notable: the minor characters have personalities of their own-something difficult to accomplish in short fiction. And while the reader is more likely to remember the grimness of this dysfunctional family than the detection involved, the doer of the fatal deed is nicely concealed until the end.
The Parker Shotgun
The Christmas holidays had come and gone, and the new-year was under way. January, in California, is as good as it gets-cool, clear, and green, with a sky the colour of wisteria and a surf that thunders like a volley of gunfire in a distant field. My name is Kinsey Millhone. I'm a private investigator, licensed, bonded, insured; white, female, age thirty-two, unmarried, and physically fit. That Monday morning, I was sitting in my office with my feet up, wondering what life would bring, when a woman walked in and tossed a photograph on my desk. My introduction to the Parker shotgun began with a graphic view of its apparent effect when fired at a formerly nice-looking man at close range. His face was still largely intact, but he had no use now for a pocket comb. With effort, I kept my expression neutral as I glanced up at her.
"Somebody killed my husband."
"I can see that," I said.
She snatched the picture back and stared at it as though she might have missed some telling detail. Her face suffused with pink, and she blinked back tears. "Jesus. Rudd was killed five months ago, and the cops have done shit. I'm so sick of getting the runaround I could scream."
She sat down abruptly and pressed a hand to her mouth, trying to compose herself. She was in her late twenties, with a gaudy prettiness. Her hair was an odd shade of brown, like cherry Coke, worn shoulder length and straight. Her eyes were large, a lush mink brown; her mouth was full. Her complexion was all warm tones, tanned, and clear. She didn't seem to be wearing makeup, but she was still as vivid as a magazine illustration, a good four-colour run on slick paper. She was seven months pregnant by the look of her; not voluminous yet, but rotund. When she was calmer, she identified herself as Lisa Osterling.
"That's a crime lab photo. How'd you come by it?" I said when the preliminaries were disposed of.
She fumbled in her handbag for a tissue and blew her nose. "I have my little ways," she said morosely. "Actually I know the photographer and I stole a print. I'm going to have it blown up and hung on the wall just so I won't forget. The police are hoping I'll drop the whole thing, but I got news for them." Her mouth was starting to tremble again, and a tear splashed onto her skirt as though my ceiling had a leak.
"What's the story?" I said. "The cops in this town are usually pretty good." I got up and filled a paper cup with water from my Sparklett's dispenser, passing it over to her.
She murmured a thank-you and drank it down, staring into the bottom of the cup as she spoke. "Rudd was a cocaine dealer until a month or so before he died. They haven't said as much, but I know they've written him off as some kind of small-time punk. What do they care? They'd like to think he was killed in a drug deal-a double cross or something like that. He wasn't, though. He'd given it all up because of this."
She glanced down at the swell of her belly. She was wearing a Kelly green T-shirt with an arrow down the front. The word "Oops!" was written across her breasts in machine embroidery.
"What's your theory?" I asked. Already I was leaning toward the official police version of events. Drug dealing isn't synonymous with longevity. There's too much money involved and too many amateurs getting into the act. This was Santa Teresa-ninety-five miles north of the big time in L. A., but there are still standards to maintain. A shotgun blast is the underworld equivalent of a bad annual review.
"I don't have a theory. I just don't like theirs. I want you to look into it so I can clear Rudd's name before the baby comes."