P Is for Peril

in the examining room! He leaned back against the desk-I could see his fingers grip the edge for support. Meanwhile, she dropped to her knees and started to work on him. His protests began to die down as his breathing increased. He clearly had a letch for nursie types, and she was probably turned on by the possibility of getting caught.
    I did my best to distract myself. I tried to think worthy thoughts, elevating myself to a Zen-like plane. After all, I had only myself to blame for the predicament I was in. I decided to stop breaking and entering. I made up my mind that I'd repent my sins. Not that I wasn't already paying a stiff price, in a manner of speaking. For someone who gets as little sex as I do, this surely constituted punishment of a most cruel and unusual kind. Pepper was only three feet away from me, happily occupied with the guy's throbbing manhood, as it's euphemistically referred to in novels that abound in such scenes. I have to tell you, other people's sex lives are not that fascinating. For one thing, a guy moaning, "Pepper, oh Pep," didn't seem that romantic from my perspective. Besides, he was taking forever and I worried her jaw would unhinge like a snake's. She began to make little encouraging noises in her throat. I was tempted to chime in. From under the desk, even the surge protector made a small enthusiastic peep, which seemed to spur him on. His vocalizing was muffled, but the sounds accelerated and began to rise in pitch. Finally, he grunted as though his finger had been slammed in a door and he was trying not to scream. All three of us fell back exhausted and I prayed we wouldn't have to pause for a postcoital smoke. Ten more minutes passed before they pulled themselves together. After a whispered discussion, it was decided that she would leave first and he would then follow at a suitable interval. By the time I crawled out of my hiding place, I was cranky and sore and had a crimp in my neck. This was the last time I'd ask Ruby to man the lookout post.

Chapter 19
    It was 12:30 when I let myself into my apartment for the second time that night. I'd returned the keys to the front desk and walked straight out the front door, the stolen chart pages pressed against me like a paper truss. When I reached the parking lot, the vintage automobile was gone. I continued across the asphalt to the shadowy corner where I'd left my VW. Before I slid behind the wheel, I removed the stolen file copies and shoved them under the front seat. The pages looked battered, dog-eared by careless association with my thighs and ribs. I started the engine and put the car in reverse.
    Once back in my apartment, I made a thorough tour of the place, assuring myself that all the doors and windows were locked as I'd left them. Tommy Hevener was never far from my thoughts. I was itching to work my way through Klotilde's medical chart, but for the moment I refrained. Instead, I sat at my desk and consigned a few new nuggets of information to my index cards. It was odd reviewing the assumptions about Purcell now that I knew the end of his sad tale. There wasn't any doubt in my mind that the body in the vehicle was his. In theory, I could imagine him substituting someone else's body. In reality, this was not so easily accomplished, especially in a drowning, where critical features remain. It wouldn't take long for the forensic pathologist to compare his dental records and his fingerprints and make a positive ID.
    I laid the cards out in a line, arranging them first in chronological order, then in the sequence in which I'd actually done the interviews. I wasn't being paid for this, but then again, I hadn't been officially fired. Idly, I shuffled the cards together just to witness the effect. The story always came out the same. Whether by his own hand or another's, Dow Purcell was dead and the life he'd left behind was a mess. Three questions nagged. Where was his passport and where had the thirty thousand dollars gone? There was also the minor but troubling matter of the post-office box. If Dow had paid to keep it open for his personal use, why ask Crystal if she was still renting it?
    At nine A.M, I put a call through to Fiona. Naturally, I didn't reach her. In the message I left, I told her I was hoping to track down the missing thirty thousand dollars and I implied, perhaps truthfully, that someone in Crystal's household might be responsible for the theft. I proposed putting in a couple more hours' work if she'd approve