48 pages • 1 hour read
Sue GraftonA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
In Chapter 21, Millhone receives two crucial phone calls regarding Laurence’s murder. The first call is from Garry Steinberg, who reveals that Lyle Abernathy, a potential suspect, once apprenticed with a locksmith named Fears. Abernathy was fired for suspected petty thievery, suggesting he had the skills to break into the Fifes’ home.
The second call is from Gwen, who invites Millhone for lunch. Gwen is elegantly dressed and has an air of refinement, qualities that Millhone imagines would have appealed to Laurence. Gwen discloses that her old lover, David Ray, who may have information related to the case, has recently died of a heart attack.
Millhone’s day begins with a tense conversation with Nikki Fife and her son, Colin, as she probes into their past activities and relationships. Colin’s reference to Gwen as “Daddy’s mother” (239) raises questions for Millhone. Despite Nikki’s evasiveness and defensiveness, it becomes clear that something isn’t adding up.
Millhone’s next move takes her to John Powers’s house with Charlie, where they encounter Powers’s boisterous dogs. After an awkward beach walk, the atmosphere grows tense again during drinks, as Millhone reveals new information about Laurence’s past affair with Sharon Napier’s mother. This disclosure triggers a defensive reaction from Charlie, pushing both to the brink of confrontation. Millhone, feeling cornered, abruptly leaves.
Millhone is in her element, methodically sorting through the complex information she’s gathered on her case. She pins her index cards on her bulletin board, trying to make sense of the murky connections among the players. Millhone has a list of suspects that include Diane and Greg, Charlotte Mercer, and Charlie Scorsoni, among others. She’s especially concerned about Charlie, as their personal relationship has started to blur professional boundaries.
Millhone’s evening is interrupted by a late-night visit from Charlie. The tension between them is palpable, stemming from both their unresolved argument and the unspoken sexual tension. Charlie admits he was too hard on her, and Millhone struggles with her own stubbornness. Despite being critical of her for maintaining emotional distance, Charlie himself seems afraid of their growing intimacy. Eventually, they give in to their mutual attraction, culminating in a physical connection that Millhone describes in both poetic and conflicted terms.
In the aftermath, Millhone is torn between her personal feelings for Charlie and her professional responsibility. She knows she’s breaking her own rules by getting involved with someone linked to her case. Millhone is also haunted by the realization that their relationship might be clouding her judgment about Charlie as a suspect.
Struggling with the case, Millhone takes a moment to solve a crossword puzzle. It’s during this break that a light-bulb moment occurs: She realizes a love letter she initially thought was from Libby was actually penned by Laurence to Sharon Napier. This revelation adds another layer to her growing list of leads and suspects. Faced with the challenge of determining motive, Millhone confronts her own feelings, and she decides to distance herself from Charlie in order to maintain objectivity.
The emotional toll of the case becomes evident when Millhone meets Gwen at Rosie’s bar and confronts Gwen with evidence of her affair with Laurence. As her façade crumbles, Gwen admits to having poisoned Laurence in an act of revenge, claiming it destroyed only one capsule of his medication. She denies involvement in the deaths of other women connected to Laurence.
As the case surrounding Laurence’s murder intensifies, Millhone finds herself wrestling with nagging doubts. Even after Gwen is found to be guilty of his murder, Millhone senses that something isn’t right. She starts to question the similar deaths of Libby and Sharon, suspecting that someone might be mimicking Gwen’s killing style to get away with their own crimes. While contemplating this new angle, she receives shocking news: Gwen has died in a hit-and-run accident.
Intent on solving the puzzle, Millhone drives to Los Angeles to confront Lyle, Libby’s boyfriend. The confrontation is fraught with tension, as Millhone approaches Lyle with a drawn gun, demanding answers about his relationship with Libby and the day she died. Finally, Lyle crumbles, showing uncharacteristic respect and vulnerability as he divulges his involvement. He admits to giving Libby a tranquilizer on the day she died, though he denies killing her. He also reveals his later actions: returning to the crime scene to erase his fingerprints and taking the bottle of tranquilizers to protect himself from suspicion.
In a visit to the law firm Haycraft and McNiece, Millhone discusses her suspicions about Charlie Scorsoni’s involvement in embezzlement and possibly more nefarious crimes with Garry Steinberg. They ponder the extent to which Charlie could manipulate estate accounts and whether Libby Glass was complicit. Millhone also suspects that Charlie could be linked to multiple murders, including the recent hit-and-run death of Gwen.
The atmosphere thickens as Millhone grapples with feelings of betrayal and navigates the maze of her own doubts. Returning to her office, she examines Sharon Napier’s unpaid bills and conversations, unearthing connections that further implicate Charlie in her ongoing investigations. Ruth, Charlie’s secretary, appears cautious, signaling her own suspicions and making Millhone even more wary of Charlie. A conversation with Nikki Fife reveals a discrepancy about the car involved in Gwen’s death, causing Millhone to question whether Charlie is laying false trails. The chapter concludes with Millhone documenting her findings and contemplating the kind of protection she might need from Charlie.
Millhone’s investigation leads her to the contrasting worlds of Charlie’s seemingly wholesome home and John Powers’s opulent property, both of which hide potentially dangerous secrets. Her sleuthing uncovers a black car with a damaged fender at Powers’s residence, hinting at his involvement in Gwen’s hit-and-run. As she considers this, she finds herself in a perilous situation—being chased by dogs, escaping to a beach, and spotting Charlie on a cliff, armed and dangerous.
She hides in a trash bin, clutching a gun, as Charlie approaches with a knife. Faced with no other option, she shoots Charlie in self-defense, killing him. This decision leaves her wrestling with the emotional and ethical ramifications of taking a life.
The Santa Teresa police decide not to file any charges against Millhone. She formally reports on her firearm discharge, acting in the capacity of her employment, and settles her financial transactions with Nikki. Despite finding closure in the case, Millhone confesses to a lingering disturbance in her conscience, grappling with the heavy reality of having taken a life, a moral burden that equates her to “soldiers and maniacs” (308). Acknowledging the inherent complexity of life and the ultimate solitude of the individual, she reflects on the irreversible change in her, with a somber understanding that she will “never be the same” (308).
The final chapters reveal the novel’s endgame, climax, and denouement and provide a character transformation for Millhone to set up the next novel in the Alphabet Mysteries series.
These chapters contain significant development of both the case Millhone is untangling and her personal dynamics with the figures central to the investigation. The plot touches again on the theme of Truth and Deception, which is revealed through the unveiling of secrets and the challenging of initial perceptions held regarding key individuals implicated in Laurence’s murder. The theme of Marriage and Gender Roles is explored through the lens of relationships, notably in the interactions between Millhone and Charlie and the revelations concerning Gwen and Laurence. In addition, the topic of Justice and Wrongful Imprisonment hangs heavily in these chapters, as Millhone navigates the murky waters of deception to find the real perpetrator behind Laurence’s murder and vindicate Nikki.
The section plays on notions of duality and appearances versus reality. Millhone dismisses the veneer of Santa Teresa’s societal standards of “old” and “new” money as inconsequential, underscoring her role as the one who sees beyond surface impressions. This tension between appearance and reality also manifests in her reliance on intuition; it both aids and imperils her. Millhone’s isolation becomes both her strength, allowing her to pursue leads aggressively, and her weakness, leaving her vulnerable to danger. This isolation is heightened when she realizes that Charlie, a former love interest, is a threat, making her situation all the more perilous.
These chapters also reaches into the darker corners of human psychology. Gwen continues to transform from a person of elegance and refined taste to someone whose emotional fragility and previous actions paint her in a light of moral ambiguity. Millhone decides Nikki should be the one to determine Gwen’s fate, suggesting a murky moral landscape where traditional notions of right and wrong are not easily applied. Charlie, on the other hand, is portrayed as someone with a sophisticated charm that hides a potential to be a significant player in the troubling game of deceit. Millhone continues to wrestle with professional versus personal obligations, a tussle that unveils her vulnerability and fears of intimacy.
Millhone’s analytical prowess is mirrored in her approach to solving crosswords, a literary device that symbolizes her meticulous journey in unraveling the truth. This journey presents her with a series of moral dilemmas: managing her personal involvement with a suspect, deciding how to handle Gwen’s confession of a past crime, and navigating the thin line between personal and legal justice, notably in her interactions with Nikki and her decisions regarding Gwen’s fate. These dilemmas, epitomized in the characters’ critical decisions and startling revelations, foster a theme of personal justice, illustrating that the pursuit of truth is not a straightforward path but a multifaceted journey through a labyrinth of human emotions, motivations, and moralities.
In the final stages of her investigation, Millhone navigates a complex network of relationships and rising doubts about Charlie, prompted by discussions with Ruth and Nikki. Her intuition becomes her guide in a world where personal and professional lines are blurred, and where systemic failures seem to be the norm. This part of the story portrays her tenacity as she leans on her understanding of human nature to sift through layers of deception, highlighting the nuanced dynamics in her relationships and her deepening mistrust of Charlie.
As the narrative unfolds, the settings of Charlie’s residence and Powers’s home become significant, reflecting the tension between innocuous appearances and the hidden dangers. These environments become almost like characters, revealing society’s dualities and steering the story along a path of discovery and risk. The quiet but menacing backdrop of the beach adds gravity to the final confrontation between Millhone and Charlie. The stark portrayal of Charlie, once a love interest and now a threat, showcases the femme fatale archetype in reverse: the homme fatale, a male love interest embodying danger and deceit.
Throughout these chapters, issues of complex morality and human fallibility surface. Lyle emerges as neither entirely guilty nor innocent, living in a gray area that adds nuance to the narrative’s exploration of justice and human behavior. Meanwhile, Millhone is put to the test. Her calculated confrontation with Lyle exposes her capacity for both coercion and compassion, while her emotional turmoil—amplified by her reaction to Gwen’s death—becomes a driving force in her quest for the truth. Through Millhone’s psychology, driven by a past replete with personal losses and professional challenges, she emerges as a harbinger of justice in a world fraught with moral compromises. Her quest showcases her commitment to truth, a beacon in a landscape marred with duplicities and escalating dangers.
Millhone’s crisis after shooting and killing Charlie encapsulates her philosophical grappling with the complexities of personal justice and the inscrutable moral boundaries that govern human actions. This deeply personal transformation overshadows her readiness to return to business, signaling a permanent shift in her moral landscape and self-perception.
By Sue Grafton