Bill Pronzini [Nameless Detec Quarry (epub)

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.No personal correspondence of any kind.I inventoried each of the drawers without finding anything of interest—and without finding either a Rolodex or an address book, even though the desk was where she kept her telephone.The searcher might have taken one or the other.More likely, there hadn't been one to take.A person who has no friends, who shuns social activities, would keep in her head or in a little book in her purse what few addresses and telephone numbers she needed.I searched the rest of the room, even going so far as to lift cushions and get down on all fours to probe under furniture.Nothing.Nothing for me, either, in the dining area or kitchen.The storage box in the bedroom closet was filled with older papers, envelopes containing Grady's income-tax records for the past two years, and a packet of Christmas and birthday cards tied with a pink ribbon.All but two of the cards were signed "Your Dad" and "Love, Mary Ellen"; the other two— one birthday, one Christmas—bore the words "With everything good and sweet, always, Todd" in a careful hand.Apparently Grady had a small sentimental streak.And yet, I'd seen nothing else here that linked her to her roots in the Salinas Valley.No other photos, no school yearbooks, no childhood mementoes.If she'd kept any such things, they were probably still in San Bernado; she had limited space here.Or was the reason that she shunned reminders of a youth that was painful to her?The remainder of the closet was in order, except that a few of the articles of clothing on hangers were rumpled, as if the searcher had been feeling through pockets.Grady's taste in clothes matched her taste in interior design: prints and pastels, mostly, with a few plain whites mixed in.The dresser held no revelations; neither did the nightstand on which the photographs lay.The drawer in the other nightstand contained a half-empty package of Trojan condoms.The condoms surprised me a little, more than they should have.Hell, she was thirty-one years old; did I expect her to be a virgin just because she lived a solitary life and preferred the past to the present? I examined the package, but there was no way of telling how long ago it had been bought.Back when she was dating Todd Bellin, maybe.Or last month or last week.Frustrated, I returned to the living room.There was nothing here to explain Grady's run home, or why someone had come to search the apartment.Or to indicate if the searcher had found whatever it was he was looking for.Or to tell me if Grady had taken something with her when she left.I poked my head out into the lobby; still empty, the building still quiet.Then I got down on one knee to examine the locking mechanism on the door.It was a deadbolt, which meant that forcing it would have required effort and would have left telltale marks.There were no marks.The searcher had to have a key, then.Given to him by Grady, recently or sometime in the past? Stolen from her?I set the deadbolt, went out into the lobby and closed the door and tested it to make sure it was locked.Behind the staircase, I noticed then, was an unmarked door that I hadn't seen on the way in.Grady's apartment key opened that one too.More stairs, this set leading into the basement.I found a light switch and descended.Musty and gloomy, like all basements, it was concrete-floored.At the back end, another door led into the garden.Against the wall opposite the stairs, three screened and gated storage cages held the tenants' larger personal belongings.Each of the cages was numbered and padlocked.But the padlock on number one wouldn't keep anybody out.One of its staples had been neatly sawn through with a hacksaw blade, then set back in place through its hasp.You had to step up close to see the damage.There was not much inside.A Schwinn bicycle, a large leather suitcase that looked to be part of a set, two extra chairs and a table leaf for Grady's dining room set, a folding cot that had been bought new and seldom used since.And half a dozen storage cartons, the tops open or loosely closed on all of them, the contents pawed through.One contained more old files dating back several years, another softcover books, a third extra bedding, a fourth dishes, a fifth pots and pans, and the sixth figurines and pewter items and other gewgaws that had once been carefully wrapped in tissue.The box of files had received the most thorough going-over.But if there'd been anything to find, the searcher had made off with it.I replaced the sawn padlock on the cage door, went back up into the lobby.I had an urge to search Grady's apartment again, but it was an urge born of frustration and I didn't give in to it.Instead I walked out into the vestibule and looked at the names on the other two mailboxes.The second-floor apartment was occupied by M.Norman and C.Tagliozzi; the third-floor tenant, or tenants, was named Voorhees.Maybe one of them could tell me something.But when I rang first one bell and then the other, I got no response.I'd been alone in the building the whole time.Chapter 5The office was locked up tight, the steam heat still turned off: Eberhardt hadn't put in an appearance yet, even though it was past ten-thirty.He was a chronic latecomer, and since his wedding madness he'd been even more erratic.The backlog of work on his desk had grown to alarming proportions; I would have to farm some of it out while he was away on his fancy Hawaiian honeymoon.Irritated, I put the heat on and made coffee and checked for messages.Then I called Arlo Haas.He said things were the same there.I asked him where Grady did her banking.Bank of America, he said, just as she always had, but he wasn't sure which branch.He could find out quickly, though; she'd already gone off into the hills and she hadn't taken her purse with her.He called back within fifteen minutes.Her bank was the Kearney Street branch, in the Financial District, near where Intercoastal Insurance had its offices.Haas wanted to know if I was getting anywhere yet, if I'd gone to her apartment— asking the questions reluctantly, as though he didn't want to be pushy, but asking them anyway because he couldn't restrain himself.I told him, gently, that I'd contact him as soon as I had any information to relate.To his credit, he let it go at that.I got B of A's Kearney Street branch number out of the directory.The woman who answered my call sounded young and out of breath, as if she'd had to run a long distance to get to the phone [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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