Outside, Edwina made a beeline for the nearest flower bed.I could almost hear the sigh of relief when she squatted among the mostly bare stalks.Then she nosed around for a minute, peed again, and trotted back toward the door.
“This is the office,” I told her as we walked.“For the rest of the day,” just a couple of hours now, “you’ll have to stay here.You’ll get very comfortable with that particular flowerbed, I bet.If you stick around, maybe you can come with me when I go places sometimes, but a lot of the time I’ll have to try to look inconspicuous, and there’s nothing inconspicuous about you.”
She turned to look at me, ears at attention.
“You can sleep on the sofa,” I continued, “or I’ll try to find you a doggie bed.It depends on how long you’re staying.Someone else might want you.”Someone with a legal claim, like Mrs.Grimshaw’s next of kin.“But tonight, unless something changes, you can come home with me.You’ve already been there.It’s where you walked around in the bathtub.”
Her little stub of a tail wagged.I don’t think she had any idea what I was saying, but maybe she liked being talked to.If it had been just her and Mrs.Grimshaw in the house, chances were Mrs.Grimshaw had talked to her a lot.
Inside, we stopped at Rachel’s desk for a moment.When I blew through earlier, in and out, I’d been too busy to stop and talk.Now we lingered as I asked for an update.
“No calls,” Rachel said.“Zachary wrote his report and put it on your desk.Then he left again.He said he was going back to the university for afternoon classes.”
He was probably just hoping he’d get lucky and catch a glimpse of the blonde, but OK.He’d let me know if Steven showed up.“The house next door to Mrs.Grimshaw is empty.The house where Steven and the blonde spent at least an hour yesterday.”
Rachel looked politely inquiring, and I added, “Mendoza let me in.”Or rather, Mendoza had opened the door, and I’d walked in.“Nobody lives there.There’s no furniture.Not even a rug to sit on.I have no idea what they can have been doing for the hour or more they spent in there.”
“That’s strange,” Rachel said.
I nodded.“See if you can track down contact information for the owners.And see if maybe the house is for sale or for rent, or something like that.Mendoza suggested that maybe the blonde was a real estate agent.”
Rachel scribbled notes to herself.“What about you?”
“I’m not quite sure,” I told her.“Zachary knows what the blonde looks like.I don’t.It won’t do me any good to look for her.I wouldn’t recognize her if I saw her.And with Steven God knows where, it’s not like I can follow him.And I think I’ve bugged Mendoza enough today.If I show up over at Mrs.Grimshaw’s house again, I’m afraid he’ll have me arrested for trespassing.”
Rachel nodded.“For now, maybe you can just go read Zachary’s report.Maybe something will strike you.”
Maybe.At the moment I was fresh out of ideas.
“Let me know what you can dig up about the house and the owners,” I said.“Edwina and I are going to my office.”
“Any word on how long she’s sticking around?”
I shook my head.“Mendoza didn’t mention anything about having notified next of kin.There might not be anyone to notify.Mrs.Grimshaw lived alone—except for Edwina—so maybe her husband was gone.And not everyone has children.And as old as she was, she might not have parents or siblings left.We could get stuck with the dog.”
Rachel peered across the desk at her.Edwina’s tongue lolled out of her mouth as she grinned.Her stub of a tail wagged.
“I prefer cats,” Rachel said.
“I don’t mind her,” I answered.“She’s not much trouble.”And she was a good excuse to stay in touch with Mendoza.
Rachel shrugged.“I’ll see what I can find out about the house.Let me know if you need anything else.”
I said I would, and then Edwina and I headed down the hall to my office.
Seven
Zachary’s reportwas complete and thorough, if perhaps a little overly dramatic.I think he thought I might share it with Mendoza, because it was full of what I guessed to be police slang.Abbreviations like ATL, which seemed to mean attempt to locate, and RO—registered owner—and MUTT, which at first I thought might apply to Edwina, but it seemed to refer to a person Zachary didn’t like.
The bottom line was the same thing he’d already told me.Steven hadn’t been at the university today, nor had the blonde.We had no way of knowing whether the blonde was ever at the university, of course, but if she was a student, she wasn’t in class this morning.Not anywhere where Zachary could have seen her.
I put the report on the desk and my feet next to it, and leaned back, contemplating the ceiling.There was a spot up there, the result of a former roof leak, that looked like Virginia.
For all I knew, Steven was on his way there right now.No reason to think he was, of course.Then again, no reason to think he wasn’t, either.
Over on the sofa, Edwina opened her eyes and looked at me for a second, before burrowing her snub nose back into her legs and closing her eyes again.
It wasn’t until I heard the front door open that I realized that her sharper ears had picked up what mine hadn’t.
