B is for Burglar

"I don't believe it," she said flatly. "Mike must have been high."

"Well, of course he was high, Tillie, but a little grass isn't going to make him hallucinate."

"Then he's inventing it."

"I'm just telling you what he told me," I said.

"Well, who in the world could it be? I'd be willing to guarantee Leonard wasn't having an affair with any tenant of mine! And from his description, it would have been Elaine's apartment, and that's simply impossible."

"Oh come on, Tillie. Don't be naive. It's the perfect setup. Why couldn't he have a woman over here?"

"Because there's no one in the building who fits that description."

"What about the woman in apartment 6? The one you thought might be up early the day your place got broken into."

"She's seventy-five."

"But you have lots of other tenants."

"Young married couples. Kinsey, I have more single men who'd go for Leonard than I do single women."

"I'd buy that too. What about Elaine? Why couldn't it be her?"

Tillie shook her head stubbornly.

"What about yourself?"

Tillie laughed and patted herself on the chest. "Well, I'm flattered. I'd like to believe I'm still capable of hip-grinding out on the street, but he's not exactly my type. Besides, Mike knows me. He'd have recognized me even in the dark."

I conceded that one. I truly couldn't picture Tillie in a liplock with Leonard Grice. It just didn't parse.

"What about Elaine?" I persisted. "What if she and Leonard had a thing going and decided to eliminate his wife? She does the deed while he's off at his sister's place that night. She takes off for Florida a few days later and then lays low for the next six months, waiting for him to get his affairs in order so they can run away together into the sunset. Once they realize

I'm on to something, they step up the pace so they can blow town."

Tillie stared at me for a long time. "Then who is Pat Usher?"

I shrugged again. "Maybe they enlisted her help and she's covering for them."

"But who broke in here and why? I thought you were convinced Pat Usher did that."

I could feel myself getting exasperated. "I don't have all the answers, Tillie! I'm just telling you it's possible that he had some little tootsie stashed over here. Maybe it was Pat."

She didn't say a word. She just put her glasses back on and started stuffing the mountain with cotton, making it bulge like Mount St. Helens before it blew.

"Can I have the key to the apartment upstairs?"

"Of course," she said. "I'll go too."

She put down her needlework and went over to the secretary, taking a set of keys out of the drawer. She handed me a bunch of bills while she was at it and I stuffed them in the back pocket of my jeans. It reminded me vaguely of something, but I couldn't think what.

She locked her apartment and we headed for the elevator.

"You haven't heard anyone walking around overhead?"

She looked back at me. "Not at all, but this place is well built and someone could be upstairs without my hearing them. You really believe he was keeping someone up there?"

"It does make sense," I said. "With Elaine off the scene, it's a perfect little love nest. Maybe Pat Usher found a way to get in. I'm sure she's somewhere here in town. If she had access to Elaine's place in Florida, why not this one too? By the way, were you here Sunday night?"

She shook her head. "I was at a church social and didn't get home until shortly after ten."

The elevator door opened at the second floor and Tillie moved down the corridor to the left, talking to me over her shoulder. She reached Elaine's front door and turned the key in the lock.

"I can't believe anyone's been here," she said as we went in.

She was wrong, of course. Wim Hoover, the tenant from number 10, was sprawled in the entryway with a bullet hole just behind his right ear. The air smelled of stale cigarette smoke and the fetid perfume wafting up from his souring flesh. He'd been dead for at least three days. Tillie paled and went down to her place to call the police.

Chapter 23

As is my usual habit, I did a quick tour of the place while Tillie called the cops. I had cautioned her to keep my name out of it because I didn't want to have to stop and take one of Lieutenant Dolan's famous pop quizzes. I was already in trouble with California Fidelity and I couldn't take on Dolan as well. The place smelled so foul that I didn't think Tillie would have any trouble explaining what had brought her up here to investigate.