Kinsey & Me: Stories by Sue Grafton

A free preview of

KINSEY AND ME

by Sue Grafton

Now available!

***

long gone

September in Santa Teresa. I’ve never known anyone yet who doesn’t suffer a certain restlessness when autumn rolls around. It’s the season of new school clothes, fresh notebooks, and finely sharpened pencils without any teeth marks in the wood. We’re all eight years old again and anything is possible. The new year should never begin on January 1. It begins in the fall and continues as long as our saddle oxfords remain unscuffed and our lunch boxes have no dents.

My name is Kinsey Millhone. I’m female, thirty-two, twice divorced, “doing business as” Kinsey Millhone Investigations in a little town ninety-five miles north of Los Angeles. Mine isn’t a walk-in trade like a beauty salon. Most of my clients find themselves in a bind and then seek my services, hoping I can offer a solution for a mere thirty bucks an hour, plus expenses. Robert Ackerman’s message was waiting on my answering machine that Monday morning at nine when I got in.

“Hello. My name is Robert Ackerman and I wonder if you could give me a call. My wife is missing and I’m worried sick. I was hoping you could help me out.” In the background, I could hear whiny children, my favorite kind. He repeated his name and gave me a telephone number. I made a pot of coffee before I called him back.

A little person answered the phone. There was a murmured child-sized hello and then I heard a lot of heavy breathing close to the mouthpiece.

“Hi,” I said. “Can I speak to your daddy?”

“Yes.” Long silence.

“Today?” I added.

The receiver was clunked down on a tabletop and I could hear the clatter of footsteps in a room that sounded as if it didn’t have any carpeting. In due course, Robert Ackerman picked up the phone.

“Lucy?”

“It’s Kinsey Millhone, Mr. Ackerman. I just got your message on my answering machine. Can you tell me what’s going on?”

“Oh wow, yeah—”

He was interrupted by a piercing shriek that sounded like one of those policeman’s whistles you use to discourage obscene phone callers. I didn’t jerk back quite in time. Shit, that hurt.

I listened patiently while he dealt with the errant child.

“Sorry,” he said when he came back on the line. “Look, is there any way you could come out to the house? I’ve got my hands full and I just can’t get away.”

I took his address and brief directions, then headed out to my car.

Click here to continue reading