'May I have the next dance?'
'Dance? Freddy, I can't dance!'
'Yes, you can.'
'Freddy!'
'You can hop on your good leg. I'll hold you up. Come on!'
'Freddy, I can't!'
'I insist.'
'Freddy, I'm naked!'
'Good. So am I.'
'Freddy!'
'Enough said, Lor. Let's hit it!'
I scooped the naked, laughing Lorna into my arms and carried her into the living room and deposited her on the couch, then put Patti Page singing 'The Tennessee Waltz' on the phonograph. When she began to intone the syrupy introduction, I walked to Lorna and extended my hands.
She reached for them and I pulled her to me and held her close, encircling her at the buttocks and lifting her slightly off the floor so that her bad leg was suspended, and her weight was stationed on her good one. She held me tightly around my back, and we moved awkwardly in very small steps as Patti Page sang.
'Freddy,' Lorna whispered into my chest, 'I think I—'
'Don't think, Lor.'
'I was going to say . . . I think I love you.'
'Then think, because I know I love you.'
'Freddy, I don't think this record is corny.'
'Neither do I.'
We drove to Santa Barbara Saturday afternoon, taking the Pacific Coast Highway. The blue Pacific was on our left, brown cliffs and green hills were on our right. There was hardly a cloud or a trace of smog. We cruised along with the top down in comfortable silence. Lorna kept her hand on my leg, giving me playful squeezes from time to time.
We hadn't talked about the case all morning, and it hovered benignly on some back burner of my mind. By silent agreement we had not turned on the radio. The present was too good, too real, to be marred by intimation of the harsh reality we both worked in.
So we drove north, on our first outing together. Lorna inched her hand, broadly in a parody of stealth, up my leg until I went, 'Garrr! What the hell are you doing?'
She laughed. 'What do you think?'
I laughed. 'I think it feels good.'
'Don't think, just drive.' Lorna removed her hand. 'Freddy, I was thinking.'
'About what?'
'I just realized that I don't know a damn thing about what you do—I mean, with your time.'
I considered this, and decided to be candid. 'Well, before Wacky was killed I used to spend a lot of time with him. I don't really have any friends. And I used to chase women.'
Surprisingly, Lorna laughed at this. 'Strictly to get laid?'
'No, it was more than that. It was partly for the wonder, but that was B.L.'
'B.L.?'
'Before Lorna.'
Lorna squeezed my leg and pointed to the shoulder. 'Pull over, please.'
I did, alarmed at the darkly serious look on Lorna's face. I framed that face with both my hands. 'What is it, sweetheart?' I asked.
'Freddy, I can't have children,' Lorna blurted out.
'I don't care,' I said. 'I mean, I do care, but it doesn't make a goddamned bit of difference to me. Really, I —'
'Freddy, I just had to say it.'
'Because you think we have a future together?'
'Y-yes.'
'Lorna, I couldn't even consider a future without you.' She twisted away from me and bit at her knuckles. 'Lorna, I love you, and we're not leaving here until you tell me you believe what I've just told you.'
'I don't know. I think so.'
'Don't think.'
Lorna burst out laughing, tearfully. 'Then I believe you.'
'Good, now let's get the hell out of here, I'm hungry.'
We timed our arrival perfectly, Santa Barbara opening up before us, muted in the twilight like a heaven-sent reprieve from the humid, smog-bound commonness of L.A.
We found our weekend haven on Bath Street, a few blocks off State: the Mission Bell Hotel, a converted Victorian mansion painted a guileless bright yellow. We registered as Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Underhull. The desk clerk started to look askance at our lack of luggage, but the sight of my badge when I pulled out my billfold to pay for the room calmed him down.
Giggling conspiratorially, I took Lorna's arm as we walked to the elevator. Our room had bright yellow walls festooned with cheap oil paintings of the Santa Barbara Mission, bay windows fronting the palm-lined street, and a big brass bed with a bright yellow bedspread and canopy.
'I'll never eat another lemon,' Lorna said.
I kissed her on the cheek. 'Then let's not have fish tonight. I left my shaving kit in the car. I'll be right back.'
I took the yellow carpeted stairs down to street level. The clerk, a skinny, middle-aged man with incongruous bright red hair, started to fidget when he saw me walk through the foyer. I had the feeling he wanted to ask me something. He put out his cigarette and approached me.
I made it easy for him. 'What's up, doc?' I asked.
The man slouched in front of me, his hands jammed into his trouser pockets. He hemmed and hawed, then blurted it out: 'It ain't none of my business, Officer,' he said, looking around in all directions and lowering his voice, 'but when they say 'degenerate' do they really mean 'queer'?'
'What the—' I started to say, then realized the source of the crazy non sequitur and sighed. 'You mean it made the Santa Barbara papers?'
'Yes, sir. You're a big hero.
'I'm not at liberty to discuss it,' I said, leaving the clerk alone in the yellow foyer contemplating semantics.
I trotted down to State Street and found a newsstand, where I bought copies of the L.A.
GAMBLER CONFESSES TO KILLING OF HOLLYWOOD WOMAN!
Linked to at Least Six Other Murders!
LOS ANGELES SEPT. 7: Police today arrested a Suspect in the August 12 strangulation murder of Margaret Cadwallader, 36, of 2311 Harold Way, Hollywood. The suspect was named as Edward Engels, 32, of Horn Drive, West Hollywood. Shortly after his arrest, Engels, a gambler with no visible means of support, confessed to L.A.P.D. detectives Dudley Smith, Michael Breuning, and Frederick Underhill, saying, 'I killed Maggie! She treated me like dirt, so I returned her to the dirt.'
Miss Cadwallader, who worked as a bookkeeper at the Small World Import-Export Company in Los Angeles, was believed to have been killed by a burglar she interrupted in the early morning hours of August 12. Police had
