Free If Dying Was All by Ron Goulart

“I might as well go back out to the studio and work overtime on the God damn bunny rabbits. We can use a little extra dough.” He made a final half-hearted jab in Easy’s direction, turned and tromped away down the wooden stairs.
    “You’re not like a policeman, are you?” asked Perry, standing. “You can drink on duty?”
    “I have that option, yes.”
    She scooped up a straw handbag and a pair of binoculars and, as soon as her husband disappeared into shadows, led Easy below.
    On the asphalt court two nearly identical tanned brunettes were playing. “Your husband’s in the animation business?” Easy asked.
    “Yes. Do you think that may account for his behavior?” She motioned him down a rubber-matted alleyway. “Bud is somewhat like a big cartoon bear, now that I think about it. He’s usually very nice, though, so long as he’s winning.”
    The cocktail lounge was a large, sparsely furnished room, filled with deep shadows and sunlight turned blue by the long, high, tinted windows. The air conditioning had chilled the place. Perry stopped next to a round-topped table and waited for Easy to pull out one of the chairs for her. Easy sat opposite the blonde.
    After a few seconds, Perry said, “As I understand it from what your secretary implied, Mr. McCleary is in some kind of trouble. Is that it?”
    “He thinks Jackie has come back to life.”
    The blonde turned to watch the bar across the chill blue room. The bartender was a hollow-chested man in a red coat a size too large. He had a ladder of three Band-Aids running up the left side of his neck. He was telling a story to a man in tennis clothes and ignoring Perry’s glance. “What do you mean, Mr. Easy. Has he had some kind of breakdown?”
    “Jackie wrote him a letter.” Easy stared at the bartender and the man looked over, then came toward their table. “Mailed it in the town of Manzana.”
    “I’m not feeling so good today,” explained the bartender. “I had a series of warts removed today.”
    “Oh,” said Perry, “that’s too bad, Eddie. Was it painful?”
    “No, Mrs. Burley, but it left me an unsightly mess.” Eddie fingered the bandages. “The usual?”
    “Yes. Mr. Easy?”
    “Draft beer.”
    Eddie moved off and Perry said, “I don’t quite understand, Mr. Easy. You mean Jackie’s actually been in communication with her father?”
    “Would that be possible, do you think?”
    Perry jabbed her right hand into her straw bag and brought out a pack of slim cigarettes. “I really ought to stop. I got Bud to stop, not that it’s helped his game any.” She tapped the pack on the table edge and a cigarette shot out. Rolling it along the tabletop with her fingertip, she said, “Jackie McCleary has been dead since the summer of 1965. I was on the yacht, as I’m sure you know.”
    “No one saw her jump.”
    “She jumped, though,” said Perry. “The poor kid. No, she’s dead, Mr. Easy. Dead and gone.”
    “Why would someone want to make her father think she’s alive?”
    “He already thinks she’s alive.” The blonde snapped up the cigarette and put it to her lips. “I’ve kept in touch with him. You know, called him now and then. Sometimes, when he’s been especially down or been drinking overly much, he calls me. Buddy can’t stand that. Calls him an old son of a bitch.” She lit the cigarette for herself and sighed smoke. “I really ought to stop.”
    Easy looked from the turquoise ring to Perry’s blue gray eyes. “Suppose somebody wrote McCleary a letter to lure him out of his house for a day or so. What would be in the house, or in Jackie’s cottage, do you think?”
    “Mr. McCleary would know better than I do.”
    “Would it, maybe, be something Booth Graither gave Jackie before he was killed?”
    The pretty blonde inhaled, exhaled, narrowed one eye. “Booth Graither was never one of us, Mr. Easy. Has someone told you he was?”
    “I’ve seen pictures. He was close to Jackie, down in San Amaro,” said