T Is for Trespass by Sue Grafton Page B

picture frames laid up against one wall. I flipped the frames forward and peered at the paintings from above, but I didn’t know what to make of them. The subject matter was varied: landscapes, portraits, one painting of a lush but drooping bouquet, another of a tabletop adorned with cut fruit, a silver pitcher, and a dead duck with its head hanging off the edge. The oil on most had darkened so much it was like looking through a tinted window. I know nothing about art, so I had no opinion about his collection, except for the dead duck, which I thought was in questionable taste.
    I got busy in the bathroom, thinking to get the worst of it out of the way. I disconnected my emotional gears, much as I do at the scene of a homicide. Revulsion is useless when you have a job to do. For the next two hours, we scrubbed and scoured, dusted and vacuumed. Henry emptied the refrigerator and filled two large trash bags with unidentified rotting foodstuffs. The cupboard shelves held canned goods that bulged along the bottoms, signaling imminent explosion. He ran a load of dishes while I tossed a mound of dirty clothes in the washer and ran that as well. The bedding I left in a heap on the laundry room floor until the washer was free.
    By noon we’d covered as much ground as we could. Now that a modicum of order had been restored, I could see how depressing the house was. We could have worked another two full days and the result would have been the same—dinginess, neglect, a pall of old dreams hovering midair. We closed up the house, and Henry rolled two big garbage cans out to the curb in front. He said he’d get cleaned up and then hit the supermarket to restock Gus’s shelves. After that he’d call the hospital and find out when he was being released. I went home, took a shower, and got dressed for work in my usual jeans.
    I decided I’d make a second try at delivering the Order to Show Cause to my pal Bob Vest. This time when I parked and crossed the street to knock on his door, I noticed two newspapers lying on the porch. This was not a good sign. I waited, on the off chance that I’d caught him on the john with his knickers down around his knees. While I stood there, I spotted a scratching post on one side of the porch. The carpeted surface was untouched as the cat apparently preferred to sharpen its claws by shredding the welcome mat. A sooty-looking cat bed was matted with hair, dander, and flea eggs, but no visible cat.
    I went out to the mailbox and checked the contents: junk mail, catalogs, a few bills, and a handful of magazines. I tucked the pile under my arm and crossed the lawn to his neighbor’s house. I rang the bell. The door was answered by a woman in her sixties, cigarette in hand. The air around her smelled of fried bacon and maple syrup. She wore a tank top and pedal pushers. Her arms were scrawny and her pants rested loosely on her hips.
    I said, “Hi. Do you know when Bob’s getting back? He asked me to bring in his mail. I thought he was getting home last night, but I see his newspapers haven’t been taken in.”
    She opened the screen door and peered past me at his drive. “How’d he manage to rope you in? He asked me to mind his cat, but he never said a word about the mail.”
    “Maybe he didn’t want to bother you with that.”
    “I don’t know why not. He’s happy to bother me about everything else. That cat thinks he lives here as often as I look after him. Scruffy old thing. I feel sorry for him.”
    I wasn’t crazy about Bob’s neglect of the cat. Shame on him. “Did he mention when he’d be home?”
    “He said this afternoon, if you put any stock in that. Sometimes he claims he’ll be gone two days when he knows it’ll be a week. He thinks I’m more likely to agree to shorter absences.”
    “Oh, you know Bob,” I said, and then held up the mail. “Anyway, I’ll just leave this on his doorstep.”
    “I can take it if you like.”
    “Thanks. That’s nice of you.”
    She studied