Sara Paretsky - A Woman’s Eye

Even the women behind the counter had a sort of glow on them when I came out from behind the racks with my arms full. She’d probably told them my story in whispers when my back was turned. And that was why I really had needed her help. Because those nice ladies behind the counter would have chased me out if I’d gone in on my own. They’d have been afraid I’d pinch their charity.

It was still coming down in buckets when we left the shop. This time it was me carrying all the bags.

I was about to go when she said, “Look, don’t be insulted, but what you need is a hot bath and somewhere to change.” She said it in a rush as if she really was afraid of hurting my feelings.

“I live up the hill,” she said. “It won’t take any time at all.”

“Nah,” I said. “I’ll get your car seats all dirty.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Please.”

And I thought, why not? She deserved the satisfaction.

She ran me a hot bath and squirted loads of scented oil in. She gave me her shampoo and a whole heap of clean towels. And then my lovely lady mark left me alone in her bathroom.

I swear she had tears in her eyes when I came out in my new clothes.

“Crystal,” she said, “you look like a new person.” This was just what I wanted to hear.

“You look quite like my own daughter when she was younger,” she said. Which was a good thing because the Law and the bastards who beat Marvin up weren’t looking for someone who looked like my lady mark’s daughter. And no one would bat an eyelash if she had a fifty-pound note. My lady mark’s daughter would not turn into an old woman who had to bend over to root around in dustbins.

And nor, I thought, would I, if I could help it.

She cooked me eggs and potatoes for my tea, and when I left she gave me a fiver and her green umbrella.

It was a shame really to have pinched her soap. But you can’t break old habits all at once.

She even wanted to give me another ride in her car. But I wouldn’t let her. She was a lovely lady, but I didn’t think she’d understand about Dawn. Lovely ladies don’t.

I could give lessons about what to do when you find your mark, and the last one would be-don’t push your luck. Because if you push your luck and let them take over, they start giving you what they think you need instead of what you want. If my lady mark knew too much about Dawn and what was really going on, she’d have got in touch with the Social Services all over again. And far from being a lovely lady she’d have turned into an interfering old cow.

I was doing her a favor, really. I’m sure she’d rather be a lovely lady than an interfering old cow.

No one who saw me knocking at Dawn’s door in Padding-ton would have known I’d spent all day down a drain. Dawn didn’t.

“’Struth, Crystal,” she said when she opened up. “You look like one of those girls from that snob school up the hill from ours.”

I knew what she meant and I didn’t like it much. But I was lucky really. I’d caught her at a slack time when she was just lying around reading her comic and playing records. And now I was all clean and respectable, she didn’t mind if I sat on her bed.

“You still need your hair cut,” Dawn said.

She got out her scissors and manicure set, and we sat on her bed while she cut my hair and did my nails. Dawn could be a beautician if she wanted. The trouble is she’d never stand for the training and the money wouldn’t be enough. She’s used to her creature comforts now, is Dawn.

It was a bit like the old days-Dawn and me together listening to records, and her fiddling with my hair. I didn’t want to spoil it but I had to ask about the watch.

Because when I was in the lovely lady’s bathroom I’d had another search through Philip Walker-Jones’s wallet.

Dawn said, “What about the watch?” And she rubbed round my thumb with her little nail file.

“It was real gold,” I said, to remind her. “Your Christmas present.”

“I can’t wear a man’s watch,” she said. Dawn likes to be very dainty sometimes.

“Where is it?” I said.

“You want it back?” she asked. “Fine Christmas present if you want it back.”

I looked at her and she looked at me. Then she said, “Well, Crystal, if you must know, I was going to give it to my boyfriend for Christmas.”

“It wasn’t for him,” I said. “It was for you.”

“A man’s watch?” she said, and laughed. “I was going to get his name engraved on the back. ‘Eternal love, from Dawn.’ But there wasn’t room. There were all these numbers on the back, and the man at the jewelers said I’d lose too much gold having them rubbed down.”

“Hah!” I said. I felt clever. Because all it takes is some good hot food to help you think. And it had come to me in a flash just after I’d put down my last mouthful of egg and potato.

I said, “Bet there were twenty-five of them.”

“Loads of numbers,” she said. She put the nail file back in her manicure set.

“If you must know, Crystal,” she said, “I popped it. And I bought him a real gold cigarette lighter instead.”

And she gave me the pawn ticket.

She hadn’t got much for a solid gold watch. Dawn isn’t practical like I am, so the pawnbroker cheated her. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t her watch in the first place, and besides, it would cost me less to get back. If I wanted it back.

Poor Dawn. She needs me to take care of her. She doesn’t think she does because she thinks her boyfriend’s doing it. She’s not like me. She doesn’t want to look after herself. That’s not her job. And if I told her what I’d been through today to solve my own problems she’d say I was a fool.

But look at it this way-I’d given Detective Sergeant Michael Sussex the slip. I’d dressed up so he wouldn’t know me again if I ran slap-bang into him. Nor would Brainy Brian. So he couldn’t finger me to the bastards who beat up little Marvin. I’d had a bath and I’d had eggs and potatoes for my tea. I had enough money to sleep in a bed for as many nights as I wanted. And now I had the watch.

Or I could have it any time I wanted. But it was safer where it was. I still didn’t know why the number was so important but I was sure it would be worth something to me sooner or later.

I saw Dawn looking at me.

“Don’t get too cocky, Crystal,” she said. “You might look like a girl from the snob school, but you’re still just like me.”

That’s how much she knew.

SUE GRAFTON’s private eye Kinsey Millhone is, along with Sara Paretsky’s V. I. Warshawski and Marcia Muller’s Sharon McCone, one of three female investigators who revolutionized crime fiction in the 1980s. Her alphabetized book titles, beginning with “A” is for Alibi sad now extending through “G” is for Gumshoe, have proved enormously popular. Ms. Grafton lives in Santa Barbara, California, a community much like Kinsey’s “Santa Teresa.”

The accident seemed to happen in slow motion… one of those stop-action sequences that seem to go on forever though in truth no more than a few seconds have elapsed. It was Friday afternoon, rush hour, Santa Teresa traffic moving at a lively pace, my little VW holding its own despite the fact that it’s fifteen years out of date. I was feeling good. I’d just wrapped up a case and I had a check in my handbag for four thousand bucks, not bad considering that I’m a female private eye, self-employed, and subject to the feast-or-famine vagaries of any other free-lance work.