Sue Grafton - B Is For Burglar

After a moment, she passed through the room, tiptoeing elaborately, finger to her lips. "Sorry to disturb your work. I have to go out to the truck and get some line. You go right ahead," she murmured. She was speaking in a hoarse whisper as though it would be less intrusive if she used a softer tone. I rolled my eyes heavenward and went on typing. Three minutes later, she came back to the front door and tapped. I had to get up to let her in. She apologized again briefly and went back into the bathroom where she settled in. I did a cover letter for Julia and caught up with my accounting. Becky was in the other room going bang-bang-bang with her trusty hammer.

After a few minutes, she appeared again. "All done. Want to come try it?"

"Just a minute," I said. I finished typing the envelope and got up, moving into the bathroom. I wondered if this was what it felt like to have a little kid around the house. Noise, interruptions, the constant bid for attention. Even the average mother amazes me. God, what fortitude.

"Look at this," she said happily. She raised the window. Before, it had been like lifting a fifty-pound weight. It would stick midway and then shriek, flying up unexpectedly, glass nearly cracking as it whacked into the frame. To lower the window, I practically had to hang by my hands, humping it down inch by inch. Most of the time I just left it shut. Now it slid up without a hitch.

She stepped back so I could try it. I reached over and lowered it, apparently unprepared for the improvement because the window dropped so fast, it made the window weights thump against the studs in the wall.

Becky laughed. "I told you it worked."

I was staring from her to the window frame. Two ideas had popped into my head simultaneously. I was thinking about Dr. Pickett and the dental X rays and about May Snyder's claim that she heard someone going bang-bang-bang the night Marty died.

"I have to go someplace," I said. "Are you nearly done?"

She laughed again; that uneasy, false merriment that burbles out when you think you're dealing with someone who's come unhinged. "Well, no. I thought you said you had other things you wanted me to do."

"Tomorrow. Or maybe the next day," I said. I was moving her toward the door, reaching for my handbag.

Becky allowed herself to be pushed along.

"Did I say something?" she asked.

"We'll talk about it tomorrow," I said. "I really appreciate your help."

I drove back to Elaine Boldt's neighborhood and circled the block, looking for Dr. Pickett's office on Arbol. I'd seen it before; one of those one-story clapboard cottages once so prevalent in the neighborhood. Most of them had been converted into branch offices for real-estate companies and antiques stores that looked like someone's tiny, crowded living space with a sign hung out front.

Dr. Pickett had paved over some flowerbeds to create a little parking lot. There was only one car out back: a 1972 Buick with a vanity plate that read: FALS TTH. I pulled in beside it and locked my car, moving around the front and up to the porch. The sign on the door said PLEASE WALK IN, so I did.

The interior felt distinctly like my old grade school: varnished wood floors and the smell of vegetable soup. I could hear someone clattering around out in the kitchen. There was a radio on out there, tuned to a country-music station. A scarred wooden desk was angled across the entry hall with a little bell and a sign that said PLEASE RING FOR SERVICE. I tapped on the bell.

To my right was a waiting room with Danish-modern plastic couches and low tables done in wood laminate. The magazines were lined up precisely, but I suspected the subscriptions had run out. I spotted an issue of Life with "Starlet Janice Rule" on the front. A partition had been put up between the reception area and Dr. Pickett's examining room. Through the open door, I caught sight of an old-fashioned dental chair with a black plastic seat and a white porcelain spitting sink. The instrument tray was round and apparently swiveled on a metal arm. The surface was protected with white paper, like a placemat, and the instruments were lined up on it like something out of a dental museum. I was certainly thrilled that I didn't need my teeth cleaned right then.

To my left, along the wall, were some battered wooden file cabinets. Unattended. I could hear the devil call out to me. Dutifully, I rang the bell again, the country music wailed right on. I knew the tune and the lyrics routinely broke my heart.

There were little brass frames on the front of each file cabinet into which hand-lettered white cards had been slipped. A-C read the first. D-F read the next. You can't lock those old files, you know. Well, sometimes you can, but not these. I was going to have to go through such a long song and dance too, I thought. And I might be on the wrong track, which would just waste everybody's time including my own. I only hesitated because the courts are real fussy about the integrity of evidence. You're not supposed to run around stealing information that you later hope to offer up as "Prosecution's Exhibits A amp; B." The cops are supposed to acquire all that stuff, tag it, initial it, and keep meticulous records about who's had access to it and where it's been. Chain of evidence, it's called. I mean, I read all this stuff and I know.

I called "Yoo-Hoo!" and waited, wondering if "yoo-hoo," like "mama" and "dada," was one of those phrases that crop up in most languages. If nobody responded in the next ten seconds, I was going to cheat.

Mrs. Dr. Pickett appeared. At least, I assumed it was she. She was stout, with a big round face, rimless glasses, and a soft pug nose. The dress she wore was a navy blue nylon jersey with a print of tiny white arrows flying off in all directions. Her hair was pulled up to the top of her head and secured with a rubber band, curls cascading as though from a little fountain. She had on a wide white apron with a bib front and she smoothed the lap of the fabric down self-consciously.

"Well now, I thought I heard someone out here, but I don't believe I know your name," she said. Her voice was honeyed, tinted with faint southern overtones.

I had one split second in which to decide whether to tell the truth. I held my hand out and gave her my name. "I'm a private detective," I said.

"Is that right?" she said, wide-eyed. "What in the world can I do for you?"

"Well, I'm not sure yet." I said. "Are you Mrs. Pickett?"

"Yes, I am," she said. "I hope you're not investigatin' John." Her voice rode up and down musically, infused with drama.

I shook my head. "I'm looking into the death of a woman who lived here in the neighborhood…"

"And I bet you're talkin' about Marty Grice."

"That's right," I said.

"Aw, and wadn't that the awfullest thing? I can't tell you how upset I was when I heard about that. Nice woman like her to meet up with such a fate. But now idn't that just the way."

"Terrible," I said.

"And you know what? They never did catch whoever did it."

"She was a patient of Dr. Pickett's, wasn't she?" "She sure was. And a sweeter person you couldn't hope to meet. You know, she used to stop in here all the time. She'd set right there and we'd have us a chat. When my arthritis was actin' up, she'd help out with the phones and what not. I never saw John so upset as when we had to go out there and identify the remains. I don't believe he slept for a week." "Was he the one who took the dental X rays during the autopsy?"

"The pathologist did that. John hand-carried the X rays he'd done in the office and they compared 'em right on the spot. There wasn't any doubt, of course. It was just a formality, is what they told us. He'd taken those X rays not six weeks before she died. I felt so sorry for that husband of hers I just thought I'd choke. We went over to the funeral too, you know, and I made the awfullest fool of myself that ever was. Cried like a baby and John did too. Oh, but now he's the one you'll want to talk to, I'm sure. This is his day off, but he should be home soon. He's out runnin' some errands. You can wait if you like or come back later on."