B Is for Burglar

the library and on the telephone and the long-distance charges. I've known PI.s who conduct entire investigations on the phone, but I don't think it's smart. Unless you're dealing with people face-to-face, there are too many ways to be deceived and too many things to miss.
    I called a travel agent and got myself booked round-trip to Miami. The fare was ninety-nine bucks each way if I flew in the dead of night and didn't eat, drink, or go to the John. I also reserved a cheap rental car on the far end.
    My plane didn't leave for hours yet, so I went home and got in a three-mile jog, then stuck a toothbrush and toothpaste in my purse and called it packing. At some point, I was going to have to track down Elaine's travel agent and find out what airline she had taken and whether perhaps she'd booked herself through to Mexico or the Caribbean. In the meantime I hoped I could catch Elaine's friend in Florida before she flew the coop, taking with her my only link to Elaine's whereabouts.

Chapter 3
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    It was still dark when the plane touched down in Miami at 4:45 A.M. The airport was sparsely populated at that hour, the lighting as subdued as a funeral home's. In the baggage claim area, stacks of abandoned suitcases were piled together in shadowy glass-fronted cabinets. All the airport shops were closed. Travelers slept here and there on the unyielding plastic seats, resting their heads on bulging canvas totes, their jackets hunched up over their shoulders. The intercom paged a passenger to the white courtesy telephone, but the name was garbled and I didn't think anyone would respond. I had only managed to sleep for about an hour on the plane and I felt rumpled and out of sorts.
    I picked up my rental car and a sheet map and by 5:15 was headed north on U.S. 1. Twenty miles to Fort Lauderdale, another fifteen to Boca Raton. Dawn was turning the sky a pearly translucent gray and clouds were piled up like heads of cauliflower in a roadside stand. The land on either side of the highway was flat, with white sand creeping up to the edges of the road. Patches of saw grass and stunted cypress cut into the horizon and Spanish moss hung from the trees like tattered rags. The air was already moist and balmy and the streaks of orange from the rising sun hinted at a hot day to come. To kill some time, I stopped at a fast-food place and ate some brown and yellow things that I washed down with a carton of orange juice. All of it tasted like something the astronauts would have to reconstitute.
    By the time I reached the community where Elaine Boldt had her Florida condominium, it was nearly seven o'clock and the sprinkler system was sending out jets of water across the closely clipped grass. There were six or seven buildings of poured concrete, each three stories high, with screened-in porches punctuating the low clean lines. Hibiscus bushes added touches of bright red and pink. I circled through the area, driving slowly along the wide avenues that curved back as far as the tennis courts. Each building seemed to have its own swimming pool cradled close and there were already people stretched out on plastic chaise longues sunning themselves. I spotted the street number I was looking for and pulled into a small parking lot out in front. The manager's apartment was on the ground floor, the front door standing open, the screen door secured against the onslaught of big Florida bugs that were already making warning sounds in the grass.
    I knocked against the aluminum frame.
    "I'm right here." It was a woman's voice, disconcertingly close.
    I cupped one hand, shading my eyes so that I could see who I was talking to through the screen door.
    "Is Mr. Makowski here?"
    The woman seemed to materialize on the other side, her face level with my knees.
    "Hold on. I've been doing my sit-ups and I can't get to my feet yet. Lord, that hurts." She hauled herself into a kneeling position, clinging to the arm of a chair. "Makowski's off fixing the toilet in 208. What can I do you for?"
    "I'm trying to get in touch with Elaine Boldt. Do you have any idea where she might be?"
    "You that investigator who called from California?"
    "Yes, that's me. I thought I should talk to someone down here and see if I could get a lead on her. Did she leave a forwarding address?"
    "Nope. I wish I could help you out, but I don't know much more than you do. Here, come on in." She lurched to her feet and held the screen door open. "I'm Charmaine Makowski, or what's left of her.