Sue Grafton - B Is For Burglar

"Would you like to sit here?" I asked her.

She surveyed the wall with rheumy eyes, trying to discover the source of the sound. Her head was small, like a little pumpkin off the vine too long, looking shrunken from some interior softening. Her eyes were narrow inverted V's and one tooth protruded from her lower gum like a candle wick. She seemed confused.

"What?" she said, but the question had a hopeless ring to it. I didn't think anybody answered her these days.

Snyder waved at me impatiently. "She's fine. Just leave her be. Doctor wants her on her feet more anyway," he said.

I watched her uncomfortably. She continued to stand there, looking puzzled and dismayed, like a baby who's learned how to pull itself up on the sides of a crib, but hasn't figured out how to sit down again.

Mr. Snyder ignored her, settling on the couch with his knees spread. His belly filled the space between his legs like a duffel bag, as cumbersome on him as a clown suit with a false front. He put his hands on his knees, giving me his full attention as though I might be soliciting his entire history for inclusion on "This Is Your Life."

"We been in this house forty year," he said. "Bought it back in nineteen and forty-three for four thousand dollar. Bet you never heard of a house that cheap. Now it's worth one hunnert and fifteen thousand. Just the lot we're settin' on. That don't even count the house. They can knock this place down and build anything they want. Hell, she can't even get that walker into the commode. Now Leonard, next door, nearly sold his house for a hunnert and thirty-five, had it in escroll and everything and then the deal fell out. That about done him in. He's the one I feel sorry for. House burnt. Wife dead. You know what the kids these days would say… his carnal was bad."

He went right on talking while I took mental notes. This was better than I'd hoped. I had thought I'd have to tell a few fibs, leading the conversation around judiciously from Elaine's whereabouts to the subject of the murder next door, but here sat Orris Snyder giving testimony extemporaneously. I realized he'd stopped. He was looking at me.

"You've sold this house? I saw the sign out front."

"Sold," he said with satisfaction. "We can move us up to that retirement place when the kids get everything here packed up. We've got a regular reservation. We're on the list and everything. She's old. She doesn't even know where she is half the time. Fire broke out in this place, she'd lay there and cook."

I glanced at his wife, who had apparently locked her knees. I was worried she would pass out, but he didn't seem to give it much thought. She might as well have been a hall tree.

Snyder went on as though prompted by questions from an unseen audience. "Yessir, I sold it. She like to have a fit, but the house is in my name and I own it free and clear. Paid four thousand dollar. Now I call that a profit, wouldn't you?"

"That's not bad," I said. I glanced over at his wife again. Her legs had begun to tremble.

"Why don't you get on back to bed, May?" he said and then looked at me with a disapproving shake of his head. "She can't hear good. Hearing comes and goes. Got tintypes of the ear and all she can see is living shapes. She got the leg of that walker hung up on the broom-closet door last week and stood there for forty-six minutes before she got loose. Old fool."

"You want me to help you get her back to bed?" I asked.

Snyder floundered on the couch, turning himself sideways so he could get up. He pushed himself to his feet and then went over to her and shouted in her face. "Go lay down awhile, May, and then I'll get you some snackin' cake," he said.

She stared steadfastly at his neck, but I could have sworn she knew exactly what he was talking about and was just feeling stubborn and morose.

"Why did you put the light on? I thought it was day," she said.

"It only cost five cent to run that bulb," he said.

"What?"

"I said it's pitch-black night outside and you got to go to bed!" he hollered.

"Well," she said, "I think I might in that case."

Laboriously, she thumped the walker around, navigating with effort. Her eyes slid past me and she seemed suddenly to discern me in the haze.

"Who's that?"

"It's some woman," Snyder broke in. "I was telling her of Leonard's back luck."

"Did you tell her what I heard that night? Tell about the' hammering kept me awake. Hanging pictures… bang, bang, bang. I had to take a pill it made my head hurt so bad."

"That wasn't the same night, May. How many times I told you that? It couldn't have been because he wasn't home and he's the one did that kind of thing. Burglars don't hang pictures."

He looked over at me then, twirling his index finger beside his temple to indicate that she was rattlebrained.

"Banged and banged," she said, but she was only muttering to herself as she thunked away, moving the walker in front of her like a clothes rack.

"She hasn't a faculty left," he said to me over his shoulder. "Pees on herself half the time. I had to move every stick of dining-room furniture out and put her bed in there right where the sideboard stood. I told her I'd outlive her the day I married her. She gets on my nerves. She did back then too. I'd just as soon live with a side of meat."

"Who's at the door?" she said insistently.

"Nobody. I'm talkin' to myself," he said.

He shuffled into the hallway behind her. His hovering had a tender quality about it in spite of what he said. In any event, she didn't seem aware of his aggravation or his minor tyrannies. I wondered if he'd stood there and timed her for the forty-six minutes while she struggled with the broom-closet door. Is that what marriages finally come down to? I've seen old couples toddle down the street together holding hands and I've always looked on faintly misty-eyed, but maybe it is all the same clash of wills behind closed doors. I've been married twice myself and both ended in divorce. I berate myself for that sometimes but now I'm not sure. Maybe I haven't made such a bad trade-off. Personally, I'd rather grow old alone than in the company of anyone I've met so far. I don't experience myself as lonely, incomplete, or unfulfilled, but I don't talk about that much. It seems to piss people off-especially men.

Mr. Snyder returned to the living room and sat down heavily on the couch. "Now then."

"What can you tell me about that fire next door?" I asked. "I saw the place. It looks awful."

He nodded, preparing himself as though for a television interview, staring straight ahead. "Well now, the fire engine woke me up ten o'clock at night. Two of 'em. I don't sleep good anyhow and I heard the siren come right up here close so I got up and went out. Neighbors was runnin' from ever' which way. Black smoke outen that house like you never saw. These firemen, they bashed their way in and pretty soon flames et up the front porch. Whole backside got saved. They found Marty, that was Leonard's wife, layin' on the floor. It'd be right about over there," he said, pointing toward the front door. "I never seen her myself, but Tillie said she was charred head to foot. Just a bunch of stumps, like a piece of wood."

"Oh really. Tillie didn't mention that to me." "She seen the smoke and called right up. Nine-one-one it was. I was sound to sleep. Woke up when the fire engine come blastin' down the road. I thought they'd go right on by, but then I seen the lights and I got up and put a robe on and went out. Poor Leonard wasn't even home. He drove up about the time they got the fire out. Collapsed right on the street when he heard she was dead. I never saw a man so tore up. My wife, May, she never woke up at all. She'd tooken a pill and she's deaf as a broom anyway. You've seen that yourself. Fire broke out here, she'd been roast pork." "What time was it when Mr. Grice got home?" "I don't know the exact time. Fifteen, twenty minutes after the fire engines come as best I recollect. He was out to dinner with his sister as I hear tell and he comes home to find his own wife dead. His knees give out and down he went. Right on the sidewalk with me standin' not this far away. Turned white and dropped like a big hand had give him a thump and knocked him out. It was the awfullest thing you ever saw. They brought her out zipped up in a plastic sack-" "How'd Tillie happen to see her?" I interrupted. "I mean, if she was zipped up in a body bag?"