"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.

I didn't have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out that Pat Usher had been in residence. She'd made no attempt to disguise her presence. The gauzy float I'd seen her wear in Boca Raton was now tossed carelessly across Elaine's unmade bed. She'd apparently helped herself to whatever suited her-food, clothing, cosmetics. There were dirty dishes everywhere, ashtrays filled to the brim, trash spilling out of the brown paper bag with its neatly cuffed top. The crime-scene unit was going to have a ball with this place, but what interested me was the den. All the desk drawers had been opened, the contents scattered furiously, file folders ripped in half. It looked like Pat Usher's usual rage and impatience. I wondered what she'd been looking for and whether she'd found it. I didn't touch a thing. It had been maybe five minutes since Tillie went downstairs and I thought I better scram. I didn't want to be anywhere in the neighborhood when the black-and-whites came screaming into view.

I paused in the foyer and looked down at Wim. He was lying facedown, one hand tucked under his cheek as though he meant to nap. His flesh was swollen, the skin darkening, the bullet hole as tidy as the eyelet for a shoelace. The gun was probably a.22-not a lethal weapon as a rule, but let a slug ricochet around inside a human skull and it could turn brains into scrambled eggs in no time flat. Poor Wim. I wondered why she'd killed him. There wasn't any doubt in my mind it was Pat. Had she killed Marty Grice as well? The autopsy hadn't shown any gunshot wounds, only the repeated blows of an unidentified blunt instrument. What was the weapon, and where?

I went down on the elevator and left the building without talking to Tillie again. I unlocked my car and got in, suddenly aware of the crackle of paper in my jeans pocket. I pulled out the bunch of bills Tillie had given me and let out an involuntary "ooohh." It had just dawned on me what Pat Usher might have been looking for upstairs. Elaine's passport. I had come across it myself the second time I searched the place and I'd stuck it in the back pocket of my jeans. I couldn't remember taking it into the office, so it must be somewhere in my apartment. Had Pat broken in to look for it? If she'd found it, she was probably already on a plane headed into the great beyond. On the other hand, Leonard hadn't collected his insurance money yet, so maybe the two of them were still somewhere in town.

I started the car and pulled out, determined to clear the neighborhood before the cops showed up. I was thinking hard. Pat and Leonard must have eliminated Marty first, then disposed of Elaine Boldt, maybe because she'd guessed what was going on. In any event, it must have opened up a whole new possibility. They had now gained entrance to her properties and all of her bank accounts, helping themselves to her credit while Leonard waited the requisite six months for Marty's estate to clear. The payoff there probably wasn't large, but add it to Elaine Boldt's assets and the profits began to mount. Once Leonard had acquired sole possession of the property on Via Madrina, he could sell it off for a hundred and fifteen thousand. The lot was probably worth more with the house gone anyway. In the meantime, all he had to do was pose as the grief-stricken spouse, feigning disinterest in the proceeds. Not only did he garner sympathy, but he deflected attention from his true motivation, which was monetary from the get-go. The scheme might have gone off without a hitch except that Beverly Danziger showed up, needing a routine signature on a minor document. Pat's claim about Elaine being off in Sarasota with friends simply wouldn't bear up under close scrutiny because Elaine's whereabouts couldn't really be accounted for. But how was I going to prove any of this? I was speculating like crazy, probably making a few wrong guesses here and there, but even if I had it right on the nose, I 'd have to come up with some kind of concrete evidence to take to the police.

In the meantime, Leonard had effectively blocked my path, putting me in check at least where the insurance company was concerned. I didn't dare go back and question him again and I knew I'd better be careful about any inquiries I made in the world at large. Any line I pursued was going to be interpreted as slander, harassment, or defamation from his point of view. What had I gotten myself into? Leonard Grice and Pat Usher would have to stonewall my investigation or the whole operation would come tumbling down around their ears.

I stopped off at the hardware store to pick up a pane of glass and then went back to my place. I had to find Elaine's passport. I checked the trash bags, behind couch cushions, under furniture, and all the other niches where I tend to tuck odds and ends. I didn't remember filing it and it hadn't occurred to me to hide it. I knew I hadn't thrown it out, which meant it had to be here somewhere. I kept standing there, doing a 360 degree turn, surveying every corner of the room-desk top, bookcase, coffee table, the small counter that separates the kitchenette.

I went out to the car and looked in the glove compartment, map pocket, down behind the seat, sun visor, briefcase, jacket pocket-shit. I went back into my apartment and started all over again. Where had I put the damn thing? It might be at the office. I decided to try there after CF had closed up and Andy Montycka had gone home. God, what did he know anyway? I was beginning to unravel the knots and I only hoped I could finish before he got nervous and paid off the claim.

I checked my watch. It was a little after one and I had the locksmith coming at four. I sat down at my desk and hauled out my file on Elaine Boldt. Maybe there was something I'd overlooked. I baited my hook and started to cast about randomly. I felt like I'd been through my notes a hundred times and I couldn't believe anything new would surface. I went back and read every report I had. I tacked all my index cards to the bulletin board, first in order, then haphazardly just to see if any contradictions would appear. I reread all the material Jonah had photocopied from the homicide files and I studied glossy eight-by-tens of the murder scene until I knew every detail by heart. How had Marty been killed? A "blunt instrument" could mean just about anything.

A lot of things were bothering me-minor questions buzzing around at the back of my brain like a swarm of gnats. I had begun to believe that if Elaine was dead, she'd been killed fairly early on. I had no proof yet but I suspected that Pat Usher had masqueraded as Elaine and had staged that whole bogus departure for Florida as a sleight of hand, laying a false trail to create the illusion that Elaine was alive and well and on her way out of town when, in fact, she was already dead. But if she'd been killed in Santa Teresa, where was the body? Disposing of a corpse is no mean feat. Fling one in the ocean and it swells up and floats right back. Toss it in the bushes and a jogger will stumble across it by six A.M. What else do you do with one? You bury it. Maybe the body was concealed in the Grices' basement. I remembered the floor down the-cracked concrete and hard-packed dirt-and I thought, now that might explain why Leonard had never had the salvage crew come in. When I'd first searched the Grices' house, I'd just been grateful for my good luck, but even at the time it had seemed almost too good to be true. Maybe Leonard didn't want the demolition experts knocking around down there.