Too Sweet to Die Read Free Page A

any airlines that operate out of Oxnard?”
    “Nope.”
    Hagopian began rocking in the dark bentwood rocker he’d chosen to sit in. “Neither do I. Particularly out of a mortuary in Oxnard. I may have been hoodwinked.”
    Easy said, “You loaned your Jaguar to this girl, huh?”
    When Hagopian nodded new rings grew under his dark eyes. “Buff. A lovely girl, though a little small upstairs. She’s statuesque, John. Or can you be statuesque if you have small tits?”
    “So you loaned the car to this allegedly statuesque girl and she didn’t bring it back,” said Easy. “Hagopian, I thought you took a vow not to loan your car out to women any more.”
    “Hell, I took a vow of chastity when I was twelve and thinking of entering the priesthood.” Hagopian got up and crossed to a small refrigerator. “A beer?”
    “Dark, if you have.”
    “See, Buff told me she’s a stewardess for a non-sched airline.” Hagopian produced two bottles of dark German beer. “And last week she asked if she could use the Jag to drive to the airport and I said sure. She hasn’t been back since, but I figured, you know, with a non-sched airline, maybe she flew to Ethiopia or the Polar regions or someplace.” He uncapped the bottles. “Then this morning the Oxnard police call and tell me they’ve got my car impounded. It was blocking the driveway at a mortuary and they couldn’t get the hearses in and out.”
    Easy took a bottle of beer from the dark writer. “When I talked to you a couple of weeks ago you were in love with a girl who rode a bicycle.”
    “That was Kim.” Hagopian narrowed one eye, studying the foam in his green beer bottle. “She got to be too wholesome for me. I didn’t mind the alfalfa sprouts for dinner or the brewers yeast in my morning tomato juice. But that five-mile jog before we could screw was annoying.” Hagopian sipped some dark beer. “This is a nutty town, John. I’m starting to suspect I may give off some kind of vibrations which attract only nutty broads.”
    “A five-mile run every day is good for you.”
    “I wanted to screw her more than once a day,” explained Hagopian. “Hearing about my true-to-life romances is probably not why you came here.”
    Easy drew a photo of Jill Jeffers from the inside pocket of his $250 sport coat and unfolded it. “Know her?”
    Hunching slightly, Hagopian approached the picture. “Oh, sure. Jill Jeffers. I interviewed her for TV Look about six, seven months ago. She didn’t seem to have anything approaching total recall when it came to her past life.”
    “She’s only been Jill Jeffers for two years,” said Easy, dropping the glossy picture to the flowered rug. “Before that she was Jillian Nordlin, daughter of former State Senator Nordlin.”
    “Ah!” Hagopian’s eyebrows climbed and wrinkles quivered on his high wide forehead. “I knew she looked familiar.” He gestured at the filing cabinets. “I have a whole fat folder on her ill-fated family.”
    “Why ill-fated?”
    “Leonard Nordlin has had two severe heart attacks in the past three years or so,” said Hagopian, beckoning Easy to follow him. “Jill Nordlin had some kind of breakdown about four years ago. Worst of all, her mother committed suicide about then.”
    “I don’t remember that.”
    “Nobody can remember everything,” said Hagopian. “Which is why I started my own private clipping morgue.” He moved sideways down a cool lane between cabinets. Stretching up he tugged out a heavy drawer. “The Nordlin file should be here. Who are you working for on this and why?”
    “Marco Killespie,” said Easy. “Jill Jeffers was doing a spot for him. She didn’t come back to work this Monday. Since Killespie has got two-thirds of a root beer commercial shot, he’d like her to come back and finish it.”
    “Killespie.” Hagopian laughed, his eyes going wide. “Remember that girl Pam I was going with, had tits like casaba melons. Killespie used Pam in one of his commercials