B Is for Burglar

Tillie's expression was skeptical. "She could be in the hospital I suppose, but surely she would have let us know. I find it very peculiar to tell you the truth. If that sister of hers hadn't come along, I might have gotten in touch with the police myself. There's just something not right."

  "But there are lots of explanations for where she might be," I said. "She's an adult. Apparently she's got money and no pressing business. She really doesn't have to notify anybody of her whereabouts if she doesn't want to. She might be on a cruise. Or maybe she's taken a lover and absconded with him. Maybe she and this girl friend of hers took off on a toot. It might never occur to her that anyone was trying to get in touch."

  "That's why I haven't really done anything so far, but it doesn't sit well with me. I don't think she'd leave without a word to anyone."

  "Well, let me look into it. I don't want to hold you up right now, but I'll want to see her apartment at some point," I said. I got up and Tillie rose automatically. I shook her hand and thanked her for her help.

  "Hang on to the mail for the time being, if you would," I said. "I'm going to chase down some other possibilities, but I'll get back to you in a day or two and let you know what I've come up with. I don't think there's any reason to worry."

  "I hope not," Tillie said. "She's a wonderful person.

  I gave Tillie my card before we parted company. I wasn't worried yet myself, but my curiosity had been aroused and I was eager to get on with it.

  Chapter 2

  * * *

  On the way back to the office, I stopped off at the public library. I went to the reference department and pulled the city directory for Boca Raton, checking the address I had for Elaine Boldt against the addresses listed. Sure enough, she was there with a telephone number that matched the one I'd been given. I noted the names of several other owners of adjacent condominiums, jotting down telephone numbers. There seemed to be a number of buildings in the same complex and I guessed that it was an entire "planned community." There was a general sales office, a telephone number for tennis courts, a health spa, and a recreational facility. I made notes of everything just to save myself a possible trip back.

  When I reached the office, I opened a file on Elaine Boldt, logging the time I'd put in so far and the information I had. I tried the Florida number, letting it ring maybe thirty times without luck, and then I put in a call to the sales office of the Boca Raton condominium. They gave me the name of the resident manager in Elaine Boldt's building, a Roland Makowski, apartment 101, who picked up on the first ring.

  "Makowski here."

  I told him as briefly as possible who I was and why I was trying to get in touch with Elaine Boldt.

  "She didn't come down this year," he said. "She's usually here about this time, but I guess she had a change of plans."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Well, I haven't seen her. I've been up and down and around this building day in and day out and I never laid eyes on her. That's all I know. I guess she could be here if she's always someplace where I'm not," he said. "That friend of hers, Pat, is here, but Mrs. Boldt went off someplace else is what I was told. Maybe she could tell you where. I just bumped into her hanging towels out on the rail which we don't allow. The balcony's not a drying rack and I told her as much. She kinda went off in a huff."

  "Can you tell me her last name?"

  "What?"

  "Can you tell me Pat's last name? Mrs. Boldt's friend."

  "Oh. Yes."

  I waited a moment. "I've got a pencil and paper," I said.

  "Oh. It's Usher. Like in a movie theater. She's sublet, she said. What's your name again?"

  I gave him my name again and my office number in case he wanted to get in touch. It was not a satisfactory conversation. Pat Usher seemed to be the only link to Elaine Boldt's whereabouts and I thought it essential to talk to her as soon as possible.

  I put in another call to Elaine's Florida number, letting it ring until I got annoyed with the sound. Nothing. If Pat Usher was still in the apartment, she was resolutely refusing to answer the phone.

  I checked the list I'd made of neighboring apartments and tried the telephone number of a Robert Perreti, who apparently lived right next door. No answer. I tried the number for the neighbor on the other side, dutifully letting the phone ring ten times as the telephone company advises us. At long last, someone answered – a very old someone by the sound of her.

  "Yes?" She sounded as if she were feeble and might want to weep. I found myself speaking loudly and carefully as though to the hearing-impaired.

  "Mrs. Ochsner?"

  "Yes."

  "My name is Kinsey Millhone. I'm calling from California and I'm trying to reach the woman who's staying next door to you in apartment 315. Do you happen to know if she's in? I've just called and I let the phone ring about thirty times with no luck."

  "Do you have a hearing problem?" she asked me. "You're speaking very loudly, you know."

  I laughed, bringing my tone down into a normal range. "I'm sorry," I said. "I wasn't sure how well you could hear."

  "Oh, I can hear perfectly. I'm eighty-eight years old and I can't walk a step without help, but there's nothing wrong with my ears. I counted every one of those thirty rings through the wall and I thought I'd go crazy if it went on much longer."

  "Has Pat Usher stepped out? I was just on the line to the building manager and he said she was there."

  "Oh, she's there all right. I know she is because she slammed the door not moments ago. What was it you wanted, if it's not too impertinent of me to ask?"

  "Well, actually I'm trying to locate Elaine Boldt, but I understand she didn't make it down this year."

  "That's true and I was awfully disappointed. She's part of a bridge foursome when Mrs. Wink and Ida Rittenhouse are here and we count on her. We haven't been able to play a hand since last Christmas and it's made Ida very cranky if you want to know the truth."

  "Do you have any idea where Mrs. Boldt might be?"

  "No, I don't and I suspect the woman in there is on her way out. The condominium bylaws don't permit sublets and I was surprised that Elaine agreed to it. We've complained aplenty to the association and I believe Mr. Makowski has asked her to vacate. The woman has her back up, of course, claiming her agreement with Elaine covers through the end of June. If you want to have a conversation with her yourself, you'd do well to get down here soon. I saw her bringing up some cartons from the liquor store and I believe... well, I should say / hope she's packing up even as we speak."

  "Thanks. I may do that. You've been a big help. If I get down there, I'll stop by."

  "I don't suppose you play bridge, do you, dear? We've been reduced to playing hearts now for the last six months and Ida's developing quite a mean mouth. Mrs. Wink and I can't take too much more of this."

  "Well, I've never played but maybe I could give it a try," I said.

  "A penny a point," she said brusquely, and I laughed.

  I put in a call to Tillie. She sounded out of breath, as though she'd had to run for the phone.

  "Hi, Tillie," I said. "It's me again. Kinsey."

  "I just got back from the market," she panted. "Hang on until I catch my breath. Whew! What can I do for you?"

  "I think I better go ahead and take a look at Elaine's apartment."

  "Why? What's going on?"

  "Well, the people in Florida say she's not there, so I'm hoping we can figure out where else she might have gone. If I come back over there, could you let me in?

  "I guess so. I'm not doing anything except unloading groceries and that won't take but two shakes."

  When I reached the condominium again, I called her on the intercom and she buzzed me through and then met me at the elevator door with a key to Elaine's apartment. I told her the details of my conversation with Elaine's building manager down in Florida, filling her in as we rode up to the second floor.

  "You mean nobody down there has seen her at all? Well, something's wrong then," she said. "Definitely. I know
she left and I know she fully intended to go down to Florida. I was looking out the window when the cab pulled up out front and gave a toot and she got in. She had on her good fur coat and that fur turban that matched. She was traveling at night, which she didn't like to do, but then she wasn't feeling good and she thought the change in climate might help."

  "She was sick?"

  "Oh, you know. Her sinuses were acting up and she'd had that awful head cold or allergy or whatever it was. I don't mean to criticize, but she was a bit of a hypochondriac. She called me and said she'd decided to go ahead and fly on down, almost on the spur of the moment. She wasn't really scheduled to go for nearly two weeks, but then the doctor said it might do her good and I guess she booked the first flight she could get."

  "Do you know if she used a travel agent?"

  "I'm almost sure she did. Probably one close by. Since she didn't drive, she liked to deal with businesses within walking distance where she could. Here it is."

  Tillie had paused outside of apartment 9, which was on the second floor, directly above hers. She unlocked the door and then followed me in.

  The apartment was dim, drapes drawn, the air dry and still. Tillie crossed the living room and opened the drapes.

  "Nobody's been in since she left?" I asked. "Cleaning lady? Tradesmen?"

  "Not as far as I know."

  Both of us seemed to be using our public-library tones, but there's something unsettling about being in someone else's place when you're not supposed to be. I could feel a low-level electrical current surging through my gut.

  We did a quick tour together and Tillie said it looked all right to her. Nothing unusual. Nothing out of place. She left then and I went through on my own, taking my time so I could do it right.

  This was a corner apartment, second-floor front, with windows running along two sides. I took a minute to stare down at the street. There were no cars passing. A boy with a Mohawk haircut was leaning up against a parked car directly below. The sides of his head were shaved to a preexecution gray and the strip of hair that remained stood up like a dry brush in the center divider of a highway. It was dyed a shade of pink that I hadn't seen since hot pants went out of style. He looked to be sixteen or seventeen, wearing a pair of bright red parachute pants tucked down into combat boots, and an orange tank top with a slogan on the front that I couldn't read from where I stood. I watched him roll and light a joint.

  I moved to the side windows which looked down at an angle through the ground-floor windows of the small frame house next door. The roof had been gnawed by fire, the eaves of the house showing through like the frail bones of an overcooked fish. The door was boarded up, the glass broken out of the windows, apparently by the heat. A FOR SALE sign was jammed into the dead grass like a flimsy headstone. Not much of a view for a condominium that I estimated must have cost Elaine more than a hundred thousand dollars. I shrugged to myself and went into the kitchen.

  The counters and appliances gleamed. The floor had apparently been washed and waxed. The cupboards were neatly stacked with canned goods, including some 9-Lives Beef and Liver Platter. The refrigerator was empty, except for the usual door full of olives and pickles and mustards and jams. The electric stove had been unplugged, the cord dangling across the clockface, which read 8:20. An empty brown paper sack had been inserted in the plastic wastebasket under the sink, a cuff neatly turned down at the top. It looked as if Elaine Boldt had systematically prepared the apartment for a long absence.

  I left the kitchen and wandered out into the entrance hall. The layout seemed to be a duplicate of Tillie's apartment downstairs. I moved down a short corridor, glancing to my right into a small bathroom with a sink shaped like a sunken marble shell, gold-plated fixtures, gold-flecked mirrored tiles on one wall. The small wicker wastebasket under the sink was empty except for a delicate gray-brown clump of hair clinging to the side like the light matting when a hairbrush has been cleaned.

  Across from the bathroom was a small den, with a desk, a television set, an easy chair, and a sofa bed. The desk drawers contained the usual assortment of pens, paper clips, note cards, and files, which for the moment I saw no reason to examine more closely. I did come across her social-security card and I made a note of the number. I left the den and moved into a master suite with an adjoining bathroom.

  The bedroom was gloomy with the drapes pulled, but again everything seemed in order. To the right, there was a walk-in closet large enough to rent out. Some of the hangers were empty and I could see gaps in the articles lined up on the shelves where she'd probably packed an item. A small suitcase was still tucked down in one corner, one of the expensive designer types covered with somebody else's name all done in curlicues.

  I checked dresser drawers randomly. Some still contained wool sweaters in plastic cleaner's bags. A few were empty except for a sachet or two left behind like tiny scented pillows. Lingerie. A few pieces of costume jewelry.

  The master bath was spacious and orderly, the medicine cabinet stripped of all but a few over-the-counter remedies. I moved back to the door and stood there for a moment, surveying the bedroom. There was nothing to suggest foul play or haste, burglary, vandalism, illness, suicide, drunkenness, drug abuse, confusion, or recent occupancy. Even the faint powdering of household dust on the glossy surfaces seemed undisturbed.

  I left, locking the door behind me. I took the elevator down to Tillie's and asked her if she had any photographs of Elaine.

  "Not that I know," she said, "but I can describe her if you like. She's just about my size, which would make her five foot five, a hundred and thirty pounds. She has streaked blond hair which she wears pulled back. Blue eyes." Tillie stopped.

  "Oh wait, maybe I do have a picture. I just remembered one. Hold on."

  She disappeared in the direction of the den and after a few moments returned with a Polaroid snapshot that she handed to me. The picture had an orange cast to it and seemed sticky to the touch. Two women stood in the courtyard, a full-length shot, taken from perhaps twenty feet back. One I guessed immediately was Elaine, smiling happily, trim and elegant in a pair of well-cut slacks. The other woman was thick through the middle, with blue plastic eyeglass frames and a hairdo that looked as if it could be removed intact. She appeared to be in her forties, squinting into the sun self-consciously.

  "This was taken last fall," Tillie said. "That's Elaine on the left."

  "Who's the other woman?"

  "Marty Grice, a neighbor of ours. Now that was an awful thing. She was killed... oh gosh, I guess six months back. It doesn't seem that long ago."

  "What happened to her?"

  "Well, they think she interrupted a burglar breaking into the house. I guess he killed her on the spot and then tried to burn the place down to cover it up. It was horrible. You might have read about it in the paper."

  I shook my head. There are long periods when I don't read the paper at all, but I remembered the house next door with its charred roof and windows broken out. "That's too bad," I said. "Do you mind if I keep this?"

  "Go right ahead."

  I glanced at it again. The image was faintly disturbing, capturing a moment not that long ago when both women grinned with such ease, unaware that anything unpleasant lay ahead. Now, one was dead and the other missing. I didn't like that combination at all.

  "Were Elaine and this woman good friends?" I asked.

  "Not really. They played bridge together now and then, but they didn't socialize aside from that. Elaine is a bit standoffish where most people are concerned. Actually, Marty used to get a little snippy about Elaine's attitude. Not that she ever said anything much about it to me, but I can remember her being a bit snide once in a while. Elaine does treat herself well – there's no doubt about that – and she tends to be insensitive to the idea that people really can't afford to live as well as she does. That fur coat of hers is a case in point. She knew Leonard and Marty were in financial straits, but she'd wear the coat over there to play bridge. To Marty, that was ju
st like waving a red flag in front of a bull."

  "That's the same coat she was wearing when you saw her last?"

  "Yes, indeed. A twelve-thousand-dollar lynx fur coat with a matching hat."

  "Wow," I said.

  "Oh, it's beautiful. I'd give my eyeteeth to have a coat like that."

  "Can you remember anything else about her departure that night?"

  "I can't say that I do. She was carrying some sort of luggage – I guess a carry-on – and the cab driver brought down the rest."

  "Do you remember what cab company?"

  "I really didn't pay much attention at the time, but she usually called City Cab or Green Stripe, sometimes Tip Top, though she didn't like them much. I wish I could be more help. I mean, if she left here on her way to Florida and never got there, where did she end up?"

  "That's what I want to know," I said.

  I gave Tillie what I hoped was a reassuring smile, but I was feeling uneasy.

  I went back to the office and did a quick calculation of the expenses I'd run up so far; maybe seventy-five bucks for the time spent with Tillie and the time going through Elaine's apartment, plus the time in the library and on the telephone and the long-distance charges. I've known PI.s who conduct entire investigations on the phone, but I don't think it's smart. Unless you're dealing with people face-to-face, there are too many ways to be deceived and too many things to miss.

  I called a travel agent and got myself booked round-trip to Miami. The fare was ninety-nine bucks each way if I flew in the dead of night and didn't eat, drink, or go to the John. I also reserved a cheap rental car on the far end.

  My plane didn't leave for hours yet, so I went home and got in a three-mile jog, then stuck a toothbrush and toothpaste in my purse and called it packing. At some point, I was going to have to track down Elaine's travel agent and find out what airline she had taken and whether perhaps she'd booked herself through to Mexico or the Caribbean. In the meantime I hoped I could catch Elaine's friend in Florida before she flew the coop, taking with her my only link to Elaine's whereabouts.