The Proof is in the Pudding Read Online Free PDF

but I couldn’t detect any sound from within. Very gently, I turned the knob and peeked inside.
    Her lights were off, but there was just enough illumination from the moonlight coming through the filmy curtains that I could see her bed had not been slept in.
    Suddenly, the piercing trill of a ringing phone shattered the stillness in the house.
    It was my bedroom phone.
    I felt a lurch in my chest and my heart began to pound. Calls that come at two o’clock in the morning are not likely to bring good news. I hurried back down the hall to my own room and grabbed the receiver.
    “Aunt Del?” It was Eileen. She was sobbing. “I tried to drive, but the car . . . Oh, Aunt Del, can you come and pick me up?”
    I forced myself to sound calm. “Honey, are you all right? Have you been in an accident?”
    It took a few choked-back sobs before she was able to speak. “No accident. But the car won’t move, and I don’t have my wallet—oh, I’m such an idiot!” She began to cry again.
    “Eileen, let’s calm down. Take some slow, deep breaths.” When I heard her doing it, I said, “That’s it. Good. Now tell me where you are.”
    She did. I was surprised because it wasn’t an area of Los Angeles where any of her friends that I knew lived.
    “Stay in the car with the doors locked,” I said. “I’m on my way.”

4

    Eileen’s twelve-year-old red Volkswagen with the UCLA sticker was parked about a mile north of the Sunset Strip, on the 2100 block of Laurel Canyon Boulevard.
    Narrow, twisty Laurel Canyon is a rustic enclave of free spirits, many of them in the music business, but in recent years affluent professionals have joined the performing types by migrating to this woodsy oasis in the center of Los Angeles.
    I was able to spot Eileen’s car only because she’d told me to look to the right when I got to the sign on my left that said Kirkwood. She had pulled up parallel to a small dry cleaner and laundry establishment, which was just a few yards below the Canyon Country Store, a popular landmark at the corner of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Kirkwood Drive.
    As I turned right into a shallow parking area, my headlights swept Eileen’s car. I saw the outline of her head, bent over the steering wheel. She looked up, blinked in the glare, and gave a weak little wave.
    I steered the Jeep to a stop just ahead of her car and got out. Simultaneously, Eileen emerged from her little VW and came toward me. In the spill from the nearby streetlight I saw that her long blonde hair, usually so carefully brushed, was a disheveled mess. Her eyes were red and swollen, but she had stopped crying.
    “Tell me what’s happened.”
    “The car died,” she said. “I don’t know what the matter is, and I couldn’t call Triple A because I forgot my purse back at . . . I ran out so fast that—oh, Aunt Del, I’ve been such a stupid idiot!”
    I put my arms around her in a comforting hug, then stepped back so she’d have to look at me. “Let’s take care of the simple problem first,” I said. “What’s the matter with your car?”
    “I don’t know. It was fine, but then I stopped here for a few minutes—I was so upset I could barely see. After a little while, when I turned the key again, the car made a kind of grrrrr sound, but it wouldn’t move.”
    “Maybe it’s just flooded. Let me try to start it.”
    Eileen handed me her key, but I didn’t have any better luck. The car wasn’t going to move for either of us. In defeat, I climbed out of the VW and reached into the pocket of the jacket I’d thrown on over the Bruce Lee T-shirt I’d been sleeping in and my nearest pair of sweatpants. I removed my cell phone and my wallet, extracted my Auto Club card, and punched in the number for emergency roadside service.
    When the dispatcher answered, I gave her my name and club card number, told her where I was. From memory, I recited the make, model, and plate number of Eileen’s car.
    “The car won’t start,” I said. “It