Sue Grafton - B Is For Burglar

"Maybe so." Vera sounded dubious.

"But you don't believe it."

"I'm just looking at his end. If the guy killed his wife for fun and profit, he sure went about it wrong. Why let a policy lapse like that? If he were smart, he'd have jacked the face value up two-three years ago, let enough time pass so it didn't look too obvious and then… whap, his wife is dead and he collects. If he killed her with no payoff, he's an idiot."

"Unless he just wanted her out of his way. Maybe that was all he cared about. Maybe letting the policy lapse was a ploy."

"Hey, listen, what do I know? I'm not a homicide dick."

"Me neither. I'm just trying to figure out why this woman disappeared and where she might have gone. Even if you're right and Grice had nothing to do with it, she still might have witnessed something. This burglar business sounds too tidy for words."

Vera smiled cynically. "Hell, maybe she did it herself."

"God, you're more suspicious than I am."

"Well, you want Grice's number? I got it somewhere here." Vera paused to toss the tag end of her cigarette into the Coke bottle. There was a quick spitting sound as the ember touched the thimbleful of Coke that remained. She extracted a file from the bottom of a stack and found the telephone number and the address.

"Thanks," I said.

She gave me a speculative look. "You interested in an unemployed aerospace engineer? He's got bucks. He invented some little dingus they use now in all the satellites."

"How come you don't want him?" I asked. Vera tended to offer up her rejects like hostess gifts.

She made a face. "He was fine for a while, but now he's on a health kick. Started taking algae pills. I don't want to kiss a man who eats pond scum. I thought you might not object since you live so clean. Maybe you two could jog together and nibble dried seaweed snacks. If you're interested, he's yours."

"You're too good to me," I said. "I'll keep an eye out. I might run into someone who's up for him."

"You're way too picky about men, Kinsey," she said reprovingly.

"I'm picky?! What about you?"

Vera stuck another cigarette between her teeth and I watched her flick a tiny gold lighter into play before she spoke.

"I figure guys are like Whitman's Samplers. I like to take a little bite out of each and then move on before the whole box gets stale."

It was 1:30 by now and as nearly as I could remember, I hadn't eaten lunch. I pulled into a fast-food restaurant, parked, and went in. I could have hollered my order into a clown's mouth and eaten in the car as I drove, but I wanted to show I had class. I wolfed down a cheeseburger, fries, and a Coke for a dollar sixty-nine and was back on the streets again in seven minutes flat.

The house where Leonard Grice was supposedly staying was located in a dingy tract of houses just off the freeway, a neighborhood of winding streets that had been named after states, starting with the East Coast. I rambled down Maine, Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island Drives, getting stuck in tricky cul-de-sacs where Vermont and New Jersey turned into dead ends. It looked like the builder had gotten as far as Colorado Avenue before the money ran out or his knowledge of geography failed. There was a long stretch of vacant lots with stakes visible at intervals, each tied with a little white rag to mark off the undeveloped parcels of land.

Most of the houses had gone up in the fifties. The trees had flourished, overpowering the small lots. The houses were alternately pale pink and pale green stucco, mirror images of one another like a whole tray of loaf cakes on a bakery shelf. All had the same rock-covered roofs, as though some volcano nearby had erupted, raining down a thin debris. The whole tract seemed dominated by wide-mouthed garages and I was subjected to untidy views of lawn equipment and camper shells, toys, tools, dusty luggage, banged-up refrigerators. There were surprisingly few cars visible and the impression I got was of a community abandoned in the wake of some natural disaster. Maybe a plague had passed this way or maybe toxic wastes had risen up through the soil, killing all the dogs and cats and burning holes in children's feet. At the intersection of Maryland and Virginia, I turned right.

On Carolina, a few enterprising souls had faced their homes with fieldstone or cedar shingle, and some had opted for an Oriental effect-trellises of plywood with geometric cutouts that were meant to look Chinese, the roof corners tilted up for that gala 1950s pagoda look. Compared to more recent tracts on the outskirts of Santa Teresa, these houses were shabby and the evidence of poor construction floated on the surface like chicken fat on homemade soup. There were cracks in the stucco, window shutters askew. The veneer on the front doors was peeling off in strips. Even the drapes were hung crookedly and I could imagine bathroom plaster bulging out in places, faucet handles frozen with rust.

The Howes had traded their front lawn for a rock garden, apparently burying the scruffy grass under tons of sand, topped with gravel beds in shades of mauve and green. I could still see a strip of black plastic "mulch" peeping out around the edge where some attempt had been made to suppress the weeds. The Bermuda grass had risen to the challenge and it was snaking its way through the gravel at a leisurely pace. There was a birdbath tucked among the succulents and a poured-concrete squirrel seemed to pop up out of the cactus in an attitude of perpetual, stony optimism. I doubted there was a live squirrel within blocks.

I parked the car and walked up to the house, taking the clipboard I keep in the backseat of my car. The Howes' garage door was closed, making the place look blank and unoccupied. The long, low line of the porch was obscured with ivy, looking picturesque, but capable, I knew, of lifting the roof right off. The drapes were closed. I rang the bell, but there was no reassuring "ding-dong" within. A minute passed. I knocked.

The woman who came to the door was subdued, her faded blue eyes searching my face hesitantly.

"Mrs. Howe?"

"I'm Mrs. Howe," she said.

It felt like Lesson One on a foreign-language record. There were dark circles under her eyes and her voice was as flat and dry as a cracker.

"I understand Leonard Grice is staying here. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

I held my clipboard up. "I'm from the insurance company and I wonder if I might have a word with him." It's a marvel God doesn't reach right down and rip my tongue out by the roots for the lies I tell.

"Leonard's taking a rest. Why don't you come back another time." She was closing the door.

"I'll just take a minute," I said quickly. I stuck the clipboard into the crack. She'd never get the door shut that way.

She paused. "The doctor still has him on sedatives." A non sequitur but the point was clear.

"I see. Well, of course, I wouldn't want to disturb him, but I'd really like to see him, as long as I've driven all the way out here." I tried to sound winsome, but apparently failed.

She stared at me stubbornly and I could see the color rise in her face. She glanced sideways as though she were consulting an invisible companion. Abruptly, she moved back and let me into the house with the attitude of someone using the / word under her breath. Her hair was gray, shoulder-length and thin, turned under in a tight pageboy. She had bangs along her forehead in a hairstyle I hadn't seen since those June Allyson movies where she was so loving and so long-suffering. Mrs. Howe wore a plain white blouse and a sensible charcoal-gray wool skirt. She was chunky through the waist. What is it about middle age that makes a woman's body mimic pregnancy?

"I'll see if he'll talk to you," she said and left the room.