Let's All Kill Constance (Crumley Mysteries 3)

“He’s alive. Where are we going?”

“Who knows. From here on, this trip is a retreat. You know Catholic retreats? Long silent weekends. Shut la trap. Okay?”

We drove to Venice City Hall. Crumley got out and slammed his door.

He was gone half an hour. When he returned he stuck his head in the driver’s-side window and said, “Now hear this, I just took a week’s sick leave. And, Jesus, this is sick. We got one week to find Constance, shield St. Vibiana’s priest, raise the Lazarus dead, and warn your wife to stop me from strangling you. Nod your head yes.”

I nodded.

“Next twenty-four hours you don’t speak without permission! Now where are those goddamn phone books?”

I handed him the Books of the Dead.

Crumley, behind the wheel, scowled at them.

“Say one last thing and shut up!”

“You’re still my pal!” I blurted.

“Pity,” he said, and banged the gas.

Chapter Eighteen

We went back to Rattigan’s and stood down on the shoreline. It was early evening and her lights were still full on; the place was like a full moon and a rising sun of architecture. Gershwin was still manhandling Manhattan one moment, Paris the next.

“I bet they buried him in his piano,” said Crumley.

We got out the one Book of the Dead, Rattigan’s personal phone pals, mostly cold and buried, and repeated what we had done before. Went through it page by page, with a growing sense of mortality.

On page 30 we came to the Rs.

There it was: Clarence Rattigan’s dead phone and a red Christian cross over his name.

“Damn. Now let’s check Califia again.”

We riffled back and there it was, with big red lines under her name and a crucifix.

“That means—?”

“Whoever planted this book with Constance marked all the names with red ink and a cross, handed it over, and then killed the first two victims. Maybe. I’m running half-empty.”

“Or, hoping Constance would see the red ink crucifixes, before they were killed, panic on that night she came running, and destroy them inadvertently with her shouts. Christ! Let’s check the other red lines and crosses. Check St. Vibiana’s.”

Crumley turned the pages and exhaled. “Red crucifix.”

“But Father Rattigan’s still alive! ” I said. “Hell!”

I trudged up the sand to Rattigan’s poolside phone. I dialed St. Vibiana’s.

“Who’s this?” a sharp voice answered.

“Father Rattigan! Thank God!”

“For what?”

“This is Constance’s friend. The idiot.”

“Dammit!” the priest cried.