CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

That afternoon I hit a few of my informants and learned nothing new. Then I decided to visit Danny Kettle. A few years my junior, Danny was a child of the sixties in one respect and one respect only. He’d never had the long hair, never espoused the leftist politics, never worn the freak clothes, never used the hippie/druggie jargon that eventually got mainstreamed. What he did was discover marijuana during his junior year in college, and he’d been blissfully stoned ever since.

Danny’s wealthy grandmother had left him a generous trust fund. His father had been a prosperous realtor, and his parents’ deaths had left him even more money and a nice fifties-style, split-level house on the east side of town. His life consisted of banking his trust checks, smoking dope, and jabbering distractedly with his live-in girlfriend, a charming New Age nutcase named Wynette Dobbs who was known locally as Wendy the Wiccan. It was a match made in heaven since Danny was a gentle nihilist who believed nothing, while Wendy was an equally gentle optimist who believed everything that came along, provided it was nonsense. Between the two of them they managed to keep all their bases covered.

I pulled up in front of his house and shook my head with a smile on my face. The yard was a model of well-groomed suburban respectability, the work of a local lawn maintenance firm Danny contracted with. The house was in excellent repair, its wooden trim freshly painted, and a sedate, late-model gray Buick sedan sat primly in the carport. Sometimes it was hard to believe that the place’s owner had been fried on weed for the last four decades.

Danny had his feelers deep into the local drug culture since he socialized with many of the town’s young dopers. Early in his career as a cannabis zombie, he’d been reluctant to accommodate me in one of my frequent quests for information. After he watched in horror as I flushed a half pound of high-grade Colombian down the toilet, we reached an understanding: if Danny wanted to stay toked up, he had to pay for the privilege by being forthcoming about what I needed to know.

I rang the bell three times before he finally drifted to the front door. “Oh, hi, Bo,” he said. “Come on in.”

The house was as orderly inside as out. Danny himself was a plump, bland man of medium height with short gray hair and a pink face that was unlined as a baby’s bottom. I took a grotesque modernistic chair that was surprisingly comfortable while Danny flopped down on a bulbous peg-legged sofa that was straight out of I Love Lucy.

“Have you ever considered getting some new furniture?” I asked. “This stuff is a bit much.”

“I know, but it was my mom’s, and I hate to think of getting rid of it. She grew up poor, and this place was her dream house.”

“Where’s Wendy?”

“She and some other lady have gone crystal farming.”

“What in the hell is crystal farming?”

“Beats me, Bo. She told me how it works, but you know I can’t keep that kind of shit together in my head. So what can I do for you?”

I gave him a cold smile. “What do you think, Danny? Information.”

“Yeah, but about what?”

“The Twiller murder.”

“I thought you nailed the Raynes kid for that.”

“I did,” I said. “But there was somebody else involved.”

“I wish it hadn’t happened, Bo. I hate violence. I really do.”

“I know you do, Danny. That’s one reason I’ve cut you as much slack as I have over the years. That and the tips you’ve given me. So what do you know about Emmet Zorn?”

He spaced out on me for a few moments. Like most tea heads, he often displayed the annoying quirk of not reacting to a question until long after it was asked, if at all. “Danny, what about Zorn?” I prodded gently.

“Zorn? Oh yeah, Zorn. I’m on it, Bo. Thinking, thinking. Hmummm, let me see. I guess the last time I saw him was at a party Wendy and I gave here about a month ago. He wasn’t actually invited, but he and that Twiller woman came with some other people who were. But he won’t ever be allowed to come back.”

“Why not?”

“You need to understand that I’ve got certain fixed guidelines for parties. Nothing but food and drink consumed in the house. All smoking, whether it’s tobacco or anything else, is done on the patio. And no hard drugs. That’s an ironclad rule. Anyway, I caught Zorn and some kid doing lines in the kitchen and asked them to leave. That’s when he got real buddy-buddy and told me he knew how we could make some real money. I let him know that I had enough money to suit my modest needs, and then he tried to sell me the stuff.”

“What stuff?” I asked.

“Coke. A bunch of it. He claimed to be in tight with some big dealer somewhere and said I could double my money. I told him I wasn’t interested because I could get fifty years in prison too. Besides, I’m against hard drugs. You know that.”

“Was he trying to impress you or did he really want to sell you the stuff?”

“Who knows? If he was trying to impress me, anybody could have told him it doesn’t work.”

I had to laugh a little. “You’re right on that. You’re the most underwhelmed guy I ever met.”

“What’s the point in getting cranked up about all the important people some guy claims to know? I mean, we’re all going to be dead in a few years, anyway.”

“So just toke up and watch it all slide by. Right, Danny?”

“Works for me, Bo. Always has.”

“How about Doyle Raynes?”

“I can’t tell you much about him. Kind of a sad little guy, it seems like to me. He’s been to a couple of our parties with some other people. Mostly he just goes on about how he’s trying to restore that old junk car of his. I have a hard time believing he killed that woman.”

“I know,” I said. “But there’s no doubt the body was hauled in his vehicle, so he had to be involved somehow. What about Amanda Twiller? Did you know her?”

“Not really. She came with Zorn that night. I think she was all pilled up, but she didn’t cause any trouble.”

“Did she leave with Zorn?”

“I think so. Some of this stuff is hard to remember.”

I rose to my feet. “I want you to get on the phone and call some of your doper buddies and find out anything you can for me, Danny.”

He spaced out again. “Phone?” he finally asked.

“The telephone, Danny.” I pointed at the side table. “That thing over there.”

“Oh, you mean the phone. Sure, Bo, I’ll do what I can.”

He followed me to the door. “I’m really kinda glad you stopped by,” he said. “It’s been a sad day for me.”

“How come?”

“I can’t find Little Trixie.”

“You mean your black Chihuahua?”

“Yeah.”

“Danny, that dog died a couple of years ago.”

“Are you sure about that? I could swear she was here just yesterday.”

I sighed and gave him a gentle pat on the arm. “Have a couple more joints, Danny. She’ll come back.”