B Is for Burglar

a block away and bought two packs of index cards so I could make some notes and then I put in a call to Mrs. Ochsner in 317. Finally, she picked up.
    "Hello?"
    I identified myself and told her where I was. "I've just been up there talking to Pat Usher and I don't want her to know that I'm talking to you. Is there some way we can get together?"
    "Well, what fun," Mrs. Ochsner said. "What shall we do? I could take the elevator down to the laundry room. It's right near the parking lot, you know, and you could pick me up."
    "Let's do that," I said. "I'll swing by in ten minutes."
    "Make it fifteen. I'm slower than you think."
    The woman whom I helped into the front seat of the car had hobbled out of the laundry room with a cane. She was small, with a dowager's hump the size of a backpack and off-white hair that stood out around her head like dandelion fuzz. Her face was as soft and withered as an apple doll and arthritis had twisted her hands into grotesque shapes, as though she intended to make geese heads in shadow on the wall. She was wearing a housedress that seemed to hang on her bony frame and her ankles were wrapped in Ace bandages. She had two garments over her left arm.
    "I want to drop these off at the cleaner's," she said. "You can run them in. I want to stop by the market, too. I'm out of my cereal and half-and-half." Her manner was energetic, her voice wavering but excited.
    I went around to my side of the car and got in. I started the car, glancing at the third floor to make sure Pat Usher wasn't standing there watching us. I pulled out. Mrs. Ochsner peered at me avidly.
    "You don't look at all like you sounded on the phone," she said. "I thought you'd be blond with blue eyes. What are they, gray?"
    "Hazel," I said. I lowered my sunglasses so she could see for herself. "Where's the cleaner's from here?"
    "Right next door to that drugstore you telephoned from. What do you call that haircut?"
    I glanced at myself in the rearview mirror. "I guess I don't call it anything. I do that myself with nail scissors every six weeks. I keep my hair short because I don't like to fool with it. Why, do you think it looks bad?"
    "I don't know yet. It probably suits, but I don't know you well enough to say. What about me? Do I look like I sound?"
    I glanced over at her. "You sound like a hell-raiser on the phone."
    "I was when I was your age. Now, I have to be careful I'm not just written off as a crank like Ida. All my dear friends died and I got stuck with the crabby ones. What kind of luck are you having with Elaine?"
    "Not a lot. Pat Usher says she was actually in Boca for a couple of days and then took off again."
    "No, she wasn't."
    "Are you sure?"
    "Of course I am. She always knocked on the wall when she got in. It was like a little code. She's been doing it for years. She'd come over within the hour and make arrangements to play bridge with us because she knew how much it meant."
    I parked in front of the cleaner's and picked up the two dresses she'd placed over the seat. "I'll be right back," I said.
    I took care of both errands while Mrs. Ochsner waited and then we sat in the car and talked. I filled her in on my conversation with Pat Usher.
    "What do you think of her?" I asked.
    "She's too aggressive," Mrs. Ochsner said. "She tried to cultivate me at first, you know. Sometimes I'd sit out on the balcony in the sun and she'd talk to me. She always had that sooty smell people get when they smoke too much."
    "What'd you talk about?"
    "Well, it wasn't culture, I'll tell you that. She talked about food most of the time, but I never saw her put anything in her mouth except cigarettes and Fresca. She drank pop incessantly and that mouth of hers flapped all the time. So self-centered. I don't believe she ever asked me one word about myself. It simply never occurred to her. I was bored to death, of course, and began to avoid her whenever I could. Now she's rude because she knows I disapprove of her. Insecure people have a special sensitivity for anything that finally confirms their own low opinion of themselves."
    "Did she mention Elaine?"
    "Oh yes. She said Elaine was off on a trip, which struck me as odd. I'd never known her to come down here only to go someplace else. What would be the point?"
    "Can you tell me who else Elaine might have kept in touch with? Any other friends or relatives down here?"
    "I'll have to think about that. I don't know of anyone offhand. I assume that most of her good friends are in California,