Read Kinsey and Me for Free Online Page B

saddle oxfords remain unscuffed and our lunch boxes have
     no dents.
    My name is Kinsey Millhone. I’m female, thirty-two, twice divorced, “doing business
     as” Kinsey Millhone Investigations in a little town ninety-five miles north of Los
     Angeles. Mine isn’t a walk-in trade like a beauty salon. Most of my clients find themselves
     in a bind and then seek my services, hoping I can offer a solution for a mere thirty
     bucks an hour, plus expenses. Robert Ackerman’s message was waiting on my answering
     machine that Monday morning at nine when I got in.
    “Hello. My name is Robert Ackerman and I wonder if you could give me a call. My wife
     is missing and I’m worried sick. I was hoping you could help me out.” In the background,
     I could hear whiny children, my favorite kind. He repeated his name and gave me a
     telephone number. I made a pot of coffee before I called him back.
    A little person answered the phone. There was a murmured child-sized hello and then
     I heard a lot of heavy breathing close to the mouthpiece.
    “Hi,” I said. “Can I speak to your daddy?”
    “Yes.” Long silence.
    “Today?” I added.
    The receiver was clunked down on a tabletop and I could hear the clatter of footsteps
     in a room that sounded as if it didn’t have any carpeting. In due course, Robert Ackerman
     picked up the phone.
    “Lucy?”
    “It’s Kinsey Millhone, Mr. Ackerman. I just got your message on my answering machine.
     Can you tell me what’s going on?”
    “Oh wow, yeah—”
    He was interrupted by a piercing shriek that sounded like one of those policeman’s
     whistles you use to discourage obscene phone callers. I didn’t jerk back quite in
     time. Shit, that hurt.
    I listened patiently while he dealt with the errant child.
    “Sorry,” he said when he came back on the line. “Look, is there any way you could
     come out to the house? I’ve got my hands full and I just can’t get away.”
    I took his address and brief directions, then headed out to my car.

    R OBERT AND THE MISSING Mrs. Ackerman lived in a housing tract that looked like it was built in the forties,
     before anyone ever dreamed up the notion of family rooms, country kitchens, and his-
     ’n’-hers solar spas. What we had here was a basic drywall box, cramped living room
     with a dining L, a kitchen, and one bathroom sandwiched between two nine-by-twelve-foot
     bedrooms. When Robert answered the door I could just about see the whole place at
     a glance. The only thing the builders had been lavish with was the hardwood floors,
     which, in this case, was unfortunate. Little children had banged and scraped these
     floors and had brought in some kind of foot grit that I sensed before I was even asked
     to step inside.
    Robert, though harried, had a boyish appeal—a man in his early thirties perhaps, lean
     and handsome, with dark eyes and dark hair that came to a pixie point in the middle
     of his forehead. He was wearing chinos and a plain white T-shirt. He had a baby, maybe
     eight months old, propped on his hip like a grocery bag. Another child clung to his
     right leg, while a third rode his tricycle at various walls and doorways, making quite
     loud sounds with his mouth.
    “Hi, come on in,” Robert said. “We can talk out in the backyard while the kids play.”
     His smile was sweet.
    I followed him through the tiny disorganized house and out to the backyard, where
     he set the baby down in a sandpile framed with two-by-fours. The second child held
     on to Robert’s belt loops and stuck a thumb in its mouth, staring at me while the
     tricycle child tried to ride off the edge of the porch. I’m not fond of children.
     I’m really not. Especially the kind who wear hard brown shoes. Like dogs, these infants
     sensed my distaste and kept their distance, eyeing me with a mixture of rancor and
     disdain.
    The backyard was scruffy, fenced in, and littered with the fifty-pound sacks the sand
     had come in. Robert gave the children