K is for Killer Read Online Free Page B

loose canopy. The few stars I saw were as bright as ice chips flung across the sky. The ocean rumbled along the winter beach half a block away. I could smell salt, like woodsmoke, on the still night air. Ahead of me, a light glowed in the window of my second-story loft, and I could see the wind-tossed pine boughs tapping at the glass. A man on a bicycle passed me, dressed in dark clothes, moving quickly, the heels of his cycling shoes marked by strips of reflector tape. He made no sound except for the soft hum of air through his spokes. I found myself staring after him, as if he were an apparition.
    I pushed through the gate, which swung shut behind me with a comforting squeak. When I reached the backyard, I glanced at my landlord’s kitchen window automatically,though I knew it would be dark. Henry had gone back to Michigan to see his family and wouldn’t return for another couple of weeks. I was keeping an eye on his place, bringing in his newspaper and sorting through his mail, sending on anything that seemed critical.
    As usual, I found myself surprised at how much I missed him. I’d first met Henry Pitts four years ago when I was looking for a studio apartment. I’d been raised primarily in trailer parks, where I lived with my maiden aunt after the death of my parents when I was five years old. In my twenties, two brief marriages did little to promote my sense of permanence. After Aunt Gin’s death, I moved back into her rented trailer, retreating into the solace of that compact space. I had by then left the Santa Teresa Police Department, and I was working for the man who taught me much of what I know now about private investigation. Once I was licensed and had set up an office of my own, I occupied a series of single- and double-wides in various Santa Teresa trailer parks, the last of these being the Mountain View Mobile Home Estates out in the suburb of Colgate. I probably would have gone on living there indefinitely except that I’d been evicted along with a number of my neighbors. Several parks in the area, the Mountain View among them, had converted to “seniors, 55 and older only,” and the courts were in the process of reviewing all the discrimination suits that had been filed as a result. I didn’t have the patience to wait for an outcome, so I began to make the rounds of the available studio rentals.
    Armed with newspaper ads and a map of the city, I drove from one sorry listing to the next. The search was discouraging. Anything in my price range (which ran all the way from very cheap to extremely modest) was either badly located, filthy dirty, or in complete disrepair. Let’s don’teven talk about the issues of charm or character. I chanced on Henry’s ad posted at the Laundromat and checked it out only because I was in the area.
    I can still remember the day I first parked my VW and pushed my way through Henry’s squeaking gate. It was March, and a light rain had varnished the streets, perfuming the air with the smell of wet grass and narcissus. The flowering cherry trees were in bloom, pink blossoms littering the sidewalk out in front. The studio had been a single-car garage converted into a tiny “bachelorette,” which almost exactly duplicated the kind of quarters I was used to. From the outside the place was completely nondescript. The garage had been connected to the main house by means of an open breezeway that Henry had glassed in, most days using the space to proof mammoth batches of bread dough. He’s a retired commercial baker and still rises early and bakes almost daily.
    His kitchen window was open, and the smells of yeast, cinnamon, and simmering spaghetti sauce wafted out across the sill into the mild spring air. Before I knocked and introduced myself, I cupped my hands against the studio window and peered in at the space. At that time, there was really only one large room seventeen feet on a side, with a narrow bump-out for a small