“I have to watch every goddamn penny,” Judith said to no one. “If he gets a chance, he’ll screw my eyes out.”
“Gee, but it’s nice to see people get along so well,” I said. “Have you two always been so lovey?”
“I hate his guts,” she said. “No secret about that, mister. The only thing I’m living for is to get this house sold and the money split so I won’t ever have to see his stupid face again.”
“When you decide you want to talk to me, I’ll be in the other room,” Ballard said, and left.
“Son of a bitch,” Judith said before he was quite out of the room.
I had this insane urge to laugh. She knew it, and did laugh.
“We’re some dog and pony show. Is that what you’re thinking?”
“Yeah,” I said. “What’s with you two?”
“Just bad blood. It’s always been there. It’s got nothing to do with anything, and I’d just as soon not talk about it.”
“How do you manage to work together if you don’t even speak?”
“With great difficulty. What can I tell you?”
“What happened to the books?”
“We sold them. You know that.”
“You split the money?”
“You better believe it.”
“Did you know the guy you sold them to?”
“Never saw him before. We were in here working and he just showed up. Walked in on us just like you did. Said he heard we had some books and wondered if we wanted to make a deal for them.”
“Did he say where he’d heard about it?”
“No, and I didn’t ask. The man had cash money, that’s all I care about.”
“Did you go through the books before you sold them?”
“What do I care about a bunch of old books? Besides, I told you we were in a hurry to sell them. I don’t want to stay around
“So neither of you looked at the books, or had a book dealer look at them, before you sold them?”
“Look,” she said shortly. “There weren’t any old books in there, okay? It was just run-of-the-mill crap. Anybody with half a brain could see that.”
She was angry now. The thought of blowing an opportunity will sometimes do that to people. She said, “Everybody knows books have to be old. Everybody knows that.”
I shook my head.
“What do you know about it?”
“Not much. A little.”
“What could a cop know about books? Don’t come in here and tell me what I should’ve done. You see those bookshelves? They were all full. There are more like this in every room. He had the basement laid out like a fucking library. Do you have any idea how many books were in this house? I haven’t got enough to do, now I’ve got to go through all this crap looking for a few lousy books that might be valuable?“
I shrugged.
“Besides,” she said, “Stan did that.”
“Did what?”
“He had a book dealer come do an appraisal. It was three, four years ago, when he first got the cancer. He had an appraisal done and it was there with his papers when he died.”
“Do you remember the name of the appraiser?”
“I don’t have enough to do without remembering names?”
“I’ll need to see that appraisal.” I made it a demand, not a request. “Do you have a copy?”
“You better believe it. I’ve got a copy of everything. With a son of a bitch like him around, I’d better have a copy.”
Ballard, in the next room, had heard this, and he came in fuming.
“If you want to talk to me, talk,” he said. “I’ve got things to do today.”
I shifted easily from her to him.
“Did you look at the books?”
“Hell no. There wasn’t anything there worth the trouble. Read my lips and believe it, there was nothing there.
