E Is for Evidence - Sue Grafton [74]
Pettigrew had gone into my apartment to contact the Hertz manager by phone.
Lyda was zipped into a body bag. The gases that had collected under her skin made her look like she'd suddenly gained fifty pounds, and for a moment, grotesquely, I wor-ried she would burst. I got up abruptly and went inside. I poured myself a glass of wine and chugged it down like water. Officer Pettigrew finished his conversation and hung up the phone.
"I'm going in to take a shower if no one objects." I didn't wait for an answer. I grabbed a plastic garbage bag from the kitchen, closed myself into the bathroom and stripped, dropping every article of clothing, including my shoes, into the bag. I tied it shut and set it outside the bathroom door. I showered. I shampooed my hair. When I was done, I wrapped myself in a towel, searching my face in the mirror for reassurance. I couldn't shake the images. Lyda's features seemed to be superimposed on my own, the stench of her competing with the scent of shampoo and soap. Never had my own mortality seemed so immedi-ate. My ego recoiled, incapable of contemplating its own surcease. There's nothing so astonishing or insulting to a soul as the suggestion that a day might come when it would not "be." Thus springs religion with comforts I couldn't accept.
By 9:00 the neighborhood had cleared again. Several prints, including a partial palm, had been lifted from the car, which had then been towed to the impound lot. The Hertz manager had appeared on the scene and the finger-print technician had taken a set of his prints, as well as mine, for comparison. The crime-scene investigators would dust and vacuum the car like a crew of charwomen and then they'd begin the painstaking business of analyz-ing trace evidence.
In the meantime, I was too restless to stay at home. Any sense of refuge and safety I felt had been obliterated by the angle of Lyda's face, tilted so she seemed to be watching my gate. I hunched myself into a windbreaker and grabbed my handbag, depositing the sackful of fouled clothes in Henry's trash can on my way out. I cruised the neighborhood again, looking for Daniel's car, covering the same restaurant parking lots, the same motels. I still had his guitar in the back seat and I didn't think he'd skip out of town without retrieving it.
I hit pay dirt at the Beach View, which in fact only had a view of the backside of the adjacent motel. Daniel's ratty rented vehicle was parked in front of room 16, ground floor, rear. Parked beside it was a little red Alfa-Romeo convertible. Uneasily I turned to stare at it as I pulled in. I locked my car, pausing to check the glove compartment in the Alfa for the owner registration slip. Not surprisingly, the car belonged to Ashley Wood. My, my, my.
I knocked on Daniel's door. I could see that the lights were on, but there was a long wait. I was beginning to think they might have gone off somewhere on foot when the door opened and Daniel peered out. He was barefoot and shirtless, but he'd pulled on a pair of faded jeans. He looked slim-hipped and bronzed, his blond hair tousled as if he'd been asleep. His cheeks were flushed and the lines had been eased from around his eyes. He looked ten years younger, the haggard cast to his face magically erased. If he was surprised to see me, he gave no indication of it.
"Mind if I come in?" I asked.
He hesitated slightly