He looked up at me, startled, flashing the sort of polite smile kids reserve for adults. “Hi.”
His face didn’t match the rest of him. His eyes were deepset, a jade green set off by dark lashes and dark eyebrows that feathered together at the bridge of his nose. His skin was clear, his smile engaging, slightly snaggle-toothed. He had a dimple in his left cheek. He glanced to one side, moving past me. I reached out and caught him by the sleeve. “Can I talk to you?”
He looked at me and then quickly back over his shoulder. “You talking to me?”
“Yes. I saw you coming out of that shed back there. You live around here?”
“What? Oh. Sure, couple of blocks away. This is my Uncle Leonard’s house. I’m supposed to check and make sure nobody’s bothering his stuff.” His voice was light, almost feminine.
“What stuff is that?”
The jade-green eyes had settled on me with curiosity. He smiled and his whole face brightened. “You a cop or something?”
“Private investigator,” I said. “My name is Kinsey Millhone.”
“Wow, that’s great,” he said. “I’m Mike. You guarding the place or something like that?”
I shook my head. “I’m looking into another matter, but I heard about the fire. Your aunt was the one who was killed?” The smile flickered. “Yeah, right. Jesus, that was terrible. I mean, her and me were never close, but my uncle really got messed up over that. He’s a fuckin’ basket case. Oh. Sorry ‘bout that,” he said sheepishly. “He’s like vegged out or something, staying with this other aunt of mine.” “Can you tell me how to get in touch with him?” “Well, my aunt’s name is Lily Howe. I don’t remember the number offhand, or I’d help you out.”
He was beginning to blush and the effect was odd. Pink hair, green eyes, rosy cheeks, green army fatigues. He looked like a birthday cake, innocent and festive somehow. He ran a hand across his hair, which was standing straight up on top like a whisk broom.
I wondered why he was so ill at ease. “What were you doing back there?”
He glanced back at the shed with an embarrassed shrug. “I was checking the padlock. I get like really paranoid, you know? I mean, the guy pays me ten bucks a month and I like to do right by him. Did you want something else? Because I have to go grab some lunch and get back to class, okay?”
“Sure. Maybe I’ll see you later.”
“Right. That’d be great. Anytime.” He smiled at me again and then moved away, walking backward at first, his eyes latched to mine, turning finally so that I was watching the narrow back and slim hips. There was something disturbing about him, but I couldn’t think what it was. Something didn’t jibe. That goody-two-shoes helpfulness and the look in his eyes. Artless and cunning… a kid whose conscience is clear because he doesn’t have one. Maybe I’d check him out too, as long as I was at it. I went into the condominium courtyard.
Chapter 7
I found Tillie spraying down the walk, a rolling tumble of leaves and debris pushed along by the force of the jet. Water dripped from the feather palms, the rubbery scent of hose mingling with the odor of wet earth. Stepping-stones were tucked in among the giant ferns, though why anyone would want to walk back in there was beyond me. It looked like a shadowy haven for daddy longlegs. Tillie smiled when she saw me and released the trigger nozzle, shutting off the spray. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, her spare form giving her a girlish look even in her sixties.
“Did you ever get any sleep?” I asked.
“No, and I’m not going to stay in that apartment ‘til the windows are fixed. I may have an alarm system put in too. I came out here just to busy myself. Hosing the walks is restful, don’t you think? It’s one of the pleasures of adulthood. When I was a kid, my dad never would let me have a turn.”
“Have you been down to the police station yet?”
“Oh, I’ll go in a bit, but I don’t look forward to it.”
“I went by a little while ago and filed a missing persons report on Elaine.”
“What’d they say?”
I shrugged. “Nothing much. They’ll do what they can. I ran into a homicide detective who worked on Marty Grice’s murder. He says Elaine was supposed to come in for an interview and never showed up. Do you remember how soon afterward she went to Florida?”
“Well, I’m not sure. It was that same week. I do know that much. She was terribly upset about the murder and that’s one reason she left. I thought I mentioned that.”
“You said she was sick.”
“She was, but she always seemed to have something wrong with her. She said the murder had her crazy with anxiety. She thought getting out of town would help. Hang on,” Tillie said. She went into the bushes and turned oflFthe water at the faucet, using the last of the water pressure to empty the hose before she coiled it up again. She emerged from the shrubbery, wiping her damp hands on her jeans. “Are you thinking she knew something about Marty’s death?”
“I think it’s worth looking into,” I said. “Her side window looks right down into the Grices’ entryway. Maybe she saw the burglar.”
Tillie made a skeptical face. “In the dark?”
I shrugged. “It doesn’t seem likely, does it, but I don’t know what else to think.”
“But why wouldn’t she have gone to the police if she knew who it was?”
“Who knows? Maybe she wasn’t thinking straight. People panic. They don’t like to get involved in these things. Maybe she felt she was in jeopardy herself.”
“Well, she was nervous,” Tillie said. “But then we were all a bundle of nerves that week. You want to come in?”
“Actually I do. I think I ought to take a look at those bills of hers. At least we can see how recently she’s used her charge accounts and where she was at the time. Has anything else come in?”
“Just a couple of things. I’ll show you what I’ve got.”
I followed Tillie through the lobby and into the corridor beyond.
She unlocked her front door and moved into the living room, crossing to the secretary. Since the glass had been broken out of the doors, there was no need to unlock anything, but I saw her hesitate, nonplussed, putting an index finger on the side of her cheek like someone posing for a photograph. “Now, that’s odd.”
“What?” I asked. I crossed to the secretary and looked in. We’d replaced the tumble of books the night before, and there was nothing else on the shelves now except a small brass elephant and a framed snapshot of a puppy with a stick in its mouth.
“I don’t see Elaine’s bills and they should be there,” she said. “Now, isn’t that strange.” She glanced at the shelves again and then opened the drawers one by one, sorting through the contents.
She moved into the kitchen and dug into the big black plastic bag where we had dumped all the broken glass and debris the night before. There was no sign of them.
“Kinsey, they were in the secretary yesterday. I saw them myself. Where could they have gone?”
She looked up at me. It didn’t take a massive leap of intelligence to arrive at the obvious possibility.
“Could she have taken them?” Tillie asked. “That woman who broke in last night? Is that what she was really up to?” “Tillie, I don’t know. Something about it bothered me at the time,” I said. “It didn’t make sense to think someone would break in while you were here just to tear the place apart. Are you sure you saw them yesterday?”
“Of course. I put the new batch of bills with the other ones on the shelf. They were right here. And I don’t remember seeing them at all when we cleaned up. Do you?”
I thought back, chasing it around in my memory. I’d only seen the bills once, the first time I’d talked to her. But why would someone bother to steal them? It didn’t make sense. “Maybe she deliberately scared the pants off you to keep you out of the way while she searched the place,” I said.
“Well, she sure had the right idea. I wouldn’t have come out of my room on a dare! But why would she do that? I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either. I can always get duplicates of the bills, but it’s going to be a pain in the ass and I’d rather not do it if I don’t have to.”
“I want to know who has a key to my apartment. That makes my blood run cold.”