Sue Grafton - O Is For Outlaw

When I glanced through the back door to make sure the coast was clear, I spotted my clipboard still sitting on the porch rail where I'd left it. I was just chiding myself for not tucking it someplace less conspicuous when I heard the sound of gravel popping and the front of Rich's pickup appeared in my field of vision. He pulled to a stop, cranked on the handbrake, and opened the truck door. By the time he got out, I'd taken six giant steps backward, practically levitating as I fled through the kitchen to the laundry room, where I slid behind the open door. Rich had slammed his door and was apparently now making his way to the back porch. I heard him clump up the back steps. There was a pause wherein he seemed to make some remark to himself. He'd probably found my clipboard and was puzzling at its import.

The dog had heard him, of course, and was up like a shot, hurtling for the back door as fast as he could. My heart was thumping so loud it sounded like a clothes dryer spinning a pair of wet tennis shoes. I could see my left breast vibrating against the front of my coveralls. I couldn't swear to this, but I think I may have wee-weed ever so slightly in my underpants. Also, I noticed the cuff of my pant leg was now protruding through the crack in the door. I'd barely managed to conceal myself when Rich clattered in the back door and tossed the clipboard on the counter. He and the dog exchanged a ritual greeting. On the part of the dog, much joyous barking and leaps; on Rich's part, a series of exhortations and commands, none of which seemed to have any particular effect. The dog had forgotten my intrusion, sidetracked by the merriment of having his master home.

I heard Rich move through the living room and proceed down the hall, where he entered his office and flipped on the television set. Meanwhile, the dog must have been tickled by a tiny whisper of recollection because he set off in search of me, his nose close to the floor. Hide and seek-what fun-and guess who was It? He rousted me in no time, spying my coveralls. just to show how smart he was, he actually seemed to press one eye to the crack before he gave my pant leg a tug. He shook his head back and forth, growling with enthusiasm while he yanked on my cuff. Without even thinking, I poked my head around the door and raised a finger to my lips. He barked with enthusiasm, thus releasing me, and then he pranced back and forth hoping I would play. I have to say, it was pathetic to see an eighty-pound mutt having so much fun at my expense. Rich, unaware of the cause, bellowed orders to the pooch, who stood there torn between obedience to his master and the thrill of discovery. Rich called him again, and he bounded away with a series of exuberant yelps. Back in the den, Rich told him to sit and, apparently, he sat. I heard him bark once to alert his master there was game afoot.

I didn't dare delay. Moving with a silence I hoped was absolute, I slipped to the back door and opened it a crack. I was on the brink of escape when I remembered my clipboard, which was resting on the counter where Rich had tossed it. I paused long enough to grab it and then I eased out the back door and closed it carefully behind me. I crept down the porch steps and veered left along the drive, tapping the clipboard casually against my thigh. My impulse was to bolt as soon as I reached the street, but I forced myself to walk, not wanting to call attention to my exodus. There's nothing so conspicuous as someone in civilian clothes running down the street as though pursued by beasts.

The drive back to Santa Teresa was uneventful, though I was so Juiced up on adrenaline I had to make a conscious effort not to speed. I seemed to see cops everywhere: two at an intersection directing traffic where a stoplight was on the fritz; one lurking near the on-ramp, concealed by a clump of bushes; another parked on the berm behind a motorist, who waited in resignation for the ticket to come. Having escaped from the danger zone, I was not only being meticulous about obeying the law but struggling to regain a sense of normalcy, whatever that is. The risk I'd taken at Teddy's house had fractured my perception. I'd become, at the same time, disassociated from reality and more keenly connected to it so that "real life" now seemed flat and strangely lusterless. Cops, rock stars, soldiers, and career criminals all experience the same shift, the plunge from soaring indomitability to unconquerable lassitude, which is why they tend to hang out with others of their ilk. Who else can understand the high? You get amped, wired, blasted out of your tiny mind on situational stimulants. Afterward, you have to talk yourself down, reliving your experience until the charge is off and events collapse back to their ordinary size. I was still awash with the rush, my vision shimmering. The Pacific pulsated on my left. The sea air felt as brittle as a sheet of glass. Like flint on stone, the late morning sun struck the waves in a series of sparks until I half expected the entire ocean to burst into flames. I turned on the radio, tuning the station to one with booming music. I rolled down the car windows and let the wind buffet my hair.

As soon as I got home, I set the cardboard box on the desk, pulled the storage company receipt from my pocket, and tossed the coveralls in the wash. I never should have broken into Teddy's house that way. What was I thinking? I was nuts, temporarily deranged, but the man had irritated me beyond reason. All I'd wanted was a piece of information, which I now possessed. Of course, I had no idea what to do with it. The last thing I needed was to reconnect with my ex.

We'd parted on bad terms, and I'd made a point of abolishing my memories of him. Mentally, I'd excised all reference to the relationship, so that now I scarcely allowed myself to remember his name. Friends were aware that I'd been married at the age of twenty-one, but they knew nothing of who he was and had no clue about the split. I'd put the man in a box and dropped him to the bottom of my emotional ocean, where he'd languished ever since. Oddly enough, while my second husband, Daniel, had betrayed me, gravely injuring my pride, he hadn't violated my sense of honor as Mickey Magruder had. While I may be careless about the penal code, I'm never casual about the law. Mickey had crossed the line, and he'd tried dragging me along with him. I'd moved on short notice, willing to abandon most of my belongings when I walked out the door.

The overload of chemicals began to drain from my system, letting anxiety in. I went into my kitchenette and tranquilized myself with the ritual of a sandwich, smoothing Jif Extra Crunchy peanut butter on two slices of hearty seven-grain bread. I arranged six bread-and-butter pickles like big green polka dots on the thick layer of caramel-colored goo. I cut the finished sandwich on the diagonal and laid it on a paper napkin while I licked the knife clean. One virtue of being single is not having to explain the peculiarities of one's appetites in moments of stress. I popped open a can of Diet Coke and ate at the kitchen counter, perched on a stool with a copy of Time magazine, which I read back to middle. Nothing in the front ever seems to interest me.

When I finished, I crumpled the paper napkin, tossed it in the trash, and returned to my desk. I was ready to go through the box of memorabilia, though I half dreaded what I would find. So much of the past is encapsulated in the odds and ends. Most of us discard more information about ourselves than we ever care to preserve. Our recollection of the past is not simply distorted by our faulty perception of events remembered but skewed by those forgotten. The memory is like orbiting twin stars, one visible, one dark, the trajectory of what's evident forever affected by the gravity of what's concealed.

I sat down in my swivel chair and tilted back on its axis. I propped my feet on my desk, the box open on the floor beside me. A hasty visual survey suggested that the minute I'd walked out, Mickey'd packed everything of mine he could lay his hands on. I pictured him carting the box through the apartment, snatching up my belongings, tossing them together in a heap. I could see dried-out toiletries, a belt, junk mail and old magazines rubber-banded in a bundle, five paperback novels, and a couple of pairs of shoes. Any other clothes I'd left were long gone. He'd probably shoved those in a trash bag and called the Salvation Army, taking satisfaction in the idea that many much-loved articles would end up on a sale table for a buck or two. He must have drawn the line at memorabilia. Some of it was here, at any rate, spared from the purge.