Life Expectancy

resist teachin' the monitor more vocabulary.
        Suddenly it starts sayin', Front door open, watch your ass. That got him grounded awhile."
        I locked the door behind him. "We've got three kids, five and younger.
        They'll be teenagers together."
        "Ouch."
        As I hung his topcoat in the foyer closet, I said, "We're thinking about just locking them in a room and feeding them through a slot in the door until they're all twenty-one."
        He drew a deep breath, savoring the air. "This house smells like the highest-rent neighborhood in Paradise."
        Garlands of deodar cedar, star-pine Christmas tree, lingering fragrance of peanut brittle made just that afternoon, popcorn balls, vanilla-and cinnamon-scented candles, fresh coffee, ham baking in a bath of cherries, chocolate marmalade cake in the second oven… Taking in the dazzle of tinsel and lights and our ubiquitous collection of Santa figurines, Porter Carson cocked his head to listen to "Silver Bells," sung by Bing Crosby. "You folks keep Christmas like almost nobody does anymore."
        "And isn't that a shame," I said. "Come along to the kitchen. My wife's peeling some Idaho beauties for scalloped potatoes."
        Actually, Lorrie had finished and was drying her hands on a poinsettia-patterned towel when I introduced her to Carson.
        If the rest of the house had smelled like Paradise, the kitchen was an even higher realm, the fragrant palace of divinities.
        The FBI agent appeared to be smitten with Lorrie, as all men are, and treated her with Southern courtliness. He remained standing while she poured three cups of rich Colombian blend, then held her chair for her as she sat.
        I felt like a clueless primitive and reminded myself not to slurp my coffee.
        Settling in his chair at the table, getting down to business, Carson said, "I don't want to raise false hopes. God forbid anythin' I say might cause you to let your guard down too soon, but I think your troubles with Kon-rad Beezo may be drawin' to an end at last."
        "Don't worry," Lorrie said, "I won't believe he's dead until I see his body being fed into a crematorium and ashes coming out."
        Carson grinned. "Mrs. Tock, you're my idea of a carin' mother."
        As far as I knew, the murders Beezo committed hadn't been under federal jurisdiction. "What got the FBI on his case?" I wondered.
        "This is great coffee, ma'am. What's that extra bit of taste in it?"
        "A little vanilla."
        "Perfect. Anyway, Beezo took a page from his son's book, put together a little crew, started robbin' banks not long after he torched your house."
        Bank robbery is a federal crime. So is removing a stuffing-analysis tag from a mattress before selling it retail. Guess which offense gets the FBI's attention.
        "Hasn't blown up one of 'em yet," Carson said, "but he doesn't mind shootin' guards and tellers and anyone else gets in his way."
        "Tell me his crew isn't more clowns," Lorrie said.
        "No, ma'am, it isn't. Maybe his son recruited all the thievin' clowns there are. One of his crew was a guy named Emory Ornwall, been in Leavenworth for bank robbery. The other two were roustabouts."
        "I've heard the term," I said, "but I'm not sure I know what it means."
        "Roustabouts are the guys who put up the circus tents and pull 'em down, plus they take care of the equipment, the generators, that kind of stuff."
        "How many banks have they hit?" Lorrie wondered. "Are they good at it?"
        "Yes, ma'am, they were. Seven in 1998, four in '99. Then they hit big with two armored-car heists, August and September "99."
        "Nothing in the last three years?"
        "The thing is, the second of those armored cars was such a rich score- six million cash, two million in bearer bonds-Beezo decided he could retire, especially if he and Ornwall killed the roustabouts and didn't split with 'em, which is what they did."
        "Hard to imagine guys who knew Konrad Beezo would turn their backs on him," I said.
        "Maybe they didn't. Both roustabouts were shot point-blank in the face with such high-caliber rounds their heads were hollowed out like Halloween pumpkins."
        Carson smiled, then realized that what was a simple fact to an FBI agent might be excess information to us.
        "Sorry, ma'am."
        "So you've been after Beezo all this time?" Lorrie