Grime and Punishment

growing, Jane studied the drawer contents before lifting out the checkbook. All her really valuable papers were in the safe-deposit box at the bank—the abstract on the house, copies of income tax forms, birth certificates, wills. This drawer was a second-string valuables storage area—the kids’ report cards, some family pictures, receipts for major purchases, warranties on the appliances, some foreign money she’d collected in her childhood, an envelope with the kids’ baby teeth, and, of course, the money market checkbook.
    It was a hodgepodge drawer without any particular system, but she only tidied it up about once a year, so she had a sort of petrified vision of what it should all look like. And it didn’t look right. She couldn’t have said what was out of order, as there was no order, but she had a strong sense that it had been rearranged.
    Bending down, she studied the lock. There was a fresh-looking scratch at the side of the keyhole. The key itself had a rounded end, so she couldn’t have made it herself. She took out the checkbook. Nothing was missing. Rummaging in the drawer again, she found everything that should have been there. She wrote the check she needed and returned everything to the drawer, then locked it carefully and put the key back in the little magnetic box.
    “If I were going to pick a lock...“ she said to herself as she looked through the things in the top middle drawer. It didn’t take long to find the perfect tool (or so she assumed, having had little experience with lock-picking since her sister had given up keeping a locked diary twenty-five years ago); a miniature screwdriver in a glasses-repair kit. She unscrewed the top of the kit and shook the contents out in her hand.
    Tiny screws and a little magnifying glass tumbled out, but no screwdriver. That she was sure she had not lost. Her favorite sunglasses kept losing screws, and she guarded the little kit as if it were made of gold.
    She closed the drawer and sat back in the comfortable old chair. The only person who’d been in the room, besides herself, was Edith. She tried to recall whether there had been any hint of guilt in Edith’s manner when she caught her in the room. Not guilt, but a bit of defensiveness, maybe, in that critical remark about mildew and spiders. Jane closed her eyes and tried to recall whether she’d heard the drawer close. No, but then it was a wooden drawer on runners and it closed silently, unless you shoved it hard enough to slam.
    There was also the fact that Jane was certain she’d specifically told Edith not to go in the office. She’d assumed Edith just hadn’t paid attention—but if you were looking for something valuable, wouldn’t you look in the one room you were told not to go in? Not having criminal inclinations much beyond snooping in sisters’ diaries, Jane was straining with the effort to imagine what a criminal would think.
    But was Edith a criminal? Nothing valuable was missing. If she didn’t steal anything, what was she doing? Probably getting ready to steal something when Jane interrupted. Or possibly she just didn’t find Jane’s treasures worth stealing. Jane smiled wryly. That was vaguely insulting, in a funny way.
    Still, if she was a thief...
    Closing up the office, Jane did a quick survey of the house. Edith had carried only a small purse, so she couldn’t have taken anything big. The little silver matchbox was in the living room; it had even been polished, though the cleaning woman had left some polishing gunk in the cracks. The antique coloisonné cigarette jar was in place, as were all the coins in Steve’s framed collection in the hallway. The silver was safely locked in its drawer in the china cabinet. Todd’s piggy bank was intact and obviously full. Her own jewelry was all in the box on her dressing table....
    She spent half an hour doing a mental inventory before deciding that nothing was gone. She thought about it all the way to the bank and back, and then, sitting down at the kitchen table with a fresh cup of coffee, Jane brooded. The woman had had hours alone in the house while Jane was with the blind kids. She could have taken any number of things, if she’d wanted. So why wasn’t anything gone? Feeling that she might have misjudged, Jane still was at a loss to explain the unlocked desk drawer. There was no question in her mind that the lock had been picked and the contents pawed through.
    So what would explain it? Think logically, she told