C Is for Corpse

renting a room from Mrs. Lowenstein down the street."
    She held out a hand with a clatter of red plastic bracelets, moving as though she meant to struggle to her feet.
    I crossed the patio. "Don't get up," I said. "Welcome to the neighborhood." I shook hands with her., smiling sociably. Her return smile erased the chill from her gaze and I found myself doing a mental doubletake, wondering if I'd misinterpreted. "What part of the country are you from?"
    "Here, there, and everywhere," she said, glancing slyly at Henry. "I wasn't sure how long I'd stay, but Henry makes it seem veerry niiice."
    She wore a low-cut cotton sundress, a bright green-and-yellow geometric print on a white background. Her breasts looked like two five-pound flour sacks from which some of the contents had spilled. Her excess weight was carried in her chest and waist, her hefty hips and thighs tapering to a decent set of calves and quite dainty feet. She wore red canvas wedgies and fat red plastic button earrings. As with a painting, I found my gaze traveling right back around to the place where it began. I wanted to make eye contact again, but she was surveying the tray Henry held out to her.
    "Oh my. Well, what's all this? Aren't you a sweetie pie!"
    Henry had prepared a plate of canapés. He's one of those people who can whip into the kitchen and create a gourmet snack out of canned goods from the back of the cupboard. All I have at the back of my kitchen cupboard is an old box of cornmeal with bugs.
    Lila's red fingernails formed a tiny crane. She lifted a canapé and conveyed it to her mouth. It looked like a toast round with a bite of smoked salmon and a dab of dilled mayonnaise. "Mmm, that's wonderful," she said, mouth full, and then licked her fingertips, one by one. She wore several crusty diamond rings, the stones clotted together with rubies, and a square-cut emerald the size of a postage stamp, with diamonds on either side. Henry offered me the plate of canapés. "Why don't you try one of these while I fix you a mint julep?"
    I shook my head. "I better not. I may try to jog and then I have work to do."
    "Kinseys a private detective," he said to her.
    Lila's eyes got big and she blinked in wonderment. "Oh my goodness. Well, how interesting!" She spoke effusively, implying more enthusiasm than etiquette required. I wasn't nearly that thrilled with her and I'm sure she sensed it. I like older women as a rule. I like almost all women, as a matter of fact. I find them open and confiding by nature, amusingly candid when it comes to talk of men. This one was of the old school; giddy and flirtatious. She'd despised me on sight.
    She looked at Henry and patted the chaise pad. "Now, you sit down here, you bad boy. I won't have you waiting on me hand and foot. Can you believe it, Kinsey? All he's done this afternoon is fetch me this, fetch me that." She bent over the canapé plate, enthralled. "Now, what is this one?"
    I glanced at Henry, half expecting him to shoot me a pained look, but he had settled on the chaise as commanded, peering over at the plate. "That's smoked oyster. And that's a little cream cheese and chutney. You'll like that one. Here."
    He was apparently about to hand-feed her, but she smacked at him ineffectually.
    "Quit that. You take one for yourself. You are spoiling the life out of me, and what's more, you're going to make me get fat!"
    I could feel my face set with discomfort, watching their two heads bent together. Henry is fifty years older than I am and our relationship has always been completely decorous, but I wondered if this was how he felt on those rare occasions in the past when he'd spotted some guy rolling out of my place at six A.M.
    "Talk to you later, Henry," I said, moving toward my front door. I don't even think he heard me.
    I changed into a tank top and a pair of cutoffs, laced up my running shoes, and then slipped out again without calling attention to myself. I walked briskly one block over to Cabana, the wide boulevard that parallels the beach, and broke into a trot. The day was hot and there was no cloud cover at all. It was now three o'clock and even the surf seemed sluggish. The breeze fanning in off the ocean was dense with brine and the beach was littered with debris. I don't even know why I was bothering to run. I was out of shape, huffing and puffing, my lungs on fire within the first quarter-mile. My left arm ached and my legs felt like wood. I always run when I'm working and I guess that's why I