by Sue Grafton
Roland was speechless at first and when I turned he had tears in his eyes. "Well, we're never going to get this cleaned up," he said.
"Don't do it yourselves," I said automatically. "Hire someone else. Maybe your insurance will cover it. In the meantime, you better call the cops."
He nodded and swallowed hard while he backed out the door so that I was left to search the apartment by myself. I had to be very careful where I put my feet and I made a little mental note never to chide Pat Usher for anything. As far as I was concerned, she could hang her towels anyplace she pleased.
Chapter 21
* * *
With the cops on the way, I didn't have much time. I picked my way through the apartment, gingerly opening drawers with a hankie across my fingertips out of respect for latent prints. I did a superficial run-through and came up with nothing, which didn't surprise me. She'd stripped the place. All of the drawers and closets were empty. She hadn't left so much as a tube of toothpaste behind. By now, she could be anyplace, but I had a feeling I knew where she was. I suspected she'd used the last two flight coupons for a return trip to Santa Teresa.
I closed the place up again and went next door to tell Julia what was going on. It was two-thirty in the afternoon and I had a four o'clock plane to catch with almost an hour of driving just to get to the airport. The sky was miraculously clear again, the air smelling damp and sweet, sidewalks steaming. I loaded Elaine's suitcases back in the rental car and took off, promising to call Julia as soon as I learned anything new. This case was going to break for me. I could feel it in my bones. I'd been on it a week now and I had smoked Pat Usher out of hiding. I wasn't sure what she'd done to Elaine or why, but she was on the run now and I wasn't far behind. We were circling right back to Santa Teresa where the whole thing had begun.
When I reached the airport in Miami, I returned the rental car and picked up my seat assignment at the TWA counter, checking the four bags through to Santa Teresa. I got on the plane with six minutes to spare. I was beginning to feel a low-level anxiety, the sort of sensation you experience when you know you're having major surgery in a week. There was no immediate danger, but my mind kept leaping into the uncertain future with a churning dread. Pat Usher and I were on a collision course and I wasn't sure I could handle the impact.
With the three-hour time difference, I felt like I got back to California roughly one hour after I left Florida and my body had trouble dealing with that. I had to wait an hour at LAX to catch the short hop to Santa Teresa, but even so it was only seven in the evening when I got home, toting Elaine's bags with me like a packhorse. It was still light outside, but I was exhausted. I'd never eaten lunch and all I'd had on the plane were some square things wrapped in cellophane that I was almost too tired to pick open. It was one of those lurching flights with sudden inexplicable drops in altitude that make napping tough. Most of us were too worried about how they'd collect and identify all the body parts once we'd crashed and burned. Some woman behind me had two kids of the whining and screeching sort and she spent most of the flight having long ineffectual chats with them about their behavior. "Kyle, honey, 'member Mommy told you she didn't want you to bite Brett because that hurts Brett. Now, how would you like it if Mommy bit you?" I thought a quick chop in the ear would go a long way toward parent effectiveness training, but she never consulted me.
At any rate, when I got home, I headed straight for the couch and fell asleep, still in my clothes. Which is why it took me until morning to figure out that somebody had been in my apartment searching discreetly for God knows what. I got up at eight and did a run, came home, showered, and dressed. I sat down at my desk and started to unlock the top drawer. It's a standard-issue desk with a lock on the top drawer that controls the bank of drawers to the right. Somebody had apparently slipped a knife blade into the lock and jimmied it open. The realization that someone had been there made the nape of my neck feel like I'd just applied an ice pack.
I pushed back from the desk and got up, turning abruptly so that I could survey the room. I checked the front door, but there was no indication that anyone had tampered with the double-key dead bolt. It was possible that someone had made a duplicate of the key, though, and I'd have to have the lock replaced. I've never worried about security, and I don't run around doing tricky things to assume that my domain is inviolate – no talcum powder on the floor near the entrance-way, no single strands of hair affixed across the window crack. I resented the fact I was going to have to deal with this break-in, surrendering a sense of safety I'd always taken for granted. I checked the windows, moving carefully around the perimeter of the room. Nothing. I went into the bathroom and examined the window there. Someone had used a glass cutter to make a small square opening just above the lock. Electrical tape had evidently been used to eliminate any sound of breaking glass. Where the strips of tape had been peeled off, I could still see remnants of adhesive. The aluminum screen was skewed in one corner. It had probably been popped out and then put back. The job had been cleverly done, set up in such a way that I might not have discovered it for weeks. The hole was large enough to allow someone to unlock the window, sliding it up to permit ingress and egress. There's a curtain at that window and with the panels in place, the small hole in the glass wasn't even visible.
I went back into the other room and did a thorough search. Nothing seemed to be missing. I could see that someone had eased sly fingers between my folded clothes in the chest of drawers, had deftly gone through the files, leaving everything much as it had been, but with faint disarrangements here and there. I hated it. I hated the cunning and the care with which it had all been done, the satisfaction somebody must have felt at pulling it off. And what was the point? For the life of me, I couldn't see that anything was gone. I didn't own anything of value and the files themselves were not worth much. Most of the ones I kept at home had been closed out anyway and my notes on Elaine Boldt were at the office. What else did I have that someone might want? What worried me too was the suspicion that this might be Pat Usher's handiwork. Somehow she seemed much more dangerous if, along with savagery, she was also capable of craftiness and stealth.
I called a locksmith and made an appointment to have her come out later in the day to change all the locks. I could replace the window glass myself. I did some quick measurements and then headed out to the street. Fortunately, no one had broken into my car, but I didn't like the idea that someone might try that too. I took my .32 out of the glove compartment and tucked it into the waistband of my jeans at the small of my back. I was going to have to lock it in my office file cabinet and leave it there for the time being. I was relatively certain that my office was secure. Since I'm on the second floor with a balcony right out in plain view, I didn't think anyone would risk a break-in from that vantage point. The building is kept locked at night and the door from the hallway is solid oak two inches thick with a double-key dead bolt that could only be breached if the lock itself were cored out with a power saw. Still, I was feeling apprehensive when I pulled into the parking lot behind the office and I ended up taking the back stairs two at a time. I didn't relax until I unlocked the office door and saw for myself that no one had been there.
I put the gun away and took out the file on Elaine Boldt. I typed up additional notes, bringing everything up to date. Inwardly, I was still fuming that someone had been in my apartment. I should have called the police and reported it, but I didn't want to stop for that. I tried to concentrate on the matter at hand. I had a lot of unanswered questions and I wasn't even sure which ones mattered at this point. Why, for instance, had Pat Usher closed up shop so abruptly in Boca after my first trip down there? I had to guess that once she knew I was looking for Elaine, she'd had to scuttle her plans. I was assuming, of course, that she'd headed to Santa Teresa and that it was she who'd broken into Tillie's apartment and stolen that stack of bills. But to what end? The bills had continued to arrive and if pertinent information might be gleaned from inspecting them, all we had to do was wait for the n
ext batch.
Then I had Mike's account of what he saw on the night of his aunt's murder. I still wasn't sure how that fit in, if indeed it did. The fact remained that his estimate of the time of Marty Grice's death differed by thirty minutes from the time her husband and sister-in-law claimed they'd spoken to her. Were Leonard and Lily in cahoots?
There was still the minor matter of May Snyder next door who'd reported the sound of hammering at the Grices' house that night. Orris swore she was deaf and had it all confused with something else, but I wasn't quite willing to write her off like that.
When the phone rang, I jumped, snatching up the receiver automatically. It was Jonah. He didn't even bother to identify himself. All he said was, "I've got a response from the DMV in Tallahassee. You want to take a look?"
"I'll be right there," I said and hung up, heading out.
Jonah was waiting for me in the small reception area as I came into the police station and he walked me through the locked doors to the corridor leading back to Missing Persons.
"How'd you get the information so fast?" I asked. He held the gate open for me and I passed into the bullpen, where he had his desk.
He smiled faintly. "That's why cops are so much better at this business than private eyes," he said. "We've got access to information you can't even touch."
"Listen, I was the one who put in the original request! It's public record. I can't get it as fast as you can, but I was on the right track and you know it."
"Don't get so hot," he said. "I was just ragging you."
"Very cute. Lemme see it," I said, holding my hand out. He passed me a computer printout, a magnetic image of a driver's license issued to Elaine Boldt in January, with the Florida condominium address. I stared at the picture of the woman staring back at me and uttered a quick, involuntary "ah!" I knew the face. It was Pat Usher: same green eyes, same tawny hair. There were a few glaring differences. I'd seen her after an automobile accident, when her face was still a bit bruised and swollen. The resemblance was clear enough, though. Hot damn.
"I got her," I said. "Hey wow, I got her!"
"Got who?"
"I don't really know yet. She calls herself Pat Usher, but she probably made that up. I'll bet you money Elaine Boldt is dead. Pat had to know that or she never would have had the nerve to apply for a driver's license in Elaine Boldt's name. She's been living in Elaine's apartment ever since she disappeared. She's used her credit cards and probably helped herself to any bank accounts. Shit. Let's run a check on her through NCIC. Can we do that?" The National Crime Information Center might well turn up identification on Pat Usher in seconds.
"Computer's down. I just tried. I'm surprised you didn't ask me to do that before."
"Jonah, I didn't have the right data before. I had a name but no numerical identifier. Now I've got a birthdate. Can I have a copy of this?"
"That's yours," he said mildly. "I've got one for my files. What makes you think the birthdate is legitimate?"
"I'm just crossing my fingers on that. Even if she faked a name, it'd make sense for her to use her own birthdate. She might be forced to fabricate a lot of other stuff so why falsify this? She's smart. She wouldn't work harder than she had to."
I studied the printout, turning it toward the light. "Look at that. They marked the box that says 'corrective lenses.' Terrific. She has to wear glasses when she drives. It's great, isn't it? Look at all the information we have. Height, weight. God, she looks tired in this picture. And look how fat she is. Check the bags underneath her eyes. Oh boy, you should've heard her when I talked to her down there. So smug..."
He'd perched himself up on the edge of the desk and he was smiling at me, apparently amused by my excitement. "Well, I'm glad I could help," he said. "I'm gonna be out of town for a couple of days so it's lucky that came through when it did."
For the first time, I really focused on his face. His smile was slightly fixed and his posture had a self-conscious quality. "You're taking some time off?" I asked.
"Well yeah, something like that. Camilla's got a problem with one of the kids and I thought I better go straighten it out. It's no big deal, but you know how it is."
I looked at him, computing backward from what he'd said. Camilla had called and snapped her fingers. He was taking off like a shot. The kids, my foot. "What's going on?" I said.
He gestured casually and told me some long tale about bed-wetting and nightmares and visits to a child psychiatrist who'd recommended a session with the whole family. I said, uh-huh, uh-huh, not even tuning into which girl it was. I'd forgotten what their names were. Oh yeah, Courtney and something.
"I'll be back on Saturday and I'll give you a buzz. Maybe we can go back up and shoot some," he said and smiled again.
"Great. That'd be fun," I said, smiling back. 1 almost suggested that he bring a blowup of Camilla for a target, but I kept my mouth shut. I felt a tiny little moment of regret, which amazed me no end. I hadn't even gone to bed with this man... hadn't even thought of it. (Well, hardly.) But I'd forgotten what it's like with married men, how married they are even when the ex is somewhere else... especially when the ex is somewhere else. I didn't think she'd filed papers yet, which made the whole thing much simpler. He was running out of frozen dinners anyway, and by now shed probably figured out how slim the choices were out there in Singlesland.
I suddenly felt myself growing self-conscious too. "Well. I better get on with this. Thanks a lot. You've been a big help."
"Hey, anytime," he said. "Spillman's gonna be on the desk while I'm gone if you need anything. I'll brief him so he knows the scoop, but I want you to take care of yourself." He pointed a finger at me as though it were a gun.
"Don't worry about it. I don't take chances if I don't have to," I said. "I hope things work out up north. I'll talk to you when you get back."
"Absolutely. Let's do that. Good luck."
"Same to you. Tell the kids I said hi."
That was dumb. I'd never met them and I couldn't think what the other one's name was in any event. Sarah?
I pushed through the gate.
"Hey, Kinsey?"
I looked back.
"Where's that hat of yours? I liked that. You should wear it all the time."
I smiled and waved and went on out. I didn't need advice on how to dress.
Chapter 22
* * *
It was midmorning and I was suddenly starving to death. I left my car in front of the police station where it was parked and walked over to a little hole-in-the-wall called The Egg and I. I ordered my standard breakfast of bacon, scrambled eggs, toast, jelly, and orange juice, with coffee throughout. It's the only meal I'm consistently fond of as it contains every element I crave: caffeine, salt, sugar, cholesterol, and fat. How can one resist? In California, with all the health nuts around, the very act of eating such a meal is regarded as a suicide attempt.
I read the paper while I ate, catching up on local events. I had just gotten down to the second piece of rye toast when Pam Sharkey walked in with Daryl Hobbs, the manager at Lambeth and Creek. She caught sight of me and I waved. I didn't give it everything I had. It was a casual offhand wave to indicate that I was a good joe and wasn't going to lord it over her just because I bested her last time we met. Her expression faltered and she broke off eye contact, passing my table without a word. The snub was so pronounced that even Daryl seemed embarrassed. I was puzzled, but not cut to the quick, shrugging to myself philosophically. Maybe the aerospace engineer had turned out to be a jerk.
When I finished breakfast, I paid the check and retrieved my car, popping over to the office to drop off the data I'd picked up from Jonah. I was unlocking my door when Vera stepped out into the corridor from California Fidelity.
"Can I talk to you?" she said.
"Sure. Come on it." I pushed the office door open and she followed me in. "How are you?" I said, thinking this was a social call. She tucked a strand of auburn hair behind her ear, looking at me through the big pale
blue-tinted lenses that made her eyes seem large and grave.
"Uh, listen. Just a word to the wise," she said uncomfortably. "All hell's broken loose over that Leonard Grice business."
I blinked at her. "Like what?"
"Pam Sharkey must have called him after you talked to her. I don't know what she said to him, but he's all up in arms. He'd hired an attorney who fired off a letter to CFI threatening to sue us within an inch of our lives. We're talking millions."
"For what?"
"They're claiming slander, defamation of character, breach of contract, harassment. Andy's livid. He says he had no idea you were involved. He says you weren't authorized by California Fidelity or anybody else to go out there and ask questions... blah, blah, blah. You know how Andy gets when he's on his high horse. He wants to see you the minute you come in."
"What is this? Leonard Grice hasn't even filed a claim!"
"Guess again. He submitted forms first thing Monday morning and he wants his money right now. The lawsuit was filed on top of that. Andy's over there processing papers as fast as he can and he's pissed. He's told Mac he thinks we should terminate the whole arrangement with you after the jeopardy you put us in. The rest of us think he's being a complete horse's ass, but I thought you should know what's going on."
"What's the total on the claim itself?"
"Twenty-five grand for the fire damage. That's the face value on the homeowner's policy and he has his losses itemized down to the penny. The life insurance isn't at issue. I think he's already collected some dinky little policy on her life – twenty-five hundred-and our records show he was paid that months ago. Kinsey, he's out for bear and you're it. Andy's looking for someone to point a finger at so Mac doesn't point a finger at him."
"Shit," I said. I couldn't think of anything else to say. The last thing in the world I needed right now was a dressing down by Andy Montycka, the CFI claims manager. Andy's in his forties, conservative and insecure, a man whose prime obsessions are biting his fingernails and not making waves.
