drinking coffee and staring at the sports section.
“Well there he is.” My mother looked up from a pan of frying bacon, smiled, and began pouring me a cup of coffee. “We thought we might have to go in after you.”
I smiled back, took the coffee, and tried to shake off my worry. My dad looked up from the paper. “How you feeling?” he asked.
“Good. Slept like a rock.” I smiled as I took a seat at the table across from him. But it was a lie. The bacon, eggs, toast, and small talk about how the boat was running were all permeated by the residual dread from the day before. I was afraid of what else I might learn from Murdock, but I was also afraid of remaining ignorant of the truth. I kept hearing Andersen’s angry voice. It was impossible to ignore.
When I left the house a little after ten, my mother hugged me like normal, but clung a little tighter and longer than usual. And, as though sensing some kind of trouble, she spoke more earnestly when she uttered her standard, “Take care of yourself, dear.” My father just shook my hand, remained seated at the table, and smiled, somewhat distant. “Give it hell in class and finish at the top,” was all he said.
Palm Springs sits in the middle of a desert. In August, the heat there is almost unbearable and even at ninety miles an hour I found myself debating whether to put up the top and turn on the air conditioning. It was one hundred ten degrees and the air came at me like the convection current off a blast furnace. The wide and barren Cochella Valley stretched east and south from Palm Springs until the mountains flattened out and the broad desert opened up, stretching all the way to Arizona. It is cruel land, but brown and purple and majestic in its own unforgiving beauty.
The oddity of Palm Springs, with its endless golf courses, manicured lawns, swimming pools, and sky-high palm trees, is shocking given the surrounding landscape. I came in on Palm Canyon Drive and drove slow along Tahquitz Canyon, marveling at the boutiques and restaurants, noting at each stoplight that none of it should be there. I found Murdock’s office in a squatty brown building, parked, put the top up on the car, and waited for someone to arrive.
After twenty minutes, a white Audi wagon pulled into the lot, drove up toward me slowly, and then stopped. A thin, athletic man in his early fifties got out and walked toward me. He had the stride of someone accustomed to a leisurely life. He was tan and looked like a guy with a single digit handicap and a killer backhand. I opened the door as he approached.
“Mr. Olson?” He seemed hesitant.
“Mr. Murdock?” We shook hands and Murdock looked me over for a moment, perhaps surprised to be meeting someone so young. I saw him catch my watch out of the corner of his eye. Then, he glanced behind me at the new BMW and concluded I must be who I said I was.
“Good to meet you. Why don’t we get out of this heat. It’s impossible to do anything in the middle of the day around here. At least in August anyway.” Murdock’s crisp tan shorts brushed together as he walked to his office door and pulled a key from his pocket. “The trick is to get up and at it early,” he said without looking back. Then, turning as he opened the door, “I got eighteen in this morning.” He grinned. I grinned back and nodded approvingly.
The office was cool and I immediately questioned whether the golf story was true. Why would someone leave the air conditioning on all weekend?
“Well, there’s the stuff I have,” he said as we walked past his secretary’s desk. I looked at a four-inch thick folder with a flap over the top and a large rubber band stretched around it. We went in through another open door and sat in Murdock’s back office.
The furniture was non-descript, it could have been stolen from any bank lobby in America. Murdock reclined in his chair and folded his fingers behind his head. “So Sharon Steele. What can I tell you?”
“Well, I know that Sharon hired you three days before she was killed. I’ve got a copy of the check she wrote you for the retainer.” I paused, shifting in the chair but really watching for Murdock’s reaction. He seemed unfazed.