B Is for Burglar

  She marched away then, her back straight, her hair the color of dried tangerine peels. Her rudeness sometimes has an eccentric charm to it, but it's just as often simply irritating, something you have to endure if you want to eat Rosie's meals. Some nights I can't tolerate verbal abuse at the end of the day, preferring instead the impersonal mechanics of a drive-in restaurant or the peace and quiet of a peanut butter and dill pickle sandwich at home.

  That night Rosie's was deserted, looking drab and not quite clean. The walls are paneled in construction-grade plywood sheets, stained dark, with a matte finish of cooking fumes and cigarette smoke. The lighting is wrong – too pale, too generalized – so that the few patrons who do wander in look sallow and unwell. A television set on the bar usually flashes colored images with no sound, and a marlin arched above it looks like it's fashioned of plaster of Paris and dusted with soot. I'm embarrassed to say how much I like the place. It will never be a tourist attraction. It will never be a singles bar. No one will ever "discover" it or award it even half a star. It will always smell like spilled beer, paprika, and hot grease. It's a place where I can eat by myself and not even have to take a book along in order to avoid unwelcome company. A man would have to worry about any woman he could pick up in a dive like this.

  The front door opened and the old crone who lives across the street came in, followed by Jonah Robb, whom I'd talked to that morning in Missing Persons. I almost didn't recognize him at first in his civilian clothes. He wore jeans, a gray tweed jacket, and brown desert boots. His shirt looked new, the package folds still evident, the collar tightly starched and stiff. He carried himself like a man with a shoulder holster tucked up under his left arm. He had apparently come in to look for me because he headed straight for my table and sat down.

  I said, "Hello. Have a seat."

  "I heard you hung out in here," he said. He glanced around and his brows gave a little lift as though the rumor were true but hard to believe. "Does the Health Department know about this place?"

  I laughed.

  Rosie, coming out of the kitchen, caught sight of Jonah and stopped dead in her tracks, retreating as though she'd been yanked backward by a rope.

  He looked over his shoulder to see if he'd missed something.

  "What's the matter? Could she tell I was a cop? Has she got a problem with that?"

  "She's checking her makeup. There's a mirror just inside the kitchen door," I said.

  Rosie appeared again, simpering coquettishly as she brought my silverware and plunked it down on the table tightly bound in a paper napkin.

  "You never said you was entertaining," she murmured. "Does you friend intend to have a little bite to eat? Some liquid refreshment perhaps? Beer, wine, a mixed drink?"

  "Beer sounds good," he said. "What do you have on tap?"

  Rosie folded her hands and regarded me with interest. She never deals directly with a stranger so we were forced to go through this little playlet in which I interpreted as though suddenly employed by the U.N.

  "You still have Mich on tap?" I asked.

  "Of course. Why would I have anything else?"

  I looked at Jonah and he nodded assent. "I think we'll have a Mich then. Are you eating? The food's great."

  "Fine with me," he said. "What do you recommend?"

  "Why don't you just double the order, Rosie? Could you do that for us?"

  "Of course." She glanced at him with sly approval. "I had no idea," she said. I could feel her mentally nudge me with one elbow. I knew what her appraisal consisted of. She favored weight in men. She favored dark hair and easygoing attitudes. She moved away from the table then, artfully leaving us alone. She isn't nearly as gracious when I come in with women friends.

  "What brings you here?" I said.

  "Idleness. Curiosity. I did a background check on you to save us talking about all the stupid stuff."

  "So we could get right down to what?" I asked.

  "You think I'm on the make or something?"

  "Sure," I said. "New shirt. No wedding ring. I bet your wife left you week before last and you shaved less than an hour ago. The cologne isn't even dry on the side of your neck."

  He laughed. He had a harmless face and good teeth. He leaned forward on his elbows. "Hers's how it went," he said. "I met her when I was thirteen and I was with her from that time to this. I think she grew up and I never could, at least not with her. I don't know what to do with myself. Actually she's been gone for a year. It just feels like a week. You're the first woman I've looked at since she went off."

  "Where'd she go?"

  "Idaho. She took the kids. Two," he said as though he knew I'd ask that next. "One girl ten, another one eight. Courtney and Ashley. I'd have named 'em something else. Sara and Diane, Patti and Jill, something like that. I don't even understand girls. I don't even know what they think about. I really love my kids, but from the day they were born it was like they were in this exclusive little club with my wife. I couldn't seem to get a membership no matter what I did."

  "What was your wife's name?"

  "Camilla. Shit. She ripped my heart out by the roots. I put on thirty pounds this year."

  "Time to take it off," I said.

  "Time to do a lot of things."

  Rosie came back to the table with a beer for him and a glass of white table wine for me. Did I know this story or what? Men just out of marriages are a mess and I was a mess myself. I already knew all the pain, uncertainty and mismanaged emotions. Even Rosie sensed it wasn't going to fly. She looked at me like she couldn't figure out how I'd blown it so fast. When she left, I got back to the subject at hand.

  "I'm not doing all that well myself," I said.

  "So I heard. I thought we could help each other out."

  "That's not how it works."

  "You want to go up to the pistol range and shoot sometime?"

  I laughed. I couldn't help myself. He was all over the place. "Sure. We could do that. What kind of gun do you have?"

  "Colt Python with a six-inch barrel. It'll take a .38 or a .357 magnum cartridge. Usually I just wear a Trooper MK HI but I had a chance to pick up the Python and I couldn't pass it up. Four hundred bucks. You've been married twice? I don't see how you could bring yourself to do that. I mean, Jesus. I thought marriage was a real commitment. Like souls, you know, fused all through eternity and shit like that."

  "Four hundred bucks is a steal. How'd you pull that off?" I squinted at him. "What is it, are you Catholic or something?"

  "No, just dumb I guess. I got my notions of romance out of ladies' magazines in the beauty shop my mother ran when I was growing up. The gun I got from Dave Whitaker's estate. His widow hates guns and never liked it that he got into 'em so she unloaded his collection first chance she got. I'd have paid the going rate, but she wouldn't hear of it. Do you know her? Bess Whitaker?"

  I shook my head.

  He glanced up then as Rosie put a plate down in front of each of us. I could tell by his look that he hadn't expected green peppers with a vinaigrette, even with little curlicues of parsley tucked here and there.

  Usually Rosie waited until I tasted a dish and gave elaborate restaurant-reviewer-type raves, but this time she seemed to think better of it. As soon as she left, Jonah leaned forward.

  "What is this shit?"

  "Just eat."

  "Kinsey, for the last ten years I been eating with kids who sit and pick all the onions and mushrooms out. I don't know how to eat if it's not made with Hamburger Helper."

  "You're in for a big surprise," I said. "What have you been eating for the year since your wife left?"

  "She put up all these dinners in the deep freeze. Every night I thaw one and stick it in the oven at three-fifty for an hour. I guess she went to a garage sale and bought up a bunch of those TV dinner tins with the little compartments. She wanted me to eat well-balanced meals even though she was fucking me over financially."

  I lowered my fork and looked at him, trying to picture someone freezing up 3
65 dinners so she could bug out. This was the woman he apparently imagined mating with for life, like owls.

  He was eating his first bite of pepper salad, his eyes turning inward. His facial expression suggested that the pepper was sitting in the middle of his tongue while he made chewing motions around it. I do that myself with those mashed candied sweet potatoes people insist on at Thanksgiving time. Why would anyone put a marshmallow on a vegetable? Would I put licorice on asparagus, or jelly beans on Brussels sprouts? The very idea makes my mouth purse.

  Jonah nodded philosophically to himself and began to fork up the pepper salad with gusto. It must have been at least as tasty as the shit Camilla cooked for him. I pictured tray after tray of frozen tuna casserole with crushed potato chips, with maybe frozen peas in one compartment, carrot coins in the next. I bet she left him six-packs of canned fruit cocktail for dessert. He was looking at me.

  He said, "What's the matter? Why do you have that look on your face?"

  I shrugged. "Marriage is a mystery."

  "I'll second that," he said. "By the way, how's your case shaping up?"

  "Well, I'm still nosing around," I said. "Right now, I'm making a little side investigation into an unsolved murder. Her next-door neighbor was killed the same week she left."

  "That doesn't sound good. What's the connection?"

  "I don't know yet. Maybe none. It just struck me as an interesting sequence of events that Marty Grice was murdered and Elaine Boldt disappeared within days of it."

  "Was there a positive I.D.?"

  "On Marty? I have no idea. Dolan's getting really anal-retentive about that stuff. He won't tell me a thing."

  "Why not take a look at the files?"

  "Oh come on. He's not going to let me see the files."

  "So don't ask him. Ask me. I can make copies if you tell me what you want."

  "Jonah, he would fire your ass. You would never work again. You'd have to sell shoes for the rest of your life."

  "Why would he have to know?"

  "How could you get away with it? He knows everything."

  "Bullshit. The files are kept over in Identification and Records. I'll bet he's got a second set in his office so he probably never even looks at the originals. I'll just wait 'til he's out and Xerox whatever you need. Then I'll put it back."

  "Don't you have to sign 'em out?"

  He gave me a look then like I was probably the kind of person who never parked in a red zone. Actually, for someone to whom lying comes so easily, I get anxious about vehicle codes and overdue library books. Violations of the public trust. Oh hey, once in a while I might pick a lock illegally, but not if I think there's a chance I'll get caught. The idea of sneaking official documents out of the police station made my stomach squeeze down like I was on the verge of getting a tetanus shot.

  "Oh wow, don't do that," I said. "You can't."

  "What do you mean, I 'can't.' Of course I can. What do you want to see? Autopsy? Incident report? Follow-up interviews? Lab reports?"

  "That'd be great. That would really help."

  I looked up guiltily. Rosie was standing there waiting to pick up our salad plates. I leaned back in the booth and waited until both had been removed. "Look, I'd never ask you to do such a thing –"

  "You didn't ask. I volunteered. Quit being such a candy ass. You can turn around and do me a favor sometime."

  "But Jonah, he really is a nut about department leaks. You know how he gets. Please don't put yourself in jeopardy."

  "Don't sweat it. Homicide detectives are full of crap sometimes. You're not going to blow his case for him. He probably doesn't even have a case, so what's to worry about?"

  After dinner, he walked me back over to my place. It was only 8:15, but I had work to do and he really seemed a bit relieved that the contact between us wasn't going to be prolonged or intimate. As soon as I heard his footsteps retreat, I turned the outside lights off, sat down at my desk with some index cards and caught up with my notes.

  I checked back through the cards I'd filled out before and tacked them up on the big bulletin board above my desk. I stood there for a long time, reading card after card, hoping for a flash of enlightenment. Only one curious note emerged. I'd been very meticulous about writing down every single item I remembered from my first search of Elaine's apartment. I do that routinely almost like a little game I play with myself to test my memory. In the kitchen cabinet, she'd had some cans of cat food. 9-Lives Beef and Liver Platter, said the note. Now it seemed out of place to me. What cat?

  Chapter 12

  * * *

  At nine the next morning, I drove over to Via Madrina. Tillie didn't answer my buzz so I stood for a minute, surveying the list of tenants' names on the directory. There was a Wm. Hoover in apartment 10, right next door to Elaine's. I gave him a buzz.

  The intercom came to life. "Yes?"

  "Mr. Hoover? This is Kinsey Millhone. I'm a private detective here in town and I'm looking for Elaine Boldt. Would you mind if I asked you a couple of questions?"

  "You mean, right this minute?"

  "Well, yes, if you wouldn't mind. I stopped by to talk to the building manager, but she's not here."

  I could hear a murmur of conversation and then the door buzzed at me by way of consent. I had to jump to catch it while the lock would still open. I took the elevator up a floor. Apartment 10 was just across from me when the elevator door slid open. Hoover was standing in the hall in a short blue terry-cloth robe with snags. I estimated his age at thirty-four, thirty-five. He was slight, maybe five foot six, with slim, muscular legs faintly matted with down. His dark hair was tousled and he looked as if he hadn't shaved for two days. His eyes were still baggy from sleep.

  "Oh God, I woke you up," I said. "I hate to do that to people."

  "No, I've been up," he said. He ran a hand across his hair, scratching the back of his head while he yawned. I had to clamp my teeth so I wouldn't yawn in response. Barefoot, he moved back into the apartment and I followed him.

  "I just put some coffee on. It'll be ready in a sec. Come on in and have a seat." His voice was light and reedy.

  He indicated the kitchen to the right. His apartment was the flip image of Elaine's and my guess was that their two master bedrooms shared a wall. I glanced at the living room which, like hers, opened off the entryway and also looked down on the Grices' property next door. Where Elaine's apartment had a view of the street, this one didn't have much to recommend it – only a glimpse of the mountains off to the left, partially obscured by the two rows of Italian stone pines that grow along Via Madrina.

  Hoover adjusted his short robe and sat down on a kitchen chair, crossing his legs. His knees were cute. "What's your name again? I'm sorry, I'm still half-unconscious."

  "Kinsey Millhone," I said. The kitchen smelled of brewing coffee and the fumes of unbrushed teeth. His, not mine. He reached for a slim brown cigarette and lit it, hoping perhaps to mask his morning mouth with something worse. His eyes were a mild tobacco brown, his lashes sparse, face lean. He regarded me with all the boredom of a boa constrictor after a heavy meal of groundhog. The percolator gave a few last burps and subsided while he reached for two big blue-and-white mugs. One had an overall design of bunny rabbits humping. The other portrayed elephants similarly occupied, I tried not to look. The thing I've worried about for years is how dinosaurs mated, especially those great big spiny ones. Someone told me once they did it in water, which helped support all that weight, but I find it hard to believe dinosaurs were that smart. It didn't seem likely with those tiny pinched heads. I shook myself back to reality.

  "What do you call yourself? William? Bill?"

  "Wim," he said. He fetched a carton of milk from the refrigerator and found a spoon for the sugar bowl. I added milk to my coffee and watched with interest while he added two heaping tablespoons of sugar to his. He caught my look.

  "I'm trying to gain a little weight," he said. "I know the sugar's bad for my teeth, but I've been doing up these torturous
protein drinks in the morning – you know the kind – with egg and banana and wheat germ thrown in. Ugh. The aftertaste just cannot be disguised. Besides, I hate to eat before two in the afternoon so I guess I should resign myself to being thin. Anyway, that's why I load up my coffee. I figure anything's bound to help. You look a little on the Twiggy side yourself."

  "I run every day and I forget to eat." I sipped my coffee, which was scented faintly with mint. It was really very good.

  "How well did you know Elaine?" I asked.

  "We spoke when we ran into one another in the hall," he said. "We've been neighbors for years. Why do you want her? Did she run out on her bills?"

  I told him briefly about her apparent absence, adding that the explanation didn't have to be sinister, but that it was puzzling nevertheless. "Do you remember when you saw her last?"

  "Not really. Sometime before she went off. Christmas, I guess. No, I take that back. I did see her New Year's Eve. She said she was staying home."

  "Do you happen to know if she had a cat?"

  "Oh sure. Gorgeous thing. A massive gray Persian named Mingus. He was actually my cat originally, but I was hardly ever home and I thought he should have company so I gave him to her. He was just a kitten at the time. I had no idea he'd turn out to be such a beauty or I never would have given him up. I mean, I've kicked myself ever since, but what can one do? A deal's a deal."

  "What was the deal?"

  He shrugged indifferently. "I made her swear she'd never change his name. Charlie Mingus. After the jazz pianist. Also she had to promise not to leave him by himself, or what was the point in giving him away? I might as well have kept him myself."

  Wim took a careful drag of his cigarette, resting his elbow on the kitchen table. I could hear the shower running somewhere in the back of the apartment.

  "Did she take him with her to Florida every year?"