Sue Grafton - B Is For Burglar

"Not unless she were in a fearful hurry," Julia said.

"Well actually, she might have been, but I still don't think she'd pack like this."

"What's on your mind? What do you think it means?"

I told her about the double set of plane tickets and the layover in St. Louis and any other facts I thought might pertain. It was nice to have someone to try ideas on. Julia was bright and she liked to pick at knots the same way I did.

"I'm not convinced she ever got here," I said. "We only have Pat Usher's word for it anyway and neither of us set much store by that. Maybe she got off the plane in St. Louis for some reason."

"Without her luggage? And you said she left her passport behind too, so what could she have done with herself?'

"Well, she did have that lynx coat," I said, "which she could have pawned or sold." I had one of those little nagging thoughts on the subject, but I couldn't bring it into focus for the moment.

Julia waved dismissively. "I don't believe she'd sell her coat, Kinsey. Why would she do that? She has lots of money. Stocks, bonds, mutual funds. She wouldn't need to pawn anything."

I chewed on that one. She was right, of course. "I keep wondering if she's dead. The luggage got here, but maybe she never made it. Maybe she's in a morgue somewhere with a tag on her toe."

"You think someone lured her off the plane and killed her?"

I wagged my head back and forth, not wholly convinced. "I don't know. It's possible. It's also possible she never made the trip at all."

"I thought you told me someone saw her get on the plane. The cab driver you talked about."

"That wasn't really a positive identification. I mean, a cab driver picks up a fare and the woman claims she's Elaine Boldt. He never saw her before in his life, so who knows? He just takes her word for it, like we all do. How do you know I'm

Kinsey Millhone? Because I say I am. Someone might have posed as her just to establish a trail."

"What for?"

"Well now, that I don't know. We've got a couple of women who might have pulled it off. Her sister Beverly for one."

"And Pat Usher for another," Julia said.

"Pat did benefit from Elaine's being off the scene. She gets a rent-free condo in Boca for months."

"That's the first time I ever heard of anyone murdered for room and board," she said tartly.

I smiled. I knew we were floundering, but maybe we'd stumble onto something. I could have used a break at that point. "Did Pat ever leave that forwarding address she promised?"

Julia shook her head. "Charmaine says she left one, but it was humbug. She packed and took off the same day you were here and nobody's seen her since."

"Oh shit. I knew she'd do that."

"Well, it wasn't anything you could have prevented," she said charitably.

I leaned my head back against the sofa frame, playing mind games. "It could have been Beverly too, you know. Maybe Bev bumped her off in the ladies' room at the St. Louis airport."

"Or killed her in Santa Teresa and impersonated her from that point on. Maybe she was the one who packed the bags and took the plane."

"Try it the other way," I said. "Think about Pat. I mean, what if Pat Usher were a stranger to Elaine, just someone she met on the plane. Maybe they started talking and Pat realized-" I dropped that idea when I saw the expression on Julia's face. "It does sound pretty lame," I said.

"Oh, well-no harm done in speculating. Maybe Pat knew her in Santa Teresa and followed her from there."

I ran that around in my head. "Well, yeah. I guess it could be. Tillie says she heard from Elaine-at least, she assumed it was Elaine-by postcard until March, but I guess somebody could have faked that too."

I filled her in on my conversations with Aubrey and Beverly and right in the middle of it, my memory kicked in; one of those wonderful little mental jolts, like a quick electrical shock when a plug's gone bad. "Oh wait, I just remembered something. Elaine got a bill from some furrier here in Boca. What if we could track him down and find out if he's seen the coat? That might give us a lead."

"What furrier? We have quite a few."

"I'd have to check with Tillie. Can I make a call to California? If we can track down the coat, maybe we can get a line on her."

Julia wagged the cane toward the telephone. Within minutes, I'd gotten Tillie on the line and told her what I needed.

"Well, you know that bill got stolen along with the rest, but I just got another one. Hold on and I'll see what it says." She put the receiver down and went to fetch the mail.

She got back on the line. "She's being dunned. It's a second overdue notice from a place called Jacques-seventy-six dollars for storage and two hundred dollars for having the coat recut. Wonder why she'd do that? There's a little happy face drawn by hand: 'Thanks for your business'-followed by a sad face: 'Hope the delay in payment is just an oversight.' A few more bills have come in too. Let me see what those look like."

I could hear Tillie ripping open envelopes on her end of the line.

"Oops. Well, these are all overdue. It looks like she's run up a lot of charges. Let's see. Oh my. Visa, MasterCard. The last date on these is about ten days ago, but I guess that was just the end of the billing period. They're asking her not to use her cards until she's paid the balances down."

"Does it indicate where she was when the purchases were made? Was she in Florida somewhere?"

"Yes, it looks like Boca Raton and Miami for the most part, but you can check them yourself when you get back. Now that I've had the locks changed, they should be safe."

"Thanks, Tillie. Can you give me the furrier's address?"

I made a note of it and got directions from Julia. I left her and went back down to the parking lot. The sky was an ominous gray and thunder rumbled in the distance like movers rolling a piano down a wooden ramp. It was hot and still, the light a harsh white, making the grass turn phosphorescent green. I was hoping I could take care of business before the downpour caught up with me.

Jacques was located in the middle of an elegant shopping plaza, shaded with latticework overhead and planted with delicate birches in big pale blue urns. Tiny Italian lights had been threaded through the branches, and in the prestorm gloom they twinkled like an early Christmas. The storefronts were done in a dove-gray granite and the pigeons strutting across the pavement looked as if they'd been placed there purely for their decorative effect. Even the sound they made was refined, a low, churring murmur that rode on the morning air like cash being riffled in a merchant's hands.

The window display at Jacques had been artfully done. A golden sable coat had been tossed carelessly across a dune of fine white sand against a sky-blue backdrop. Tufts of sea oats were growing on the crest of the sand and a hermit crab had crossed the surface, leaving a narrow track that looked like an embroidery stitch. It was like a little moment frozen in time: a woman-someone reckless and rich-had come down to the shore, had shrugged aside this luscious fur so that she could plunge naked into the sea-or perhaps she was making love to someone on the far side of the dune. Standing there, I could have sworn I saw the grasses bending in a nonexistent wind and I could almost smell the trail of perfume she'd left in her wake.

I pushed the door open and went in. If I'd had money and believed in wearing furry creatures on my back, I'd have laid down thousands in that place.

The interior was done in muted blues with a glittering chandelier dominating the high-ceilinged space. Chamber music echoed through the room as though there might be a string quartet sawing somewhere out of sight. Chippendale chairs were arranged in gracious conversational groupings and massive gilt-edged mirrors lined the walls. The only detail that spoiled an otherwise perfect eighteenth-century drawing-room was the little camera up in one corner monitoring my every move. I wasn't sure why. There wasn't a fur in sight and the furniture was probably nailed to the floor. I shoved my hands down in my back pockets just to show I knew how to behave myself. I caught sight of my reflection. There I stood in that rococo setting, in faded jeans and a tank top, looking like something deposited in error by a time machine. I flexed, wondering if I should start lifting weights again. The bicep made my right arm look like a snake that had recently eaten something very small, like a wad of socks.