V Is for Vengeance

flip side of the issue was just as troubling. What if she hadn’t killed herself? If she’d been murdered, she probably didn’t have warning and therefore she’d have had no opportunity to erase personal or professional references. Did she tidy up after herself as she went along? I had to credit her with a job well done. So far, she was invisible.
    I sat in her desk chair and pondered the situation. Marvin had been good about keeping his comments to a minimum. I turned and looked at him. “When it came to business travel, what was the pattern?”
    “She was usually gone three days a week.”
    “The same three days or did it vary?”
    “It was pretty much the same. She’d be gone Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and every other Saturday. With outside sales, you usually have a regular route for customers you visit or stores you service. Plus, you make a certain number of cold calls, developing new contacts.”
    “Was she in town last Friday when she was ordinarily gone?”
    “I have no idea. She said she’d be away the usual three days. She worked from home on Monday and Tuesday and then took off, saying she’d be back first thing Saturday morning.”
    “In time for her regular hair appointment.”
    “Right. That and the real estate agent.”
    I changed my focus. “Did she have hobbies? It may sound irrelevant, but I’m looking for any kind of crack in the wall.”
    “No hobbies. No exercise program, no sports, and she didn’t cook. She used to make jokes about what a rube she was in the kitchen. If I didn’t do the cooking myself, we went to restaurants, did takeout, or ordered in. She liked anything that could be delivered. Lot of times we ate at the Hatch, which has a limited menu of bar food—burgers and fries, nachos, chili, and these premade burritos you can heat in the microwave.”
    I was already thinking about whizzing back over to the Hatch to catch a bite to eat before the kitchen closed for the night. I returned my focus to the job at hand. “Where did she do her banking?”
    “No idea. I never saw her write a check.”
    “Did she cover her share of the living expenses?”
    “Sure, but she paid me in cash.”
    “No checking account?”
    “Not as far as I know. She might have had a checkbook in her purse, but the cops still have that and I doubt they’d provide us an inventory.”
    “Did she pitch in on groceries?”
    “When she was in town. I covered the household because my name’s on the mortgage and I have to pay water and electric whether she’s here or not.”
    “What about when you went out to dinner?”
    “I’m old-school. I don’t believe a lady should pay. If I invited her for a meal, it was my treat.”
    “Did she explain her reliance on cash? Seems quirky to me.”
    “She said she got into debt at one point, overdrawing her account, and the only way she could curb her spending was to switch to all cash.”
    “What about credit card statements?”
    “No cards.”
    “Not even a credit card for gas when she was on the road?”
    “Not that I ever saw.”
    “How about telephone bills? Surely, she made business calls on days she worked from home.”
    He considered the question. “You’re right. I should have thought of that myself. I’ll pull the phone bills for the months she was living here and mark any numbers I don’t recognize.”
    “Don’t worry about it until I’ve checked the house in San Luis. That might be a gold mine of information.”
    “Anything else I can be doing?”
    “You could put a notice in the newspapers—the Dispatch , the San Francisco Chronicle , the San Luis Obispo Tribune , and the Chicago papers. “Seeking information about Audrey Vance . . .” Use my phone number in case we get crank calls, which are all too common in these situations.”
    “And if no one comes forward?”
    “Well, if the house in San Luis doesn’t net more than this, I’d say we were up shit creek.”
    “But overall, this is good, right? I mean, so far, you haven’t uncovered any evidence she was a master criminal.”
    “Ah. Funny you should say that. I forgot to mention my talk with the vice detective. Audrey’s been convicted of grand theft on at least five prior occasions, which suggests she was into retail theft up to her pretty little neck.”
    “Saints preserve us,” he said, which was a phrase I hadn’t heard in years.

13

    The drive from Santa Teresa to San Luis Obispo took an hour and forty-five minutes. I was on the road by 8:00 A.M.,