B is for Burglar (Kinsey Millhone 2)

"You've sold this house? I saw the sign out front."

"Sold," he said with satisfaction. "We can move us up to that retirement place when the kids get everything here packed up. We've got a regular reservation. We're on the list and everything. She's old. She doesn't even know where she is half the time. Fire broke out in this place, she'd lay there and cook."

I glanced at his wife, who had apparently locked her knees. I was worried she would pass out, but he didn't seem to give it much thought. She might as well have been a hall tree.

Snyder went on as though prompted by questions from an unseen audience. "Yessir, I sold it. She like to have a fit, but the house is in my name and I own it free and clear. Paid four thousand dollar. Now I call that a profit, wouldn't you?"

"That's not bad," I said. I glanced over at his wife again. Her legs had begun to tremble.

"Why don't you get on back to bed, May?" he said and then looked at me with a disapproving shake of his head. "She can't hear good. Hearing comes and goes. Got tintypes of the ear and all she can see is living shapes. She got the leg of that walker hung up on the broom-closet door last week and stood there for forty-six minutes before she got loose. Old fool."

"You want me to help you get her back to bed?" I asked.

Snyder floundered on the couch, turning himself sideways so he could get up. He pushed himself to his feet and then went over to her and shouted in her face. "Go lay down awhile, May, and then I'll get you some snackin' cake," he said.

She stared steadfastly at his neck, but I could have sworn she knew exactly what he was talking about and was just feeling stubborn and morose.

"Why did you put the light on? I thought it was day," she said.

"It only cost five cent to run that bulb," he said.

"What?"

"I said it's pitch-black night outside and you got to go to bed!" he hollered.

"Well," she said, "I think I might in that case."

Laboriously, she thumped the walker around, navigating with effort. Her eyes slid past me and she seemed suddenly to discern me in the haze.

"Who's that?"

"It's some woman," Snyder broke in. "I was telling her of Leonard's back luck."

"Did you tell her what I heard that night? Tell about the' hammering kept me awake. Hanging pictures… bang, bang, bang. I had to take a pill it made my head hurt so bad."

"That wasn't the same night, May. How many times I told you that? It couldn't have been because he wasn't home and he's the one did that kind of thing. Burglars don't hang pictures."

He looked over at me then, twirling his index finger beside his temple to indicate that she was rattlebrained.

"Banged and banged," she said, but she was only muttering to herself as she thunked away, moving the walker in front of her like a clothes rack.

"She hasn't a faculty left," he said to me over his shoulder. "Pees on herself half the time. I had to move every stick of dining-room furniture out and put her bed in there right where the sideboard stood. I told her I'd outlive her the day I married her. She gets on my nerves. She did back then too. I'd just as soon live with a side of meat."

"Who's at the door?" she said insistently.

"Nobody. I'm talkin' to myself," he said.

He shuffled into the hallway behind her. His hovering had a tender quality about it in spite of what he said. In any event, she didn't seem aware of his aggravation or his minor tyrannies. I wondered if he'd stood there and timed her for the forty-six minutes while she struggled with the broom-closet door. Is that what marriages finally come down to? I've seen old couples toddle down the street together holding hands and I've always looked on faintly misty-eyed, but maybe it is all the same clash of wills behind closed doors. I've been married twice myself and both ended in divorce. I berate myself for that sometimes but now I'm not sure. Maybe I haven't made such a bad trade-off. Personally, I'd rather grow old alone than in the company of anyone I've met so far. I don't experience myself as lonely, incomplete, or unfulfilled, but I don't talk about that much. It seems to piss people off-especially men.

Chapter 8

Mr. Snyder returned to the living room and sat down heavily on the couch. "Now then."

"What can you tell me about that fire next door?" I asked. "I saw the place. It looks awful."

He nodded, preparing himself as though for a television interview, staring straight ahead. "Well now, the fire engine woke me up ten o'clock at night. Two of 'em. I don't sleep good anyhow and I heard the siren come right up here close so I got up and went out. Neighbors was runnin' from ever' which way. Black smoke outen that house like you never saw. These firemen, they bashed their way in and pretty soon flames et up the front porch. Whole backside got saved. They found Marty, that was Leonard's wife, layin' on the floor. It'd be right about over there," he said, pointing toward the front door. "I never seen her myself, but Tillie said she was charred head to foot. Just a bunch of stumps, like a piece of wood."