K Is for Killer

Where an occasional light burned; I pictured students churning out last minute papers, the nightmares of the young. Or maybe the lights burned for recent insomniacs like me.
    A police car cruised slowly along Cabana Boulevard, the uniformed officer turning to stare at me as I passed. I took a left onto my street and found a parking place. I locked the car. The sky was velvety with clouds now, the stars completely obscured. Darkness hugged the ground, while the sky was tinged with eerie light, like dark gray construction paper smudged with white chalk. Behind me, I heard the low hum of air moving swiftly through the spokes of a bike. I turned in time to see the man on the bicycle passing. From the rear, his taillight and the strips of reflecting tape on his heels made him look like someone juggling three small points of light. The effect was oddly unsettling, a circus act of the spirits performed solely for me.
    I went through the gate and let myself into my apartment, flipping on the light. Everything was orderly, just as I'd left it. The quiet was profound. I could feel a little nudge of anxiety, made up of weariness, the late hour, empty rooms around me. I wasn't going to be able to sleep at this point. It was like hunger – once the peak moment passed, the appetite diminished and you could simply do without. Food, sleep... what difference did it make? The metabolism shifts into overdrive, calling up energy from some other source. If I'd gone to bed at nine or even ten o'clock, I could have slept through the night. But now my sleep permit had reached its expiration point. Having stayed awake this long, I was consigned to further wakefulness.
    My body was both fatigued and fired up. I dropped my handbag and jacket on the chair by the door. I glanced at the answering machine: no messages. Did I have any wine on the premises? No, I did not. I checked the contents of the refrigerator, which showed nothing of culinary interest. My pantry was typically barren: a few stray cans and dried items that, singly or in combination, would never constitute anything remotely edible, unless you favored uncooked lentils with maple syrup. The peanut-butter jar had concentric swirl marks in the bottom, as if the rest of it had drained away. I found a kitchen knife and scraped the sides of the jar, eating the accumulated peanut butter off the blade as I walked around. "This is really pitiful," I said, laughing, but actually I didn't mind a bit.
    Idly I flipped on the TV set. Lorna's video was still in the VCR. I touched the remote control, and the tape began to run again. I had no intention of watching any late night sex, but I went through the credits twice. The night before, I'd tried directory assistance in San Francisco, hoping for a telephone number for the production company Cyrenaic Cinema. In the credits, the producer, director, and film editor were all listed by name: Joseph Ayers, Morton Kasselbaum, and Chester Ellis respectively. What the hell, telephone operators are awake all night.
    I tried the names in reverse order, bombing out on the first two. When I got to the producer, I picked up a hit. The operator sang, "Thank you for using AT and T," and a recording kicked in. A mechanical voice came on the line and recited Joseph Ayers's number for me twice.
    I made a note, then picked up the phone and called directory assistance in San Francisco again, this time checking for a listing in the names of the other players, Russell Turpin and Nancy Dobbs. She wasn't listed, but there were two Turpins with the first initial R, one on Haight and one on Greenwich. I wrote down both numbers. At the risk of wasting my time and Janice Kepler's money, a trip north might actually be worth a shot. If the contacts didn't pan out, at least there was hope of eliminating the porno angle as a factor in her daughter's death.
    I put a call through to Frankie's Coffee Shop, and Janice answered on the second ring. "Janice. This is Kinsey. I have a question for you."
    She said, "Fire away. We're not busy."
    I brought her up to date on my conversations with Lieutenant Dolan and Serena Bonney, and then filled her in on the minisurvey I'd done of the pornographic film crew. "I think it might be worthwhile to talk to the producer and the other actor."
    "I remember him," she cut in.
    "Yeah, well, between Turpin and this film producer, I'm hoping we can satisfy some questions. I'll try to contact both by phone in advance, but it looks like it'd make sense