“How the other half lives,” he said. “Must be nice.”
“Not necessarily.”
He opened up the back of the van to unload his tool kit. The interior was jammed with every conceivable variety of sophisticated electronics equipment, both manufactured and self-made. Starlight nightscopes, motion detectors hooked up to infrared still and video cameras, FM wireless and infinity transmitters, recording and debugging devices, laser shotguns and surveillance spike mikes — you name it and he owned it. In his own minor way, he was something of a techno genius.
We went to the front door and he spent about ten seconds studying the alarm pad. “Uh-huh,” he said, and went to peer at the nearby windows, and came back and said. “No sweat. Fifteen minutes, tops.”
“My hero. Just don’t set the damn thing off.”
He looked offended. “You won’t hear it if I do. It’s the silent type.”
“But you’d know if you did set it off?”
“Cut it out. I don’t make that kind of mistake.” He opened his tool kit. “You might want to watch what I do. In case you run up against this kind of situation again.”
“No, thanks. I wouldn’t know what I was seeing. I need an instruction manual to change a light bulb.”
I went over to where I had an oblique view of the street below. The woman and her poodle were gone; only his calling card remained. A few cars rumbled by, none of them official-looking, and there was no other pedestrian traffic.
After twelve minutes by my watch, Agonistes called my name. He was closing up his tool kit when I reached him. The alarm pad looked exactly as it had before, the plate tight-screwed to the wall; the only difference was that now the red light was off.
“That’ll be two hundred and fifty bucks,” he said.
“I don’t suppose you know an easy way to get past a dead-bolt lock.”
“Not my area of expertise. Whatever you do to get inside, you won’t have to worry about alerting the M.A.S. command center. Fay me and I’m out of here.”
I paid him. “I wish I had your hourly rate.”
“Sure you do. What you wouldn’t want are my expenses.”
“I’ll be in touch, George.”
“Uh-huh. Next time you’ve got a job for me, try to make it at least semilegal.”
“Why should I be different than any of your other clients?”
He waved and went away. I was glad to see him go. I liked Agonistes and most times I didn’t mind the mandatory raillery our relationship seemed to require, but I had little patience for it tonight. I was edgy about getting into the house, edgy about what I might find in there.
Dusk was approaching now and that meant I’d have to put lights on inside, something else that made me uneasy. I looped around to the rear, checking windows along the way; all of them were tightly latched. There was a set of steps leading up to a back deck. I climbed up there and tried the sliding-glass doors I found. They wouldn’t budge. Double-locked, likely — regular latch and a security bolt at the bottom or top.
No more time to waste. And only one real option anyway. I descended the steps and went around on the side away from Whiskey Flat Road. The branches of the heritage oak and a row of cypress shrubs separating the property from its nearest neighbor gave me as much privacy as I’d need. I picked one of the windows toward the back, the smallish kind that usually means bathroom; a shade was drawn over it so I couldn’t see inside. I waited until the wind gusted and made some noise in the trees and then drove my elbow in a short, hard thrust against the lower pane. The glass shattering seemed loud, but it wasn’t loud enough to carry. I cleared out shards with my elbow, widening the hole, then reached through and found the latch and raised both the sash and the shade.
Right: bathroom. I wiggled my way through, being careful of the broken glass. A child’s robe hung from the back of the closed door; a jar of bubble bath and a rubber Donald Duck bath toy sat on the edge of the tub. Emily’s bathroom. It made me feel like even more of an intruder, as if I were violating a place I had no right to be. Emily would have understood, but I wished just the same that I’d picked a different window.
I passed through her neat bedroom — stuffed animals dominated it, all shapes and sizes — and into a central hallway. I stood there for a little time, keening the air like a dog, getting the feel of the house. It didn’t feel right, but that could have been my keyed-up state, the fact that I was in the process of an illegal trespass for the third time in four days, even a reaction to the faint musty smell that develops in places closed up for more than a couple of days.
First action, then, was a quick preliminary search, opening doors and switching on lights and shutting them off again. Three bedrooms, three full baths, den, TV room, formal living room, family room, dining room, kitchen, utility room with washer and dryer. Computers. TV sets, VCR’s, stereo system with six-foot speakers, wet bar loaded with expensive Scotch, bourbon, and gin, fancy household gadgets, child’s toys and adult toys, fashionable clothing, a smattering of antiques — everything that illicit money could buy to take the place of faith, stability, unity, peace of mind. Expendable leftovers now. Throwaways. Emily’s hollow, inconsequential legacy.
Otherwise, the house was empty.
Orderly, clean, and empty — no signs of disturbance anywhere.
There should have been a small relief in that. Ever since yesterday I’d had a nibbling suspicion that I might find Sheila Hunter dead in here. Not the case, yet I couldn’t shake the not-right feeling. It was like a colorless toxic gas that you couldn’t quite smell or taste. Something had happened here. A violent act, possibly, despite the apparent lack of supportive evidence. Violence leaves that kind of residue, a psychic stain on the atmosphere. A touch of evil.
I prowled through the rooms again, stopping in the den and then the master bedroom to search closets and drawers and paper files. Nothing to tell me where Sheila Hunter might have gone, or who the third party involved in her disappearance might he. And all the while my sensitivity to the residue of evil grew until I was drawn so tight inside I could hear myself fast-ticking like an overwound clock.
Back to the front of the house. The residue seemed concentrated in that part; the hairs on my neck prickled as I walked through the living room. Not in there, though. Nor in the family or dining room.
Kitchen.
I flipped on the overhead track lights and stood in the archway, looking in. Big, open kitchen, usual appliances, wood-block center island with an electric stove top and tiled counter space alongside. Clean and tidy, like the rest of the house. Sheila Hunter was a far better housekeeper than her sister.
Nothing wrong, nothing out of place — or was there? The longer you look at a particular area, the more details your eyes pick out. The first one that caught my awareness was a toaster on the countertop next to the sink. Two pieces of bread in it, popped up, dark brown. Nearby sat a plate, empty except for a fork. Above a tiered pair of wall ovens was a built-in microwave with its door partway open. A paring knife lay in one half of a double stainless-steel sink; a copper saucepan was in the other half. I saw those last two things when I moved a few paces toward the center island.
I kept on going to the toaster, felt one of the bread slices. Hard, brittle — been there a while. I bent to peer first at the paring knife; the blade was clean. The saucepan had been used to cook something with oil or grease in it. Even though it had been rinsed out, a faint smeary ring showed inside.
Sidestepping, I poked the microwave door all the way open. Within was a tray full of a congealed substance that on closer inspection turned out to be macaroni and cheese. Heated but never taken out. Also there for some time.