B Is for Burglar

hopeless ring to it. I didn't think anybody answered her these days.
    Snyder waved at me impatiently. "She's fine. Just leave her be. Doctor wants her on her feet more anyway," he said.
    I watched her uncomfortably. She continued to stand there, looking puzzled and dismayed, like a baby who's learned how to pull itself up on the sides of a crib, but hasn't figured out how to sit down again.
    Mr. Snyder ignored her, settling on the couch with his knees spread. His belly filled the space between his legs like a duffel bag, as cumbersome on him as a clown suit with a false front. He put his hands on his knees, giving me his full attention as though I might be soliciting his entire history for inclusion on "This Is Your Life."
    "We been in this house forty year," he said. "Bought it back in nineteen and forty-three for four thousand dollar. Bet you never heard of a house that cheap. Now it's worth one hunnert and fifteen thousand. Just the lot we're settin' on. That don't even count the house. They can knock this place down and build anything they want. Hell, she can't even get that walker into the commode. Now Leonard, next door, nearly sold his house for a hunnert and thirty-five, had it in escroll and everything and then the deal fell out. That about done him in. He's the one I feel sorry for. House burnt. Wife dead. You know what the kids these days would say... his carnal was bad."
    He went right on talking while I took mental notes. This was better than I'd hoped. I had thought I'd have to tell a few fibs, leading the conversation around judiciously from Elaine's whereabouts to the subject of the murder next door, but here sat Orris Snyder giving testimony extemporaneously. I realized he'd stopped. He was looking at me.
    "You've sold this house? I saw the sign out front."
    "Sold," he said with satisfaction. "We can move us up to that retirement place when the kids get everything here packed up. We've got a regular reservation. We're on the list and everything. She's old. She doesn't even know where she is half the time. Fire broke out in this place, she'd lay there and cook."
    I glanced at his wife, who had apparently locked her knees. I was worried she would pass out, but he didn't seem to give it much thought. She might as well have been a hall tree.
    Snyder went on as though prompted by questions from an unseen audience. "Yessir, I sold it. She like to have a fit, but the house is in my name and I own it free and clear. Paid four thousand dollar. Now I call that a profit, wouldn't you?"
    "That's not bad," I said. I glanced over at his wife again. Her legs had begun to tremble.
    "Why don't you get on back to bed, May?" he said and then looked at me with a disapproving shake of his head. "She can't hear good. Hearing comes and goes. Got tintypes of the ear and all she can see is living shapes. She got the leg of that walker hung up on the broom-closet door last week and stood there for forty-six minutes before she got loose. Old fool."
    "You want me to help you get her back to bed?" I asked.
    Snyder floundered on the couch, turning himself sideways so he could get up. He pushed himself to his feet and then went over to her and shouted in her face. "Go lay down awhile, May, and then I'll get you some snackin' cake," he said.
    She stared steadfastly at his neck, but I could have sworn she knew exactly what he was talking about and was just feeling stubborn and morose.
    "Why did you put the light on? I thought it was day," she said.
    "It only cost five cent to run that bulb," he said.
    "What?"
    "I said it's pitch-black night outside and you got to go to bed!" he hollered.
    "Well," she said, "I think I might in that case."
    Laboriously, she thumped the walker around, navigating with effort. Her eyes slid past me and she seemed suddenly to discern me in the haze.
    "Who's that?"
    "It's some woman," Snyder broke in. "I was telling her of Leonard's back luck."
    "Did you tell her what I heard that night? Tell about the' hammering kept me awake. Hanging pictures... bang, bang, bang. I had to take a pill it made my head hurt so bad."
    "That wasn't the same night, May. How many times I told you that? It couldn't have been because he wasn't home and he's the one did that kind of thing. Burglars don't hang pictures."
    He looked over at me then, twirling his index finger beside his temple to indicate that she was rattlebrained.
    "Banged and banged," she said, but she was only muttering to herself as she thunked away, moving the