Sue Grafton - V is for Vengeance

Her tone, while ostensibly normal, had a singsong quality that wouldn’t have fooled anyone with an ear to the wall.

“Thanks and good luck,” I said.

Whispering again, she said, “You sure we can’t stay with you?”

“Did I mention my allergies? Put me in a room with a cat and I blow up like a puffer fish. I had to be hospitalized just last month.”

“Too bad,” she said. “I could have done you a makeover. You could really use the help.”

Once back in my car, I cut over three blocks and turned right onto State Street, then pulled into a small parking lot where an Asian food market and an acupuncturist had set up shop side by side. I found an empty slot and sat there thinking about Pinky and where he might be. From what Dodie said, he was confident I’d figure it out. Which meant what? The only haunt of Pinky’s I knew about was the Santa Teresa Jewelry and Loan. Oh. I fired up the Mustang and drove into town. I reached lower State and cruised past the pawnshop, and when I turned at the corner, I saw Len Priddy’s dark green Chevrolet parked at the curb. Clearly, June had company and I’d have to postpone our conversation. I kept on going, a shiver of cold running up my spine.

I returned to the office, thinking I’d call her after a decent interval had passed. In the meantime, I’d use the time to tidy up. I picked up folder after folder, reuniting them with their contents and returning them to the drawers. After fifteen minutes I took a break. I’d never had my morning coffee. I’d offered Pinky a cup, but he’d declined, citing the hurry he was in. After that I’d been distracted by Earldeen’s visit, lunch with Cheney, and my surprise visit from Len. I went down the hall to my kitchenette, picked up the coffeepot, and turned on the water. There was a hissing, pop, and spurt that made me jump half out of my skin, but no water. What the heck was that about? I remembered then that the water department had notified me of the eight-hour shutoff. I’d forgotten that I’d intended to work from home and nearly wept when I thought of all the trouble I could have avoided if I hadn’t come in.

I abandoned the idea of coffee and went back to my desk. I looked at my watch. It had been a good thirty minutes since I’d driven past the pawnshop. Surely Len was gone. I hauled the phone book from the bottom drawer. Once I found the listing for the pawnshop, I made a note and dialed the first three digits. I don’t know what stayed my hand. Only that I hesitated. This is how I experience the Aha! moment on the occasions when they occur. In the back of my mind, I carried the imprint of Dodie’s whispering because she believed her place was bugged. I’d apparently juxtaposed that worry with the recollection of the fellow waxing his car in the driveway that runs between my bungalow and the one next door. It seemed curious at the time but not alarming. What lingered was the image of the hose. As far as I knew, no one had moved in, so who was the guy? More important, how had he managed to wash and wax his car with the water turned off?

I got up and peered out the window. He was long gone and I didn’t see any unfamiliar cars parked on the block. I took the penlight from my shoulder bag and instead of using the front door, I let myself out the back and moved between the two bungalows. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. While there was still ample daylight, the space was in shadow. I scanned the roofline for wires. I shone a light into the crawl space under the building. I reached the faucet where the hose had been neatly recoiled. Above the spigot was the window that looked into one end of my kitchenette. I looked down. In the wall, there was an aluminum mount with something affixed to it by means of a wing-nut. I hunkered and let the light play over the device. The pickup unit was a vibration-sensing contact mike of the sort I’d seen at the local electronics store. A hole had been drilled through the siding and the mike installed between the studs. The amplifier, transmitter, and recorder were concealed in a wall-mounted box that looked like something a utility company would insist on your using and then charge extra for. This type of surveillance equipment was limited, but it was cheap and easy to acquire. I didn’t think Len was concerned about the legalities. Whatever intelligence he gathered wouldn’t be used in a court of law. It was intended for his ears only.

I returned to the office and crawled along the baseboard on my hands and knees. The technician (doubtless a cop in Len’s personal posse) had miscalculated the depth of the wall, and I could see a tiny point in the drywall where the probe had come close to breaking through. My first impulse was to go back and rip out the wires, or at the very least, find a way to short the connection. I considered my options and decided it was better to leave it where it was so that Len would imagine he had access to my private conversations.

I gave myself the rest of the day off. I couldn’t work in circumstances where everything I said might be monitored. This meant phone conversations would be impossible and any walk-in clients-few and far between as they were-would have to be removed to a separate location to discuss their business. This would not make a good impression. With the water off, I couldn’t flush the toilet or wash my hands. Aside from that, I still felt like crap, and since I wasn’t being paid for the pain and suffering, I decided to bag it. Once home, I searched my apartment for bugs and when fully convinced the place was clean, I went to Rosie’s, where I drank bad wine and ate a Hungarian dish I couldn’t pronounce. This was getting on my nerves and I wondered if I’d have to find another place to hang out. Nah, probably not.

By morning, I felt restored. I took Len’s threat seriously enough that I decided to avoid the topic of Audrey Vance from that point forward. I should probably have been ashamed of my cowardice, but I was not. I resolved to mind my own business as Cheney Phillips had cautioned me. This determination lasted the whole of the drive to the office. I wasn’t sure what to do about the bug in my wall, but I knew I’d figure it out. I parked in a generous spot and patted myself on the back for my good fortune. I was on my way up the front steps when a car came around the corner and pulled into the spot behind mine. Diana Alvarez got out. At the sight of her, I jumped as though I’d touched a live electrical wire. I thought about fleeing, but she’d wedged her nifty white Corvette into the space behind my Mustang, parking so close to my rear fender that I couldn’t have pulled away from the curb without inching forward and back, shifting from drive to reverse fifteen times, which would have been humiliating for someone bent on escape. I was also inhibited by the fact that she had a young woman with her. Perhaps, not content to aggravate the life out of me herself, she’d brought along a cub reporter for training purposes.

Diana wore an adorable dark brown A-line skirt and matching vest that looked great with her blunt-cut brown hair and tortoiseshell glasses. I was dying to ask where she got the outfit, but I didn’t want to get into any girlish exchanges lest she imagine I liked her. She held her left hand in an upright position, much as a dog owner would in signaling “Stay.” I checked her right hand to see if I’d get a doggie treat for my obedience. “I know you don’t want to talk to me, but hear me out. It’s important,” she said.

I didn’t trust myself to speak so I shut my mouth.

“This is Melissa Mendenhall. She read the article about Audrey and has information that casts her death in a whole new light.”

All I could think about was the spike mike sticking out of the exterior wall of my bungalow not twenty feet away. I knew it was geared to pick up conversations within the office walls, but at the mere mention of Audrey’s name, I could feel a damp spot form across my lower back. Len had warned me Audrey was off-limits unless I wanted my life shortened by some years. While I didn’t take the threat that seriously, I’d developed an appreciation for the man’s ability to inflict pain.