She could make out the shapes of furniture, but not well enough to cross the room.
As she waited, she listened. The silence was like the thick, oozing chill of a San Francisco fog. Now and then it was punctuated by swamp noises, which were no consolation. The moment she judged she could see well enough, she felt her way across the room and found the nearest lamp. She fumbled for the switch—and why didn’t manufacturers agree on where to put the darn things?—and had just started to flip it when she heard something clang in the kitchen. She straightened with a jerk, nearly knocking the lampshade to the floor.
Mentally she gauged the distance between the end table and the front door. She told herself that she had imagined the clang. She told herself that the deputy had been sure Herb Krause wasn’t murdered in his bed but had died a quick, natural death.
Of course, mistakes could be made….
Her struggle lasted only seconds. She owned this house, such as it was, and it was her job to take care of the property. If somebody was in the kitchen going through Herb’s things, then it was up to her to stop them. She doubted anybody was going to kill her for a spatula and a cutting board. She had noted a vintage kitchen timer shaped like a chicken on the windowsill, but even that, campy as it was, provided no motive for murder.
By now she could almost see. A pocket door separated the kitchen from the living room, and now it was closed. She was almost certain the door hadn’t been closed when she was here earlier.
She tiptoed toward the kitchen and heard what sounded like the squeak of hinges, the creak of a door opening. She wasn’t imagining this. Somebody was inside going through cabinets. For what? And why? Poor Herb wasn’t even cold in his grave. Okay, cold, but not yet in the ground.
She felt along the edge of the door until she found the indented handle; then, with one smooth motion, she slid it open and jumped into the kitchen.
A low-wattage bulb lit the stove top from the hood above. Someone was bending over at the other end of the room, going through the lower cabinets. At the noise of the door, the figure straightened and whirled.
“What are you doing here?” Tracy demanded before she could see the intruder’s face. “This is breaking and entering.”
“Oh, don’t get your panties in a twist.” The woman straightened her shoulders and glared at Tracy.
Wanda Gray. Dressed in black spandex leggings and an equally tight black T-shirt, like some sort of white trash ninja.
Tracy felt herself relax, then she tensed again with righteous anger. “You scared me to death! What do you think you’re doing here? And how did you get in?”
Wanda reached in her pocket. For a moment Tracy wasn’t sure what to do, then Wanda swung a key in her direction on a spiral chain.
“Herb gave me his extra key. On account of him being so old and all. I think he expected me to come over now and then if I didn’t see him outside, and check to be sure he wasn’t lying on the floor with a broken hip or worse.”
“And that’s what you’re doing?” Tracy tried to sound cooler and calmer than her elevated heart rate dictated. “You’re searching the cabinets to see if he’s in there with a broken hip?”
“No need to get smart. I know he’s gone.” Wanda snapped her fingers. “Like that. The Symington fellow told me. Of course, Mr. Symington wasn’t the one that found poor Herb. The one that found him didn’t bother to tell his neighbors he was dead.”
There was too much truth in that, but Tracy didn’t blink. “Maybe if you’d used that key the way Herb wanted you to, you would have been the one to find him, and you would have gotten all the bad news firsthand.”
Wanda didn’t say anything.
“What are you doing here?” Tracy said.
“I brought him some pie last week, in my special pie dish. My daughter gave it to me, and she’s not all that good at gifts. One year she gave me a pair of brown suede earth shoes, like she actually thought I might wear them. That dish is a winner, though. I didn’t want somebody coming in and taking it home just because they like it.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me, so we could look for it together?”