'D is for Deadbeat' by Sue Grafton Quiz

Answer: October 30

Kinsey loves autumn. As she says, "It was a typical California UNseason, but it FELT like fall and I was responding with inordinate good cheer..." Mr Daggett comes to Kinsey's office on October 30, the day before Halloween, and gives her a $400 retainer for her services.

Answer: Tony Gahan, $25,000

Mr. Daggett is Alvin Limbaro's real name, although Kinsey doesn't find that out soon enough. He hires Kinsey to deliver a cashier's check for $25,000. He gives Kinsey a song and dance - all lies - about where the money came from and why he wants it to go to Tony. It isn't until the contract is signed that "Alvin" tells Kinsey that Tony is only 15 years old.

Answer: two

After hunting doown "Alvin Limbardo", Kinsey learns that everyone in Daggett's apartment complex uses that alias. She also stumbles upon Lovella, Daggett's "wife." She is about 25 years old and bruised from head to toe from Daggett's beatings. The next day, Kinsey discovers another wife, Elsie, to whom Daggett has been married for over 35 years.

Answer: vehicular manslaughter of five

Barbara Daggett goes to Kinsey's office to get information about her father's whereabouts; Kinsey, of course, offers her no info. At the end of their conversation she tells Kinsey that her father was "drunk and there was an accident. Five poeople were killed, two of them kids."

Answer: he is found dead in the ocean

Kisney's friend from the police department, Jonah, calls her first thing in the morning, to tell her that Daggett's body had been found floating "face down in the surf." Kinsey rushes to the "morgue" where his body is being kept and accompanies Barbara when she makes a positive ID.

Answer: she wants nothing to do with it

Romona Westfall is Tony Gahan's aunt. After Tony's family died, he went to live with his mother's sister, Romona, and her husband. He has been with them for 3 years. Kinsey tracks her down and tries to explain the cashier's check, but Romona wants nothing to do with anything from John Daggett.

Answer: Home Economics

Once Kinsey realizes that her prized gun is gone, she goes into a long, but appreciated, rhetoric about her Aunt, and many of her wonderful attributes. As she explains, "firing a handgun, she felt, would teach me to appreciate safety, and accuracy. It would also help me develop good hand-eye coordination, which she thought was useful." She goes on to say, "When I was in High School, she'd called Home Ec 'Home Ick' and applauded when I got a D.

She thought it would make a lot more sense if the boys took Home Ec and the girls took Auto Mechanics ..."

Answer: Phillip Rosen

Kinsey is looking to find out where the skiff was stolen from, that was used in Daggett's death. She stumbles upon a man named Phillip Rosen, whose skiff was stolen. His girlfriend saw a "... man and a woman ... the little gal with him had a hell of a time trying to keep him upright."

Answer: Mike

Kinsey takes Tony to the Clockworks to talk to him about the check that Daggett gave her. While placing her order at the bar, she meets up with Mike, who played an important role in "B is for Burglar." Mike is in his senior year of High School and getting ready for college - with purple hair and all!

Answer: Romona Westfall

After Kinsey's meeting with Tony, his aunt and uncle decide that it would be appropriate to take the check and put it into an account for the future. Kinsey is happy to get rid of it, and hands it over to Romona, after Romona goes to her office to speak to her.

Answer: Lovella

Daggett's funeral church service went well, amid religious outburts from the crowd. However, once the group gathered in the rain at the gravesite, it was another story. Lovella, in a drug-induced, drunk stupor, made quite a spectacle of herself, screaming obscenities at Daggett and the crowd in general. This is my favorite scene in the book - I laugh so hard I cry, every time I read it!

Answer: Delphi & Clare

After getting a second lead about the woman seen with Daggett, Kinsey believes she can hunt her out. She has an idea of what the woman was wearing, and actually saw clothes fitting that description in a cart, belonging to a local homeless man. She seeks him out, but can only speak to him through his friend, Clare.

Answer: The Hub

Billy's sister works at the Hub and saw Daggett and his date downing drinks at the bar. They left together, and Kinsey is certain that this woman killed Daggett later, by dumping him into the ocean.

Answer: he was shot to death

According to Lovella, Billy thought that he recognized "someone" at the graveside service. He arranged for a meeting at the boat launch. Kinsey had to press Lovella for the information, but finally she got the location and headed to the launch. Unfortunately, she was too late. Billy died in her arms after getting shot in the belly.

Answer: Tony Gahan

Tony hated Daggett with every bone in his 15-year-old body. When Daggett called Tony to try to "make amends", Tony got the idea to kill him. He purchased woman's clothing at the Salvation Army thrift shop and used his aunt's wig. He got Daggett drunk at the Hub, and then took him out on the stolen skiff and killed him.

He killed Billy, too; Billy knew who he was and Tony didn't trust him to keep his mouth shut. Unfortunately, it was all too much for Tony, and in the presence of Kinsey, he jumped off the roof-top of a building to committ suicide.