K Is for Killer

bloom, pink blossoms littering the sidewalk out in front. The studio had been a single-car garage converted into a tiny 'bachelorette,' which almost exactly duplicated the kind of quarters I was used to. From the outside the place was completely nondescript. The garage had been connected to the main house by means of an open breezeway that Henry had glassed in, most days using the space to proof mammoth batches of bread dough. He's a retired commercial baker and still rises early and bakes almost daily.
    His kitchen window was open, and the smells of yeast, cinnamon, and simmering spaghetti sauce wafted out across the sill into the mild spring air. Before I knocked and introduced myself, I cupped my hands against the studio window and peered in at the space. At that time, there was really only one large room seventeen feet on a side, with a narrow bump-out for a small bath and a galley-style kitchenette. The space has been enlarged now to accommodate a sleeping loft and a second bathroom above. Even then, in its original state, one glance was all it took to know that I was home.
    Henry had answered the door wearing a white T-shirt and shorts, flip-flops on his feet, a rag tied around his head. His hands were powdered with flour, and he had a smudge of white on his forehead. I took in the sight of his narrow, tanned face, his white hair, and his bright blue eyes, wondering if I'd known him in a life before this one. He invited me in, and while we talked, he fed me the first of the countless homemade cinnamon rolls I've consumed in his kitchen since.
    Apparently he'd interviewed just about as many applicants as I had landlords. He was looking for a tenant without kids, vile personal habits, or an affinity for loud music. I was looking for a landlord who would mind his own business. I found Henry appealing because at his eighty-some years, I figured I was safe from unwanted attentions. I probably appealed to him because I was such a misanthrope. I'd spent two years as a cop and another two years amassing the four thousand hours required to apply for my private investigator's license. I'll been duly photographed, fingerprinted, bonded, and credentialed. Since my principal means of employment involved exposure to the underside of human nature, I tended even then to keep other people at a distance. I have since learned to be polite. I can even appear friendly when it suits my purposes, but I'm not really known for my cute girlish ways. Being a loner, I'm an ideal neighbor: quiet, reclusive, unobtrusive, and gone a lot.
    I unlocked my door and flipped on the downstairs lights, shed my jacket, turned on the TV, pressed the power button for the VCR, and slid Lorna Kepler's video into the machine. I don't see any point in going into excruciating detail about the contents of the tape. Suffice it to say the story line was simple and there was no character development. In addition, the acting was atrocious and there was much simulated sex of a sort more ludicrous than lewd. Maybe it was only my discomfort at the subject that made the whole enterprise seem amateurish. It surprised me to see the credits, which I rewound and read again from the beginning. There was a producer, a director, and an editor whose names sounded real: Joseph Ayers, Morton Kasselbaum, and Chester Ellis. I put the tape on hold while I jotted them down, then reactivated the play button and let the tape roll again. I expected the actors to have monikers like Biff Mandate, Cherry Ravish, and Randi Bottoms, but Lorna Kepler was listed, along with two others – Russell Turpin and Nancy Dobbs, whose quite ordinary names I made note of in passing. There didn't seem to be a writer, but then I suppose pornographic sex really doesn't require much in the way of scripting. The narrative would make bizarre reading in any event.
    I wondered where the film had been shot. Given what I imagined to be a pornographic film budget, no one was going to rent the locations or apply for any permits. For the most part, scenes took place in interiors that could have been anywhere. The lead actor, Russell Turpin, must have been hired solely on the basis of certain personal attributes that he displayed fore and aft. He and Nancy, ostensibly husband and wife, were sprawled naked on their living room couch, exchanging bad dialogue and subjecting each other to various sexual indignities. Nancy was awkward, her gaze straying to a spot at the left of camera where someone was clearly