Sue Grafton - V is for Vengeance

“Yeah, well that’s just it. I don’t have a key. All I have is the address, which I don’t remember offhand. You have a minute to stop by? I live a block from here.”

“I don’t want you cutting your evening short.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m here three, four nights a week as it is, so it’s not like I’m in danger of missing anything fun.”

“Such as what,” I asked.

“Oh, you know. Sometimes Earldeen topples backward off her bar stool, but she usually doesn’t hurt herself. You have a car?”

“Parked around the corner. Don’t you want to settle your bill first?”

“Nah. I keep a running tab and pay at the end of the month.”

We walked the half block to my car and I ferried him from there to his house, which was literally one block away. I parked out front and followed him up the walk, waiting while he sorted through his ring of keys and unlocked the front door. He reached around the frame and switched on the overhead lights. He went in first and made a quick circuit through the living room, turning on table lamps. The living room and dining L were both tidy and there was no reason to believe the rest of the house was any different.

I said, “So tidy.”

“Place was a mess before Audrey moved in. She talked me into a cleaning lady, which I never bothered with. I figured it was me on my own and what difference did it make? She set me straight on that score.”

“Women tend to do that.”

“Not my wife. Margaret wasn’t much of a housekeeper. She was more the creative type. She was a daydreamer. Most of the time she walked around in a fog. She just didn’t see the chaos. She saw what she meant to do with it, but hadn’t gotten around to yet. Kitchen looked like a bomb hit it, but in her mind’s eye she was getting everything under control. Company showed up, she’d shove dirty dishes and all the bric-a-brac in the oven to get it out of sight. Then she’d forget and preheat the oven and the place would fill with smoke and the alarm would go off. What did I know? My mother was the same way so I thought that was normal.”

While he talked, he crossed to a small rolltop desk and opened the middle drawer in a bank of cubbyholes. He took out a notepad and leafed through it until he found what he was looking for. “Address is 805 Wood Lane. A piece of mail showed up here for her and I made a note. I guess in case I wanted to send flowers or something. What a laugh.” He ripped off the leaf and handed it to me. “Audrey mentioned her landlady lived right next door so maybe you can get a key from her.”

“Worth a try,” I said. “Something I need to ask you. I have a friend who’s a cop, and he told me Audrey’s body was still at the coroner’s office. So what was with the coffin if she wasn’t in there?”

“Mr. Sharonson provided one if I promised to have her buried in it once the body was released. It just seemed fitting, you know? Someone dies, you have a visitation. You think that was bad?”

“Of course not. It just took me by surprise.”

“Sorry if it seemed dishonest. I wanted to do right by her.”

“I understand,” I said. “While I’m here, would you mind my taking a look at her things?”

“You can do that. Sure. Doesn’t amount to much. The desk was hers. My office is in the second bedroom. I cleared two drawers of a chest of drawers in the master. In the bathroom, she’s got the usual shampoo, deodorant, that kind of thing.”

“Let’s start there.”

“You want me to hang around or make myself scarce?”

“Come with me. That way, if anything comes up, I can ask questions while I search.”

He showed me into the bathroom off the master bedroom. “Margaret and I remodeled fifteen years ago. Tore out a wall here and opened these two bedrooms to form a master suite. Doesn’t look like much compared to new houses these days, but we were happy. We did a bump out in the kitchen to make like a breakfast nook and then added a screened-in porch.”

I made what I hoped were appropriate responses while I sorted through the medicine cabinet and the vanity drawers she’d been allotted. He was right about her medications-no prescriptions at all. Sixty-three years old, you’d think she’d be into hormone-replacement therapy or thyroid medication, pills for high blood pressure or elevated cholesterol levels. Her personal hygiene products were just what you’d expect. Nothing exotic. I’d have been happy to see a tube of Mary Kay lipstick, just for the chance to track it back to the local rep.

“The police still have her purse,” he said apropos of nothing.

“Doesn’t surprise me. Too bad she didn’t take prescription meds. We might have tracked down her doctor and learned a thing or two.”

When he saw that I’d run out of drawers to tackle, he said, “Bedroom’s this way.”

I followed him into the bedroom where he pointed out the drawers she used. When I opened the first, I was greeted by a soft cloud of fragrance-lilac, gardenia, and something else.

Marvin took a step back. “Whoa…”

“What?”

“That’s the White Shoulders I gave her on our six-month anniversary. It was like her signature perfume.” He shook his head once and his eyes flooded with tears.

“Are you okay?”

He gave his eyes a quick swipe. “Took me by surprise is all.”

“You can wait for me in the other room if it’s easier.”

“No need.”

I went back to my search. Audrey’s tidiness extended to her lingerie. In both drawers, she was using fabric-covered boxes to store her neatly folded underpants, bras, and panty hose. I felt my way through the items without discovering anything. I pulled the drawers all the way out and checked for papers or other items taped under them or on the back. Zip.

I crossed to the closet and opened the door. There were rods for double hanging, cubbyholes, shelf dividers, wire baskets, and cedar-lined shelves tucked away behind clear Lucite doors. Her wardrobe struck me as skimpy for a working woman. Two suits, two skirts, and a jacket. Of course, this was California, and work clothes were more casual and relaxed than in other places.

Marvin’s side of the closet was as organized as hers. I said, “You guys are something else. She must have had a closet company come in and do this.”

“Matter of fact, she did.”

I removed stacks of folded sweaters, felt along the seams for anything hidden. I checked the pockets in her slacks and jackets, opened shoe boxes, and rooted through the laundry hamper. There was nothing of interest.

I returned to the small desk in the living room, where I sat down and worked my way through the drawers he’d cleared for her. No address book, no month-at-a-glance calendar, no appointment book. It was possible her route was preset and she had no need to make penciled reminders to herself. But what about the ordinary day-to-day transactions? Everyone has to-do lists, scraps of paper, scratch pads with scribbled notes. There was none of that here. Which meant what? If Audrey had decided to kill herself, she might have systematically deleted anything of a personal nature. I wasn’t sure why she’d be that secretive unless she was paranoid about anything connected to her shoplifting extravaganzas. She’d been working with a younger woman. If the two were linked to a larger retail-theft ring, even a fragment of information might be telling. So maybe the other woman was the one who kept track of their activities.

The flip side of the issue was just as troubling. What if she hadn’t killed herself? If she’d been murdered, she probably didn’t have warning and therefore she’d have had no opportunity to erase personal or professional references. Did she tidy up after herself as she went along? I had to credit her with a job well done. So far, she was invisible.