B is for Burglar (8 page)

He stared at me, his face closing up like sea anemone. Apparently he had. “What about it?”

“I wondered if you interviewed a woman named Elaine Boldt. She lives in the condominium next door.”

“I remember the name,” he said carefully. “I spoke to her myself by phone. She was supposed to come down and talk to us, but I don't think she ever showed up. She your client?”

“She's the one I'm looking for.”

“How long she been gone?”

I detailed the information I had and I could see him run through the possibilities in the same way I had. In Santa Teresa County, some four thousand persons, male and female, are reporting missing every year. Most are found again but a few remain somewhere out in the ether.

He shoved his hands down in his pockets, rocking on his heels. “When she does turn up, tell her I want her down here for an interview,” he said.

I was startled. “That case hasn't been wrapped up yet?”

“No, and I won't discuss it with you either. Department policy,” he said. His favorite phrase.

“Jesus, Lieutenant Dolan. Big deal. Who asked you?” I knew he was protecting the integrity of his case, but I get tired of his being such a tight-ass. He thinks he is entitled to any information I have, while he never gives me a thing. I was hot and he knew it.

He smiled at me. “I just thought I'd head off that tendency of yours to stick your nose where it doesn't belong.”

“I'll help you out sometime too,” I said. “And meanwhile, if you want to talk to Elaine Boldt, you can find her yourself.”

I pushed away from the counter, heading toward the exit.

“Well, you don't need to take that attitude,” he called. I glanced back. He was looking entirely too self-satisfied for my taste.

“Right,” I said and pushed on out the double doors.

I came out of the police station into the flat overcast day and stood for a moment, collecting myself. The man gets to me. No doubt about it. I took a deep breath.

The temperature was in the mid-sixties. Pale remnants of sunlight shone through the clouds, tinting the neighborhood with lemon-colored light. The shrubbery had taken on a chartreuse glow and the grass seemed dry and artificial from the lack of moisture. It hadn't rained for weeks and the month of June had been a monotonous succession of foggy mornings, hazy afternoons, and chilly nights. Actually, Lieutenant Dolan had opened up a possibility and I wondered if Elaine's departure was coincidental with the murder of Marty Grice or connected in some way. If the vandalism at Tillie's was related, why not this? Could she have taken off to avoid the lieutenant's questioning? I thought it might help to pin down some dates.

I headed over to the newspaper office six blocks away and asked the clerk in the newspaper morgue to track
down the file clips on Marty Grice's death. There was only one clip, a small article, maybe two inches long, stuck back on page eight of local news, dated January 4.

 

BURGLAR KILLS HOUSEWIFE, THEN BURNS BODY,
POLICE SAY

 

A Santa Teresa housewife was bludgeoned to death during an apparent burglary in her westside residence early last night. According to homicide detectives, Martha Renée Grice, 45, of 2095 Via Madrina, was struck repeatedly with a blunt instrument and doused with flammable liquid. The victim's body was discovered, badly burned, in the foyer of the partially destroyed single-family dwelling after Santa Teresa fire fighters battled the blaze for thirty minutes. The fire was first spotted by neighbors at 9:55 p.m. Two adjacent homes were evacuated, but no other injuries were reported. Details of the arson were withheld pending further investigation.

 

The crime seemed pretty spectacular to get such small play. Maybe the cops hadn't had much to go on and had tried to minimize the coverage. That might explain Dolan's attitude. Maybe he wasn't being uncooperative. Maybe he had no evidence. Nothing makes a cop any tighter than that. I took down the pertinent information in my notebook and then I walked over to the public library and checked the Santa Teresa city directory
that had come out last spring. Martha Grice was listed at 2095 Via Madrina along with a Leonard Grice, bldg. contrctr. I assumed he was the husband. The newspaper account had made no mention of him and I wondered where he'd been when the whole thing went down. The directory listed the neighbors next door at 2093 as Orris and May Snyder. His occupation was “retired” but the directory didn't say from what. I jotted down the names and the telephone number. It might be interesting to see if I could find what went on and whether Elaine might have seen something she didn't want to talk about. The more I thought about it, the better I liked that idea. It gave me a whole new line to pursue.

I retrieved my car from the lot behind my office and circled back around to Via Madrina. It was now twelve o'clock straight up and high-school students were spilling out onto the streets; girls in jeans, short white socks and high heels, guys in chinos and flannel shirts. The wholesome California sorts outnumbered the punkers about three to one, but most of them looked like they'd been dressed out of ragbags. Some kids were wearing outrageous designer jumpsuits and some wore whole outfits in camouflage fabric as though prepared for an air attack. About half the girls sported three to four earrings per ear. In hairstyles, they seemed to fancy the wet look, or ponytails sticking up out of the sides of their heads like waterspouts.

As I pulled up in front of the condominium, a cluster of six girls were clumping down the sidewalk, smoking clove-scented cigarettes. Shoulder pads and green nail
polish, dark red lipstick. They looked like they were on their way to a USO dance in 1943.

I caught just a fragment of their conversation.

“So I'm all ‘What the fuck did you think I was talking about, dick-head?!' and he goes like ‘Hey, well, I never did anything to you, bitch, so I don't know what your problem is.' ”

I smiled to myself, and then looked over at the Grice house with interest. It was white frame, a story and a half, with a squat L-shaped porch across the front, resting on fat red-brick pillars topped with short pyramids of wood. It looked as if it had been jacked up somehow and might, at any moment, collapse. Most of the porch roof had burned away. The yard was scrappy and a row of pale pink-and-blue hydrangea bushes crowded the porch, still looking browned and wilted from the fire, though new growth was bravely showing through. The front window frames on the first floor were capped with lintels of black soot where the fire had licked the framing. A sign had been posted warning trespassers away. I wondered if the salvage crew had already gone in to clean up. I was hoping not, but I was probably out of luck on that. I wanted to see the house as it had been on the night of the fire. I also wanted to chat with Leonard Grice, but there was no indication whatever that the house was inhabited. Even from the street, I could still pick up the six-month-old cologne of charred wood and grinding damp where the firemen's hoses had penetrated every seam and crevice.

As I headed toward Elaine's condominium, I spotted someone coming out of a small wooden utility shed in
the Grices' backyard. I paused to watch. A kid, maybe seventeen. He had a Mohawk haircut, three inches of what looked like bright pink hay with a path mown on either side. He had his head down, his hands shoved into the pockets of his army fatigues. With a start, I realized I'd seen him before—from Elaine's front window the first time I searched her place. He'd been standing in the street below, rolling a joint at a leisurely pace. Now what was he up to? I veered, picking up my pace so my path would intersect his just about at the property line.

“Hello,” I said.

He looked up at me, startled, flashing the sort of polite smile kids reserve for adults. “Hi.”

His face didn't match the rest of him. His eyes were deepset, a jade green set off by dark lashes and dark everybows that feathered together at the bridge of his nose. His skin was clear, his smile engaging, slightly snaggle-toothed. He had a dimple in his left cheek. He glanced to one side, moving past me. I reached out and caught him by the sleeve.

“Can I talk to you?”

He looked at me and then quickly back over his shoulder.

“You talking to me?”

“Yes. I saw you coming out of that shed back there. You live around here?”

“What? Oh. Sure, couple of blocks away. This is my Uncle Leonard's house. I'm supposed to check and make sure nobody's bothering his stuff.” His voice was light, almost feminine.

“What stuff is that?”

The jade-green eyes had settled on me with curiosity. He smiled and his whole face brightened. “You a cop or something?”

“Private investigator,” I said. “My name is Kinsey Millhone.”

“Wow, that's great,” he said. “I'm Mike. You guarding the place or something like that?”

I shook my head. “I'm looking into another matter, but I heard about the fire. Your aunt was the one who was killed?”

The smile flickered. “Yeah, right. Jesus, that was terrible. I mean, her and me were never close, but my uncle really got messed up over that. He's a fuckin' basket case. Oh. Sorry 'bout that,” he said sheepishly. “He's like vegged out or something, staying with this other aunt of mine.”

“Can you tell me how to get in touch with him?”

“Well, my aunt's name is Lily Howe. I don't remember the number offhand, or I'd help you out.”

He was beginning to blush and the effect was odd. Pink hair, green eyes, rosy cheeks, green army fatigues. He looked like a birthday cake, innocent and festive somehow. He ran a hand across his hair, which was standing straight up on top like a whisk broom.

I wondered why he was so ill at ease. “What were you doing back there?”

He glanced back at the shed with an embarrassed shrug. “I was checking the padlock. I get like really paranoid, you know? I mean, the guy pays me ten bucks a month and I like to do right by him. Did you want
something else? Because I have to go grab some lunch and get back to class, okay?”

“Sure. Maybe I'll see you later.”

“Right. That'd be great. Anytime.” He smiled at me again and then moved away, walking backward at first, his eyes latched to mine, turning finally so that I was watching the narrow back and slim hips. There was something disturbing about him, but I couldn't think what it was. Something didn't jibe. That goody-two-shoes helpfulness and the look in his eyes. Artless and cunning . . . a kid whose conscience is clear because he doesn't have one. Maybe I'd check him out too, as long as I was at it. I went into the condominium courtyard.

 

 

 

 

I found Tillie spraying down the walk, a rolling tumble of leaves and debris pushed along by the force of the jet. Water dripped from the feather palms, the rubbery scent of hose mingling with the odor of wet earth. Stepping-stones were tucked in among the giant ferns, though why anyone would want to walk back in there was beyond me. It looked like a shadowy haven for daddy longlegs. Tillie smiled when she saw me and released the trigger nozzle, shutting off the spray. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, her spare form giving her a girlish look even in her sixties.

“Did you ever get any sleep?” I asked.

“No, and I'm not going to stay in that apartment 'til the windows are fixed. I may have an alarm system put in too. I came out here just to busy myself. Hosing the walks is restful, don't you think? It's one of the pleasures of adulthood. When I was a kid, my dad never would let me have a turn.”

“Have you been down to the police station yet?”

“Oh, I'll go in a bit, but I don't look forward to it.”

“I went by a little while ago and filed a missing persons report on Elaine.”

“What'd they say?”

I shrugged. “Nothing much. They'll do what they can. I ran into a homicide detective who worked on Marty Grice's murder. He says Elaine was supposed to come in for an interview and never showed up. Do you remember how soon afterward she went to Florida?”

“Well, I'm not sure. It was that same week. I do know that much. She was terribly upset about the murder and that's one reason she left. I thought I mentioned that.”

“You said she was sick.”

“She was, but she always seemed to have something wrong with her. She said the murder had her crazy with anxiety. She thought getting out of town would help. Hang on,” Tillie said. She went into the bushes and turned off the water at the faucet, using the last of the water pressure to empty the hose before she coiled it up again. She emerged from the shrubbery, wiping her damp hands on her jeans. “Are you thinking she knew something about Marty's death?”

“I think it's worth looking into,” I said. “Her side window looks right down into the Grices' entryway. Maybe she saw the burglar.”

Tillie made a skeptical face. “In the dark?”

I shrugged. “It doesn't seem likely, does it, but I don't know what else to think.”

“But why wouldn't she have gone to the police if she knew who it was?”

“Who knows? Maybe she wasn't thinking straight.
People panic. They don't like to get involved in these things. Maybe she felt she was in jeopardy herself.”

“Well, she
was
nervous,” Tillie said. “But then we were all a bundle of nerves that week. You want to come in?”

“Actually I do. I think I ought to take a look at those bills of hers. At least we can see how recently she's used her charge accounts and where she was at the time. Has anything else come in?”

“Just a couple of things. I'll show you what I've got.”

I followed Tillie through the lobby and into the corridor beyond.

She unlocked her front door and moved into the living room, crossing to the secretary. Since the glass had been broken out of the doors, there was no need to unlock anything, but I saw her hesitate, nonplussed, putting an index finger on the side of her cheek like someone posing for a photograph. “Now, that's odd.”