“Well, if she’s straight—”

“Definitely, Bern. No question.”

“Then who were you wondering about?”

“Kinsey.”

“Kinsey?”

“Kinsey Millhone.”

“Kinsey Millhone?”

“What are you, an echo? Yeah, Kinsey Millhone. What’s the matter with you, Bernie? Kinsey Millhone, leading private detective of Santa Teresa, California. Jesus, Bern, don’t you read the books?”

“Of course I read the books. You think Kinsey’s gay?”

“I think there’s a good possibility.”

“She’s divorced,” I said, “and she’s involved with men from time to time, and—”

“Camouflage, Bern. I mean, look at the evidence, okay? She doesn’t care about makeup, she’s got this one all-purpose dress that she’s still wearing ten books into the series, she’s tough-minded, she’s hard-boiled, she’s sensible, she’s logical—”

“Must be a lesbian.”

“My point exactly. God, look at the men she gets involved with, like that shmendrick of a cop. Pure camouflage.” She shrugged. “Now, I can certainly understand why she’d be in the closet. She’d lose a lot of readers otherwise. But who knows what she gets mixed up in between books?”

“Did you ask Sue Grafton?”

“Are you kidding? I could barely bring myself to speak. The last thing I was gonna do was ask her what Kinsey liked to do in bed. She signed her book for me, Bern. In fact, she inscribed it to me personally.”

“That’s great.”

“Isn’t it? I said, ‘Miss Grafton, my name’s Carolyn, I’m a real Kinsey Millhone fan.’ And she inscribed it, ‘To Carolyn, a real Kinsey Millhone fan.’ ”

“That’s pretty imaginative.”

“I’ll say. Well, the woman’s a writer, Bern. Anyway, I’ve got a signed copy of one of her books, but I don’t suppose it’ll ever be worth a thousand dollars, because there must be a ton of them. The line that day reached all the way to the corner. It’s the book about the doctor. Have you read it yet?”