Sue Grafton - V is for Vengeance

I shoved the two letters into the outer compartment of my shoulder bag. The credit card offer I’d toss at the first opportunity. The form letter from the property-management company I’d look at again. It was possible that on further reflection I’d see a way to make use of it, though I wasn’t quite sure how. Which left me with the physical premises. On the off chance the door was unlocked, I tried the knob. Nope.

While I was at it, I went around to the rear and tried the back door with the same result. I returned to the front yard and studied the sparsely traveled road. Audrey was a party animal. Yet here she was, miles from the nearest bar and the nearest convenience store. What was the point? If she’d needed to spend two nights a month in San Luis Obispo, why not camp out at the nearest Motel 6? I couldn’t imagine why she’d elect to rent such an isolated place unless she was up to no good.

I looked over at the house next door, which was separated from Audrey’s by a sagging wire fence. Everything in Audrey’s yard was dead, but I could see signs of a newly planted garden on the neighbor’s side of the fence. Behind the house, a woman with a laundry basket was pinning freshly washed linens on a clothesline. The sheets flapped and snapped, sounding like the beating of wings as they tossed in the wind.

I crossed to the fence and waited to catch her eye. She was in her forties, wearing a cotton housedress with an apron over it. Her bare legs were sturdy and the muscles in her arms had been defined by hard work. When she noticed me, I waved and gestured her closer. She put a handful of clothespins in her apron pocket and approached the fence. “Are you looking for Audrey?”

“Not exactly. I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but she died this past Sunday.”

“I was about to say the same thing to you. I read about it in the local paper.”

“You’re her landlady?”

“She rented the house from my husband and me,” she said, with caution.

“I’m Kinsey Millhone. I’m a private detective.” I reached into my shoulder bag and extracted a business card, which I passed to her. I could see her take in the information at a glance.

She said, “Vivian Hewitt. I thought you might be the police.”

“Not me. Audrey was engaged to a friend of mine. Questions have come up in the wake of her death and he’s hired me to fill in the blanks.”

“Questions of what sort?”

“For one thing, she told him she had two grown kids living in San Francisco. He has no way to reach them. If nothing else, he’d like to let them know what happened. He thought she might have kept an address book up here among her personal effects.”

“I can understand his concern. Is there something else?”

“Basically, he’s wondering just how big a fool he was. Some of what she told him turns out to be false. She also omitted a couple of crucial details.”

“Such as what?”

“She’d been convicted of grand theft and served time in prison. Grand theft means she was picked up with merchandise worth more than four hundred dollars. Six months ago, she finally got off parole. Then, Friday of last week, she was arrested again. We hoped you’d be willing to open the house so I can have a look. You’re welcome to accompany me, if you’re worried this isn’t on the up-and-up.”

She studied me briefly. “Wait here and I’ll fetch the key.”

I returned to the front porch and tried peering in the windows while Vivian Hewitt was gone. The slats in the venetian blinds were set so all I saw were thin slices of the floor, not that informative as these things go. A few minutes later, she returned with a big ring of keys. I watched her sort through the collection until she found one marked with a dot of red nail polish. She inserted it in the lock. The key refused to turn. Frowning, she pulled the key from the lock and tried it again.

“Well, I don’t know what’s wrong. This is a duplicate of the one I gave her.”

“Mind if I have a look?”

She handed me the key. I checked the manufacturer’s stamp and then leaned forward and examined the lock itself. “This says Schlage. The key is a National.”

“She changed the locks?”

“She must have.”

“Well, she never said a word to me.”

“Audrey’s full of surprises. I have ways of getting us in there if you don’t object.”

“I don’t want my windows broken or the door kicked down.”

“Absolutely not.”

We circled the house to the rear and tried the same key again. Not surprisingly, that lock had been swapped out as well.

“You have a problem with my picking this?”

“Help yourself. I’ve never seen it done.”

I took out my trusty leather zip case and removed the custom-made picks Pinky Ford had fashioned for me. Pinky had confessed that he sometimes constructed picks with complicated-looking bends and twists when in reality the only two items required were a tension wrench and a length of flat wire, bent at the tip. A bobby pin or a paper clip would do the same job. I removed the tension wrench from the case and inserted it into the lock, applying a gentle pressure while I eased the feeler pick to the back of the lock. The trick was to wiggle the pick as I pulled it out, easing it past the pins. With luck, the pick would toggle each pin in turn until it cleared the shear line. Once all the pins were up, the lock would pop open as though of its own accord. I have an electric lock pick that does the job in half the time, but I usually don’t have it with me. It’s a felony offense if you’re caught carrying burglar tools.

During my initial instruction, Pinky had dismantled a number of different lock mechanisms to demonstrate the technique. After that he said it was a matter of developing the proper touch, which differed from person to person. Like any other skill, practice made perfect. There was a period when I was adept, but it had been a while since I’d had occasion to pick a lock, so the task required patience. Vivian watched with interest and I wouldn’t have put it past her to try it herself once I was gone. One minute became two and just when I was about to despair, the pins gave way. The door swung inward and we were at liberty to tour the place.

“That was handy,” she remarked.

“You bet.”

In a circumstance such as this, I like to be systematic, starting at the front door and working my way back. Vivian was a step behind me as I turned to survey the space. “Have you been here recently?”

“Not since she moved in.”

The interior was a simple box, divided into four squares: living room, kitchen, bedroom, and a combination mudroom, bath, and laundry room. The living room contained a collection of mismatched furniture: chairs, two end tables, a couch, a sewing machine, and a credenza with a faux marble top, all pushed to the outside walls. All the drawers and cabinets were empty. On one of the tables there was an old-fashioned Princess phone. I picked up the handset and listened for a dial tone. The line was dead.

“How long was she a tenant?”

“A little over two years.”

“You put an ad in the paper?”

“We tried that but had no response, so we staked a For Rent sign in the yard, and she came knocking on my door, asking to see the place. My husband and I bought these two properties at the same time, thinking one of our kids would move in. When that didn’t work out, we decided to offer it for rent so we’d have money coming in. This end of town, we don’t get many prospects so I was happy to show her around. I told her we’d waive the cleaning fee as long as she didn’t have pets.”

“Did she fill out a rental agreement?”

“No need. She paid me cash, six months in advance. Took out her wallet, counted the bills, and put them in my hand.”