by Sue Grafton
I waited, but the dog never even bared his gums. Using my elbows for leverage, I completed ingress, saying, “Nice dog,” “What a good pooch,” and similar kiss-ass phrases. His tail began to thump with hope. Maybe I was the little friend his dad had promised would come and play with him.
Once inside the kitchen, I began to rise to my feet. This, in the dog’s mind, converted me into a beast that might require savaging. He leapt up, head down, ears back, beginning an experimental growl, his entire chest wall vibrating like a swarm of bees on the move. I sank down to my original submissive position. “Good boy,” I murmured, humbly lowering my gaze.
I waited while the dog tested the parameters of his responsibility. The growling faded in due course. I tried again. Lifting onto my hands and knees seemed acceptable, but the minute I attempted to stand, the growling started up again. Make no mistake about it, this dog meant business.
“You’re very strict,” I said.
I waited a few moments and tried yet again. This time the effort netted me a furious bark. “Okay, okay.” The big guy was beginning to get on my nerves. In theory, I was close enough to the doggie door to effect an escape, but I was fearful of going head first, thus exposing my rear end. I was also worried about going out feet first lest the dog attack my upper body while I was wedged in the opening. Meanwhile, the kitchen clock was ticking like a time bomb, forcing a decision. The curtain or the box? I could visualize Ted Rich barreling down the highway in my direction. I had to do something. Still on my hands and knees, I crawled forward a step. The dog watched with vigilance but made no menacing gesture. Slowly, I headed across the kitchen floor toward the front of the house. The dog tagged along beside me, his toenails clicking on the grimy linoleum, his full attention focused on my plodding journey. Already, I realized I hadn’t really thought this thing through, but I’d been so intent on my ends, I hadn’t fully formulated the means.
Babylike, in my romper, I traversed the dining room, bypassed the motorcycle, and entered the living room. This room was carpeted but otherwise contained little in the way of interest. I crawled down the hallway with the dog keeping pace, his head hanging down till his gaze was level with mine. I suppose I should state right here that what I was doing isn’t routine behavior for a private eye. My conduct was more typical of someone intent on petty theft, too mulish and impetuous to use legitimate means (provided she could think of any). In the law enforcement sector, my actions would be classified as trespass, burglary, and (given the key picks in my pocket) possession of burglary tools—California Penal Code sections 602, 459, and 466 respectively. I hadn’t stolen anything (yet) and the item I was after was purely intellectual, but it was nonetheless illegal to squirm through a doggie door and start crawling down a hall. Caught in the act, I’d be subject to arrest and conviction, perhaps forfeiting my license and my livelihood. Well, dang. All this for a man I’d left after less than nine months of marriage.
The house wasn’t large: a bath and two bedrooms, plus the living room, dining room, kitchen, and laundry room. I must say the world is very boring at an altitude of eighteen inches. All I could see were chair legs, carpet snags, and endless stretches of dusty baseboard. No wonder house pets, when left alone, take to peeing on the rugs and gnawing on the furniture. I passed a door on the left that led back into the kitchen, with the laundry room to one side. When I reached the next door on the left, I crawled in and surveyed the premises, mentally wagging my tail. Unmade double bed, night table, chest of drawers, doggie bed, and dirty clothes on the floor. I did a U-turn and crawled into the room across the hall. Rich was using this one as a combination den and home office. Along the wall to my right, he had a row of banged-up file cabinets and a scarred oak desk. He also had a Barcalounger and a television set. The dog climbed on the recliner with a guilty look, watching to see if I was going to swat his hairy butt. I smiled my encouragement. As far as I was concerned, the dog could do anything he wanted.
I made my way over to the desk. “I’m getting up to take a peek, so don’t get your knickers in a twist, okay?” By now, the dog was bored, and he yawned so hard I heard a little squeak at the back of his throat. Carefully, I eased into a kneeling position and searched the surface of the desk. There on a stack of papers lay the answer to my prayers: a sheaf of documents, among them the receipt for Rich’s payment to the San Felipe Self-Storage Company, dated Saturday, May 17. I tucked the paper in my mouth, sank down on all fours, and crawled to the door. Since the dog had lost interest, I was able to make quick work of the corridor in front of me. Crawling rapidly, I rounded the corner and thumped across the kitchen floor. When I reached the back door, I grabbed the knob and pulled myself to my feet. Exploits like this aren’t as easy as they used to be. The knees of my coveralls were covered with dust, and I brushed off some woofies with a frown of disgust. I took the receipt out of my mouth, folded it, and stuck it in the pocket of my coveralls.
When I glanced through the back door to make sure the coast was clear, I spotted my clipboard still sitting on the porch rail where I’d left it. I was just chiding myself for not tucking it someplace less conspicuous when I heard the sound of gravel popping and the front of Rich’s pickup appeared in my field of vision. He pulled to a stop, cranked on the hand brake, and opened the truck door. By the time he got out, I’d taken six giant steps backward, practically levitating as I fled through the kitchen to the laundry room, where I slid behind the open door. Rich had slammed his door and was apparently now making his way to the back porch. I heard him clump up the back steps. There was a pause wherein he seemed to make some remark to himself. He’d probably found my clipboard and was puzzling at its import.
The dog had heard him, of course, and was up like a shot, hurtling for the back door as fast as he could. My heart was thumping so loud it sounded like a clothes dryer spinning a pair of wet tennis shoes. I could see my left breast vibrating against the front of my coveralls. I couldn’t swear to this, but I think I may have wee-weed ever so slightly in my underpants. Also, I noticed the cuff of my pant leg was now protruding through the crack in the door. I’d barely managed to conceal myself when Rich clattered in the back door and tossed the clipboard on the counter. He and the dog exchanged a ritual greeting. On the part of the dog, much joyous barking and leaps; on Rich’s part, a series of exhortations and commands, none of which seemed to have any particular effect. The dog had forgotten my intrusion, sidetracked by the merriment of having his master home.
I heard Rich move through the living room and proceed down the hall, where he entered his office and flipped on the television set. Meanwhile, the dog must have been tickled by a tiny whisper of recollection because he set off in search of me, his nose close to the floor. Hide and seek—what fun—and guess who was It? He rousted me in no time, spying my coveralls. Just to show how smart he was, he actually seemed to press one eye to the crack before he gave my pant leg a tug. He shook his head back and forth, growling with enthusiasm while he yanked on my cuff. Without even thinking, I poked my head around the door and raised a finger to my lips. He barked with enthusiasm, thus releasing me, and then he pranced back and forth hoping I would play. I have to say, it was pathetic to see an eighty-pound mutt having so much fun at my expense. Rich, unaware of the cause, bellowed orders to the pooch, who stood there torn between obedience to his master and the thrill of discovery. Rich called him again, and he bounded away with a series of exuberant yelps. Back in the den, Rich told him to sit and, apparently, he sat. I heard him bark once to alert his master there was game afoot.
I didn’t dare delay. Moving with a silence I hoped was absolute, I slipped to the back door and opened it a crack. I was on the brink of escape when I remembered my clipboard, which was resting on the counter where Rich had tossed it. I paused long enough to grab it and then I eased out the back door and closed it carefully behind me. I crept down the porch steps and veered left along the drive, tapping the clipboard casually against my thigh. My impulse was to bolt as soon as I re
ached the street, but I forced myself to walk, not wanting to call attention to my exodus. There’s nothing so conspicuous as someone in civilian clothes, running down the street as though pursued by beasts.
3
The drive back to Santa Teresa was uneventful, though I was so juiced up on adrenaline I had to make a conscious effort not to speed. I seemed to see cops everywhere: two at an intersection directing traffic where a stoplight was on the fritz; one lurking near the on-ramp, concealed by a clump of bushes; another parked on the berm behind a motorist, who waited in resignation for the ticket to come. Having escaped from the danger zone, I was not only being meticulous about obeying the law but struggling to regain a sense of normalcy, whatever that is. The risk I’d taken at Teddy’s house had fractured my perception. I’d become, at the same time, disassociated from reality and more keenly connected to it so that “real life” now seemed flat and strangely lusterless. Cops, rock stars, soldiers, and career criminals all experience the same shift, the plunge from soaring indomitability to unconquerable lassitude, which is why they tend to hang out with others of their ilk. Who else can understand the high? You get amped, wired, blasted out of your tiny mind on situational stimulants. Afterward, you have to talk yourself down, reliving your experience until the charge is off and events collapse back to their ordinary size. I was still awash with the rush, my vision shimmering. The Pacific pulsated on my left. The sea air felt as brittle as a sheet of glass. Like flint on stone, the late morning sun struck the waves in a series of sparks until I half expected the entire ocean to burst into flames. I turned on the radio, tuning the station to one with booming music. I rolled down the car windows and let the wind buffet my hair.
As soon as I got home, I set the cardboard box on the desk, pulled the storage company receipt from my pocket, and tossed the coveralls in the wash. I never should have broken into Teddy’s house that way. What was I thinking? I was nuts, temporarily deranged, but the man had irritated me beyond reason. All I’d wanted was a piece of information, which I now possessed. Of course, I had no idea what to do with it. The last thing I needed was to reconnect with my ex.
We’d parted on bad terms, and I’d made a point of abolishing my memories of him. Mentally, I’d excised all reference to the relationship, so that now I scarcely allowed myself to remember his name. Friends were aware that I’d been married at the age of twenty-one, but they knew nothing of who he was and had no clue about the split. I’d put the man in a box and dropped him to the bottom of my emotional ocean, where he’d languished ever since. Oddly enough, while my second husband, Daniel, had betrayed me, gravely injuring my pride, he hadn’t violated my sense of honor as Mickey Magruder had. While I may be careless about the penal code, I’m never casual about the law. Mickey had crossed the line, and he’d tried dragging me along with him. I’d moved on short notice, willing to abandon most of my belongings when I walked out the door.
The overload of chemicals began to drain from my system, letting anxiety in. I went into my kitchenette and tranquilized myself with the ritual of a sandwich, smoothing Jif Extra Crunchy peanut butter on two slices of hearty seven-grain bread. I arranged six bread-and-butter pickles like big green polka dots on the thick layer of caramel-colored goo. I cut the finished sandwich on the diagonal and laid it on a paper napkin while I licked the knife clean. One virtue of being single is not having to explain the peculiarities of one’s appetites in moments of stress. I popped open a can of Diet Coke and ate at the kitchen counter, perched on a stool with a copy of Time magazine, which I read back to middle. Nothing in the front ever seems to interest me.
When I finished, I crumpled the paper napkin, tossed it in the trash, and returned to my desk. I was ready to go through the box of memorabilia, though I half dreaded what I would find. So much of the past is encapsulated in the odds and ends. Most of us discard more information about ourselves than we ever care to preserve. Our recollection of the past is not simply distorted by our faulty perception of events remembered but skewed by those forgotten. The memory is like orbiting twin stars, one visible, one dark, the trajectory of what’s evident forever affected by the gravity of what’s concealed.
I sat down in my swivel chair and tilted back on its axis. I propped my feet on my desk, the box open on the floor beside me. A hasty visual survey suggested that the minute I’d walked out, Mickey’d packed everything of mine he could lay hands on. I pictured him carting the box through the apartment, snatching up my belongings, tossing them together in a heap. I could see dried-out toiletries, a belt, junk mail and old magazines rubber-banded in a bundle, five paperback novels, and a couple of pairs of shoes. Any other clothes I’d left were long gone. He’d probably shoved those in a trash bag and called the Salvation Army, taking satisfaction in the idea that many much-loved articles would end up on a sale table for a buck or two. He must have drawn the line at memorabilia. Some of it was here, at any rate, spared from the purge.
I reached in and fumbled among the contents, letting my fingers make the selection among the unfamiliar clusters, a grab bag of the misplaced, the bygone, and the abandoned. The first item I retrieved was a packet of old report cards, bound together with thin white satin ribbon. These, my Aunt Gin had saved for reasons that escaped me. She wasn’t sentimental by nature, and the quality of my academic performance was hardly worth preserving. I was a quite average student showing no particular affinity for reading, writing, or arithmetic. I could spell like a champ and I was good at memory games. I liked geography and music and the smell of LePage’s paste on black and orange construction paper. Most other aspects of school were terrifying. I hated reciting anything in front of classmates, or being called on perversely when my hand wasn’t even raised. The other kids seemed to enjoy the process, while I quaked in my shoes. I threw up almost daily, and when I wasn’t sick at school I would try to manufacture some excuse to stay home or go to work with Aunt Gin. Faced with aggression on the part of my classmates, I quickly learned that my most effective defense was to bite the shit out of my opponent. There was nothing quite as satisfying as the sight of my teeth marks in the tender flesh of someone’s arm. There are probably individuals today who still bear the wrathful half moon of dental scars.
I sorted through the report cards, all of which were similar and shared a depressingly common theme. Scanning the written comments, I could see that my teachers were given to much hand wringing and dire warnings about my ultimate fate. Though cursed with “potential,” I was apparently a child with little to recommend her. According to their notes, I daydreamed, wandered the classroom at will, failed to finish lessons, seldom volunteered an answer, and usually got it wrong when I did.
“Kinsey’s bright enough, but she seems absentminded and she has a tendency to focus only on subjects of interest to her. Her copious curiosity is offset by an inclination to mind everybody else’s business … .”
“Kinsey seems to have difficulty telling the truth. She should be evaluated by the school psychologist to determine …”
“Kinsey shows excellent comprehension and mastery of topics that appeal to her, but lacks discipline … .”
“Doesn’t seem to enjoy team sports. Doesn’t cooperate with others on class projects … .”
“Able to work well on her own.”
“Undisciplined. Unruly.”
“Timid. Easily upset when reprimanded.”
“Given to sudden disappearances when things don’t go her way. Leaves classroom without permission.”
I studied my young self as though reading about a stranger. My parents had been killed in a car wreck on Memorial Day weekend. I’d turned five on May 5 that year, and they died at the end of that month. In September, I started school, armed with a lunch box, my tablet paper, a fat, red Big Bear pencil, and a lot of gritty determination. From my current vantage point, I can see the pain and confusion I hadn’t dared experience back then. Though physically undersized and fearful from day one, I was autonomous, defiant, and as hard as a nut.
There was much I admired about the child I had been: the ability to adapt, the resilience, the refusal to conform. These were qualities I still harbored, though perhaps to my detriment. Society values cooperation over independence, obedience over individuality, and niceness above all else.
The next packet contained photos from that same period. In class pictures, I was usually half a head shorter than anyone else in my class. My countenance was dark, my expression solemn and wistful, as if I longed to be gone, which of course I did. While others in the class stared directly at the camera, my attention was inevitably diverted by something taking place on the sidelines. In one photograph, my face was a blur because I’d turned my head to look at someone in the row behind me. Even then, life must have seemed more interesting slightly off-center. What I found unsettling was the fact I hadn’t changed much in the years between.
I probably should have been out somewhere looking for new clients instead of allowing myself to be distracted by the past. What could have happened that would result in Mickey’s belongings being sold at public auction? Not that it was any of my business, but then again, that’s exactly what gave the question its appeal.
I went back to the cardboard box and pulled out an old tape recorder as big as a hardback book. I’d forgotten that old thing, accustomed by now to machines the size of a deck of cards. I could see a tape cassette inside. I pushed the PLAY button. No go. The batteries were probably already dead the day Mickey tossed it in the box with everything else. I opened my desk drawer and took out a fresh pack of C batteries, shoving four, end to end, into the back of the machine. I pushed PLAY again. This time the spindles began to turn and I heard my own voice, some rambling account of the case I was working at the time. This was like historical data sealed in a cornerstone, meant to be discovered later after everyone was gone.
