Sue Grafton - B Is For Burglar

Dealing with her made me feel like a linebacker. "I wonder if you could give me some information."

"Well, I'll try," she whispered. Her voice was sweet and musical, her manner submissive.

I was going to show her the photostat of my P.I. license but I worried that it would seem brutal and coarse. I decided to hold off on that and whip it out if I had to turn the screws.

"Back in January, a woman brought a cat into the clinic for some kind of emergency treatment and I want to find out if she ever came back to pick it up."

"I can check our records if you like. Can you tell me the name, please?"

"Well, the woman's name was Elaine Boldt. The cat was Mingus. It would have been the night of January ninth."

Two patches of mild pink appeared on her cheeks and she licked her lips, staring at me fixedly. I wondered if she'd sold the cat to a vivisectionist.

"What happened?" I asked. "Do you know which one I'm talking about?"

"Well yes, I know which one. He was here for weeks," she said. Her speech had taken on a nasal cast, coming out through her nostrils now as though by ventriloquist. She wasn't exactly whining, but it was the tone of voice I've heard kids use in department stores when their moms accuse them of misbehavior and threaten to jerk their arms off. It was clear she was feeling defensive about something, but I wasn't sure quite what. She reached for a small tin box and walked her fingers through a file of index cards. She pulled out the record, snapping it onto the countertop self-righteously.

"She only paid three weeks' board and care and she never responded to any of our postcards or calls, so in

February the doctors said we'd have to make other arrangements because our space is so limited." She was really working herself into a snit here.

"Emily," I said patiently. "Is that your name, or somebody else's tag?"

"It's Emily."

"I really don't care where the cat is. I just need to know if the woman came back."

"Oh. No, she didn't."

"What happened to the cat? I'm just curious."

She stared at me for a moment, her chin coming up. She brushed her hair back across her shoulder with a flip of her hand. "I adopted him. He's really a fabulous cat and I just couldn't turn him over to the pound."

"That's fine. Hey, that's great. I've heard he was terrific and I'm glad you found a place for him. Enjoy. I will take your secret with me to the grave. If the woman shows up, though, would you let me know?" I put my card on the counter. She read it and nodded without another word.

"Thanks."

I went back to the office. I thought I better give Julia Ochsner a call and tell her I'd located the cat, thus saving her an unnecessary canvass of Boca kennels and vets. I left my car in the parking lot out back and came up the rear stairs. When I reached my office there was a man standing in the corridor, scribbling a message on a scrap of paper.

"Can I help you?"

"I don't know. Are you Kinsey Millhone?" His smile seemed superior and his attitude amused, as though he had a piece of information too precious to share.

"Yes."

"I'm Aubrey Danziger."

It took me a second to compute the name. "Beverly's husband?"

"Right," he said and then gave a little laugh in the back of his throat. So far, I didn't think either one of us had much cause for merriment. He was tall, maybe six foot two, with a smooth, thin face. He had very dark hair, lank, looking as if it would be silky to the touch, brown eyes, an arrogant mouth. He was wearing a pale gray three-piece suit. He looked like a riverboat gambler, a dandy, a "swell," if such persons exist in this day and age.

"What can I do for you?"

I put my key in the lock, opened the door, and went in. He followed, surveying the premises with the sort of look that told me he was pricing the furniture, calculating my overhead, estimating my quarterly taxes, and wondering why his wife hadn't hired a high-class outfit.

I sat down behind my desk and watched him while he took a seat and crossed his legs. Nice, sharp crease in the pants, nice narrow ankle, Italian leather pumps with a narrow polished toe. I caught sight of his snow-white shirt cuff, his initials-AND-in a pale blue monogram, hand-done no doubt. He was smiling at me faintly, watching me watch him. He took a flat cigarette case out of his inside jacket pocket and extracted a slim, black cigarette that he tamped on the case and then stuck in his mouth, flicking a lighter that shot out a jet of fire I thought might set his hair ablaze. He had elegant hands and his fingernails were beautifully manicured, with clear polish on each tip. I confess I was sore amazed at the sight, amazed by the scent of him that was wafting across the desk at me; probably one of those men's designer aftershaves called Rogue or Magnum. He studied the ember on his cigarette and then fixed me with a look. His eyes reminded me of hard clay, flat brown with no warmth and no energy.

I didn't offer him coffee. I pushed the ashtray toward him as I'd done with his wife. The smoke from his cigarette smelled like a smothered campfire and I knew it would linger long after he'd driven back to Los Angeles.

"Beverly got your letter," he said. "She was upset. I thought maybe I should drive up here and have a chat."

"Why didn't she come herself?" I said. "She can talk."

That amused him. "Beverly doesn't care for scenes. She asked me to handle it for her."

"I'm not crazy about scenes myself, but I don't see the problem here. She asked me to look for her sister. I'm doing that. She wanted to dictate the terms and I decided I should work for someone else."

"No, no, no. You misunderstood. She didn't want to terminate the relationship. She simply didn't want you to go to Missing Persons with it."

"But I disagreed with her. And I didn't think it was nice to take her money when I was ignoring her advice." I tried a noncommittal smile on him, swiveling slightly in my chair. "Was there something else?" I asked. I felt certain he was angling around for something. He didn't have to drive ninety miles for this.

He shifted in his chair, trying a friendlier tone. "I can tell we've gotten off on the wrong foot here," he said. "I'd like to know what you've found out about my sister-in-law. If I've pissed you off, I'd like to apologize. Oh. And you might be interested in this."

He took a folded paper from his jacket pocket and passed it across the desk to me. For a moment, I thought it was going to be an address or a telephone number, some scrap of information that might really help. It was a check for the $246.19 Beverly owed me. He made it seem like some kind of bribe and I didn't like that. I took the money anyway. I knew the difference whether he did or not.

"I sent Beverly a copy of my report two days ago. If you want to know what I've come up with, why not ask her?"

"I've read the report. I'd like to know what you've found out since then if you're willing to share that."

"Well, I'm not. I don't mean to sound surly about this, but any information I have belongs to my current employer and that's confidential. I'll tell you this much. I did go to the cops and they're circulating a description of her, but that's only been a couple of days and so far they haven't come up with anything. You want to answer a question for me?"

"Not really," he said, but he laughed. I was beginning to realize that his manner was probably born of discomfort, so I plowed ahead anyway.

"Beverly told me she hadn't seen her sister for three years, but a neighbor of Elaine's claims she was not only up here at Christmas, but the two had a knock-down-drag-out fight. Is that true?"

"Well, yeah, probably." His tone was softening and he seemed less aloof. He took a final drag of his cigarette and pinched the ember loose from the end. "To tell you the truth, I've been concerned that Beverly's somehow involved in this."