REVIEW: "D IS FOR DEADBEAT" by SUE GRAFTON
In Sue Grafon’s D IS FOR DEADBEAT, on the day before Halloween, a tall, gaunt looking-fellow in his fifties named Alvin Limarrdo shows up at the office of Kinsey Millhone, Private Investigator, and asks her to deliver a cashier’s check in the amount of $25,000 to a local man named Tony Gahan. He tells her he lives in Los Angeles and has been unable to locate the young man, and would appreciate her help. “You want to tell me what this is about?” she asks him.
“He did me a favor. I want to say thanks. That’s all there is,” he replies. He explains that an attorney would charge him a lot more money to find Mr. Gahan and deliver the check, so he’d like Kinsey to do the job. He gives her a personal check in the amount of $400 for fees for her services, and provides her with the cashier’s check and his contact information.
She secures the cashier’s check in her safe, then deposits the check in her checking account that afternoon and begins searching for Tony Gahan. Four days later she receives notification from the bank that the account on which the check was drawn is closed. When she calls Limarrdo’s phone number in Los Angeles, it’s disconnected. Thus, begins her pursuit of the “deadbeat.”
In her search she immediately discovers that Limarrdo’s real name is John Daggett. She calls all the Daggetts in the phone book, trying to locate relatives. The next day, Barbara Daggett shows up at Kinsey’s office, announces that she is John Daggett’s daughter, and tells Kinsey that she’s trying to find her father, too. A few days later, Daggett’s dead body washes ashore at the Santa Teresa beach. Barbara and Kinsey identify his body at the morgue. Then, Barbara hires Kinsey to find out who murdered Mr. Daggett.
Kinsey meets with her friend Sergeant Jonah Robb at Santa Teresa Police Department a couple of times to gather information on backgrounds of suspects. But, oops -- one night their professional relationship takes an intimate turn.
At Daggett’s funeral, there are folks who are grieving and folks who are happy he’s dead. Kinsey studies all of them to find clues to who killed the man who had so many enemies. By the time she’s able to assess the situation and solve who participated in the crime, she finds herself at the top of Santa Teresa’s tallest building, out on a ledge, holding on for dear life. … Pam Wilder …