E Is for Evidence

"Oh Lord. I'd love to bring you up-to-date. Are you free for lunch by any chance?"

"For you… anything," I said.

She suggested the Edgewater Hotel at 12:30, which suited me. I'd have to change clothes first. My standard outfit consists of boots or te

5

The Edgewater Hotel sits on twenty-three acres of ocean-front property, with lawns sweeping down to the sea. An access road cuts through, not ten feet from the surf, with a sea wall constructed of local sandstone. The architecture of the main building is Spanish, with massive white stucco walls, arched doorways, and deeply recessed windows. Horizontal lines of red tile define the roof. A glass-walled dining patio juts out in front, white umbrella tables shel-tering the patrons from sunlight and buffeting sea winds. The grounds are landscaped with juniper and palm, hibis-cus, bottle brush and fern, flower beds filled year round with gaudy a

The valet parking attendant was far too discreet to remark, even with a look, the battered state of my ancient car. I moved into the hotel lobby and down a wide corridor furnished with a series of overstaffed, couches, inter-spersed with rubber plants. The ceiling overhead was wood-beamed, the walls tiled halfway up, sounds muffled by a ru

Ash had reserved a table in the main dining room. She was already seated, her face turned expectantly toward me as I approached. She looked much as she had in high school; pale-red hair, blue eyes set in a wide, friendly face mottled with freckles. Her teeth were very white and straight and her smile was engaging. I had forgotten how casually she dressed. She was wearing a blue wool jumpsuit with a military cut, and over it a bulky white sheepskin vest. I thought, with regret, of my jeans and turtleneck.

She was still maybe twenty pounds overweight, and she moved with all the enthusiasm of an ungainly pup, leaping up to hug me when I arrived at the table. There had always been a guileless quality about her. Despite the fact she came from money, she had never been snobbish or affected. Where Olive had seemed reserved, and Ebony intimidating, Ash seemed utterly unselfconscious, one of those girls everybody liked. In our sophomore year, we had ended up sitting in adjoining homeroom seats and we'd often chatted companionably before classes began. Neither of us was a cheerleader, an honor student, or a candidate for prom queen. The friendship that sprang up between us, though genuine, was short-lived. I met her family. She met my aunt. I went to her house and thereaf-ter neatly bypassed her coming to mine. While the Woods were always gracious to me, it was obvious that Ash func-tioned at the top of the social heap and I at the bottom. Eventually the disparity made me so uncomfortable that I let the contact lapse. If Ash was injured by the rejection, she did a good job of covering it. I felt guilty about her anyway and was relieved the next year when she sat some-where else.

"Kinsey, you look great. I'm so glad you called. I or-dered us a bottle of Chardo

"Fine," I said, smiling. "You look just the same."

"Big rump, you mean," she said with a laugh. "You're just as thin as you always were, only I half expected you to show up in jeans. I don't believe I ever saw you in a dress."

"I thought I'd act like I had some class," I said. "How are you? When I didn't find you listed in the phone book, I thought you'd probably gotten married or left town."

"Actually, I've been gone for ten years and just got back. What about you? I can't believe you're a private detective. I always figured you'd end up in jail. You were such a rebel back then."

I laughed. I was a misfit in high school and hung out with guys known as "low-wallers" because they loitered along a low wall at the far end of the school grounds. "You remember Donan, the boy with the gold tooth who sat right in front of you in homeroom? He's an Ob-Gyn in town. Got his teeth fixed and went to med school."

Ash groaned, laughing. "God, that's one way to get your hand up a girl's skirt. What about the little swarthy one who sat next to you? He was fu

"He's still around. Bald now and overweight. He runs a liquor store up on the Bluffs. Who was that girlfriend of yours who used to shoplift? Francesca something."

"Palmer. She's living with a fellow in Santa Fe who designs furniture. I saw her about a year ago when I was passing through. God, she's still a klepto. Are you mar-ried?"

"Was." I held up two fingers to indicate the number of husbands who had come and gone.

"Children?" she asked.

"Oh God, no. Not me. You have any?"

"Sometimes I wish I did." Ash was watching me with shining eyes and somehow I knew anything I said would be fine with her.

"When did we see each other last? It's been years, hasn't it?" I asked.

She nodded. "Bass's twenty-first birthday party at the country club. You were with the most beautiful boy I ever saw in my life."

"Daniel," I said. "He was husband number two."

"What about number one? What was he like?"

"I better drink some first."

The waiter appeared with the wine, presenting the label for her inspection before he opened it. She waved aside the ritual of the sniffing of the cork and let him go ahead and pour for both of us. I noticed that the waiter was smiling to himself, probably charmed as most people are by Ash's breezy ma

I let her order for us. She knew all the waiters by name and ended up in a long chat with ours about what we should eat. She settled on steamed clams in a broth with Pernod, a salad of field greens lightly dressed, and said we'd think about dessert if we were good girls and cleaned our plates.

While we ate, I told her about my co

"Oh, Kinsey. I feel awful. I hope Lance isn't responsi-ble for the trouble you're in."

"Believe me, I do, too. What's the story on him? Is he the type to burn down the family warehouse?"

Ash didn't leap to his defense as I'd expected her to. "If he did, I don't think he'd snitch on himself," she said.

"Good point. Who'd go after him like that?"

"I don't know. That whole situation got very screwed up once Daddy died. He was crazy about the boys, but Bass was a dilettante and Lance raised hell half the time."

"I seem to remember that. Your father must have had co

"Oh, he did. You know how straight he was. Daddy had real strong ideas about parenting, but most of them were wrong. He had no idea how to implement them anyway. He wanted to control and mold and dominate but he couldn't even do that very well. Kids just don't behave like company employees. Daddy thought he'd have more control at home, but the truth was, he had less. Both Lance and Bass were determined to thwart him. Bass never has straightened out."