38

I watched a couple teenage boys racing up the long, icy steps to the Revolutionary War monument in Thomas Park. One slipped on the ice and fell. The other laughed and kept running. The other shouted to his buddy that he was “a real piece of crap.” That amused me for a good two minutes.

Every thirty minutes, I cranked the car and let the heat run. Not much happened here in the dead of winter. Cars circled Thomas Park. Old ladies walked their dogs. I recalled a Fourth of July long ago when I’d watched a fireworks display high on the hill with a woman named Brenda Loring. I wondered what ever became of her as I ate the second half of my sandwich.

Night came early. It grew quite cold. I watched some other tenants enter the building. I waited another hour.

By ten, I was pretty sure Theresa wasn’t coming home. So I buzzed her door again. And then I buzzed a few neighbors.

I finally got the “Yeah” I needed.

“Bill Lee,” I said. “Spaceman Products.”

The door buzzed and unlocked. I walked inside. My next trick would be pitching the World Series while under the influence.

I knocked on Theresa’s door. Nothing.

I knocked again.

I kept an eight-piece lock-picking set in my jacket. It was so easy to pick a lock, I wondered at the use in locking doors at all. Within ten seconds, I was inside her apartment, a studio unit with a pull-out sofa and a small kitchen.

Art on the walls was of the discount-store variety, framed prints of Paris, Picasso, and one of a monkey drinking some kind of Italian dessert wine. In the kitchen, someone had left a half-eaten Lean Cuisine lasagna next to a saucer filled with cigarette ashes. A bottle of Sprite had been left open. The lasagna had congealed into a solid mass. The Sprite had gone flat.

A dirty fork had fallen on the floor, along with a glass. There was a puddle around the broken glass. I searched for more signs of a struggle but saw none. No telltale smears of blood or bullet holes. No scuffed heel marks on the vinyl floor. I sniffed the air for the sweet smell of chloroform.

The food on the counter had not started to mold, but it probably had a shelf life of a hundred years. I checked the phone for a voice-mail service, but the line was dead. So few use actual landlines these days. Theresa would rely only on her cell.

A suitcase lay open on the unmade sofa bed. The suitcase was half filled with jeans, sweatshirts, wool socks, and underthings. I checked a chest of drawers, finding mainly clothes. Theresa had a collection of maybe thirty CDs of singers and groups I didn’t know or care to know. She had magazines that told about the private lives of celebrities. One was open to a page of Hollywood weight-loss tips.

I found her bathroom cabinet fully stocked with makeup, lipstick, and other women’s products.

I walked back into the studio. The light was weak from an imitation Tiffany lamp. On the wall hung a shellacked picture of Saint Jude with the words PRAY FOR US. On top of a small chest was a collection of pictures in cheap plastic frames. One snapshot showed a young man in a Marines uniform before an American flag. Another was of a frail old woman in a large recliner. The other was of Theresa and Julie Sullivan at their high school graduation, smiles full of optimism and hope. Faces unmarked by living hard lives.

I read some mail and went through her bills. She owed more than five grand to a cut-rate credit card company. She had been offered many other credit cards. Another letter offered her good luck and prayers if she’d give a donation. I turned off the lights to the bathroom and studio.

I cracked open the door to the hall, listening for neighbors. Not a creature stirred.

I let myself out and walked back to the street facing Thomas Park. The wind blew harder and colder up in the Heights. I pulled my Braves ball cap down over my eyes. I wore no gloves and sank my hands deep into my pockets.

I did not like where this was heading.

39

A light was visible at the sill of my apartment door. I thought it was perhaps karma. Someone was creeping me while I was creeping Theresa Donovan.

I pulled the .38 from under my leather jacket and lightly felt the knob.

The door was unlocked. I heard shuffling inside. It sounded as if someone was going through my papers and drawers. I wondered if they’d find my autograph of Hank Aaron tucked inside Zane Grey’s Code of the West. Or my sexy pictures of Lotte Lenya.

I opened the door fast, gun in hand.

Pearl tilted her head. She’d been drinking from a bowl of water and slobber dripped from her jowls.

I put away the gun and closed the door behind me.

Susan had made a fire and sat on the couch, drinking a glass of wine and reading a Charles Portis novel. She looked up from the book for a moment to smile at me. She took another sip and dog-eared the page.

“I might have shot Pearl.”

“Pearl was unarmed,” Susan said.

Pearl trotted up and offered her head for me to pat. I patted her head.

“Been here long?”

“Oh, since five,” she said. “Last appointment canceled. He’s the commitment-phobe.”

I nodded.

“I brought takeout from Chez Henri.”

“Cuban sandwich?”

“Also got you that selection of cheeses you like. That thingy with the fruit and toasted nuts.”

I opened the refrigerator and found a bottle of Amstel. I pulled out the containers from Chez Henri. I placed the Cuban sandwich in my toaster oven and set it to warm. I cracked open the beer and picked at the fruit and cheese.

“I ever tell you that you are a saint?” I asked.

“Not as often as you should,” she said. “I hoped you’d come home tonight.”

“You could have called.”

“I knew you’d be home when you were ready.”

“Like a stray cat.”

“Exactly.”

Susan stood and finished her wine. She was wearing an old gray Boston College sweatshirt given to me by the football weight coach, and not much else.

“I like your style,” I said.

“This old thing?” Susan asked. She opened the refrigerator and poured herself more wine. Chateau Ste. Michelle Riesling. “Why, I only wear it when I don’t care how I look.”

I studied her butt as she bent over to replace the wine in the low section of the fridge. I smiled. I sipped some more beer.

“I spent the night looking into a young woman’s windows and checking out her drawers.”

“Creepy.”

“A chest of drawers.”

“Oh.”

Susan sipped her wine. I found a cookie for Pearl in the cookie jar. Pearl nearly took my fingers off chomping it down.

I hung up my leather jacket on a rack by the front door. I unclipped the holster from my belt and put away the gun.

“Wyatt Earp,” she said.

“You ever get used to what I do?”

“Nope,” Susan said.

“Does it excite you?”

“Not really.”

“You eat?”

“I had the paella. Would you rather have had the paella?”

“No,” I said. I removed the Cuban sandwich from the toaster oven. The cheese was again the proper gooeyness. The slow-roasted pork inside the pressed bread was very good. Citrusy.

“How’s Mattie?”

“As she’d say, she’s ‘royally pissed.’”

“What did you do?”

“I did not take her for another field trip to Cedar Junction state prison.”

“To see the man who may have killed her mother.”

“We’re beyond that,” I said. “She actually likes the goober.”

I ate more of the sandwich, properly chased with the Amstel.

“She would,” Susan said. “She’ll see paternal traits in him no matter how horrid he seems to you.”