J is for Judgement

After all these years? You'd have to ask yourself what's the object of the exercise."
    "I'll bite. What is the object of the exercise? I thought you worked for the insurance company."
    "I did. I don't now. Let's put it this way. I have a vested interest. This is all my life has been about for the last ten days, and I won't leave it open-ended. I have to finish it out, Renata. I have to know what happens."
    "God, a zealot. Just what we need." She closed her eyes again and rolled the icy glass against her temple as if to cool a raging fever. "I'm tired," she said. "I'd like to sleep for a year."
    "Do you mind if I look around?"
    "Be my guest. You're welcome to look. He picked the place clean, but I really haven't bothered to check myself. You'll have to pardon my disheveled emotional state. I'm having trouble comprehending the fact that after five years he left me."
    "I'm not convinced that's what's going on, but look at it this way. If he did it to Dana, why not do it to you?"
    She smiled with her eyes closed, and the effect was odd. I wasn't sure she really heard me. She might have already been asleep. I lifted the glass from her hand and set it on the glass-topped table with a click.
    I spent the next forty-five minutes searching every nook and cranny in the house. In situations like this, you never know what you might find: personal papers, notes, correspondence, telephone numbers, a diary, an address book. Anything might help. She was right about Wendell. He'd really picked her clean. I was forced to shrug. I might have found some fabulous secret concerning his whereabouts. You never know until you look.
    I came down the stairs and moved quietly through the living room. Renata stirred, her eyes coming open as I passed the couch. "Did you have any luck?" Her voice was thick with alcohol-induced weariness.
    "No. But it was worth a try. Will you be all right?"
    "You mean once I recover from the humiliation?
    Sure, I'll be fine." I paused. "Did a guy named Harris Brown ever call Wendell ?"
    "Oh, yes. Harris Brown left a message, and Wendell called him back. They had a quarrel on the phone."
    "When was this?"
    "I don't remember. Maybe yesterday."
    "What'd they quarrel about?"
    "Wendell didn't tell me that. Apparently there were a lot of things he never got around to 'sharing.' If you find him, don't tell me. I think I'll have the locks changed tomorrow."
    "That's Sunday. It'll be expensive."
    "Today, then. This afternoon. As soon as I get up."
    "Call me if you need anything."
    "I need some laughs," she said.
    25 THE ADDRESS I had for Harris Brown was in a small Colgate housing tract, one lane of dingy cottages on the bluffs overlooking the Pacific. I counted eight houses altogether on a dirt lane lined with eucalyptus. Board-and-batten, peaked roofs with twin dormers and screened-in porches across the front close to shacks now, they were probably built for the domestic staff on a once grand estate, the main house long demolished by the passage of time. Unlike the neighboring exteriors, which were pale pink and green, Harris Brown's house was. . . well. . . brown, perhaps a waggish form of self-referencing. It was hard to tell if the property had been shabby to begin with or if the general state of dilapidation was the function of his being widowed. Sexist creature that I am, it was hard to imagine a woman living here without keeping it better. I went up to the porch.
    The front door was standing open, the wooden screen door hooked shut. I could have popped it open with a penknife, but I knocked instead. Classical music was booming from a radio in the kitchen. I could see a section of the counter from the front doorstep, brown-and-white-checked cafe curtains above the sink. I smelled chicken being fried in bacon grease, the sizzling and popping a succulent counterpoint to the music. If Harris Brown didn't show up quickly, I'd begin to pick and whimper at the screen. "Mr. Brown?" I called.
    "Hello?" he answered back. He appeared in the kitchen doorway, leaning sideways from the stove. He had a towel around his waist and a two-pronged fork in one hand. "Oh. Hang on." He disappeared, apparently adjusting the flame under the skillet. If he would just offer me some chicken, I wouldn't care what he'd done. Food first, then justice. That's the proper ordering of world events.
    He must have put a lid on the skillet because the sizzling sound was abruptly dampened. He moved to the far wall and turned down the radio, and then he