Distemper by Beth Saulnier Page A

the Yankees and plot secession.”
    “And we’d just as soon have you fall off into New York.”
    “No kidding. How did your mom end up here?”
    “After my dad died, she married a guy who got a job running the grounds department at Benson. He died last year, so she was
     by herself. But she had her friends here, and her church, and she didn’t want to move. So here I am.”
    “Doomed to be bored off your ass.”
    “Hardly. Not now, anyway.” He picked up the paper from where he’d dropped it on the counter. I’d assumed it was that day’s,
     but it turned out to be from Tuesday. My story had run above the fold under the headline POLICE IDENTIFY SECOND VICTIM . I’d filed it ten minutes before deadline Monday night, then fallen asleep on the couch in the managing editor’s office.
     Cody unfolded the paper and shook his head. “How the hell did you pull this off?”
    “What do you mean? How did I get you to talk?”
    “You did not ‘get’ me to talk. I did the only logical thing under the circumstances. Pissing off the local dailyis very shortsighted. It feels good at the time, but when you need a favor two weeks later, it comes back to bite you on the
     ass. I meant, how did you get these pictures? And how did you get all these people to talk to you—her roommate, her boyfriend,
     her
parents
, for God’s sake?”
    “That’s not my story. The cop reporter wrote it.”
    “Do you think for a minute I believe that frightened adolescent wrote this?”
    “Okay, you got me. We co-wrote it. And if you really want to know, the photo on the jump page came from her high school yearbook.
     That’s a no-brainer. We just sent the photo intern to the local library. The one that ran on page one—that posed sort of glamour
     shot—we got that one from her boyfriend. He kept it in his wallet.”
    “But why do people let you invade their privacy like that? That’s what I can’t understand. If I was that poor girl’s boyfriend,
     I would never talk to you people in a million years.”
    “Most people think they’d feel that way. But when push comes to shove, they’d rather talk about something than just sit on
     it.”
    “I don’t buy it.”
    “Then maybe you’re the one person out of a hundred that can handle silence. Most of us can’t. It makes my job a lot easier.
     I bet it does the same thing for yours.”
    “Food for thought.”
    “Fact is, most people
need
to talk about themselves. Makes them feel like they’re worth something.”
    “Only if they’ve got something to prove.”
    “And you don’t?”
    “I’m not real big on spilling my guts.”
    “So why’d you tell me about your wife and all?”
    “Damn good question.” He thought about it for a minute. “I guess… because you asked so straight. Frontal assault.”
    “The best kind.”
    “But there’s a big difference between talking over a beer and spilling personal stuff to the newspaper. It’s not like my lousy
     marriage is going to end up in print.”
    “You hope.” He shot me a startled look. “Relax, Cody. I’m just joking. And for the record, though it’s absolutely, positively,
     and completely none of my business, it sounds to me like that wife of yours was a flake and a half.”
    “You’re not wrong.” He drank down the rest of his beer. “All right, let’s take a look around this place.” He got up and went
     straight for the front door. “What you have here is a lock so cheap any two-bit break-in artist could pick it. Which doesn’t
     much matter, because anyone with a brick could break the glass, reach in, and turn the latch. What you want is a Medeco lock,
     the kind you can deadbolt from the inside with a key. They cost a mint, but when you move out you can take it with you. And
     you don’t want to leave the key hanging in the lock, or you’ve defeated the purpose. Got it?” I wrote it down. He surveyed
     the house, and, in the end, calculated eight separate points of entry that any idiot with a