C is for Corpse

Chapter 3

I rang the bell. I could hear it echo through the house. In due course, the door was opened by a black maid in a white uniform like a nurse's aide's. I wanted to fall into her arms and be dragged off to the infirmary, my feet hurt so bad, but I mentioned my name instead and murmured that Bobby Callahan expected me.

"Yes, Miss Millhone. Won't you come in, please?"

She stepped aside and I moved into the hallway. The ceiling in the entryway was two stories high, light filtering down through a series of windows that followed the line of the wide stone stairs curving up to the left. The floor was tile, a soft red, polished to a satiny sheen. There were runners of Persian carpeting in faded patterns. Tapestries hung from ornamental wrought-iron rods that looked like antique weaponry. The air temperature was perfect, cool and still, scented by a massive floral arrangement on a heavy side table to my right. I felt like I was in a museum.

The maid led me down the hallway to a living room so large the group of people at the far end seemed constructed on a smaller scale than I. The stone fireplace must have been ten feet wide and a good twelve feet high, with an opening big enough to roast an ox in. The furniture looked comfortable; nothing fussy or small. The couches, four of them, seemed substantial, and the chairs were large and overstuffed, with wide arms, reminding me somehow of first-class seats on an airplane. There was no particular color scheme and I wondered if it was only the middle class that ran out and hired someone to make everything match.

I caught sight of Bobby and, mercifully, he lumbered in my direction. He had apparently divined from my expression that I was ill-prepared for this whole pageant.

"I should have warned you. I'm sorry," he said. "Let me get you a drink. What would you like? We've got white wine, but if I tell you what it is, you'll think we're showing off"

"Wine is perfect," I said. "I'm crazy about the show-off kind."

Another maid, not the one who opened the door, but one especially trained for living rooms, anticipated Bobby's needs, approaching with glasses of wine already poured. I was really hoping I wouldn't disgrace myself by spilling a drink down my front or catching a heel on the rug. He handed me a glass of wine and I took a sip.

"Did you grow up in this place?" I asked. It was difficult to picture binkies, Johnny-Jump-Ups, and Tonka trucks in a room that looked like the nave of a church. I suddenly tuned in to what was happening in my mouth. This wine was going to ruin me for the stuff in a cardboard box, which is what I usually drink.

"Actually, I did," he said, looking around with interest now, as though the incongruity had just occurred to him. "I had a nanny, of course."

"Oh sure, why not? What do your parents do? Or should I guess."

Bobby gave me a lopsided smile and dabbed at his chin, almost sheepishly, I thought. "My grandfather, my mother's father, founded a big chemical company at the turn of the century. I guess they ended up patenting half the products essential to civilization. Douches and mouthwashes and birth-control devices. A lot of over-the-counter drugs, too. Solvents, alloys, industrial products. The list goes on for a bit."

"Brothers? Sisters?"

"Just me."

"Where's your father at this point?"

"Tibet. He's taken to mountain climbing of late. Last year, he lived in an ashram in India. His soul is evolving at a pace with his VISA bill."

I cupped a hand to my ear. "Do I detect some hostility?"

Bobby shrugged. "He can afford to dabble in the Great Mysteries because of the settlement he got from my mother when they divorced. He pretends it's a great spiritual journey when he's really just indulging himself Actually, I felt O.K. about him until he came back just after the accident. He used to sit by my bedside and smile at me benevolently, explaining that being crippled must be something I was having to sort through in this life." He looked at me with an odd smile. "Know what he said when he heard Rick was dead? "That's nice. That means he's finished his work.' I got so upset Dr. Kleinert refused to let him visit anymore, so he went off to hike the Himalayas. We don't hear from him much, but it's just as well, I guess."

Bobby broke off For a moment, tears swam in his eyes and he fought for control. He stared off toward a cluster of people near the fireplace and I followed his gaze. There were only ten or so on a quick count.

"Which one is your mother?"

"The woman in the cream-colored outfit. The guy standing just behind her is my stepfather, Derek. They've been married three years, but I don't think it's working out."