L is for Lawless (Kinsey Millhone 12)

"Are you Bucky?"

"Yeah."

I held my hand out. "I'm Kinsey Millhone. I'm a friend of Henry Pitts. He says you're having problems with a VA claim."

He shook my hand, but the way he was looking at me made me want to knock on his head and ask if anyone was home. I plowed on. "He thought maybe I could help. Mind if I come in?"

"Oh, sorry. I got it now. You're the private detective. At first, I thought you were someone from the VA. What's your name again?"

"Kinsey Millhone. Henry's tenant. You've probably seen me up at Rosie's. I'm there three or four nights a week."

Recognition finally flickered. "You're the one sits in that back booth."

"I'm the one."

"Sure. I remember. Come on in." He stepped back and I moved into a small entrance hall with a hardwood floor that hadn't been buffed for years. I caught a glimpse of the kitchen at the rear of the house. "My dad's not home right now, and I think Babe's in the shower. I should let her know you're here. Hey, Babe?"

No reply.

He tilted his head, listening. "Hey, Babe!"

I've never been a big fan of yelling from room to room. "You want to find her? I can wait."

"Let me do that. I'll be right back. Have a seat," he said. He moved down the hall, his hard-soled shoes clumping. He opened a door on the right and stuck his head in. There was a muffled shriek of pipes in the wall, the plumbing shuddering and thumping as the shower was turned off.

I went down a step into the living room, which was slightly bigger than the nine-by-twelve rug. At one end of the room there was a shallow brick fireplace, painted white, with a wooden mantelpiece that seemed to be littered with knickknacks. On either side of the fireplace there were built-in bookcases piled high with papers and magazines. I settled gingerly on a lumpy couch covered with a brown-and-yellow Afghan. I could smell house mold or wet dog. The coffee table was littered with empty fast-food containers, and all the seating was angled to face an ancient television set in an oversize console.

Bucky returned. "She says go ahead. We gotta be somewhere shortly and she's just now getting dressed. My dad'll be back in a little while. He went down to Perdido to look at lighting fixtures. We're trying to get Pappy's apartment fixed up to rent." He paused in the doorway, apparently seeing the room as I did. "Looks like a dump, but Pappy was real tight with a buck."

"How long have you lived here?"

"Coming up on two years, ever since Babe and me got married," he said. "I thought the old bird'd give us a break on the rent, but he made a science out of being cheap."

Being cheap myself, I was naturally curious. Maybe I could pick up some pointers, I thought. "Like what?"

Bucky's mouth pulled down. "I don't know. He didn't like to pay for trash pickup, so he'd go out early on trash days and put his garbage in the neighbors' cans. And, you know, like somebody told him once when you pay utility bills? All you have to do is use a one-cent stamp, leave off the return address, and drop it in a remote mailbox. The post office will deliver it because the city wants their money, so you can save on postage."

I said, "Hey, what a deal. What do you figure, ten bucks a year? That'd be hard to resist. He must have been quite a character."

"You never met him?"

"I used to see him up at Rosie's, but I don't think we ever met."

Bucky nodded at the fireplace. "That's him over there. One on the right."

I followed his gaze, expecting to see a photograph sitting on the mantelpiece. All I saw were three urns and a medium-size metal box. Bucky said, "That greeny marble urn is my grammaw, and right beside her is my uncle Duane. He's my daddy's only brother, killed when he's a kid. He was eight, I think. Playing on the tracks and got run over by a train. My aunt Maple's in the black urn."

For the life of me, I couldn't think of a polite response. The family fortunes must have dwindled as the years went by because it looked like less and less money had been spent with each successive death until the last one, John Lee, had been left in the box provided by the crematorium. The mantel was getting crowded. Whoever "went" next would have to be transported in a shoe box and dumped out the car window on the way home from the mortuary.

He waved the subject aside. "Anyway, forget that. I know you didn't stop by to make small talk. I got the paperwork right here." He moved over to the bookshelf and began to sort through the magazines, which were apparently interspersed with unpaid bills and other critical documents. "All we're talking is a three-hundred-dollar claim for Pappy's burial," he remarked. "Babe and me paid to have him cremated and we'd like to get reimbursed. I guess the government pays another hundred and fifty for interment. It doesn't sound like much, but we don't have a lot to spare. I don't know what Henry told you, but we can't afford to pay for your services."