C Is for Corpse

and made a pot of coffee and then sat down at my desk, going through the photographs again and taking time now to study the police reports. A copy of the postmortem examination on Rick Bergen had been included and I noticed that it had been conducted by Jim Fraker, whose responsibilities at St. Terry's apparently extended to such services. Santa Teresa is too small a town to pay for its own police morgue and its own medical examiner, so the work is contracted out.
    The report Dr. Fraker had dictated effectively reduced Rick's death to observations about the craniocerebral trauma he'd sustained, with a catalogue of abrasions, contusions, small-intestine avulsions, mesenteric lacerations, and sufficient skeletal damage to certify Ricks crossing of the River Styx.
    I hauled out my typewriter and opened a file for Bobby Callahan, feeling soothed and comforted as I translated all the unsettling facts into a terse account of events to date. I logged in his check, made a note of the receipt number, and filed the copy of the contract he'd signed. I typed in the names and addresses of Rick Bergens parents and Bobby's ex-girlfriend, along with a list of those present at Glen Callahan's house the night before. I didn't speculate. I didn't editorialize. I just typed it all out and used my two-hole punch at the top of the paper, which I then clamped into a folder and placed in my file cabinet.
    That done, I glanced at my watch. Ten-twenty. Bobby's physical-therapy regimen was parceled out into daily stints, while mine was set up for Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. It was possible he was still at the gym. I closed up the office and went down the back steps to the lot, where I keep my car parked. I headed toward Santa Teresa Fitness, gassing up on the way, and caught Bobby just as he was coming out of the building. His hair was still damp from the shower and the scent of Coast soap radiated from his skin. Despite the facial paralysis, the crippled left arm, and the limp, something of the original Bobby Callahan shone through, young and strong, with the blond good looks of a California surfer. I'd seen pictures of him broken, and by comparison, he now seemed miraculously whole, even with the scars still etched on his face like tattoos done by an amateur. When he saw me, he smiled crookedly, dabbing automatically at his chin. "I didn't expect to see you here this morning," he said.
    "How was your workout?"
    He tilted from side to side, indicating so-so. I tucked my arm through his.
    "I have a request, but you don't have to agree," I said.
    "What's that?"
    I hesitated for a moment. "I want you to go up the pass with me and show me where the car went off."
    The smile faded. He glanced away from me and launched into motion again, moving toward his car with that lilting gait. "All right, but I want to stop by and see Kitty first."
    "Is she allowed to have visitors?"
    "I can talk my way in," he said. "People don't like to deal with cripples, so I can usually get anything I want."
    "Spoiled," I said.
    "Take any advantage you can," he replied sheepishly.
    "You want to drive?"
    He shook his head. "Lets drop my car off at the house and take yours."
    I parked in the visitor's lot at St. Terry's and waited in the car while he went in to see Kitty. I imagined she'd be back on her feet by now, still pissed off, and raising hell on the ward. Not anything I wanted to face. I hope to talk to her again in a couple of days, but I preferred to give her time to settle down. I flipped on the car radio, tapping on the steering wheel in time to the music. Two nurses passed through the parking lot in white uniforms, white shoes and hose, with dark blue capes that looked like something left over from World War I. In due course, Bobby emerged from the building and hobbled across the parking lot, his expression preoccupied. He got into the car. I flipped the radio off and started the engine, backing out of the slot.
    "Everything okay?"
    "Yeah, sure."
    He was quiet as I headed across town and turned left onto the secondary road that cuts along the back side of Santa Teresa at the base of the foothills. The sky was a flat blue and cloudless, looking like semigloss paint that had been applied with a roller. It was hot, and the hills were brown and dry, laid out like a pile of kindling. The long grasses near the road had bleached out to a pale gold, and once in a while, I caught sight of lizards perched up on big rocks, looking as gray and still as twigs.
    The