B Is for Burglar

airport. The sky was miraculously clear again, the air smelling damp and sweet, sidewalks steaming. I loaded Elaine's suitcases back in the rental car and took off, promising to call Julia as soon as I learned anything new. This case was going to break for me. I could feel it in my bones. I'd been on it a week now and I had smoked Pat Usher out of hiding. I wasn't sure what she'd done to Elaine or why, but she was on the run now and I wasn't far behind. We were circling right back to Santa Teresa where the whole thing had begun.
    When I reached the airport in Miami, I returned the rental car and picked up my seat assignment at the TWA counter, checking the four bags through to Santa Teresa. I got on the plane with six minutes to spare. I was beginning to feel a low-level anxiety, the sort of sensation you experience when you know you're having major surgery in a week. There was no immediate danger, but my mind kept leaping into the uncertain future with a churning dread. Pat Usher and I were on a collision course and I wasn't sure I could handle the impact.
    With the three-hour time difference, I felt like I got back to California roughly one hour after I left Florida and my body had trouble dealing with that. I had to wait an hour at LAX to catch the short hop to Santa Teresa, but even so it was only seven in the evening when I got home, toting Elaine's bags with me like a packhorse. It was still light outside, but I was exhausted. I'd never eaten lunch and all I'd had on the plane were some square things wrapped in cellophane that I was almost too tired to pick open. It was one of those lurching flights with sudden inexplicable drops in altitude that make napping tough. Most of us were too worried about how they'd collect and identify all the body parts once we'd crashed and burned. Some woman behind me had two kids of the whining and screeching sort and she spent most of the flight having long ineffectual chats with them about their behavior. "Kyle, honey, 'member Mommy told you she didn't want you to bite Brett because that hurts Brett. Now, how would you like it if Mommy bit you?" I thought a quick chop in the ear would go a long way toward parent effectiveness training, but she never consulted me.
    At any rate, when I got home, I headed straight for the couch and fell asleep, still in my clothes. Which is why it took me until morning to figure out that somebody had been in my apartment searching discreetly for God knows what. I got up at eight and did a run, came home, showered, and dressed. I sat down at my desk and started to unlock the top drawer. It's a standard-issue desk with a lock on the top drawer that controls the bank of drawers to the right. Somebody had apparently slipped a knife blade into the lock and jimmied it open. The realization that someone had been there made the nape of my neck feel like I'd just applied an ice pack.
    I pushed back from the desk and got up, turning abruptly so that I could survey the room. I checked the front door, but there was no indication that anyone had tampered with the double-key dead bolt. It was possible that someone had made a duplicate of the key, though, and I'd have to have the lock replaced. I've never worried about security, and I don't run around doing tricky things to assume that my domain is inviolate – no talcum powder on the floor near the entrance-way, no single strands of hair affixed across the window crack. I resented the fact I was going to have to deal with this break-in, surrendering a sense of safety I'd always taken for granted. I checked the windows, moving carefully around the perimeter of the room. Nothing. I went into the bathroom and examined the window there. Someone had used a glass cutter to make a small square opening just above the lock. Electrical tape had evidently been used to eliminate any sound of breaking glass. Where the strips of tape had been peeled off, I could still see remnants of adhesive. The aluminum screen was skewed in one corner. It had probably been popped out and then put back. The job had been cleverly done, set up in such a way that I might not have discovered it for weeks. The hole was large enough to allow someone to unlock the window, sliding it up to permit ingress and egress. There's a curtain at that window and with the panels in place, the small hole in the glass wasn't even visible.
    I went back into the other room and did a thorough search. Nothing seemed to be missing. I could see that someone had