P Is for Peril

number. I'd never met Detective Odessa, whom Fiona'd mentioned in passing, but a conversation with him was the first item on my list. Driving back into town, I noticed my stomach had begun to churn with anxiety. I tried to pinpoint my doubts, laying them out one by one, though not necessarily in the order of importance.
    1. I didn't particularly like-or trust-Fiona. She hadn't been candid with the cops and I didn't think she was being entirely candid with me. Under the circumstances, I probably should have declined to take the job. Already I was regretting the haste with which I'd agreed.
    2. I wasn't sure I could be effective. I'm often uneasy at the outset of an investigation, especially one like this. Nine weeks had passed since Dr. Purcell was last seen. Whatever the circumstances surrounding a disappearance, the passage of time seldom works in your favor. Witnesses embellish. They invent. The memory grows foggy. The truth tends to blur with repetition, and details are altered to suit various personal interpretations. People want to be helpful, which means they embroider their stories, coloring events according to their biases as the situation drags on. Entering the game this late, I knew the likelihood of my making any critical discovery was almost out of the question. Fiona did have a point in that sometimes a fresh perspective can shift the focus of an investigation. All well and good, but intuition was telling me that any break in the case was going to be the result of serendipity, a term synonymous with unadulterated dumb luck.
    3. I didn't like the bullshit about the retainer.
    I stopped off at McDonald's and ordered coffee and a couple of Egg McMuffins. I needed the comfort of junk food as well as the nourishment, if that's what you want to call it. I munched while I drove, eating with such eagerness I bit my own index finger.
    I might as well take a moment here to identify myself. My name is Kinsey Millhone. I'm a licensed private investigator in Santa Teresa, California, which is ninety-five miles north of Los Angeles. I'm female, thirty-six, twice divorced, childless, and otherwise unencumbered. Aside from my car, I don't own much in the way of material possessions. My business, Millhone Investigations, consists entirely of me. I was a cop for two years early in my twenties, and through personal machinations too tedious to explain, I realized law enforcement didn't suit me. I was way too crabby and uncooperative to adjust to department regulations, with all the ethics clauses thrown in: I have been known to bend the rules. Plus, the shoes were clunky and the uniform and the belt made my ass look too wide.
    Having left gainful city employment, I apprenticed myself to a two-man office of private investigators, where I put in the hours necessary to apply for my license. I've been on my own now for a good ten years, licensed, bonded, and heavily insured. A good portion of the last decade, I spent pursuing arson and wrongful death claims for California Fidelity Insurance, first as a bona fide employee, later as an independent contractor. We came to a parting of the ways three years ago in October 1983. Since then, I've rented space from the law firm of Kingman and Ives, an arrangement that I'd begun to suspect was on the verge of change.
    For the past year, Lonnie Kingman had been complaining about the shortage of space. He'd already expanded once, taking over the entire third floor of a building he owns free and clear. He'd now purchased a second building, this one on lower State Street, where he intended to relocate as soon as escrow closed. He'd found a tenant for our current digs, and the only question that remained was whether I'd go with him or find an office of my own. I'm a loner at heart, and while I'm fond of Lonnie, the whole idea of working in close contact with other people had begun to get on my nerves. I found myself going into the office nights and weekends, spending half my days working from home- anything to create the sense of space and solitude. I'd talked to a real estate broker about month-to-month rentals, and I'd responded to several classified ads. So far I hadn't seen anything that really struck my fancy. My requirements were modest: room for my desk, swivel chair, file cabinets, and a few fake plants. In addition, I pictured a small but tasteful executive potty. The problem was that everything I liked was too large or too expensive, and anything that fit my budget was too cramped,