Page 97 - Labelle Gramercy, Detective

Cat’s Paw

And she zipped down the stairs and around the front of the
building. I shook my head and straightened my clothing. Weird, I
thought, and went to my door. Then I realized something was very
wrong. The cheap veneer had a sunburst of gouges radiating out
from the doorknob. Unlike Art Lesley, I had never feared intruders,
figuring any sort of visible deterrent would stimulate effective
counter-measures among the criminal class. Further, I had little or
nothing worth stealing. But the door had been forced, probably with
a small jimmy. With pounding heart and other physiological
indicators of extreme trepidation I pushed it open.
No one was in there, thankfully. I surveyed the damage, fighting a
rising sense of panic. The place wasn’t utterly trashed, as might be the
result of a drug addict’s or teenager’s depredations. No, this burglar
had some very specific targets: my desk, my night table, the kitchen
cabinets, all the storage areas in closets and on shelves. It had not
been a neat search-and-seize mission. I called the landlord to get a
new door and the police for whatever good it would do. Then I set
about putting things back, wondering as I calmed down what exactly
had been taken. Nothing, as far as I could tell. After a morning spent
sorting through Art Lesley’s memorabilia, doing the same with my
own goods was a bitter pill to swallow.
Then it struck me: Hope! She had been up here, and who knows
for how long? She was flustered when I ran into her, and it seemed
reasonable when she said she hadn’t expected me home this time of
day; of course: one minute sooner and I would have caught her in the
act. And that intimate waltz on the stairs—she had been frisking me,
continuing the crime! I sat down on my bed. So much for judging
character. Didn’t she trust me to give her the will once I found it? Or
was it really a will she was after? Maybe Art Lesley had something
more negotiable stashed away, something of immediate cash value to
whoever found it. Too many people were too interested in my
mundane task.
The police came and went, filling in the blanks in their routine
break-and-enter form. I was left to fill in my own blanks. It took me
fifteen minutes to restore order to my meager possessions, cogitating
all the while on the vultures circling the carcass of Art Lesley’s estate.
Then I remembered the insurance executive. What the hell, I
thought, and called the Cornish Rock Insurance Company. I had to

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