B is for Burglar

"Maybe she followed her to Florida. She was off on one of her benders just after New Year's. She was gone for ten days and came home a mess. I'd never seen her so bad. She wouldn't say a word about where she'd been or what had happened. I had a business deal I had to close in New York that week so I got her settled and then I took off. I was out of town until the following Friday. She could have been anywhere while I was gone. Suppose she followed Elaine to Florida and killed her the first chance she had? She flies home afterward and who's the wiser?"

"I can't believe you're serious," I said. "Do you have any evidence? Do you have anything that links Beverly even superficially with Elaine's disappearance?"

He shook his head. "Look, I know I'm fishing here and I could be completely off base. I hope like hell I am. I probably shouldn't have said anything…"

I could feel myself getting restless, trying to make sense of what he had said. "Why would Beverly have hired me if she'd killed Elaine?"

"Maybe she wanted to make it look good. The business about the cousin's estate was legitimate. The notice arrives in the mail and now what's she going to do? Suppose she knows Elaine is strolling along the bottom of the ocean in a pair of concrete shoes. She has to go through the motions, doesn't she? She can't ignore the situation because somebody's going to wonder why she doesn't show more concern. So she drives up here and hires you."

I looked at him skeptically. "Only then she panics when I say I'm going to the police."

"Right. And then she figures she better cover for that so she talks to me."

I finished my martini, thinking about what he'd said. It was very elaborate and I didn't like that. Still, I had to concede that it was possible. I made concentric circles on the tabletop with the bottom of my glass. I was thinking about the break-in at Tillie's place. "Where was she Wednesday night?"

He drew a blank. "I don't know. What do you mean?"

"I'm wondering where she was Wednesday night and early Thursday morning of this week. Was she with you?"

He frowned. "No. I flew to Atlanta Monday night and came back yesterday. What's the deal?"

I thought I should keep the details to myself for the time being. I shrugged. "There was an incident up here. Did you call her from Atlanta on either of those days?"

"I didn't call her at all. We used to do that when I was off on business trips. Talk back and forth long-distance. Now it's a relief to be away." He took a sip of his drink, watching me. above the rim of the glass. "You don't believe any of this, do you?"

"It doesn't make any difference what I believe," I said. "I'm trying to find out what's true. So far it's all speculation."

He shook his head. "I know I don't have any concrete proof, but I felt like I had to tell someone. It's been bugging the shit out of me."

"I'll tell you what's bugging me," I said. "How can you live with someone you suspect of murder?"

He stared down at the table for a moment and the smile when it came was tainted with the old arrogance. I thought he was going to answer me, but the silence stretched and finally he simply lit another cigarette and signaled for the check.

I called Jonah in the middle of the afternoon. The encounter with Aubrey Danziger had depressed me, and the two martinis at lunch had left me with a nagging pain between the eyes. I needed air and sunshine and activity.

"You want to go up to the firing range and shoot?" I said when Jonah got on the line.

"Where are you?"

"I'm at the office, but I'm on my way home to pick up some ammo."

"Swing by and pick me up too," he said.

I smiled when I hung up the phone. Good.

The clouds hung above the mountains like puffs of white smoke left in the wake of a giant old-fashioned choo-choo train. We took the old road up through the pass, my VW making high-pitched complaints until I shifted from third gear to second and finally into first. The road twisted up through sage and mountain lilac. As we approached, the dark green of the distant vegetation separated into discreet shrubs clinging obstinately to the slopes. There were very few trees. Steep expanses of California buckwheat were visible on the right, interspersed with the bright little orange faces of monkey flower and the hot pink of prickly phlox. The poison oak was thriving, its lush growth almost overwhelming the silvery leaves of the mugwort which grew alongside it and is its antidote.

As we reached the summit, I glanced to my left. The elevation here was about twenty-five hundred feet and the ocean seemed to hover in the distance like a gray haze blending into the gray of the sky. The coastline stretched as far as the eye could see and the town of Santa Teresa looked as insubstantial as an aerial photo. From this perspective, the mountain ridge seemed to plunge into the Pacific, appearing again in four rugged peaks that formed the offshore islands. The sun up here was hot and the volatile oils, exuded by the underbrush, scented the still air with camphor. There were occasional manzanita trees along the slope, still stripped down to spare, misshapen black forms by the fire that had swept through two years back. Everything that grows up here longs to burn; seed coats broken only by intense heat, germinating then when the rains come again. It's not a cycle that concedes much to human intervention.