Muller, Marcia - [McCone 04] Games to Keep the Dark Away (v.1,shtml) Read Free Book Online Page B

Allen Keller."
    "You've found him."
    "My name's Sharon McCone. I'm an investigator with All Souls
Legal Cooperative in San Francisco." I held out my card.
    He looked at it with distaste. "You're a detective?"
    "Yes. I'm trying to locate—"
    "Is it about my divorce?"
    "No, I'm—"
    "Because if it is, you can tell Arlene she's gotten all she's
going to get."
    "It's not about your divorce."
    "I don't care about the community property laws. I made it,
and it's mine, and she can—"
    I raised my voice. "It's not about your divorce!"
    "Oh." Temporarily deflated, Keller surveyed me. "Come
to think of it, you don't look like any of the detectives I've seen
this past year. And Lord knows I've seen enough of them. Are you sure
you're not working for Arlene?"
    "I'm sure. I've never even met your wife."
    "You're not missing much." He looked thoughtful. "Tell
me, can you make a fried egg sandwich?"
    "A what?"
    "Fried egg sandwich."
    "Well, yes, but what has that got to do—"
    "Come on." He opened the door wider and motioned me
inside.
    I hesitated, then shrugged and stepped into a large entryway.
Keller shut the door and started for the rear of the house.
    "I like them gooey," he said over his shoulder, "but
I keep breaking the yolks."
    "I like them that way too." I followed him. "There
are two kinds of people: the ones who break the yolk before frying
the egg and the ones who don't. It's like people who use sandwich
spread versus people who use real mayonnaise."
    "And Scotch drinkers versus bourbon drinkers. Or people who
eat small curd cottage cheese, as opposed to the ones who like large
curds." Keller led me into a large, tiled kitchen. It was
spotlessly clean except for the stove top, which was littered with
egg shells. A partly fried egg with a broken yolk sat in congealing
grease in a frying pan. There were several more eggs in the sink.
Keller motioned at the stove. "See what you can do. Fix one for
yourself if you're hungry."
    Never shy where food was concerned, I jumped at the invitation;
after all, it was almost five o'clock. "Thanks, I will."
    Keller went to the refrigerator. "Want a beer?"
    "Sure." I busied myself at the stove.
    "The help's off today." He set the beer next to me. "And
I can't cook worth a damn. So of course I had to get a craving for
something difficult. By the way, since it's not me you're after,
what're you investigating?"
    "Later. This is a delicate operation."
    We took our sandwiches to a blue-and-white breakfast nook. As
Keller sat across from me and cracked another beer, I studied him.
Under the overhead light, the puffiness of his face was more
pronounced and there were bluish semicircles under his eyes. It
seemed a typical case of a doctor not taking his own advice. I
wondered if he was always in this bad a shape or if it was a result
of what sounded like a messy divorce.
    After I'd bitten into my sandwich and gotten yolk all over my
chin, I dug into my bag and took out Snelling's photo of Jane
Anthony. "Do you remember this woman?" I passed it over to
Keller.
    He looked at it and his eyes widened in surprise. "That's
Jane."
    "Yes, Jane Anthony."
    "Why do you have her picture?"
    "She's missing and her roommate has hired me to locate her."
    "But…" He paused and took a swig of beer.
    "But?"
    Keller ran a hand through his blond hair. "Why have you come
to me?"
    "She's a former employee of The Tidepools. Mrs. Bates refused
to talk to me about Jane. I thought perhaps you could shed some light
on where she might be."
    "
I
could?"
    "Yes. Her roommate is very anxious to locate her."
    "Oh." Keller poked a finger at his untouched sandwich,
looking thoughtfully at the picture. "I see. Well, I'd like to
help you, but Miss Anthony was merely one of many employees. As an
administrator, I don't have much contact with the people who work
with the patients, and I'm afraid I don't know anything about the
woman personally. And, of course, it's been a long time since I've
seen her."
    That was what I'd been afraid of.