Kinsey and Me by Sue Grafton Read Free Book Online Page A

“Could you maybe
     put in ten hours? I got three hundred bucks we were saving for a trip to the San Diego
     Zoo.”
    I pretended to think about it, but the truth was, I knew I couldn’t say no to that
     boyish face. Anyway, the kids were starting to whine and I wanted to get out of there.
     I waived the retainer and said I’d send him an itemized bill when the ten hours were
     up. I figured I could put a contract in the mail and reduce my contact with the short
     persons who were crowding around him now, begging for more sweets. I asked for a recent
     photograph of Lucy, but all he could come up with was a two-year-old snapshot of her
     with the two older kids. She looked beleaguered even then, and that was before the
     third baby came along. I thought about quiet little Lucy Ackerman, whose three strapping
     sons had legs the size of my arms. If I were she, I know where I’d be. Long gone.

    L UCY A CKERMAN WAS employed as an escrow officer for a small company on State Street not far from my
     office. It was a modest establishment of white walls, rust-and-brown-plaid furniture,
     with burnt-orange carpets. There were Gauguin reproductions all around, and a live
     plant on every desk. I introduced myself first to the office manager, a Mrs. Merriman,
     who was in her sixties, had tall hair, and wore lace-up boots with stiletto heels.
     She looked like a woman who’d trade all her pension monies for a head-to-toe body
     tuck.
    I said, “Robert Ackerman has asked me to see if I can locate his wife.”
    “Well, the poor man. I heard about that,” she said with her mouth. Her eyes said,
     “Fat chance!”
    “Do you have any idea where she might be?”
    “I think you’d better talk to Mr. Sotherland.” She had turned all prim and officious,
     but my guess was she knew something and was just dying to be asked. I intended to
     accommodate her as soon as I’d talked to him. The protocol in small offices, I’ve
     found, is ironclad.
    Gavin Sotherland got up from his swivel chair and stretched a big hand across the
     desk to shake mine. The other member of the office force, Barbara Hemdahl, the bookkeeper,
     got up from her chair simultaneously and excused herself. Mr. Sotherland watched her
     depart and then motioned me into the same seat. I sank into leather still hot from
     Barbara Hemdahl’s backside, a curiously intimate effect. I made a mental note to find
     out what she knew, and then I looked, with interest, at the company vice president.
     I picked up all these names and job titles because his was cast in stand-up bronze
     letters on his desk, and the two women both had white plastic name tags affixed to
     their breasts, like nurses. As nearly as I could tell, there were only four of them
     in the office, including Lucy Ackerman, and I couldn’t understand how they could fail
     to identify each other on sight. Maybe all the badges were for customers who couldn’t
     be trusted to tell one from the other without the proper IDs.
    Gavin Sotherland was large, an ex-jock to all appearances, maybe forty-five years
     old, with a heavy head of blond hair thinning slightly at the crown. He had a slight
     paunch, a slight stoop to his shoulders, and a grip that was damp with sweat. He had
     his coat off, and his once-starched white shirt was limp and wrinkled, his beige gabardine
     pants heavily creased across the lap. Altogether, he looked like a man who’d just
     crossed a continent by rail. Still, I was forced to credit him with good looks, even
     if he had let himself go to seed.
    “Nice to meet you, Miss Millhone. I’m so glad you’re here.” His voice was deep and
     rumbling, with confidence-inspiring undertones. On the other hand, I didn’t like the
     look in his eyes. He could have been a con man, for all I knew. “I understand Mrs.
     Ackerman never got home Friday night,” he said.
    “That’s what I’m told,” I replied. “Can you tell me anything about her day here?”
    He studied me briefly.