C is for Corpse (Kinsey Millhone 3)

By the time I got home, I was exhausted. I made a few quick notes and packed it in for the night. It was nearly one o'clock when I finally turned out the light. I got up at six and did a three-mile run just to get my head on straight. Then I sped through my morning ablutions, grabbed an apple, and arrived at the office by seven. It was Tuesday and I was thankful I wasn't scheduled for physical therapy that day. Now that I thought about it, my arm was feeling pretty good, or maybe the fact that I was involved in an investigation distracted me from whatever pain or immobility remained.

There were no messages on my answering machine and no mail that needed dealing with from the day before. I hauled out my crisscross and checked the house numbers on Los Piratas. Well, well. I should have guessed. Fraker, James and Nola. I wondered which of them Sufi had gone to see and why the rush. It was possible, of course, that she'd consulted with both, but I couldn't quite picture that. Could Nola be the woman Bobby'd fallen in love with? I couldn't see how Dr. Fraker tied into this, but something was sure going on.

I took out Bobby's address book and tried the number for Blackman. I got a recorded message from that woman who sounds like the fairy godmother in a Walt Disney cartoon. "We're sorry, but the number you've dialed cannot be connected in the eight-oh-five area code. Please check the number and dial again. Thank you." I tried the codes for surrounding areas. No luck. I spent a long time looking through the other entries in the book. If all else failed, I'd have to sit here and contact each person in turn, but it seemed like a tiresome prospect and not necessarily productive. In the meantime, what?

It was too early in the morning to make house calls, but it occurred to me that a visit to Kitty might make sense. She was still at St. Terry's and, given hospital routine, she'd probably been rousted out of bed at dawn. I hadn't seen her for days anyway and she might be of help.

The chill of the day before was gone. The air was clear and the sun was already intense. I slid my VW into the last available space in the vistors' lot and went around to the front entrance. The information desk in the lobby was deserted but the hospital itself was in full swing. The coffee shop was jammed, the scent of cholesterol and caffeine wafting irresistibly through the open doorway. Lights were on in the gift shop. The cashiers office was busy, filled with young female clerks preparing final bills as if this were some grand hotel nearing check-out time. There was an aura of excitement-medical personnel gearing up for birth and death and complex surgeries, cracked bones and breakdowns and drug overdoses… a hundred life-threatening episodes any given day of the week. And through it all the insidious sexuality that made it the stuff of soaps.

I went up to the third floor, turning left when I got off the elevators near 3 South. The big double doors were locked, as usual, I pushed the buzzer. Alter a moment, a heavyset black woman in jeans and a royal blue T-shirt rattled some keys and opened the door a crack. She wore a nursy no-nonsense watch and those shoes with two-inch crepe soles designed to offset fallen arches and varicose veins. She had startling hazel eyes and a face that radiated competence. Her white plastic tag indicated that her name was Natalie Jacks, LVN. I showed Ms. Jacks the photostat of my license and asked if I could talk to Kitty Wenner, explaining that I was a friend of the family.

She looked my I.D. over carefully and finally stepped back to let me in.

She locked the door behind me and led the way down the corridor to a room near the end. I was sneaking peeks into rooms along the way. I don't know what I anticipated- women writhing and babbling to themselves, men imitating ex-Presidents and jungle beasts. Or the lot of them in a drug-induced stupor that would swell their tongues and make their eyes roll back in their heads. Instead, as I passed each door, I saw faces raised in curiosity toward mine, as if I were a new admission who might shriek or do birdcalls while I tore off my clothes. I couldn't see any difference between them and me, which I thought was worrisome.

Kitty was up and dressed, her hair still wet from a shower. She was stretched out on her bed, pillows propped up behind her, a breakfast tray on the bed-table next to her. She wore a silk caftan that drooped on her frame as if she were a coat hanger. Her breasts were no bigger than buttons on a couch and her arms were bare bones fleshed out with skin as thin as tissue paper. Her eyes were enormous and haunted, the shape of her skull so pronounced that she looked as if she were seventy. Sally Struthers could have used her picture in an ad for foster parenting.

"You got a visitor," Natalie said.

Kittys eyes flicked to me, and for a moment, I could see how scared she was. She was dying. She had to know that. The energy was seeping out of her pores like sweat.