F is for Fugitive (Kinsey Millhone 6)

I rooted through the kitchen drawers until I came up with a corkscrew, and then I poured myself a glass of wine and took it out on the balcony. The water was turning a luminous blue as the light faded from the sky, and the dark lavender of the coastline was a vivid contrast. The sunset was a light show of deep pink and salmon shades, gradually sinking, as if by a dimmer switch, through magenta into indigo.

There was a tap at my door at six. I'd been typing for twenty minutes, though the information I'd collected, at this point, was scant. I screwed the lid on the white-out and went to the door.

Ann was standing in the corridor. "I wondered what time you wanted supper."

"Anytime's fine with me. When do you usually eat?"

"Actually, we can suit ourselves. I fed Mother early. Her meal schedule's pretty strict, and Pop won't eat until later, if he eats at all. I'm doing pan-fried sole for us, which is a last-minute thing. I hope you don't object to fish."

"Not at all. Sounds great. You want to join me in a glass of white wine first?"

She hesitated. "I'd like that," she said. "How's Bailey doing? Is he okay?"

"Well, he's not happy, but there's not much he can do. You haven't seen him yet?"

"I'll go tomorrow, if I can get in."

"Check with Clemson. He can probably set it up. It shouldn't be hard. Arraignment's at eight-thirty."

"I think I'll have to pass on that. Mother has a doctor's appointment at nine and I couldn't get back in time anyway. Pop will want to go, if he's feeling okay. Could he go with you?"

"Sure. No problem."

I poured a glass for her and refilled my own. She settled on the couch, while I sat a few feet away at the tiny kitchen table where my typewriter was set up. She seemed ill at ease, sipping at her wine with an odd cast to her mouth, as if she'd been asked to down a glass of liniment.

"I take it you're not crazy about Chardonnay," I remarked.

She smiled apologetically. "I don't drink very often. Bailey's the only one who ever developed a taste for it."

I thought I'd have to pump her for background information, but she surprised me by volunteering a quick family time line. The Fowlers, she said, had never been enthusiastic about alcohol. She claimed this was a function of her mother's diabetes, but to me it seemed in perfect keeping with the dour fundamentalist mentality that pervaded the place.

According to Ann, Royce had been born and raised in Tennessee and the dark strains of his Scots heritage had rendered him joyless, taciturn, and wary of excess. He'd been nineteen at the height of the Depression, migrating west on a succession of boxcars. He'd heard there was work in the oilfields in California, where the rigs were springing up like a metallic forest just south of Los Angeles. He'd met Oribelle, en route, at a dime-a-dip dinner at a Baptist church in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She was eighteen, soured by disease, resigned to a life of scriptures and insulin dependency. She was working in her father's feed store, and the most she could look forward to was the annual trip to the mule market in Fort Smith.

Royce had appeared at the church that Wednesday night, having hopped off a freight in search of a hot meal. Ann said Ori still talked of her first sight of him, standing in the door, a broad-shouldered youth with hair the color of hemp. Oribelle introduced herself as he went through the supper line, piling his plate high with macaroni and cheese, which was her specialty. By the end of the evening, she'd heard his entire life story and she invited him home with her afterward. He slept in the barn, taking all his meals with the family. He remained a guest of the Baileys for two weeks, during which she was in such a fever pitch of hormones that she'd twice gone into ketoacidosis and had had to be briefly hospitalized. Her parents took this as evidence that Royce's influence was wicked. They talked to her long and hard about her giving him up, but nothing would dissuade her from the course she had set. She was determined to marry Royce. When her father opposed the courtship, she took all the money set aside for secretarial school and ran off with him. That was in 1932.

"It's odd for me to picture either one of them caught up in high passion," I said.

She smiled. "Me too: I should show you a photo. She was actually quite beautiful. Of course, I wasn't born until six years later-1938-and Bailey came along five years after me. Whatever heat they felt was burned out by then, but the bond is still strong. The irony is, we all thought she'd die long before him, and now it looks like he'll go first."

"What's actually wrong with him?"