Free Kinsey and Me by Sue Grafton

landscape maintenance business
     when someone blew the top of his head off.
    I pulled into the driveway behind her, glancing at the frame-and-stucco bungalow with
     its patchy grass and dilapidated fence. It looked like one of those households where
     there’s always something under construction, probably without permits and not up to
     code. In this case, a foundation had been laid for an addition to the garage, but
     the weeds were already growing up through cracks in the concrete. A wooden outbuilding
     had been dismantled, the old lumber tossed in an unsightly pile. Closer to the house,
     there were stacks of cheap pecan wood paneling, sun-bleached in places and warped
     along one edge. It was all hapless and depressing, but she scarcely looked at it.
    I followed her into the house.
    “We were just getting the house fixed up when he died,” she remarked.
    “When did you buy the place?” I was manufacturing small talk, trying to cover my distaste
     at the sight of the old linoleum counter, where a line of ants stretched from a crust
     of toast and jelly all the way out the back door.
    “We didn’t really. This was my mother’s. She and my stepdad moved back to the Midwest
     last year.”
    “What about Rudd? Did he have any family out here?”
    “They’re all in Connecticut, I think, real la-di-da. His parents are dead, and his
     sisters wouldn’t even come out to the funeral.”
    “Did he have a lot of friends?”
    “All cocaine dealers have friends.”
    “Enemies?”
    “Not that I ever heard about.”
    “Who was his supplier?”
    “I don’t know that.”
    “No disputes? Suits pending? Quarrels with the neighbors? Family arguments about the
     inheritance?”
    She gave me a no on all four counts.
    I had told her I wanted to go through his personal belongings, so she showed me into
     the tiny back bedroom, where he’d set up a card table and some cardboard file boxes.
     A real entrepreneur. I began to search while she leaned against the door frame, watching.
    I said, “Tell me about what was going on the week he died.” I was sorting through
     canceled checks in a Nike shoe box. Most were written to the neighborhood supermarket,
     utilities, telephone company.
    She moved to the desk chair and sat down. “I can’t tell you much because I was at
     work. I do alterations and repairs at a dry cleaner’s up at Presipio Mall. Rudd would
     stop in now and then when he was out running around. He’d picked up a few jobs already,
     but he really wasn’t doing the gardening full-time. He was trying to get all his old
     business squared away. Some kid owed him money. I remember that.”
    “He sold cocaine on
credit
?”
    She shrugged. “Maybe it was grass or pills. Somehow the kid owed him a bundle. That’s
     all I know.”
    “I don’t suppose he kept any records.”
    “Un-uhn. It was all in his head. He was too paranoid to put anything down in black
     and white.”
    The file boxes were jammed with old letters, tax returns, receipts. It all looked
     like junk to me.
    “What about the day he was killed? Were you at work then?”
    She shook her head. “It was a Saturday. I was off work, but I’d gone to the market.
     I was out maybe an hour and a half, and when I got home, police cars were parked in
     front, and the paramedics were here. Neighbors were standing out on the street.” She
     stopped talking, and I was left to imagine the rest.
    “Had he been expecting anyone?”
    “If he was, he never said anything to me. He was in the garage, doing I don’t know
     what. Chauncey, next door, heard the shotgun go off, but by the time he got here to
     investigate, whoever did it was gone.”
    I got up and moved toward the hallway. “Is this the bedroom down here?”
    “Right. I haven’t gotten rid of his stuff yet. I guess I’ll have to eventually. I’m
     going to use his office for the nursery.”
    I moved into the master bedroom and went through his hanging clothes. “Did the police
     find