B is for Burglar

We opened them on the living-room floor. They were filled with exactly what one would expect: clothing, cosmetics, costume jewelry, shampoo, deodorant, slippers, bathing suit, but packed in a jumble the way they do in movies when the wife leaves the husband in the middle of a vicious snit. The hangers were still on the hanging clothes, garments folded over and bunched in, with the shoes tossed on top. It looked as if drawers had been turned upside down and emptied into the largest of the bags. Julia had hobbled over to the rocker and she sat there now, propping herself up with her cane as though she were a unwieldy plant. I sat down on the horsehair sofa, staring at the suitcases. I looked at Julia uneasily.

"I don't like this," I said. "From what I know of Elaine, she was almost compulsively neat. You should have seen the way she left her place… everything just so… clean, tidy, tucked in. Does she strike you as the type who'd pack this way?"

"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."