E Is for Evidence by Sue Grafton Read Free Book Online

was wood-beamed, the walls tiled halfway up, sounds muffled by a runner of thick carpet patterned with flowers the size of dinner plates.
    Ash had reserved a table in the main dining room. She was already seated, her face turned expectantly toward me as I approached. She looked much as she had in high school; pale-red hair, blue eyes set in a wide, friendly face mottled with freckles. Her teeth were very white and straight and her smile was engaging. I had forgotten how casually she dressed. She was wearing a blue wool jumpsuit with a military cut, and over it a bulky white sheepskin vest. I thought, with regret, of my jeans and turtleneck.
    She was still maybe twenty pounds overweight, and she moved with all the enthusiasm of an ungainly pup, leaping up to hug me when I arrived at the table. There had always been a guileless quality about her. Despite the fact she came from money, she had never been snobbish or affected. Where Olive had seemed reserved, and Ebony intimidating, Ash seemed utterly unselfconscious, one of those girls everybody liked. In our sophomore year, we had ended up sitting in adjoining homeroom seats and we'd often chatted companionably before classes began. Neither of us was a cheerleader, an honor student, or a candidate for prom queen. The friendship that sprang up between us, though genuine, was short-lived. I met her family. She met my aunt. I went to her house and thereaf-ter neatly bypassed her coming to mine. While the Woods were always gracious to me, it was obvious that Ash func-tioned at the top of the social heap and I at the bottom. Eventually the disparity made me so uncomfortable that I let the contact lapse. If Ash was injured by the rejection, she did a good job of covering it. I felt guilty about her anyway and was relieved the next year when she sat some-where else.
    "Kinsey, you look great. I'm so glad you called. I or-dered us a bottle of Chardonnay. I hope that's okay."
    "Fine," I said, smiling. "You look just the same."
    "Big rump, you mean," she said with a laugh. "You're just as thin as you always were, only I half expected you to show up in jeans. I don't believe I ever saw you in a dress."
    "I thought I'd act like I had some class," I said. "How are you? When I didn't find you listed in the phone book, I thought you'd probably gotten married or left town."
    "Actually, I've been gone for ten years and just got back. What about you? I can't believe you're a private detective. I always figured you'd end up in jail. You were such a rebel back then."
    I laughed. I was a misfit in high school and hung out with guys known as "low-wallers" because they loitered along a low wall at the far end of the school grounds. "You remember Donan, the boy with the gold tooth who sat right in front of you in homeroom? He's an Ob-Gyn in town. Got his teeth fixed and went to med school."
    Ash groaned, laughing. "God, that's one way to get your hand up a girl's skirt. What about the little swarthy one who sat next to you? He was funny. I liked him."
    "He's still around. Bald now and overweight. He runs a liquor store up on the Bluffs. Who was that girlfriend of yours who used to shoplift? Francesca something."
    "Palmer. She's living with a fellow in Santa Fe who designs furniture. I saw her about a year ago when I was passing through. God, she's still a klepto. Are you mar-ried?"
    "Was." I held up two fingers to indicate the number of husbands who had come and gone.
    "Children?" she asked.
    "Oh God, no. Not me. You have any?"
    "Sometimes I wish I did." Ash was watching me with shining eyes and somehow I knew anything I said would be fine with her.
    "When did we see each other last? It's been years, hasn't it?" I asked.
    She nodded. "Bass's twenty-first birthday party at the country club. You were with the most beautiful boy I ever saw in my life."
    "Daniel," I said. "He was husband number two."
    "What about number one? What was he like?"
    "I better drink some first."
    The waiter appeared with the wine,