D is for Deadbeat by Sue Grafton Read Free Book Online Page A

I can persuade him instead.”
    â€œI’m surprised she didn’t divorce him years ago.”
    Her smile was cold. “She says she married him ‘for better or for worse.’ To date, there hasn’t been any ‘better.’ Maybe she’s hoping for a taste of that before she gives up.”
    â€œWhat about his imprisonment? What was that for?”
    Something flickered in her face and I thought at first she wouldn’t answer me. “Vehicular manslaughter,” she said, finally. “He was drunk and there was an accident. Five people were killed, two of them kids.”
    I couldn’t think of a response and she didn’t seem to expect one. She stood up, closed the conversation with a perfunctory handshake, and then she was gone. I could hear her high heels tapping away down the corridor.

 
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5
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    By the time I closed up the office and got down to my car, the clouds overhead looked like dark gray vacuum cleaner fluff and the rain had begun to splatter the sidewalk with polka dots. I stuck Daggett’s file on the passenger seat and backed out of my space, turning right from the parking lot onto Cannon, and right again onto Chapel. Three blocks up, I made a stop, ducking into the supermarket to pick up milk, Diet Pepsi, bread, eggs, and toilet paper. I was into my siege mentality, looking forward to pulling up the drawbridge and waiting out the rain. With luck, I wouldn’t have to go out for days.
    The phone was ringing as I let myself in. I put the grocery bag on the counter and snatched up the receiver.
    â€œGod, I was just about to give up,” Jonah said. “I tried the office, but all I got was your answering machine.”
    â€œI closed up for the day. I can work at home if I’m in the mood, which I’m not. Have you seen the rain?”
    â€œRain? Oh yeah, so there is. I haven’t even looked out the window since I got in. God, that’s great,” he said. “Listen, I have some of the information you’re looking for and the rest will have to wait. Woody’s got a priority request and I had to back off. I’m working tomorrow so I can pick it up then.”
    â€œYou’re working Saturday?”
    â€œI’m filling in for Sobel. My good deed for the week,” he said. “Got a pencil? Polo’s the one I got a line on.”
    He rattled out Billy Polo’s age, date of birth, height, weight, hair and eye color, his a.k.a., and a hasty rundown of his record, all of which I noted automatically. He’d picked up the name of Billy’s parole officer, but the guy was out of the office and wouldn’t be available until Monday afternoon.
    â€œThanks. In the meantime, I’m nosing around on my own,” I said. “I bet I’ll get a line on him before you do.” He laughed and hung up.
    I put groceries away and then sat down at my desk, hauling out the little portable Smith-Corona I keep in the knee hole. I consigned the data Jonah’d given me to index cards and then sat and stared at it. Billy Polo, born William Polokowski, was thirty years old, five-foot-eight, a hundred and sixty pounds, brown hair, brown eyes, no scars, tattoos, or “observable physical oddities.” His rap sheet sounded like a pop quiz on theCalifornia Penal Code, with arrests that ranged from misdemeanors to felonies. Assault, forgery, receiving stolen property, grand theft, narcotics violations. Once he was even convicted of “injuring a public jail,” a misdemeanor in this state. Had this occurred in the course of an escape attempt, the charge would have been bumped up to a felony. As it was, he’d probably been caught scratching naughty words on the jail house walls. A real champ, this one.
    Apparently, Billy Polo was pretty shiftless when it came to breaking the law and had never even settled on an area of expertise. He’d been arrested sixteen times, with nine convictions,