C Is for Corpse

Kitty's bedside, his face creased with concern. Derek was trying to pull Kitty into a sitting position, but she slumped to one side. Dr. Kleinert moved forward swiftly and pushed both men out of the way. He did a quick check of her vital signs, pulling a penlight out of the inside breast pocket of his suit. Her pupils had contracted down to pinpoints, and from where I stood, the green eyes looked milky and lifeless, apparently responding little to the light he flashed first in one, then the other. Her breathing was slow and shallow, her muscles flaccid. Dr. Kleinert reached for the telephone, which was sitting on the floor near the bed, and dialed 911.
    Glen remained in the doorway. "What is it?"
    Kleinert ignored her, apparently talking to the emergency dispatcher.
    "This is Dr. Leo Kleinert. I'm going to need an ambulance out on West Glen Road in Montebello. I've got a patient suffering from barbiturate poisoning." He gave the address and a brief set of instructions about how to reach the place. He hung up and looked at Bobby. "You have any idea what she took?"
    Bobby shook his head.
    Derek responded, addressing the remark to Glen. "She was fine half an hour ago. I talked to her myself."
    "Oh Derek. For God's sake," she said with annoyance.
    Kleinert reached over and opened the bed-table drawer. He sorted through some junk and then hesitated, pulling out a stash of pills that would have felled an elephant. They were in a Ziploc bag, maybe two hundred capsules: Nembutals, Seconals, blue-and-orange Tuinals, Placidyls, Quaaludes, like colorful supplies for some exotic cottage industry.
    Kleinert's expression was despairing. He looked up at Derek, holding the bag by one corner. Exhibit A in a trial that had been going on for some time by my guess.
    "What are those things?" Derek said. "How'd she get them?"
    Kleinert shook her head. "Lets get people out of here and then we'll worry about that."
    Glen Callahan had already turned and left the room and I could hear her heels clipping purposefully toward the stairs. Bobby took my arm and the two of us moved out into the hallway.
    Derek was apparently still having trouble believing this was happening. "Is she going to be O.K.?"
    Dr. Kleinert murmured a reply, but I couldn't hear what it was.
    Bobby steered me into a room across the hall and closed the door. "Let's stay out of the way. We'll go downstairs in a bit." He rubbed at the fingers of his bad hand as if it were a talisman. The drag in his voice was back.
    The room was large, with deep-set windows looking out onto the rear of the property. The wall-to-wall carpeting was white, a dense cut-pile so recently vacuumed that I could see Bobby's footprints in places. His double bed seemed diminutive in a room that was probably thirty feet square, with a large dressing room opening off to the left and what was apparently a bathroom beyond that. A television set rested on an antique pine blanket-chest at the foot of the bed. On the wall to my right was a long built-in desk with a white Formica surface. An IBM Selectric II and the keyboard, monitor, and printer for a home computer were lined up along its length. The bookshelves were white Formica too, filled almost exclusively with medical texts. There was a sitting area in the far corner; two overstuffed chairs and an ottoman covered in a plaid fabric of rust, white, and slate blue. The coffee table, reading lamp, books and magazines stacked nearby suggested that this was where Bobby spent his leisure time.
    He went to an intercom on the wall and pressed a button.
    "Callie, we're starving up here. Could you send us a tray? There are two of us and we'll need some white wine too."
    I could hear a hollow clattering in the background: dishes being loaded into the dishwasher. "Yes, Mr. Bobby. I'll have Alicia bring something up."
    "Thank you."
    He limped over to one of the chairs and sat down. "I eat when I'm anxious. I've always done that. Come sit down. Shit, I hate this house. I used to love it. When I was a kid, it was great. Places to run. Places to hide. A yard that went on forever. Now it feels like a cocoon. Insulated. But it doesn't keep bad stuff out. It feels cold. Are you cold?"
    "I'm fine," I said.
    I sat down in the other chair. He pushed the ottoman over and I put my feet up. I wondered what it must be like to live in a house like this where all of your needs were tended to, where someone else was responsible for grocery shopping and food preparation, cleaning, trash