K Is for Killer

bare on the occasional deciduous tree, the distant lights were obscured. I popped open the glove compartment and took out a flashlight. I tested the beam and found that the batteries were strong. I tucked my handbag in the backseat and locked the car as I got out. About fifty feet away, between me and the main house, I could see the skeletal tepee constructions for the pole beans in the now abandoned garden. The air smelled densely of damp moss and eucalyptus.
    I moved up the steps to the wooden porch that ran along the front of the cabin. The front door had been removed from its hinges and now leaned against the wall to one side of the opening. I flipped the light switch, relieved to note the electrical power was still connected. There was only one fixture overhead, with a forty-watt bulb that bathed the rooms in drab light. There was little, if any, insulation, and the place was dead cold. While all the window-panes were intact, a fine soot had settled in every crevice and crack. Dead insects lined the sills. In one corner of the window frame, a spider had wrapped a fly in a white silken sleeping bag. The air smelled of mold, corroded metal, and spoiled water sitting fallow in the plumbing joints. A section of the wooden floor in the main room had been sawed away by the crime scene unit, the gaping hole covered over with a sheet of warped plywood. I picked my way carefully around that. Just above my head, something thumped and scampered through the attic. I imagined squirrels squeezing into roof vents, building nests for their babies. The beam of my flashlight picked up countless artifacts of the ten months of neglect: rodent droppings, dead leaves, small pyramids of debris created by the termites.
    The interior living space was arranged in an L, with a narrow bathroom built into its innermost angle. The plumbing was shared between the bathroom and the kitchenette, with a dining area that wrapped around the corner to the "living" room. I could see the metal plate in the floor to which the wood-burning stove had been affixed. The walls, painted white, were dotted with daddy longlegs, and I found myself keeping an uneasy eye on them as I toured the premises. To one side of the front door was the Belltone box for the doorbell, about the size of a cigarette pack. Someone had popped the housing away from the wall, and I could see that the interior mechanism was missing. An electrical wire, sheathed in green plastic, had been cut and now drooped sideways like a wilted flower stem with the blossom gone.
    Lorna's sleeping area had probably been tucked into the short arm of the L. The kitchen cabinets were empty, linoleum-lined shelves still gritty with cornmeal and old cereal dust. Karo syrup or molasses had oozed onto the surface, and I could see circles where the bottoms of the canned goods had formed rings. I checked the bathroom, which was devoid of exterior windows. The toilet was old, the tank tall and narrow. The bowl itself protruded in front, like a porcelain Adam's apple. The brown wood seat was cracked and looked as if it would pinch you in places you cherished. The sink was the size of a dishpan, supported on two metal legs. I tried the cold-water faucet, jumping back with a shriek when a shot of brown water spurted out. The water pipes began to make a low-pitched humming sound, sirens in the underground announcing the crime of trespass. The bathtub rested on ball feet. Dead leaves had collected in a swirling pattern near the drain, while black swans glided across an opaque green plastic shower curtain that hung from an elliptical metal frame.
    In the main room, despite the lack of furniture, I could surmise how the space had been used. Close to the front door, dents in the pine flooring suggested the placement of a couch and two chairs. I pictured a small wooden dinette set at the other end of the living room where it turned the corner into the kitchen. To one side of the sink, there was a small cabinet with a phone jack attached just above the baseboard. Lorna probably had a portable phone or a long extension cord, which would have allowed her to keep the phone in the kitchen by day and beside her bed at night. I turned and scanned the premises. Around me, shadows deepened and the daddy longlegs began to tiptoe down the walls, restless at my intrusion. I eased out of the cabin, keeping a close eye on them.
    I picked at my dinner, sitting alone in my favorite booth at Rosie's restaurant half a block from my