summary of crying of lot 49

Chapter 1 Summary:

Mrs. Oedipa Maas came home to find a letter naming her executrix of the estate of Pierce Inverarity, a man with whom she had once had an affair. Pierce was a California real estate mogul with a great number of assets and Oedipa was shocked to be in charge of sorting it out. Hoping to divert herself, she pushed her thoughts back to old memories of Pierce, music, and sunrises. The letter was signed by the co-executor, Metzger, and detailed that Pierce died a year ago but they had just found the will. She did her errands downtown in Kinneret-Among-The-Pines and tried to uncover what might have happened a year ago to cause Pierce to name her in the will.
Finally, during the evening news, she remembered a three A.M. phone call she received a year ago, made by Pierce. He had spoken to her in different voices, spilling out nonsense. That was the last Oedipa had heard from him. Soon, her husband, Wendell "Mucho" Maas, arrived home with his own problems. He complained, a...