"V" is for Vengeance (23 page)

“Let's start there.”

“You want me to hang around or make myself scarce?”

“Come with me. That way, if anything comes up, I can ask questions while I search.”

He showed me into the bathroom off the master bedroom. “Margaret and I remodeled fifteen years ago. Tore out a wall here and opened these two bedrooms to form a master suite. Doesn't look like much compared to new houses these days, but we were happy. We did a bump out in the kitchen to make like a breakfast nook and then added a screened-in porch.”

I made what I hoped were appropriate responses while I sorted through the medicine cabinet and the vanity drawers she'd been allotted. He was right about her medications—no prescriptions at all. Sixty-three years old, you'd think she'd be into hormone-replacement therapy or thyroid medication, pills for high blood pressure or elevated cholesterol levels. Her personal hygiene products were just what you'd expect. Nothing exotic. I'd have been happy to see a tube of Mary Kay lipstick, just for the chance to track it back to the local rep.

“The police still have her purse,” he said apropos of nothing.

“Doesn't surprise me. Too bad she didn't take prescription meds. We might have tracked down her doctor and learned a thing or two.”

When he saw that I'd run out of drawers to tackle, he said, “Bedroom's this way.”

I followed him into the bedroom where he pointed out the drawers she used. When I opened the first, I was greeted by a soft cloud of fragrance—lilac, gardenia, and something else.

Marvin took a step back. “Whoa . . .”

“What?”

“That's the White Shoulders I gave her on our six-month anniversary. It was like her signature perfume.” He shook his head once and his eyes flooded with tears.

“Are you okay?”

He gave his eyes a quick swipe. “Took me by surprise is all.”

“You can wait for me in the other room if it's easier.”

“No need.”

I went back to my search. Audrey's tidiness extended to her lingerie. In both drawers, she was using fabric-covered boxes to store her neatly folded underpants, bras, and panty hose. I felt my way through the items without discovering anything. I pulled the drawers all the way out and checked for papers or other items taped under them or on the back. Zip.

I crossed to the closet and opened the door. There were rods for double hanging, cubbyholes, shelf dividers, wire baskets, and cedar-lined shelves tucked away behind clear Lucite doors. Her wardrobe struck me as skimpy for a working woman. Two suits, two skirts, and a jacket. Of course, this was California, and work clothes were more casual and relaxed than in other places.

Marvin's side of the closet was as organized as hers. I said, “You guys are something else. She must have had a closet company come in and do this.”

“Matter of fact, she did.”

I removed stacks of folded sweaters, felt along the seams for anything hidden. I checked the pockets in her slacks and jackets, opened shoe boxes, and rooted through the laundry hamper. There was nothing of interest.

I returned to the small desk in the living room, where I sat down and worked my way through the drawers he'd cleared for her. No address book, no month-at-a-glance calendar, no appointment book. It was possible her route was preset and she had no need to make penciled reminders to herself. But what about the ordinary day-to-day transactions? Everyone has to-do lists, scraps of paper, scratch pads with scribbled notes. There was none of that here. Which meant what? If Audrey had decided to kill herself, she might have systematically deleted anything of a personal nature. I wasn't sure why she'd be that secretive unless she was paranoid about anything connected to her shoplifting extravaganzas. She'd been working with a younger woman. If the two were linked to a larger retail-theft ring, even a fragment of information might be telling. So maybe the other woman was the one who kept track of their activities.

The flip side of the issue was just as troubling. What if she hadn't killed herself? If she'd been murdered, she probably didn't have warning and therefore she'd have had no opportunity to erase personal or professional references. Did she tidy up after herself as she went along? I had to credit her with a job well done. So far, she was invisible.

I sat in her desk chair and pondered the situation. Marvin had been good about keeping his comments to a minimum. I turned and looked at him. “When it came to business travel, what was the pattern?”

“She was usually gone three days a week.”

“The same three days or did it vary?”

“It was pretty much the same. She'd be gone Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and every other Saturday. With outside sales, you usually have a regular route for customers you visit or stores you service. Plus, you make a certain number of cold calls, developing new contacts.”

“Was she in town last Friday when she was ordinarily gone?”

“I have no idea. She said she'd be away the usual three days. She worked from home on Monday and Tuesday and then took off, saying she'd be back first thing Saturday morning.”

“In time for her regular hair appointment.”

“Right. That and the real estate agent.”

I changed my focus. “Did she have hobbies? It may sound irrelevant, but I'm looking for any kind of crack in the wall.”

“No hobbies. No exercise program, no sports, and she didn't cook. She used to make jokes about what a rube she was in the kitchen. If I didn't do the cooking myself, we went to restaurants, did takeout, or ordered in. She liked anything that could be delivered. Lot of times we ate at the Hatch, which has a limited menu of bar food—burgers and fries, nachos, chili, and these premade burritos you can heat in the microwave.”

I was already thinking about whizzing back over to the Hatch to catch a bite to eat before the kitchen closed for the night. I returned my focus to the job at hand. “Where did she do her banking?”

“No idea. I never saw her write a check.”

“Did she cover her share of the living expenses?”

“Sure, but she paid me in cash.”

“No checking account?”

“Not as far as I know. She might have had a checkbook in her purse, but the cops still have that and I doubt they'd provide us an inventory.”

“Did she pitch in on groceries?”

“When she was in town. I covered the household because my name's on the mortgage and I have to pay water and electric whether she's here or not.”

“What about when you went out to dinner?”

“I'm old-school. I don't believe a lady should pay. If I invited her for a meal, it was my treat.”

“Did she explain her reliance on cash? Seems quirky to me.”

“She said she got into debt at one point, overdrawing her account, and the only way she could curb her spending was to switch to all cash.”

“What about credit card statements?”

“No cards.”

“Not even a credit card for gas when she was on the road?”

“Not that I ever saw.”

“How about telephone bills? Surely, she made business calls on days she worked from home.”

He considered the question. “You're right. I should have thought of that myself. I'll pull the phone bills for the months she was living here and mark any numbers I don't recognize.”

“Don't worry about it until I've checked the house in San Luis. That might be a gold mine of information.”

“Anything else I can be doing?”

“You could put a notice in the newspapers—the
Dispatch
, the
San Francisco Chronicle
, the
San Luis Obispo Tribune
, and the Chicago papers. “Seeking information about Audrey Vance . . .” Use my phone number in case we get crank calls, which are all too common in these situations.”

“And if no one comes forward?”

“Well, if the house in San Luis doesn't net more than this, I'd say we were up shit creek.”

“But overall, this is good, right? I mean, so far, you haven't uncovered any evidence she was a master criminal.”

“Ah. Funny you should say that. I forgot to mention my talk with the vice detective. Audrey's been convicted of grand theft on at least five prior occasions, which suggests she was into retail theft up to her pretty little neck.”

“Saints preserve us,” he said, which was a phrase I hadn't heard in years.

The drive from Santa Teresa to San Luis Obispo took an hour and forty-five minutes. I was on the road by 8:00 A.M., which put me in S.L.O. at 9:45 on the nose. The late-April weather was sunny and cool with a breeze blowing flirtatiously through the trees along the side of the road. Traffic was light. The winter months had generated sufficient rainfall to transform the low rolling hills from the usual honey and gold hues to a vibrant green. San Luis Obispo is the county seat, the home of Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, the fifth in the string of twenty-one missions that dot the California coast from San Diego de Alcala, at the southernmost point, to San Francisco Solana de Sonoma, to the north. The charm of the town was completely lost on me. I'm single-minded when it comes to the hunt and I was interested in what I might find in Audrey's house. The fact that I didn't have a key in my possession only added to the fun. Maybe I'd have the opportunity to use the key picks Pinky had given me.

I left the 101 at Marsh Street, cleared the off-ramp, and pulled over to the curb. I'd tossed a city map on the passenger seat beside me and now I spent a few minutes getting my bearings. I was looking for Wood Lane, which the street index indicated was somewhere on the grid designated as J-8. I followed the coordinates, taking the dog-leg from Marsh to Broad Street, one of the main arteries through town. Closer to the airport in the southeastern section of the city, Broad became Edna Road. Wood Lane was an offshoot as delicate as an eyelash and just about that long.

The area was mixed use, industrial and agricultural. I could imagine a city planner or a developer many years before with vision enough to realize the land would be more valuable vacant than given over to subdivisions. A few single-family dwellings had cropped up in what was otherwise a flat countryside. Aside from the fields under cultivation for spring planting, the landscape was hard-packed dirt, sparse vegetation, and the occasional fence. Here and there I could see an outcropping of boulders as big as sandstone sedans. In the absence of trees, the wind swept across the bare acreage, throwing up eddies of dust.

Wood Lane was a cul-de-sac with two small frame houses at the end. The ranch-style house on the right was set in the middle of a well-kept lawn. The driveway was blacktopped and lined with white stones. The address there was 803, which I took to be her landlady's house. Audrey's driveway consisted of two dirt ruts with a stretch of dead grass between. At the end of the drive there was a single-car garage with a small shed attached. I parked and picked my way down the rough drive, taking note of the overgrown shrubs surrounding the house on three sides. The overhead garage door looked ancient, but it yielded without a fuss. The interior was empty and smelled of hot dust. The floor was concrete, marked by a black patch in the center where a vehicle had leaked oil. I leaned down and touched the surface of the spill, which was still sticky. The adjacent shed contained two bags of bark mulch the rats had chewed through.

I returned to the front porch and climbed the stairs. The white paint on the one-story cottage had turned chalky with age. The windows sported injured-looking venetian blinds, hanging crookedly from their mounts. A mailbox was nailed to one side of the front door. I did a quick check and came up with two pieces of mail, both addressed to Audrey Vance. As she was dead and I was unobserved, I opened both envelopes. The first was a preapproved credit card offer from a company that looked forward to serving her financial needs. The second was a response to an inquiry about rental property in Perdido, twenty-five miles to the south of us in Santa Teresa. It was a form letter sent in response to an application she'd filled out in which she'd neglected to complete certain items that were required for proper processing. There followed several X's in parentheses, indicating that she needed to supply the address and telephone number of her employer, her job title, and the number of years in that position. Also, the name and contact number for her current landlord along with her reasons for leaving.
“Regretfully, we have nothing available at this time. We have, however, placed your letter in our files and if at any point in the future one of our tenants should give notice, we'll be happy to get in touch.”

I shoved the two letters into the outer compartment of my shoulder bag. The credit card offer I'd toss at the first opportunity. The form letter from the property-management company I'd look at again. It was possible that on further reflection I'd see a way to make use of it, though I wasn't quite sure how. Which left me with the physical premises. On the off chance the door was unlocked, I tried the knob. Nope.

While I was at it, I went around to the rear and tried the back door with the same result. I returned to the front yard and studied the sparsely traveled road. Audrey was a party animal. Yet here she was, miles from the nearest bar and the nearest convenience store. What was the point? If she'd needed to spend two nights a month in San Luis Obispo, why not camp out at the nearest Motel 6? I couldn't imagine why she'd elect to rent such an isolated place unless she was up to no good.

I looked over at the house next door, which was separated from Audrey's by a sagging wire fence. Everything in Audrey's yard was dead, but I could see signs of a newly planted garden on the neighbor's side of the fence. Behind the house, a woman with a laundry basket was pinning freshly washed linens on a clothesline. The sheets flapped and snapped, sounding like the beating of wings as they tossed in the wind.