Strangers

Monday, the twentieth," Essie said. "Asked me to keep a watch over the place, as usual. They're terrible gadabouts, and it's such a bother to be expected to look out for burglars and God knows what. I have my own life to live, which of course concerns them not at all."
        "You didn't speak with any of them face to face?"
        "I guess they were in a hurry to be off."
        "Did you see them leave?"
        "No, though I… well… I looked out a couple of times, but I must've missed them."
        "The twins went with them?" Parker asked. "Isn't school in?"
        "It's a progressive school - too progressive, I say - and travel is thought to be as broadening as classroom work. Did you ever hear such-"
        "How did Mr. Salcoe sound when you spoke with him on the phone?"
        Impatiently, Essie said, "Well… he sounded… like he always sounds. What do you mean?"
        "Not at all strained? Nervous?"
        She pursed her tight little mouth, cocked her head, and her bird-bright eyes glittered at the prospect of potential scandal. "Well, now that you mention it, he was a bit odd. Stumbled over his words a few times, but until now I didn't realize he'd probably been drinking. Do you think… oh, that he's had to go off to some clinic to dry out or-"
        Parker had heard enough. He rose to leave, but Essie got between him and the doorway, trying to delay him by making him feel guilty that he had not finished his coffee or even tasted a cookie. She suggested tea instead of coffee, some strudel, or "perhaps an almond croissant." By dint of the same indomitable will that had made him a great painter, he managed to get to the front door, through it, and onto the portico.
        She followed him all the way to the rental car in her driveway. The little vomit-green Tempo looked, for that one moment, as beautiful as a Rolls-Royce, for it offered escape from Essie Craw. As he sped away, he quoted Coleridge aloud, an apt passage.
        Like one that on a lonesome road
        Doth walk in fear and dread,
        And having once turned round walks on,
        And turns no more his head;
        Because he knows a frightful fiend
        Doth close behind him tread.
        He drove around for half an hour, working up the courage to do what must be done. Finally, upon his return to the Salcoe house, he parked boldly at the head of the circular driveway, in the shadows of the massive pines. He went to the front door again, insistently pressed the bell for three minutes. If anyone was home and merely unwilling to see visitors, he would have answered that unrelenting ring out of sheer desperation. But no one responded.
        Parker walked along the veranda, studying the front windows, being nonchalant, acting as if he belonged there, though the property was so shrouded by trees and lush landscaping that he could not be spotted easily from the street - or from Essie Craw's windows. The drapes were shut, preventing a glimpse of the interior. He expected to see the telltale electricity-conducting tape of an alarm system on the glass. But there was no tape and no other indication of electronic security.
        He stepped off the end of the veranda and went around the western side of the house, where the morning sun had not shrunk the long, deep shadows of the pines. He tried two windows there. They were locked.
        In back of the house were more shrubs, flowers, and a large brick patio with a lattice cover, outdoor wet-bar, expensive lawn furniture.
        He used his coat-protected elbow to smash in a small pane on one of the French doors. He unlocked the door and went inside, pushing through the drapes into a tile-floored family room.
        He stood very still, listening. The house was silent.
        It would have been uncomfortably dark if the family room had not opened onto a breakfast area and the breakfast area onto the kitchen, where light entered through the glass in that uncurtained door to the patio. Parker moved past a fireplace, billiards table - and froze when he spotted the motion-detection alarm unit on the wall. He recognized it from when he had investigated security systems for his Laguna house. He was about to flee when he recalled that a small red light should have been visible on the unit if it was in operation. The bulb was there - but dark. Apparently the system had not been activated when the Salcoes had left.
        The kitchen was roomy, with the best