J is for Judgment (Kinsey Millhone 10)

Mac cut in. “What’s the game plan here? You have a scheme in the works?”

“Well, I think we should find out how soon the kid’s being brought back from Mexicali. I can’t believe much will happen over the weekend. Monday, I can talk with one of the deputies at the county jail. Maybe we can pick up Wendell’s trail from there.”

“Sounds like a long shot.”

“The long shot was Dick Mills’s spotting him in the first place.”

“True enough,” he conceded, though he wasn’t happy about it.

“I’ve also been thinking we should talk to the local cops. They have the kind of resources I can’t touch.”

I could hear him hesitate. “Seems early to bring the police into it, but I’ll let you use your own judgment. I wouldn’t mind the help, but I’d hate to scare him off. If he shows, that is.”

“I’m going to have to get in touch with old friends of his. We’ll just have to run the risk of somebody warning him off.”

“You think his pals will cooperate?”

“I have no idea. I gather he ripped off a lot of folks back then. Surely there are some who’d like to see him land in jail.”

“You’d think so,” he said.

“Anyway, we’ll talk Monday morning, and in the meantime, don’t fret.”

Mac’s laugh was bleak. “Let’s hope Gordon Titus doesn’t get wind of this.”

“I thought you said you’d take care of him.”

“I was picturing an arrest. Lots of public glory for you.”

“Hold on to the thought. We may get there yet.”

I spent the next two days in bed, my vacation extending into a lazy, unproductive weekend by virtue of my affliction. I love the solitude of illness, the luxury of hot tea with honey, the canned tomato soup with gooey grilled-cheese sandwiches. I kept a box of Kleenex on my nightstand, and the wastebasket by the bed was soon filled to the rim with a puffy soufflé of used tissues. One of the few concrete memories I have of my mother was her salving my chest with Vicks VapoRub, then covering it with a square of pink rose-sprigged flannel, secured to my pajama top with safety pins. The heat of my body would envelop my nasal passages in a cloud of heady fumes while the ointment on my skin conveyed a mentholated contradiction of searing heat and biting cold.

I dozed fitfully during the day, my body aching with inactivity. For two hours each afternoon, I staggered down my spiral stairs, dragging my quilt behind me like a wedding train. I curled up on my sofa bed and flipped on the television set, watching mindless reruns of “Dobie Gillis” and “I Love Lucy.” At bedtime I stood in my bathroom at the sink and filled my little plastic cup with the vile, dark green syrup that would ensure a good night’s sleep. I’ve never once downed a hit of NyQuil without shuddering violently afterward. Nonetheless, I’m aware that I harbor all the incipient characteristics of an over-the-counter cold medication addict.

Monday morning I woke at 6:00 A.M. only moments before the alarm was set to go off. Once I opened my eyes, I lay in my rumpled nest and stared up at the domed Plexiglas skylight above my bed, trying to gauge the day ahead. The morning sky was thickly overcast, bright, white clouds forming a dense ceiling probably half a mile thick. At the airport, the commuter flights to San Francisco, San Jose, and Los Angeles would be stalled out on the runways, waiting for the fog to lift.

July in Santa Teresa is an unsettling affair. Morning dawns behind a cloud bank that lingers just off the coast. Sometimes the marine layer clears by afternoon. Other times the sky remains overcast and the day stretches on in a nebulous gloom, creating the illusion of storm clouds hovering. The local citizens complain and the Santa Teresa Dispatch reports the temperatures in a chiding tone as if the summer season weren’t always this way. Tourists, who arrive in search of rumored California sunshine, spread their paraphernalia on the beach—umbrellas and sunscreen, portable radios and swim fins—waiting patiently for a break in the monotonous gray skies. I see their little children hunkered in the surf with toy buckets and shovels. Even from a distance I can sense their goose bumps and pale blue lips, teeth beginning to chatter as the icy water surges around their bare feet. This year the weather had been very strange, varying wildly from one day to the next.

I rolled out of bed, pulled on my sweats, brushed my teeth, and combed my hair, avoiding the sight of my sleep-smudged face. I was determined to run, but my body thought otherwise, and after half a mile I was beset by a coughing fit that sounded like the mating call of some wild beast. I abandoned the notion of a three-mile jog and contented myself with a brisk walk instead. My cold, by then, had settled in my chest, and my voice had dropped into that wonderful, husky FM disc jockey range. By the time I reached home, I was chilled but invigorated.