that.”
“But she did keep the material?”
“She never threw away anything in her life.”
The thought that had been building in my mind now occurred to her. “Are you thinking maybe Eleanor found something up there in Mamma’s stuff that caused her to go to New Mexico and break into that house?”
“There’s a fair chance of it. That does seem to be where everything started coming apart for her.”
“Damn. Makes you want to go out there now and start looking through it, doesn’t it?”
“If that’s an invitation, I’d love it.”
She shook her head. “The house is dark, there’s no power, they turned off the lights three weeks ago. And I’ll feel a lot better tomorrow without the kids. I can drop ‘em in day care at seven-thirty and we can head out then.”
“If that’s what you want.”
“I’m as anxious as you are. I’m just not crazy about having my kids spend the night in a dark house in the country…you know what I mean?”
“In the morning then.”
But she was my one real link to the past and I hated to leave her there.
Then I realized I didn’t have to.
36
I talked her into my room at the Hilton with little effort. I explained it away as a room I had rented but couldn’t use, and she wasn’t inclined to ask questions. To her it was a
It was an older house with a well-lived look to it. It sat on a large lot surrounded by trees. I pulled into her driveway and fished out the package she had left me from under the seat. She had left the night-light on as well as two lights inside the house. I got out and walked up like I owned the place.
The key was in the flowerpot, just where she’d said.
I came into a dark hallway. A brief memory of Pruitt’s house flashed through my mind before the place burst into life—two golden retrievers charged from the rear in joyous welcome. I got down with them and roughed them the way big dogs seem to like it. Mitzi and Pal, the tags on their collars said. Mitzi was especially affectionate and I felt welcome, less like a stranger in this town of endless rain.
The hall opened into a large living area. There was a TV, VCR, and disc player, all the comforts. Just off the big room was a dining room, with a mahogany table that seated eight, and beyond that was the kitchen.
In the middel of the table was a cassette tape player, with the door flipped open.
Near the tape player was a note, telling her friend Judy Maples how much to feed the dogs and where things were. The dogs came and went, I saw, through a doggie door that opened off the kitchen into a groundlevel deck, and from there into a backyard.
I opened the refrigerator, which was well stocked with beer; I fetched myself one and sat at the counter sipping the foam. I took the tape out of the bag and snapped it into place in the machine.
“Hi,” she said. “Isn’t this cozy?”
She paused as if we were there together and it were my turn to talk. I said, “Yes ma’am, and I thank you very large.”
“You’ll find beer in the fridge,” she said, “but knowing you, you already have. Seriously, make yourself at home. The dogs will want to sleep with you, but they won’t pester: if you close your door, they’ll whine for about five minutes, then they’ll shut up and go about their business. They’re well behaved; I’m sure you’ll get along famously.
“There’s plenty of food. The freezer’s well stocked, and if you don’t see anything there you want, there’s a big freezer in the garage. You can defrost just about anything in the microwave. Again I’m anticipating your little idiosyncrasies and impatiences, and assuming that you’ve never read an instruction booklet in your life. Do yourself a favor and read the two paragraphs I’ve left open and marked on the table. It’s impossible to defrost food without knowing the codes. You could spend years of your life trying to figure it out on your own. I imagine you’ll try anyway.
“I thought you’d be most comfortable in the big room on the right at the top of the stairs. It’s a man’s room—I rented this house from an FBI agent who’s now doing a tour of duty in Texas. So that’s where you should go—the room upstairs, not Texas—when you’re ready to call it a night.”
